A Daily Struggle

As of a week ago today, my baby is officially 5 months old!  In some ways it has gone incredibly fast, and in other ways they have been 5 LONG months.  I mentioned earlier that the transition from 1 to 2 children was more challenging than I expected.   EVERYTHING became harder...making dinner, doing housework, playing with my 2-year-old, running errands, even taking a walk.  All of this has been  exasperated by the fact that I have a VERY fussy baby!

It all started when we discovered, within the first few days of being home from the hospital, that Norah would scream every single time we laid her down on her back.  After talking with the doctor, it was determined that she had reflux.  We were given some tips to help such as elevate the head of her crib, use a sleep positioner to keep her on her side, and keep her upright for at least 30 minutes after eating.  After a couple months without much improvement, her pediatrician put her on medication for the reflux.  This seemed to help at first- her screaming spells seemed slightly fewer and shorter- but it didn't really solve the problem.  On top of having reflux, she had other tummy issues which seemed partially due to sensitivities to things I was eating (since I was breastfeeding).  After trying to cut various things out of my diet but being unsuccessful in locating any specific cause, I decided to switch to formula.  This, too, seemed to help initially, but after a week or two the long crying spells returned.   I should mention that Norah eats great, and other than spitting up excessively, doesn't exhibit any other physical symptoms. We've talked with the pediatrician, but considering she's gaining weight (she has some of the chubbiest cheeks I've ever seen :) ), she doesn't seem to think there is anything "wrong" with her...some babies are just overly fussy and have sensitive systems.  Grrrr.... Not that I want there to be something wrong with my child, but I was hoping for a better answer than that.

At the beginning I would tell myself, "I just need to get to the 1 month mark, then everything will get better."  This turned into, "I just need to make it until she turns 3 months.  Everything improves once they hit 3 months!"  Then it was 4 months...and now here we are at 5 months, and I am currently listening to my baby scream uncontrollably from her crib.  I find myself wondering, "Will she ever outgrow this?"  The crazy thing is, she can cry for hours on end, and then suddenly without warning get happy and smiley.  These moments are wonderful, but don't do much to ease my frustration. 

It's especially hard because I'm often dealing with this on a severe lack of sleep.  Norah has also not been a good sleeper at night.  Around 10 weeks, she started sleeping through the night....for about a week.  Then she was up twice a night, sometimes for extended periods of time.  Then she would sleep well again for a night or two, then it was back to screaming spells in the middle of the night.  The longest she has ever gone sleeping through the night is 5 days.  I'm pushing for at least a week- we're currently on day 4 of this stretch...I've got my fingers crossed! 

I'm not writing this to complain...I do my fair share of that, trust me.  I'm simply trying to explain why I'm at where I'm at.  I've gradually seen my anger and frustration towards my children building.  When my 2 year old starts whining or misbehaving while I'm trying to calm a screaming baby, I find myself yelling at her far too quickly.   In the middle of the night when Norah has been screaming uncontrollably for an hour, I find myself screaming right back at her!  I know this is not the right response, definitely not the response that Jesus would have. 

This past Friday night, I attended the Women's Night of Worship at church.  I debated about attending (even though I helped set up for it), because Norah had a very rough night the night before and I was running on 4 hours of sleep.  But, my husband, encouraged me to get out of the house.  He was right...I needed it.  It was so wonderful to spend time worshiping the Lord without the distractions of kids or a to-do list.  It the midst of this service, God really convicted me about my anger.  I realized that, especially at this young age, the only "Jesus" my kids really see is me.  I'm the one that is with them 24/7, and if I don't show them what Jesus is like, who will?  My yelling and screaming in anger at them is not how Jesus would react.  My 2-year-old is especially strong-willed and prone to throwing temper tantrums (like, several a day), and I realized that my reaction to her behavior is not much different than her tantrums.  And I definitely do NOT want to encourage that response.  I've had to ask the Lord for forgiveness, as I realize the sinfulness in my attitude.

So, I've been really praying that God would take away some of the impatience and anger I have been harboring inside.  I'm to the point where I don't know if or when Norah's fussiness will go away.  I may just have an extremely high-needs baby who needs constant attention.  While this doesn't exactly excite me, I can have a better response than what I've been having.  I can see the situation for what it is, a chance for me to grow in patience and love and a chance to show these traits to my children.  God has given them to me and I need to be a good steward of His gifts.  I love my children so much, and I only hope that they can see how much I love them and how much Jesus loves them, too!

Who Knew?

I discovered something new the other day.  Let me preface this by saying that I hate wasting things...especially food, in particular, produce.  I HATE when a recipe calls for some type of fresh herb (most recently, thyme) or some other kind of fresh food, but it only requires a very small amount.  First of all, most kinds of produce, especially herbs, are expensive.  This means that not only does the particular item go bad before I use it, but I've also spent money on something that I didn't completely use...bugs me every time!

Well, recently when I was at a friend's house, I noticed that she had something growing in a glass of water on her windowsill. Upon closer inspection, I realized that they were green onions.  "What's that all about?" I asked.  "Oh, it's something I saw on pinterest," she said. 

-- Brief interjection here.  Have I mentioned how much I LOVE pinterest?  I get so many great ideas from it.  It's AWESOME!  Ok, I think that will be the subject of my next blog.  Interjection over.--

"You can put your used green onions in a glass of water, and the roots will grow and so will new shoots of onions," she explained.  Really??  I had no idea.  So I decided to try it.  And guess what?  It works!  Amazing!  They grow really fast, too.

The onions on the right have been in the water for only 2 days.  

The ones on the left were put in last night.

Do you know how many times I buy green onions, or scallions, for a recipe, only use one or two, and then the rest go bad?!  What a waste!  Now I can regrow my own instead of buying them all the time.  And, if unused ones start to wilt, I can chop off the green part and grow fresh ones!  I don't know how many times you can do this, as this is the first time I've tried it.  The roots grow quickly, so before long, I'm sure they will overtake the glass of water.  Maybe the roots can be trimmed, too?  Hmmm...I guess I'll have to experiment.  Nonetheless, this is a handy little trick that I plan to use.  Granted, green onions are on the cheap end of the spectrum when it comes to fresh produce, but I'll take it.  Try it for yourself.  It's always nice to have green onions on hand!