a collection of randoms

10.23.2017


Last week was a WEEK. 

I mean, I say that, but nothing happened except that Jordan, R, and I all had colds and then poor J caught it over the weekend. Baby coughs are so sad. Four people sickly at once is enough to do me in even if I were getting 8 hours a night of uninterrupted sleep, WHICH I AM NOT. I feel like I am sitting on a middle school lunch tray heading down a slippery slope of grouchy about the fact that my four-month-old eats every three hours almost to the exact minute all day long. This is fine during the day, but give me a break at night why dontcha. Like, how does he know it's been exactly three hours since he last ate? Can't roll over but has magical powers of telling time. 

I really don't want to complain about this, though, because I am truly blessed to have a happy, healthy baby boy to snuggle. Over the past few weeks, Jordan and I have tried different things to try and get J to sleep, but nothing has helped one bit. 

Over the weekend I realized that I needed to let it go. It's great that other people's babies are sleeping 9+ hours (and R was doing that too at this age), but I'm stressing myself out too much and I'm going to just go with it. <--- Remind me I said that when I'm complaining again next week ;)

But, life is sweet, friends. I'm still working full time from home and taking J with me into the office a couple days a week, and it's just been so wonderful. I am trying to soak in every day and focus on being thankful for this time with him instead of thinking about how sad I am going to be in December when he starts daycare. Literally every time I try to talk about it I start crying, so that's a great conversation starter for me right now.

Working from home has given me more time with R also. Even though she's going to daycare during the day, I drop her off later and pick her up earlier than I would usually, and I am loving it. On Friday we were playing with blocks while waiting for J to wake up, and she looked at me and said, "Build tower. R so happy." These are such hard, tiring days, but sometimes I truly realize also how these are the absolute best days.


I finally started listening to the Risen Motherhood podcast a month or so ago, and I have been so encouraged and convicted and I cannot recommend it enough if you want a gospel-centered conversation about motherhood. One thing I've been feeling lately is a strong pull back to personal Bible study, and listening to Risen Motherhood has given me more motivation to get into the Word on a more consistent basis.

I discovered that you can download the workbooks for Jen Wilkin's Bible studies and then download to the audio from her group sessions. I just started her study of Hebrews and I'm really excited about it. One sacrifice I going to be making in order to be intentional about doing my Bible study is that I can't blog as much. I'm not quitting the blog by any means, but just in case you're wondering why I'm not quite as active on here as I have been in the past.

I also started reading this book, which I chose from Blogging for Books, and so far it's been matching up really well with some things I've been learning from Risen Motherhood. (Although I will say the author's liberal use of parenthetical asides is already annoying me. It's a weird pet peeve of mine and YES I understand the irony of talking about this particular pet peeve inside my own parenthetical aside. Leave me alone. I'm tired.) I'll do a full review once I'm finished, which at my current rate of finishing books should be in about 85 years. So really soon.

Something else I discovered recently is this, which I think might be one of the coolest things ever. It's a musical and visual art project using Bible verses from the ESV. They have lock screens and art prints and verses set to original music in order to aid memorization. I've only listened to a few songs so far, but this one is a favorite. You can download the songs right to your computer for free! So awesome go there now you're welcome.

In completely unrelated sports news, it was really exciting in our house for a while because both of our MLB teams made it to just one series away from the World Series. Jordan's Yankees could have played my Cubbies! Sadly, both teams lost, and even though we are both sad, we're also a bit relieved because another couple of weeks of late-night baseball would have not-quite-literally-but-actually-kind-of killed us. (See also: paragraph one.)

I don't have much else to say at the moment except that everyone needs to read this. Maybe I was just in a weird mood on Sunday from all the phlegm and running on a few hours of sleep, but I saw this on Facebook and was laughing so hard I was crying. I showed it to Jordan and he was less impressed, but I was dying. Sometimes the internet is ridiculous and enraging, but sometimes it is amazing and hilarious.

The end.
Rachel Emily said...

"R so happy." I'm dead. Sweetest freaking thing ever. I hope you all start feeling 100 very, very soon! Totally subscribed to that podcast & can't wait to dive into some episodes so if there are any that stand out to you that I should listen to first, let me know. Here's hoping J starts giving you some longer stretches of sleep, too! Mama. Need. Sleep.

karachris1 said...

On the sleep issue:
I found that once I changed my mindset things improved for me. I stopped hoping for him to sleep longer. This kept the disappointment out of the morning hours. Instead I let myself me happy when he surprised me with longer stretches. We as a couple also realized that I required more sleep to function. This lead us to using a bottle for one feeding. I then got a longer stretch of uninterrupted sleep. My husband also didn't end up going to bed much later than normal either.
Everything is so much easier to tackle in life, with sleep. Hang in there.

Audrey Louise said...

Hope your family gets some sleep this week!
It's funny how short the baseball/basketball season seems when your teams aren't in the playoffs (or whatever it's called). We root for the Indians and the Cavs so our seasons go on FOREVER sometimes (with the Cavs anyway).
That peanut butter thing is HILARIOUS. I love spread pb on bread! It's so easy. That lady is nuts...

a m b e r said...

i've just now started getting into podcasts when i'm on my way to pick up little guy. there are so many influences and opinions about all the things related to children, and it feels overwhelming- especially in the past couple weeks for me. thank you for sharing about the risen motherhood podcast!

Unknown said...

"Can't roll over but has magical powers of telling time." RIGHT??? I'm (kind of) on the other side of where you are currently. I am still not fully functional in the sleep department, but I'm not AS sleep deprived. So there will be a light at the other end, even though that IN NO WAY helps you right now.

Amie said...

Girl my almost two year old still does not sleep through the night and only has a hand full of times. I am constantly having to remind myself to just be thankful that I have a healthy boy to keep me up. I am sure there are moms out there that would take that in a heartbeat ya know. Believe I feel ya when I am up at midnight then again at 3am! haha

AnneMarie said...

I'm sorry to hear that the sleep department has been rough! And that sickness was making its rounds over there. My husband and toddler were both down with sickness starting Thursday, so I guess it's just that time of year. Like someone mentioned up above, mindset can be helpful with sleep (even though it doesn't solve the problem). When my little guy was a baby, I think it helped that I was so newly out of college, so I was already used to only getting 6 or so hours of sleep, so if he slept stretches of 3 hours at a time, I was able to get a "full night" of sleep and only wake up once in the middle of it-at least, that's how I tried to look at it. Still hard to get through, though. Hopefully this will pass!

The Lady Okie said...

I really loved their recent interview with Ruth Chu Simons!

The Lady Okie said...

Yes! I agree. Over the weekend I decided I needed to just go with it, and I think that will help my outlook on the sleeping thing :) We did try making a bottle that Jordan could give J so I could get a longer stretch, but for multiple reasons it was basically a fail and I don't think that will work for us right now. But definitely a good idea and worth trying again later!

The Lady Okie said...

You are welcome!

Michelle said...

Risen Motherhood is my favorite. I listened to the episode about going through cold and flu season with grace the day G came down with croup. Not that I handled it with grace, but it helped 😂

Torrie said...

Sleep deprivation just makes everything seem harder, so here's hoping that he moves to a different schedule soon! (Maybe once he starts solids?!)

I think it's wonderful that you're taking the time to be a more gospel-centered mother; it's something I've been working on lately, too. It's amazing what a difference it makes! Right now I'm reading a book called Covenant Motherhood which compares all the daily (sometimes monotonous) things you do as a mother to an attribute of Christ. For example, she talks about how Jesus provides and feeds (like when he fed the five thousand), and the verses in Matthew where He talks about being a stranger, and was taken in, naked, and clothed, etc.)---the author compares that to those daily tasks of providing food and clothing, as well as other attributes, such as how Jesus cleanses and how mothers are "cleansing" things all the time. It's totally been a bright spot in my day every day reading it, and it's amazing how much it's transformed how I view those tasks now!

Jenny Evans said...

Did you go to the actual FB post and read all the comments there? They are hilarious. My favorite:
"Help!! I've watched this 5 times and it never shows how to open the peanut butter jar!!! 😱 can someone send me a link for a video on that!! Hurry! My kids are hangry!"

Angi said...

"R so happy" = ADORABLE. I love that you're getting some extra time with them lately.

I saw that peanut butter "hack" a few weeks ago and about DIED I was laughing so hard. On a related note, am I the only one who really hates the word hack? Most things that people call hacks are not. They're just good ideas.

Rachel said...

That peanut butter thing is just so weird...I feel like it's an April Fool's joke but they got the timing really, really off.
Everyone in my family has had colds for weeks and I strictly instructed all of them to NOT give the cold to me because unlike them, I can't take lovely Benadryl and Nyquil to survive. So obviously on Monday I came down with the cold. Definitely looking forward to being able to breathe again someday.

Amy @ A Desert Girl said...

I have this nagging feeling that Owen is going to be like J and wake up every three hours forever. Like he'll be 13 and waking me up every three hours asking for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (naturally with sliced peanut butter because what other way is fhere? Oh yeah - spread with a butter knife like our heathen forefathers. That was my favorite.) I hope I'm wrong but I just had it so easy on sleep with Ava that I'm nervous.

Hope you get more than a three hour chunk of sleep soon! You've got a great attitude about it. This too shall pass.

The Girl who Loved to Write said...

The peanut butter thing made me laugh so hard. I thought it MUST be a joke.

Rach said...

"Can't roll over but has magical powers of telling time." Hahahaha! I laughed so hard at this! Babies are so funny like that. It's not funny that you aren't getting sleep (seriously, that's rough), but your attitude about it made me smile.

I haven't started listening to Risen Motherhood, but they are on list of Podcasts to check out once I catch up on the ones I've been listening to. So glad to hear that you are loving them so much!

Also, I officially apologize for my very liberal use of parenthetical asides. Sometimes I go back and take a few out because I over use them so much in emails or blog posts.

I saw that PB "hack" too as well as the internet response to it and it had me laughing as well!

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