Mommy Intuition

I remember a night when my son was just a couple days old, we were still in the hospital, and he was struggling to go back to sleep after a feeding in the middle of the night.  You are probably thinking right now something to the effect of, "So what?  Isn't that what babies do?"  But for me this night was the first time I ever experienced what I want to call Mommy Intuition.  Right after he was born my son would always fall asleep while nursing.  It got so bad that the lactation consultant told my husband to tickle him while he was nursing so he would eat enough.  But that night he ate all he wanted and was still awake.  Struggling to know what to do, I had a very clear thought pop in my head that said that my son did not like the light from the computer monitor in the room.  Sure enough, as soon as I turned the monitor light off, he settled down and went right to sleep.

Throughout the months since then, I have had many such moments where I just seemed to know what my son needed.  Just the other day we were in a meeting and Rex was with us, playing on a blanket on the ground.  I heard him coughing and looked over just in time to see him throw-up.  (Just in case someone doesn't know, the only real visible difference between spit-up and throw-up in a baby is quantity.  Other than that it looks the same.)  The other two people in the room dismissed it off as spit-up and that was just something babies do.  But there came the Mommy Intuition again, telling me that the quantity was too much for spit-up and something was wrong.  I grabbed my son a proceeded to inspect him while trying to keep talking for the meeting.  I soon saw a foreign object in his mouth and started trying to figure out how to get it out since he was struggling against my efforts.  We finally got it out and discovered that he had coughed and threw-up because he was attempting to chew on and swallow a small piece of a diaper.  (Even know I'm not sure where the piece of diaper even came from....)

And then this morning while I was going to the bathroom, something told me that I needed to hurry because my son was going to need me.  Just seconds later he burst into tears.  I quickly finished and ran into the living room to find that he had rolled across the floor and bonked his head on the rocking chair.

It is my assumption that this happens with most, if not all, mothers as long as they are listening.  There is something that in implanted/awakened/noticed inside of a women when her child is born.  Something that bonds the two of them together in a way that allows the mother to be able to remarkably know things about her child that no one else may even notice.  Some might see it as a coincidence, others may call it a "gut-feeling," but I believe that it is so much more than that.  As a religious person, I believe that my son was sent to me from God.  And as a child of God, he would be sent to people that can help him.  That combined with the mother spending every minute of 9 months getting to know her baby while he grows means that she not only knows him or her better than anyone but she also has been blessed with a gift from God to be able to take care of one of His children.  This is an awesome responsibility.  My goal is to be able to keep listening so that I can have my Mommy Intuition even when he gets older and can talk.  Talking does not replace just knowing.

Diaper Change Time

Of all the struggles that mother's have with their babies/toddlers, it is ironic to me that one of the biggest ones for some mothers is when it is time to change a diaper.  It becomes a power struggle between a parent with good intentions and a child that just does not want to sit still.  Some parents have such a hard time that it takes two grown adults to change the diaper of one toddler.

In all fairness to the wiggly babies and out there, it seems like it would be very hard to sit still.  I watch my son as he gets older and he gets extremely interested in things out off his reach and across the room.  Everything is amazing to him.  Earth is a new and exciting place with so many things to look at and touch.  So if I ask him to lay there and not move while I free him of a dirty diaper, that might not always go as planned.  Taking the dirty diaper off frees him of a main discomfort and makes him even more interested in getting to the interesting things all around him. So then I am left trying to figure out how to get him into the next clean diaper when he just wants to wiggle and roll over.  And let's not forget that he is a little ball of energy.  As he approaches being able to crawl the energy is building up, getting ready to take off.

I can win this battle though.

The trick though is winning without bodily fluids that are supposed to be deposited in the diaper ending up somewhere else.  This part of the battle does not always happen.  There have been several times that extra wipes have had to come out to wipe up the remnants of a rouge stream.

So I have to come at it with a good offense.  

My son has multiple toys that sit by the diaper changing station that are used only while diaper changes are happening.  The idea behind this is that maybe if I hand him a toy he hasn't seen for a few hours then he will be interested enough to be distracted.  Other times I talk to him while his diaper is being changed.  It amazes me how much more likely he is to relax and stay still if I ask him to relax his legs while I am trying to get them to bend.  And when all else fails, the best offense is a good defense.  Hurry and cover what might cause issues being uncovered.  Most of the time this means hurry and put a new diaper on.  But hurrying can only get you so far.

So I do my best and laugh when it doesn't go so well.  And I remember that he is little and doesn't really understand the importance of having a clean diaper.  I also remember that there are times in my life when someone asks me to do something I don't understand the reasoning behind and I want to symbolically wiggle and roll away.  But, just like I know better than my son does about changing diapers, there are people out there that know more about what is best for me.

Anxiety--Don't Quit!

So it's been two weeks since my last post.  In many ways a kind of long and hard two weeks.

But now I think I am ready to write the post that has been brewing inside of me for two weeks and I have been putting off writing.  I want to talk about something that I believe all moms go through at some point in their "career" of being a mom.  Let's discuss ANXIETY for a moment.

Anxiety is one of those weird things that some people hardly struggle with and others are almost debilitated by.  I know people that have to take medication for anxiety because they just can't function.  Others have periods of their lives that have more anxiety than others.  And yet others have random moments in their lives that are punctuated by slight situation anxiety.  Several years ago a developed slight anxiety attacks at the sight of a police officer.  Prior to this period of time I had never been pulled over by a police office and had never been part of an accident where a police officer was called.  Then in the period of about 8 months I was pulled over twice, in two accidents, and saw someone I knew get arrested for a minor offense.  All of the sudden the anxiety came.  It made driving a little interesting when the sight of a police officer would cause my chest to tighten and it became hard to breathe.

With all the forms of anxiety out there I would like to focus a little on the anxiety that comes with being a mom.  Mommy anxiety can come at any time in a child's life and for almost any reason.  Let's face it, in most instances, the child grew inside of you so you are very attached to him or her.  So facing leaving a child, a night where a child doesn't come home on time, a serious illness, and many other things would naturally cause some anxiety.  And it gets worse if you watch the news.  There are so many crimes committed involving children that it seems only natural that anxiety could grow just based on watching the news.

So recently I had the opportunity to go to an awesome seminar.  But here's the catch.  Children are not supposed to come.......

Oh......

Having never left my son for more than a couple hours, the idea of leaving him for a whole day was suddenly unbearable.  The anxiety was terrible and I became emotional combining the anxiety with the stress of several other things I am trying to figure out/accomplish right now.  My son sometimes refuses to eat from a bottle if I am not home, I really don't like it if he cries himself to sleep, and really can I trust someone to take care of him that long?  Let's face the facts.  He's a momma's boy in a lot of ways.  So how could I just drop him off somewhere and leave him for an entire day and then proceed to come home from the conference and go to work and not see him at night?

But on the other hand, how could I not go?  The seminar was for some investments that we are looking into.  My husband really wanted me to come and I need to support him.  So I forced myself to go.  I left him with my mother-in-law and headed out.  I cried on the way to the seminar.

But at the seminar I saw this video clip:




I'm going to be honest.... I cried again.  So many things are mind games!  I can do so much more than I think I can!  I can push through the anxiety and do things that are right.  I still think that my son needs to be with his parents the majority of the time, but when anxiety arises I can push through and do the right thing (whatever that is for the situation).

I have to remember that I once lost 40 lbs in 4 months mostly exercising.  At the end of the four months I could do squat-presses while standing on an exercise ball and one armed push-ups.  I am amazing.  YOU are amazing!  We can push through almost anything further than we think we can.  We just have to find the right frame of mind, tools, and support system.  We need to find our own blindfold.

The end of the story is my son is fine.  He didn't eat as much as he should have but he is fine.  My husband graciously let me cry and supported me as I figured out how to push through.  It is okay.  I am okay.

Note: If you suffer from a serious form of anxiety please push through by talking to your doctor.

Screaming Children and Perspective

There was a part of might night that went somewhat like this.....

I was at work and things were nuts.  There was something in the air causing people to act a little dumb, employees (myself) included.  When I got to work there was hardly anyone in the store and I foolishly wished that it would continue.  However, my wish was not granted.  Not even close.  Person after person came through my line and I didn't get my break until 30 minutes later than it was supposed to be.  Tired and needing some quiet and headed over to use the bathroom.  The front bathroom was a little dirty so I headed to the back.  On my way back a child somewhere in the store started to scream.  Now I'm not talking about a whining, I'm talking about full force, top of lungs, sounding like she's horrifically hurt screaming.  Finally making into the back room, I took refuge in the bathroom hoping for some quiet.  Instead the child's piercing screams even made it there.  As I listened to her scream, I had the though that her mother really needed to take her out of the store.  Instead she came through my line just after I got back with the said child sitting in the basket, tears streaked down her face, devouring a cookie.

Now I want to stop for a second a get a little opinion from you readers.

How should parents handle upset kids while shopping?

In the past, my answer to this poll would be a resounding get your child out of the store immediately.  But, I'm not so sure now.  What if the real answer is that it depends on the situation?  Removing the child is punishment to the child mixed with the desire to let the other shoppers have a quieter experience.  What if it is not the child's fault?

Consider this situation (which may be based on a true story that happened to me......)

Your baby is asleep in his car seat in the basket of the cart.  You quietly push him through the store and carefully place items around his car seat so that he won't wake up.  Everything is a success as you push your cart into the check-out lane with your baby still sleeping soundly in the cart.  As you start to unload, a roast about half the weight of your baby slips out of your hand and drops onto his lap, startling him awake, and he bursts into a crying scream.  The what do you do?  I chose to quickly explain to those around me what happened and try to calm him down as I hurried and paid.  Why should I "punish" him for crying when it wasn't his fault?  True it was loud, but it wasn't his fault.

So after this lady left my line tonight I started to think.  What if a different perspective would make her situation look completely different.  Her small daughter was devouring the cookie kind of like she was starving.  Now while she probably wasn't actually physically starving, she may have been really hungry.  So maybe her mother hurried into the store to try to by some quick food because her children were really hungry and she didn't have an immediate way to feed them?  I don't know if a cookie is the best thing to eat in that situation, but what if the situation was true.  The mother couldn't walk into the store and feed her child something and the then leave without paying.  She would have had to finish what she was doing.

Most situations can look completely different if seen through different eyes (or different colored glasses if you will).  Mothers usually have a pretty strong belief that their way of parenting is what other mothers should be doing.  But what if reality is different and my way of parenting is not applicable in another mother's situation?  So my conclusion is that I should try to consider a different perspective and keep my mouth shut regarding what others should do with their children.  As long as the child is not in danger, I need to remember that I don't actually know what is going on therefore am not capable of judging fairly.