The days I don't feel like Supermom.

As Mollie reaches 5 weeks old, I find myself believing that I am getting the hang of the new mom stuff. My baby is happy 99.9% of the time. She rarely fusses and when she does it's because she is hungry and I'm taking too long to make a bottle or she is cold and I'm taking too long to change her outfit. We even have the nighttime sleeping stuff down pretty well. Bedtime at 10:00 and up only twice to feed. I would not call myself sleep deprived at any point this far. (Don't get me wrong... I am sleepy sometimes but not sleep deprived.) I do most of the night shifts because I'm not working right now and I'm a light sleeper, so even if Ben were to try to get up with her, I wouldn't be able to sleep. I let him take the early morning shifts on the weekend so mama can sleep in. It works out beautifully. But this post isn't about how good things are going... Because they are going great... 99.9% of the time. 

I want to talk about the days like today that come after a night like last night. Mollie wanted to hang out with me all night. I don't blame her, I'm a pretty cool person, I like to hang out with me too. (Ha!) But I would rather sleep. We played the paci game (see previous post) for about 3 1/2 hours... You know, the one where she wants it really badly but continues to spit it out and then gets super angry. It's fun. She also wouldn't finish a bottle so I knew that even if she did fall asleep it wouldn't be for long. I put her on my chest to sleep from 1:00-3:00 and that was about all we got. This leads me into the day...

We've been going to a Bible study on Wednesday mornings and of course I was tired and part of me thought, "Surely she will take naps today since she was up all night." Wrong again. My baby doesn't take naps during the day. She is afraid she will miss out on something awesome. She is awake and happy during most daylight hours. The morning was great but our day was long. She needed me...a lot. It forced me to focus on what we discussed in our Bible Study. 

Motherhood is a sacrifice. We sacrifice the times we want to watch a tv show uninterrupted. We sacrifice eating dinner with both hands. We sacrifice sleep. And God knows what else. But what we learned was that God gave us the time to be mothers. It is a gift. At times this gift is hard and we are only human and we get frustrated or tired. And I have to admit, today, I was frustrated and tired. But God knows that we are ONLY human. He never said it would be easy. He only said that we are to love our children as He loves us. He understands that we are NOT Supermom. We are just mom. I am 

just mom. He is the "super" part. We cannot do it all alone. 

Tonight, right before Ben got home from football practice, I was on the edge of tears and feeling a little worn down and exhausted for the first time in this journey. I have been on an adrenaline high and when my child needed me, (she wasn't fussy about it, she just wanted to hang out with her mom and play the paci game) I got frustrated. But I was even more frustrated that I let it get to me. She will only be this little for a short time. She will only spit her paci out a number of times before she can use her own hands to put it back in herself. She needs me. And you know what? I need her. She's brought me closer to God than I've ever been before. I can never thank her enough for that. It's okay not to be super mom. I'm her mom. And my God is guiding me through the whole crazy ride. That's all I need to know. 

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Deuteronomy 31:6

See? The paci game. :)