Amazed

I love reading blogs. I keep up with, maybe, 20 or so blogs on a regular basis. Only a few of the bloggers do I know in 'real life'. Most of them have no idea who I am (I am a "lurker") but I have learned so much from these different women about parenting, marriage, love, Jesus, life, suffering, and joy, and heartache.

There is one blog in particular that is hitting me hard today. I found this blog months ago (I don't even remember how), read the first entry, saved it to my 'favorites' and didn't return again until today.

I always am longing to 'hear' Jesus speak to me. I have never audibly heard Him, but I hear Him through people, events, interactions and in the quiet stillness of my mind. I heard Him loud and clear today, and I am so thankful for that!

Remember this post I wrote awhile back about longing to have Jesus' eyes for the poor and hurting? The blog post I read today reminded me just how much I long for His eyes and how much more I am falling desparately short of loving people the way He does and the way I should.

This blogger is a 21 (yes, TWENTY ONE) year old SINGLE woman who is living in Africa and has 14 (yes, FOURTEEN) adopted daughters. Amazing. If anyone could be called the hands and feet of Jesus, it is her.

Here is the blog post that shook me today. I encourage you to read it-- I know you will be touched.

Claire at 6 Months

Thank you to everyone who offered support and encouragement after my last post. I am so lucky to have such caring friends and family. I'll be okay- don't worry! I'm quite resilient. It feels good to get out in the open that I just have a lot going on right now, although that probably wasn't a surprise to anybody! I think anyone in my shoes would be struggling a bit. Last week I got an unexpected raise at my midyear review (very uncommon!) so that helped a little- it's nice to know all of my crazy hours and hard work are being noticed and appreciated.

Okay... on to more exciting things... Claire turned 6 months old last Sunday! Wow! I can't believe our little girl is half a year. I almost feel like I need to start planning her 1st birthday party- haha.

Claire at 6 months:

• Drinks 5 ounce bottles. She still eats about every 3 hours.
• Gets up 1-2 times per night. She goes to bed about 7:30PM. She shows tired signs earlier than 7:30 but Josh and I just don't want to put her to bed yet! We get such very little time with her in the evening and we hate to put her to bed at 7PM! Especially when she can sleep as late as she wants in the morning since we don't need to drop her off at daycare.
• Is mobile, mobile, mobile. She has the backwards scoot down pat. She can find a way to get anywhere she wants to go. She'll get up on all fours and launch herself forward. She also rocks back and forth slightly while on all fours. We even had to start babyproofing!
• Pees like crazy at night. She pees through her diaper and pajamas multiple nights per week. It is not fun nor easy to completely undress her, wipe her down, change her diaper, find new pajamas, put new pajamas on and put on a new blanket at 2am with a little baby that is screaming because all she wants to do is eat and sleep!
• Drools less. I don't know why she's drooling less but she doesn't need to wear a bib like she used to.
• Loves to be scared/startled. She even waits for it in anticipation. She'll just stare at you and blink her eyes as you lean forward to give her a little shake around her chest and yell "boo!!".
• Doesn't really care for rice cereal quite yet. Her reflex to push the spoon and food out with her tongue is still pretty strong.
• Takes a fair amount of naps still. She'll nap maybe 3-5 times per day. Sometimes they're 15 minutes long and sometimes they're 1.5- 2 hours.
• Weighs 12 lbs 14 oz (3-5th %) and is 24 3/4 inches (10-15th %).
• Wears 3-6 month and 6 month size clothing.
• Has taken sips of water "to wet her whistle" as her baby doctor says.
• Is starting to be better at "cuddling". Before she didn't like being held really close unless she was eating or sleeping and wouldn't naturally lay her head on your shoulder or relax in your arms while awake. She's starting to a little bit though and Josh and I are very excited about this! Josh often says to her "I wish you liked to cuddle!" and "I can't wait for you to be able to give hugs!". She has his heart, that's for sure.
• Is a super happy girl. She is always smiley. She loves to giggle and belly laugh.
• Sleeps in her crib!!! This started on October 17th. The transition went well for all of us. Claire didn't seem phased by it and I wasn't too sad because I knew it was time!
• Is the love of my life. I yearn for her when I'm not with her. I'm always praying that I'll have an opportunity to work part-time. Even 4 days a week would be absolutely amazing!

Overwhelmed

I haven't posted in a couple weeks- bad blogger! It's been for good reason. I'm just overwhelmed right now.

I don't want this post to come across as complaining or not being grateful for the amazing gifts in my life. I am grateful. I am so grateful to God for our precious Claire that my heart just wants to burst from my chest when the thought even flutters past my mind. But I am also overwhelmed. And I want to get that off my chest because it's therapeutic and healing.

I used to think (still do probably to a degree) that I could do it all. I saw my mom doing it "all" when I was growing up and have her for a beautiful role model of a working mom that held it all together. She worked full-time, was the primary caregiver, and took care of much of the daily household details. I have always thought that I could handle pretty much anything. Work-full time? No problem. Add graduate school to that? Piece of cake. Add a baby on top of it? I can do it! Maintain my relationships with my friends and family, clean the house, manage the finances, do all the grocery shopping, meal planning, and cooking? Yes, because I'm Super-Whitney!

But the truth is, I feel like I am failing at everything. And it's exhausting.

Let's take them one by one...

Work commute- I leave my house by 6:30AM and return home around 5:15PM. That's a long day. During that time, I typically do not get even 30 minutes to just sit and eat a lunch. Nope, I am working through lunch almost everyday these days. I really, really, really love our neighborhood, city, surrounding. But I also really wish my commute wasn't 1 hour on a good day with good weather and good traffic.

Job- I also wish at this point that I had a job where I could go there, do my thing (and a good thing at that), and then come home and be done with it until the next day. But I don't. My job is very demanding and stressful. I think about it all the time. The last two weeks I have worked almost every night for a number of hours after Claire went to bed. I should be going to bed after Claire goes to bed (or at least relaxing) but instead I need to work. My work is generelly the first thought in my head before I go to sleep and when I wake up. I know it's causing a lot of stress for me. I have a lot of responsibility and my boss and his peers have very high expectations of me. It's not going to get any better anytime soon because one of my two direct reports had her last day on my team yesterday (she was promoted to another team). So now we're down 33% of our team so I will have to pick up most of that slack, which means more late hours working from home. Last night when I was feeding Claire at 1:30AM, I commanded myself to NOT think about work and instead pray, which is my favorite thing to do while I feed her during the night. (I prayed for many of you that are reading this blog last night at 1:30AM!).

Grad school- I have two classes remaining (the one I'm taking right now and another in the spring) before I graduate with an MBA from the University of Minnesota. Hallelujah. My class is on Thursday nights. On those nights, I leave home at 6:45 for work and return home around 9:00-9:30 from school. At that point I have to pump because Claire is already in bed so I can't feed her. After changing out of my suit that I've been in for far too long, pumping, cleaning the bottles, checking work email, breathing for a minute, talking to Josh, and getting ready for bed, it's usually 11PM before I hit the sack. And I'm exhausted. I am sad because I didn't get to see Claire at all that day. Besides the actual class portion, I need to find time to study each week. This weekend I need to do a take-home midterm exam that will likely suck many, many hours out of my life and I just don't have the motivation or desire to do it.

Motherhood- I LOVE being a mom. It is the most amazing, fulfilling, demanding, thing I have ever done. I can't explain my love for Claire. I honestly wish I could be a stay at home mom until my kids entered elementary school. It physically hurts me to be away from Claire all day. Annie (my mother in law who takes care of her during the day) spends more waking time with Claire than I do and it honestly kills me. I am so envious and sad. I am incredibly grateful to Annie for doing this. She's making a sacrifice too and I know it's not easy. I just really, really wish I was the one at home with her, which is the way it should be. Being a new mom isn't easy, even without all the other things I have going on. One of the most difficult parts is the lack of sleep. As Claire gets older, the sleeping gets worse. Ironic, huh? From 5 weeks to 13 weeks she slept through the night, every single night. Then I went back to work and she started getting up one time per night, which lasted for awhile. Now she's been getting up two times per night. I estimate that I get about 5 hours of sleep per night, every night. It's been like that for a couple months now and while I am getting used to it, I know that I need more sleep. A lack of sleep just
compounds everything else.

Feeding/Pumping: I am proud to say that Claire has been exclusively breast-fed since day 1. This is NOT to say that I am any better than any moms that formula-feed their baby. Not AT ALL. It was just important to me to breastfed Claire and I have been blessed that it has been relatively easy (from a medical or physical standpoint) for me to do this. From a pratical standpoint, it has been hard. She eats every 3 hours during the day still so my days are really planned around that. I am not comfortable feeding in public so I usually have to go in my car, find a dressing room, or go to a bedroom if I'm at someone's house to feed her. It means that I am the only one who can get up to feed her at night. It also means that I have to pump every day at work. My original goal was to pump three times a day but lately I have only been able to do it twice, and even that is a struggle. I have had to walk out of meetings, skip lunch, literally race to and from buildings, and work from home at night in order to pump during the day. By 3 months old, only 20% of babies are exclusively breast-fed. I don't know what the stat is for 6 month old babies, but I imagine it's far less. Again, I in no way want this to come across as me sounding all high and mighty and heroic for nursing Claire for this long. It has been a sacrifice and one that I am so, so happy to make. It's been a true blessing for Claire and for me.

Marriage- a good marriage doesn't happen naturally. We all know it takes work. I would say the biggest adjustment since Claire has been born for Josh and I has probably been our marriage. We just don't have the time together like we used to and our relationship has just changed. I need to dedicate more of my time, effort, and energy into our marriage. It's the most important thing and yet it feels like it's the first thing to let go when life becomes this stressful. Don't get me wrong- we are doing well and are in love as ever. It's just different and that's been hard to accept. There are days I feel quite distant and days that I know Claire has brought us closer together.

I won't go into these in detail but other things on my plate include:
I am an Executive Director of the Midwest Global Trade Association (my term is 2007-2010)
I started a small group that requires bi-weekly meetings and homework inbetween
I am dealing with two persistant, long-term health problems that both require daily treatment. One of them is my shoulder and I should be doing my physical therapy exercises every day but I don't have (make?) time.

So that's about it. I realize this probably came across as complaining and I am saddened by that. I am tremendously grateful for my marriage, Claire, my job, my house, my friends and family, Sydney, and all of the other incredible blessings in my life.

I read an article recently (while pumping) that talked about post-traumatic stress disorder that can show up seemingly out of nowhere years after women become mothers. These women hold it together for so long (working, mothering, taking care of the household, etc) and then just snap and fall into a depression. The article made a lot of sense to me. It instructed that women must communicate their struggles and let others support and encourage them to prevent this emotional breakdown. So that's what I am doing. I have cried about this often lately- while driving to work, while sitting at my desk at work (no one was around), in the bathroom at work, while talking to my mom on the phone. On the outside I look like I have it all together. But I don't. I have had fleeting moments of the "what if I just get in my car and drive off and never come back" thoughts. But those pass quickly. I am happy. I am in love with my husband and my daughter. I have Jesus in my heart and know that He is all I really need. I have more compassion than ever for hurting and hungry children and families around the world. I am the same Whitney. I'm just a more tired and overwhelmed Whitney. And I greatly appreciate your encouragement and prayers.

Short video

You have to watch this 2 minute video. It's pretty touching. Have a kleenex handy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZtU676jA_k

Claire is 5 months old!

Claire at 5 months:

• Eats about 6 times a day. Her bottle during the day contains 4 ounces.
• Sleeps pretty well. She goes to bed about 8PM and gets up once or twice because she's upset that she's on her tummy and I have to flip her to her right side, give her the nuk, and keep my hand on her side (this is new) until she falls back asleep. She also gets up once to eat- anywhere between 2-5:30AM. This morning she ate at 2:15AM and 5:40AM.
• Wants to put her pacifier in her mouth by herself. She's already little Miss Independent and she's only 5 months old. I wonder where she gets this from??? (Certainly not her mama who traveled halfway across the world to Ukraine when she was 16 years old by herself).
• Rolls over like it's her job. She can roll across a room in just minutes! It really is amazing to see. She prefers to roll to the right, but she just keeps on going until an obstacle stops her!
• Starting to seem like she recognizes her name. I can't quite tell if it's a coincidence or if she really is starting to react to it.
• Is pretty quiet. She continues to be a good listener like her daddy, rather than a talker like her mommy.
• Still far prefers feeding with her mommy but takes the bottle well on most occasions.
• Doesn't like to nap. It can be quite a chore to get her to sleep for naps. When she does nap, it's often for 30 minutes or so.
• Pulls her little legs up underneath her when she's on her tummy and lurches forward. I tell her she better not even think about crawling anytime soon because mama wants her to be a little baby for awhile longer!
• Gets scared of people-- sometimes it's strangers and sometimes it's family members that she knows.
• Is just starting to wear 3-6 and 6 month clothes.
• Looooooooves Sydney. She thinks Sydney is hilarious and reaches out to grab her. Sydney on the other hand is not very enamored by the little creature we call Claire.
• Loves to stare at her mommy. The last two times we were at church she just wanted to stare at me, no matter who was holding her.
• Lights up when she sees her daddy.
• Has a brand new thing where she throws her head back and arches her back backwards.
• Is beyond adorable and loveable!!!
  

Claire meets Everleigh

We brought Ami and Scott dinner and met baby Everleigh on Saturday night. Even though it was only four short months ago, it is hard to believe Claire was ever that small! She is soooo beautiful and such a well-behaved baby! I was in awe at how Everleigh could be awake and not crying! When Claire was that age (2 weeks), when she was awake she was either crying or eating! I am so glad Ami has a good baby after how hard her pregnancy was. Claire and Everleigh will have so much fun together when they're older!


Josh already wants #2. He just doesn't admit it.
I gotta say, she looks pretty comfy in my arms!

Claire wins the most mobile award

You never know what kind of photo opportunity you're going to have when you pull out the camera. This afternoon while Daddy napped, I organized Claire's clothes in her nursery. I laid her on her tummy on her Boppy and gave her a toy. She played for a few minutes and then I laid on the floor a couple feet in front of her. I snapped several shots of her in action. The following 9 pictures prove that I have the MOST MOBILE 4 MONTH OLD EVER! Amazingly, she never lets go of the toy in her hand! She's so smart. :) And cute. And loveable. And adorable. And funny. Okay, I'm smitten.

(also note her Vikings outfit that Auntie Bethanie gave her today!)

Step 1: Look at the Mommy and flash my million dollar smile.

Step 2: Place toy near mouth and lean forward.

Step 3: Shove bum in air.

Step 4: Lean to the right.

Step 5: Lean to the left.

Step 6: Roll over and off the Boppy!

Step 7: Roll from back to tummy! All while holding on to my toy.

Step 8: Smile because I am so proud of myself!

You can see where she started and where she ended up! Note her leg is stuck under the crib. I had to help her with that one- she's only 4 months, she can't do everything herself!