Us at our family photo trip to Brenham.
It has been quite some time since I posted here. Which is sad, I must say. I have started another blog called
Adventures in Eating, but I don't want to abandon this one at all. I like to keep this one for revelations and life musings.
So what has life been like the past few months... busy, stressful, tearful, joyful, ready-to-pull-my-hair-out crazy, amazing, blessed.
I had not posted for so long because Zoe, our sweet baby girl, has been struggling with weight gaining issues and a nasty case of acid reflux. She cried for HOURS everyday for 6 weeks. At first we thought it was colic, but she was in some serious pain.
There would be days when I would cry right along with Zoe, not knowing what to do. There is nothing in this world like that hormone (that horrible, horrible hormone) that releases when your baby cries. It makes a mom insane. It makes you feel the need to soothe the baby and make things better. Well when there is nothing to be done because nothing works, you feel helpless, hopeless, and all around mad at the world. I felt like such a failure at times.
I finally broke down after trying EVERY possible colic remedy (none of them being successful) and took her to the doctor. I know a lot of people would have taken her in sooner, but we would call the pediatrician and she would say, sounds like colic, try X,Y or Z. We would and nothing. We talked to friends and they would say, sounds like colic, try X, Y or Z. We would and nothing. You can imagine the frustration. I literally got sick of hearing "that sounds like colic".
When we went in, it was determined that I needed to switch her formula and put her on children's Prevacid. The day we started these things, we had a completely different baby! I praised the Lord for this amazing transformation. We had prayed and prayed for the answer and we finally had it.
Since then Zoe has been the sweetest, cuddliest baby you have ever seen. She only gets fussy if she is wanting to snuggle and is sleepy but fighting it. Which she fights the naps during the day with all her might. I think she thinks she is going to miss something. She will be on the verge of sleep and her eyes will shoot wide open and look around. Silly girl is just like her Momma when she was a kiddo.
Some of this stuff is hard to admit to myself let alone in public, but I want to be real. And in the interest of being real, I fully admit I felt horrible about myself as a mother during that time, I did not enjoy my baby (please don't confuse that with not liking or loving her, I did both of those, I just could not enjoy my time with her, it was constantly being spent consoling), none of my preconceived notions of parenthood and child rearing happened the way I wanted them too, I need to trust my instincts more, the Lord is pruning me for being judgmental (OUCH), and I have a lot more growing to do (which was a no brainer, but this experience has shown me how far I have come and how much further I need to go).
I know that the seasons of our lives are changing. We have moved from distress, worry, and frustration to more peace, joy, and the stability of routine. The Lord saw us through it all and we will press on as each new season comes.
