Living According to My Priorities

In order to fulfill my resolution to post once a week, this is going to be a short one. We'll save the longer one about our recent Lopez trip for a less crazy week {pretty please don't squelch my dream that next week will be calmer than this one}.

I subscribe to the Proverbs 31 Ministries daily emails, and it's amazing how often the message is exactly what I need to hear. "Who's Setting Your Priorities?" by Glynnis Whitwer was no exception. It was about how technology, like cell phones, email, social media, etc, can not only be distracting, but can hijack one's priorities for the day.

Glynnis Whitwer writes,

"A typical day starts with checking some sort of communication device to see who might have emailed, posted or texted. Then, before we begin to handle what’s most important to us, our day begins by responding to what’s most important to others. 

Without a concerted effort to stop this pull, we are drawn into the day’s rushing current like a tiny raft on a whitewater river. And rather than being proactive, our days are spent in reactive mode...

...After years of shortchanging myself and my family, and often dishonoring God with disobedience, I realized I had things upside down! Things that mattered least replaced things that mattered most in my schedule. And work that would make the greatest impact on my life often fell to the bottom of my lists, then transferred to the next list until I either completed it with a fraction of my ability or abandoned it entirely."

Let's read that last bit again: "And work that would make the greatest impact on my life often fell to the bottom of my lists, then transferred to the next list until I either completed it with a fraction of my ability or abandoned it entirely." 

Wow. Do I want to be spending most of my time on the things that I don't actually really care about? Of course not. But how often is this the reality of my life? Scrolling endlessly through my Facebook newsfeed. Following the rabbit trail of blogs and articles (even really good ones!). I look up and an hour has gone by. Who is setting my priorities anyway?

The answer should be me.

One of the reflection questions from "Who's Setting Your Priorities?" reads: What priorities in your life do you wish you invested more of your time into?

My answer is simpler than I would think:

I wish I would invest my time in blogging, writing, playing with Mr. D, making good food for us, keeping the house tidy and welcoming. I want to have more time for the people in my life, and be rooted in a strong relationship with God.

Faith.            Family.             Home.               People.             Words.

These are my priorities. It's time to put them on the top of my list.

 

Showing Up: A Reflection on Baptism

The first shall be last, and the last shall be first. 

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, 
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

Photo Credit: Josh Dietrich

Almost four months have gone by since this picture was taken. Four months in which many other photos were taken that could rival this one for cuteness (the Awww...Factor). Yet, I keep this photo as my desktop background.  Every time I look at it, I feel this sense of awe. The expression on Mr. D's face is priceless. He doesn't seem quite sure what to make of all this attention.

What are you guys looking at? 

Because everyone in this picture is looking with attention, joy, even admiration at my son. And why? Has he done anything that exciting? What has he done that merits this sense of pride and awe?

Nothing.

Yet we beam with joy. Our eyes glisten. Other children watch in the wings, as this baby is made new in Christ.

All he had to do was show up, and grace was poured over him, a seal was placed on his soul, and his heart forever belongs to the One who so delicately formed him.

All we have to do is show up. And let grace (and God) do the work.

I am Enough

Today I'm celebrating because I am Enough.

When I walk into Nordstrom's in my second-hand, years-old clothes...I am Enough!

When I accidentally spill tonight's dinner all over the floor...I am Enough!

When I completely forget an appointment at work...I am Enough!

When I haven't gotten anything done today, because it's just been one of those days...I am Enough!

I am Enough. Not because of what I have done or not done. Not because of what I look like or what I'm wearing. Not because someone else validates or affirms me. I am Enough because of WHO I am. I am a child of God. I am worthy. And can you keep a secret? So are you. You may not feel like it. You may shake your head, and say, No, I am not. And, let me tell you, I have been there. The truth is, sometimes I'm still there. I shake my head, and the tears fall, as I let the word "Enough" glide off and fall to the floor. But the truth remains.

We are Enough. 

When was the last time you reminded yourself that You are Enough? Isn't it time?

The Enemy of the Good

I just started listening to the podcast "Happier" by Gretchen Rubin, of "The Happiness Project" fame. The very first episode talks about the difference between Maximizers and Satisficers. Maximizers are always looking for the best choice among many options, while Satisficers choose whichever option meets their criteria, and then move on. Can you guess which one I am? Let's see if you can tell by the following scenario that plays out all the time for me:

Hmm, I just colored my hair. I guess I need a new shampoo, right? I wonder what shampoo I should get? Well, let me do some research on the best shampoos for colored hair...okay here's a Top 10 list...Fast forward ten days later at store. I pull up the list on my phone (does anybody else have a million windows open all the time?) and select the cheapest option.

As a Maximizer, I tell myself that I won't settle for anything less than the best. I tell myself that I really should know everything about a decision before I say yes or no. So my walls are bare, waiting for me to fill them with the perfect pictures. My blog sits inactive (last post three months ago!) because I don't have the perfect idea. I joke that if it were up to me, we would still be looking for a house.

But the reality is, sometimes you don't have the perfect picture, the perfect idea, the perfect house. As Voltaire said, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." This has been a theme in my life for a reason. I need to let go of my idea of perfection, and be okay with good enough. Because, while I'm waiting for the perfect solution, life is swiftly passing me by.

So which are you? A Maximizer or a Satisficer?

P.S. Bonus points if you can guess what my husband is.

Unsolicited Advice: Friendly Neighbor Addition

Friendly neighbor (FN): "How old is your little guy now?"
Andy: "Four months old."
FN: "Do you have him doing chores yet?"
Andy: "No, not yet..."
FN: "Well, don't wait too long. Parents nowadays treat their children as if they were made of gold..."
Andy: "Right. 'Spare the rod, spoil the child'..."
FN: "I'm not saying you should hit the kid."
Andy: "..." (clears throat)
FN: "I always told my son, you have two choices: you can either do the work now, or get punished and then do the work."

Just some friendly neighborhood banter.

Time to Be

Three minutes left until the blueberry muffins will be ready. Three minutes left to enjoy the surprising quiet of the back porch in my suburban home.

So quiet, each sound punctuates the evening air. The tinkling of the wind chime. The creak of the glider. The cackle of a neighbor.

Savor these three minutes. 

Quiet is so precious to a mom, especially an introverted one, like me. Soon the timer will beep, beep, BEEP, and I will return to the everyday world of dishes, and finances, and decisions.

But all of that must wait. For now I will just soak in the silence. For the next three minutes, I will just be.

Do You Have What it Takes? My Experience with Attachment Parenting and What Works for Us

Everyone has an opinion about parenting. It takes very little to provoke a passionate treatise on the benefits of, say, co-sleeping and baby-wearing, or conversely, sleep training and promoting independence from an early age. So, where do I fit in this conversation?

Before I had Mr. D, I agreed theoretically with attachment parenting. I was ready, with Dr. Sears as my guide, to breastfeed exclusively for as long as my child desired, to wear him in a sling most of the day, to sleep with him at night. I found that attachment parenting seemed to jive with what I thought of as “good parenting.” After all, didn’t I have a strong attachment to my totally breastfeeding, affectionate mom?

My Experience

Then, Mr. D was born. The labor was long and grueling, and left me unable to walk unassisted for more than a week. I couldn’t get in and out of bed without extreme effort, and relied on my husband to bring our baby to nurse every couple hours.

Breastfeeding

And, oh, the nursing. I encountered (and, three months later still encounter) pretty much every breastfeeding challenge known to (wo)man. I tried, I really tried, to make enough milk. I nursed Mr. D round the clock, pumped when I wasn’t nursing, took way too many galactogogue supplements, sought the advice of several lactation consultants, attended La Leche League meetings, read websites and books. And it still wasn’t enough. Mr. D apparently required even more. After 48 hours without a wet diaper, we began the torturous road of supplementation with formula. That just about killed me. Here I was bending over backwards trying to make enough milk for my big little guy, and he needed more. Much more. I felt like a completely failure, as a woman and mother. Never mind that I had successfully labored and delivered a 9 lb, 13 oz healthy baby boy, with a head the size of Texas (okay, maybe not Texas…Utah). Postpartum hormones are cruel, and they don’t make allowances for failure, no matter how small.

Baby-wearing and Co-Sleeping

At first, Mr. D loved the Ergo baby carrier. He only seemed willing to sleep if he was touching one of us. So, the “co-sleeper” bassinet was used as nursing pillow storage for the first few weeks, while Mr. D slept glued to my side. That all changed during our trip to Hawaii when he was 6 weeks old. One night, as Mr. D fussed unhappily next to me in bed, Andy suggested that I move him more to the middle of the bed, so he wasn’t touching either of us. Almost immediately, his crying ceased. When we got home, he suddenly decided that he’d had enough baby-wearing time, thank you very much. We'd put him in the Ergo, and he'd arch his back and scream. As soon as we put him on the floor, he'd wriggle with delight. He’d discovered that having room to fully extend his body was much more exciting than skin-to-skin snuggling.

This revelation prompted us to try out the co-sleeper bassinet again. He slept better than ever. Then we were so bold to move the bassinet to his own room. He began to sleep even longer (which meant that we were, too, thank God!).

We seemed to be moving more and more away from “attachment parenting” to the “sleep training” camp. I began to realize, with more and more clarity, how divided these two philosophies are. Parents we knew swore by Dr. Sears and exclusive breastfeeding, and others swore by Dr. Ferber and supplementing with formula if necessary…no big deal. But where did we fall? With each side warring for our allegiance, I found myself fighting against both simultaneously. I knew now that all-out attachment parenting was not going to work for us, at least this time, with this child. But I didn’t feel like I could impose my schedule upon Mr. D (You’re hungry again? Sorry, bud, but you have to wait another hour. Don’t want to get off schedule!).

Conclusion

Three months in, my parenting philosophy can be summed up by two principles: Follow the child and Make decisions for the best of the entire family.  Follow the child, a Montessori principle, allows us some flexibility in our child-rearing. It means that we adjust to our child’s current needs. At first, Mr. D needed to be close to us while sleeping, and we accommodated that need by co-sleeping with him. We all slept better that way. But we couldn’t just sit back and say, “Great, we’ve figured out sleep for Mr. D. Our job is done!” We had to pay attention to what he was telling us. Full credit goes to Andy for figuring out when co-sleeping wasn’t working anymore. Mr. D needed space. So we gave it to him at night, and allowed him playtime on the floor for him to move and groove to his heart’s content. We all slept even better, and Mr. D was much happier during the day.

Follow the child also meant that I had to accept that Mr. D needed more food than I could naturally give him. Supplementing with formula has been hard for me. For Mr. D, it has transformed him from a fussy, cranky baby into a cooing, contented one. 

Which leads to the second principle: Make decisions for the best of the entire family. When I was desperately trying to make exclusive nursing work, I wasn’t doing much of anything else…including sleep. That’s one of the ironies of milk production: you are supposed to nurse on demand, pump often, and somehow eat and sleep well. With Mr. D, “on demand” meant I was glued to the couch most of the day trying to fill a black hole of a stomach. Supplementing has given me the freedom to continue living, and has increased the quality of my days. I now have the energy to actually play with my son. I’m not just frantically trying to feed him enough so I can please, oh, please take a nap. Since I’m sleeping more at night, it’s not a big deal if I don’t sleep during the day. And having Mr. D sleep in his room at night means that I don’t keep Andy up at night while I’m nursing. I don’t pretend that this is the best “parenting philosophy” for everyone. But, for us, this is the best parenting philosophy for this child and at this time.  

So often, we judge other parents with different parenting philosophies (Don’t you know that one drop of formula will reduce the life expectancy of your child? or Are you seriously going to let your child sleep in the same bed with you? What if you accidentally smother him?). What if we channeled all of that critical energy into trying to be the best parents possible for the children God gave us? I may not "have what it takes" to be an attachment parent this time around. But I do have what it takes to be the best mom and wife I can be. And that is a goal worth pursuing.