What is Normal Anyway?

I catch myself talking about "normal" a lot, as if normal actually exists for a family with a baby.  Normal is changing for us more rapidly than it ever has before become normal changes rapidly for our now 2.5 month old.  His daily routine, how long he sleeps at night, how often he eats, what he does during wake time, what he likes and dislikes- these things have all changed multiple times since birth.  

I'm not sure how many days it takes before I constitute something as normal for us but it can't be very many (he hasn't really existed outside of the womb for too many days), but I keep finding myself craving normal.  

The past few weeks I've been waiting and watching for things to get back to "normal", and as I thought about the concept of normal with a baby I just had to laugh!  Our past fourish weeks have looked like this:

-Levi started a developmental growth spurt (also know as a wonder week) and was fussy and clingy and had trouble napping on his own or eating very well 

-in the middle of said wonder week Levi and I both got sick with a head cold throwing off eating and napping even further 

-wonder week 8 persisted through the cold and lasted a few more days

-I went back to work

-Levi had a physical growth spurt that lasted almost two weeks in which he wanted to nurse every 1.5-2 hours

-we had 1 day of "normal" before Levi hit another wonder week and started sleeping poorly and wanting to cling to me often and totally throwing off our bedtime routine 

     (^^^Just a random cute baby picture 

     for your viewing pleasure)

So for the past few weeks our normal has been, well, not so normal, and my expectation is that much of the next year will feel that way.  So here's to embracing the adventure of life with kids and allowing God to continue molding me in each stage of life!

Back to Work

Last week I went back to work. Just part time-20 hours-and I'm fortunate enough to work at our church-a place where I can bring my baby with me and where there is lots of flexibility and grace.  And it was a good week.

Leading up to last week I was not looking forward to going back.  It's not that I don't like my job or the people I work with.  That's not it at all.  I love what I do (bookkeeping) and I work with awesome people!  But I like being at home.  I feel like introversion has become this popular thing to be lately, but it is real.  And as a lifelong introverted homebody, I enjoy my home and my quiet.  I've always been like that; in high school on Friday nights I used to prefer being home, maybe with a friend or two, but certainly not out at big social gatherings.  But for me there is a very real danger of isolation and selfishness at home.  Again, it's not that I don't enjoy people, I really do!  I love small, intimate gatherings with people whom I can be real with and vice verse. But the longer I'm away from that, willingly confined to the walls of my home, the more easily I forget my need for people and relationship.  My need is different than say an extrovert in that I don't realize I'm lonely and sometimes when I need to be around people I don't even want to be and I certainly don't feel like I need it.  It's also different because I really do need that alone time, that home with just my small little family time, in order to be restored and refueled. 

So I'd been dreading going back to work because selfishly and foolishly I had started to think that all I needed was inside the walls of my home in the country.  And while I still love being home and my quiet time with just my family, and while I probably need more of that than the average woman, work is good for me, maybe even great!  To see other people who love me and care about what is going on in my life helps me to stay balanced.  And that's really what it is for me, for all of us-finding the balance-of what we want and what we need and what we need to do for others because this life isn't really about us anyway is it!

So my hope in working part time is that I wouldn't forget so easily my need for community and relationship.  And my challenge is to figure out the balance of being in community and still protecting our alone time as well. Because it's not wrong that we need time to ourselves to refuel; God wired us that way, but when all of my time becomes time to myself then it's no longer refueling is it, it is simply selfish isolation because I don't have anything to refuel from!