I never wanted to marry someone younger than me and I never wanted to have my children less than 3 years apart.

I am married to someone who is 3.5 years younger than me.

My children are 26 months apart.

There is a saying out there that goes something like this: God never gives you more than you can handle.

I don’t agree with that because I think He DOES give us more than we can handle so that we will turn to HIM for strength.

I nearly have a panic attack every time I think about the first day it will be just the girls and me at home.

I’m spoiled. My mother has been here with us helping out since the day we came home from the hospital. Maybe I am spoiled, but I like to think that I am incredibly blessed.

First of all, that I want my mother in my house for a week straight. I know, for some, that would just create more stress. Not for me. My Mama is one of my best friends.

And second of all, that my husband wants his mother-in-law in our house for a week straight. He loves her like he loves his own Mom.

Blessed. Extremely blessed.

But, there is going to come a day (very soon) when Mama is going to have to pack up and move the ever long distance of about 10ish miles back to her house.

And it will be me and Little Bug and Sweet Pea. Oh, and Pup.

And…

Yeah, I am not quite sure what to expect!

Complete chaos? Moments of craziness mixed in with moments of peace?

I’m thinking things might be on the crazy side for a while until we all get into a grove together.

Since December of 2011, when we thought Tracy was going to have a baby in July, I would tell myself, “If God thinks two kids 2 years old and younger is too much for me, He won’t let it happen.”

Well, when things fell through in January with Tracy, I figured God had decided kids two years apart was too much for me!

And then March 8th came. As we waited to hear if we would be chosen, I again told myself that if God thought it was too much for me, He wouldn’t let it happen.

And then May 12th we were matched with Melody and I would still think, “It won’t go through if God thinks it’s too much.”

And, well, now here I am!

Two kids, 2 years and under IS too much for ME.

But, you know what?

I am not on this journey of parenting my precious daughters alone!

As God has been with me through every phase of my life, He will walk with me every step of the way as I raise these girls to love Him and to desire to serve Him with everything they are.

Parenting is not for the weary.

It takes a strength I do not posses on my own.

It takes a strength that can only come from the Lord.

The picture above is a page in my Bible where this verse is found: Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3

Written beside the verse is every phase of my life since graduating high school.

There is college with the date 8/29/00, teaching with the date 2/17/04, Dave with the date 7/6/06, conceiving with the date 2/5/08, IVF with the date 3/5/09 and parenting with the date 7/16/09.

Tonight I wrote down another phase of life with today’s date:

Parenting 2 with the date 8/18/11

No, I will not even attempt to do this on my own. I commit to the LORD all my hopes, plans and dreams for my precious girls.

It is only through Him that I will succeed.

That, and the fact that my mom is a hop, skip and a jump away!

Mother’s Day 2011.

No elaborate gifts, no time off from motherly duties.

Just another ordinary day with my Little Bug.

We went to church and then had all the family over to our house for lunch.

As usual…Dave cooked and I cleaned up. We’ve done this several years in a row now. We love to honor our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and all the special women in our family in this way!

If you are a regular to this blog, I am sure this is no shocker…

After church I told Little Bug we were having a special Mother’s Day Party today at our house. That was all Little Bug needed to hear before she turned on her “wild woman" act and started literally running around the house like a crazy girl in pure excitement. I have come to believe that Little Bug loves nothing more in life than to be surrounded by a big group of people, especially when it is a big group of her family members!

Little Bug delivered all the Mother’s Day presents to everyone but because she was in “wild woman” mode I couldn’t get any good pictures of her in the act. See for yourself:

Giving her Aunt Amanda a hug. This girl loves her Aunt Amanda. Amanda lives just down the street and when Little Bug and I are on walks around the block and walk by Aunt Amanda’s house Little Bug usually requests a visit to “go see Aunt Amanda”. We are usually walking when Aunt Amanda is at work so I have to tell Little Bug Aunt Amanda isn’t there. Sometimes we still have to go and knock anyways and wait for Aunt Amanda to not come to the door.

Aunt Wendi had to wrestle her down just to get this picture:

Grandma’s attempt at a picture:

I think we gave up on pictures after that.

Oh, look here! A pretty decent one of Little Bug with her cousin, Hadyn.

At 3:30 I declared it naptime. 3:30 is usually when Little Bug is waking up from a nap! I corralled her to her bedroom, sang songs to attempt to calm her down and laid her in bed. Didn’t hear a peep from her. Party Animal must have been tired. I let her sleep 1.5 hours, which was apparently a mistake, because now it is almost 10pm and I can still hear her talking in bed!

After the party, I had a nice evening with just my baby girl. Dave needed to work, so Little Bug and I headed to the park.

We saw the “ducks”. They are actually geese, but Little Bug likes to call them “ducks”.

Little Bug on the swing!

I love this girl more than words can say. An evening, just Mommy and Little Bug at the park, was a perfect end to this Mother’s Day.

It’s nice we have a day to celebrate mothers, but I think my heart celebrates the fact I am a mother every single day.

It is something I never take for granted and something I celebrate every day when I first get my girl up and bring her to bed to drink her milk in the morning, when we read Bible stories together at the breakfast table, when we read a million books throughout the day.

It is something I celebrate when she eats and gets food everywhere, when she runs to me and gives me an unprompted kiss and hug, when she tries to sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”.

The road to motherhood certainly changed me into who I am today and now, motherhood continues to mold me and change me.

There is nothing quite like being a mother.

I can never forget what it once felt like to not be a mother and to desire to be a mother so bad it hurt… to those of you that are there this Mother’s Day, don’t ever lose hope. If your trust is in the Lord, He’s got a plan.

And if it is anything like what He did for me, His Plan is going to be better than ANYTHING you can dream of today.

I’ve read several blogs that have addressed this issue recently and I thought I’d write my own thoughts concerning this matter.

Adoptive moms carry alot of guilt when complaining about something related to motherhood. (Not ALL adoptive moms, but I’ve learned this is very common among many adoptive mothers.)

It is true for me.

Because I spent a lifetime yearning to be a mother and then had to endure infertility, I feel I can’t complain about the hardships of motherhood for fear that someone will find me “ungrateful” for the miracle God blessed me with.

After all, I chose to adopt. I didn’t just find myself pregnant one day and then say, “Oh, well, I’m going to be a mom.”

No, it took years of pain and heartache and deciding to adopt to become a mother.

I distinctly remember the lawyer’s words on that April 9th, 2009, day:

You can have a baby girl in June if you want.

We could have said “No” but we said “Yes” and 48 days later I became a mother.

There was most certainly a “honeymoon” period. The day Tracy signed the papers and Little Bug was officially ours and then the week after Little Bug’s birth that she spent in the NICU were certainly perfect days. (Besides the fact that we were dealing with withdrawals.) I felt on top of the world. I felt I had just come out of a very dark time of my life and couldn’t stop praising God for the miracle He had performed in giving us a daughter through the miracle of adoption.

Then, we came home from the hospital and real life began. Reality set in and unfortunately, my expectations and reality were light years apart.

Over the past year, that huge gap between expectations and reality has closed considerably, but it is something I still struggle with to this very day!

So, we got Little Bug home and the “honeymoon” continued while family and friends poured in coming to meet our little miracle.

Then reality hit and it hit hard.

People tell you before you have a baby that life will change and so I was aware that my life would change. I just had no clue that every single aspect of my life was going to change.

I had no clue that brushing my teeth and getting dressed in the morning in peace was a thing of the past.

I had no clue my quality of sleep would decline drastically and a year later I would still long for those baby-free nights of sleep.

Yes, I said that. You read correctly. Even the girl who longed for a baby all her life and went through infertility for 2 years has longed to go back to those peaceful nights of sleep when you are not constantly worried about the baby sleeping through the night.

Some might judge an adoptive mom for saying that. After all, she wanted that baby right? She wanted that baby more than her next breath.

A woman who conceived naturally, whether trying or not, wouldn’t be looked down upon if she said in frustration one night, “What I wouldn’t give for just one night of peaceful sleep without worrying about the baby!”

Adoptive moms think like that too. We just are hesitant to say it because we are fearful of being judged for not being found grateful for the child we prayed for and waited for and chose.

But the reality is biological mother and adoptive mothers are the same. We are both mothers. And mothers have a very hard job!! And if any mother is honest with herself, we’ve all been at the point of complete frustration … no matter how we became mothers!

I have such a hard time letting things go. I want to be a perfect mother but instead I’ve been bombarded with numerous emotions I never saw coming.

I believe these emotions would have come whether we had adopted or had a biological child because the transition into motherhood has been the most challenging thing in my life thus far. Yes, even more so than the challenge of infertility.

Infertility was a season of my life. Motherhood defines who I am.

All I’ve ever wanted to be is a wife and mother and here I am and life isn’t perfect!

Imagine that!

Interesting how motherhood has shown me areas in my life that need improvement.

Mothering takes sacrifice. And sacrifice hurts.

But sacrifice is necessary and when it comes down to it, mothers will do anything for their babies.

One of the hardest adjustments I’ve had to make as a mother is in the sleep department. I’ve always required a lot of sleep. When I was in Kindergarten I would come home from school and lay down on the couch and take a nap! Not to many 5 year olds take a nap every single day.

I’m a night owl. I love staying up late and sleeping late the next morning. Try telling that to a 1 year old.

“Ok, Little Bug, let’s stay up till midnight and sleep till 10am tomorrow morning!”

YEAH RIGHT!

Mix my need for a lot of sleep to function properly and my night-owledness and that’s a recipe for sacrifice when you become a mother.

I don’t like going to bed early and I don’t like getting up at 7 or 7:30am. I had recently gotten Little Bug to sleeping until 8am or 8:30 (heavenly!!) but she’s been getting up at 7am lately and it frustrates me to no end!!

Sacrifice with a lot of hope that one day Little Bug will like sleeping later like her Mama!!

Bringing home that little 5 pound baby girl I had all these expectations of what I was going to teach her.

I had absolutely no idea just how much this little girl was going to teach me.

I know her lessons will continue for years to come.

I loved the Mother’s Day sermon my pastor gave on Sunday.

Mothering is one of the hardest, and most rewarding, jobs out there. It takes courage and cleverness.

Mothers (and fathers) have an incredibly large responsibility in molding and shaping the character of their children.

I think about this often.

I know the woman Little Bug one day grows up to be will largely be in part to the way Dave and I raise her. It is a task that we must do together as a team, with God as our guide.

More than anything, I desire Little Bug to grow up to be a respectful, God-fearing woman who desires her life to be used by God for His glory.

I know one day my sweet little innocent baby girl will exert her independence by one day saying to me, “I don’t have to do what you say, Mommy!”

And that will be the day Little Bug begins to learn her place in this world, that there are boundaries and that she will respect and obey her parents and others in authority.

No if ands or buts about it.

Pastor Paul says mothering takes courage because it is hard to discipline a child you love more than anything.

But it is something that must be done if you want to raise a respectable, obedient child with a sweet spirit.

He said you can’t be concerned with “being your child’s friend”. Other children are your child’s friends. You are the PARENT and it is your responsibility to discipline your children when they are young.

There will come a time when you as the parent can become your child’s friend. That is where my relationship with my mother is at this time. As a child, Mama was not my friend. She was my mother. She taught me to be obedient and to be respectful of others. Now, she is one of my best friends.

I loved this message because it hit home with me.

I know the days of disciplining Little Bug are just around the corner. I look at her now and I know one day it will break my heart to discipline her. I want to shield her from all hurt. I want her to always be happy.

But when that time comes I know I will have to rise above my emotions and look at the big picture and know that disciplining/training my daughter is what Little Bug needs.

And really, disciplining a toddler/preschooler has got to be a whole lot easier than one day waking up and realizing I’ve made a huge mistake and I’ve now got this rebellious rotten-attitude child/teenager on my hands that I have somehow got to gain control over.

This is not a task I can do apart from God. It is going to take a lot of prayer, a lot of teamwork from my husband and me, a lot of council from our parents and much determination and patience.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. (Phil. 4:13)

This afternoon my Grandpa and I were out talking in the sunroom. He gave me the greatest compliment a mother could ever want.

Grandpa said, “Little Bug is the most well adjusted, happy baby I have EVER seen in my life! She eats when you want her to eat and sleeps when you want her to sleep. Does she ever cry? She is so happy all the time. I believe this wonderful foundation she is receiving as a young baby will greatly impact the person she will be 30 years from now. It is simply amazing! How did you get her to be like this?”

I said, “Babywise!”

As I am nearing the end of my first year as a mother and as I reflect back on this past year I am forever grateful I learned and applied the methods of Babywise.

Over the past 12 months I’ve had a love/hate relationship with Babywise. I’ve loved the predictability and routine Babywise brings but I’ve hated when things get off and I have to problem solve and figure out what is going on and how to fix it. But, recently, it dawned on me that this is also why I love Babywise!

Baby getting off is inevitable because of all the dramatic growing and developing baby does over the first year of his/her life. Babywise gives mothers the tools to be able to pin point what the problem is and what baby needs. Then it gives mothers the tools to solve the problem and move forward to the next milestone in the baby’s first year. And that is what I love!

I am an analyzer. When I taught 4th grade I was constantly collecting data about my students so I could better pin point what each individual student needed help with. Then, I would teach to the needs of the individual students. In managing a classroom of 20 or so 4th graders, I got much pleasure from figuring out a problem and then discovering a solution that would solve the problem.

Little did I know these skills would become very useful in parenting! Problems arose – Why is Little Bug waking up after 45 minutes on the dot of every nap? Why is Little Bug waking up at 5am every morning? How much sleep does Little Bug need? How much should she eat? – and Babywise gave me the tools to troubleshoot the problems and solve them!

I am in no way promoting Babywise as the way to parent. As every first time mom must soon learn, you will be bombarded by this parenting method and that parenting method and ALL will claim to be the best way to go, but ultimately, that is a decision that must be made by you and for your individual baby/family. Babywise fit my personality (because I like structure and routine, analyzing and problem-solving, as opposed to flying by the seat of my pants).

Babywise is just clever! There is so much information when you first start reading/learning about Babywise. It is overwhelming really. But as Little Bug nears one year of age, I finally feel like I have a real grasp of the methods and I’m afraid that by the time #2 comes along, I will have forgotten all I’ve learned and will have to relearn everything!

I want to make a record of everything I’ve learned here on the blog so I’ll have easy access to all the “tricks of the trade” when #2 is here.

I plan to write some posts in the future about specific “tricks of the trade” I’ve learned from Babywise.

As a first time mom you want to do things “right”, you know? My Grandpa’s compliment meant the world to me! I am by no means the perfect parent (is there a such thing?) but, like all parents do, I have strived to do my best and then some, when it comes to parenting my child.

I credit Babywise (and most certainly a lot of prayer along the way!!) to getting Little Bug to where she is today.

Mothers just know instinctively when there is something wrong with their baby.

My first experience with this (and at the time I had no clue that my motherly instincts had already kicked in) was about a week and a half after we learned Little Bug would be joining our family.

It was April 20, 2009, to be exact. I was at work that day. (Remember, I used to nanny for precious twin little girls before Little Bug was born.) As I went about the day I just felt like something had happened. I had this uneasy feeling the entire day. Finally, I decided I had to call the lawyer and ask if anything had happened to Tracy.

I called and ended up leaving a message for the lawyer and then went back to trying to push away that uneasy feeling. But it wouldn’t go away. I just knew something was up.

As the girls took there nap that day I sat on the couch and started praying for Little Bug. More than anything that day, I wanted Little Bug to be mine and to be safe in my arms. God began to teach me that very day that Little Bug isn’t mine at all – she is His.

I sat there with my notebook that I was using to journal my journey through the process of adopting and I drew a picture of a pregnant woman in the Hands of God. Here is the page from my journal where I drew this picture. Please, be forewarned, I am no artist!

I had to cover up that top right corner because I wrote Little Bug’s real name there. It says: “God’s protective hand surrounding [Little Bug] now and forevermore!”

That situation taught me a very important lesson every mother needs to learn: I can only protect Little Bug so much. My protection is limited. Ultimately, her life is in the Hands of our Heavenly Father and I can trust Him to protect Little Bug.

By the way, my motherly instincts were correct. A situation had transpired over the weekend involving Little Bug and Tracy. When I finally spoke to the lawyer and explained I just felt something had happened and she was probably going to think I was a nutcase for calling, she said, “Well…. actually….” and then went on to tell me what had gone on. (Details of which I just cannot share on a public website!)

A mother automatically feels a bond and connection with the unborn child in her womb. It is interesting to me that I felt a bond and connection to Little Bug even before her birth though I had never felt her kick me from the womb. Physically, we were as far apart as the Statue of Liberty is to the Golden Gate Bridge. There was no physical connection whatsoever. However, my motherly instincts had already kicked in for a baby girl that was growing in another woman’s womb.

Don’t ever underestimate the love and bond there is between mother and adopted child. And even more astounding is this: I think about how much I love my Little Bug and desire to protect her and I know God loves and protects Little Bug infinitely more.

I’ve discovered a good motto that helps me relax when it comes to parenting. And I certainly am one who tends to easily stress out over matter concerning my child.

The motto is: Let it happen naturally.

I’ve applied this motto to the most stressful aspects of baby rearing in the first year (for me, at least) … sleep & eating.

I didn’t stress about getting Little Bug to sleep through the night by X months. I figured she would sleep through the night when she was capable. Certainly, I would do certain things to help her be able to sleep longer chucks of time during the night (like making sure she was getting an adequate number of daytime feedings and giving her a dreamfeed), but if she was 4 months old and still needing a wee hours of the morning feeding, I wasn’t going to stress over it.

As it turns out Little Bug was getting a wee hours of the morning (4-6am) feeding at around 4 months (I think! It is actually hard to remember, now!) And eventually, when she started not wanting her breakfast bottle I knew she naturally was getting ready to drop that feeding. She did (at around 5-6 months, I think ) and has been sleeping through the night ever since.

My point here is we (mothers) so cannot rely on books to tell us what to do with our babies! They are most certainly a wonderful resource to reference (especially for a first time mom) but if your baby isn’t doing something when the book says he/she should, it is okay!

Let it happen naturally, in it’s own time.

Same goes for me letting Little Bug cry it out. My “plan” before I actually had a baby was to start sleep training at around 4-5 months.

Little Bug was just over 3 months when I started sleep training her.

So, why did I start before I had intended to?

At 3 months old, Little Bug started to need her paci to stay asleep for naptime. I knew I had two choices: 1) Pop the paci back in her mouth numerous times during naptime and consequentially train her to need the paci to stay asleep or 2) Start sleep training so she wouldn’t need that paci to stay asleep.

To me it seemed silly to “teach” Little Bug to need a paci to sleep when, in just a couple of months I was planning to sleep train her.

And so the natural time for me to start sleep training Little Bug was at 3 months old.

I can give you a feeding example too.

Little Bug started acting interested in solids at 5.5 months old. I wanted to wait until 6 months before introducing solids. I went ahead and introduced rice cereal and sweet potatoes around 5.5 months. Little Bug wasn’t ready. She hated rice cereal and she didn’t quite know what to do with solids. So I stopped solids to give her some more time.

We tried again at around 7 months. This time she was more interested in solids however, she only wanted anywhere from 3-6 spoonfuls per meal! So be it! I figured when she is ready to eat a whole jar of baby food, she will.

When Little Bug turned 10 months old she really started getting an appetite for solids. She would finally eat one whole jar of baby food per meal and she would actually protest some at me when I was getting her baby food ready because I wasn’t going fast enough and she wanted to eat!

It all happened in it’s natural time.

I know this motto has given me much relief over many parenting matters over the past year (although I really just started putting this motto to practice recently). I hope to apply this motto to upcoming milestones such as potty training and transitioning from crib to big girl bed.

Both will happen in their natural time – there is no need for me to stress over it or push it to happen just because the books say this is when it should happen!

Parenting is already stressful enough without putting added pressure on yourself to have your baby do this and that by a certain age!

Amen?

Little Bug has always, since birth, required a lot of sleep.

Her wake times have never been very long. Even at 9 months her wake times ranged from 1.75 hours to 2 hours. Once Little Bug hit that 2 hour mark it was very obvious that she only wanted her bed and it was time to take a nap.

At almost 10 months old, Little Bug was still taking a third evening nap. I could tell she was trying to drop it but just wasn’t quite ready.

Well, Little Bug turned 10 months old on March 27th and it is like a switch was flipped in her!

We went to the zoo that day. We left after she woke up from her morning nap and were still at the zoo at 1:30ish when she normally lays down for her afternoon nap. But on that day you never would have known Little Bug was late for a nap. (When she was between 5-8ish months if we were late for a nap it was no fun for either of us – Little Bug turned into a monster and I had to corral said monster to her bed as quickly as I could!)

Anyways, we didn’t leave the zoo until around 2:00. Little Bug’s next feeding was anywhere from 3 to 3:30. I decided to feed her early and then put her down for a nap. By 2:45 Little Bug was down for a nap. However, she talked and played in her crib for half an hour before finally falling asleep at 3:15! By 3:15 she had been awake FOUR hours and had not been cranky at all. (Granted, we were at the zoo for the first time with her and she was having an absolute ball.)

A few days before our trip to the zoo Little Bug had been taking about 30 minutes to fall asleep whereas she had typically been going right to sleep within 5 minutes of being laid down. This was my first clue that maybe Little Bug was ready to extend her wake times.

The day at the zoo helped me realized further that she might (finally!) be ready to go more than 2 hours between naps. Also, since Little Bug napped from 3:15 to 4:45 that day we went to the zoo, she naturally didn’t need that catnap she normally takes around 5:30ish. We did the bedtime routine a little earlier that night and Little Bug was in bed by 8ish instead of 8:15/8:30.

It’s now been over a week and Little Bug continues with wake times of 3 hours or more and she has not had a third nap since extending her wake times either.

I say all this to remind myself when I’m trying to figure things out with #2 in the future that it is best to just let things happen naturally. Remember, with the time change I was trying to help Little Bug along by trying to adjust her schedule so she would go ahead and drop that 3rd nap? Well, it happened, eventually, in “Little Bug time”.

Third nap is gone and we now have a good block of time during the afternoon between naps to run errands, go on walks in the neighborhood or have a play date with friends!

When Little Bug was around 6-7 months old I introduced the Gerber puffs to her. She was really interested in those and it was so cute to see her figure out how to get them from her table to her mouth.

It wasn’t long and Little Bug started gagging on the puffs just about every time she would eat them. When I say gagging I mean to the point of throwing up most every time she tried to eat them.

I just decided maybe she wasn’t ready for them and decided to not give them to her for a month or so and then try again later.

Well, a month later she was still gagging and throwing up when she would eat them.

This has continued with most any table food that she has to gum first before swallowing.

Just today my mom was eating a banana so we decided to mash some up for Little Bug. I gave her two bites and then on the third she started gagging. Two seconds later she threw up everywhere.

About a month ago I was putting Little Bug down for a nap. Before naps I usually give her the Hylands teething tablets. I was giving her the tablets when she got choked up. Seconds later, she threw up everywhere.

When I say “threw up everywhere” I am talking formula geyser, not just some spit up.

I am beginning to worry that something is wrong.

Why does she puke nearly every time she eats anything other than the baby food from the jar?

Does she just have a very sensitive gag reflex?

Is this some crazy form of reflux?

If anyone has any information to give concerning this, please do so.

I have put in a call to her pediatrician about this as well.

… Don’t fix something that isn’t broken!

Today Little Bug went back to eating about every 3.5 hours and she was a happy camper about that.

I’ve learned to just let things happen when they happen. When Little Bug is ready to drop that 3rd nap, she will. And when Little Bug is ready to eat every 4 hours instead of every 3.5, she will.

I’ll just leave her be from now on and let her do her thang.