This is New… and This is Better

I went out in the fog of the morning to fill my bird feeder and came back into the house filled with the smell of fresh coffee and the sounds of my husband playing with the baby in the next room. That morning as I was breathing in the fresh air and noticing the song of a bird I didn’t recognize, I felt thrilled at the idea of winter’s arrival. Not because of rest. I get plenty of that throughout my days…contact naps and such.

But because of all the projects and dreaming that winter brings time for. The seed catalogues, the spring project planning. Maybe I will finally put together my emergency car kit, organize my bulk pantry, and get to working on baby’s bedroom.

I have been feeling the deep pull to get my house in order. To buy two (or three or four) of everything we use a lot of, especially if it’s on sale. To make big batches of everything and tuck half in the freezer. The other week our favorite organic mustard was on sale and it’s a store I don’t usually get to often, so naturally I bought 4 of each kind. The lady behind me in the checkout line asked if I was feeding a stadium, which was pretty funny thinking back, but the store was busy and baby was fussy and I was just focused on getting out of there so all I could do was offer her a small chuckle at the time. The bag boy questioned if I was using all this mustard on my Thanksgiving turkey and so on…It just made me realize that most people have lost the art of shopping and stocking their pantry in this way.

Baby is 4 months now and I feel like I have been in a very transformative season. Out of the postpartum fog, I am now able to clearly see what parts of my maiden life I want to keep and what must go. I am letting go of my maximalism tendencies, slowly but surely. The need to “go all out” or “do it all.” I’m not moving towards minimalism by any means…but something beautifully in between…simplicity, perhaps. Which leaves room for beauty but also meaning and intention. I still have a lot to release but I feel the Lord guiding me and helping me and showing me. He is faithful!

As I am shrinking in some areas, I am growing in others. Motherhood is teaching me contentment and gratitude in a way I have never known. Gratitude when even on really hard days I am going to bed with tears of thankfulness in my eyes that I have a baby, and I stare at his little sleeping face and watch the rise and fall of his chest for a good 30 minutes before I finally close my own eyes to sleep. Contentment when I wake up and my arm is numb and my hips ache (cuddle curl life) and baby wants to latch again. But that gratitude and contentment keeps me focused enough to notice all the small moments that otherwise would pass by, like baby reaching up to put his hand on my mouth while nursing for the first time. They say it’s a developmental milestone… “cross identification”—when baby recognizes you are giving them something and they want to give something to you in return. I supposed we will never know if this theory is true, but I, of course, like to think that it is. Especially as I watch my baby, more awake to the world than ever, begin to see me as “mom” and not just boobs, ha!

I’m still not always “feeling like myself” in my new body and new roles. Which brings the questions, the internal battles. Do I want to be the girl who wears the gingham linen dresses and wool sweaters or do I want to wear the jeans? Do I want to use the cloth diapers or do I want to use disposables? Do I want to be a mother or do I want to continue with my creative work? Who am I and who do I want to be? Too much swirling around in my head when there is a little one to feed and cries to attend to. Can it just be both? To all of it? Does it have to be a battle? It’s not so black and white.

I think God created motherhood to be all-consuming. We pretend like it’s not, like it shouldn’t be. As if we shouldn’t lose ourselves in it. But I say get lost. Surrender to it.

We mothers are not who we once were and never will be again.

This is new. And it is better.