A World of Emotion

He wants to be held. 24 hours. He wants to see the world around him. No time for sitting! He wants to play. Even when he is eating.

In becoming more aware of the world around him he is sending me into a sleepless haze.

I love all the parenting-articles out there … oh sure at 4-months you can get them into a routine. This momma has tried. *L*’s routine is his routine. There will be no ‘undue-influence’ he tells me. His routine involves nursing from 8pm till midnight. His routine involves waking again at 4am … not wanting to eat but to walk around. (Thank goodness for Dad who is more willing to walk then this Mom.) His routine does NOT involve Mom working behind the computer during the day. No way. No how. So I apologize for being a bit more AWOL then I would like to be. It was actually easier to get things done when *L* was a few weeks old, then it is a few months old! Whowouldathunkit?

I think the hardest part for me is the 8pm till midnight feeding. I just want a couple of hours in the evening to /myself/ or better yet to myself and hubs. I get the two older boys into bed and then we snuggle into my bed and I turn the TV on, quietly, hoping he will be ready to sleep around 9. Never fails… he nurses from 8 till sometime in the later-11pm hour. By that time I turn out the light and am asleep in no less then 30 seconds.

So from about 8:30 till 11pm my TV and I are evening-companions. I have waves of shows I watch and right now I am on a 16-and-Pregnant kick. I really shouldn’t watch that show because it leaves me feeling so frustrated & down. These girls and boys usually start out so positive about their futures at the beginning of the show and after baby comes they are falling apart: the relationship, their emotions, the “family-unit”. It certainly goes to show the toll a baby has on a couple. The show definitely doesn’t glamorize being a teenage-mom. It does show the facts of life: she probably isn’t going to graduate high school, the teenage mom and dad are probably not going to stay together, sometimes they can count on their own mom and dad… most likely not.

I have a friend who had a baby this week. This is her third and it was with much joy that their little girl was born! In contrast, my teenage son also has a friend who had a baby this week. A world of different emotions for a 30-something Mom and Dad then a teenage Mom and Dad. I see all the posts on Facebook full of congratulations, excitement for this teenage couple, and yet I can’t help but think, “What will become of them” … I will pray, pray that they beat the odds!

So tonight, as I once again deal with a little baby-boy who will have /nothing/ to do with falling into Mom’s Routine I will say a special thanks for ‘knowing’: knowing that my beloved is just downstairs if I need him; knowing that someday *L* will outgrow this ‘stage’ (and I may just miss it!); knowing that I come from a family of unconditional love… I am in a family of unconditional love… and this love continues to grow!