Grandma Status

Although I have been up for about 20 hours, after pulling off a red eye the day before, I am still too excited to sleep, so I thought I'd post some pictures of my last day.  I know that Priscilla's friends won't be able to see this from my facebook wall, so I'll have to email her the pictures when we have better internet access, or she has more time, whichever comes first.

I arrived in Virginia on Wednesday morning, June 20th and arrived to Priscilla and Josh's apartment around 7:30 am.  Red-eyes are brutal.  After seeing what good condition she was in, emptying my carry-on of all the things I found corners for, and finding out that I could check into my hotel room at noon, I went to my hotel room, took a shower and a 90 minute nap and then returned to Priscilla's to take her to her midwife appointment.  Here is a picture of her as we left for the midwife's office:

The midwife was concerned that Priscilla wasn't measuring bigger, and told her to schedule an ultra sound for Friday or Monday.  Priscilla left, not too concerned, and telling me that she'd schedule it for Monday, hoping it wouldn't be an issue by then, since she was due on Sunday.  We stopped at Target to pick up some items, and then met Josh for dinner.  After dinner, even though I was tired (more like exhausted), I wanted to take a picture I thought the boys would like:

And then a couple of pregnancy pictures:

I had intended to come back to the hotel and upload them, but I got back to the hotel and was asleep by 9:00 PM.

I woke up at 4:00 am, and thought "Oh, good, I have a few more hours," and decided to see if I could easily go back to sleep.  I did.  I awoke to the phone ringing at 4:30 am.  Priscilla asked how I felt about getting another short night of sleep, and if I'd come on over.  She'd been having contractions since midnight and they were going to call the midwife.  She sounded very cheerful and excited, so I got dressed, packed my backpack for a long stay, and left.  I arrived at her place around 5:00 am.  She was happily working her way through contractions.  One of the things that we had purchased the night before was nail polish, because her toe nails were bugging her and she couldn't reach them, so around 5:30 am, in between contractions, I painted her toe nails.

Finally, she had a contraction that made her involuntarily cry.  Two more and she said she was ready to go to the hospital.  This is the picture I took before they walked out the door.  Note, she was still smiling!  And I believe the clock said "6:50am"!

We took separate cars to the hospital.  I could see Josh reaching into the back seat every couple of minutes.  It took about 50 minutes to get to the hospital.  The receptionist looked at Priscilla and asked her what she was there for.  Priscilla said, "I'm in labor."  The receptionist took off for about three minutes.  When she returned she asked Priscilla if she really was in labor, and told her to take a seat.  Time about 8:00 am.  Finally, the receptionist came back.  Priscilla told me to hang tight and as soon as they got settled in a room, she'd have Josh come get me.  Josh called me about 45 minutes later and said that the baby had been born.  Huh?  I told the receptionist that Josh was coming to get me and that the baby was already born, and she said, "What?  She didn't even look like she was in labor!"

This was the scene that I walked into and I instantly burst into tears.  It was so lovely:

Priscilla can tell you the story from her vantage point, but probably not this month!  Let's just say that she is very good at this labor and delivery stuff!

And that is the story of my last 24 hours!  Good night!

The Guilt of Motherhood, an open letter to Priscilla

Dear Priscilla,

You are about to enter the most guilt-ridden profession: motherhood. From the minute you decided to use a mid-wife or a doctor, there will be someone questioning your decisions. And then you move into breast feed or bottle feed. No matter what you choose there will be nay-sayers.

And don’t get me started on co-sleeping versus a crib.

Career versus stay at home mom?  Wasting your education?

But none of the condemnation you receive will be like the judgment of homeschooling! And that’s only from the people who don’t believe in homeschooling. Within homeschooling there is all the guilt of whether or not you picked the right curriculum, courses, outside activities. And then homeschooling high school!

There are a couple of guidelines I’d like to suggest to you to get through this!

1.  Listen to the Lord. Although there isn’t a book written on how to raise Kekoa (or any subsequent children you may have), God will be there to direct your path.

2.  Consult with your husband. Sometimes it might seem that they don’t care about how you cope, but ask what is important to him. Is it dinner on the table on time? Is it a clean house? Is it a quiet house?

3.  Do what works best for you. There will be a lot of people willing to offer you advice (and I will be one of them! J). But their families are different than your family. Take what you need and throw the rest out. Being a hybrid of many different parenting styles and techniques isn’t a bad thing. In fact, the “bigger the piece of marble, the bigger the sculpture can be.” And, of course, none of your children will have the same personality or needs, so what works for one, probably won’t work for the other and you’ll have heard lots of ideas to give you something else to try.

4.  Be flexible. What works in the beginning weeks, might not work at 6 months. Allow yourself to be changed.

5.  Get plenty of rest. You think this is an easy thing. It is not! Here I am in year 25 of my parenting, and I’m finally getting to the point where I can actually get to bed on time and wake up early happily. (You'll notice the emphasis on "happily", waking up early is a given!)  Maybe the toilets don’t get cleaned because you took a nap while the baby was sleeping. That’s okay. They can get cleaned tomorrow, unless by some chance magic fairies show up!

Some days the guilt might be stifling. You have a bad day, you kicked the dog, dinner burnt, and for some reason the baby has been crying all day, and you can't figure out why. And then you find out that the baby has an ear infection, the sweet little girl can't see well enough to read the songs on the board, and even though you’ve been through phonics 4 times with the child, he still can’t read, and you’re really swamped with guilt.

I could be my usual self and tell you to get over it, it comes with the territory. But the nice response would be to put on some worship music, get into the Word, hold the baby, and the guilt will pass until the next issue arises. I’d like to tell you that the guilt stops after parenting for 25 years, but so far it hasn’t!  Save the guilt for conviction of sin, NOT because you don't do everything perfectly.  If you feed the baby, change his diapers, and keep the Department of Health away, you're doing fine.

Love you,

Mom

P.S.  Anytime you want advice, feel free to ask. J