My Faith Since I Became a Mom

I've always felt an intense desire to have a strong faith and relationship with God, but I didn't always know how and when to apply myself. I dabbled in scripture reading and devotions here and there throughout my young adult life and I even participated in a few small groups, but it wasn't until I became a mother that I felt the urgency to get my beliefs and understanding together so that I could help establish a strong Christian foundation for Graham. 

Within the last 2 years, I have found myself praying more and being more intentional about my prayers, especially when saying grace with Graham before his meals. He gets so excited to fold his hands when he hears the word "pray" and even when he thinks he hears the word, it's kind of adorable. At first I used a common little rhyming prayer that he would do the hand motions to, but then he got tired of that and honestly, so did I. It was empty, and to him it probably just seemed like another song that we sing to play, so I started saying "pray" and then we talk about the things we are thankful for. He enjoys grace much more and even claps when we're done, but at this age, it's probably because he knows he's about to get food.

Something else I started within this last week is utilizing the free devotions that come with my Bible app on my phone. I started searching the many topics that are available and found so many that I'm interested in that I had to save most of them for later. I couldn't choose just one, since they're so short and straight to the point, so I chose four to start with, one about marriage and sex, two about parenting and one about motherhood. Each of these free devotions are different lengths, but I set up reminders in my phone to pull them up about an hour after Graham goes to bed each night, and so far, I haven't skipped a day! I have already completed two of the original four I started and have since picked up another, totaling to three devotions right now. The new one I picked up is about uncovering basic faith and knowledge of Christian, something that I think I lack. I have found all of these devotions to be helpful, and I love how quick they are to get through and yet so informative while I try to give God at least 30 minutes of my hectic day. 

Since I started these devotions, I feel happier and more alert to things around me. I feel purpose and I feel a stronger connection with God and with my family.

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Breastfeeding: I Don't Think I'm Going to Attempt it This Time and Here's Why

The thought of breastfeeding has been on my mind a lot, mostly because I will have the opportunity to try breastfeeding my second son when he's born, and I have many friends who are either still breastfeeding or starting to wean their kids from breast milk.

I had always heard how hard breastfeeding would be so I mentally prepared myself to have a rough time with it at first, but my ultimate goal was to exclusively breastfeed Graham for the first year. My experience trying to breastfeed Graham was a short one, lasting less than a week, but two main issues occurred: Graham and I couldn't get in sync with one another so one of us always ended up frustrated, and I was misinformed about breastfeeding struggles and strategies. 

From the moment he was born, nurses tried to teach me how to breastfeed and after about 20 minutes of trying they gave me a nipple shield and threatened that if I could not get Graham to successfully eat within 2-3 hours after birth, they would be forced to put him on formula. This was wrong on so many levels, the first being that Graham was much more interested in sleeping than eating within the first few hours of life, and secondly this put a ton of pressure on me after just having given birth. It was emotional, and Andrew, Graham and I all spent the first night of his life in tears as frustration and panic set in. 

The next morning, the hospital staff sent in a lactation consultant who spent an hour with us trying to get Graham to feed. Her first comment was that I didn't need a nipple shield but could use one if it helped and she really had little to no assistance to offer me. She tried tickling Graham's toes and rubbing his jaw to get him to wake and eat, but he was clearly uninterested. Once home, Graham and I continued to struggle to connect with one another on the nursing front. He would get so frustrated trying to eat and end up shaking his head everywhere instead of calmly eating and finally we were offered some supplemental formula as we tried to work on things. 

I then tried pumping, but I didn't produce very much since I chose not to religiously pump and wake up every 2 hours to strengthen or maintain my supply. I remember visiting our pediatrician the first week Graham was home and I asked if there was anything I could do to make my milk more nutritious, since I would pump two ounces and he would gobble it down and want more. The doctor said there was nothing I could do, which I later learned was incorrect information, so I gave up and switched to exclusively formula feeding. At first, I was devastated about this decision. I felt like I terrible mom and a quitter. I felt down because I wasn't supplying my child with the basic food that my body was designed to give him. I felt like I was cheating us all of the experience I had dreamed about. I thought it was the end of the world, but actually EFF had lots of benefits: I knew how much my son was eating, he had a more predictable eating schedule, other people could help feed and enjoy feeding him, knocking out night feedings wasn't very traumatic for us, he slept longer periods at night, weaning from formula and eliminating bottles wasn't as emotionally difficult, and I could feed him anytime anywhere without having to cover up or find privacy. And actually, he is 15 months old now and has yet to be sick, which is interesting since my seven other mom friends with toddlers all breastfed and all of their kids have had colds at least once in the last year. 

So here I am, expecting our second child on 2/217 and wondering what I should do knowing what I know now. I was just talking with my friends who are still struggling to night wean their 1 year olds or wean altogether and I'm hearing them say things like "it's not worth fighting little one during the night so I still feed them on demand" or "I'm not ready to wean yet" and I feel bad for them, for that whole other level of emotional detachment that mom and baby will have to experience that I was able to bypass. It sounds heart breaking and I'm glad I didn't have to experience it with my first. So I'm wondering if I should even sign up for breastfeeding this time around, but I honestly feel like the worst mom for choosing not to if I'm able to. I guess at the end of the day though, as long as my children are fed, that's what matters most!

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Bumpdate

One of the most important weeks of pregnancy is week 24, viability week! What does viability week mean? It means that any point from here on out, our son has a greater chance or survival if he was born early! It's a milestone week to reach and I can't believe we're already here and how fast this pregnancy is going! Being so busy with life and chasing a 14 month old has sure made this pregnancy fly by! In fact, I've been blessed by feeling great for most of this pregnancy! 

Since I last updated you, we found out we're having another little boy (YAY!)! We are so very excited to have two sweet little men in our lives! He is very happy and healthy, praise God! We decided not to have a gender reveal party this time...okay I decided that, but we did find out the gender in a cute way! We had Andrew's cousin Jennifer (who did our scan) poke holes in the wrong color balloon so only the blue "It's a Boy" balloon actually worked! I was hoping for another boy, but since this pregnancy seemed to be going a bit smoother than my pregnancy with Graham, I was starting to think maybe a girl was in our future!

I haven't been as diligent taking belly pictures this time around but here are a few (weeks 19-22). 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

What Happened When I Stopped Trying to Crack the Code

"When I was growing up, I didn't dream about my future wedding, I dreamed about my future family; how I would have a bunch of kids, a wonderful husband and I would stay home like my mom did."

Fast forward 20 years and I've arrived, or I should feel that I have. I'm married to a wonderful husband and father, I'm blessed to be able to stay home and we have a sweet and funny 1 year  old, but a few months ago, I didn't feel like things were going well because we were constantly trying to "get through things" with Graham. For example, we had to get through phases like "he's not eating", "he has reflux", "he's teething", "he's not sleeping", "he's crawling in bed", "he's climbing on everything", etc. I sadly felt like I wasn't enjoying life at all because there was always a hurdle to overcome or a solution to be found. I felt like we didn't have ordinary days because we were constantly trying to crack the code, solve the problem, get him through this and that phase. Was I alone here? One night, I told my husband that I was so bothered by this that if I was someone else, someone who didn't have my morals and standards to be there and take care of my family, that I would walk away. Maybe I was depressed? Too high strung?

Some parents I've talked to think that the infant stage is the hardest stage because your children can't tell you what they need, but for us, it began around Graham's 4th month. Parenting suddenly got hard when our son experienced the dreaded 4 month sleep regression and I took it upon myself to research countless hours on what the problem could be and how to "fix it". We then discovered that he was probably suffering from reflux so I then searched again for a solution to that problem. Looking back, those weren't as big of hurdles as they seemed at the time, but once I decided to stop looking for solutions and solve every problem or difficulty we came across, I started to enjoy my child again. I stopped seeing him as a math problem waiting to be cracked and started to realize that life is bumpy, and it's all how you enjoy the ride. 

A little background on myself for a second, I grew up in a small family that didn't get together with extended family much if at all after we all got into high school, so most holidays and celebrations were my parents, my brother and myself. We had routines, and nothing changed. Things in my family were planned, and predictable. That's how I grew up, so that's what I expected out of life. Then...I got married. I married into this wonderful, large, whimsical family that makes plans last minute, visits with little notice, and really just goes with the flow. I still find myself dazed sometimes by the business of a large family and the unpredictability of plans with said family, but I do love it. Sometimes I think God blessed me with this crazy family because he knew that I would need to get real and understand that life isn't planned and predictable all the time. I surely have learned that since becoming a parent, and now that I'm starting to embrace my in-laws way of life, I'm starting to really enjoy the little things much more.

I've become more laid back about nap schedules and bedtimes, bottle quantities and Graham's exploration, and it's like a whole new ball game. But don't worry, I haven't gone too crazy on those things just yet, but it seems to work for our family, and I also find myself feeling less stressed to meet every time frame or reach every milestone. We're able to stay later at family gatherings (well...a little later) and if nap time is an hour later because he's having a good time, that's fine. Once I stopped trying to Google everything and hurdle over every bump, life got simpler and we all got happier. 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Major Life Update

It has been quite some time since I made a post, especially a personal life post, but we've been keeping a secret from you...

That's right! We are pregnant with baby #2 and we are so very excited to have another little one! 

Answering some of your questions:

Was this baby planned? Absolutely! Even if this baby was a surprise to us, (which he or she was not), we believe that this baby was ALWAYS part of God's plan! 

How far apart will your kids be? Our kids will be about 18 months apart. Our official due date right now is 2/2/17 but if we're able to be induced again, baby will most like come at the end of January. 

How far along are you now? I am 14 weeks today! Helllllloooooo second trimester!

Did you have morning sickness? Yes and no. I experienced all-day nausea with Graham and this little one, but thankfully I didn't physically get sick. With Graham I was able to take a safe anti-nausea medicine, but when I tried to take it with this pregnancy it didn't make me feel too good so I just dealt with the nausea.

Do you know if you're having a boy or a girl? We don't know yet, but I have my suspicions!

Will you find out the gender of your baby? Yes! The earliest you can hope to learn the gender via ultrasound is 16 weeks, and we are blessed to have a family member who works in our doctor's office so we hope to find out in about two weeks!

In other news, Andrew started his 4^th year of teaching yesterday and is excited for this school year. He’s also about halfway through his master’s degree in administration and we’re eagerly looking forward to his graduation in December ‘17.

We celebrated Graham’s first birthday almost two weeks ago and he’s been cruising through milestones like crazy! He babbles, says a bunch of words, runs around and cut his first molar! We’re about to finish he last of his infant formula and then we will be ditching bottles goodbye…until baby #2 arrives! I will definitely appreciate not washing bottles for at least a few months! The transition away from bottles is bittersweet though, while I won’t miss preparing or washing bottles, I will miss feeding him while in my arms and cuddling!

I’m 14 weeks pregnant today so here are a few of my weekly pictures (I'm a little slow uploading them)! I lost all of my baby weight from Graham +20lbs before we got pregnant with baby #2 and I was super pumped about it! While I’m definitely showing earlier with this pregnancy, I thankfully have only gained 3lbs so far, which is okay considering my pre pregnancy BMI was just barely considered a healthy weight (I was 2lbs shy of being in the overweight category). 

 Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Clarity on Mother's Day

I always knew I wanted to be a mom. It's been the one thing I've dreamed about my entire life. It's one vocation I knew God called me to experience. But something I didn't see coming was the amount of clarity I got when I took up the post of motherhood. Now I understand why my mom bugged me about safety growing up. Now I understand that having children is all about raising tiny humans and giving them the tools to grow up into big, successful people. Now I understand the true struggle of body image, one piece swim suits, muffin tops and mom jeans. Why a mini van is a logical choice and why life insurance, wills, retirement, and mutual funds are important pieces of a successful legacy. Now I understand why patience is a virtue and why pain takes on a whole new meaning. I understand how it's possible to have a little piece of me running around outside of my body, and when he's hurt, I hurt. Now I understand why baby cuddles are so important, because at 9 months old he will only fit in my arms for a while longer. Now I understand the joy you can get just from seeing a toothless grin or hearing the words "mama" and he walks around the kitchen. It's late nights, baggy T-shirts, drool, bottles, snuggles, teething, baby kisses, diapers, tears, laughter and so much more that make life worth living. This is motherhood. 

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Being a Mom Is More Than Enough

American culture today has subdued the traditional foundation of a woman's place being in the home, taking care of her husband and her children, and heightened the theory that women can do more and be more. But when did being a mom, a wife, and a homemaker become less desirable and not enough? Why is my role looked at as a temporary situation rather than a lifelong profession?

While other little girls dreamed about their future weddings or realized that they wanted to become teachers or astronauts when they grew up, I dreamed about my future family and my future home. I played house, spent hours setting up my Barbie Folding Pretty House and cutting apart JCPenny catalogs. I had big dreams for my future, but none of them centered around a career in the professional workforce. My mother was a stay-at-home-mom, and I aspired to be just like her. She did it all, balancing cooking, cleaning, crafts and carpools, and she did it with a supportive smile. My mom eventually returned to work when my brother and I were well into elementary school, but her presence in our early lives was more than demonstrative of our successes. 

The debate over a mothers' work status is nothing new. There are countless articles and journals that depict whether or not it is better for children to have a working mother or a stay-at-home-mom. Some studies suggest that children who attend daycare are more eager to reach developmental and social milestones than children with stay-at-home moms. But really, I believe that all children develop at their own pace, flourishing in some areas sooner than others. My own son is proof of this since he crawled at six months, pulled up at seven months and walked during his eighth month, which is supposedly rare. Some might argue that my presence at home provided the necessary encouragement for him to reach milestones at such a rapid rate. But I feel blessed to be able to stay home with my children and to see them grow up. I know that not all of the women who wish to stay home are able to, but my husband and I made lots of plans ahead of time to make sure I could fulfill this dream. 

Now that my son is 9 months old, numerous people have asked me when I plan on going back to work. That question almost always catches me off guard, as if what I'm doing now is not considered work. As if I'm playing house and need to grow up soon and get back into the workforce. But what if being in the workforce isn't my calling? What if that's not where I belong? What if I belong in the home, making sure my family is taken care of? 

Being a stay-at-home-mom and homemaker today is sometimes viewed as holding back the decades of progress women's rights movements have made. That those still in the home are causing a gender equality regression, but I refuse to apologize for living my dream and fulfilling my calling. I refuse to apologize to feminists for not "doing my part" to close wage gaps and help fight for gender equality. That stuff does not bother me nor does it speak to me. What speaks to me is devoting my time and energy to loving and taking care of my husband and our children. I don't need to hold a career outside of my home to feel self-worth or to prove to anyone that I am somebody. Being a mom is more than enough for me to feel satisfied and accomplished in life. Other women are driven by other things, and some women are driven by the success and status of their careers, which is fine. I'm not knocking anyone's choice, whether it be to stay home, to work, or to not have children, because I know that each of these choices are not for the faint of heart. It takes a combination of patience, gumption, courage, drive, and perseverance to make any of those choices, and sometimes, these choices are made for us rather than by us. My choice however, is to stay at home, taking care of my house, my husband and my children, and for that I will never be sorry, but only honored and grateful. 

Being a mom is more than enough.

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Graham's 6 Month Recap

Even faster than before, Graham's 6th month has come and gone! He has learned so much and become so much more aware, it's incredible to watch!

During Graham's 6th month, he loved:

• Smiling
• Using his teethers
• Running around in his walker
• Sitting up
• Crawling
• Making people smile and laugh
• Eating big boy food and watching other people eat
• Facetiming with Grandma & Grandpa
• Holding my own bottle
• Bath time!
• Crawling to, looking in, and sitting in his bathroom! (too funny!)

During Graham's 6th month, he accomplished the following milestones:

• At 26 weeks old he started getting right up onto his knees and lunging or rocking back and forth! He also tried, and enjoyed, eating strawberries and tangerines.
• He also became a little ham; always smiling and making people laugh!
• At 27 weeks he tried and liked eating plain whole wheat curly pasta noodles, he started saying "mama" when he cried (but I'm not sure if I'm purposefully saying Mama yet), and he started crawling!
• At 28 weeks he watched part of Super Bowl 50, he started trying to clap, he began pulling up on Mommy and Daddy, saw and played with bubbles for the first time, and he tried string cheese and teething wafers.
• At 29 weeks he started wiggling his fingers when trying to wave, he tried and liked pureed carrots, peaches, apples and peas. 
• This month we started sleep training Graham and he is able to fall asleep for naps and bedtime by himself

During Graham's 6th month, his measurements were: 

18lbs, 10oz and 26.5" long

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

Parenting in the Digital Age

It should be so easy to parent in the digital age since information about every known subject to man is at our beckon call. How much should my baby be eating? How many naps should my baby take during the day? How much should a 6 month old weigh? When do babies start to crawl? This doesn't even skim the surface of my google searches. It should be easy, right? Because if someone has gone through it, has an opinion about it or has done research on it, chances are it will be online. Though that information is readily available and not too hard to locate, parents then have the task of sifting through all of this information, processing it, then molding it to fit our child's situation or twisting it to ease our insecurities.  

When my son was four months old, he stopped sleeping through the night, and at first, it was a nightmare. My sweet angel went from sleeping at least four hours as a newborn to sleeping nine hours until the week after he turned four months old, when he decided that sleeping anywhere from one to three hours was acceptable. I finally understood the pain and exhaustion parents always warned me about but that I shrugged off because MY baby was a good sleeper. People would tell me how lucky we were, and I can't tell you how much I sympathized with those people until we weren't lucky in the sleep department anymore. So we decided something had to be wrong with my son and I began scouring the internet with every free moment I had, and learned a lot along the way. I diagnosed our situation with everything from the four month sleep regression all the way to vaccine side effects. I looked up nap and sleep schedules in the hopes of regulating my son's awake and asleep time to maximize our nightly uninterrupted sleep. I tried tirelessly for a few days to put my son on a schedule that was tailored to the needs of five month olds, and soon realized that my son doesn't fit that mold. It's said that five to six month old babies only need three naps a day, that they should be staying awake for two to two and a half hours at a time, and they should go to bed between 6:00-6:30pm because they need 12 hours of sleep at night. This is not true for our son, and when I finally tried to stop fitting us into all of these molds of what families, mothers, and babies his age should look like, sound like, act like and be accomplishing, I really started to live and learn how to parent. I began listening to my inner mothering instincts and listening to what my son was telling us. He needs to nap more than three times and he can't stay awake for two hours at a time during the day, unless we're away from home and he is distracted from his exhaustion, he doesn't need 12 hours of sleep at night to be the sweetest and happiest baby the next day. And you know what? We survived, we're still here, and we're still doing great. 

While I love to have a plan, sometimes, uncharted motherhood and parenthood is the best thing for you, because you learn from your own experiences instead of from someone else's.


We ended up learning that our son had silent reflux and we have since been giving him oatmeal cereal in his formula. He has yet to sleep nine hours again, but as long as he's healthy and feeling better, that's all that matters to us.

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.

A Revelation and My 2016 Goal - Living Intentionally

I can recall many times in my life when I have had revelations, especially times when my revelations have been faith based. One recollection comes from my senior year of college, when I was actively pursuing God for the first time in my life, and I was in the process of reading The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren. Parts of that book influenced me so much that I told my college friends that I would no longer go out dancing and socially drinking with them because there was really no purpose behind doing so. They thought I was nuts, and at the time, I had just started dating my, now, husband. I remember telling him that I was going to stop doing all pointless activities, even if they were fun, because they played no purpose in the life God wanted me to live. My husband listened very gently, as he always has, and suggested that God doesn't want us to not experience fun and joy, but that perhaps some of my activities could be eliminated and that time could be better used for other things. Most of the time, like in that story, he is wise beyond his years.

I had another revelation a few days ago after seeing this clip from Francis Chan circulating on my Facebook newsfeed.

This clip blew my mind, similar to the way Rick Warren's book altered my perspective on life. It made me physically look around my room, and realize that while I have a blessed life to have a home for my family to live in, and ample amounts of clothes for us to wear and cascades of things surrounding us.... none of these things matter. As humans, we're so caught up in our earthly lives that center around us and our successes, but our Earthly lives should be focused on serving others, having little, loving lots, and centering everything around Jesus and our eternal salvation. My clothes don't matter, the items that fill my cabinets and garage don't matter, because things are things and things can't come with us to heaven. Life is about relationships, touching people's hearts, opening people's minds, and sharing the love of Christ along with the good news! 

This sudden shift in my focus made me want to pack up all of our belongings sell them, and move to a foreign country to witness. When I shared this idea with my wonderful husband, he thought I was just talking about one of my many big ideas and told me that while my intentions were great, that didn't make sense for us because we are so settled in our lives here in Indiana, where my husband is a called Lutheran School Teacher and an online graduate student, where we have our home and 95% of our family. I can see where his initial shock stemmed from, since mission work is something I have felt God drawing me towards for a long time, but I never really shared those stories with my husband. In high school, I had the desire to join the National Guard to serve others, but my mother put an end to that idea as she said it would break her heart (also keeping in mind that this was only 3 years after after 9/11 so of course she was scared to death by this idea). Then in college, I felt this call to serve overseas but knew my parents wouldn't necessarily be in support of me moving and working halfway around the world so I found an opportunity through Americore to serve in the United States. I had all of my paperwork filled out and turned in when I met my, now, husband and knew that serving through Americore at that time didn't make sense as I felt our connection leading towards marriage, so again, I changed my plans. Now, fast forward 5 years, I'm a happily married, stay-at-home-mom of an awesome 6 month old little boy. Becoming a wife and mother has been my dream and two of three specific vocations I have felt God calling me to do. The third vocation is the one I've been struggling to find time for and interpret for years, serving others. I still feel God trying to lead me into mission work overseas and I have never found that flame less conducive than it is now that my family and I are so settled in our lives here in Indiana.

Last night I found myself in tears as I reflected on my life and God's plan for my life as the two ideas seemed so conflicted. Then a friend shared a prayer from the book Beautiful Uncertainty, by Mandy Hale, and in His perfect timing and Mandy's beautiful wording, I felt a sense of peace. 

After many tears, on my end, and much discussion, my husband admitted that he doesn't feel that now is the right time for us to pursue family mission work. I did however, feel a sense of hope as the discussion came to a close with my husband saying that he will pray and try to keep his heart open to the possibility of God calling us overseas. 

Though I'm uncertain where God will lead myself and my family, I have chosen a goal for 2016: to live intentionally. Life on Earth is short, it is not the end, nor is the success and fulfillment of life on Earth the end goal, but rather the bridge to eternal life. I hope to live intentionally by helping others, serving my family, witnessing, praying, hoping, longing for Jesus, guiding, fighting, learning, and loving.

Happy Living & God's Blessings!

J.M.