Motherhood moments and musings

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I thought I would take a moment and remember why I love being a mother. Or rather, why I love learning how to become a mother as it is not my favorite thing to do in the whole wide world. So curse me, if you will. It's truly how I feel. Motherhood does not come naturally for me. I have to work at enjoying. Sad but true. But more on that in another post. This is a post to reflect on why or how I am coming to truly enjoy it.

So, somehow I slept in this morning. So did everyone else. I suppose that's why. Cecily woke up twice in the night. The first time was like 40 minutes after I finally dozed off. I was hitting that REM phase (I think) and finally into deep sleep. You know that wonderful blissful feeling of relaxation and delight? And then she awakes. Like a record screeching to a halt. I have the hardest time with that feeding. I do it half asleep. She's lucky if she gets her diaper changed then because I am half-conscious. It's not safe, really. She could easily slip out of my arms they become so relaxed. Anyway, she woke up again at 5:45 AM. I don't know if she's actually hungry some of these times. I just wake up to her stuffy nose and my fear that she's suffocating. So I fed her and got to sleep by 6:30AM which is usually when Tyler gets up but he didn't. So I fell back to sleep until after 8 when Jocelyn announced that is was time to wake up.

Today I made green eggs and....pancakes for lunch (because I didn't wake up early enough to make them for breakfast, besides, Tyler doesn't like this pancake recipe). It was fun to watch the kids watch the yellow eggs mix with the blue dye and magically turn into green! A great art lesson. I tried to make it a moment for them. I think Jocelyn just thought I was weird. hm.

Last week I was able to go to a play with the kids. It has been much too long for that. I was more excited than they were. It was a children's theater piece. An adapted version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It was hard explaining that it was a play and not a movie. They were growing impatient waiting for it to begin. Then they saw the paper program with a picture of a life sized mouse on it and began to get scared. Then they grew excited as the music started and a grown man/boy came out of the red curtain. Their eyes widened at the mouse. It was such a thrill to watch them take it all in. I remember one of the first plays I attended was The Secret Garden for my 13th birthday. It was magical. I loved taking this play in for the first time with them. The audience was full of kids and the sound system was loud enough so I didn't mind when Jocelyn loudly asked things like, "When is the mouse's mouth going to open?" (he had a fake mouse head on that was sort of meshy and his eyes and mouth never moved). or "Why are the lights turning red?" or "When is the mommy going to come home?" It made me laugh. I think I had a smile on my face the entire hour (even when it dragged on near the end).

This week we discovered that Samuel is the only one of his pre-school friends whose name does not begin with the letter "J." He has Jimmy, Jair, Jared, Jameson, Jordyn and Johnny and Jocelyn. Crazy, eh? Good lesson in the letter "J."

Jocelyn reminds me of myself as a kid. She likes to wear twirly skirts (or any skirt or dress, for that matter). The weather has been gorgeous this week and the kids have been playing outside. Jocelyn likes to twirl with a doll or stuffed animal and sing. It's so fun to watch because I made my own "music videos" in the backyard when I was a youngster too. Except no one else knew it but me :)

Here is a picture of our little Cecily. I love it when they fall asleep like this (when she's not burritoed up). She's almost 2 months old already. She's getting fatter by the day. And she's getting stronger but still a bit wobbly with her head and body. She still curls up and cuddles on my chest too. Her hair is lightening up and I love to look at her everyday. I try not to pop her little baby zits or clean her ears out with my pinky while she's eating or scrape the green goo out her eye. It's such a temptation but such an annoyance for her, especially when I have long fingernails.

The end of the mommy moments this week.