Thinking Ahead and Looking Back

I've been thinking a lot about the newborn phase lately. It's partly because I'm caring for a fairly new baby and partly because I'm going to have a new baby of my own in about 6 months, give or take a few weeks.

When I think back to when Hattie was tiny, my heart swells with fresh, pure new mommy love, but a sharp tinge of fear pokes at me, too. Hattie was a colicky newborn. It was so hard for the first 4 months, and then it slowly became easier. And I was hormonal for a LONG time. The baby honeymoon phase lasted about 6 days for us, and then we were thrown into parenting a child who we loved as perfectly as we could but who, without a doubt, did not have an easy temperment. She cried a lot. I cried a lot. I think Sean prayed a lot. It was a good thing I didn't have a blog back in those early months. Who knows what I would have written!

So I'm just wondering with hope what the experience will be like the second time around. I've heard some say that it was the hardest going from 0-1 child. While others swear it almost killed them to go from 1-2 children. I hope I'll be able to say the first :0).

I found this picture while walking down memory lane the other day. I had completely forgotten I took it.


The reason I took this picture when Hattie was about 2 months old was so that I would have it as documentation to go with my story that I will tell her because she IS gonna know what she put her mama through, especially when she calls me crying with her colicky newborn! So basically it was really hard to get my sweet baby to stop crying; therefore, sleep was near impossible, and even if I got her to sleep, it was beyond my new mommy abilities to transfer her from my arms to her bed. One day I came up with the above solution. I was able to put Hattie to sleep on my chest, and then I would ever so carefully roll her on the bed with my arm sill nudged up against her as if to say "Mommy's still here." I would quietly place pillows around her then replace my arm with Sean's bible, so she thought my arm was still there. Talk about resting on the Word! Talk about elaborate and insane! But it worked like half the time which was greater odds than I was getting up until that point. It reminds me of this book that my sister-in-law, Missy, gave me to read around this time. GREAT BOOK for a new mommy. Laugh out loud histerical circumstances that paralleled my own. What's the name of that book, Mis?

Luckily, Hattie no longer needs such an elaborate sleep ritual. She usually goes to sleep without any problems. There is a light at the end of the tunnel! That fact alone is probably gonna make the experience easier this go 'round because I just didn't know that before. The point is there is NO WAY I'm gonna have tons of time to devote to Button's sleep like I did with Hattie. So here's hopin' Button likes to sleep and rarely cries. Basically, Button, I need you to come out like your cousin, Wyatt (Shelley, you lucky dog!).

Afterall, isn't there some kind of coupon that parents get after having a colicky baby that guarantees the next one will be easier?!? If so, I would like to redeem mine in about six months or so, okay, God. But if Button turns out to be a lot like his/her older sister, we're gonna skip all the other "schtuff" and go straight to resting on the WORD because that seems to make all the difference anyways.