I'm a christian who is happily married with one child. I try to find joy in every day, no matter how good or bad the day may be.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

lessons

Well, it's been 5 months now since my little bean came into the world, and I couldn't help reflecting on some of the things I have learnt in such a short space of time. As a childcare worker, I felt pretty confident in my abilities to change nappies etc. Of course, nothing prepares you for the sleep deprivation, the frustration at not understanding why the baby is crying, and the endless advice and comments that you get from everyone from friends to complete strangers. But still, I felt that I had managed to navigate my way through it. But last night, as I laid in bed trying to relax( it takes me a while, now), I couldn't help but think over some of the bigger changes that have occurred since entering the so called sacred society of parenthood. So here are the 5 lessons that I came up with:

1.Sacrifice
As a Christian, I thought I had a pretty thorough understanding of the meaning of sacrifice. It's kind of a main theme in the bible, and I thought I had it down pat. But I quickly realised that I had a pretty shallow understanding of the idea, and a baby in the house is one of the quickest ways to learn about it. When you have this tiny, helpless creature absolutely dependant on you, many things come second, or even a hundredth place. I remember when the bean was about 3 weeks old and we just had one of those really bad days where he cried and cried for no apparently obvious reason and nothing that my husband or I could do stopped it. All that you can think of is STOP THE CRYING NOW. So, sleeping, eating, getting dressed, even brushing my hair did not happen that day. It took me a long time to accept and to adjust to the idea that my own needs/wants were second place. It's a lesson I'm still learning, and although I would like to think I am improving, I know there are days when it's two steps forward and three steps back!

2. Patience.
I am not the world's most patient person. I have always struggled in this area, except for when it comes to finishing a painting or a drawing ( then I have all of the patience in the world). But, a baby kind of changes that.  You can't rush a baby. If they don't want to sleep/feed/stop crying, then not much is going to persuade them to think otherwise. So, you find yourself at 3am rocking the baby and walking around the room singing lullabies ( and pretty much any other tune that pops into your head) for a good 2 hours. then, just when he has finally gone to sleep, the garbage men come along and the noise wakes the baby. sigh. So you start again...

3.Gratitude
I generally think of myself as a thankful person (see first post) so didn't really think I needed to be taught this one. But, no i was wrong. With a baby, you find yourself overwhelmingly thankful for even the tiniest of things - someone holding a door for you, the baby sleeping for longer than usual, someone not stating the obvious (as in 'you have vomit cascading down your shirt' or 'wow, your baby is really small. is he ok?'). So many people have helped in so many ways, and it's very humbling.

4. Confidence
I have never been a very confident person - I'm quite introverted and sometimes simple tasks can overwhelm me, whereas more complicated ones don't. But, when you become a parent, suddenly you have to make many decisions and you don't have the time to think them over. You worry that even the smallest thing could turn out to be the worst thing for your child. So, you have to learn to trust yourself a little bit more than you normally would. As a childhood worker, I used to say to many parents "oh, it's OK to make mistakes - it's natural. As long as you learn from it and show your child your intentions you will be fine!" To those parents - I'm sorry and I will never say it again. Promise.

5.Forgiveness
In this I mean forgiving yourself as well as others. It's very easy to beat yourself up over mistakes and miscommunication and to become overwrought with guilt/shame. I've become a lot better at letting things go. Before, when I would forgive someone, i would accept there apology, but it would take me a long time to let it go and to forget it. But now that I live in 'baby time', I have learnt to live more in the moment and to take (and survive!)each day as it comes. So I don't have room to mull over what was said and done but rather just accept it and be grateful for getting this far.