little lyla

i love nursing lyla. i don't love newborn nursing. i like it. but i don't love it. it's every three hours or less and you feel like their is no reprieve from it. but now 3-4 times a day feels relaxing. no matter what i get 10 minutes, with ocean sounds, lights off, just the two of us. i enjoyed nursing ava as well. it was cut short a bit when i got sick, so i seem to think about it a lot more now because at this point in ava's life she was on formula (which is totally great. every family needs to do what is best for them and the baby). i believe i cherish it more now with lyla because of how quickly is ceased to exist with ava. it's a special time for just her and i. i am thankful for it because i can often miss the small things. i can move through the day a little quicker than necessary and miss really being with my kids.

justin put together lyla's birth video last night. i remember how fragile and beaten down i felt that day. nervous for the jumbled mess she was being born into. two heart broken parents. (justin's dad passed away this past christmas. unexpected and quickly). i don't think we realized how unsettled and shaken we were at the time of her birth until we've looked back. a time of grief compounded with a time of joy. i listened to myself on her video talk about ava and how much i love being a mom. but i realized that my love for being a mom tends to get jumbled up with yelling and shortness and frustration and annoyance and fatigue. all usually valid. i am not trying to be super mom nor be perfect nor pretend i have it all together. but i felt convicted as i watched myself on her video. do my girls see how i deeply i love them? how proud i am to be in their lives? to spend each day with them and be a part of nearly all the firsts they will have? i don't wanna miss this. time passes quickly and i do not want to miss this time. this is not stemming from guilt. life can cease to exist as it was meant to be if we sit in our guilt. or play the comparison game. that gets us no where and it only makes us feel bad about ourselves. that not my heart nor what i want. but i found as i watched a healthy conviction rise to the surface...i do love being a mother. that is true. is it not always fun and easy...no. not at all. but do my girls see in my actions and words that my love for them can not be measured nor put into words. do they know that? will they tell others someday that their mommy loved them hard and deep? i hope so. because that is the desire of my heart that often gets sidetracked. i want the sincere love i felt so raw when i told justin hours before welcoming lyla into this world...i love being a mom. I LOVE BEING A MOM. now i want to act like it. not be fake. sometimes it's hard and exhausting. but so is work and relationships and life. but in the midst of the realities of life and what comes into our paths i will choose to say yes more and smile more and be willing to read one more book at bedtime. not every night. i wont say yes all the time. i will get mad. i will cry. i will feel overwhelmed. but i want to be quicker to breath and listen and wait. not react out of my own stuff or my annoyance or my short fuse. i will keep my eyes on Christ and pray that what flows out of me is more of Him and way less of me.

above lyla's crib is a picture of justin and i and ava. lyla is photographed far less. we are working on that. anyways it's a picture that my sister, sara, took of us before i got sick and lost most of my hair. i look at it everyday. multiply times a day as it's right above lyla's crib. yesterday i remembered the back story to this picture. the three of us were on our bed and ava was only 8 months old at this point so was moving a lot and it was hard to get her to sit still for a second. we were on our bed looking out the window onto the water at the river house and pop pop was wearing a too small life jacket and walking back and forth making funny faces trying to get her to laugh and sit still. she did sit still. he had done his job. we got a very special picture out of it all. i am thankful we took the time to do that. but then i got mad and screamed. i cussed. i do that sometimes. the grief of losing ted seems to display itself in waves. this moment didn't last that long. i almost sent justin a text and then sara but something stopped me. what if they are having a great day and not hurting for ted in this moment. i would hate to cause that. so instead i sat on the bed with lyla and told her about pop pop and gave her the back story of the picture. then it hit me that because ted is no longer with us...his life, his memory is now told through stories and back stories. i became overwhelmed with sadness that lyla will not know him personally and really hating that. hating that life often times is far harder than what we would prefer. i think it's our nature to desire to comfort. that is not a bad thing. but comfort is fleeting and rarely exists for very long. because i believe in a greater hope and eternal life i am thankful that one day i will live in permanent comfort and safety and joy. that is what i can look forward too and i am thankful for it. but in that day my heart was over taken by sadness. i often wonder will lyla always represent these extreme wave of emotion for me. i don't really know and i that's okay. i just know that i missed ted really hard in that moment.

lyla is laid back. she seems to only cry if she is sleepy and her poop is hard as rocks. that happened this week but it's taken care of now. i can't hold lyla or smile at her without falling more in love with her. she gave me the chance to be a mom again. another reason to remember how far from cancer we have come and the greater purpose i find in my life because i am here. she brings justin so much joy that he is ready for us to have another one. i am not at the same place as him so we will just continue to enjoy her. both the girls represent such different things to me. ava is my strong fighter who cares deeply for those around her. i think maybe her mom taught her those things in cancer. lyla is my laid back joyful spirit. i think maybe her mom taught her those things post cancer. cancer showed me i was stronger than i ever imagined i was and life during and after cancer taught me that regardless of what happens to you...joy is a choice. i want to choose joy everyday and lyla shows me that it is possible.