Lessons, Part 2

Another thing that was surprising was how many times I had to hear certain pieces of advice in order for them to stick.

One example was when people would say that my main job was “to feed the baby” or “keep the baby alive” or something similar. It took me weeks and weeks to be able to adjust my daily expectations.

One day at a time...

The problem is that I kept thinking my plans were fairly modest and reasonable.

Was it too much to ask to be able to brush my teeth before noon, take a shower every once in a while, cook a simple meal? Everyone was saying “no (new) mother can do it all.” Well, I wasn’t trying to do it all. I thought I had planned pretty simple activities, and they were still too much to handle.

I have to admit that social networking played a role here. Mothers, I’m not blaming you, but the newborn photo shoots are hard to look at! Not the photos themselves, but the idea of it. You got the whole family dressed and dolled up and maybe even out the door to a studio somewhere, and the baby behaved himself, and then you probably even printed some up for a Christmas card. I know there is more to the story, but that’s what I see when I look at the finished product. Just a moment of weakness for me.

I wrote up a list of important yet manageable tasks and put them on the refrigerator. I still didn't always do them and I still wanted to do big projects like unpacking everything from our recent move. But the list was supposed to have a sort of authority, commanding me to STAY ON TASK.

It took a long time to realize that there wasn't a deadline for this kind of life. Well, you CAN be too late to perform certain acts of love, I suppose. But the dishes will still be there tomorrow. 

Around the Table

Andrei and I purposely sought out an apartment with a kitchen that was big enough to SIT in. Of course, in Russia, people will squeeze into a kitchen of any size-that's where the best conversations take place! But here we have an actual dining area. We have a living room, too, but often just end up in the kitchen. Maybe it   feels cozier.

Nina and Vladimir and the psychedelic wallpaper...

Andrei is a big fan of the works of Francis Schaeffer and of the L'Abri idea. Our small group has been meeting at our place recently, but it's been a little disjointed. Out of the many members, only a few show up each time, and it's a different few. We're happy to see those who come, but where is everybody else? We're not really doing a formal study at the moment. Either we read a book of the Bible and have some free-form discussion, or sometimes asks a question about faith in daily life, and we discuss that. And then pray.

I'm inclined to enjoy the moments when the group is small and each person gets to speak his/her mind. We were nearing the end of our gathering last time, when I realized that we were having a "L'Abri" sort of experience. Though professed believers, none of us has it all figured out. It was good to ask and answer some questions that we all ponder at one time or another. We encourage regular church attendance, but sometimes people come and go, or choose a different church to join. So it's good when each encounter can be edifying, because the next one, if it happens, is always different.

Lessons, Part 1

Some surprising (to me) observations about the parenting experience…

After a baby joins the family, the mother will go through a certain emotional reaction. Of course the father has his own emotions, but all the hormones and everything are happening to the mother.

Soo…a few weeks after a baby has been born, the mother may experience the “baby blues.” For me this was a feeling of intense sadness mixed with disappointment that my status as a heroine had dwindled and that all energy now needed to be focused on the baby (just quoting my journal here).

Lots of crying. New parents may feel emotional for different reasons. What surprised me was that I began to think a lot about death. While struggling with feeling like I had been abandoned (though surrounded by loved ones 24/7), I began to think about future milestones in the baby’s life. I think partly I was trying to give myself some bright moments to look forward to.

I pictured him growing up and going to school and going off to college and getting married. But instead of thinking of these as accomplishments, I pictured myself growing older and my life coming to an end. When I was single, or even when we were first married, it felt like there was a lot of living left to do. There wasn’t really anything to mark how old I was. Age really was “just a number.”

But having a child made me think more about my mortality, in more than a wrinkles/gray hair way. Yes, that particular emotional period is over, but I’m still changed forever through this experience. When I think about the future, I have much to look forward to, but I also have to remind myself of the Gospel daily. I just can’t imagine approaching death without that hope.

I know this may sound depressing, but I wanted to share.

Our Advent

We got to church today (over a snowy terrain) just in time for Andrei to open the service by lighting the first Advent candle.

From the back of the room I saw a seat up in front occupied by a friend of ours who just finished his year of compulsory army service (it was 2 years back when Andrei was serving). His mother entered the room a few minutes later, beaming with joy. What a blessing for him to be home.

Looking around, it took me a few minutes to realize that about 50% of those in attendance were children, and also that I didn't know many people in the room. Nope, I wasn't at the wrong church service. A local Christian children's shelter had arranged to visit on this, the first Sunday of Advent. A few of the kids did a little musical act and their counselor later did a presentation on how their ministry is going. And other people were just visiting, I guess...I never did find out!

In front of me, two boys (non-visitors) were fooling around all through the worship and opening prayers, their fathers standing nearby and telling them to knock it off every few minutes or so. I resisted the urge to make a loud shushing noise. Then something in my heart changed. I looked at the two boys with their arms wrapped around each other and I thought, they are growing up in church together. May their friendship be long-lived! I usually sat with my parents as a child, but there was a period when I sat with friends from youth group in the back row (oooooh), passing notes and whispering. Maybe we didn't get the "church" part of it right all the time, but it still laid the foundations for deeper fellowship once the time came.

Poor Little David's peers are all girls, but hopefully they'll be great friends anyway!