Hard, Happy Days

The last couple days have been a bit exhausting for me.  I worked three days in a row, early in the morning (getting up at 5am is not ideal for me... 8 sounds much nicer!).  I was looking forward to a restful weekend, but Kalyn got a nasty cold, and a few errands needed to be run.  Saturday turned out to be slightly less of a break than I anticipated.  However, there is always Sunday! Thank goodness for Sundays.  It was stake conference, so church was an hour shorter than usual.  I was happy about that since I had to go by myself.  Kalyn was still sick.  I did get some rest, but I also started getting that weird feeling in my throat, nose, and head that you get when a cold is coming on.  I was catching Kalyn's cold just in time for an early start on Monday morning (today), followed by a six-hour shift.  I was feeling a little bit hopeless because I desperately just wanted to sleep.

Among all this exhaustion the Lord sent me a few tender mercies.  I found a babysitter with ease.  Rex beat his record of hours of sleep a night: 7 hours one night!  I know how rare that is for a two-month-old.  I tried on the next smallest pair of pre-pregnancy pants that my legs didn't even fit into last time I tried putting them on and they actually fit.  Then, on Sunday night Rex rolled from his tummy to his back on his own for the first, second, and third time in his life.  I am so proud :) All I can say, is that I am prepared for a tough semester (even though I am not in school), but I can get through it with a smile because among all that is hard there are such happy things happening too.

Blessings

I am feeling extremely blessed right now, and very humbled.  I wanted to write about it and share more about how being a mother has helped me grow.  I have only been a mother for two short months, but in that time I have been humbled a lot.  A couple weeks ago we moved into a new apartment.  A new home means changing ward boundaries, unfortunately (or maybe it will be fortunate too).  I was just becoming very comfortable where I was, and as the Lord often does when people are comfortable, He threw a few growth opportunities at me.  I won't call them trials, because I can't say my baby boy is all trial.  He is mostly blessing.  When he was born I was given a dose of reality of how much help I really would need.  For one thing, I could hardly move on my own when I first got out of the hospital due to the third-degree tears.  My mom was there to help make sure our apartment didn't become a trash dump and to keep me from being insanely overwhelmed every time Kalyn went to work.  Some people brought us meals.  Others volunteered to babysit when I was desperate to find someone while I went to work.  I couldn't pay any of them, because of our tight college-student budget, but they all were willing.  In fact most of them told me thank you for letting them watch him! Ha! I wasn't expecting that since they were the ones helping me out.

Then came the time to move.  With a month and a half old baby this took about six times longer than it should have.  In fact we took several days to finish everything.  A few people helped us clean and even more came to help us move.  I don't know how I would've gotten it done on my own.  Then we had to unpack our new apartment (which I am still finishing...).  Let's just say I was feeling drained at that point and I, again, felt like it would be impossible to finish everything.  Then Kalyn called his mom, who agreed to come help us babysit while I attempted to unpack.  It was good timing, because between the stress of working and moving and finding babysitters among the usual stresses, I got sick.  I think it was mastitis.  I had just under a 101 degree fever and was completely useless for a day and a half.

All that calmed down for about a week before we realized that school was about to start.  I am not in school this semester, but Kalyn is, and that means less hours of work for him, and more for me.  Again, finding babysitters became a problem.  Being in a new ward, I was worried to death about finding people who would be willing to watch Rex, especially since I couldn't hardly pay them.  A couple of posts later on Facebook I found myself not with one babysitter for the semester, but five girls who were willing to do it.  I can't even put into words how that made me feel.  Some weird mixture of relief and discomfort.

Asking for help has always been something I struggle with.  I don't like to do it.  God has given me a huge lesson on how important it is to take care of other people.  Everyone needs something!  I have been thinking more and more about how little I have done for others and know I need to change that.  I have set myself a goal to help people as much as I can.  It might not be a lot right now, because of how much I need help myself, but I know there are opportunities everywhere.  I'll be looking.  I really believe that God is looking after little me.