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.