Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.

Ok so we are not perfect. I know that I don't have all the answers to the woes of the parent. I don't mean to brag, because the next baby will be different I'm sure. I am constantly being served humble pie.

But we have achieved Sleep through the night with our kids. But my definition of sleep through the night might be different than yours.

1st I would just like to say that natural mothering instincts, not those created by science, are the best thing for your baby. If your baby cries sooth him. Seriously anybody who tells you that soothing your baby is wrong is just plain stupid. Sometimes babies are inconsolable, then you might have to let them cry, because what can you do?

But if you are like me, a co-sleeper with the talent of sleep nursing, and nursing solves 90% of your babies problems do it. Nurse that baby as much as he wants. My kids have all been nursed like crazy and through the night. I have made mistakes, being influenced by modern society with my first, and my second, but my third is probably more naturally mothered than the other ones. I cannot say our experience is the complete result of our parenting, because her personality is different, there are different things going on in our lives, we have different schedules than we had with the first two. But I'm sure that following mother's intuition is a factor in the current sleep peace we have.

For us sleeping through the night means a good five hours of sleep for us, the grown-ups, uninterrupted by crying, and we have been getting a good 6-7 hours of non crying sleep with an additional  5 hours all to ourselves to just watch tv or do other grown-up things. I honestly don't expect ever to sleep completely through the night uninterrupted again as long as I have little children. I just think it is unreasonable to expect anything more. And when you expect more you feel entitled to it, lets face it when you are a mother you are entitled to nothing, but your child's unconditional love.

My first kid was harder to wean to his own bed because there was no role model. We had to use rewards when he reached a certain age, but we never punished him for comming into our room or into our bed. I did not want him to think that being scared and needing company is a bad thing. Now if he has a nightmare he'll come and sleep on the floor in my room, but he sleeps in his own bed through the night 12/14 days.

Our second still comes into our bed occasionally, because she is more needy. That is her personality. I'm starting to try to encourage her to sleep on the floor if she comes in, but it is an idea to her right now and not practical. At night I read her a story, say prayers with her (she shares a room with her older brother), and then pray my evening prayers with the light off. She falls asleep and stays asleep in her own bed 12/14 nights. I did have a problem with her because for a long time she woke up screaming in the middle of the night. I discovered after a long time that it was a bowel inflammation issue (not a scientific diagnosis, my own so it is only still a hypothesis) which was cured by an enema. After that enema her personality change and she hasn't woken up with stomach cramps since. I can get into the full story in another post. And it was after that she began to sleep really well.

Now my third. She likes to sleep. She seems to not have any bowel or teething issues. Her body works well and she is healthy. I nurse her. She sleeps for 5 hours some times 8. When she wakes up (she is 1yr) I bring her into my bed. I nurse her back to sleep. and I don't know how many times since she nurses because I'm asleep, or mostly asleep. I have always allowed her to sleep nurse, because how would I sleep otherwise?

She wants to nurse and I think she knows what she needs, she is still a baby. My instincts say crying baby nurse her. That is what people did before science got involved in parenting. People I think where much happier being parents before they had to force the schedules of a grown-up world on developing baby.

The Marathon

As my 3rd baby reaches her 1st birthday it is time for me to prepare for the next possible pregnancy. God willing, I will most likely get pregnant again soon. As this time approaches, I think about what the next birth will be like and what my previous births were like.

I have had three awesome, amazing, astounding home births. I look back on them with relish. Not that I like pain, mind you, but the power and accomplishment of those births live in my memory. I'm proud of them. I like to talk about them, and think about them, and I look forward to the next, and I'll tell you why: It is like running a marathon.

Laugh if you like, but I think people who run real marathons are CRAZY. What the heck are they running from? Why do they run? And it is my understanding that running a marathon is incredibly painful and debilitating. What do you get at the end of a marathon, if you win and your chances are slim, a trophy. Oooh a trophy. When I finish my marathon I get a baby. That's right my marathon is better than yours.

At least my pain means something. Your pain means, "stop running your killing yourself". My pain means that my body is working. My body is telling me what the baby is doing and telling me what to do. I don't want a medicated birth, because I would miss what my body is doing, and frankly God gave me this body; I like it, and I want to use it to it's fullest. I get to feel not just the pain (which is excruciating) but also the baby. When that baby's head moves into the birth canal it is amazing, and with an epidural I wouldn't feel it. I wouldn't feel that baby's  head pop out. And then When I get that baby out all the way, since I am unmedicated, I can catch my own baby, pull him up, and hold him. I am the first person to touch my baby and that is satisfying.

I know modern medicine advocates who laugh at me, "Why not get an epidural? They are perfectly safe." Even though they make you sign something accepting the risks. I know of too many epidurals gone bad to use one for a casual purpose, like pain management. I say, "Marathon Woman take an opiate so you don't feel the pain of your precious marathon."

I don't think  God's primary intention of designing the female body was for running marathons, but he did design it to bear children, so it should work, and it does, when given a chance, a majority of the time, because if it didn't the human race would have died out long before modern medicine.

Before you laugh at my epidural free childbirth laugh at the marathon runner first.

AMDG JMJ+

As I sit here eating a delicious breakfast and sipping awesome coffee, I saw snow falling out the window. Big puffy snow flakes, really pretty snow. It reminded me of the presence of God, and that reminded me, of my mother...

My mother is a very good mother. She loved us, and she taught us to love God more than anything else.

My mother was always aware of the prescence of God. I remember, when I was little, my Mom's watch broke, and she needed a new one. She was very insistant to find one with an alarm that rang every hour. She was having trouble finding one, which frustrated her. I ask why she needed an one hour alarm. She said that she like to be reminded of the prescence of God every hour. That's why the falling snow led me to this conclusion. I live next to a church and whenever those bells ring (every hour), I am reminded of the prescence of God.

My mother told me always to keep God at the beginging of my day. My mother was a list person. Every moring she would make a plan for herself. And she would always write at the top AMDG and JMJ+. She told me they stand for Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (All for the Greater Glory of God) and Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

I feel very blessed to have a mother who taught me these things. And I hope I can be a mother like her.

I'm Gonna Teach You a Lesson

Today John got into a fight with a grown up. I'm going to refer to this person as Janet.

I'm telling you this because it inspired an interesting conversation.

John says to to me, "Well I'm going to teach Janet how to be nice, because she is being mean!"
I smirked and said, "You know, the best way to teach her is to pray for her that she is nice." And I walked away to change a diaper. John followed me and continued,
"I'm going to teach her a lesson, on how to be nice!"
"You can't it's not your job to teach a grown up how to behave."
"Well, who's job is it?"
"Her parents did the best job they could teaching her how to be nice. It was their job when she was little."
"But who's job is it to teach Janet now?"
"No one's... It's her job... She is supposed to work at becoming a better person all the time. I am too. Grown ups are always supposed to be working at becoming better people..." John was not satisfied and walked away grumbling.

 I often think it's my job to teach certain people lessons, without realizing that it's not my place. I really have to remember to let people be and just be meek. I should offer up the hard stuff and pray for them, rather than correcting them. Not to say there isn't a place for fraternal correction, I think I just do it too much.

 Constantly I'm trying to figure out how to behave like the Blessed Mother. She was perfect, is Perfect. She is a mother, and she raised a son. Given her son was perfect, but how does a perfect person deal with imperfection? What did she do when she was devalued? Or when someone was rude to her? When children in the neighborhood misbehaved how did she react?
It seems like a leap but this is were John's question brought me.

Anyone else wish for Spring?

I know that's a stupid question. Just about everyone wants it to be spring already. I have never been like this. I love the winter. As a kid I loved playing in the snow, as an adult I love looking out into the white world reminded of the presence of God. But now being a mother of three, I've had enough.

I am done wrapping them up and toting them around all bundled, only to have them either unbundle in the car or unbundle where we are and bundle them up again. I'm also done with the cabin fever. My kids are bored. They have so much energy and when I try to get it out of them by sending them out side they don't do anything out there. They just walk around and get cold. Then they come in all charge from the cold. My son spent 5 minutes spinning in the kitchen. just spinning. My poor kid.

So come on spring come back!

Pen name

 Perpetua Amatia. It was my assumed name for Latin class in high school. It means loved by The Perpetual, meaning God. Why would that make a good title for a blog? But I felt drawn to it. Something about that particular phrase drives to my heart.

God is the Perpetual. He is Infinity. He is eternal.

What was engraved on my wedding ring which I lost last year was "In Aeternum". Some Latin website had it as "phrases to engrave on wedding bands". They translated it to mean "for eternity". But the actual translation is actually far more profound.

Literally, because the Aeternum is in the accusative it is the object of the preposition, translated more accurately as "Into Eternity". That means more because it shows movement, force. We have made a commitment to each other that won't exactly last "for eternity" but will hold us until we move into eternity. Until we join full communion with Eternity, GOD.