A bit of a funk

This is a serious 360 from my last post, but such is life…

I am in a cranky rut. I feel permanently grouchy and I hate it. Have I been seeking God..His word? No. (I can hear my dad asking that) is this all my own fault? I guess…partially… or more than.

~Do not be afraid to be different from other people~ I finally cracked open my devotional book.

I'm feeling so overwhelmed as a mother…as a woman. I am tired all the time. I feel like I can barely keep up with Brody, let alone find time to be a patient and pleasing wife.  And what about me? I just feel like I get burned out too fast, too often.  It scares me.  What kind of a mother does that make me? I know it's no good to compare myself to other moms, but it's kind of hard not to. I don't know… I don't know whats wrong with me. I guess I am in a funk. Or I don't know how to be a mom, or maybe I am not a very proactive mom. Is Brody getting enough? Do I interact with him enough? Teach him enough?  Show him enough of the world? Am I patient enough with him? Am I parenting by living example? Whatever made me think I could do this mother thing? It is easy to get caught up in the beauty and miracle of making a baby, but man…the responsibility of shaping a life: WOW. So overwhelming. So precious. Who am I to undertake such a task?

I am all over the place…but just to perk things up a bit, I wrote this the other day and never quite finished it. I am going to share it anyway because rereading it makes me feel happy.

I'm having one of those mornings where I continually fall in love with each little thing Brody does. Even when it's not something I necessarily want him doing. I can't help it though. Just knowing that his little mind is working and calculating and figuring things out, he always surprises me.

Lets start off with this morning. I usually wake up before him and lay in bed until he wakes up. The tell here is the pitter patter of his feet running from his room, across the kitchen to our room. It's the best sound ever. It makes me smile and my heart flutter. Then I see his little face come into our room all smiles. He quickly discovered the convenience of Remi's doggy stairs and uses those to climb up onto our bed, throwing himself into my arms. Some mornings he'll snuggle in for awhile, some mornings he's ready to go go go. Either way, on the rare occasions he's had a night over at Nana's or Grammies, I miss those  racing little feet in the morning.

Eating. Yeah eating, I know, BORING. But NOT. He's developing his own tastes and preferences and his independence. He's getting better at letting me know when he's hungry and even though he can get pretty demanding when it comes to snacks, I secretly kind of love that he knows where they are housed and that he tries his hardest to get to them without help. Sorry kid, but you'll have to be taller than mommy to get that latch off the pantry! For example, this morning, I opened the fridge thinking he wanted his morning milk, but nope, he wanted greek yogurt. He grabbed it off the bottom shelf, headed toward the silverware drawer, received his spoon from mommy and took off to the table. I stirred it up for him and he was set. He didn't want help eating it, and he ate every last bite. Talk about an easy breakfast. Clearly that wasn't completely satiating because when I got out of the shower I discovered a banana peel on the living room floor. Trust me, my instinctive reaction wasn't exactly happy, I though he'd possibly dug it out of the garbage! But further investigating proved my clever little boy pushed a chair over to the kitchen counter where the bananas hang out, got into the bag, pulled one out and peeled it!! All by himself. He even seems to have ate it at the table as there was still half a banana sitting in front of his spot at the table. Mad? I couldn't be. I was to impressed with him being so self sufficient. I just asked him to through the peel in the garbage, please.

Speaking of eating, Brody always seems to know when I am eating cereal. Little man loves himself some cereal and he's already figured out the milk at the end is the best part. I say that because he always manages to pull himself away from whatever he's playing at right when I am taking my last few bites of cereal before the gulp down begins. So, I of course share a few bites and then it's inevitable he gets the milk. I know I am the adult here, and I don't have to let him have the milk, but milk IS good for him, and I just love that he wants to chug it down. Every last drop.

I suppose when I am feeling how I am today, it does me good to look back at older posts, a reminder of why I DO love being a mom. And while I have my doubts as to my parenting ability, I also have a happy, loving, incredibly smart little boy.