lately,...sorta

 Well I am now almost 4 months into this mom thing, and almost 2 months into this living in a new place starting over thing. I am really understanding all the strange things that both moms and displaced people do- for example, I have avoided this blog because I want the most recent post to remain being the birth story of my baby girl, because then maybe it will remain to be something that was "recent". Silly right? But if you are a mom you might have just read that and thought, or said aloud, "no!".

I know now, I get it.

So anyway- since that birth story my world has been turned upside down with both learning how to continue to function with a baby as well as moving somewhere that I know no-one when she was 7 weeks old. I am still sorting out my feelings about this move, about how God has provided in ways I don't like, and about the idea of being a mom in conjunction with every other role I have.

So I will probably take the next post to do some baby catch up via photos and snippits of Kyra's first few months, but for today I am going to actually post something I wrote right after we moved...

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So I knew that the Lord was going to use my baby girl to teach me some things and to open my eyes and heart to understanding more about his love for me- his child. I don't think I expected it so soon though.

When our baby girl was first born it was pretty easy to figure out what she needed- she only ever cried to eat, if she was cold, or if she needed her diaper changed (she also would cry when her tummy hurt but that was a very different cry).

But now that she is a little over 2 months old, she is starting to express herself in more complex ways. She now cries because she is bored, or because she is sleepy, or sometimes it seems she cries just to cry. So now it is more difficult to figure out what she needs. Whenever she does cry- I am fully invested in figuring out what it is I need to do to make her happy and can't do anything else until she is calm because of how it hurts my heart to see her sad.

The hardest cry for me to handle (aside from if she was hurt) is when she cries out of hunger. It breaks my heart every time she turns her head and roots the air looking for me- I've seen babies do this before, but now its different. In my belly she never felt hunger- but now she does. The moment I see that I scoop her up and hurriedly try to get situated to feed her. But it usually takes a few minutes and sometimes she doesn't realize I have figured out why she is crying yet and so she continues to cry (the chin quiver is the absolute worst!)

Since she was born I have said the same thing to her in this situation- Once she starts nursing and calms down I will tell her "see, I knew what you needed. I'm going to take care of you sweet baby, you don't have to worry"

Of course the Holy Spirit totally checked me the other day as I was saying this to her. We were in the car and were on the way to a place where I could feed her. I was trying to explain to my crying baby that we were on our way and it would just be a couple more minutes, but of course she couldn't understand why there would be any delay. All she could see was I was sitting next to her doing nothing as she cried to me for milk.

While at the moment, I don't feel like I'm presently at a place where God comes through and there is relief from the crying. But there have been many times like that in the past that I should remember. Times where he has said to me "See? I knew what you needed. I'm going to take care of you my child, you don't have to worry"

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About a month 1/2 after writing this I am a little discouraged that I feel like I am still in the same place as I was then. I have realized my life is a nomadic one, and not just for myself, but also for my family. I'm comforted, however, because I know my love for this baby girl is far far far surpassed by God's love for her and for me. And if my heart is torn to pieces when ever she is in any level of pain, and it sends me rushing to help- I am without doubt that God's love for me moves him into action as well.

But- just like Kyra was not understanding of why I couldn't just feed her while we were driving, I have no more capacity to understand why God responds to my need in the way or in the time that he does.

I simply have to trust him the way my baby girl trusts me.

Profound.
Thank you Lord for speaking to me through my daughter.