A Letter to Myself on My First Day of Motherhood

This morning a beautiful little family was born. Two became three. I awoke to a text that a young couple in our church had delivered their baby in the night. And it got me thinking about a much younger me. I feel like I barely remember my 23 year old self holding 8 pounds 3 ounces of baby girl. God has taught me so much since then. And I thought about what I would tell myself about what lies ahead on this journey called motherhood. What would I say to myself on my first day as a mom?

Dear New Mama,

-You will survive breastfeeding. There will be tears. But your sheer determination and frugality will win. You will successfully breastfeed three children through their first year of life. (And bonus it will burn tons of calories!)

-You will sleep again...eventually. You think you can't survive sleep deprivation because you have always required a lot of sleep. It will be hard. Their will be nights when its time to go to bed and you will feel like you need to be ready to run a marathon because your second "day" is just beginning. You will be exhausted. But your husband will help and before you know it you will  have to get up for a bad dream or a puking child and you will realize how out of practice at the night shift you are.

-You were so afraid of your body completely falling apart and never working again after your amazing (insert total sarcasm here) birthing classes. Well, that was only half true. Your body will never be the same. You will bear the mark of childbirth on your body for all your days. But, you will heal. You will loose the weight (from all 3 babies!) and your husband will still think you are beautiful.

-You will gain confidence. And you will be unsure all over again. In the beginning you will be petrified to give your child a pacifier before its recommended or to make baby food without a recipe. (Yes, I seriously thought I needed more instructions that puree cooked veggies and fruit.)  But, with  hours of motherhood experience and each child you will gain more confidence in your mama style. You will teach your babies to sleep in their beds. You will conquer baby food making. You will let you baby boy suck his thumb and be confident enough to know it was what you had to do to survive. But your babies will grow, and you will be unsure all over again. As you navigate first days of school, homework, and girl drama you will recognize you still have so much to learn. The best advice- just take it one step at a time.

-You will discover how divisive this mothering thing can be. Breastfed or bottle. Sleeping on the back or (gasp) ignoring those hospital warning videos and sleeping on the tummy. Starting food at 4 months or 6 months. Attachment parenting vs. the Baby Wise schedule. Staying home or working. Time outs or spankings. Homeschool or public school. Activities vs. family time. And you will learn not to judge. When you see a toddler melting down in a store you will no longer think, "Oh, my word!" Instead you will whisper a prayer for that mother instead of thanking God it isn't your child. Because there will be days it is your child. You will learn there isn't one right way. And you will be able to embrace mothers doing what works for them.

-You hate being alone. That will change. You will discover a moment or two a day where you are by yourself and no one needs you can be a well deserved blessing.

-You will discover that parenting is super hard. You will realize what you desperately need is not a book or a method or even a break. What you desperately need is the Holy Spirit to produce fruit in you.

-You will learn to embrace the kids God gave you and not the kids you dreamed of. Because lets be honest who dreams of realistic kids anyway? God will challenge you to accept that your kids aren't necessarily ones that would be labeled "easy." You will think you've learned this lesson. And then you will have to learn it all over again and again as you struggle to give up the perfect family facade you desperately want to hold on to. You will cling to the truth that what your kids need is Jesus and not a certain personality type. You will be committed to seeing their unique bent and helping that flourish, even when you don't think you will survive their strong-willed personality (on steroids).

-You will promise yourself that you will NEVER say to a young overtired, stressed out mother in the grocery store, "Cherish EVERY moment. They grow up so fast." Because her life doesn't seem like a Hallmark movie right now and it certainly doesn't seem like its going by fast. You realize now no one EVER cherished the puking or the sleepless nights. They have just forgot about them. All they remember now is the snuggles and the smiles. And someday you will miss those too.

-You will never see things the same way again....ever. You will never watch a movie and have the credits roll without seeing your kids having a dance party, you will never see a red plate without seeing a celebrated spelling test, you will never eat a cupcake without seeing God's provision, you will never see shaped pancakes and big Saturday morning breakfasts without remembering these littles and the ways they have changed your life forever.

Love,
The Mama, 8  years 7 months

Wondering what I will write to myself in another 8 years...Grace will have her driver's license.

I think I had better take my own advice and take it one day at a time.

My Dirty Little Secret

Today I am going to let you in on a dirty little secret about myself.

I am selfish.

There. It's done. I've spoken the truth.

If God has used motherhood to teach me one thing about myself this is it.

Please don't argue with me. Or list things you see me doing that seem "unselfish." Because the truth is that so much of the sin in my life basically boils down to selfishness.

I'm pretty sure Mother Teresa never said phrases like, "For the love of all that is good and holy just GO TO BED so I can watch a short show and eat a bowl of popcorn before I fall into bed exhausted."

What this isn't your normal nightly bedtime routine?

Me either. I let my kids pray as long as they want to and then sing them their own uniquely chosen bedtime Jesus song.

At least on the nights we have company over.

And I'm almost certain June Cleaver never said when her husband came home from work, "Either get me a date night on the calendar or I'm going to shrivel up and die from lack of adult conversation." or texted her friends, "Please pray for me. I feel my kids are in mortal peril. If J doesn't get home from work soon someone might not make it."

You better believe that text totally doesn't exist on my phone...because I deleted it.

Before I became a mother if you had asked me if I was a selfish person I would have said no. And I would have felt pretty good about that, because in some ways God has made me a natural giver.  And so I comfortably sat under the false assumption that made me unselfish.

Then we ushered in our fourth child and something in me broke. And it took me by total surprise.

I had prepared myself for the challenges of adopting a child. And boy are their joys and challenges. But, that isn't what this is really about.

"Everyone" had told me that after three you just run out of hands and whats one more. The motherhood masses seemed to agree that the adjustment to child number 3 was the hardest and after that well you kind of had the "big family" thing down.

I really, really, really wanted that to be true. Sorry for all the "reallies" but they help me show you how bad I wanted easy adjustment to be our reality instead of real lies. (See what I did there...aren't I clever? Okay, maybe not...)

I wanted to rock the facade that we do crazy well and we are just loving this little life with "lots" of children well.  But, the truth is in my experience being a mama to four is harder then being a mama to three.

In general being a mama with joy in her heart daily to the precious ones God has given me has been nothing short of a Holy Spirit miracle some days. Instead I feel grumpy and worn out. I feel like the bar on my motherhood goals are so low. Like keeping them fed, alive, somewhat showered, alive, and homework done (maybe signed and turned in), and ALIVE are all I can handle. And I don't feel great about that, but I feel like its the reality that I'm hanging out in.


I want my kids to go to bed so I can relax.

I want to have a girls night so I can recharge.

I basically worship the date on my calendar that promises a date night with my hubbie.

I live for moments of peace and quiet when they are in bed and I'm not messing it up or loosing my temper.

I want my kids to be easy and well behaved instead of training them up in the way God has uniquely made them to change this world for him.

I don't want to look like a frazzled over tired mess that got herself in over her head.

I want my life to be fun. easy. comfortable.

And on the days when its not I'm trying to be thankful that Jesus died for selfish little me. For the part of me that still screams like a bratty little child, "I want my way! I deserve my way! So many other mothers have it easier than me!" More of me is going to have to die in order to raise my children well. Not the good parts, but the selfish parts need an eviction notice.

In the midst of the struggle the Lord recently gave me this promise from Isaiah, "You will keep in PERFECT PEACE him whose mind is steadfast, because he TRUSTS in you. Trust in the Lord forever for the Lord, the Lord, is the rock eternal." I am claiming this verse. I don't see its truth right now. I don't feel perfect peace. But, I am trying to trust that God indeed gave me these four little people to raise and that I can trust him. I am trying to park my brain and set up camp there in the truth of God's word.

And I'm feeling pretty good about that goal right now, mostly because my kids finally went to bed.

I love my 4 kids.
I love being a mama.

And I mostly love that it is challenging me to become more like Jesus than anything I've ever done.

The Last Bite

The Humiston family is not good at everything.

We are not good at being quiet or sitting still.

We are not particularly fashionable.

We are horrible at yard work most of the time.

And have mercy, we can barely take a decent family photo to save our lives. (Right Aunt Jo Jo?)

But, there are few things we are pretty good at. One of them is being helpers. If I said "Humiston's are..." My kids would all jump in and say, "Helpers!" Unless that is I did it in front of you hoping to impress you, then they would look at me with blank stares like we don't repeat this phrase every other day in our home. Both Jeremy and I come from families that value hard work and loyal service and so its become one of our family mottos if you will.

Another value we are trying to impress upon our kids' hearts is being good stewards of the blessings the Lord give us. When you rub shoulders with people in your city and across the world who know hunger it changes your perspective on throwing away food. So we are trying not to waste things. One way this shows up is in a phrase we stole from Jeremy's childhood "Take all you want, but eat all you take." (I know some of you are quietly thinking we are sending them straight to a future weight loss support group. Don't worry our big kids are catching on quick to portion size and our littles don't get to choose how much they take anyway.)

I am all about letting my kids feed themselves. So Titus has been spooning his own nourishment into his little (okay maybe not so little ) mouth since before his first birthday. Out of this came something unexpected. When he would finish yogurt or applesauce I would then scrape up the last bit and say, "last bite." So we didn't waste the last bite or two he didn't have the fine motor skills yet to get. And somehow it just caught on. He is now 4 1/2 years old and he still says, "Mama, last bite!" He hands me his spoon and I scrape out hopefully a bite. I hadn't really caught on to how special this little ritual was until along came our 4th child.

When David came home and got a yogurt we didn't have to teach him to eat it all. His little survival skills told him that you eat yummy food to the last drop. When he handed the container back to me it literally looked like he had taken it to the sink...and washed it with soap and water. However, he caught on to the "last bite." And before long (and when he had a little English under his belt) he would smile and hand me his yogurt cup and say, "Last Bite!" In the beginning, I would pretend to scrape the sides and feed him a "bite." Because lets be honest there wan't anything there to make up a bite.

But, then something happened.

Watching a brother whole loved the mama giving the last bite over and over.

Time home.

A mama who always shared the last bite instead of eating it herself.

One day it turned into him intentionally leaving yogurt in his cup. He trusted me to share. He trusted that if he didn't lick the cup clean there would be more. And he knew what he needed wasn't just a last bite it was for it to come through the hands of his loving mama.

And at some point when I could string two thoughts together I realized God has been teaching me the same. As I mentioned last week I am generally a go getter. So if we need something my general approach is to take action. I prioritize city wide garage sales. I pursue the good will. I watch for bargains online. I post needed items on Facebook to see if someone had something to share. And there is nothing wrong with any of those things. However, God has shown me what I really need isn't a pair of boots for my daughter's horse back riding lessons or a microwave.

What I REALLY need is for them to come through the hands of my loving Father, because I trust him to always share.

And oh, the stories I can tell of his abundance to share. Another day.