The Mom Crowd

A few months ago, Amanda wrote about the importance of mommy time and how much we all need it in our lives to stay sane and healthy.  We all know how important it is for us to take some time for ourselves to relax and sometimes just to breathe, but another aspect of mommy time I have discovered that benefits me even more than traditional mommy time is what I call “Mommy Growth Time”. 

For me, Mommy Growth Time consists of a weekly 3 hour gathering with other women who are all seeking to grow in their faith and learn how to be better mothers, wives and friends.  We have a time of discussion about the topic of our study and then break up into small accountability groups.  These groups have been my encouragement the last few months.

Accountability in parenting and married life is so important.  None of us are perfect and we all struggle dealing with certain aspects of our lives that we could use encouragement and non-judgemental advice from people with whom we respect and relate.  I’ve found too many times that when I have told someone about something I am struggling with, I am met with criticism and judgement.  Quite frankly, at that point any advice that has been offered may as well have been thrown out a window because I quit listening.  Accountability groups are a great way to avoid the negativity and find real solutions and support. 

Other mom friends of mine find growth and encouragement in MOPS groups (Mothers of Preschoolers) or in Motherwise groups.  I think the importance of gathering with other moms, without your children, to grow and learn something about yourself is vital to maintaining your sanity, especially if you are a stay-at-home-mom.  Playdates are great, but we all need more!

I strongly encourage every mom to find some kind of group that focuses on motherhood and give it a try.  You will gain amazing friendships and will have an outlet for coping with the struggles of mommy hood without all the unwanted condescending remarks.

Are you part of a growth group?  How has this helped you become a better mom, wife and/or friend? 

Photo Courtesy of tomhe

At our son’s 4 year old check-up in June, our pediatrician dropped a bombshell on us… “he’s obese”.  How on earth could this perfectly healthy child with easily viewable ribs be obese?  Our pediatrician suggested that we see a nutritionist and get the situation “under control”.  We walked out of the appointment baffled by the thought of our thin child being obese.   

After talking to other friends who use the same pediatrician, I found that this was almost a common diagnosis.  We compared our children and all agreed that they look healthy.  Not too thin, not too thick… just right.  (And truthfully, we are the kind of friends who would say if things appeared differently!)  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how this diagnosis could apply to these kids.  They were healthy, active kids! 

Then it dawned on me… Body Mass Index (BMI), the way in which obesity is measured, measures height to weight proportions.  It does not take into account muscle mass.  While most children aren’t teeming with bulging muscles, they can have significant muscle mass.  I take this to be a huge flaw in the overall diagnosing process.  BMI also does not take into account a growth spurt.  Some children gain weight and then grow in height and even out.   

Of course, we have taken steps to try and reduce Andrew’s overall weight, as with his diabetes he is more prone to developing other life-threatening conditions later in life, but now we are just amazed at how thin he looks. 

And then there is the flip-side… “they are too thin”.  Two of my friends have been criticized in their parenting because their children are by nature exceptionally thin.  They are healthy children, but just tend to be very thin, even when mom tries shoving cupcakes down their throats to get them where they are “supposed” to be. 

 My friends and I have all come to the same conclusion: while we trust and look to our pediatricians for support and guidance, there are just sometimes that we feel we need to throw their medical expertise out the window and trust our own parental instincts as to what is right and wrong for our children. 

Have you had a similar experience?  How did you handle it?  Do you feel comfortable at times not following your pediatrician’s recommendations? 

Photo Courtesy of webchicken

There comes a time in every family’s life that you change churches for one reason or another.  Maybe it’s because you just moved or maybe it’s because you just felt God calling your family to serve somewhere else.  Either way, visiting churches can be extra tricky when you have young children. 

Late last year, my husband and I made the decision to change churches because we had been feeling for a while that God was leading us to another church family.  We loved the people at our old church and it was a very difficult thing for us to think about doing.  In fact, we waited for about 6 months before finally deciding to take the plunge and start looking for where we were supposed to be.  Our biggest hang up… our kids!  We truly felt that for our family to join a church, the entire family needed to feel a sense of belonging and comfort, so the decision was not ours alone, but rather that of us and our two young children.

Our biggest concern was how our son, Andrew, would handle the change.  He was only 3 1/2 years old and was incredibly emotional and shy at the time.  He did not take to change well and we knew he would miss his old Sunday school teacher whom he loved so much.  Add on to that his diabetes and being concerned that he was in good hands, and we were a nervous wreck!  We knew our daughter, Catherine, only 1 year old at the time, would do pretty well where ever we put her, but we still were concerned about her happiness as well.   

Luckily for us, we truly already knew where we were supposed to be and it was our first stop, but there was a lot of work behind the scenes before we made our first visit.  Here are a few ideas on how to make the transition time smoother for you and your children. 

 - Call the church’s childcare ministry and get information on the programming  in which your children will be involved.  Find out schedules and routines and make sure to ask if they serve snack or if you should bring your own.  If your child has health issues, make sure they are equipped to handle any special needs or accommodations.

 - To get an idea if you will like the pastor, check out their website and see if they have a video archive or live webcast you can view.  In doing so,  you can get a good idea if it’s somewhere you would really like to be or not.

 - You and your spouse can take turns visiting while one stays at home with the kids.  If you aren’t quite ready to jump into taking the entire family to a church you aren’t sure you will visit again, take turns with your spouse visiting so you both can get a feel for it and then decide from there if you want to continue going and take your children the next time.

 - Always consider the emotional development of your children.  Some kids will fit in well anywhere and it won’t really be an issue for you, whereas other children may take longer to adjust and feel comfortable.  Take into consideration their feelings for the environment and listen if they say they are overly uncomfortable.

 - Ask if you can visit your child at some point during your time at the church.  For us, it is necessary that we check in on our son between our Sunday school and Worship service for health purposes, but honestly, we’d do it anyway!

 - And as always, pray about it!  It’s a big decision on every level and the best thing you can do is pray about it before making any big steps.  You can’t go wrong if you are going where God wants you! 

Have you had to make a church change since having children?  What things did you do to prepare them for the change?  How would you do things differently?

Photo courtesy of NathanReed

It’s been a while since I’ve been pregnant, 20 months in fact, but the uncertainties of pregnancy still run through my mind often.  While some women seem to breeze through pregnancy without so much as a single Braxton Hicks contraction, others, like me, are not so lucky.  I’ve been trying to think of some pithy way to express my confusion about the wonders of pregnancy but decided that the best way to do it is just to make two lists… one with the things that just plain stink about pregnancy and one with all the wonderment and joys of it.  As a preface, let me just say that I am one of those people who absolutely loves being pregnant and wishes it could be a perpetual state, but even I have my limits!

The Woes I Did Not Know:

- Morning Sickness can be such a misnomer!  Our first successful pregnancy proved to be very challenging as I dealt with “morning, mid-morning, noon, afternoon, evening, night sickness”.  I had developed a condition many women do not know about called Hyperemesis Gravidarum.  It is a very severe form of morning sickness in which those affected vomit constantly, find no relief and lose 5% or more of their body weight.  I lost 20 pounds in  my first trimester and had to be hospitalized.  I suffered with this condition my entire pregnancy.  Talk about rough!

- Joint pain is real in pregnancy!  With Andrew, I didn’t experience this at all, but early in my second trimester with Catherine, my hips burned with arthritis type pain.  It would be so severe some nights that I would toss and turn and never be able to find a comfortable position.  I also did not know that this condition can hang around for many months after pregnancy as well. 

- Constipation is 10 times worse when you are pregnant!  Because your body produces extra progesterone during pregnancy, it also increases the effects of the hormone in your system.  Progesterone slows down digestion, thus making constipation more likely.  Constipation is also more difficult to treat during pregnancy.  The only things I could do to relieve mine was drink decaf coffee, eat a ton of grapes and drink plenty of water.  And when it got really bad, I had to use glycerin suppositories.  Not exactly a glamorous moment!

- Induction is not all it’s cracked up to be!  I was induced with Andrew because I was making absolutely no progress on my own.  Even my doctor thought Andrew would be happy just to stay in my belly permanently.  The first few hours of my induction weren’t too bad, but after the fifth hour, the pain was completely intolerable and by the ninth hour, Andrew could not handle the stress from the drugs and I was rushed into emergency surgery for a c-section.  What I thought was to be a great experience turned into a scary day when my baby’s heartbeat could not be found and a vaginal delivery was no longer an option.

The Little Things I Enjoyed:

- The feeling of my children moving in my belly was the coolest thing ever!  I would lay on my couch, watching American Idol, just feeling Andrew groove to the music in my belly.  I loved that feeling and missed it once I gave birth.

- Being pregnant made me feel more beautiful than I ever felt in my life!  To this day, I miss my baby bump.  I always felt that pregnancy was one of God’s most beautiful creations and seeing pregnant bellies, especially mine, confirms that in my heart!  I never felt fat, just that I looked more feminine and beautiful than ever before.

- Shopping for baby stuff was more fun than shopping for anything I ever wanted for myself!  I didn’t feel like paying $180 for a crib bedding set was ridiculous, when if it was something I wanted, I never would have even considered it. 

- Getting to hold my children in my arms after they were born was one of the most fulfilling and awesome moments of my life!  Seeing their cute little noses, long eyelashes and full heads of hair was such an amazing experience. 

Of course, there were many other things that I loved about being pregnant… well, I actually even loved throwing up because it meant I was still pregnant, but all that said, pregnancy can be easy or difficult, but it’s ALWAYS worth it!!! 

What were some of the things you wish you had known about pregnancy?  Were there more unexpected “woes” or “joys” for you?

Photo Courtesy of otzberg

It’s midnight and your baby/toddler is wide awake… for the third time.  He had his nap today, but was waken up 40 minutes after falling asleep by the UPS man ringing the doorbell.  He should be exhausted and sleeping soundly, right? 

Many of us, I’m sure, have experienced similar situations with our kids.  It seems contrary to rational thought and reasoning that a child who is sleep deprived won’t sleep.  However, Kim West, author of Good Night, Sleep Tight, suggests that there is actually a physiological reason for this phenomena.  She says that your child’s “adrenal glands send out a rush of cortisol, a stress related hormone that will overstimulate your baby…” making them agitated and more difficult to soothe.  At bedtime, they will most likely be harder to get to sleep and “the cortisol and overtiredness team up to make it harder for him to stay asleep.  He is more likely to wake up at night, and to wake up too early in the morning before he is truly rested.”  In other words, good sleep begats good sleep, and well, bad sleep begats no sleep!  The better your little one sleeps during the day, the better they will sleep at night.

So the most obvious question is how to avoid this torturous cycle.  Here are a few suggestions I have tried and usually find helpful:

- Stick to your routine as much as possible. There will obviously be some days that you just can’t be home at your child’s exact nap time, but try to at least be somewhere your child can have a quiet resting time and put them down for a nap as soon as you get home.

- If your child wakes from nap too early, DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN TO GET THEM BACK TO SLEEP!  If it means rocking them, back patting, or an extra cup of milk, it’s worth it in the longrun for everyone that they get that needed sleep!

- Watch for your child’s sleep cues and act quickly!  Sometimes the problem comes from delaying nap and giving the child an opportunity to get their “second wind”.  If their normal nap time is after lunch, but it’s an hour before lunch and you notice yawning and eye rubbing, consider an early lunch or delaying lunch until after nap.  Missing that nap window can be disastrous!

The most important things to remember are that this is bound to happen at some point, but you should do your best not to make it a habit and that you CAN get your sweet sleeper back into their normal sleep routine.  It may take a day or so, but you can get your sleep (and sanity) back.  Sweet dreams!

What tricks do you have to avoid this vicious sleep cycle?  How do you handle it once you are in the cycle?

Photo is of my little boy, Andrew, after a disaster nap when he was 7 months old.