Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches

I laid my 21 month old son down for his nap and hopped in bed for some shut eye myself. About five minute later I hear my three month old daughter stirring. She won't settle, although she is obviously tired and has only had forty five minutes sleep. Dummy gets rejected. I feed her and put her back to bed. Wow, she stays quiet. I go back to bed and doze. 15 minutes later I hear my son crying, a sure sign her hasn't had enough sleep. I lie down with him and sing, resting beside him until he sleeps as well. I observe the garden quilt on the wall and wonder how I ever had time to do that. Oh, that is right - I didn't have a newborn! Then I hear baby girl fussing again. Oh, maybe that is enough rest for one day? So even though she is quiet again I've given up on sleep myself and come out to share a book that may bless you if you are also in the midst of the "little years".

Loving the Little Years by Rachel Jankovic is a precious book for those of us in this season. It is suitably small, and has suitably short chapters! Rachel had five children five and under, including twins, so she has lots of experience with tiny people. She seems to loves a clean and tidy house, peaceful children, and time to do craft projects as much as I do, but also has lots of recommendations for how to thrive when things are not just as we would like. Loving the Little Years gets to the heart of what we need to focus on in these years. Here is a snippet that convicted me:

"Christian childrearing is a pastoral pursuit, not an organisational challenge . . . If you are focused on the upkeep of the house and the schedule, as long as your child is not interrupting, you don't worry about it. If you are being pastorally minded, you will stop whatever it is that you are doing to see how your daughter is up in her bedroom." 

Children are precious. They are blessings from God. They are also, in their little years, a great deal of hard work. I am sure there are some people who find it easy to love being a mother in these years, just like there are some people who have pain-free childbirth. The rest of us will have to work at it. Almost every day, I ask myself "how can I love being a mother?" and "how can I be a joyful mother?". Often I look for organisational solutions. I spend my days wondering if I swapped DVD time with room time, or did more puzzles, my son would stop squealing at the dinner table. Or if I got Mercy up to feed her at 6 instead of 7, could I somehow manipulate her into sleeping when I want to nap and read in the afternoon? Hmmm . . . I'm gradually realizing that if I want to enjoy motherhood, my attitude matters much more than my schedule. I need to enjoy the baby when she won't sleep. I need to cherish cuddling up with my son on his bed while I put him back to sleep. I need to be ready to sit and read to my boy when nothing else will calm him. Slowly, I'm trying to learn to relax in the midst of the work rather than waiting and hoping for that elusive quiet evening that never comes because baby won't sleep until 9pm! 

I will leave you with an encouraging quote from Loving the Little Years, as my babies are still quiet and I'm off to see if I can get some more shut eye.

  ". . . if you accept your lot and rejoice in your toil, God will give you the kind of overwhelming joy that cannot remember the details. Motherhood is hard work. It is repetitive and often times menial. Accept it. Rejoice in it. This is your toil. Right here. Those are their faces."

Loving the Little Years is available from Canon Press.

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Saturday's Backyard Bounty: Giant Russian Sunflowers

We are loving our sunflowers! Of the two varieties we chose to grow this year, Giant Russians are the favourite.

Giant Russian Sunflower seeds can be purchased from The Lost Seed company. Our packet has lasted us a couple of years already, and there are still seeds left. They are also easy to save as you can just dry a sunflower head, put the head in a plastic bag, tie the bag, shake it hard, and store the seeds that fall out of the head.

You can see our corn cobs in this picture. We are hoping to eat our first cob this week!

Today I learnt that slugs seem to be attracted to corn cob tassels. We went out after rain and we found slugs and snails all over them!

While we love our garden, it is also hard work to keep up with it when we have tiny children. Most days it is hard to get the laundry and washing up finished, let alone planting and harvesting. Still, we love getting out in the garden. This week we harvested lots of beans for blanching. We also love to eat them steamed with butter, salt and pepper. Sometimes we chuck a home grown carrot in the pot as well. Simple, quick and delicious!

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12 weeks old

These photos of twelve week old Mercy were taken last Sunday. She will be 13 weeks tomorrow!

Mercy has slept through the night since early in February, although her daily feed times and sleep times are still somewhat erratic!

Mercy gives us lots of smiles and loves to have little chats with us.

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Pasta with Basil Pesto and Tomatoes

This week we were happy to enjoy one of our summer meals, basil pesto and tomatoes with spiral pasta. Our basil is thriving now the slugs have stopped attacking it, and we finally had enough ipe baby tomatoes for this dish. To make pesto you will need:

1 1/2 cups of fresh basil leaves
2 cloves garlic (I got to pick a bulb off our garlic plait for this!)
1/4 cup or 100g pine nuts (we used cashews as that is what we had in the cupboard, and I have heard you can also use sunflower seeds)
5 Tbs oil
3/4 cup parmesan
salt and pepper

Combine 3 Tbs of the olive oil and all the other ingredients except the cheese in a blender or food processor. After processing to a fine pastse, stir through the cheese and remaining oil.

Stir the pesto through cooked spiral pasta. I am always unsue of how much pasta we'll need for two people, so I won't recommend an amount! I think I used 3 cups of dried pasta this time. We have whole baby tomatoes with it (at least 10 - 15). You can also put it on a bed of lettuce.

One of our favourite features of the garden this year is the set of been teepees at the entrance. We have grown our favourite beans, Purple Kings, on both sides. We enjoy these beans because they are generally tender, easy to see on the plants, hardy and pretty.

If I only had a metre of space had to choose between growing butter bush beans and purple king climbing beans, I would definitely choose the later! They are easier to pick and to control, plus they are moe attractive.

Spy the sunflower at the back. We have been amazed at how high it has grown over the corn.

This week we learnt that one of our chooks, Daffodil, has been finding her way under nets. She not only got into the garden (which is netted right around) but also under one of the smaller nets we use to deter birds. Naughty chicken! You have to be perseverant to be a gardener, with birds, slugs, grubs and chooks to contend with. We are thankful that we don't have possum and wallaby problems here in the suburbs.

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Mr and Mrs Drew

More in love than ever!

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Silverbeet with poached eggs

This morning we had a delicious breakfast. I copied some ideas from breakfast with friends a couple of weeks ago. I would not have thought of having silverbeet for breakfast but it was so delicious we decided it had to be replicated! This morning I steamed our few silverbeet leaves from our one plant (sliced finely), added some cream, salt, pepper and parmesan, and served it with poached eggs and toast. Surprisingly delicious, and Nate kept asking for more! In future years I hope to grow more silverbeet even in summer.

We poached eggs using a method a friend told me, where you break each egg into a separate dish before dropping them to the boiling water. This prevents the dripping egg from fixing to the pan like it does if you crack them against its side when it is hot. We may have poached eggs more often now since this makes washing up much easier!

The above picture is from last week when we had a yummy pie using garden vegetables (beans, carrots, potatoes) in a cheese sauce. The last two weeks have been busy with planting and welcoming guests, so I haven't had much time for Saturday's Backyard Bounty posts! Still, I hope you've enjoyed this short glimpse into just a couple of the things we've been able to do with our produce. In the past two weeks I have sowed seed for turnips, radish, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, kale, silverbeet and spring onion.

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Mother and daughter

It is a wonderful thing to be the mother of a little girl!

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Terrific Toddlers by Mel Hayde

Terrific Toddlers: or Tantrum Free Two's - Almost! was given to us when Elnathan was born. Since then I have read it twice! Mel Hayde gives guidance about postive parenting and putting together a flexible routine. The idea is to control the toddler's day to give minimal opportunity for misbehaviour. It is also important to have clean positive and negative consequences. There are two chapters on suggested toddler activities.

Since reading this book a second time I have made a lot of effort to encourage and build up my son. At first I wondered if "positive parenting", focusing on the positives in the child and praising him/her, had any biblical basis. Then I thought of the many Bible verses about encouraging one another. Surely these apply to parenting as well? Correction comes easily, but it is important to also praise progress.

Mel's style is simple and the chapters are short. The vision she presents of enjoying orderly days with your toddler is very encouraging. Every time I pick up this book I find inspiration to continue to pursue this goal, despite setbacks and challenges and tantrums! I want to enjoy these precious days with tiny ones !

You can purchase the book from the Terrific Toddlers websiste. While researching this blog post, I also discovered that Mel Hayde has a blog called Terrific Toddlers and other terrific bits.

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