Seasons of Life

I read Kelly's Korner blog, and yesterday I read a saying on there that I instantly fell in love with! She stated that something was a "Season of life". She was referring to her 2 year old keeping her up at night and how exhausting it is, but it won't be like that forever.

This made me remember back about 7 months ago when I had about decided that Noah would be an only child because of how tired I was from feeding him every 3 hours around the clock. I had him in a bassinet beside our bed and I can still remember the little breathing noises he would make as I sit there feeding him while watching Mash on Nick at Night in order to keep myself awake. I would have the closed caption on so that we could sleep with the TV on as our nightlight and my middle of the night entertainment without the noise disturbance.

My body had not yet adjusted to less sleep, so I was just sleepy all the time. I didn't notice it once I took a shower and got going, but before that I was just exhausted. About 2 months later Noah started sleeping 6 hours in a row, then 7, then 8, and so on until he sleeps 12 hours now! I do have to feed him for about 20 minutes about 10 hours into his sleep now - but that has become one of my favorite times of day. It is usually around 6:00 a.m. and I go into his room (I moved him in his room when he was 4 months old, when the SIDS threat decreased and before he could realize he was ever in our room) and get him and nurse him and rock him. He looks so sweet and innocent by the glow of the nightlight. Once he is done eating I usually will just rock him and stare for a little while before I put him back in bed and get ready for work.

I realized after reading Kelly's blog that this is just a Season of Life. Soon he won't be waking up at all until time to get up and get ready. Soon he will not let me rock him and stare at him. Soon he will be begging me to not make him get up for school. This is all fine though, because that is what happens. Seasons change and kids grow. I will have good memories of the season my son let me hold him.

Oh, and how fast these seasons are changing have helped to make the decision that there will be more Stillwell babies - God willing! I may have been exhausted and it may be even harder with two or more kids, but it is just a season of life and they change so quickly that they are well worth it!