a journey in motherhood

Tuesdays I often hang out with my friend Breanne and her son Timothy who is just 12 days older than Elliot. Today was a lot of fun. We took them to a local park and it was the first time he’s been old enough to enjoy the activities. We put them in the baby swings and they both really enjoyed it. We took them down the slides and it was cute to see their reactions. Then we walked the whole park for about an hour while they napped in their strollers. Finally, we picked up Arby’s for lunch. It was so nice to get out in the sunshine. I’m looking forward to when Elliot will be old enough to run around on the playground by himself. Being at the park with other moms and their kids made me feel more adult if that makes sense. It’s so interesting being a mom because all the sudden you are not the child anymore, you’re the mother and it makes you feel older in a way that you haven’t felt before. It’s not bad, it’s just different, all of the sudden you begin to realize that you’re becoming what your parents were to you. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it’s the best I can think of how to describe it.

It is amazing to watch each day as Elliot’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills improve. He eats cheerios now (though still no teeth) and his pincer grasp is quite good. He learned how to make a basket about a week ago and daddy is so proud! He now will put an item in my hand if I ask for it and he helps me “clean up” his toys by putting them into their container. It seems each day he understands more about this world he lives in and how things work.
He is still not crawling, he’s content to sit and play most of the time, though he gets frusterated on his tummy when he can’t go anywhere but in circles. It will be interesting to see if he learns to crawl or moves strait to walking.
I love to see him grow and learn, it is such a reminder of God’s awesome power and design. I don’t know why, but I was impressed to see how he naturally knows to chew his cheerios, you don’t have to teach it, it is instinct. We’re still waiting for that first tooth, but seeing as I’m still nursing him, I’m really in no hurry for it to appear. He can chew small pieces of most food with his gums.

I love New Years! Not the big celebration (well, that too) but more than that the great feeling of a new fresh start - a clean slate - a blank page - it really excites and motivates me! I love to come up with New Years resolutions and themes for the year etc. This year I am focusing on commitments and faith. I have commited to reading thru the whole Bible (I’ve tried before and failed). I have joined Women’s missionary fellowship at my church and plan to remain commited to that. I have some other personal commitments that I’ll be faithful to also. I can tend to be someone who doesn’t always finish the task, I can  get bored and talk myself out of it, so this will be a challenge for me.

And faith, because since having Elliot - the depth of the responsibility on my shoulders to raise Godly children has been overwhelming and I’ve realised that I need to really rest in God and have faith in Him to take care of my Son. (of course I have my own responsibility in it) As well as our church is concentrating on faith this year and I can always use growth in that area!

Christmas night I came down with a fever and was feeling awful. I hardly got up or did anything but nurse Elliot for the next four days. It was awful. Fortunetly Charlie was off from work so he was able to keep up with everything that had to be done, but the poor guy didn’t get much of a vacation.

While sick I got to watch Pride & Predjudice (A&E version) with my grandma - it’s such a great film, and we had so much fun watching it together.

I was so relieved when my fever finally broke. Elliot also got sick, but never ran much of a fever  - i think the antibodies from nursing must’ve helped him.

oh how exciting is a first christmas!? Elliot had a great one. We celebrated Christmas Eve at my parents home where we had our traditional festivities along with some norweigan traditions this year. It was really fun to incorporate our heritage into our celebration. Elliot had fun playing with his cousin Natania (who is getting a little sister this year)  and my favorite gift he recieved was a tupperware shape sorter! He did pretty well opening the packages, he definetly preffered wrapping paper to the gifts inside!

Afterwards we headed home and because we had to be at Charlie’s parents house early in the morning we went ahead and opened all our gifts. I got some fun things, pajamas, coffee maker, bracelet, and more. I gave Charlie a belt, t-shirts, and some other stuff I forgot. Elliot got a mini basketball hoop (of course!) and some stacking cars, and bath toys and more toys! We had a lot of fun taking turns holding him while he opened his presents.

In the morning we all opened our stockings together in bed, before we got ready and went to Charlie’s parents home. There we had a yummy breakfast and what else, but open more gifts! Elliot got a toy phone, a ride/push toy, and my favorite - a jack-in-the-box!

here is a pick of Elliot sitting w/ all his stocking goods:

I had to make the turkey and stuffing for the big Christmas dinner so I had put that in the oven already - but I had forgotten to get celery for the stuffing - we went all over town trying to find an open grocery store - finally we ended up buying several small veggie packs from 7-eleven where we pulled out the celery sticks & used those! I’ll be more prepared next year.

The big dinner at my mom’s house was nice - lot’s of people - except that Elliot was overtired and got very upset in the middle of it. So I had to take him and calm him - then put him down to sleep and by the time I returned, the meal was over and I finished my cold christmas dinner alone. I wasn’t feeling too well so we didn’t stay as long as usual.

All in all it was a great christmas!