Giving mothering your full attention

Good thoughts here from Carolyn Mahaney.  She writes:


"We must be watchful that these “other things” don’t distract us from our primary task of mothering. We must walk carefully through this season, with all its opportunities, and make the best use of our time with our children.


By "other things" she means online activities (like facebook and what I'm doing now!) and industrious pursuits in the marketplace (Prov. 31-type commerce).  Mahaney continues:

Truth is, we can’t effectively train our children on the side. We can’t discipline them here and there. We can’t teach when we’ve got a free moment. We can’t mother intermittently.

Inconsistent training is ineffective training.

If we are distracted by projects or pleasure, we may miss valuable teaching moments, opportunities to encourage, disobedience that requires discipline, or a chance to show affection. These moments, once lost, are gone forever.

So ladies, may I encourage you, as I do my own daughters, to give training and discipline your first and full attention. Walk carefully, and keep your eyes on the mothering road."

While she is absolutely right about the importance of the job of mothering I would caution moms to not take this admonition too far.  If we always give "mothering" our first and full attention it'd be easy to justify only having one child!  After all, you're not going to be a very effective mother to your toddler when you're sprawled out on the couch for several months with morning sickness.  It's not easy to stay on top of every discipline opportunity when you must spend 30 minuets (or more!) every 2-3 hours nursing a newborn.  It's impossible to catch every potential moment for training and discipline b/c we have to do other things like take showers, eat lunch, make dinner, do laundry, serve in the church, maybe lock ourselves in our own room for 15 minuets to relax/pray/read/breathe, etc.  Be wise with our time, yes, but God can even use our inconsistent and distracted mothering.  My children benefit from being "neglected:"  learning to play by themselves, working out arguments (even if they often fight), getting bored, and recognizing that the world doesn't revolve around them!  So lets be diligent, but lets also realize that motherhood is a marathon, not a sprint.  We'll get our kids to the finish line only by the grace of God, not our own efforts alone.  Sometimes we might take a slower pace, and sometimes we need to stop for a rest break!

Praise God that He uses imperfect parents!  Praise God that he uses tired, cranky, sick and sore mothers.  Praise God that missed discipline opportunities don't mean we've failed completely.  God, in His sovereignty, can even use our mistakes.  He is doing His own work in our kids.  Yes, He uses us as parents, but He's not limited to only using us.  He uses everything.

I guess I just don't want any moms to read Mahaney's post and feel like they're not doing enough.  Unless they're not.  I wholeheartedly agree that IF God has called you to be a mother, motherhood should be your highest priority.  We should all evaluate how we are spending our time and if it lines up with God's priorities, but it will look different in each of our individual circumstances.

Clouds of dread are big with mercy

The middle three kids are with Daddy at the State Fair.  Big fun.  I'm not sad to miss it this year -- even though the temp has dipped to the lovely mid-80's with a light delta breeze (aka, God's air conditioner) -- my back gets tired out very easily with too much time on my feet or bending, lifting, etc.  Sarah took her camera so maybe I'll have some photos to post.

Phillip is working on his algebra 2 homework.  The crazy boy volunteered to take a year's worth of algebra 2 in one month.  He's scheduled to take algebra 2 as a sophomore next school year but is hoping that if he does well enough on this accelerated summer course he can skip ahead to pre-calculus.

Mary is napping.  She is very 2.  She's had some success on the potty, but is still a long way from being trained.  I need to decide to commit to making it happen, which I haven't done yet, but would really like to before new baby boy arrives.

Here's a picture of a recent kids dinner.  I thought it was sweet to see them all squeezed into the little kitchen table and I know how my readers like pictures :-)

Quite a challenge to get them to all look at the camera and smile at the same time.  They were hungry after all.

New baby continues to grow, kick and enjoy life in my belly.  I got a clear report on my glucose tolerance test this week, which I'm thankful for.  I've never had any diabetes concerns with my other pregnancies, but risks increase with age and family history.  I have another ultrasound on July 23 just to make sure there are no bleeds or visible Down syndrome related problems.  Likely another ultrasound in August.  My OB Dr. will be setting up a consultation with the NICU chief at our hospital to make sure he's in the loop for baby's arrival.  Haven't picked a birth date yet, but as long as I don't go into labor early we'd like to let him cook as long as possible...probably right around the middle of September.

I've been reading some blogs by other moms of babies with Down syndrome.  Read this one today and it got me thinking.  The blogger is no one I'm likely to ever meet, but she's a christian who seems like-minded in many ways, so I've appreciated her perspective in the journey of finding out before the birth of her daughter in 2010 that she'd have Down syndrome.  The mom answers the question "isn't life more difficult with a special needs baby?"

     Yes, but not nearly as difficult as I had been braced for. The dread of Down syndrome is blown way out of all proportion to the reality, if over 90% of babies with Down syndrome are being aborted.  It is in the design of God that when we embrace the difficulties He ordains as necessary for us, there comes a greater good.

 The phrase "the dread of Down syndrome" resonated with me.  I've known quite a few moms of "advanced maternal age" since I've been paying attention to such things, and I'm always relieved for them when their babies turn out to be "normal."  Although I know that Down syndrome or other disabilities are always a possibility, I found myself encouraged by all the older moms I knew having healthy babies (i.e.:  "see, so-and-so is 40 and she didn't have a Down syndrome baby!").  I knew of statistics like at age 40 the chances of having a baby with Down syndrome are 1 in 100.  That's really quite high.  With all the women today delaying childbirth until later in life we really should be seeing more Down syndrome kids around.  The fact that we don't speaks to this "dread of Down syndrome" in our culture.

I'm so looking forward to meeting this new baby, all 47 chromosomes of him.  I have no dread.  Most of the time when people ask "when are you due? do you know if it's a boy or girl?" I don't offer the information about him having Down syndrome unless it's someone I have a relationship with already or expect to in the future.  I'm just happy to be expecting a new gift from God, a boy specifically planned to be my son, the newest brother of the Lowery siblings.  Maybe I should be more vocal about his diagnosis.  The fact that we found out before he was born and decided not to abort him could be used by God to change many hearts.  I definitely don't want to hide the truth so I try to be sensitive to opportunities as they arise.

Well, I think I'm done rambling.  Going to enjoy some time with the Very 2-Yr-Old who's awake from her nap now :-)

By the way, I stole the title of this post from a quote in the blog mentioned above from the hymn writer William Cowper:

“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy and shall break with blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace; behind a frowning providence he hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding ev’ry hour; the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flow’r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter and he will make it plain.” 

Plugged in. Pluggin' along.

Here's a little update from my iPad at the infusion center: I'm well. Baby is well. At our ultrasound last week he looked just perfect. No heart problems and everything looks to be growing and functioning like normal. Baby is very active and seems to be enjoying his stay in my womb. IV's are not fun, but the nurses are getting used to me now :-). I'm not an "easy stick" - they've started using tiny neonatal needles on me. The infusions are only taking about 5hrs and they go by quickly. I still am a little itchy from a reaction to the IVIG, but it's calmed down some and is not getting any worse. I'm in the home stretch now - 3rd trimester! Time to start thinking about getting baby clothes out of storage and bassinet set up, etc. Oh, and should probably start getting a hospital bag packed just in case - you never know :-) I'm trying not to think to much about all the complications we still could face (brain bleeds, problems nursing, c-section recovery, Down syndrome related medical problems). I know God will give us grace to face whatever He ordains. A little over two months to go!