My little baby boy Magellan just turned one last month.  He’s done now with nursing and today he started trying to run… not walk, with his entire baby-turning toddler, might.  It was a precious first year with him rocking and snuggling, cooing and cradling.  It is amazing how quickly we have reached this new stage.

There are so many books and theories these days on the market about:

How to properly run nursing schedules

Whether to rock or not rock

To let baby “cry it out” at bedtime, or to “appease” him with cuddles and nursing

To co-sleep or not to co-sleep

And the list goes on and on

It’s enough to make a mother’s head spin trying to figure out what is best for her baby. Each home is different; each child is not the same, each technique not without its flaws, for some.

For all the first time mommies out there, experienced mommies of little ones just born, and mommies waiting with expectation for a birth coming in the next few months… Whatever you choose, however you raise them…

Cherish the season of baby!

When you’re feeling frustrated because schedules are off and nothing is getting done…

When you’re at your wits end struggling to nurse, and exhausted from lack of sleep…

When you just don’t know what that crying baby wants or when she’s going to stop…

Stop!

Pause.

Breathe.

Realize this season is so very short in the grand scheme of the life of that child and your time with him.

Look at that baby and call her precious.

Look up to God and be grateful for having received this blessing.

Start this moment over with a new attitude and a willingness to lose more sleep, and do more cuddling, to try new things, and to keep on praying.

Just for this season, just for this moment, just for this gift… this baby.

Babies Don’t Keep

By Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

Hang out the washing, make up the bed,

Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,

Lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo.

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peek-a-boo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew

And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo

But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo

Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?

Lullaby, rock-a-by lullaby loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow

But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.