Quality of Life

I'm so pleased Harper continues to sleep soundly through the night! The sleep and one less feeding both have improved my quality of life significantly. I feel like a different person. I had forgotten how good it felt to put the kids in bed by 8pm and know that the rest of the evening is mine. Just a month or so ago we weren't able to do that for either kid. Z was still fighting hard against the tyranny of a 8pm bedtime (or a 9pm bedtime for that matter). He continues to do well staying in bed once we put him to bed. He still plays, sings, chatters in his bed but he doesn't get out of bed! And even when he occasionally does the discipline is effective and he'll stay in bed after that. I am so grateful to have our evenings back!

As for potty training, things have really improved there too. I honestly had no idea it was such a long process. Z is doing really well with peeing, except for the occasional miss when aiming at the toilet (which only this morning I got upset with him about). And just in the last two weeks he has gone poo on the potty every time. About half of the time we caught him in the poo-poo stance and reminded him to go to the potty. The other half of the time he went to the potty all by himself! Today he even tried to clean himself up, unfortunately, with disastrous results: poo smeared on the wall, door and all over himself. I gotta give him credit for trying but I was NOT happy about that clean up.

Looking back on the last couple of months I am realizing how God was teaching me to trust Him amidst difficult circumstances. I spent a lot of time begging God to take the circumstances away and, I'll admit, angry at Him for not doing that. A good friend gave me the book, "Respectable Sins" by Jerry Bridges. It's all about the seemingly less terrible sins we tolerate in our lives like anger, discontentment, jealousy, etc. That chapter on anger kicked my butt. At the heart of my anger was the belief that God didn't really want what was best for me. If I believe He ordains the path of my life and is in control of all things, then He was working through the sleepless nights and the poo messes too. And then I had to remember that He causes all things to work for the good of those who love Him. I knew that God was using parenthood to refine me like nothing else in my life so far, but I kept thinking God could choose to do it a different way, like with a decent night sleep or one less poo accident.

After confronting my anger and discontentment I was able to redirect my thoughts in the difficult moments. I often prayed for patience but now I know to pray for trust in God and for help to keep me from getting angry. It's a battle. Every day. But I feel better knowing what I'm battling against- my own sin, not the poo on the floor.