The Balancing Act

I feel like I haven't written a post for so long! It's funny how everything takes a back seat when you have a new baby in the house, but it's worth it! Anna has a wonderful temperament, and she has been sleeping fairly well throughout the night. She tends to eat around 10 pm, 2 am and 6 am. I can't complain about that! Joshua ate every two hours for months, and I felt like a walking zombie. My husband has also been helping with either the early or the late feeding, also, which has been a HUGE help to me! I've been getting somewhere around 6 hrs. of sleep a night, and that's good enough for me right now! It's definitely more than I expected to be getting at this point.

I have been waiting to "settle in" to a schedule of some sort (I'd even settle for somewhat of a schedule!) around here, but we're no where near that yet. It seems as though when the day is over I realize that Joshua watched about 3-4 DVD's throughout the day. I feel like a bad mother to him, because it's taking me longer than I expected to adjust to taking care of 2 children (while I'm still recovering from my c-section), along with my household responsibilities.

The whole balancing act is something I've never been very good at. I tend to easily focus my time and attention to one thing, and the rest gets ignored.

My mind does not seem to be at ease as much as it should be these days. When I'm with Anna, I feel like I'm ignoring Joshua. I don't want him to feel left out. I'm pretty quiet, by nature, and I tend to feel left out of conversations sometimes. I can easily feel like no one notices me. (Maybe it would help if I asserted myself more!) I guess I'm just over-sensitive to the fact that I don't want Joshua to feel that way. Chances are, in the long run, he won't. He's quite outgoing for a 3-year-old, and he tends to make his needs known when he can identify them. On the other hand, when I'm spending time with Joshua, I feel like I should be paying more attention to Anna to make sure she's getting enough stimulation. She's so quiet (compared to her older brother!), that it's easy to just let her stay in her crib or bassinet if she's not fussy.

I'm guessing that these are all somewhat "normal" things that a family needs to adjust to after adding someone new to the family. I just need to be more patient with myself while we all learn how to do this. I guess it didn't help that Joshua had a terrible cough all last week, and it was exhausting trying to keep him away from Anna.

Day by day, we're all settling into a new normal. My personal time with God has suffered through all of this, though, and I need to get back on track. I've been trying to get up early to spend time with Him then, but I must confess that I've only talked myself into doing that about every other day. Why is it that time with God is the first thing to go? I know that we have an enemy out there who is working behind the scenes - Satan - but I can't blame it all on him. Sometimes I can be just plain lazy about finding the time. I realize that I have a lot going on with having a new baby, BUT...if I can find the time to write this post, I should be able to find time with God.

Now that I've just said that, I think I better spend what remaining time I have with God before Joshua gets up from his nap!