{photo by Jessica Lorren}

I remember vividly people asking me just after both boys were born “is he a good baby?”… it felt like that question was asked a hundred times a day.  I never really knew what to say… yes?? aren’t all babies just by being babies inherently “good”??   But I think what everyone was really asking, was if they were easy.  And if they were easy then I guessed you were doing something right, and I so desperately wanted to be doing everything right.  Or at least close.  Or at least appear like it.

But so much of it is a crapshoot.  Sometimes kids are good sleepers, sometimes your baby is sick all of the time, sometimes they have reflux, sometimes your baby is an absolute and utter dream, sometimes they cry all night/day and you never get an answer as to why.  It doesn’t have much to do with you at all it seems.  It’s that loss of control that can be so unnerving as a new mom.  Or at least that was true for me.

Really I had no idea what I was doing.  I am still winging it, asking my mother and mother in law a hundred questions a week.  I’m trying to find my footing every day… as my kids grow up and change and throw me for new loops.  But when they were babies that constant question drove me a little nuts.  It’s funny how no one really asks “is he a good toddler?” because, LOL.  ha.

I guess what this post is saying that if you are in the thick of this newborn haze, and maybe you got an”easy” baby…or maybe you didn’t.  Either way, you’re doing the best you can, and that’s better than good.  Your baby is good, even if they never sleep or cry non-stop. Both of my kids stretched me in their newborn stages; given me patience I didn’t know I had and had me praying more earnestly and honestly.   I found a lot of peace in knowing God had his reasons for why this baby was given to me.  entrusted to me.  I rested in the fact that none of us are perfect mothers, but we are their mothers, and sometimes that’s one in the same.