Sick

Well, I knew it would happen eventually, I came down with a cold. I always guessed that it would be horrible to be sick and still have to care for a child, and I was right! I started to feel sick on Saturday and fortunately it's just your run of the mill head cold, but it's hard to get better when you're not getting any sleep and a tiny creature is sucking you energy out (literally!) every few hours. I think being sick really brings out the most difficult aspect of motherhood-being selfless. When you don't feel good you instinctively want to do less, sleep more and just focus on yourself. That is nearly impossible with a seven week old. It's a struggle to just eat a decent amount of food for the day, let alone care for myself when I'm not feeling well. These past few days have really been a test of my patience, endurance, maturity, and attitude. A test that I've both passed and failed. It's amazing to me how easy it is to get so frustrated at little things that in a normal world wouldn't matter, but in my baby defined world mean so much to me. I consider myself to be a fairly patient and rational person and it's discouraging to know that given the right set of circumstances I am completely capable of losing my temper just because my daughter, whom I cherish, is waking up again. And needs me again. I wrote about being constantly needed before. It's interesting. You might think that being the only one able to provide for her would make me feel important, gratified. Instead, her need of me makes me realize all to well my need of myself. Certainly my need of food and showers are hardly selfish, but are they worth getting upset over when they have to be delayed? And how about when I get upset over not being able to cut my fingernails, do a load of laundry, run an errand, take a walk, write a card, call a friend, or any number of other tasks ranging from unimportant to slightly less unimportant? It amazes me how easy it is to get caught up in the mundane tasks of life, placing undue value on them and allowing them to distract me from how beautiful it is that I have the opportunity to bond with my daughter. She is seven weeks today and many women in my position are back at work by this time. And although there are moments when I would love to be anywhere but here and would also love to have someone else holding her while she fusses, overall I am grateful for this time with her, especially because I know that God is using it to grow me as a person and teach me how to focus solely on someone else.