My baby boy is beautiful. He is friendly, sweet-tempered, smart, and doing so well. Our newest adventure is solid foods. He tried a strawberry for the first time yesterday and the look on his face was pure surprise and pleasure. Honestly, we are very blessed. Most of the time parenting is fun – especially now that he is saying “mama” to me! He is thriving, and now I need to find the way to thriving myself. I need to find my new patterns, habits, and coping mechanisms as a Mom. I want to do more than get through the day and say that it went ok. I want to look forward to the day, even after a night of scanty and interrupted sleep. I want to enjoy the good moments in the day, even when he is teething and unhappy for most of it. This is not an easy goal. I will not succeed every day. I have a lot of learning to do, a lot of habits to build.
They say it takes a month to develop new habits. I think it will probably take me longer, so I am using the 40 days of Lent. So here I’m laying out what I want to do and why so you can ask me about it, see if I am succeeding, and motivate me to continue!
New Healthful Habits
I will Pray
Really spending time with God is an easy thing to overlook day-to-day, but that consistency, that focus on God, is exactly what helps me get my head on straight. I am actually going to use the prayer journal that God led my friend Stephanie and me to publish last year – 40 Days of Art & Literature: A Prayer Journal – it will be fun to go through it myself!
I will Walk
I know that I feel better about life when I get outside and move. Being out in the natural world (no matter what the weather) and refreshing my body does good things for my brain.
I will gain in Strength
I will find small ways to add strength training to my day. From calf raises during diaper changes to squats while I bounce my baby, I will intentionally add in exercise – I have to keep up with this 20-pound boy!
I will Nourish my Body
Slowly, I will make choices to move my diet in healthier directions. I am planning on starting with making more myself so I can eliminate a bunch of sneaky added-sugars. Home-made sauces, marinades, and salad dressings, here I come!
New Habitual Coping Mechanisms (for when the day is not going well):
I will Breathe
When I get flustered or wrung out with the crying and the not sleeping, I will take a deep breath (or five) and, as Matt Redman puts it in his song Your Grace Finds me, I will “Breathe in your Grace, Breathe out your Praise”. There is nothing like pausing, even for only the space of a few breaths, to find a moment of gratitude to re-set my thoughts.
I will Release
The tension in my muscles is a good place to start in letting go of whatever is whipping me up into frustration or fluster. You know that exercise when you clench your muscles as tight as you can, then release and stretch it out? I find it super helpful, especially focusing on the areas I carry tension (mostly my neck and face). If I combine that physical release with a prayerful release of the stressful moment to my all-powerful God, I think it will go a long way.
Sounds like a pretty good plan, huh. Now for the follow-through… Say a prayer for my success!