After a long hiatus, I'm here. I can't say I'm back as it's not really my fault that I don't blog. The blogs just don't come to me. I only blog when I feel the blog rising through me:)
I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about having children. Children are the biggest hugest bracha, besides for getting married that is. During my first year of marriage, I just felt so incredibly blessed ALL THE TIME. I couldn't fathom that this life would last. I must've been really bored before getting married (I think I was 24) but this whole life, I felt like I had only lived the past just to be there - running a home, making meals for my wonderful husband and just living in peace, playing house - the two of us. I know I'm still just as blessed, even more, but my mind is way too busy to constantly feel it now.
They say that every kid takes up ten percent of your brain, so mine is 50% gone now from what it used to be. But I get glimpses of deep thought that peeks through when I have time to myself, when the two babies miraculously sleep at the same time for more than 20 minutes, or when I shower. My showers have given me the most thinking time. You may wonder why doesn't my bed allow me thinking time, that's because I have no memory of ever getting into bed anymore. I fall asleep before I make it there.
There is so much recovery to childbirth. It's not just baby out and everything goes back to normal. And the older I am, the more it takes. The nursing is an entire saga unto itself. BH I have not had the infections I used to get, but this baby of mine has already gone on 3 nursing strikes and he's only 5 weeks old! Everytime he goes back to nursing normally, my life has been altered by the prayers and pain and agmas nefesh I went through.
My sister and I once came up with this: If you had an easy labor, Hashem is going to put pains into other parts of childbirth. We're all meant to go through pain, it doesn't always come through the labor though. Whether it's the leg veins come people deal with, back pain during pregnancy or using the bathroom post birth - Hashem divides up the pain where He feels you can handle it.
BH this time, my birth was really fast and easy. Such a relief - I was dreading it since the positive pregnancy test. It was so fast that the baby's face was bruised for the first week from his first slide experience.
But now, 5 weeks later as my body is recovering more and more and Aharon Yehuda is taking his place in the family and becoming one of us and Pesach is over and life starts again, I'm beginning to appreciate the bracha of another child much more.
Last night, when all five of them were sleeping and I actually had an evening to unpack the suitcases and fold some laundry, I wondered why I felt so down. Then Ari woke up and my spirits lifted as I picked up his delicious, warm, soft infant body and I realized, as much as I feel overwhelmed, I really am happiest when all five of them are clamoring for my attention and hanging on me and needing me.
