Month: February 2017

enCOURAGEment

~ rachelereilly ~ Leave a comment

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While sitting enjoying my morning tea, I read two sayings on the Good Earth bags that really made me think.

ASPIRE TO INSPIRE BEFORE YOU EXPIRE

This really spoke to me as a mom. I’ve been entrusted with the gift and opportunity to inspire my daughter. I started thinking what does it mean to me to inspire her? I can safely say I want to inspire her to love God, be an amazing person, change the world for the better, be kind, loving, honest, help others, contribute to growth, educate herself, work hard, create… and so much more, but what am I doing to inspire her to develop in this way? Am I modeling the behaviors that will shape her experiences so that she can be the best she can. These questions can really plague us especially as moms. It’s really hard to navigate this whole parenthood thing. You want to provide the best life you can for your children but you also want to teach them and inspire them to have the best lives they can imagine. Your hope is that their life will be even better then what you  picture for them. It seems that we take pieces of our own childhood we loved, pieces from our friends and others that we saw that we liked and pieces that we read or dreamed about even “envied.”Anything we hated or disliked about our childhood we take out and we take these pieces and hope to make a complete pie that we day dream about giving to our babies. This is how we want to inspire and train them to make an impact in their lives. To stimulate ideas and creativeness in them to grow and change and make the world and their lives better. To do extraordinary things.

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These things take courage and this may be the best trait that we can exemplify and model. Courage to accept who we are and courage to look into our hearts and just be honest with ourselves. Courage is a heart word, in latin cor means heart. I have had so many times where I had to look inside my own heart for courage and for what to do. I’ve had times where I just couldn’t figure it out and I’ve had times where I have just had to trust my heart and follow it not think so much about things. When I was 21 I moved across the country from North Carolina to Nevada. I moved to a city where I didn’t know anyone, it was really hard at first and I cried myself to sleep most nights; but I picked myself up and went out and created the life I wanted to live. I’ve always gone for opportunities and walked through open doors, even when I’ve failed I’ve learned from the mistakes and had courage and been inspired to pick up and move on. I just follow my heart along to the next adventure. Being a mom this past 10 months I’ve also grown so much and grown spiritually and sometimes this takes more courage then any move or any show I’ve done or any time I’ve stepped outside my safety zone.

I want to enCOURAGE you to not be afraid to look inside and figure out who you are supposed to be and what journey you are going on. To encourage and inspire your family, neighbors and friends to do the same. To understand we are all on a different journey. To continue to grow and not be afraid of failing but to learn from it. Webster online goes on to describe the meaning of inspiration in the 14th century – “it had a distinctly theological meaning in English, referring to a divine influence upon a person, from a divine entity.” So the act of being inspired comes from inside of you, from your heart, you feel it. I learn this from growing in God while some of you may have different ways to look inside, it’s important to find out how to make the eyes of your heart illuminated so you can find your courage to accept your self and others for themselves. Then you can continue to inspire and change the world around us for the better.

Take time to look inside your heart and ASPIRE to INSPIRE someone. Remember you don’t have to make national headlines to be an inspiration or to encourage someone. You just need to know that you’ve stepped up to make things better!

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High Needs Baby! Well aren’t they all . . .

~ rachelereilly ~ Leave a comment

Adora is ALMOST 10months old, which literally blows my mind. It feels like just yesterday she was born and in two months she’ll be one year! What a difference a year makes when you have a baby. Your life LITERALLY changes. Brendon and I had thought for the first few months wow this baby thing is no joke. What are we going to do to enrich her and make her happy and have an amazing life? We think we’ve done a pretty good job so far and have had alot of fun and made some incredible memories. Yet, I always see these mom blogs talking about how much their baby sleeps, and how they just have a little one that always is on a schedule and actually sleeps in their own bed. Adora still bed shares with us and won’t nap unless I nap with her or take her for a stroll. Then I started poking around the internet late night after I had tricked her to sleep, glass of wine in hand. I found an article by Dr. Sears, the high needs baby.

& BAM THERE IT WAS I FINALLY FELT LIKE IT ALL MADE SENSE! 

*I just want to make a note this article is purely for ideas and suggestions on how to work through the trying times of young baby hood. When I’m being honest it’s hard and I cry and a struggle. Yet I know I’ll forget all the tears and struggles and the hard times will pass but the memories you make working through the hard times will never be forgotten. I still can’t put Adora down she loves to be carried, which can be trying, but I won’t ever forget the times I’ve had carrying her and how special of a bonding time it’s been. (I won’t forget the lack of sleep haha)

1.  Intense– Adora was always alert she never was ok with just being in the room sleeping in a bassinet, she never was ok with being in a co-sleeper or pack and play she was not a napper, not a sleeper, and she just wasn’t interested in being a baby she was ready to already see clearly, talk, have her needs met and know everything about the world. This was ok for mama because I was ready to take her out and explore, but some moms have a hard time with this and its ok it just takes extra planing.

2. hyper-active – I wouldn’t call Adora hyperactive but she was hyper tonic. As a new born she wouldn’t let me swaddle her she hated having her arms wrapped up and even more hated being constrained in a seat buckle, car seat or anything she couldn’t freely move in and out of. She HATES a pack and play and hates anything with bars. So we’ve made adjustments to her personality. She co-sleeps with us and we’ve moved our bed right onto the floor. If I put her down for a nap (she never naps) I will keep her moving in the stroller or I will lay her on a mat on the floor next to the bed with a blanket. I’ve set up her play areas and room in open areas so that she always feels like she has the run of the place. She has access to everything and anything not baby friendly we keep high out of reach.

3. draining– this sounds bad and moms you know how this can be at the end of the day your just done! sometimes during the day your just drained. This does too pass moms already Adora is starting to play by her self with toys and we load her up with classes so she’s very active.

4. feeds frequently – I don’t think we can say enough how frequently. I wrote a short story about how often she feeds and how mommy was not a pacifier in the beginning. haha it was that much – which added to the drain of being a new mommy.

5.demanding– Adora will cry if she doesn’t get her way and so will most babies, they can’t speak English and they can’t communicate to us how they feel and what they need. It’s a guessing game moms and some will throw fits. We’ve started to not respond to the demands and just to say no no quietly and nicely. USUALLY if I pop out a boob it’ll get that demanding attitude in check, but we can’t ALWAYS do this so I have come up with other things to understand her so we can all communicate better.

6. awakens frequently – yea this too shall pass one day they actually do sleep through the night and even if your lucky they will nap. Adora, however, never naps. She will be ready for bed around 9pm and wake up around 7:30am. She wakes a few times in the night but she is still bed sharing with us and this is what she needs to feel comfortable in her own environment. We are ok with working with her to make her feel safe and comfortable at her own time she will be in her own bed.

7. unsatisfied – Well yea sometimes it felt like no matter what we did it wasn’t enough. I thought my milk wasn’t coming in fast enough or thick enough or that she was just hungry or cold or hot whatever it was I wasn’t giving her what she needed. But that also passed and we came out stronger and better and I learned that taking Adora out of the house really helped alot. It was just a matter of how to comfort Adora.

8. unpredictable – This one goes along with unsatisfied. What worked one day didn’t seem to work the next with Adora. I can now tell from her smiles and her excitement what does work but she’s almost 10months old now and it took me at least 8months to really figure out how to get a schedule and what would work for her. It was really hard to figure out what she likes, but eventually, I got it right. Adora loves being around other kids as long as she gets attention from adults and she loves to go outside and she loves to be worn. She loves feeling loved and she loves when she is #1. She eats up the attention. Figure that out and the rest of the unpredictability just fades away.

9. super sensitive – Being supersensitive is actually really a positive trait in Adora. She gets it when other kids her age are feeling something and she also is receptive to my feelings and gets it when I feel. This is something I really treasure in her personality. She also LOVES positive reinforcements so basically anytime I say YAY or GET EXCITED for her she’s really happy.

10. cant put baby down– This goes without saying in most babies but espcailly the baby they are refering to Adora DOES NOT LIKE TO BE PUT DOWN. She doesn’t want to play alone, be alone, or be put down. This is a great trait also for bonding with mom and sometimes drives me nuts but I think about how I will remember all these times with her. She also is super social at classes and play group so I know I can take her and she’s going to be happy.

11. not a self soother – Well sometimes I wish this were not the case, however, with Adora not being a self soother is ok. She wants mommy to soothe her and she wants to figure out things with mommy. She won’t go back to sleep without me being around but I think she will eventually get there. I’m not patient and I’ve learned with a high needs baby you sometimes just need to be more patient. I swear I always ask God to make me more patient and he’s given me little Adora to make sure I’m learning that fruit of the spirit.

12. separation sensitive – Adora wants to be with mom and dad all the time. She doesn’t like strangers unless they are under 3. Seriously I can leave her playing with kids her age and she is having a blast but a strange adult and she’s not happy. This is also a reason we don’t have a baby sitter for her yet. She’s actually been getting better at going to kids club at the gym and also going to classes where mommy watches her but doesn’t participate but this has been a process so mamas just be patient.

I think all babies are basically high need, it’s just the degree of need their individual personality longs for. Even as I write some of this I had her on the boob feeding. No joke, I started reading about this type of baby and it all made sense. Its not a bad thing moms, its just a personality. She’s amazing and so much fun and so smart, just more work then your typical little one that just sleeps and eats and poos. It’s why I couldn’t finish my youtube channel or barely start one. It’s why I can’t sit down and write a blog, it’s taken me a week to write this one. There are some baby’s that are just more demanding of our time. Just like some adults, but aren’t they worth it. I say 10000% Adora is worth every extra tear and bit of work I put into her. I know its hard sometimes mamas especially when your baby is more demanding of your time, but you can do it, and even when you think you can’t just know that there are other moms out there dealing with the same issues thinking about the same things. For us classes, outings and going outside helped so much. Also just to know that there are babies that need extra attention too made me feel more normal.   So its a good thing I’m a high needs mom and was ready for her.