So...maybe I am a little type A. Maybe I do use my iPhone to record every time Ella nurses. Maybe I did create a Sleep Graph (as recommended in
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child). Maybe I should just let babies be babies...eat when hungry, sleep when tired, no schedule, no worries. But I have this nagging worry that 3 months down the road I'll end up with a sleep problem that is huge, a baby that is unhealthy in her eating habits and a life that is chaotic.
Whoa...maybe I should just slow down a little and enjoy today, because Ella is going to grow up before I know it. Elder Ballard once quoted Anna Quindlen, saying
“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11)
I am really trying to focus more on enjoying the moments. Those precious smiles when she wakes up from a nap. Bathtime. Walks where she nuzzles her head against my chest. Her curiosity that is already apparent. Picking out clothes to wear for the day. Listening to her jabber. Getting a good burp. Changing a messy diaper (when this only happens once every 4 days you find yourself enjoying it!) The list goes on and on. The trick is to be able to
see these things in the moment.
But I think I will still keep using my Nursing Tracker and Sleep Graph.
