2 years later

On this day 2 years ago, I found out that there was a little life growing inside me. Today she's a happy healthy 16 month old with a smile that can light up a room.

I wasn't always sure that I wanted children. To be honest I didn't think I had the capacity to be a mother. But it got to the point where I wondered if everything was working as it should be. And then without warning it was. I'd been so sure times before only to find that I was wrong.  Most times I sighed in relief and moved on knowing I wasn't ready but there was that one time when my heart broke and tears cascaded like a waterfall down my cheeks. There's always that one time.  

I think in our own way without talking about it, we prepared for a life being childless.

Then one day, when 3 months had gone by with no signs of anything I decided to call my Doctor. I told the nurse who booked me an appointment and told me to do a test. I'd done one the week before so wasn't holding out much hope.

But then morning came and with it a house alarm that went off at 3am. So there I was awake. I had one last test left and decided  might as well because I needed to go anyway. But if I was going to be disappointed again, I wasn't going to be disappointed on my own. I woke Tim up just in case I went mental. So there we were at 3am watching a stick.  The first line appeared and then THE SECOND ... sort of.

So what did we do? Smiled at each other and called it a dumb test and went back to sleep. 

Because that is what you do at 3am.

But because of the second sort of line that I opted to go for a blood test and just after 2pm, I got the phone call confirming what I had refused to believe.  

The 2 years since that call have been amazing. 

All things good

I've been working on this post for a week and not really wanting to put it up. In some ways it goes against what I'm know for. 

A reader. 

A lover of words and a well written story. I love how it all comes together and how you can be transported somewhere far and magical. 

But it is possible to find yourself reading too much. I used to be a reader of just fiction. Now I find myself trawling the internet looking for advice on the different situations I find myself in. I should stop calling myself a reader and change it to be a Google...ER. I Google everything. From consistency of baby poop (this is necessary when you are the mother of a baby) to how to increase my daughter's fine motor skills and work on the mid-line. 

There is a ton of information out there about how to parent your child. James Dobson, attachment parenting, gentle methods, cry it out and each one of them claims to be tried, tested and true. I keep wondering how the generations before me survived without Google and the plethora of information available today. 

On with the post ... 

Last week, Tim spent the week at home which meant that for the most part I got a week off from being the primary childcare. I loved every minute of it but it was the first day of Tim being home where I realised that maybe I need to stop with the childcare reading and just be. 

For the longest time I didn't tell Amy she was a good girl. I always said 'that's so lovely' or 'well done'. I heaped praise on her without actually using the words "GOOD GIRL"

Why you ask? Well because at some point at some time I read that you didn't want to associate certain behaviours with being good and other behaviours with being bad. So I never told my daughter that she was good. 

On Monday while Tim sat with Amy doing a shape sorter she got one in and he said "Such a good girl" to which I piped up "We don't say good girl, we say well done". Being the dutiful husband he was and trusting my obviously superior knowledge on the situation, when she got the next one in, he correctly said "WELL DONE". 

Except that little statement then started the twist of my own emotions. Was I going to be the mother that dictated how my husband should behave with his daughter? My answer was an emphatic NO. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that well ... maybe I read too much. Does it really matter if I tell Amy she's a good girl. 

No, it doesn't matter how often or what adjectives I used to heap praise on my daughter and I definitely did not want to be the mother who had such strict rules for how people interacted with my daughter.

So I resolved to do 3 things.

1) Tell Amy she was good because really, Have you met my daughter? She is so GOOD. 

2) Stop reading so much. (maybe just stop reading about how to be a parent and just get on with it)

3) Let Tim be the brilliant Dad I already knew he was and parent any which way he felt best without interference with me. 

No. 3 might not work out the way I planned.

On Tuesday while at a local children's play area. Tim (while on a call) was right with Amy as she climbed up onto a chair. It was on the tip on my tongue to call out to him to be a bit more careful when I remembered by resolution from the day before and turned my attention else where only to hear a loud cry when Amy fell off the chair. Thankfully she didn't get too hurt. And after kisses and cuddles toddled off to play again. When I told Tim that I had wanted to warn him but didn't because of my decision the day before, he turned to me in all seriousness and said that I should have. So much for that. 

While I was writing this, I felt God saying to me that when he created the world, he said everything was good and so is Amy. He made it so and who am I to decide that what God made is anything but good.