Usually, I keep these blog posts to just professional topics. However, I think I have a few good insights that I want to share that are personal in nature.

This time last year, I was preparing for wedding season but more importantly the arrival of my son. Giving birth did not scare me much and neither did the prospect of caring for a baby. I was prepared for the pain and am the oldest of 4 in my family so I had helped take care of my siblings when they were young.

What did keep me up at night was knowing that having a newborn was an enormous responsibility and needing to keep two businesses running. I had already planned to take at least 6 weeks off from teaching lessons. Thankfully, my due date landed at the beginning of the summer when families do not want to meet as often for lessons anyways. Wedding season however would have been in full swing by the time I would be giving birth.

In the months leading up to my due date, I meal prepped and filled our chest freezer with food so that we would have easy things to make. I wrote more arrangements in two months than I had in the entire previous year. In the last week before my due date, I frantically wrote as many arrangements as possible in between false alarm trips to the hospital.

On his due date, we went into the hospital because I was having contractions {turned out to not quite be labor yet} and I ended up being induced that evening. He was born the following afternoon and our lives were forever changed.

The first couple of months were difficult. I was recovering, adjusting to caring for a newborn and heading out to weddings near and far on the weekends. I performed my first wedding just two weeks after he was born! In many ways, this year has been harder than I could have imagined. In others, it is so much more manageable than I had envisioned. I have discovered so much strength and motivation that I did not realize I had.

For a long time, the only way that my son would sleep was when I was holding him. For months, I was not able to get anything done except be present for my son. I learned so much in those months in that stillness. My usual mode of operation is full speed without stopping. I started January off by creating a bullet journal and my theme I decided for the year was Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God”. Boy did I learn stillness. I enjoyed every moment of it and now that he is sleeping on his own {and will not sleep with anyone holding him now!} I miss those quiet hours.

Because of all of those hours, days and months of stillness I am brimming with creative energy that I would not have gained otherwise. I am much less likely to let an hour go idly by without accomplishing something useful. My house is more organized than I think it has ever been and I am more caught up with laundry and housework than I usually am. I am finally feeling organized enough to expand my engagement in both of my businesses. All of this because I was forced to just exist for my son.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not have it all together all of the time. Some days are more productive than others, but I have learned to be much more grateful for the current moment and take advantage of whatever the current situation might be.

Psalm 46:8-11

Come, behold the works of the Lord;
    see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
    he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God!
    I am exalted among the nations,
    I am exalted in the earth.”
The Lord of hosts is with us;
    the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah

XOXO

Sylvia

Reflections of a Work at Home Mom