They don’t want to scare you, or be a downer, or maybe they don’t remember, really truly, what it was like. They will wait for you to bungle through it, and hopefully figure it out yourself at some point, though I think a lot of us never do. I’ve been through the new parent thing three times now and no one ever told me, that’s for sure.

It’s hard.

Wait a minute. Wait. That’s not the secret thing that no one will tell you. Sure, not many people honestly talk to a couple expecting their first child about how hard it is. It’s all congratulations and calling every day asking, “Any News?” Nevertheless, there are probably a few people in your life who tell you that it was hard for them, or maybe you witnessed some friends or family go through it and you were surprised and appalled by their transformation from happy and excited (even glowing) parent-to-be into weeping zombie. I’m sure you sort of expect that it isn’t going to be a cake walk. But part of you just doesn’t get how hard it can be, and part of you doesn’t even care because you’re all hopped up on the delicious anticipation that is pregnancy. Not to mention a little self-absorbed with the idea that pregnancy is really hard and you can’t wait for it to be over.

I’ll tell you the secret now. The secret is that there is no solution, no fix for the hardness of new parenthood. (I’d almost go so far as to say that it is supposed to be hard, though it’s possible that wasn’t as true in the old days when we lived more communally.)

After the marathon, whirlwind, ordeal, or ecstasy of birth (whatever combo of those you are blessed with), and the initial nights of parenting while you wait for your milk to come in, already exhausted from not sleeping through labour, and then not sleeping because you’re staring dewy-eyed at the new piece of your heart cradled in your arms, and the back-to-back visits from family and friends, and the meconium, and the euphoria of 9 months of waiting has finally worn off, you may find yourself staring into the eyes of a bunch of new challenges.

Challenges like: poor latch, mastititis, postpartum depression, failure to thrive, GERD, mother-in-laws, sleep deprivation, growth spurts, pumping, isolation, child care, identity crisis, colic, returning to work, car rides, diaper rash, marital strife, and never having a single moment to pee or shower without bouncing the baby on the damn exercise ball.

You’ll call the midwife, the lactation consultant, your mother, your BFF and the nurse hotline. You’ll ask for help, and you’ll receive it (with meals). And you’ll cry alone in your room (and no one will know to help). You’ll read books, and ask google and chat rooms. You’ll fight with your partner. You’ll beg your partner to just tell you what to do, or to stop telling you what to do, or to just take the baby for five freaking minutes even if she’s screaming.

You’ll wonder why it’s so hard, and what to do to fix it.

Here’s the thing. We’ll listen to you. We’ll help when we can. We’ll offer solutions from our own experience (when we can). We’ll bring you meals. We’ll tell you “Yes. It was this hard for us too.” We’ll loan you our books, and suggest calling the midwife. We’ll share websites that helped us. We’ll tell you to call any time, even though we know you probably won’t know how to ask for help when you really really need it. But we can’t fix it.

For the better part of the next year (or two), it will stay hard. You will solve some problems and gain more confidence. And then there will be new challenges. New arguments with your partner. New surprises with the baby. You’ll sort those out. You’ll figure out how to eat a meal while holding a baby. You’ll get used to doing the things you love in 10 minute intervals. You’ll stop having to think about the million items you have to bring with you when you leave the house. It will get better. But the truth is: it probably won’t get easier.

It just is this way. This is some of the most important work that you’ll ever do in your life. You’re being remade from the inside out. You’re learning who you are (partly by losing who you were) and what’s important to you, not to mention facilitating the learning, growth and survival of another human who is totally dependent on you for everything right now. Learning of this magnitude just doesn’t get handed to you on a platter. You have to work for it.

You’re going to sweat this year. And cry. Maybe even fight and scream. Don’t worry—you’ll laugh too. And you’ll find the depth of your heart is bottomless and you’ll be shaken to the core. You’ll be bewildered and in love. You’ll be utterly amazed at how tired a person can be, or how painfully cute another person can be.

Right now, I hear the desperation in your voice. You want to believe that this is a temporary rough spot (and in some ways, it is). I know it’s probably going to take longer than you think, and I know that right now, you can’t bear to hear that. So I’m not going to tell you that.

This is what I say to you out loud: You will get through it. You will be amazing. You’ll take it one day, one moment at a time, and you’ll come out the other side. You’ll be astounded at how hard it really was, and you’ll be so happy that you made it. You’ll have a huge overdone party for your baby’s first birthday, and you won’t even realize at the time that the party was really for you, for the milestone that you reached, for living to tell the tale of how you became a parent.

We came to the farm in a mutually beneficial arrangement. We were looking for a rural alternative living situation that would be more cost-effective than the urban too-big-for-us houses that we were renting. The farmers were looking for help on the farm. A young couple with a brand new baby, a day job, and a property over 100 acres—they  had a lot on their plates.

We spent several months writing up a lease, through multiple dinner meetings and conference calls (as our respective kids took turns fussing in the background). As if being able to live on a working farm for reduced rent and creating community with another young family wasn’t great enough, there was a bonus. The farmers’ mother was actively involved in farm life.

My heart has been seeking a local wise woman to play a part in our family for some time. We are alone here; no grandparents or other extended family are nearby. Our parenting sometimes feels lonely. I wish our kids had someone local to bake cookies with (in addition to me). I wish I had someone local to ask questions about canning, knitting, or gardening. Oh so stereotypical isn’t it? Still, I yearn for more of a multi-generational influence in our day-to-day life (rather than only in those intense spurts when our families visit).

Not that this woman (with family of her own here) would have become our own personal wise woman, but I looked forward to getting to know her better nevertheless. I enjoyed her presence at our meals as we imagined and fine-tuned the terms of our lease. She is a vibrant, zesty and loving personality and I looked forward to the inevitable familiarity that would develop as our two families ventured into partnership together. I felt so blessed that the couple we had found to explore a collaborative living arrangement with was not another of the many young families that we know who are going it alone.

Then, a month after we signed the lease and began developing the site where we now live, this vibrant woman was diagnosed with cancer. And here we are, a year later, watching helpless on the sidelines as these young farmers, now our friends, go through the final exhausting and heartbreaking days of losing their mother.

We never did get the chance to get to know her. Shortly after her diagnosis, she began her treatments and we’ve seen very little of her since then. I find myself going through a grieving process for a woman I don’t know. I grieve what might have been more than the loss of something I already had. I grieve for all those hopes and expectations that went into writing that lease last winter.

I also grieve for our friends who are in the thick of the process of caring for a dying family member, something that is foreign and intangible for someone like me who has never been through this, who is blessed to have all four grandparents and a step-grandmother still living.

Some days I watch their little boy so they can go care for their mother. I hold him and we wave at the window wishing Mama a good day before I remember where she is headed. The reality of her days suddenly contrasts sharply with mine.

Spring has arrived here. The sun warms our skin now, the flowers are blooming and there are three new lambs in the fields. Yet, there is a certain heaviness blanketing the farm, as the exhaustion sets in. This young couple stay up all night delivering lambs and leave in the morning, for work, and to care for a mother who mostly sleeps and no longer eats. We try to make sense of their grief, of their tiredness, but it isn’t easy from our position on the periphery. In front of us, there is sunshine, seeds to plant, a fence to build. On the edges, there is a mother to mourn.

It strikes me as odd that as our part of the world tilts back toward the sun, as the Northern Hemisphere lifts its eyes to the sky with all the hope and expectation of spring, that somewhere on the other side of town, a life is ebbing away, one breath at a time. I realize that I am not saying anything new here. It’s the age old expression of incredulity that the world can continue to turn without that loved one in our lives: “How can everything just continue on as if nothing has changed when, in fact, everything has changed?” Though I know  this, it still feels an unnatural juxtaposition from our position on the outskirts of this heartache. Because we aren’t there, because we don’t really know this woman, it is even harder to grasp, except in the eyes and the voices of our friends.

My thoughts are consumed by all of this: warm earth, new lambs, breaking buds, and of course, fear, loss, and sorrow. I am acutely aware of my own anxiety, terror of, and inexperience with death. I can hear the innocence in the very words I’ve written here, and that only increases my terror. A friend of ours (unaware of any of this) loaned us a copy of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and I immediately skipped to Chapter 11 to read Heart Advice on Helping the Dying. Not having read the rest of the book, I can say nothing about its merits, but I can unequivocally recommend that chapter to everyone, regardless of faith. It is full of practical loving advice for how to sit with someone in their final days and I am grateful to have read it before I even have occasion to use it.

Among other things, this chapter talks of the absolute necessity of allowing the dying to express themselves honestly, of being open to their loss, anger, and grief, and of the importance of resolving unfinished business. It also talks about the need to face our own fear of death, and about letting go. I realize that this experience of being close (at least in proximity, if not in intimacy at this point) to someone who is losing a dear family member is part of the process that will prepare me to face the inevitable as the circle of life closes around me, as I eventually lose my grandparents, my parents, or my siblings.

I sat on the couch after dinner, devouring Chapter 11, and there in my face, clear as day, was my biggest fear of death, all fear of the unknown and so on aside. My biggest fear at this moment in time is that if I were required to face my own death, now, I could not resolve my unfinished business. My unfinished business, my magnum opus, the work of my life right now is my children. Of course, all death comes with the sorrow of all that we will lose, but at this moment, it is also the sorrow that my children would lose me. Imperfect as I am, they still need me. Children are resilient and mine have loving people around them and a wonderful father, but they would be devastated and confused. As I contemplate my own mortality, in the dark of night as one is wont to do in circumstances such as these, it is the fear of leaving my children behind that consumes me, the thought that in the midst of their hurting the very person that they usually look to for comfort wouldn’t be there.

Honestly, I don’t quite know where to go from there. There is the comfort that, as I am only 35, in all likelihood, we won’t have to worry about that just yet. Though of course we all know that nothing is ever certain. So the only thing left is to turn our eyes to the sky with all the hope and expectation of spring, to plunge our hands into the earth, to feel the sun on our faces, and to admit that the world will keep on turning regardless.

I’m with my kids in their bedroom, trying to get them to tidy up and put on pjs before bed. The room is a mess and I’m already a little annoyed when I see the state of the room, but I’m ok. I assign each child a specific job and I start grabbing dirty clothes. My daughter starts picking up. My son starts playing. I ask him to stop playing and pick up. My daughter finishes what she was picking up and now I ask her to get into her pjs and go brush her teeth. She drops her dirty clothes where she is standing, pulls out five things from her pj drawer, drops them on the ground, puts on her chosen pjs and goes downstairs to brush her teeth. I call her back to put her things in her drawer. I remind my son not to play, just pick up. I ask my daughter to put her dirty clothes in the hamper. She starts screaming at her brother. I sort out the scuffle. Remind him to pick up. Remind her to take her dirty clothes. All the while, I am also tidying the room, and dealing with my toddler. I go to help my son and keep him on task.  I’m getting frustrated that he is not listening to me. My daughter has forgotten her dirty clothes. I pick them up and go to put them in the hamper. I discover that earlier in the day my daughter has stashed a bunch of toys at the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper. I call her back from the bathroom where she is supposedly brushing her teeth but is in fact spraying water on the mirror with a squirt bottle.

This is not that bizarre of a scene. I’m sure something similar goes on in every family. I find that this procedure goes best if I only give the kids one instruction at a time, and if I am as specific as I can be so that essentially, I’m verbally walking them through every step of the process. This way, they can’t get sidetracked or overwhelmed by the task because it’s broken down into manageable pieces.

Now, imagine that one step is “Please pick up the necklace and put it on the shelf,” but you can’t remember the word necklace or the word shelf. On a daily basis, my ability to recall basic vocabulary is seriously impaired by lack of sleep. Every step of that clean up routine involves great mental effort for me to just give out basic instructions. Many of my instructions actually come out like this “please pick up the…the… the…gold thing. Yes, that, there. Put it on the…the…shelf.”

Of course, it gets worse the more stressed I get. So, for instance, if I’m already a little annoyed that their room is so messy, and as the whole scene drags on, and I just want to get to the part where we are reading stories together, or where they are in bed so I can have a break, the more I begin to stumble over my words. When this is coupled with the frustration of feeling ignored (because kids don’t want to clean up, or go to bed, and because kids get distracted because they live in their imaginations) but which to me feels disrespectful, and means I have to repeat myself when I’m already struggling as it is to say simple things even once, I start to lose my temper. And eventually I find myself yelling, partly to get their attention, but mostly because I’m so frustrated that I can’t form a sentence.

This is not an exaggeration. This just happened again as I was typing this. Aaron was putting away laundry that I had folded earlier today and I tried to tell him that the pillowcase, though in a pile with some towels, needed to be put somewhere else. But I was staring at the pillowcase, knowing it was a pillowcase, and yet totally unable to say the word. “The uh, uh, …the, uh, pillowcase has to go in the closet.” It’s like being under water, my brain grinding away slowly, while everything around me is going on at normal speed.

I read a great article recently called I Think I Know Why You’re Yelling that I will probably talk more about in the future, but today, the part of that article that struck me was the first reason you might be yelling: you aren’t taking care of yourself. I remember a friend explaining one of the concepts of Non-Violent Communication to me and saying that all fear and anger are the result of your needs not being met.

It was like a light bulb going on when I realized that 50% of the reason I yelled at my kids in the scenario above is my frustration at not being able to speak properly. (The other 50% being my need to feel respected, and my need for a tidy home, and my need for a break at the end of the day).

Sure, there are other things going on here too. Sure, we need a better system during the day so the bedroom mess isn’t a surprise at bed time. Sure, we need more follow through with the children so that they ignore us less often. Certainly there are things that we can do better.

I’ve known for some time that my parenting has been suffering due to sleep deprivation, and I’ve written before about often feeling like the only solution to baby sleep is for them to become preschoolers. It’s not a very pleasant place to be, feeling guilty about yelling or being impatient when you are exhausted, and feeling like the only solution is waiting it out.

But I do find that I can be gentler with myself about the yelling, and feel less guilt, when I understand where it’s coming from. Not that this gives me a carte blanche to just keep yelling, but I have found that being compassionate with myself about the yelling has actually helped to reduce it.

Have you ever stopped and sincerely asked yourself why you are yelling? Have you been surprised by the answer?

So then, how do we maintain a sense of self, or prepare for the future, when we are busy living a life on hold? (Yes, I know Life with Young Children is not really a life on hold; it’s more of a beautiful, chaotic, heartbreaking and life-sustaining dance in time lapse photography that, sped up, becomes a dazzling and breathless blur of colour and sound).

Today I give you 8 Ideas to Nurture Your Self Through Motherhood. These may be common sense to some, but I hope at least one strikes a cord with you. I’ve tried to include things that require various levels of involvement and capital. A word about the links I’ve included: I’m neither affiliated with nor endorsing any of these people, but wanted to give some examples of places to get started so you’d have an idea what’s out there if you hadn’t considered some of these ideas before.

1. Read—Novels are ok (and could be coupled with a book club perhaps so that you also have some adult interaction to look forward to) but I’d also recommend reading on subjects that might interest you as a career, hobby, or course of study when you feel the time is right to venture into more time away from your kids. If you want to go back to school, or start a new job after mat leave, or start a business or a new hobby, you don’t have to wait to learn about those things. You can read up on it now. Plus, it gives you something interesting to talk about when you find yourself at parties (if you ever DO find yourself at parties—I know I don’t) and you’re worried you might mention poop or the laundry.
2. Take a Course—If you have occasional childcare, or a partner with a flexible schedule, and the cash, you could take a continuing education course at your local college for one term, either just for fun (like wine tasting, or Expressionism) or to gain a skill you might want to use if you decide to return to work outside (or from) the home (like Illustrator, or bookkeeping, or First Aid). Another option for fun classes is your local community center. Similarly, if childcare is an issue, you could sign up for all kinds of online courses (photography, writing, web design, project management, or even dreaming big). The benefit with these is that they are often self-paced and can be completed at night or during nap time, and they usually feature an active social network online so you won’t feel too isolated.
3. Volunteer—Even once a week, or once a month, without the children gives us something to occupy our minds that is about us, and our gifts, not about being Baby’s Mom. Ideally, try to find something that isn’t kid-related (i.e. not the PTA or soccer team) unless those kid-related volunteer opportunities give you the chance to practice or gain new skills (like chairing a meeting, organizing an event, acting as treasurer, designing and writing a newsletter), rather than just baking for the bake sale or organizing the bottle drive.
4. Exercise—Exercise is proven to make both our bodies and minds feel better. It reduces depression, helps with motivation, and often, gets us out of the house. It might mean a precious kid-free hour at the gym or hot yoga class, or it might mean doing Wii fit in your living room with your toddler “helping” or maybe just going for a brisk walk instead of driving to preschool. It’s going to be good for you no matter what, but if you have the time and energy to take it a step further, I would recommend trying a bunch of things until you hit on the physical activity that you really love, that you can look forward to for it’s own merit (not just for the break from parenting and for fulfilling the list of SHOULDS we carry around). You want to find the thing that becomes a part of you, even after the kids are in school, like moms who start jogging to lose weight and eventually love running marathons. Maybe it’s rec league softball, or cycling, or mountain biking, or zumba, or belly dancing, or dodge ball, or yoga, or hiking in the mountains. There’s so much out there that can grab your interest over and above walking the treadmill at the gym while watching HGTV.
5. Start a Blog—Blogging can be a very fulfilling hobby because by nature it is interactive and communal (even if you do it badly), but especially so if you choose to start a blog on a specific topic rather than just as a way to keep grandparents informed of Junior’s developments. Choosing a specific topic gives you a chance to research posts, network with others in a specific field of interest, read and learn from others, and is a way to both get your brain going and discover what you’re passionate about (if you don’t know yet). Possibilities include: a photography 365 project, a recipe/cooking blog, an advocacy project (possibilities are endless here), current events commentary, literary or film reviews, parenting a child with special needs, DIY projects and tutorials. You may also have a current project in your life that you want to blog about: like “greening” your home, making meals from scratch, budgeting/changing your relationship with your finances, gardening or permaculture, simplifying/de-cluttering, or renovating.
6. Start a Business—This could be the off-shoot of a hobby, like sewing cloth diapers or making felt food or knitting owl faced baby hats. You could open an etsy shop. Or maybe you make soap and you want to start selling it at Craft Fairs and Farmer’s Markets. Or you have previously used skills like bookkeeping, or web-design, or translation, or writing, and you decide to take on one or two freelance contracts (if you have the time). It needn’t be a full-time affair. (Admittedly, this is the trickiest one because it’s hard for a business not to eventually compete with the needs of your children, especially if it starts to become successful and you yearn to watch it grow).
7. Self Exploration—This is pretty varied but it could include all kinds of things like hiring a life coach, taking an online class, crafting your life, meditating, journaling, digging deep, reading, getting organized, exploring spirituality by joining a church or researching a faith you are curious about, practicing mindfulness. These activities will enrich your life even if they are squeezed into the moments between everything else. Taking the time to really know yourself is the perfect foundation for knowing what you want to do when your kids are off on their own self-exploration journeys.
8. Try Something New (or Old)—I want to take a moment here to mention hobbies, though it’s a tricky one. Certainly one of the reasons a lot of hobbies fall by the wayside after we have kids is that it can be hard to practice some of our hobbies with young children around. Perhaps our hobbies are just another of the many things that we’ve had to lay down temporarily while our kids are young, and that we know full well we’ll be back to eventually. That’s totally normal, but perhaps we could find a way to keep at least one, or make time to learn something new that is compatible with our child-full life. Maybe we can’t travel to Italy right now, but we could learn Italian on Rosetta Stone, or we could go to one of those paint your own pottery studios while our oil paints are packed away in storage, or we can make a point of still playing the guitar occasionally if we love it. We could knit while we watch Downton Abbey in the evenings or decide to sew new Christmas stockings instead of buying them. And no, I don’t mean you should feel like you have to make everything homemade in order to measure up. This might be the only sewing or handmade anything you do all year, but if you’re doing it for YOU (and not for pinterest), you’ll get something out of it. It doesn’t have to be big, and it doesn’t have to be often, but hopefully it makes your heart sing.

You may read these and think that you could never add another thing to your plate right now, but even the most sleep-deprived, childcare-challenged mama can get a book out of the library. It doesn’t have to be something big, but you can choose do something for YOU.

Which of these do you do already? Which of these speak directly to your heart?

It can be particularly difficult to maintain a sense of self through those years of intense mothering, especially if we are also parenting in a way that sees us making considerable sacrifices for our children (as most of us do in one way or another). Yet, it’s important to remember that the seasons are temporary. Certainly, we have been re-born as totally different people than we were before motherhood, but we do still have identities that should be nurtured.

In my post, I said:

“Just as the grasshopper was unwise to play and fritter away the summer without preparing for winter, it would be unwise for me to get caught up entirely in this season with my children and to forget that there will come a time when they will need me less. It is important to nurture myself through these times of caring for my children, to make plans for when I have more time and resources and energy to devote to my dreams and goals.”

Not only is it a blessing, when we feel resentful or overwhelmed, to remember that it won’t be this way forever, it’s also important to not lose sight of the fact that in the future, we will become less central to our children’s daily needs. In my opinion, it would be a shame for that time to come and catch us unawares. That is the stuff that identity crisis is made of.

It is so easy to get caught up in the daily stuff of parenting; just trying to keep the house clean and everybody fed takes up a lot of time. Plus, we’re supposed to nap when the baby naps, and forget the dishes so we can get down on the floor to play with kids. Too often, it’s not the dishes that get forgotten in the endless loop of playing, cleaning, grocery shopping, diaper changing, sleep fighting, and date nighting: it’s ourselves.

Finding a way to fit in meaningful self-expression and self-nurturing while also in the trenches with young kids is no easy task. Our interests might excite us to the point of competing with our children for our focus, and we can begin to resent the sacrifices that we’ve made, or to wait impatiently for our kids to grow up so we can get on with it. It might be tempting to chuck it all and just focus on our kids, “for now.” We might have been lulled into complacency by the early days with an infant when it seemed we barely had time to brush our teeth and shower, so we start living our life in stolen moments between everything else, texting, facebooking, playing Angry Birds (that’s so 2011), or watching mindless television after the kids are finally asleep.

It must be a conscious decision, and a commitment to carrying on even if we don’t always get it right. We CAN make choices to live more authentically even in this time of intense mothering, to let our new self live, rather than submitting willingly to a second death.

At this point, I am loath to invoke the dreaded word ‘balance’ but in humans, it isn’t like balancing stones where a static moment of balance is achieved and only maintained by staying still, which I’m telling you now is the reason why balance feels forever unachievable. Balance for us is more like balancing on a ball or a rail fence, where we can only maintain it through constant readjustments, continuous movement and compensation. This means, that there will be times when we feel that to gain balance we need to drop back on some of our interests and focus mindfully and wholeheartedly on the needs of our children, and other moments when we need to make time for ourselves in the hustle and bustle of family life. It will always be a work in motion, and it will always be worthwhile.

There are plenty of little things we can add to our lives that needn’t be all-encompassing. Check back tomorrow for some ideas on ways to maintain your sense of self, despite the sacrifices inherent in mothering babies and small children.

In the mean time, tell me: what’s your experience of maintaining your own identity while consciously and unapologetically making sacrifices while your children are young?

6. Babies Get Tired Every Two Hours

Little babies can only be up for about two hours before they are tired again. Knowing this can make all the difference in how your days unfold. Knowing this can soften sleep struggles. Take note of when they get up and watch them after about two hours. It’s easier to put a sleepy baby to bed than to fight a baby who is either over-tired or not tired at all.

5. Babies Have ~45 Minute Sleep Cycles

Thanks to Elizabeth Pantley for teaching me this one. We all sleep in cycles of deep sleep and light sleep, and we all wake up at various times during the night before returning back to sleep.

The problems for parents and babies are:

1. Our sleep cycles are different lengths (baby cycles being quite a bit shorter than ours). Babies wake more frequently than we do and often wake when we are in a deeper part of our sleep cycle making it more painful for us to wake up (though breastfeeding and co-sleeping both help to sync mother and baby sleep cycles).
2. Babies don’t always know how to go back to sleep when they wake up during a lighter stage of their sleep cycle. This is why a baby who has a particular sleep association (like say, nursing to sleep as all my children have had) will wake hourly all night long and want to use that same method to go back to sleep.

I happen to think that nursing to sleep is normal based on the biological systems that support it. However, it did help to know what was going on when my babies started waking hourly, or why a baby will only take 50 minute naps.

4. Put Down The Sleep Books

I’ve said this before, but this one is pretty big for me so I will say it again: the more I read the sleep books, the more likely I was not in a good head space about our sleep situation. I’m not saying that you should never ever pick up a book on baby sleep. Many of them are super helpful. Some of them are not. Also, as I indicated with the two points above, it IS worth knowing a bit about the mechanics and biology of baby sleep and naps. Absolutely. But when you are obsessively reading more than one sleep book at a time, keeping sleep logs, counting wake ups, comparing last week to this week, plotting, strategizing, and reaching for another sleep book, there’s a pretty good chance that you need:

• support
• a break
• to clear your life of commitments
• to accept that this what is happening for you now, but it won’t last forever

I’m glad I read some of the books when I had my first baby. But I’m also glad that I eventually realized that I never needed to read them ever again. (This also goes for googling: how to get my baby to sleep or why is my baby waking up so much).

3. It Sucks When People Tell You That The Baby Years Go Fast, But It’s True

You know above where I said that you have to accept that this is what is happening now but it won’t last forever? You might have sworn at me under your breath. I hated, HATED, it when people said variations of “all this will one day be a memory” and I could have punched them in the throat when they even hinted that I would miss it. When I was in the depths of psychotic sleep deprivation, this is about the least helpful thing you could say to me. For someone who is struggling with the debilitating effects of lack of sleep like depression; rage; inability to think straight, recall vocabulary, or drive safely; every single day and every single night is torturous. Telling that person that in two YEARS it will be better is to completely misunderstand and minimize what they are going through.

However. It is so true. I have had three kids who have been “terrible sleepers.” (Whatever that means. I’m starting to suspect they were babies.) The first time around it was far more debilitating than the subsequent times, primarily because the first time I had nowhere inside me to gain some of that perspective. It really felt interminable. The second time I had the experience to know that it wouldn’t last forever and that I could get through it. But you only understand that from experience, so don’t say those things to a first time mom.

2. Don’t Count Your Chickens…

You know how that one ends right? Here’s the deal: For the first 3-4 months after birth, baby sleep is still kind of womb-like. Some books and experts talk in general about the Fourth Trimester, and I would generally agree with that idea. During this time, the baby is still not really awake to the world. She can’t see far. She sleeps a lot. She still blinks in shock at the brightness and loudness out here. And when I say that her sleep is womb-like, I mean that she may have her days and nights mixed up as she did in the womb when she would party as soon as you stilled your body for sleep. Or she may have the habits of a male lion: eating and sleeping for 20 hours a day in 15 minute to 2 hour stretches. Or she may only sleep while attached to your body. Whatever her pattern, the main thing to keep in mind is that nothing from this time is at all predictive of what will come next. Don’t worry if the days and nights are mixed up – it WILL get sorted. I guarantee it. Also, don’t brag about how great a sleeper your baby is – it will probably bite you in the ass (raising my hand here). If the baby is less than 16 weeks old, expect everything about sleep to go through a lot more phases. I repeat: at this time, it is far too early to tell what kind of sleeper you have on your hands. Don’t fret. Don’t gloat.

1. I Don’t Know Anything About Baby Sleep

With the sleep challenges we’ve endured, I don’t think I would ever have gotten pregnant again except that I told myself “This time it will be different. I will do X differently. Or THIS kid will be one of the ones people talk about who is a good sleeper without me having to do anything differently.” I thought it was all the stuff I did wrong or I thought my oldest was a bad sleeper and the next one would be better. I put so much effort into trying to do things differently because I needed so desperately to get better sleep. I read the books and I blamed everything from nursing to sleep to co-sleeping. I believed I could not suffer through that kind of chronic long-term sleep deprivation ever again so every pregnancy I prayed that THIS kid would sleep.

Some babies do seem to sleep easier than others. I’ve read about families where they changed nothing and one kid slept and the other didn’t. I’ve read about families who changed everything but both kids slept the same. Most people will tell you it’s the personality of the kid. I would love to believe that but after three non-sleeper kids in a row that feels awfully unfair to me.

In the end, I don’t know what it is. I don’t understand why some people say their kids just slept through the night from the time they were wee babies. It probably is some intricate combination of genes, personality, parenting, physiology, environment, and phase of the moon…like everything in life.

All I know is that the pattern of sleep that my children followed does seem to be very normal, very widespread (even if it isn’t widely talked about) and I have no idea if there’s anything anyone can do about it. Oh yeah, and it’s probably not my fault. You just get what you get and you have no choice but to roll with it.

I’m sure you’ve learned a few things about baby sleep over the years too. I would love to hear what you figured out.

When Silas was 16 months old, we moved from a 1900 sq. ft. house into our 300 sq. ft. converted school bus. Sleeping arrangements changed drastically. The most practical solution for all of us, considering that Silas was still waking to nurse between four and eight times each night and there was no room for a crib, was for me and Silas to share the queen-size bed, and for Aaron to share the double bed with one of our other children.}

The view from here.

Here I am, a co-sleeper, once again, through practical necessity.

I confess that I appreciated the time Silas spent sleeping in a crib. I appreciated the early days when he slept multiple consecutive hours and I was able to sleep soundly across the room but still wake when I heard him rustle around in search of me. I can attest that I appreciated the space in my own bed to fall deeply asleep for 45 minutes at a time between his hourly wake ups that went on for a year. I relished being able to get comfortable in any position I wanted without anyone touching me, even as I dreaded the many times I had to get up and down in a night. Those blissful deep sleeps free of a head in my ribcage, an arm across my throat, a foot in the face, or an entire body on my chest made the crib worth it, even when it didn’t do the job I hoped it would.

As a reformed co-sleeper, I confess that I am grateful that our living situation re-imposed co-sleeping on me.

I admit that I no longer tiptoe into bed for fear that the stirring of the duvet will wake the baby, as I once did in my first incarnation as a co-sleeper. I confess that now when I climb into bed, I wrap my son in my arms and pull his sleeping body up against my own. I confirm that a bury my face in the curve of his neck and inhale the smell of him. I do indeed pass my hands softly over his silky baby hair and rub them over him, feeling the ridge of his spine, the hollow of his back, the fullness of his belly, the way his little foot fits in the palm of my hand like a secret. I acknowledge that I hold on a little tightly, squeezing him into me, absorbing him, for just a fraction of a second as I breathe in his ear, “I love you.” I confess that as he stirs, and becomes aware of my presence in his sleep, I return him gently to his pillow, smoothing his fuzzy blanket over him, and patting him back into his dreams. I confide that I take his hand, heavy and limp with sleep, into my own hand, closing my fingers around his fist, as I settle into my own pillow and close my eyes.

I confess that I am ok temporarily not sharing a bed with my husband. I wouldn’t sleep as well if there were another adult body in the bed. Alone in the bed with a toddler, I have the luxury and space to roll away from Silas between nursing sessions and get comfortable, just as I could when Silas was in a crib.

I acknowledge that I have been given a gift: the chance to reclaim all that I lost during the year Silas slept in a crib. I even admit that sometimes I love it when he sits up in the night and says, “nurse. mama.” because it means that I have one more chance to memorize the weight and shape of unconditional love, that I have one more opportunity to linger in the long-forgotten sensations of long-ago nights with my now seven and four year olds, and that I have one more precious moment to hold still the never-ending blur of my last baby winging into adulthood.

I confess that I can not linger here forever. After seven years of fractured sleep, I am yearning (desperate?) for the day my last baby will finally sleep all night through. I know that night-weaning is just around the corner. I am sure that Silas will be moving to the toddler bed soon, and I acknowledge that I have a lifetime ahead of me without a baby in my bed. I understand that these are my last days as a co-sleeper.

I confess that I am not quite ready to move on. I admit that for now, I’m making no sudden moves, tiptoeing across the room, unwilling to disturb the delicate balance of shared sleep (no matter how broken).

I confess that in this moment I am waiting, blessed to co-sleep for one more night.

The word was NURTURE.

nur·ture

Care for and encourage the growth or development of.

This word is so perfect for our 2013 that it actually sings to me.

My youngest child is turning 2 next month. I know that this year most likely holds his weaning and his potty training. This means that sometime this year for the first time in 8 years, we will no longer have a baby in our family. For the first time in 8 years, there will be no diapers, no night waking (ok, realistically, there will still be some, but there will be considerably less night waking with the direct result being a drastic improvement in my quality of life), no more breastfeeding. This is monumental. This is me saying goodbye to childbearing. This is our family moving on from baby days. This is me reclaiming some autonomy as a person, not just as a physical baby grower and tender. This is my last baby becoming physically independent: walking, talking, eating, and using the toilet on his own. This is us entering a new season.

Yet, none of this is here yet. It is only on the horizon. Now is the time to nurture myself in preparation for the unfolding that will happen next year and the following years when I will have the freedom to explore some of my interests. This is a time to explore what my own hopes and wants and needs are so that when that new season arrives, I will be ready to begin.

This is the year to nurture my last baby as he begins all of these tasks of making the final physical separations, to hold him tenderly as he becomes more independent, to honour the slow start-and-stop process that his weaning will likely be, and for me, to cherish the few remaining days, not just of his babyhood, but of babyhood in our family.

The reality of this, especially with no extended family living locally, is that I spend 24 hours a day with my children (we even share sleep). For either Aaron or I to go do something (a dentist appointment, parent teacher interview, work, a beer/tea/movie with a friend), we have to schedule it so that the other parent will be home, or we bring the kids along if possible. Of course, this also means that it has been nearly impossible for Aaron and I to go out together. In fact, we have sometimes even resorted to waiting until we had family visiting from 2 provinces away before we would plan to go do something together (like belatedly go out for dinner for our 10th Anniversary). Yes, I know–as I type, I can hear whole parts of the internet bursting into flames over our unwillingness to preserve the sanctity of “date night.”

Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this seriously impairs my ability to have my own life in addition to my role as mother. Obviously, I don’t have a career outside of raising kids, I’m not able to return to school, and my hobbies are sporadic at best. I won’t lie to you: sometimes that feels stifling and overwhelming. Sometimes I rage against the whole system (the universe, motherhood, biology–why aren’t men the ones with the boobs!?). Sometimes I just want some time for me. Sometimes I dream wistfully about what I’ll be when I grow up, I mean, when they grow up. Often, I stay up too late in the evenings, just to squeeze in a couple of kid-free hours after the last of our kids has finally (unwillingly) succumbed to slumber. It isn’t always an easy place to be.

Lately, and by that I mean, since Silas was born (almost 2 years ago), I feel at peace with this. After 8 years of pregnancy and motherhood, have I finally just given up, and allowed myself to be eaten by the needs of my children?

No, it’s more likely that, because Silas is our last child, I am buoyed by the knowledge that the end is in sight.

Though, it’s also true that this peace over my voluntary position as a mother has burned as an ember deep inside me from the earliest days, from the first decisions that I made to set aside some of my wants and needs in deference to my children’s needs.Those choices represented an ever-shifting, intricate blend of willing sacrifice and practical necessity. Through it all, despite the times I sometimes fought against it, there was that sense of peace deep within. Call it intuition. I never questioned why I felt that way. I just knew it for what it was.

So much of what I read or hear in our culture tells me that I shouldn’t be ok with stepping out of the work force for so many years, that I shouldn’t be ok with being unable to go on a date with my husband, that I shouldn’t be ok with nursing my toddler more than 4 times in a night. I hear the cautionary tale of the housewives who live their whole lives for their children, who exist only for the PTA meetings and to drive the soccer practice car-pool van, who meddle in their teenage children’s dramas, and who find themselves completely lost when their children leave for college. Yet, I don’t worry about any of those things. Ever since Silas was born, that little ember of peace and acceptance for the way things are has grown, and with it my understanding of why every single one of these sacrifices is ok with me.

I have come to realize, not just with my head but with my heart and soul, that this is but one season in my life. This time where my children demand so much of me, of my time, of my energy, of my body, of my mental and emotional resources, is but a small portion of the life I have on this earth. I have so much time left ahead of me for all of those things I miss right now: time for sleep, time alone with my husband, time to pee with the bathroom door closed (if I so choose), time to go back to school, time to knit, time to wake up early and enjoy a cup of tea free of toddler hands grabbing, time to set aside money to take a trip to another country, time to go to late night events and linger in bed in the morning, time to hike in the mountains, time to enjoy a clean house. I have all of this waiting for me. In fact, I get excited thinking about all of the things we will do together after the kids have moved out. Sure, I will miss them, but I will also love exploring that time of my life. I look forward to all of the seasons of life to come and I accept the season that is here now for what it is.

I can’t rush the change of seasons, I have to dress and behave appropriately for whatever season it is NOW, and otherwise, all I can do is plan for what’s ahead. I have to live for the circumstances of today, which means that if my children need me now and aren’t ready for a babysitter, I have to adjust my expectations and wishes accordingly. Just as it is fruitless to wear shorts and plant a garden in the dead of winter, it will serve no one for me to rage against the reality that my children are young and dependent, or to push for things to be different. However, by the same token, just as the grasshopper was unwise to play and fritter away the summer without preparing for winter, it would be unwise for me to get caught up entirely in this season with my children and to forget that there will come a time when they will need me less. It is important to nurture myself through these times of caring for my children, to make plans for when I have more time and resources and energy to devote to my dreams and goals.

We all make different sacrifices for our children. We aren’t all stay-at-home-mothers, we aren’t all co-sleepers, and we aren’t all willing to go a couple of years without a babysitter, but every single one of us has had to give up some things in the best interest of our children. The extent to which we are able to make peace with that lies in the recognition that so many of these sacrifices are temporary, that our time with our children really is fleeting, and that before we know it the seasons will have changed and hopefully, we’ll be looking back on these days, without resentment and without regret, but with a joyful heart.

1. Laundry facilities – we do at least a load a day, and we cloth diaper the baby toddler.
2. A real bathroom – a flushable or composting toilet (rather than chemical toilet) and either a bath or shower. With little kids, a bath is really a priority.
3. Space for sleeping and for some of the kids things – we did manage to sleep the five of us in the bus for five months but the sleeping arrangements were far from ideal and not something we would want to do long term. We were also very short on space for storing clothes for five people. We put all seasonal clothes in Rubbermaid bins under the bed, and tried to downsize the amount of clothes each person had, but less clothes also means you have to do laundry more often (which brings us back to point number 1). The kids also have some bigger, nice quality toys like a dollhouse, castle and play kitchen that we didn’t want to leave in storage indefinitely.
4. A Dining Table – we prioritize meals together, and while we could (and should) build a bigger table in the bus, the table in the bus is not the ideal place to eat meals with young kids on a regular basis. Because the place where we eat is the same space where they play, colour, read, watch movies, lounge, and goof around, it is very difficult to discourage that kind of up and down, wiggly behaviour at meal times. Spills were every meal occurrences and our seat covers have taken a huge beating. Imagine eating every single meal on your couch.

We decided to build an additional space to house:

• a bathroom/laundry room
• some hangout space & a dining area
• a loft bedroom for the kids

We were originally going to build a little conventional style two room shed/cabin, but Aaron has had an interest in timber framing and natural building for many years and we thought this would be a good chance to explore and learn about building in those styles. Aaron had a book with complete plans for a small timber frame garden shed and we decided to give that a try.

We took the initial plans for a 12′x16′ shed and stretched to 12′x24′. We added 2′ to the height to give a little extra headroom to the 12′x12′ loft. We also added a 4′ bay window on one side (between two bents 12′ apart) and a 6′ porch on one end to accommodate our chest freezer, coat & boot storage, and to create an entry way for the bus. The bathroom/laundry room is 12′x8′ tucked under the loft.

Front door

10th Anniversary monogram

View from the porch, front door

Looking from the porch into the main room

Wood stove and porch

View of stairs cutting through the bathroom wall

Bathroom door and stairs to loft

Looking across main room towards porch, front door and entrance to bus

Entrance to bus

Bathroom vanity

Bathtub tucked under the stairs

Tub surrounded by windows

**A word about materials: all of the windows, the bathroom door, the wood stove, the bathtub, the mirror, the washer and dryer (and our furniture though that’s not pictured) have been obtained through Craigslist or free from friends. The front door was bought from a used window and door retailer – it was a factory second, never even hung. The lights and bathroom vanity were all purchased new. All of the wood except for the 2×4 framing for the drywall was milled by a local sawyer from trees from on site at the farm.**

The resulting space (especially coupled with the space our bus provides) is by no means tiny. We feel very comfortable with this much space for our family of five. It is, in fact, very spacious. What we love about the design of this house is that, in the future, by removing the bus and adding kitchen facilities (either in what is now the porch, or in one corner of the main room), this house could easily be a wonderful small house for a couple – for us after the kids grow up or if we wanted to rent it out. We could also potentially add a kitchen and bedroom wing on to the back side if we stay here long term and eventually tire of having the bus attached (which is conceivable as we also dream of making a long distance trip with the bus at some point). For us, having a workable kitchen is important because of the priority we are putting on making our own food (storing in freezers, canning, buying staples in bulk sizes etc.) – you do need space to do those things. The bus kitchen is adequate for daily living but leaves something to be desired for some of those activities.

We’ve been living in the cabin now for about 6 weeks so this unveiling comes late, but as you can see from the photos we still haven’t finished so much: light fixtures, ceiling fan, a step into the porch from the main room, towel bars, coat hooks, shelving, and beds in the loft still need to be installed or built. We still have piles of boxes and make-do storage (think piles of towels, coats etc.) everywhere so for now, you’ll have to make-do with a single picture of the finished product:

Sneak Peek of the cabin after we moved in.

Tell me: how much space do you need? Could you live in a tiny or small house? Could you do it long term (5-15 years), or just short term? What are some areas where you would be unwilling to go tiny? (For us, because of the ages of our kids, and because of our desire to produce more of our own food, it’s the bathroom, laundry, and in the end, the kitchen).