Where Does It Stop?

This morning a woman stood up in church and shared her story of losing her little son at 23 weeks gestation. She shared her agonizing and grief, her deep hurts and questions, and also her deep and abiding peace. Later, I spoke with a woman who lost her son in the recent fires. Another friend recently went to her mother's home country to bury her grandfather, and still another is battling an eating disorder. After my conversation with the grieving mother, I spoke with a friend about sex trafficking in Melbourne. I felt crushed. My heart is overwhelmed by all the pain and suffering in the world. I have carried it around all day and, honestly, I am crushed by it. I feel powerless against it all, and I don't want to know any more. I try to avoid the news in order to shield myself from the mighty weight of the world. But I do want to help. I so desperately want to fix everything for everyone. I want to save all the victims, and be understanding to the misunderstood. I want to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. But where does it stop? I am not able to do it all. Even with all the money in the world I can not fix it all. What is my role and responsibility? I crave to be bigger, more powerful, more influential, more energetic, more capable...but I am not. I am only me. So now, I suppose I will just weep. I am not able to do more.

A Moment

This morning, I had a mommy moment. I had packed the kids, a blanket and some breakfast to head out to the park for a brekkie picnic. My son inhaled half a piece of toast and then set about burning it off. He raced around the park with a huge grin on his face. His fuzzy little hair billowed around his head while he was yelling his running commentary about everything he did. All the while his pink face shown with his delight. As he raced, my precious baby girl busied herself investigating rocks and tiny plants. She dragged her little body as fast as she could to get as much rock matter in her mouth before I caught her. As I watched my children enjoying themselves, just reveling in their experiences, my heart surged with love for them. It flowed out my eyes as I gazed at my amazing kids. How is it, that I, of all people, could be abundantly blessed to have under my protection such amazing people? My blessings are too many to number.

Breastfeeding

Although I have already steered one child through baby-hood and should be an old pro, I feel way out of my depth with my second. Unlike her brother, she is a nature baby. She will take no dummy, she was solely breastfed, and came out the right hole. Also, unlike her brother, she struggles to gain weight properly and is very tiny. I was led to believe that breastfed babies are the healthiest, but all I have found is exhaustion on behalf of all of us. It seems that Piper has never really gotten enough and so she doesn't sleep well through the night. Breastfeeding is a beautifully emotional experience, and is intimately connected to my sense of myself. We bonded beautifully thanks to being able to breastfeed. She never really had any latching problems, but I have always struggled to make enough. I assumed that once she was eating solids that all our problems would be fixed, but as I relaxed about it, I made even less. As I have wrestled with whether to bottle feed or breastfeed I have become more and more obsessed and confused and not a little hormonal. I wonder now if the benefits of breastfeeding have actually outweighed the benefits of bottle feeding. Leif was a robust baby, despite his disease, and my little nature baby is still battling to gain weight and develop.
I have felt a little misled and disappointed. Piper at 7 mos is smaller than her 5 month old cousin (who was lucky enough to be breastfed and get sufficient amounts!) I adore her fat counter-part, but it always makes me a little sad. I wish that I could have made her fat too. Now that she is nearly entirely bottle fed, I hope that she can give up her battle to get enough food and just focus on sitting up and crawling!