*Just a side note: These next few blogs are from a couple of years ago when my son was a baby. How the time flies by! I wanted to post them and some other woman/mom blogs as we approach Mother’s Day. Hope you enjoy them. 🙂
My son could not sleep last night. We’d all had a really busy, long day, and I hadn’t been sleeping well the week before because I never do at that time of the month, so I was exhausted.
I crawled into bed and I could hear Seth was restless over in his bed. He just couldn’t get comfortable. After a couple of hours of not really sleeping, he got up shortly before 2am. Like up for the day, up. He was not going back to sleep.
Normally I have endless patience for my son, but I didn’t tonight. We had a really busy week coming up and I wanted to close my eyes. I tried cuddling, soothing, nursing, but he just couldn’t sleep, poor baby. He was getting mad and flung his head back in frustration which landed right on my mouth, making me bite my lip, hard. Now I was really getting crabby.
My husband woke up and asked if Seth was being naughty. I looked at Seth, and saw his face, tired and red from crying. He wasn’t being naughty, just uncomfortable. I saw on Seth’s face the same emotion I felt when I couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night. And though I was upset and tired, I felt sympathy for him. I resolved to get up and let the idea of getting back to sleep go. We put in a baby Einstein movie and I cradled him. He calmed down and started tugging at my hair, which he often does at night when he’s winding down.
And I thought, someday it will not be my hair he strokes. It will not be me laying beside him in the middle of the night, helping him sleep. Before I know it, he will no longer be the baby I gave birth to, but the man that I raised. And even though I am so excited to see who he will be, I don’t want to miss a moment of these baby years.
So I will take these wee hours of the morning to be with him, in exchange for a few less hours of sleep. The teething nights will pass and eventually, we will all sleep again. I’ll sleep better knowing I was there in the moments he needed me most.
As the sun began peeking through the curtains, Seth was finally drifting off to sleep, cuddled up next to me. I was tired, but no longer upset at his waking. Sleepless nights are part of being a mom, and even these nights are moments I have prayed for.
If you look for it, you can see the grace of God and the beauty of the life that He gives in places you least expect it. That’s something to be thankful for.
So, dear momma, do not waste the sleepless nights. Do not dread them. You will sleep again, and so will your baby. You will sleep with a happy heart when you have chosen to love and serve selflessly, as Christians are called to do.
What you do in these little moments matters. The choice to love when you feel irritated, the choice to be patient when you feel frustrated, the choice to be kind when you feel unkind are all choices that quietly whisper, “I really do love you.”
And all those little moments in which you show Christ’s love to your little one(s) are moments when you didn’t just say, “I love you.” You lived it out.
That’s one of the best gifts you could ever give them.
© Grace Baeten 2022
The Misplaced Mom 
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