This past month has been like a tornado. Not that it has left a path of destruction but everything has happened so fast and changes have turned life upside down in a way. I have absolutely loved having Knox in our family. Since the moment of his birth I have felt so much extra love. I love holding him and staring into his very serious eyes and wondering what he is thinking. I love kissing his soft chubby cheeks. I love watching Kirra be his little protector. If he even whimpers she is right at his aid doing whatever it takes to make him happy again. Unfortunately along with all the extra love I feel I have also had a huge amount of anxiety. Part of it is probably a little postpartum depression. Part of it has been trying to find a balance in life to make sure all of my loves including my hubby get the attention they need from me. I think the most difficult thing for me has been sharing time in my day which used to be solely for Kirra with another person. I have felt guilty that I look forward so much to her nap times. I get mad at myself that I have no patience for her. I feel like she can sense these things and is trying extra hard to do anything to get positive attention. I am sure every parent feels something similar with a new child. It has bothered me but until recently I did not realize how much. An incident that has bothered me more than I expected brought a few things to my attention. We had a guest over to our house. I won't name this person or even give them a gender because that is not important. This person came to visit and of course wanted to hold baby. Kirra gets so excited when we have visitors that she was pulling out every trick in the book to be noticed. She is so naturally cute
That until now she has never really had to work for attention. She was in the middle of dinner but she would take breaks to run over and do a spin or a somersault just to get a reaction but our guest was pretty involved in holding baby. At one point Kirra decided to just join in on adoring the baby and she climbed up next to our guest to get a look at baby and comment on his cuteness. As I said before she had been eating dinner and our guess was worried about getting food on their clothes and very sternly said " don't touch me." I could see that Kirra was hurt and did not understand that our guest even though I would have appreciated a more sensitive approach to their request, was just worried about sticky hands. I'm sure no harm was meant by our guest but a few minutes later when
Later when Kirra was very nicely told to sit down and eat she was embarrassed and melted into a puddle of tears. She was embarrassed and probably had her feelings hurt a little. She hates any kind of negative attention, especially in front of guests. She cried for a few minutes but I think I have cried a few days ( a little over dramatic). The only thing I could think was that my sweet sweet baby girl who tries so hard to be good and to be liked by others might possibly one day forget how special she is. She might loose that spark and confidence that I admire so much. I was
Afraid she would stop being the friendly person she is and start hiding out in the crowd. Even deeper I was afraid that she would one day forget who she was, a daughter of God. I was even afraid that she already has or one day might question how much her mom and dad love her. I realize that these fears are a little irrational( probably partly postpartum). But it also made me realize that I need to spend time each day building my children up and helping them discover their individual worth because the world and the people in it will not And if they forget who they are then the world has an opportunity to trick them into thinking they need to be something that they are not in order to be noticed or get attention. Anyway I think it is amazing the affects of one extra child. It has been such a blessing to grow our little family. I am thankful for the chance to have these little people to love They both bring such special and different things to our family that makes me love being a part of it. I hope I not the only mom out there that gets a little crazy wanting to protect their kids feelings and let's be real who has daily emotional breakdowns after giving birth. Hoping that part goes away.
