Tonight, as I sit here at 2am feeding my son, I’m reflecting that for an awful lot of things in this life, I have a choice. I have the opportunity to choose my response or reaction to a situation. As I wrote in Labour of Love, that didn’t really seem to be the case during my labour, but it is increasingly becoming so now. Let me give you some examples from my day.
Yesterday, I woke up at 7am having had about 4 and a half hours’ sleep. And I was torn, between wanting to go back to sleep after the next feed while my husband looked after our son for a couple of hours (I’d been grouchy and tired the previous day, largely due to lack of sleep), or making the most of the morning together and finally getting out to Côte for breakfast, as we’d been hoping to do for a few weeks. I so nearly chose sleep, but then I didn’t. We walked down into town and enjoyed breakfast together. Baby kindly slept through the meal, and that breakfast did us a world of good, as it was quality time together. I think it did more for my mental well-being than topping up my sleep would have done.
After breakfast we walked through town, looking at the Town Day stalls, and headed home. Time for a nap maybe. But instead we decided we’d get the outside lights up and then to head out for a walk with the in-laws. It was a beautiful crisp winter’s day and our walk through the punchbowl was wonderful. The gentle exercise refreshed me, and spending time with adults allowed me some (mostly) sensible conversation.
After the walk, we had the choice to head home for a bit, perhaps to rest and to feed my son in solitude, where I didn’t need to think about breastfeeding discreetly, or to head back to my in-laws’ house for tea, decorating their Christmas tree and then dinner. We chose to go to their house, to enjoy their company, to give our son a chance to spend some time with his grandparents, and to allow ourselves the type of afternoon and evening we’d have enjoyed before baby arrived.
And while I ended the day on just 4.5 hours’ sleep, I felt more refreshed than I have in days. And my husband was happier because his Saturday was spent having fun rather than helping me to “get through”. Effectively, through the various choices we made yesterday, I was choosing to have a normal day and not to let sleep rule or take over my weekend. Sleep is necessary, but I can cope without 8 hours a night. I also need to make the most of these weeks. My son is only going to be this age once, and opportunities for days like yesterday are not going to come along every day.
There are lots of other ways in which we can make choices each day. I can choose to put my tiredness behind me and recognise that on 7 hours sleep per night, my husband is also tired and also needs to be looked after by me, just as I am looked after by him. I can choose to be nice to him rather than grumpy when he’s also in need of a break. I can choose to smile at my son when he won’t stop crying. I can choose to relax and write a blog post while I feed, rather than getting annoyed that my little boy can’t quite decide if he’s sleeping or eating…
I also choose to have a relationship with God. I choose to turn towards Him during my toughest moments and to include Him in and thank Him for my happiest moments. God wants to know when my son is frustrating me with his crying and when he’s delighting me with his perfect smile. I also choose to live according to God’s teachings and moral code, or at least to try. I don’t say that I choose to believe in God because, for me, that isn’t a choice I get to make – for me that is absolutely a truth. But my relationship with Him, and allowing that knowledge of His existence to shape my life… that’s a choice.
There are so many opportunities in life to let ourselves be swept away by circumstances, by immediate needs or wants, or to feel that our choices are taken away by our circumstances. And that can be true. But I think more often than we realise we have a choice. We can choose to do what makes us, and others, happy and we can choose to be happy. As a new mum, I’m learning that I can choose to have a “normal” day sometimes. And that doing that is equally as important as sometimes choosing to cancel everything and just catch up on sleep!