My Babies

With my two big girls having birthdays right now, I've been having lots of flashback memories of when they were little. So I thought I'd post a few photos of my three sweethearts:

All the photos are when they are around 3 months old.

My three babies have been SO different...each one unique and surprising. Alex and I are constantly being surprised by Geneva, as she seems to have a totally different personality than our first two. She is by far our most content and happy baby. I confessed to someone today that I actually feel less tired now than I did when I just had one baby!

Parenting discussions are always intriguing to me. I think because sometimes I think I'm still trying to figure out my parenting style...if I have one...which may be my parenting style...I kind of ebb and flow through it. I appreciate the naturalness of attachment parenting. I love having our babies in bed with us, I love nursing whenever my babies want to nurse, and I love wearing my babies in slings. When Alex and I first read this one baby book (I won't name it) that was on the strict schedule side of the parenting spectrum, he made me throw it away...it just wasn't us, and we knew it from the start. I think we would have been stressed out all the time had we tried to make our kids fit into some sort of standard box of how a baby should be all the time. As I get to know more and more moms I'm realizing that there is some sort of 'family style' for each family and I can feel freedom in the way Alex and I parent our girls.

And as I look at my now 5 year old and 3 year old I see two little girls...very different in so many ways... who are the sweetest, most loving and most thoughtful sisters I've ever seen. My first fussy baby who slept through the night for the first time at 18 months never wakes up in the night anymore (yes there is hope for those who are struggling with sleep...it doesn't last forever!). And my extremely active toddler who absolutely got into everything and pushed every boundary she ever saw is now maturing into a loving, thoughtful, and extremely smart little pre-schooler (still pushing some boundaries, but learning now when to stop when she needs to...and I'm learning to let her push a little sometimes, it's healthy and she's going to be a great woman someday because of it). I don't know what issues Geneva will bring us, but this third time around I'm committed to not worrying so much about everything. I want to spend less time worrying about how to change my girls and more time loving them and helping gently shape them into whoever God is making them to be.