I survived my 1st year of parenting!

And just like that, it is now a day to our baby girl’s first birthday and I want to scream to the entire world “I survived my first year of being a mama!!”

I imagine myself drenched in sweat, weary from countless nights of interrupted sleep, dirt under my fingernails from all the poopy diapers I have changed, standing victoriously on a mountaintop. Yes I am on top of the first mountain in a whole range of mountains, but for now I want a pat on the back, an award for participation. A personal moment to say “girl, you did it!”.

This time last year, I was on one of several beds in the labour ward. Anyone who has any experience with Nigeria hospitals will imagine or know first hand the trepidation I felt. I had to constantly use exercise my faith so as not to be overcome with worry . All I knew was that as long as I had a natural birth, by the grace of God, I and my baby will be in good hands.

I was divinely favoured to have a relatively pleasant and easy labour and delivery story (no need to bore you with my tales of the inadequacies of the healthcare system here). With simple child-like faith, I believed for a relatively stress-free labour experience and I was beaming (like a child who opened their Christmas gift to find it was what she has asked for and doubted whether she will get it) when I found out I was 2cm dilated with pain-free contractions. There were some challenging moments as time when doctors insisted I go for a C-section but honestly the whole experience was divinely blessed with God’s grace.

Our child has been a blessing from the moment of conception, to labour and unbelievably easy pushing part of the delivery. I literally pushed and grunted and our baby slid out.

Within first few minutes of her birth, a song of praise burst forth from my lips. Mind you, the words was more or less whispered under my breath as I was exhausted and beyond famished. As they were stitching me up, I turned my head and watched in awe as they cleaned up this pale skinned, raven haired little human with olive oil.

The struggles and anticipation of the previous nine months and the grueling ordeal of labour were already fading into memory.

How do I condense all the struggles of a rookie mama into a paragraph? Or two? The journey of bonding with our precious baby was no walk in the park. It is assumed that because a baby grew inside of you for nine months, you will form a magical bond that will detect whether they are hungry, tired or need to go poopy.

In the first several months, the process of trying to figure out why your baby is fussing goes like this:

Changed her diaper, check. Nursed her like five minutes ago so she can’t be hungry. She just napped like 30 minutes ago. Probably she is feeling the heat? Is she feeling uncomfortable because of the immunization shots she took yesterday?

Oh I look back with fondness at how frazzled different stages of the past year made me. From mommy and baby struggling to latch properly, figuring how to nurse baby girl in public like it’s no big deal, to learning how to survive the crowded immunization clinic days. Dealing with immunization aftermath like fevers, swollen tenderness and fussiness. Teething periods. Introducing solids. Progressing through purees to semi solids to beaming in pride as baby girl ate a whole banana by herself.

Oh and the moments when as a parent I beamed with pride and urged our baby girl to perfect a milestone or new skill: holding things with her fingers, grasping, rolling over, pulling herself forward, crawling, pulling up, standing, cruising and so on.

Right now we are helping our daughter learn how to perfect her balance and walking. As parents we are always teaching and encouraging our children to improve or perfect new skills and talents but there are so many lessons our little ones teach us to. I recently did an article on lessons I have learned from observing baby girl learn to walk. (Read here)

I honestly don’t know what my second year as a parent will hold but that’s what makes being a first time parent be so much fun.

Please share stories about your experiences with me too! What was your most challenging and rewarding moment in the first years of your child’s life? Is it easier the second or third “child” around? 🙂

Two Lessons From Observing My Little Human Learn to Walk

My Daughter’s Walking Adventure

I imagine that like myself, most parents cannot wait for the moment their baby learns or starts to walk independently.

My daughter first used her playpen as a safe space to test the limits of gravity as well as practice her pulling up.

The moment she could pull herself up at 7 months, she would stand for like 20 minutes (yes, I timed her once). Later, she proceeded to holding on to edges and going around her playpen in endless circles. Before long, she would try going from one edge to the other, toppling down over and over, smashing her face into the netted mesh on the sides of the playpen. I know she took her first steps in the play pen long ago. But I am not sure that counts as walking ….

Interesting enough, when she was in the living room, she would turn into the most cautious of little princesses; holding on daintily to furniture and cruising, choosing to stick to the safety of crawling from furniture A to B.

I was ecstatic when at 10 months+, she finally got bold enough to venture a few steps between the center table and sofa. Our baby girl then started her journey proper in learning how to walk.

Lesson 1: Walk by Faith

A few days ago, I read a verse in the Bible that talks about how Christians are to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). This verse made me think twice about the concept of walking because for the first time in my life, I have closely observed a little human learning how to walk.

First of all, what is faith? The Bible says that Faith is when one relies with absolute confidence and assurance even though we haven’t seen it physically with our eyes yet (Hebrews 11:1).

So how does one walk in faith?

When my baby girl started to walk, her eyes developed laser sharp focus for the closest piece of furniture at hand and toddles as fast as she can before she loses her balance and falls down splat on the marble tiled floor. How do we apply this to walking in faith?

As I meditated again on the aforementioned scriptures, I realized that I can hold on to God’s word in my faith walk like my daughter holding on to the furniture in her walking adventure. I can cling on with all hope to Scripture verses as God’s promises for me. God says He will never leave us nor forsake us.

So when I go through a situation that seems so unbearable, when I feel so overwhelmed and there is no way out, I can lift my hand up to the heavens and toddle forward in faith holding on to the scriptures for motivation to move forward through the open space of turbulent uncertainty (John 16:33).

Lesson 2: Develop Those Faith Muscles

In just a week and a half, our baby improved so much in balance, confidence and number of steps she could take at a time. She practices walking relentlessly everyday till she is exhausted or hungry. Her leg muscles are strengthened and her balance improves with each practice session.

How do we develop our faith muscles? Faith comes by listening over and over to the Word of God (Romans 10:17), spending time with God’s Word and also exercising and walking, holding onto God’s promises. Not allowing what we see in the physical to keep us from walking in Faith.

As a new momma struggling to get through different routines throughout the day on barest minimum sleep, it can be difficult to maintain our quiet time. I imagine that even veteran mommas with several children, juggling work, PTA meetings, and church ministry activities will even struggle more to find few moments of quietness.

Thankfully, we have many modern technologies and the internet to help us out with that. We can listen to Christian messages on several different platforms, from TBN, FaithTV and other satellite TV channels, YouTube, Instagram and our different apps for listening to audiobooks.

A great and seriously underutilized resource is the YouVersion Bible App. For those of us who struggle to be motivated to read through the Bible in a year, I recommend their Bible devotionals.

I have been enjoying the “Bible in one year 2019” reading plan as it has an audio read along version that’s amazing to follow when my hands are a bit busy or I am nursing and want to listen to God’s Word. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. It has detailed commentaries and practical applications of the assigned readings for the day and it will proceed to go through the chapters assigned but only in certain versions like NIV.

Dear mommas and sisters, as we spend more time listening to the Word of God, and walking in faith, it won’t just feel like we are stumbling through life’s challenges anymore. As our faith muscles strengthen, we should, like Peter be able to take firm bold steps over the raging stormy waters in our life, our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and finisher of our Faith.

P.S: As most of us mommas struggle with exhaustion and function on little sleep, we can start walking by faith by believing God concerning his promises that God is our strength, and that we can do all things through Christ who strengths us (Philippians 4:13)

I originally wrote this article for this site