Kendra's Kampfire

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Small Prayer - Huge Answer

God is amazing. Plain and simple. He has answered so many prayers in my life, and I have so many blessings to be thankful for, but tonight, I experienced first hand how truly amazing He is. Some may think this is a small thing, but to me, tonight, it was a huge answered prayer, and even though I am exhausted, I wanted to write this down before I forget, or let's be real, get too busy and it just never happens. I apologize in advance if my thoughts seem jumbled, that's the state of my brain these days :)

These past few days Miles has come down with a cold, and hasn't been feeling well. As a mom, it's so frustrating to have your little guy be in pain or uncomfortable, and he's not able to verbalize it, and apart from nursing, and cuddling, there isn't much I can do for him. He's always been a consistent nap fighter, but has usually gone down to sleep fairly easy on most nights. Except for the past few. It has literally taken Mike and I 2-3 hours to console him, nurse him, etc, to the point where he falls asleep. As guilty as I am to admit this, I have to be transparent about where I'm at. Lack of sleep and having a sick kiddo has taken a toll on me the past couple of days, and tonight, after hour 3 of him just crying and fussing, I felt like I was at the end of my rope. I felt like a failure that I couldn't comfort my son and help get to the point where he was comfortable enough to fall asleep. What was I doing wrong? Why was I getting so frustrated? Then I got even more frustrated at myself because I was frustrated with him. It's not his fault, and I know that, but it is just so hard to have a crying baby in your arms and nothing you do will help.

After Mike had been trying to soothe him for awhile, I went in and tagged him out, knowing he has to get up early for work in the morning. I picked Miles up, he was crying, and I just started to rock him. I held him close to me, rested my chin on his forehead, and when I was at the point of tears, I just started to pray. I prayed to God that he send Miles comfort, and ease his pain, and help him relax to the point where he would start to fall asleep. I then just started to talk to Him. In this state of being completely frustrated and depleted, I realized something. I have waited my entire life to be a Mom, and to be able to hold my child in my arms and rock him to sleep. In that moment, I realized how incredibly blessed I am. I know there are so many women out there who would give anything to have a screaming baby to hold and rock to sleep and wouldn't think twice about how tired they are. I just kept thanking Him, letting Him know that this incredible 14 pound blessing in my arms is something that I am so incredibly grateful for, and how much He has blessed me is definitely not lost on me. I just kept thanking Him.

After a few minutes of me praying, forgetting the whole reason I started talking to God in the first place, I looked down and realized that Miles was fast asleep. In that moment, He had answered my small and fairly insignificant prayer. My screaming child had closed his beautiful blue eyes and had finally given in to sleep. After thanking Him mercifully, I said one last prayer that he would stay asleep when I laid him down in his crib (which has been quite impossible to do lately I might add), and whattya know, he didn't move a muscle when I set him down.

It was such a beautiful reminder that I am human, and the all I have to do is reach out to Him and He will give me strength. I hope that whenever I feel frustrated, or tired, or discouraged, I can look back at this moment and realize how truly blessed I am that God chose me to be Miles' Mama, and to remind me that He is our answer to everything, even when it's a small, screaming, tired bundle of joy.

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Little Man Cave

I'm going to be honest with you, I have secretly been pinning things to a private board titled "Baby P's Nursery" for a really long time. Probably since around the 1 year mark of Mike and I being married. I was so anxious to be a Mom, that I couldn't help but dream about what his or her room would look like. Mike and I decided to find out the sex of the baby (even though I didn't want to, you can read about that here), so it made my pin boards a little easier to become a reality.

Mike and I met camping (you can read about that meet cute story here), so when we found out we were having a little man, I knew I wanted to pay homage to that. Because we met in the woods, I knew that making it a woodsy theme would always remind me of where it all started, so now each time I walk in the nursery, I briefly think that the reason this precious little man is here is all because two people met under pine trees and a star filled sky. That always makes me smile.

I took bits and pieces of things I found on Pinterest and tried to make it a reality, and let me tell you, Hobby Lobby and ETSY make it real easy for a girl to pick and choose what she wants! So take a look below at Miles' Little Man Cave! Enjoy!

Bubba supervising like always

I literally googled wood signage on Etsy and this shop popped up!

All of the signage is courtesy of Hobby Lobby, and my Mom got us the adorable Fox Lamp from Babies R Us

Mike stained them himself :)

My attempt to be organized

Side note - the multicolored quilt was given to Miles from my great friend Michele who had it made just for him!

Rocker and changing table with a Miles cameo ;)

Bookshelves that don't even house half the books we were graciously given!

His nursery is my favorite room in the house. Every time when I walk in there to get him from a nap, or in the middle of the night, or when we're reading books in his rocking chair, I feel so incredibly blessed that he's my son. He's just the biggest gift I've ever been given, and being able to spend so much time in his nursery is a constant reminder of that.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

MILEStones Month 4

Boy was this a big month! I feel like so much has happened! First off, that 4 month sleep regression is real, yall! I did a separate post about it that you can read here, and it really kicked our butts for a couple weeks, but thankfully it didn't last long! I'm pretty sure he is starting to teethe, because he has been drooling a lot more than normal and anything and everything is going in his mouth! There have only been a couple of times that I could tell it was really bothering him, but thankfully a little Tylenol helped! One little thing I definitely want to note, so I don't forget, happens in the middle of the night. I know they say during the middle of the night not to make eye contact, not to talk to them, so that way they know that it's still sleepy time. Well, there were a few nights this month that he was really upset when I put him on his changing table, but when I rubbed his head and looked at him to soothe him, he made eye contact with me, smiled, and stopped crying and was instantly content. Those sweet, 3 am smiles just melt my heart, and it's something I want to remember for a long time.

There were lots of little milestones that we hit this month, and I know there will continue to be many more, it has just be so insanely fun watching him grow and change each day!