Praise the Lord for a fourth baby! For the last two babies, I had such worries. How could I have the strength or time to be a good Mom to more than one? This time my little one has a loaf of bread under her arm that's not so much related to extra money, but extra time.
For the past three weeks, I've been on fire with doing daily tasks to help our family's basic organization techniques. I call it "Techno-Nesting." Rather than obsess about repainting the house or actually finding a new crib that doesn't have some of its railings kicked out by my five year old, I'm over the moon excited about finishing mundane tasks on the computer. For example, my family now has a "Health Notebook" with each kids medical records, immunizations and prescriptions neatly filed and ready for the next doctor's appointment. Hurrah!
I love "igoogle docs." It feels so great to organize our favorite recipes, write out my family's Standard Operating Procedure regarding the laundry, make list after endless list and know that they'll be in one central place FOREVER!
Do you remember the scene from Erin Brockovich when the new big-time lawyers have her in a small cubicle and she's basically downloading her brain into various computer files. That's me! Only I'm so happy about it!
I picture all the things that Jon will need to know during the awful week I'm going to be out of commission after my c-section and I simply write it down in advance for him. The best part is that helping Jon, helps me. I no longer have the mental space to keep all of this "Mommy stuff" in my head. Once I write it down, I no longer have the anxiety of "forgetting" something. Of course, we'll still leave for Sunday Mass in the future without a water bottle, extra diapers or that over-due parish library book. However, I'll no longer have that nagging anxiety about misplacing papers and notes with important factual stuff like "which of my 700 user-names did I use to access my account at Sallie Mae?" One detailed "Control Journal" and that problem is gone forever.
Hip Hip Hurray for Number 4! Suddenly, I've graduated to full CEO status of my little family. A stitch in time saves nine! Everywhere I look there is tons, and tons of time to love a newborn baby. I had no idea that God truly takes care of everything in my vocation- including multiplying time for Mothers of Large Families!
