If at first you don't succeed...the power of PERSISTENCE!

On December 4th I began the hardest job I ever have, and probably ever will, face...the job of being a first-time mom!! As I began this journey I was optimistic...after all, I had read all the books, talked to all my first-time-mom friends...I was ready!

NOT.

Ever since my son was born he's been one giant mystery to me! I've tried everything I could to "figure him out" as we struggled through feeding, acid reflux (we think?), sleeping (and NOT sleeping...), and desperately trying to get into some kind of routine.

Being the slightly type A person I am and the fact that my job thrives off of routines, the fact that I'm in week 8 and still feel so helpless often causes me to feel like...I'll just say it...I'm bad at being a mom.

However, when my grad school facilitators presented me with this image:

something sort of sparked in me. 

As I read through the above suggestions on "how to be persistent," I realized how many of them I'd been tapping into the past 8 weeks. 

To start, I've certainly learned from my mistakes! To better try and learn from my son, I've created a "plan" of sorts and recorded his feeding and sleeping patterns. I've then been able to refer back to that "plan" when things didn't go so well, or did (!!), and adapt or stick to something. I've found that having this persistence within the plan has helped us to understand his cues and signs a little better.

Also, I've checked in with so many experts (thank you Google, Partners in Pediatrics, and my fellow new mommies) that I'm finally starting to feel (ever so slightly) like an expert myself! 

The one area that struck me as a necessary reminder was that which is accompanied by a smily face: "Keep positive. Start again if you have to. Just don't give up. You will succeed."

I know that someday, maybe even just a few weeks from now, I'll look back and realize how many things we've done right with our first-born and how happy he is because of the love and persistence we've shown him. 

While my family is truly my whole life right now, in just a few weeks I'll be returning to the classroom where I'll be faced with 24 students who need me to follow the above suggestions on a daily basis. My "high-flyers" will most likely need me more than ever as their routine and structure hasn't been what they're used to with me being gone and the multiple snow days we've had. My sweet, shy and quiet kids will need me to show this persistence as I get our class back in order and help us to return to the swing of things. And I, I'll need to keep these suggestions in mind as I begin my journey as a full-time working mom who has to juggle lesson plans, grad school and all my mommy duties. It will be hard. But I'll persist..and I will succeed :)