My Pride and Joy

This is a rather self-reflective post. I am now summoning deep thoughts. Oooohmmm...

Since having Amelia, I have especially noticed two feelings in myself... one being my pride and the other being my joy.

Pride

So... I'm pretty sure there's a piece of my brain (possibly called the my-baby-is-awesome gyrus) running in overdrive. Whenever Amelia is extreme in anyway, I feel the need to brag.

Take, for instance, Amelia's size. She's pretty big. This morning she weighed 16.5 lbs, and she is now wearing size 3 diapers. She's somewhere above the 95th size percentile, despite having been born a little over two weeks early.

Now, I'm very aware that big does not equal superior. But the my-baby-is-awesome gyrus begs to differ. Of course Amelia is the best baby in the world. She is superior because she's huge. She's also super smart, and could easily win a baby beauty contest. ...Yeah. So says the my-baby-is-awesome gyrus. This area of my brain is completely immune to reason, and I suspect it sees superiority in all my Amelia-related observations. Heck, if Amelia had the longest nose hair ever, I think it would use this fact as proof of her awesomeness.

So... I'll admit it. I think my baby is better than yours. And I don't feel the slightest bit guilty about it, because I'm sure you feel exactly the same way about your baby, too. And really, doesn't everyone need someone to believe they're awesome?

So that isn't the problematic pride, I don't think. But I do consider pride to be my biggest weakness. I think pretty highly of myself. Hopefully this should not come as a surprise to you.

The problematic pride comes when I begin thinking more highly of myself than I think of pretty much anyone else. I've noticed that I am particularly proud of my parenting skills, to the extent that I prickle inside whenever anyone gives me advice. I find this really annoying, because I've noticed this irritation regardless of who is giving the advice. Really though, I find lots of advice helpful, particularly from family members, including in-laws. (So please, keep giving me advice.)

But there you have it. In some irrational part of my mind, I am the most expert mother on the planet. I realize, of course, that I'm not, but it sure doesn't feel that way.

I do want to remedy this. So, question... How does one become humble? You hear all the time that if you don't humble yourself, God'll do it for you, but... Sigh. I'd wager that the first step is to recognize you have a problem, then feel some good ol' godly sorrow and want to change, and then pray for help, but beyond that, I'm stuck. I think I need an "Idiot's Guide to Humility".

I am very curious to hear your thoughts on this. Both James and I really struggle with pride, so he's not an expert in humility either. Halp!

Joy

Now for the lighthearted part of this post. Amelia makes me ridiculously happy inside, enough so that I am absolutely certain I am in the throes of excessively hormonal emotions. To give you an idea how far gone I am, recall how difficult my pregnancy was. Now remember how childbirth was no piece of cake. And lastly, remember Amelia's month-long bout of colicky crying...

Okay, got that all fresh in your mind? Now imagine this. Even in the midst of Amelia's most desperately loud cries, after hours of tears, I catch myself thinking, I really like Amelia. I should have MORE babies, ASAP.

I think I am now certifiably insane and legitimately baby crazy. Recall my reluctance during pregnancy to have more than one or two babies... Well, now I'm just itching to spend the rest of my days procreating. I get a little excited whenever I have a little stomachache, because maybe it's morning sickness! ... You know, even though there's this contraception stuff, and high levels of prolactin coursing through my system, both of which are preventing me from conceiving. And good thing too, because my ever-reasonable brain insists now would be a very bad time to get pregnant again.

My new-found baby craziness really surprises me, actually. Before Amelia popped out, I would never have considered myself a baby person. Like EVER. As a teenager, when all the other Young Women were cooing over the babies in the ward, I was quite content to remain at the opposite end of the church building. I dreaded babysitting. I was pretty ignorant of basic baby care and didn't care to correct this... because it would mean hanging out with babies. Yyyyick. Heck, I even had a hard time when people started calling babies cute. Say whaaat? That purple, wrinkly thing? Cute? If you say so...

Behold! See how the mighty have fallen! I lay awake at night thinking up baby names¹, because I'm going to need a lot, that's for sure. I only have four names picked out, and I'll need at least thirty, right? I hoard all our too-small baby clothes, because clearly I will need them again... for several agains. Clearly, I cannot share my baby gear wealth, right? Heck, I'm so far gone, I can barely contain the itch to collect baby boy clothes.

Anyway, babies everywhere,²
Jenna and Amelia


1 I still really like the names Abigail Joy and Adela Katharine... I've convinced myself my second daughter will be Abigail, and my third will be Adela. And as for boys... I still struggle with that. James and I joke about naming our first son James Tiberius Dilts III, but after spending Thanksgiving in the same house as James Mohan Dilts (James' nephew), I'm not so sure. I don't think I'll be able to handle the confusion caused by having two boys (father and son) who both go by James/Jimmy/Jim in one dwelling, and I can't imagine myself calling my son Tiberius, despite the nerd value (think Star Trek's Captain Kirk)... so... If we do name our first son James, it might be James Griffin Dilts instead. And then we can call him Griffin. I'm okay with that.^↩

2 This is a reference to this Nutrigrain commercial.^↩