As I was Sweeping, Day 7

It was a lightbulb over the head moment for me.  I was sweeping my kitchen floor. I had just gotten my kids to bed and done the dishes.  I had considered not doing the dishes, laundry, and floor, but I knew tomorrow was Sunday and I was supposed to rest.  As I realized my kitchen was looking a whole lot better, and I was feeling a whole lot better about my prospects for the next morning on account of it, it dawned upon me that my baby hadn't woken up for his usual fuss-nurse about 15 minutes after I put him to bed.  No, he had remained asleep through the older kids evening time, prayers, and bedtime...and beyond! It was now surely a full hour later, and I wasn't tucked in with my baby for the second or third time.  My kitchen was also getting clean.  Ding! (That's my brain connecting a few things.)  I remembered that feeling of success, of "I can do this!" or "I think I'm doing better on the home-front!" that typically comes as my baby nears two years old.  You know, around the time they aren't really babies anymore.  I had forgotten that these really hard days are directly related to the age of my baby...and that they are as fleeting as the precious days of babyhood.
Babies need their Mamas.  Mamas are women in high demand by every member of the household, and perhaps even people beyond the household.  Babies, however, get the trump card on Mama.  They cry, we go. That's the general idea anyway.
How this relates to post-partum issues? We are routinely flouted in our efforts to accomplish the work of our day.  I'd love to do laundry if someone would hold the baby so I could throw in a load. I'd do those dishes if I wasn't nursing the baby. Our work piles up around us and all we can do is watch, baby in arms, and feel increasingly desperate, inadequate, frustrated. But this is a time for overcoming such emotions. They are human, but I do not believe they are from the God who loves us. I came across this passage in one of my favorite spiritual books, written by a Jesuit that you may remember from a series on EWTN.  "A Closer Walk with Christ" by Raymond Thomas Gawronski, S.J., is a personal Ignatian Retreat, also available in video form from EWTN.  He writes:

     Perhaps the greatest virtue we can cultivate, as we place ourselves under the standard of Christ, is       patience.  Impatience is near the root of our disobedience--arrogance of will that will not wait upon God in trust but rather seeks to "jump the gun," to get out from under humble obedience, to move out from under the standard of the humble, patient Jesus.  Impatience fosters arrogance and rancor, which are the stance of Satan and his followers.  The evil spirit is quick to thrive in an atmosphere of impatience, the self-indulgent pride behind it breeding arrogance and rancor.  Patience fosters humility, a humble submission and pliability to the will of God as it reveals itself in events, which is always the stance of Christ Our Lord, the Good Shepard who Himself is led by the Father.  It is the way of suffering, of embracing the Cross.

     I think we need to be patient with ourselves, with our housework, with our families who need us.  Patiently wait for the moment when our hands are free to do the work that awaits us.  Humbly accept that our homes, our wardrobes, our exercise routines are not perfect (or even happening) in the meantime.  If we humbly, patiently wait upon the Lord to give us even the very work of our hands, then we free our hearts to love.  We are freed of all of that pent up anger and frustration because we are temporarily relieved of our duty.  We are free to do nothing at all except lay on our bed with our newborn, snuggling and nursing him to sleep.  Free to linger, drinking in each sweet little breath, stroking those baby cheeks, smoothing that fuzzy little head and loving our baby and loving that we are this baby's Mama.
We are free to let go of our anxieties ("Martha, Martha").  We put them on ourselves, but He tells us that "one thing alone is necessary."  Let's just sit at the Lord's foot and do His will, even if the dishes sit longer than we would prefer.  Humbly accept His will that we stop trying to run everything according to our desires.  We free ourselves to love in each moment according to His will, and we gain peace in return.