New Rhythms as a Family
BY : SHELBY MILLER
A new baby changes absolutely everything. From your routine to your dreams to your Christmas card…get ready because every single thing is about to change! My husband and I started planning for our first baby about 2 years before she actually got here. We wanted to be ready! I can say with 100% certainty that we were NOT ready for how much would change. Our mornings changed, our meals changed, goodness knows our nights changed. We changed a lot of clothes and even more diapers. We changed our schedule and our bedtime, and we changed to a stronger coffee.
Change can be hard but wow it can also be beautiful! This new baby, my baby girl, was the perfect little world changer to shake our world up. She gave us the most wonderful gift of turning everything on its head and causing us to ask questions about everything in our life. We want to do this as beautifully as we can because this little girl deserves the world. A baby was a new little life, but it was also a new life for our family. This was the perfect opportunity to take a look at who we are becoming and decide if we liked what we see. We had been living this life together, creating rhythms, often without even realizing it for the last 5 years. Our girl was our chance to decide what we liked and what we didn’t, and I’ll be honest…there were some things I didn’t like. I wanted to slow down. I wanted more connection and less competition. So now we are in the process of rewriting our rhythms, and there’s a lot of undoing and redoing, trial and error. I am constantly reminding myself of where I want to be, and actively choosing to say no to what won’t get me there. It’s uncomfortable. It’s like laying in the middle of your bed when you usually sleep on one side. I can feel my old tendencies trying to creep in. This new spot isn’t really comfortable or natural yet, but I know it’s what I want for us.
I thought about telling you all about what we are doing now, what we are changing, but that isn’t really the point. The important thing is figuring out what you want and taking the next right step to get you there. Just because your family growing up was busy and over scheduled doesn’t mean you have to be that way forever. If you grew up eating out constantly, you can still become a master home chef. You are creating your family’s rhythms, your own legacy. Don’t wait for a baby or some major life event to make the changes. You can decide TODAY that you want to slow down or speed up; save more, spend more, give more; work less and play more. The wonderful thing about rhythms is they can change! It’s not comfortable, and it may feel like you’re sleeping on the wrong side of the bed for a few nights, but in the end you get to live a life that you love, and that is worth it all.
