A Letter to My 18-Year-Old Self

Dear Eighteen-Year-Old Me,

Hello there! It's me, your 33-year-old self. It's been nearly sixteen years since you graduated high school and began preparing for college life. I know you are very excited to see what the next chapter of life would hold. I'm sure you are a little nervous venturing out on your own, especially knowing your parents will be 10+ hours away. Of course, you have been somewhat prepared for this having spent the majority of your summers away from your parents visiting relatives. It's just one more new adventure!

I know that you are not sure what you should study but have signed up for the engineering track at the suggestion of your parents. You will end up taking many more math and science classes than you end up needing for graduation when you finally find majors that best suit your wiring, but there will be a big upside to having taken engineering classes (specifically Statistics for Engineers). You don't know it yet, but that class will profoundly and positively impact your life.

If I could truly go back and offer you some advice before you begin your time at N.C. State (which you love, by the way), here is a part of what I would want to say.

Just because someone shows interest in dating you, it doesn't mean that's a relationship you need to pursue. I know you've only really dated one person thus far but not all relationships will be as positive and healthy as that one was. You need to work on deepening your relationship with Jesus and seeking him. God loves you dearly. He has a purpose for you that he will fulfill. Whether or not you end up with a spouse, God's plans will be better than anything you can imagine. If you have the desire for a husband, give it to him in prayer and trust him to provide in his timing. God is faithful and trustworthy.

Marriage is supposed to be a reflection of Christ and his church. Any dating relationship you have should be characterized by respect, love, grace and selflessness (from both of you). Here are a few questions you may want to ask yourself when considering a dating relationship. Does he love God? Does he attend church? Pray and read his Bible regularly? Is he involved in a Christian group, Bible study or other activity to deepen his relationship with Christ? (Experience will tell you that behavior is the best indicator of what someone believes.) Does he treat you with respect? Does he listen to and value your opinion? Does he try to push physical boundaries? Does he desire to see you grow and succeed? Will he encourage you in your relationship with Christ?

It is very important for you to answer the questions asked above about yourself. You are young in your faith and have a lot of growing to do. If you seek to grow closer to God and join activities that will encourage you in this way, you will flourish. Ask God to help you find these things. He will provide some amazing friends, connections and experiences.

I know that I cannot go back and change what you will experience, but I hope that what you learn can help other young women as they prepare for their own college career. To that extent, I wrote a book for college-age women (info below). I hope that they will learn from your experiences and avoid some of your mistakes. I have some sorrow and regret over choices made during college but, praise God, he has brought good from it!

Don't worry, you will have a fabulous time and meet some great people that you will still keep up with when you're my age (mostly thanks to the invention of Facebook that is not yet an idea in Mark Z's head). Your mistakes will not be fatal. You will learn, grow and change. You will become much more confident and self-assured as you age. You will also acquire a lot more responsibility so enjoy your relatively tether-free time in college!

Love,
Thirty-three-year-old Me

Between Us Girls: Navigating College Life as a Christian Woman

Will you head off to college soon? Or perhaps you've already started at a university and found the going a little rough? Have you prepared yourself for all that you may experience, both on-campus and off? Do you know how to strengthen your faith and locate resources to help draw you closer to God? Between Us Girls: Navigating College Life as a Christian Woman can help you prepare for campus life. In this book, you'll learn about... 

• Strengthening your relationship with God
• The importance of finding a Christian group on campus 
• The different types of guys you will encounter 
• What to do if you mess up 
• Potential stumbling blocks to your faith and your relationships 
• Straight talk about sex 

Through reading candid, real-life stories and advice from Christian women about their time at college, you'll discover that you're not the only one facing challenges and struggles on campus. Even more importantly, you'll learn about great opportunities for redemption, success, and a rich adventure with God.


If you are interested in obtaining a copy of Between Us Girls: Navigating College Life as a Christian Woman, please email me at  mybyrdlife at gmail.com. Copies are $10 each. Shipping is $3 (free if you're local and we can meet in person). Thanks!

For First-Time Parents: Sleeping Through the Night

[Every parent has things they’d like to share with other parents, especially those just starting out on the journey. We have been through the trenches and have success and failures that we believe can help others. I do know, however, that no matter how wise or useful advice may be, sometimes it can only truly be appreciated standing on the other side. So, if you’re a first-time parent, I completely understand if you choose to ignore what others (including myself) are trying to tell you. However, perhaps this will help you to remember that you’re not alone in your struggle.]

LB, swaddled and sleeping

Once you become a parent, you truly appreciate (and miss) all of that good sleep you got before your beautiful newest member of the family arrived. You are now willing to do just about anything it takes to get some more precious slumber. There are mountains of books you could read about helping your child sleep. I think having a consistent routine and schedule could help, but I also think that it also depends on your child.

Our first child “slept through the night” at eight weeks. To me, this means sleeping for a decent stretch of time without needing milk. In our house, this meant that she nursed at 10 pm and then slept until 6 am when she wanted to nurse again. She probably didn’t get put down into her crib until closer to 11 and I think she still woke up a couple of times, but I didn’t have to feed her, just soothe her to sleep. The time interval slowly increased until it was 7:30 p.m. for the last feeding and then sleeping until about 7 a.m.

We would still get up once or twice per night to soothe BB when she’d wake up. I hated hearing her cry so we tended to rock her until she fell asleep again and then lay her back down. One night, sometime in the ninth or tenth month, my husband and I had both taken turns in the middle of the night trying to soothe our daughter. Nothing worked. Finally we were both so tired that we just let her cry and laid in our bed listening to her. The only other thing I remember is waking up the next morning and realizing that she had finally soothed herself to sleep and we had gotten some sleep as well. After that, she became proficient at soothing herself back to sleep when she woke up at night and we finally got real, unbroken sleep.

With our second child I had high hopes of him following in his sister’s footsteps and “sleeping” early on. This time around, I decided that I wanted to put him down for bed at the same time as his sister and risk waking up for an early morning feeding so that my husband and I could get some down time in the evening. [Otherwise we’d be dealing with kids until our bedtime and then as soon as we got up and that sounded too overwhelming for me.]

For a while LB would wake up as we were heading to bed so I thought that perhaps we could kind of do the same schedule we had with BB. Not quite. The overnight pattern with LB was soooo unpredictable. He’d have several weeks with two feedings and then a night with only one feeding followed by a night with three. There were a couple of sporadic no-feeding nights which were awesome (followed by complete disappointment when he went back to multiple feedings the following night).

As we stumbled through his fifth and six months of life, the schedule slowly improved and leveled out to one or two feedings at night. Shortly before his half-birthday, he started sleeping from his 7:30 p.m. feeding until about 6:30 a.m. Praise the Lord! We’ve only had a handful of rough nights since then that I can recall and they were due to pain from cutting teeth and/or being in a new sleeping place on vacation. While it took longer to cut out the night feedings, LB was almost six months ahead of his sister on length of night sleep. And we don’t go into his room to soothe him like we did BB as we have laid him down awake and allowed him to soothe himself to sleep from the beginning.

I share my experiences to let you know that it is possible to do many of the same things and still get different results. Both kids were breastfed on set intervals throughout the day. Both kids were swaddled to sleep for at least the first couple of months. Neither child started solids until six months. I think LB has gotten more and better naps than BB did (which may have helped some), but that is out of experience and necessity and is probably a topic for a different day.

How long until your kids slept through the night without feeding? Did you put them down awake? Do you have any tips that worked for your family that might help others?

Two Things Not to Say to a Mom of One

There is a long list of things people, especially strangers, should not say to young mothers (or fathers). Below are two that have bothered me the most.

Me and BB

1. Having one is SOOOOO easy.

Looking back at one child from the view of two or more, it is easy to say that. Not long after my son was born I saw the advantages of having one instead of two (especially one who is much more self-sufficient than her newborn baby brother). It’s much easier to get one dressed, fed, and ready for outings. One is easier to keep track of while on an outing. One is easier to keep entertained. There is more time to do the things I want/need to get done during the day. But, of course, as your family grows, you tend to forget what it was like the first time around.

When my daughter was born, I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. Every experience was new and I had to figure out how to handle each one in a manner that worked for our family.  I read quite a few books to try to help me through various situations – weaning, solid foods, sleep scheduling, potty training. You name it, there are thousands of books to tell you the “right” way to do it. And there are plenty of conflicting ideas, as Ava Neyer pointed out.

All of the helpful advice can be overwhelming and make you feel like you’re doing it wrong and you’re going to screw up your child and you are so not cut out for this and on and on and on. Sometimes you end up trying it all only to find that your child does not fit any of the molds. Sometimes you will do something you swore you’d never do or that many people say is bad for the baby but it works and is saving your sanity so you go with it.

As a first time parent, EVERYTHING is a big deal. It is super important for the baby to follow the schedule to a T every single day. I know that once you find something that works, you try to hold onto it for as long as possible, which doesn’t tend to be that long as babies are always changing things up, especially that first year. By the time you get a good three nap schedule down, they decide to drop one. When you are finally figuring out a good time for errands, the baby will get sick and keep you home for a few days (or a week). It’s one giant guessing game.

It is so tough being a first-time parent. Experience makes the second time around A LOT better.  I still am not getting everything “right” but I know (from experience) that everything is a stage that WILL pass and that really helps get me through. And, of course, I’m still continuing to experience plenty of firsts with our oldest child.

2. So, when are you having another one?

As my journey into relationships with other mothers has progressed, I have learned that there are a lot of reasons families have one child. The simplest reason is that it is what the couple has decided completes their family. But, many times, this is not the case. I have quite a few women in my circle who have had issues with pregnancy. For some, their first child was a miracle. They would love to have more, but they didn’t even think they could have one. Some are in the process of trying to get pregnant a second time, but have had months, or years, of disappointment. Some women have dealt with the sorrow of one or several miscarriages before and/or after their first child. Other women had such a rough first pregnancy and/or delivery that they don’t want to risk having the same, or a worse, experience.

Most of these are issues no one wants to discuss with strangers or even well-meaning friends. The question may hit a sore spot without you ever knowing. I know of one instance when I asked that question to someone who had just suffered their second miscarriage (I didn’t know that until later). Since then, I have chosen to refrain from asking this question. I would caution you to also think hard before using this question as a casual conversation topic.

Do you have any additional suggestions on what not to say to a mom of one? Do you remember inappropriate or insensitive things told to you with your first or only child?