Caring for any baby, your baby especially, is an unique experience. Mothers do have shared experience though, being mom and going through pregnancy, child birth and caring for a baby who goes through the development milestones. Mothers of eczema children have even more in common, as the struggles of caring for a baby who has rashes all over, experience constant discomfort and itch can only be understood by those who’ve been through them. This series by MarcieMom, are letters to you, with words of encouragement and sharing of her own parenting struggles.
Dear Daddy & Mommy,
It’s feels like our children have already grown so much! Marcie is starting grade school next year and these two years, she seems to be ‘shooting up’ – we went for a week holiday recently and everyday I marveled at her looking so big girl. When did my child grow so much? Sometimes I can be so focused on work, on this blog(!), on chores, on getting everything done that I missed looking at her. Have you looked at your child recently? These two years when her eczema has very much improved, I finally dared to kiss her more on her cheeks. One friend from Germany who visited did ask exactly that as he kissed his son so much all the time and noticed that we didn’t really kiss Marcie so much.
These two years have been so much better – evidence of which are the Nespresso machine I bought and the capsules that I’ve consumed, and the book that I co-authored and published. I’m quite scared about what Marcie starting grade school – will she get bullied? will she get laughed at as she has so many bad habits – scratching, biting fingers and peeling her skin. We never have to cut her fingernails for years and most times, I don’t even dare to look at her fingers (a task for my husband!).
We got off co-sleeping but she still needed to be watched to remind her not to scratch at night. Given that her skin is a little tougher than baby years, we sometimes let her scratch a while to see if she would fall back asleep. It’s still frustrating to remind her not to scratch and the habitual scratching had led to some thickened skin on her feet. There’s less need to take leave to care for her as her eczema is so much more manageable and my parents are able to care for her even on our weekend marriage (church) camp.
How is your family life? Do you have a second baby? We made the decision to have an only child, partly as we didn’t feel that physically, emotionally and financially we could give a second child the same level of care – maybe we are wrong, we don’t know but I like being an ‘only mom’. I pray that if your second child won’t have eczema – some parents in the support group remarked that the second child’s eczema is worse while others say it’s less severe. We never know.. but consider taking probiotics prenatal and also in the early years, and fish oil too.
Time seems to pass us by – and I wonder if I ought to have spent more time with Marcie, looked more at her, kissed her more and less at the rashes and the chores, and even this blog (takes lots of my free time to sustain this blog but it’s like a treasure that I store in heaven). I wonder how you feel about your parenting and how your marriage is holding up after years of caring for an eczema child. Has it got stronger or has it gotten so strained that you hardly can talk heart to heart as a couple? As I type this, Marcie is beside me and my husband in front of me, having just enjoyed a dinner at my parents’ home. We are all doing our own thing (evidently, since I’m typing this), have our own hopes and fears. Disappointment and discouragement. Today is Sunday (this post is scheduled to be published on Friday) and today’s sermon in church ended with an analogy of us building bricks and bricks of discouragement and disappointment and not seeing Jesus beyond the wall. It’s true on a certain level but I believe that the Jesus who is God and came down to live with us and die for us won’t be held back by a brick wall. I pray that the Holy Spirit in me (in all Christians) will dwell in me and show my how to lead my life – to be the mother I’m to be.
Isaiah 57:15
“I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”