A letter to my life-with-an-infant self

Dear October 2013 Cara,

I'm writing to you now on a full night of uninterrupted sleep, so you can trust what I'm about to say. It's real.

• The infant stage is only a season; there will be an end and it is not forever away like you think it is. You will sleep through the night again. You will get your body back. You will stop hurting. You will be able to drink coffee again. You won't have to nurse every 2-3 hours forever. You won't be intimately familiar with your kitchen at 4 a.m. as you pace with a crying baby. You won't always change 12 diapers a day. These things are not forever. Six weeks, eight weeks, four months--whatever. It's not forever, girl, so hang in there.
• You might feel crazy. That's okay. You aren't sleeping much, and I'm pretty sure soldiers use that as a torture method for POWs, so it's okay to feel crazy. Just let that one go.
• Just because you had post-partum depression, mastitis, bronchitis, pink eye, laryngitis, and trouble nursing last pregnancy doesn't mean it'll happen again this time. Chill out a little. Take each moment as it comes. If you're supposed to have all the "itis-es" again, you will and you'll make it. Not much you can do about it.
• Giving Moo less attention than you used to doesn't mean you're a bad mom or that he'll need therapy one day. In fact, giving him a sibling and teaching him how to share you are some of the greatest gifts you can offer him. Kids are resilient, and while you want to be all things to all people (especially the little people under your roof), you can't. And that's a good thing because I'm pretty sure God is the only one who can meet all of our (and our children's) needs anyway.
• You're going to have those days when the crap hits the fan, when both kids are crying and hungry and ornery and you just want five minutes alone to take a shower so you can not smell like spit up and it's not going to happen. You're going to wonder how you'll make it through the next 60 seconds, how women throughout history have made it through moments like this without distractions like PBS Kids and iPad games. I want you to know that God is there and near. In those moments. In the dark places. In the overwhelming, I-want-out times. He's there. And He knows you and what you need. 
• Lean into motherhood. Instead of figuring out how you can craft the kids' day around your agenda, be okay with letting some of your list go if it means spending more time with your babes. They're only in your sole care for a few years. Be all there.