Chocolate Bananas and Caffeinated Quiet

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Let me tell you about something that has made. my. day.

 

Green Eggs and Moms wrote about this fantastic study by a Brazilian University that found caffeine consumption by a mother has no significant effect on a newborn’s sleeping pattern.

 

(OK. I may be overstating the vocabulary here just a tad. Guilty as charged.)

 

Considering I didn’t even try to give up my Coca-Cola habit for this pregnancy and I typically start sucking down the coffee a few weeks after childbirth, this is the best news I’ve heard in my childbearing years.

 

I’m a firm believer the coffee bean is proof God loves me. Can I get an, “amen!” from the fervent listeners?!

 

The downside to my little caffeine habit is occasionally I find myself awake when I’d prefer to be asleep. Like right now. I’m the only one stalking around the house, hoping I don’t wake anyone up and end up being hit over the head with an oar.

 

Because there are oars on the walls here and that would be my weapon of choice against a late-night intruder.

 

I’m going to blame my Pinterest for my wakefulness. I saw a recipe that looked so yummy – a banana cut in half with melted chocolate chips, smeared with peanut butter. It was decadent. It was delicious.

 

It was invigorating.

 

Even though my sleep pattern is suffering, I’m enjoying the quiet time. Sitting in silence when you have three kids is something hard to come by. I’ve discovered when I drive anywhere by myself these days I usually don’t have the radio playing. I just listen to the road.

 

Right now I’m listening to the waves, the crickets, and the mosquitos hit the screen, trying to get in to buzz around my lit computer screen.

 

The bad thing about silence? Sometimes the quiet time gives me the space to worry.

 

I worry about so much – much more than I worried about when I was single or before I became a mom. Now worry is the soundtrack to my life.

 

Most of the time I worry about things that I have absolutely no control over, or things that need time to come to fruition. (Like whether I’m creating a child with ADD by consuming high-energy provoking caffeine during the pregnancy.)

 

(And please don’t mention caffeine has been shown to cause nervousness and anxiety. I don’t need to worry about that, too,)

 

I get mad at myself when I worry because I don’t want to be consumed by fear. I remember quotes like this one from Frances Chan:

‎”Worry implies that we don’t quite trust that God is big enough, powerful enough, or loving enough to take care of what’s happening in our lives.”

 

Ouch.

 

So tonight, just this one time (with hopefully more times to come), I’m going to do my best to put my brain on pause…

 

…and just listen to the world around me. Bugs, waves, cicadas, and crickets. The yumminess of a banana coated with chocolate and peanut butter goo.

 

Good stuff!

 

How do you handle your worries?

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