I'm looking forward to getting my oldest home from school soon.
Once we finish that task, I have no pressing responsibilities for the rest of the day.
None, zip, nada.
We're home for a quick half hour before we turn around and head out again to bring our Jonzter back to us. And then it's a quiet evening in for us.
My body is telling me to stay inside and take it easy. The weather is telling us to stay inside and take it easy.
I'm going to listen.
Homework, reading, music, movies, simple dinner, and early bedtime (for me at least:)).
I love afternoons like this. I love evenings like this.
I love this time of year. I love that my children are still young and forced to be home with me. While I think having teenagers will be awesome, I know they'll be out and about more often than home. I really like having my family all together at home.
My favorite people in my favorite place on a lovely and quiet evening during my favorite season.
Life is lovely.
What are you thankful for today?
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Parenthood
It's tough being a parent.
My heart must be a muscular mess after all the squashing, bursting, wrenching, swelling, stopping, breaking, and general emotional gymnastics motherhood has put it through.
The latest major incident to my heart came this past Tuesday. My little Alligator fell off the swing and busted the back of his head open. Thankfully, the bleeding slowed pretty quickly and I was able to get everyone to the doctor without incident.
Though not the first time witnessing my child getting stitches, this was the first time any of them has had the numbing shots. In the past, that cool gel stuff has been sufficient.
Watching my son endure such intense pain and trusting the adults so much that he lay still through the ordeal was heart-breaking.
There was my son going through something so painful. I knew that in just a few minutes the pain would be gone and then the steps could be taken to make sure his skin healed properly and quickly. In the long run, this was the very best thing for him even though it had to hurt so much.
I knew that. I knew it was best for him. I knew that the pain would soon be gone.
But he didn't.
Watching him cry and shake while I tried to assure him that he would soon feel so much better and that it was almost over made all my insides feel heavy. Even though I knew everything would be okay very soon, I was ready to cry right along with him.
And even now, days later, when I think of what he did after they stopped numbing him, I get a bit choked up. I was kneeling next to him and he turned his little head toward me and locked his sad eyes so full of tears on mine and in a hurt little voice he simply said, "That hurt."
Knife to the heart.
Oddly enough (or not), one of the first things that ran through my head in those heart-breaking moments was how hard it must be to be Heavenly Father. I know that he knows what is best for each of us. I now also know more firmly that he hurts for us and with us when we're struggling through our trials. I know he's not up there saying, "Quit yer belly-achin'; this'll do you good." He doesn't like us being in any kind of pain any more than we do. And I can't imagine all the heartache he endures watching us.
It's tough being a parent.
I'm thankful my son is healing well. I'm thankful his injuries weren't any worse. I'm thankful he still trusts me after taking him to the doctor. I'm thankful for the crazy journey motherhood has put me on. And I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father.
What are you thankful for today?
My heart must be a muscular mess after all the squashing, bursting, wrenching, swelling, stopping, breaking, and general emotional gymnastics motherhood has put it through.
The latest major incident to my heart came this past Tuesday. My little Alligator fell off the swing and busted the back of his head open. Thankfully, the bleeding slowed pretty quickly and I was able to get everyone to the doctor without incident.
Though not the first time witnessing my child getting stitches, this was the first time any of them has had the numbing shots. In the past, that cool gel stuff has been sufficient.
Watching my son endure such intense pain and trusting the adults so much that he lay still through the ordeal was heart-breaking.
There was my son going through something so painful. I knew that in just a few minutes the pain would be gone and then the steps could be taken to make sure his skin healed properly and quickly. In the long run, this was the very best thing for him even though it had to hurt so much.
I knew that. I knew it was best for him. I knew that the pain would soon be gone.
But he didn't.
Watching him cry and shake while I tried to assure him that he would soon feel so much better and that it was almost over made all my insides feel heavy. Even though I knew everything would be okay very soon, I was ready to cry right along with him.
And even now, days later, when I think of what he did after they stopped numbing him, I get a bit choked up. I was kneeling next to him and he turned his little head toward me and locked his sad eyes so full of tears on mine and in a hurt little voice he simply said, "That hurt."
Knife to the heart.
Oddly enough (or not), one of the first things that ran through my head in those heart-breaking moments was how hard it must be to be Heavenly Father. I know that he knows what is best for each of us. I now also know more firmly that he hurts for us and with us when we're struggling through our trials. I know he's not up there saying, "Quit yer belly-achin'; this'll do you good." He doesn't like us being in any kind of pain any more than we do. And I can't imagine all the heartache he endures watching us.
It's tough being a parent.
I'm thankful my son is healing well. I'm thankful his injuries weren't any worse. I'm thankful he still trusts me after taking him to the doctor. I'm thankful for the crazy journey motherhood has put me on. And I'm thankful for a loving Heavenly Father.
What are you thankful for today?
Monday, October 15, 2012
Days late, dollars short
Last week was hard. It served as another reminder and somewhat of a warning.
I was reminded that there is another stage after fake-out.
Meltdown.
Last week I really didn't sleep. I seem to have been low on whatever hormone helps with sleep. Nights were spent sleeping in 20-30 minute chunks and flopping endlessly between my two available sleeping positions.
Tuesday the fake-out started to give out and by Wednesday I felt a full on meltdown coming on. That's when I remembered that my biggest meltdowns post-babies came after a few days of extremely little sleep+body exhausted trying to heal from surgery, childbirth, and the new task of producing food for a baby.
As far as meltdowns go, Wednesday wasn't that bad. But by three in the afternoon, when I was thisclose to crying merely because my legs were so uncomfortable...and then because I felt like a two year old, the reminder hit home.
I need to be better this time about accepting help after the baby comes. And when I accept that help, it's not time to get something else done- it's time to sleep.
I'm loving all these reminders. I feel much better prepared for this baby...but I'm still worried I'll forget everything in the fog of exhaustion and pain. So, dear friends and family- PLEASE help me remember:)
I'm so thankful for my amazing family and friends. And I'm thankful that Heavenly Father continues to help me prepare for this next big life change.
What are you thankful for today?
I was reminded that there is another stage after fake-out.
Meltdown.
Last week I really didn't sleep. I seem to have been low on whatever hormone helps with sleep. Nights were spent sleeping in 20-30 minute chunks and flopping endlessly between my two available sleeping positions.
Tuesday the fake-out started to give out and by Wednesday I felt a full on meltdown coming on. That's when I remembered that my biggest meltdowns post-babies came after a few days of extremely little sleep+body exhausted trying to heal from surgery, childbirth, and the new task of producing food for a baby.
As far as meltdowns go, Wednesday wasn't that bad. But by three in the afternoon, when I was thisclose to crying merely because my legs were so uncomfortable...and then because I felt like a two year old, the reminder hit home.
I need to be better this time about accepting help after the baby comes. And when I accept that help, it's not time to get something else done- it's time to sleep.
I'm loving all these reminders. I feel much better prepared for this baby...but I'm still worried I'll forget everything in the fog of exhaustion and pain. So, dear friends and family- PLEASE help me remember:)
I'm so thankful for my amazing family and friends. And I'm thankful that Heavenly Father continues to help me prepare for this next big life change.
What are you thankful for today?
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Boy or girl?
In less than three months, we will meet the newest member of our family.
We don't know who is busy growing inside me.
Is it a little boy waiting to join the troop? Is it a little girl about to add a very different dynamic to our family?
Whoooooo is it?
We don't know and we don't want to know yet.
And when I say 'we' I really mean 'I' and that Bret is being incredibly supportive of this new desire of mine.
It's no secret here that I am not a fan of c-sections but that I am doomed to have them. In trying to come up with ways to make the surgery experience happier, I decided that not knowing the gender of the baby would help lessen the fear felt during one of the most hated times- walking into the operating room without Bret and laying and shivering on the table for a seemingly interminable time with a room full of people who ask me occasional perfunctory questions as I try not to think about how much the next few weeks are going to hurt or when they'll let my husband come in.
I am sure that some amount of fear and trepidation will still be there, but how nice it will be to fight those feelings with the excitement and anticipation of being so near to finally meeting our baby and finding out if our boys will have a brother or a sister!
Sharing this news with others, though, has brought up unforeseen concerns (which I am having a hard time articulating, but here's my shot at it-).
Bret and I are the happy parents to three amazing boys.
So, "naturally," many people expect us to have a girl. Not only that, many people expect that we are desperately trying for a girl.
Which leads me to wonder- are people going to be disappointed if this baby is a boy? Or will they think that Bret or I are somehow disappointed? If this baby is a girl, are people going to make comments about how now we can stop having kids because we got what we wanted?
What other people think really doesn't matter and most people in our circle won't be part of that crowd. This baby is wanted and will be loved no matter what, and he or she will be raised in our home knowing that.
It's just that I hate to think that there will be people who are disappointed at the birth of this child.
We're happy. We're going to be thrilled either way. So I declare that everyone else must be happy, too.
We don't know who is busy growing inside me.
Is it a little boy waiting to join the troop? Is it a little girl about to add a very different dynamic to our family?
Whoooooo is it?
We don't know and we don't want to know yet.
And when I say 'we' I really mean 'I' and that Bret is being incredibly supportive of this new desire of mine.
It's no secret here that I am not a fan of c-sections but that I am doomed to have them. In trying to come up with ways to make the surgery experience happier, I decided that not knowing the gender of the baby would help lessen the fear felt during one of the most hated times- walking into the operating room without Bret and laying and shivering on the table for a seemingly interminable time with a room full of people who ask me occasional perfunctory questions as I try not to think about how much the next few weeks are going to hurt or when they'll let my husband come in.
I am sure that some amount of fear and trepidation will still be there, but how nice it will be to fight those feelings with the excitement and anticipation of being so near to finally meeting our baby and finding out if our boys will have a brother or a sister!
Sharing this news with others, though, has brought up unforeseen concerns (which I am having a hard time articulating, but here's my shot at it-).
Bret and I are the happy parents to three amazing boys.
So, "naturally," many people expect us to have a girl. Not only that, many people expect that we are desperately trying for a girl.
Which leads me to wonder- are people going to be disappointed if this baby is a boy? Or will they think that Bret or I are somehow disappointed? If this baby is a girl, are people going to make comments about how now we can stop having kids because we got what we wanted?
What other people think really doesn't matter and most people in our circle won't be part of that crowd. This baby is wanted and will be loved no matter what, and he or she will be raised in our home knowing that.
It's just that I hate to think that there will be people who are disappointed at the birth of this child.
We're happy. We're going to be thrilled either way. So I declare that everyone else must be happy, too.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Thanks
This whole sickness thing is weirding me out.
I actually got to the point yesterday that I felt like I'd have the energy to at least go out and get the car registered and return library books.
So we did. And it was great to get out and great to get back.
The laundry was washed and folded...putting it away is a whole different story...
Yet while everyone managed to stay in their beds last night, I still didn't sleep so well.
I'm feeling much better today, health-wise, though I have no desire to go anywhere.
While pondering how I can feel so normal (as normal as it gets, ya know) after two days of extremely little sleep- it hit me.
This is what it feels like! I remember this feeling!
It's that feeling I feel when I've got a new baby (or babies, as the case may be) and my body finally clicks into "fake out zone." That zone where I'm still not getting much sleep, but I'm somehow faking myself out that I'm not that tired.
I'm feeling that today. And it's giving me this weird mix of hope and trepidation. While this feeling is vital to surviving the transition of adding someone to the family, it does have this other-worldly vibe to it; which is slightly unnerving.
But it's also a hopeful realization. I often start to wonder and worry how I'm going to cope with four kiddos. (Then I force myself to stop thinking about it and pretend the future is a long way off; out of sight-out of mind.)
The past two days of illness and fake out zone feel as if they've been designed to give me more hope.
Even though most of my body is working overtime to create this new little body, it still found the means to conquer the latest bug. Quickly! And even running on little sleep! I am reminded to have hope in the healing process. Post-birthday there will be pain and exhaustion, body and soul. But this body I have been blessed with will heal. And it has done so fairly quickly in the past considering what is inflicted on it, so I won't be surprised if it pulls through quickly again.
And sleep? I can get by without when the need arises.
Hope:)
Thanks for the reminder, Heavenly Father!
What are you thankful for today?
I actually got to the point yesterday that I felt like I'd have the energy to at least go out and get the car registered and return library books.
So we did. And it was great to get out and great to get back.
The laundry was washed and folded...putting it away is a whole different story...
Yet while everyone managed to stay in their beds last night, I still didn't sleep so well.
I'm feeling much better today, health-wise, though I have no desire to go anywhere.
While pondering how I can feel so normal (as normal as it gets, ya know) after two days of extremely little sleep- it hit me.
This is what it feels like! I remember this feeling!
It's that feeling I feel when I've got a new baby (or babies, as the case may be) and my body finally clicks into "fake out zone." That zone where I'm still not getting much sleep, but I'm somehow faking myself out that I'm not that tired.
I'm feeling that today. And it's giving me this weird mix of hope and trepidation. While this feeling is vital to surviving the transition of adding someone to the family, it does have this other-worldly vibe to it; which is slightly unnerving.
But it's also a hopeful realization. I often start to wonder and worry how I'm going to cope with four kiddos. (Then I force myself to stop thinking about it and pretend the future is a long way off; out of sight-out of mind.)
The past two days of illness and fake out zone feel as if they've been designed to give me more hope.
Even though most of my body is working overtime to create this new little body, it still found the means to conquer the latest bug. Quickly! And even running on little sleep! I am reminded to have hope in the healing process. Post-birthday there will be pain and exhaustion, body and soul. But this body I have been blessed with will heal. And it has done so fairly quickly in the past considering what is inflicted on it, so I won't be surprised if it pulls through quickly again.
And sleep? I can get by without when the need arises.
Hope:)
Thanks for the reminder, Heavenly Father!
What are you thankful for today?
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
When Mom is sick
I've got a cold.
And I'm pregnant.
By themselves those things are detrimental to one's sleep.
Put them together and you get one very tired mommy after one very long night.
Especially when you add in one seven year old with growing pains (why do those happen most often in the middle of the night???) and one four year old needing help finding kleenex in the middle of the night since he woke himself up coughing.
Isnotsobad, though.
I'm still in my pajamas, sitting here on the couch with my heavy head and my kleenex box. I'm watching my wonderful (literally) sons play in the colorful backyard and listening to them talk, fight, laugh, and snap at each other intermittently. I am enjoying the views immensely. The shape of the back of their heads and ears. Their tough little legs and buff little arms. The way they run. Their profiles with their perfect little noses and lips and long eyelashes. Their joyful smiles as they dart back and forth in front of the door because the only hardships in life are getting your brother to agree to play the way you dictate and waiting until the next treat comes.
The October sunshine is streaming through my beloved large windows and giving a whole new perspective to beautiful autumn decorations. The temperture is not supposed to go above 70 for the next few days (ahhhhhhhh:)).
It is a bit difficult to not worry about all I had planned to get done today. Two loads of laundry need to be washed, hung, and folded (along with the two loads I just left in the hampers from Monday and Tuesday). I need to go to the grocery store. I need to get the car registered. Library books are due today and I've got to get those back before they slap me with some fines. I've got things that need to be done for church. I need to come up with options of how to rearrange the house to accommodate a new baby. I need to keep the Jonzter on his intellectual toes while he's off track for the next couple weeks....
But.
I did manage to get the dishes in the dishwasher and start a load of laundry. That bodes well, right? Maybe I'll be able to get to other things on the list before the day is over.
All this is a foggy-headed, drained, sick, and pregnant woman's way of trying to say- if I have to be sick, this is how I want it to be.
The responsibilities on my plate are either possible to do or to postpone. I can be out of bed without feeling like death. My children are old enough to take care of most necessities for themselves and, with supervision, remember to obey all the rules and keep themselves safe. I have kleenex. I have water. I have food (even though I don't want to eat it). The weather is beautiful. The season is lovely.
And while if I had my say, I'd choose NOT being sick over this...
Yep. This is my kind of sick day.
Now, if only I could take a bunch of Nyquil, my children got along happily all day, a fairy came to transform my house to an immaculately clean and organized state, and my husband were here to stroke my hair while I fell into a drug-induced-but-restorative sleep.
I guess I can't have everything:)
And I'm pregnant.
By themselves those things are detrimental to one's sleep.
Put them together and you get one very tired mommy after one very long night.
Especially when you add in one seven year old with growing pains (why do those happen most often in the middle of the night???) and one four year old needing help finding kleenex in the middle of the night since he woke himself up coughing.
Isnotsobad, though.
I'm still in my pajamas, sitting here on the couch with my heavy head and my kleenex box. I'm watching my wonderful (literally) sons play in the colorful backyard and listening to them talk, fight, laugh, and snap at each other intermittently. I am enjoying the views immensely. The shape of the back of their heads and ears. Their tough little legs and buff little arms. The way they run. Their profiles with their perfect little noses and lips and long eyelashes. Their joyful smiles as they dart back and forth in front of the door because the only hardships in life are getting your brother to agree to play the way you dictate and waiting until the next treat comes.
The October sunshine is streaming through my beloved large windows and giving a whole new perspective to beautiful autumn decorations. The temperture is not supposed to go above 70 for the next few days (ahhhhhhhh:)).
It is a bit difficult to not worry about all I had planned to get done today. Two loads of laundry need to be washed, hung, and folded (along with the two loads I just left in the hampers from Monday and Tuesday). I need to go to the grocery store. I need to get the car registered. Library books are due today and I've got to get those back before they slap me with some fines. I've got things that need to be done for church. I need to come up with options of how to rearrange the house to accommodate a new baby. I need to keep the Jonzter on his intellectual toes while he's off track for the next couple weeks....
But.
I did manage to get the dishes in the dishwasher and start a load of laundry. That bodes well, right? Maybe I'll be able to get to other things on the list before the day is over.
All this is a foggy-headed, drained, sick, and pregnant woman's way of trying to say- if I have to be sick, this is how I want it to be.
The responsibilities on my plate are either possible to do or to postpone. I can be out of bed without feeling like death. My children are old enough to take care of most necessities for themselves and, with supervision, remember to obey all the rules and keep themselves safe. I have kleenex. I have water. I have food (even though I don't want to eat it). The weather is beautiful. The season is lovely.
And while if I had my say, I'd choose NOT being sick over this...
Yep. This is my kind of sick day.
Now, if only I could take a bunch of Nyquil, my children got along happily all day, a fairy came to transform my house to an immaculately clean and organized state, and my husband were here to stroke my hair while I fell into a drug-induced-but-restorative sleep.
I guess I can't have everything:)
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