In some ways we are different...

Do you have people in your life that you have nothing in common with?  Maybe you're related to them, maybe you married into their family, maybe they married into yours, but at some point I think we all meet that person that is fundamentally different than us.  And if you're lucky/cursed/a human being, you may even be related to them.  I had lunch with "my" person today.

What's interesting is that, on the surface, we should get along fine.  She's a lot like my own sister in personality type, we grew up in very similar households, have the same level of academic achievement, same religious beliefs, etc.  But somehow we still approach life from totally different perspectives.  I don't know if I'll ever understand her, but I'm working on how to better handle our interactions.  Because it seems like we can't go 2 months without somehow ruffling each other's feathers.

See, she's much better at a lot of stuff than I am.  She's a phenomenal housekeeper, very organized, and kinda fearless, in a bold-as-brass-balls kinda way.  I'm (if I may)...

holy crap...I'm really struggling to come up with things I'm better at than her, other than "nicer" or "more gentle".  Maybe this is part of why I struggle with her.  I lose sight of who I am when I'm with her. Huh...I'll have to ponder that.

Ok, so besides maybe more easy-going, I'm a better critical thinker.  I like to be informed about my decisions and do my research.  Which, honestly, is part of why my house isn't terribly clean.  I'm researching stuff for my family's health, and then doing the off the beaten path stuff I learn about (chiropractor for my infant, anyone?).

I'm comfortable with my decisions. Sure, I'm trying to keep a better house, but my husband is fed well and my children are learning and growing together.  I'm more focused on teaching them cooperation and empathy than reading and math (they're barely preschool aged).  I don't doubt my choices and focus until I'm around her.

We judge each other really harshly, she and I.  Not in so may words, but in looks and rolled eyes and whispers to our spouses.  I've got to find a way to offer her the GRACE I'm called to.  So, today, I'm taking a page from my mother's book.  She told me once that when she had trouble getting along with someone who was her polar opposite, she just prayed for them.  Not for her relationship with them, or for them to change; she prayed for THEM.

I'm praying that she'll have a good day today.
That she'll find peace and fulfillment in her endeavors.
That she'll have a nice, relaxed evening with her husband.
That she'll stay warm enough in this icky cold rain.
That the joy of the Lord with surround her.

Trying to leave myself out of it..it takes a conscious effort.  Lord, keep me focused on her well-being and not what you're teaching me.  There'll be time for that later.  I need to step out of myself and focus totally on another human being.  Bless her today.

Also, thank You for a wise mother.  =)


How do you deal with people you differ from?  Any ideas for keeping the peace?

Guilt on Parade

Maybe this is a little weird, but I'm starting to try and keep track of my emotions and how they fluctuate throughout my...erm...cycle.  TMI?  Sorry not sorry.  I'm blogging for myself, remember?

Background: after the birth of W I started "charting" my monthly cycle to keep track of fertility, avoid pregnancy, blah blah blah.  But as I've learned and read more about this, my perspective on my emotional health is starting to shift.  You see, for men it's normal to have a pretty steady emotional state from one day to the next.  This is how they're designed.  Women aren't like that. (Duh.)  Our hormones and therefore emotions fluctuate wildly, so why do we fight this process?  Surely there's some purpose to it, right?  I don't really know but it's something I've been pondering lately.

Anyway, today was cycle day 2 (aka, I started my period yesterday), and I've had a guilty day.  Everything makes me feel, just, guilty.  I'm not treating my kids right, not paying them enough attention, not appreciating these moments in their lives.  I'm poisoning them with antibiotics (ear infections, yo.) and not giving them probiotics to counteract.  Not sticking to a good morning/evening routine each day.  Not making them drink water instead of juice.  Not getting them outside to play everyday.  But mostly it's the guilt of not appreciated them.

I know that these moments are fleeting.  C'mon, I'm their mom.  I see them growing up.  And it's not like they aren't freaking adorable, because they are.  They totally are.  But they are also in a super needy place right now and it wears thin.  W's tummy is upset by the antibiotics so he has started just screaming when he wants to be comforted.  High pitched squeals...it's awesome.  The girls talk uninterrupted, relentlessly, and non-stop, all. day. long.  E makes demands, regardless of whether or not I'm working to fulfill another demand at the moment.  And she doesn't stop asking until she's threatened with discipline.  And A asks questions about everything she sees, hears, or thinks.  Yes, sometimes these questions are hilarious:

Mommy, why do dogs poop?

Mommy, can you teach me to soar like an eagle?

Mommy, why can't we walk in neighbors' yards?

Mommy, why did God make me sick?  (Actually this one was equal parts pitiful and adorable.  "Sweetie, God didn't make you sick.  Sometimes God lets us get sick so we slow down and rest.")

Cute, right?  But you can imagine how it would wear thin after a while.  So I end up getting frustrated with them while I'm around them, and later on remember how adorable they actually are and feel so miserable because I was short-tempered in the moment.  Tell me I'm not alone.

I KNOW I could be doing more as a Mom.  I'm guilty of paying too much attention to my phone or trying to run around getting *my* to-do list completed that I miss out on moments to just play with them.  But at the same time, being a SAHM is lonely work, and I crave adult interaction, even if it's just via Facebook.  And at some point the laundry has to get done, in spite of the coloring pages and play-doh.  I just...don't want to look back on these years with regret.  Is that too much to ask?

Blogging Again

Hello, world!  I've decided to take up blogging again, but this time it's for me.  I likely won't be posting the things I write to the Book of Faces, Pin-mania, or any such social media.  This time, writing is to be an outlet for me.  I need it...things have gotten crazy since I last checked in here...

Hubs and I now have 3 kids, aged 3 and under.  (!)  We're crazy busy, what with the hubster opening his own business (in retail) and all the stresses/financial hurdles/time constraints that go with that, not to mention living within 20 minutes of ALL of our immediate family, and trying to navigate home-town life when you haven't actually lived here for 10 years or so. 

Not that it's all bad, we are in fact, within 20 minutes of all of our family! That means no crazy long road trips and help with the kids! Woot!  Plus we have a great church that we're trying to actually participate in, and I've made some awesome mommy friends here.  One of whom I met while grocery shopping at Aldi, but that's another story for another day.

Our kids are amazing too.  A is, like, crazy responsible for a 3 year old.  She takes spectacular care of her siblings and really desires to please us.  She is 110% girl, all the time.

  

Meanwhile, E is wild and crazy, loves to tear through the house and make messes, pick on everyone, and generally act the fool.  She makes us laugh every. single. day.

  

W is the apple of our eye.  What would you expect from the a: first boy, b: last male to carry on the family name, and c: bearer of his father's, grandfather's and great-grandfather's name?  (He's the fourth in case you lost track there.)  

Some days we feel really old and wise, other days we feel like we have no effing clue what we're doing.  So...we fake it.  All parents are faking it.  Just ask your Mom.  Go ahead, I'll wait.

...While you make that phone call I'm gonna go clean my house.  Hubs' college roommate/best friend/long lost brother is coming tomorrow and my family has been fighting the flu for a month.  In case you DON'T have 3 young children and a husband who works crazy hours, let me paint you a picture.  Imagine 3 weeks of your laundry and dishes piled up.  Now triple that.  Now cover the floor with piles of Christmas presents.  Now add 2 dogs.  That's pretty much where I'm at. So yeah, I'm gonna go get on that.

I'm working on a clever sign-off line.  Stay tuned.  Er...Good night?  Meh...I'll come up with something.

Birth Story is up!

So, maybe I'm running a bit behind but I finally did it! I finished writing up Abbi's birth story and posted it.  I back-dated the posts for March of last year to keep things kinda chronological but here are the links if anybody's interested:

The Backstory
Labor- Part 1
Labor- Part 2
Delivery
2 Weeks Later

Note: The only pictures I have from her birthday are in a separate post here.

The Big 2-6.

This week I turned 26!! The hubs took a few days off and we spent some nice quality time together walking the beach, cooking together...we even took a day trip to the Kennedy Space Center!

One of the things I LOVE about living in FL...all of these awesome places are day trips!!

 

We had a good time, but I gotta say...it wasn't great. I've been to NASA before; my family went when I was younger and I remembered it being really cool. You get to go out on this bus ride and see the building where they assembled the Saturn V rockets that took the Apollo missions to the moon as well as the Space Shuttles that have just recently been retired.  Then you get to go actually see a Saturn V rocket laid out showing all the different segments that break off.  Annnd....that's about it.  The whole center is about going to the moon.  And yes! It's really freakin' cool that we sent the first people to the moon and one of our astronauts still holds the record for being on the surface of the moon the longest (75 hrs...what?!) but y'all...that was almost 45 years ago!  We've done some pretty amazing things since then.  Granted, they're working on an exhibit for the space shuttle Atlantis so that should be pretty cool.  But really.  Can we talk about all the rovers we've sent to Mars or the International Space Station maybe?  I dunno...It was fun but there was some room for improvement.  DH and I agreed that we could make that place awesome if they'd put us in charge.  =)

 

The actual control room where they sent off Apollo 11, the one that took Neil Armstrong to the moon.

Still, my birthday was pretty great. Take-out sushi, brownies and ice cream (I'm not a huge cake lover), and the Avengers movie certainly made up for the disappointment at Cape Canaveral. 

DH inside the Gemini shuttle/pod thingy.

  

And my favorite picture of my favorite future astronaut!

Happy birthday to me!!

Oh! PS...the hubs got me a pretty awesome present!!

So excited y'all.  Like, whoa.

New Perspective

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a good way to keep people updated on our lives as we move around and as our little family grows.  Well, it turns out that I feel like I keep everyone pretty well updated...at least as far as I know.  What I mean is, every time I post something, I keep thinking to myself, "Why does anybody care?  Why would people want to read about my life?". And after I'd post something, I'd just tell my friends and family the same stuff over the phone, so why go to all the trouble?

As it turns out, over the past few days I think I've discovered a new reason for blogging.  Not for disseminating information or giving updates...I've decided that I can blog for myself.  To keep myself fresh and thoughtful and maybe even a tiny bit academic.  You see, being a stay at home mom is kinda my dream job, but y'all...I'm starting to feel really DUMB!.  Don't get me wrong; I love hanging out with my little girl, cooking good meals for my family, running errands, and keeping a schedule. But my critical thinking skills have waned, my organization is really suffering, and I'm even noticing that my acute awareness of correct grammar and punctuation is in decline.  In short, a lot of the things that made me feel like "me" are going away.  I don't know if blogging will help, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I want to make it a goal to blog every week.  I'm thinking that, in order to do this I'll probably be posting sometime between Monday and Wednesday weekly.  Pictures may be in short supply for a while, partly because we just got new phones and partly because, well, I'm doing this for me and I don't care if my little journal has pictures.  At least not right now.  Baby steps, people!!

Ok, as this is my first post in a while, let me do a quick sum-up of where we are in our lives:
~ Baby girl is 10 months old and I can't believe I'm starting to plan her first birthday party.  Craziness! 
~She's crawling up a storm, "cruising" (walking along and holding onto furniture), and starting to talk. Her first word was "Mama" a couple of weeks ago.  Melt my heart! She also waves her hands, claps, and we're working on blowing kisses.
~We're currently living in Jacksonville, FL, but...
~Our new orders have us moving to Richmond, VA in May sometime.  We will be there for 1-3 years, depending upon a multitude of factors.
~One of our miniature pinschers (Betty) died suddenly this past May and we have a new pup, a min pin/chihuahua mix named Pebbles.
~We just bought a new car.  It's a...wait for it...minivan.  Yes, I know. Lame.  Wilson and I decided that trying to be cool wasn't worth the extra $$ or shoddy gas mileage.  Also, we stopped being cool a long time ago.  We're parents now and we accept that.  =)  We're actually really excited out the van!  Trying to come up w/ a good name for her.  My Grand Am was named Greta.  The new girl is a Honda Odyssey.  Olivia maybe? Helen?  I dunno....it'll come to me.

If I missed anything that anyone wants to know about, comment and I'll be sure to include it in my next post!  See y'all next week!

One Month Old

Wow, I can't believe my baby girl is a month old!  Milestones so far:

• She's smiling and cooing more and more everyday.  It's the absolute best!
• ...except for the day she giggled in her sleep!  So. Freaking. CUTE!!
• She's going 3-4 hours between feedings.  The other night, she went 5 hours!  I was in heaven!!
• She's playing by herself for about 10 minutes at a time.  She loves her play mat with toys that hang down and sitting in her Bumbo seat.
• Baby acne has reared its ugly head. I am afraid that she will have to contend with these types of skin issues much of her life, if her parents are any indication.
• She loves watching Wilma, our red Miniature Pinscher.  I have a few theories as to why she prefers looking at Wilma over Betty: a.) Wilma is very interested in her.  b.) Wilma is more active (Betty's kind of a bump on a log.) or c.) Wilma barks at her.  (She doesn't understand why this weird looking creature won't just get up and play with her already!!)

I'm working on getting Abbi used to sleeping in her own crib so that I can start sleep training shortly.  We're already taking baby steps to get ready, like starting a bedtime routine and only letting her nurse to sleep at night.  I'm researching options for sleep training now...it's very overwhelming.  I will probably combine a few different methods to find what works best for us.

In other news, the hubby left this week for 6 months and we moved to be closer to family.  It's been a crazy, emotional time but God has been faithful.  We're here at this time because He planned it that way (we certainly didn't!) so we're trusting that He'll get us through.  In any case, we're taking everything one day at a time and enjoying watching our little one grow!

 Not a great picture, but it gives perspective.  Granted, it's kind of a small recliner but still...she's about 21 inches long!! (We'll find out for sure next week.)

Abbi's first time at the beach!  Looks like she's enjoying herself, doesn't it?

Thanks for all of your love and prayers during this time of transition for us!