Some weeks

 I read this the other day, and I almost feel like this has been true ever since I moved to Rangely -- mostly the weeks of barely moving.  Since August, it was my first year at a new job, Hubby's first year at a new job, our children's first year in school here, we moved houses twice, and I juggled graduate classes the entire year.

This has been my weeks... and my year, and is still my year.

Some seasons are longer than others, and longer than you wish they would be.

Image v. Reality

 Christmas Eve morning, I snapped this picture of myself enjoying my morning coffee in the early morning quiet and stillness of our main floor in front of the Christmas tree.

My description is completely true.  Nothing I wrote is false... but I left a few things out.

In reality, the statement should read something like this:

Christmas Eve morning, I snapped this picture of myself enjoying my morning coffee in the early morning quiet and stillness of our main floor in front of the Christmas tree.  Here's hoping I can get all this clean laundry folded and put away and cleaned up in time for Santa to come -- and some of it won't even get put away -- it should go straight into the suitcase since we're leaving for St. Louis in approximately 48 hours.  If I need to be up at 4:00am doing chores, at least I can enjoy our Christmas tree and put on a Christmas movie while doing it.  It's okay to fold laundry in the family room, right?

Mmmmm... coffee is good.  Coffee keeps this Mama going.

Wow, that's really a weird face I'm making.  I guess that is my face at 4:00am.

Not Incorrect

 

Truthfully

 Truthfully, I have probably over a dozen of these kinds of photos on my phone... the caption to each one is the same, "Give me back my phone."

The Strength

I was watching a show the other day and I heard a quote that made me stop what I was doing and record it so I could find it again in the future.

One woman says to another, "I don't know how you find the strength."

The other woman responds, "We're women.  The strength finds us."

Truth.

Oh Yes...

Not The Only Mother

Please tell me I'm not the only mother who sits down during nap time to fold laundry... and gets a little sidetracked by the simple siren song of putting my feet up... with a snack and Grey's Anatomy on the ipad.

 

So True

These are both way too true to be funny...

 

Awkward Maternity Stages

For twenty-nine years of my life I dreamed of someday being pregnant and having a baby.  Okay, maybe not for those first few years, ages one, two, and three... but certainly for twenty-five years of my life.

Not only did I imagine how amazing it would feel to feel a tiny baby wiggling inside my belly, but I pictured how incredibly cute and beautiful I would look in maternity clothes with a progressively growing baby bump.  I was going to be an absolutely adorable pregnant mother-to-be... followed very quickly thereafter as being the thinnest mom anyone had ever seen.  "You just had a baby?!?!" other mothers would say to me in disbelief.  "You look amazing."

Yes, I had it all perfectly planned -- and I would have an adorable maternity wardrobe.

But when I imagined my future maternity wardrobe, I had no idea there are many awkward maternity stages when I would look anything but adorable...

 

With Tracey Ann, I didn't really not really look pregnant until I was six or so months along... but I did look as though my clothes just didn't fit well for the entire second trimester.  Since it was my first, it took time for my belly to pop out... but for months before then, I definitely was growing, but I certainly didn't look adorably pregnant, the way I anticipated.  My regular clothes did not fit, and maternity clothes did not fit the way they were supposed to -- with a cute baby bump.  It was an awkward maternity stage.

 

Then, once Tracey was born, not only did not I immediately shrink back to my pre-pregnancy size, but I suddenly had to dress for nursing.  Here I had just purchased a new wardrobe consisting of maternity clothes, and now I have to buy more clothes to fit me post-pregnancy AND allow for easy nursing.  Now, I did not buy "nursing apperal" that they sell with straps and clips built in for nursing... but I learned very quickly that my pre-pregnancy tops did not fit and were not very conducive to nursing needs.  It was another awkward post-maternity stage.

 

I nursed Tracey until I was pregnant again -- so I never really got back to wearing pre-pregnancy tops because the nursing needs were never finished.

 

Then, with the second pregnancy, I already had a maternity wardrobe, right?  Well, supposedly -- except, the second pregnancy was with TWINS!  So, while my belly didn't pop until around six months with Tracey... my belly practically popped at two months with our twins.  All of a sudden, I needed some summer maternity clothes because I needed clothes that allowed for a growing belly immediately.  Yet another awkward maternity stage.

 

That is, until I outgrew the maternity clothes.  With twins, by about seven months most of my maternity clothes did not fit, and I certainly did not want to buy even larger maternity clothes to accommodate my last few months of twin pregnancy, when, chances are, I will never need clothes that big again.  This was the most awkward maternity stage yet hoping that now one would notice my bare mid-drift.

 

Then, after having twins, I just get to fall back into those nursing clothes I wore with Tracey Ann.  Well, one certainly would think so, but no...

 

Following my pregnancy with twins, my stomach is not recovering the same way from this second pregnancy as it did from my first.  I recently learned that my abdominal muscles actually split during the course of the twin pregnancy leaving me with an abdomen that looks about five months pregnant... So, I'm getting even more use out of those maternity clothes, but maternity clothes don't always mean they're easy in which to nurse... because most women who are pregnant and wearing maternity clothes are not nursing.  I think this is the most awkward maternity stage yet...

Oh, how little I knew all those years ago when I imagined myself looking so adorable during and after pregnancy.

One Solitary Life... Merry Christmas!

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village, where
He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.
Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.

He never had a family or owned a home.
He never set foot inside a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born.
He never wrote a book, or held an office.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.

When He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him.
His friends deserted Him
He was turned over to His enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While He was dying,
His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had -- His coat.
When He was dead,
He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.

Two thousand years have come and gone, and today
He is the central figure for much of the human race.

All the Armies that ever marched and
all the Navies that ever sailed and
all the Parliaments that ever sat and
all the Kings that ever reigned,
Put Together,
Have not affected the life of man upon this Earth as powerfully as this
"One Solitary Life."

- Adapted from an essay by Dr. James Allan Francis

Honestly...

Hubby and I are SO happy right now.  We feel like the most blessed, lucky, fortunate, most-loved of God's children on the face of the earth.  I don't want there to be any doubt in anyone's mind about how incredibly happy we are -- both as a couple in our marriage, and about our little baby.

That being said, I don't want to go through this entire pregnancy without documenting the incredible fear, uncertainty, and feelings of being overwhelmed I am struggling with and praying about throughout these nine months.

• Chris and I are going to be responsible for a human life -- a brand new, helpless, growing, baby-becoming-an-adult person, human life.  THAT IS HUGE!
• We have no idea how we're going to afford a baby
• Sometimes I catch myself having the same thoughts I have had for years... "Someday, when we have a baby ... (insert whatever the situation)"  Then, I realize that ready or not, that someday of our having a baby is now!  We already have a baby... and we will be meeting that baby in a matter of months.
• I absolutely love being married to Chris -- it took me 26 years to find him, and we've only had some 28 months of marriage just the two of us -- now we're suddenly not just husband and wife, we are mother and father.  What is that going to do to this amazing relationship I have come to love and feel so comfortable in?  We will never be just the two of us again.  I am struggling to be okay with the idea that our perfect little two-person family is ending.
• Our days of being selfish are over.  They have to be.  We love to travel, and play, and relax, and enjoy our hobbies, and try new things, and live in the mountains... and the list goes on and on.  Suddenly, we are responsible for the life of our child.  All of our decisions -- large and small -- have to revolve around the best interest of this baby.
• Childbirth is scary.  We are in classes to prepare for natural childbirth (The Bradley Method), and I am now doing exercises to prepare, and I know when the time comes, I will be relatively ready for it -- but childbirth is a scary idea.  Not only is the process something I have never done before -- but when it's over, it's just the BEGINNING of something else I've never done before -- I become the mother of a baby!!!
• I like to sleep and my husband LOVES to sleep.  I hear that babies don't really let you do that very often.

I can't emphasize this enough -- life as Hubby and I know it is about to be over -- and the unknowns ahead are endless.  We are so blessed to be expecting this baby... and I want to focus on the blessing and the excitement on this blog... but the truth is, more often than not, I am very scared of this change.  I feel unprepared for this life change.  I feel inadequate for the task ahead.  I feel overwhelmed at the responsibility ahead and the changes that will need to occur.

Most days, I really love being pregnant -- but that doesn't mean I feel excited, or even ready, for motherhood.

Chris and I have complete faith that his baby is a gift from the Lord, and he/she has been perfectly knit together in my womb.  We absolutely believe that God's timing is perfect, and that we can do all things through Him who strengthens us.  We believe we are called to be parents, and apparently, we are called to be parents right now.  We have faith that the Lord will guide us through every decision and change ahead of us, and He will provide for all of our needs.

All of that being said... I try to focus on the excitement and blessing of this pregnancy, because daily I am praying about my fear and uncertainty.

Yes, Virginia,

September 21, 1897

via

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."



------------------------------

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

source


Did you read that last paragraph?  I mean really understand its full weight?

No Santa Claus!  Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever.  A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, TEN TIMES TEN THOUSAND years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

And I would like to add, he will continue to make glad the heart of all -- children and adults alike, if you let him.