My people

I know I wrote on twitter earlier that this week was going to be a hard solo parenting week.  But that isn't entirely fair to say.  I have help on my husband's class nights which is awesome always.  Sometimes I think that God helped us to pick the best godparents for our children because they are there for them.  They help us with them when we need help.  They volunteer to babysit for us on a whim when we really need to get out.  Bring us food when we just can't get it together that night for dinner.  I appreciate them beyond words though because I know with time that my children will see their service and example in Christ and hopefully want to remain on the straight and narrow pathway to heaven.

So on top of that I have to give a shout out to awesome neighbors and friends who don't mind me showing up on their doorstep unannounced, because they have either been through the state of life I am in or are currently braving the waters too.

So I will get thru this week, because I have my people.  My people that God has graciously given me to meddle thru the craziness of two, two and under.  Because without them I would go crazy.  So, if you are one of these people that helps me, thank-you.

In the end, there will be long days, and we won't get a true weekend as the husband will have to work all of Friday and Saturday.  But we will persevere and hopefully not have too many crying fits in the process (at least not by me). So thank-you to those that will help me through and hopefully we might just pull this week off.

A post Lent recap

As I sit here hoping the baby stays asleep upstairs, I will try to do a quick reflection on lent 2012.  So this lent, I gave up social media, which was really hard.  But on top of that I added in reading a chapter of the Bible a day and we tried to pray at the local abortion clinic weekly for the 40 days for Life campaign.

So what did I learn?

First, the original reason I gave up social media was that it was a time sucker.  And this is very true for me.  So what did I do with this time?  Well I read a lot of books and called friends and tried to be more present to my kids.  But I think what I learned mostly from my giving it up is that there is a fine line between using it for connecting to people and craving the attention that people give one on it.  I can easily fall into the attention craving bit so post lent, as I return to social media I am going to work on this.  To really enjoy the conversations but keep a good balance and check to see where my thoughts are going with it.

Second, reading the Bible daily is a good thing, and a habit I want to keep up.  So I'm continuing this and am thankful for Lent to be able to get a good thing going.

Third, praying in front of an abortion clinic is hard with 2 kids 2 and under.  Either the baby was sick or it was too cold or snowing.  But our whole family did get there twice and Keith was able to go every week. The times we did go as everyone were good.  One of those was on St. Patrick's Day where the people were out in massive numbers shouting drunken insults and such.  However, despite the few insults, we had many more honks and thumbs ups.  It kind of makes one think just maybe this nation of ours is becoming more pro-life.

And that's a wrap.  How was lent for you?  I'd love to hear about your experiences.
Cheers!

In my quest to love more

It's amazing when you interact with someone for so long but you don't really know there story and then when you do finally learn it, it floors you. Because that person seems so put together and yet they had to go through so much.  Old me would have judged this person from the start, but present me is working on that.  So I took this person at face value and tried to love them despite some of their quirks that made me a little crazy-like.  And I'm glad I did, because underneath was a beautiful story of an amazing person and I am glad to have know this person.  Unfortunately, she is moving away due to her husband's job, but I pray that the move goes well and her life from her on out is a beautiful grace filled one.

Our conversions...

Reading Jennifer Fulwiler's conversion from pro-choice to pro-life (found here) just makes me want to just love people more.  It reminds me to my teenage angst days where I did thought women were treated unfairly and had to be just like a man to really get anywhere.  First of all oh how only 10 short years can change so much.  Second, I'm so glad that I no longer think this way and am really happy because of it.  I mean yes life as a woman isn't an all the time non stop party, but I think I understand a little bit more about who I am and who God made me to be than I did at 16 or 18.  I wonder if my 16 year old self would have listened though to my 28 year old self now.  Maybe I would have, but really I don't think I was ready to hear it, I had a lot of baggage to work through and 16 year me was in a totally different place than 22 year old me that really seemed to actually be able to hear and seek truth.  And since then I've loved learning more and more, understanding bit by bit with more life experience.

So now, where I am at, I just want to love people more and help them to be who God wants them to be.  I probably fail at this more than anyone, but still that is my desire. Because life is so much better on the flip side at least in my short lived experience.

Small Successes 3/1

1. We made it to two story times this week, one of them being at 10am, which means we made it out of the house before 10am, this felt like a record, though we've done it before. Its just this time we didn't do it with kicking and screaming but it flowed.  :)

2. I kept 1 out of my 2 children out of the emergency room.  The one that was in the ER, well at least he is doing better right?

3. I blogged twice this week, and so far have kept up with my Lenten plans.  I'm still trying to figure out how to incorporate more with the family but personal lent is going well.

4. I cut 20 seconds off my mile time.  It's still way slow for past me, but definitely my fastest post partum time this time around.

Exciting things are happening all around me and I wish I could share them with you but they are other folks good news and so I will share them down the road when they have officially been told to the world by the respective parties.  Oh, and guess who is turning two tomorrow?

This guy is.  Craziness.

Realizing I wouldn't have it any other way

For the last 4.5 months or so I feel like I've just been trying to hold my head above water.  Trying to just get by being the mom of 2 under 2.  But today, today I realized that I like being a mom of two little ones.  Yes there are hard days but I wouldn't have it any other way.  Now after 4 + months of wrangling 2 little ones I finally like them again.  I'm sure I'll go back to hating them tomorrow when they are screaming at me at the library tomorrow or something like that.  But the chaos of two is challenging and fun nonetheless.  When I had just one for what seemed like 2 days due to ER visits with the toddler it seemed lonely and I realized how much the baby and I like having the almost 2 year old around.  His crazy antics make our day go that much faster.  Just hopefully we don't have to visit the ER again anytime soon.

Who wouldn't love this goofy guy?

I've ignored this blog...

At least I feel so.  Thursday is supposed to be small successes (somehow these feel big to me).  So I will try to do these.

1. I got both kids to story time at the library on time today.  After story time the toddler decided to run out of the room and hide which meant I had to search the whole library for him, and luckily 2 other moms realized what had happened and helped me find him.  Scary yet thankful for helpful nice people.

2. We also got to the doctor on time earlier this week and the 4 month old pictured below, is a big growing boy at 14lbs 12 oz in weight and 26.5 inches long.  And the fact that I keep him alive is probably a big success and not a small one amongst the chaos, or at least it feels like so.  Tell me mamas of more children, it does get easier right?  Sometimes I feel so strung out its insane, other days I love it.

3. Both my kids were in bed by 8pm tonight without screaming involved.  A huge success and I hope this continues because really I could use some normalcy after 4 months of chaos.