The Bible

After we got Mava her new little 'big girl' bed, we began discussing bedtime routines. We talked about reading the Bible to her and singing with her while Daddy plays his guitar. All of a sudden I blurted out: I know exactly what Bible we're going to use! Which was met with Aaron's reply: Yeah because you're the head of this family. "Yeah, I am (playing) and this is the Bible we're getting." I then tried my hardest to describe the Children's Bible we had growing up. Aaron quickly pulled out his laptop and within moments my childhood Bible was on the screen. I jumped up and down, clapping my hands, "That's it! That's it! Can we get it?! Please, please, please?!?" Turns out it's the same Bible my sweetie pie had growing and now our babies will grow up with it as well.

Charlie

It's been years since I watched my sister and her husband go through the heart wrenching process of losing their newborn son. I still carry with me the memory of their last tender moments as Jonathan's earthy parents, before he was lowered into the ground. I knew then it all was a part of Gods plan, He had ordained this precious life to be with us for a very short time to give glory to Him and to show us His overwhelming love, but I had yet to see the tangible byproduct of this loss. It wasn't until a few days ago that I was able to see my sisters loss from the perspective as a mother and to watch our friends experience what my sister had those years ago. It was tonight, as I sat in prayer for Bryan and Rachel, that I realized it was Gods loving, full grace that my Sister and Pat watched their son enter into our heavenly Fathers Kingdom. His death is a blessing for our friends because God has put by their side two people who have experienced the bittersweet pain of losing a child. A pain that I could never fully grasp, one that I think would overtake me. I find myself praising God for His love and provision as my heart is weeping uncontrollably for our dear friends. And for my sister.

May God give you breath, or a swift journey, beautiful Charlie.

Soli Deo Gloria

Is it Howard?

I'm not sure when it was exactly that my parents divorced. But, what I can remember of my early childhood were nights huddled with my sister as we tried to fall asleep to the sound of them fighting. It's amazing how our young minds are able to remember glimpses of memories and some how edit them to distance us from the actual events, to gloss over the vile and horrible. I remember being scared but I also have a memory of happiness. George, my birth father used to call me criss-er, at least I think so. I can't tell what is memory or fiction, a fiction made up to add those happy memories that never existed. I have heard that when two parents fight and divorce, the children take the guilt and think some how, it was their fault. I never felt that. I felt that if George, who said he loved my mother, could hurt her and yell at her like he did, then he could do the same to me. As I grew up, and he had moved on to a new family and new kids, the void grew. While we were living off of Government cheese and rice, his new family flourished. Sometimes we would get a birthday card, or a phone call once in a while and a summer visit here and there. I always felt like I was in the way, I was a burden. So we grew, we grew up with my mom, single and going to school in order to support us on her own. The last time I saw George was at my sisters wedding, the visit was brief. Perhaps because my dad was there. It was that day I stopped talking about George altogether. The man my mom had married was my dad, seemed like he was always my dad. He raised me through the hardest time, the teen years, and he still loved me no matter how mean I was to him. However, I spent most of my twenties seeking approval, trying hard to have relationships, but I didn't know how and I ended up with guys that mirrored George. It wasn't until I got married that I knew what a loving relationship was. I fought so hard with Aaron, trying to push him away and get him angry enough because I was scared. I was scared about so much and I didn't know how to deal with it. It wasn't until I sat at the desk in the Social Security office that I knew why, why I was so broken and unable to give all of myself to my new husband. The clerk had asked me one question: What is your biological fathers middle name? I didn't know. I didn't know his name, or his birth date. I didn't know anything about him, just the hurt that was caused by him. I some how figured out that it started with an H, and the clerk helped me go through all the H names until she said 'Howard'. Yes, it sounded familiar, I thought. She typed it in, and the correct birth certificate popped up and I was finally able to legally change my last name. The last remnant of my childhood was gone. He was gone. I no longer had to think about him whenever someone asked for my name. Aaron and I had our daughter, and then our son. Our little family was growing. I recently found some of my little brothers, first on MySpace, then on Facebook. Timmy filled me in on a few things, George and his mom divorced too. He told me he still sees George and that I should contact him. I still do not know why I did, but I did. I just wanted to know if he ever thought about me and my sister. Several days passed before he wrote me back. Yes, he said he thought about us, and he missed us. He thought he would never see me again and was pleased that I had written him. There was so much he wanted to say to me. I still haven't written him back. I do want to hear what he has to say, but I realized that I have yet to fully cry, to really express the anger and hurt that I have carried around for so long. And I am not sure that I am ready to face the past. I look at my daughter, and I hold her, I cuddle with my children and I feel the love and tenderness I have for these babies, these beautiful children God has blessed me abundantly with. And I can't help thinking, that if you truly love your children, if they are your heart, then how, how can you just live your life without them?

Thank You Honey

For a while now, I knew that my best shot of taking both kids to the market and various other errands required Baxter to be in some sort of carrier device. However, the Snuggily that we have isn't suitable for him until he gets a little older. After going around and around, playing other possibilities in my head, I settled on the idea of a sling. I had never liked the idea of baby slings, they seemed too "hippish" for me, but now it seemed as though, that was the best option for me. I did like the concept of the Moby Wrap, but not only are they way more money then I would ever spend on something that I won't use everyday of my life, forever, but with a toddler to chase after, those wraps are too cumbersome. That is, they aren't easily thrown on and go. I happened to be at JoAnn's during their Fourth of July sale and got several patterns for $.99, one was a pattern for two different kinds of baby carrier, one a back/frontpack and the other was a sling. A few days later, me, my mom and the kids went back to JoAnn's. I found the perfect fabric for the sling. It was very inexpensive as well, it was on clearance, and then 50% off, and then it was end of bolt, and then it was a little dirty so I spent $4 total on over two yards of two different fabrics (the white was only a $1). I only really buy patterns when they are on sale for a dollar, and I try not to spend a lot of money on fabric, because if you do pay full price, then whats the use? you could go to the store and buy the desired item for less then it would cost you to make it. The sling should have only taken me an hour to make, if that, but with babies fussing, and no pain medicine, it took me three days. I wanted to have it done by time Aaron got off work today, but for some unexplained reason (baby brain) I just couldn't figure out the last step in the sewing instructions. I tried sewing the sling together three different ways until Aaron finally offered to look at the pattern for me and see if it made sense. He did, it did and he pointed to the picture. "see, it goes like that." I felt like the BIGGEST IDIOT ever. duh. Anyway, thanks to my hubby, I finished the sling. It even has a cell phone pocket.

Happy (late) Graduation Moriah!

I started Moriah's graduation present right before I had Baxter and wasn't able to finish it due to his arrival and after he came it's taken me a whole month to adjust to two little ones. Needless to say, her purse has been on the back burner, that is until now! For some reason the fabric just screamed Moriah and the design I used was half from a pattern and half from my head. I'm pleased with the out come, especially the zipper. Zippers have always scared me for some reason, despite how easy they really are.

An Undisciplined Mommy

For some time now, I have been mulling over a response to my somewhat new role as wife and mother. Well, I guess after two years of marriage and our daughter turning one, and having our son, the role for me isn't as new as I thought it was. We got married while I was finishing up my last few semesters at CSU Chico. We had decided before we were married that I was to stay home and be a housewife, a position that I desperately yearned for, especially since I had an arm which had gotten so bad after 10 years of cutting hair, I was told that I could no longer do the work I had trained hard for. After we got married, I moved in and took the job as housewife very seriously. My sister and I had been raised by our mom, who worked long hours as a nursing student, then as an LVN and later an RN. We learned what we needed to know about house work and cooking by our mom showing us, and then we were on our own to take care of the house while she was working. So, being raised by a single mom, actually taught me a lot about house hold management, it also embedded a deep desire to be at home with my kids as my mom was unable to be for us.

At first, (and if you ask Aaron, he might have a different recollection of our brief life before kids), I was able to go to school in the morning, be home by the afternoon, do homework and clean the house with the ultimate goal of having dinner on the table for him when he got off work. For some strange reason, that was one of the most important things in my life, having dinner ready and on the table for my husband when he got home from work. Now, in a perfect world, you might not see what the problem was with that, but you see, my husband works on salary, which means, you work until your done. You don't get the luxury of just clocking out when you've served your eight hours. This was the major conflict for the first several months of our first year together. Dinner would be ready, I would be ready, the house would be ready, but without fail, at 6:30 instead of my man being home, I would get a phone call. Did I mention, I like to yell? And sulk?

Slowly I began to realize these stringent ideas and beliefs I had weren't conducive to my well-being, and certainly not for my husband's well-being. I was striving for some sense of perfection. What got me to see I was drowning were the two pink lines. For weeks I felt like my body was full of lead, I couldn't move, and I couldn't stay awake. Shortly after Mothers Day, I got the news, I was now a Mommy too. Because of the pregnancy, I couldn't do everything I thought I needed to do. The house began to get messy, the laundry piled up, so did the dishes. My husband had to relinquish the roles he thought we were both meant to fulfill, him going off to work all day, me staying home, being the dutiful housewife. My sweet man had to take up both roles. He would go to work all day, then come home with dinner and do the dishes or a load of laundry. How unfair for him. I hated it. I resented it and I felt so incredibly guilty that I wasn't a good wife.

As soon as I was able to function (after the first three months), I began to tackle the role of wife, again. However, I would let little things slide. I wasn't scrubbing the house down everyday, I'd let the clothes accumulate until we had no more clean undies, but at least I was cooking dinner again, and packing his lunch. I thought that somehow, after Ava was born, it would be different, I just had to get back into the swing of things. The house would be cleaner, the clothes washed, folded and put away and there would never, ever be more then two dirty dishes in the sink at a given time. (Yes, please feel free to laugh, as I write this I realize how stupid I really was). But, I tried. I tried with all I had to make everything perfect. I tried to do everything, all by myself with an infant that I was determined to not get in my way.

My daughter witnessed me mentally break down. We were in the kitchen, she in her bouncy and I in front of the stove trying to do it all, while she screamed and cried because all she wanted was mommy, and all mommy wanted was to do everything, which meant not having her daughter need her. She screamed and cried, I screamed and cried and my most precious gift in the world was terrified, she was terrified of me. As I looked in her wide, tear flooded eyes, I...I finally got it. Through all the shame, pride, guilt, and sorrow, I got it. My only job is to take care of my family, my husband, my children. The people God has created for me, and me for them. That is my only calling; not scrubbing the kitchen floor, not having a three course dinner on the table waiting for my husband. My job is to hold my daughter when she needs me.

I hate that it took me so long to understand what it means to be a housewife, I hate that I didn't learn the lesson sooner, when I was pregnant. And after I had posted a blog of my shame and failure as a mommy, my friend Laurie, gave me such beautiful words of advice and encouragement. I will always treasure them.

So, I sat down and thought hard about how I was going to continue to care for my family, first, then the house. How can I try to combine the two in a way that I am not overwhelmed and that my children can have my full attention when they need it? I made a list, and a chart. I love making lists!! I think that might be the teacher in me, the part who loves office supplies and making even the simplest task into a project. I broke down the five day work week into separate days, each day I would do "two" chores and lined them up so I have variety and flow. This is what I came up with:

Monday: Bedrooms & ALL laundry
Tuesday: Kitchen & ALL sweeping
Wednesday: Bathroom & ALL moping
Thursday: Front room & ALL dusting
Friday: Dining room & ALL vacuuming

Well, it's Monday and yes, there is a load of laundry in the wash, and another one in line. I couldn't get to the kids' room before Ava's morning nap so I'll move on to our room and hopefully I can get it done, or mostly done before we have to leave for an appointment this afternoon. I pray that I can keep up with this new plan, well, it's not so new. I wrote it when I was first pregnant with Baxter and am now just beginning to tackle it, so, we'll see how it goes but for now, I have a diaper to change and an infant to feed.

When Your Husband is Sneaking Around on the Internet...

You don't expect him to be setting up a Facebook page for you.

I'm still not totally convinced that I wanted one...