Ingenue Mom

10 years ago I was barely 20 years old. I see 20 year olds now and they seem like babies. I can’t imagine what people thought when I told them I was getting married. At the time, it felt so easy. I love him. He makes me want to be a better person. I feel grounded in the peace he brings to my life. To me, it wasn’t even a question. This was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. 10 years is a blessing. You have a partner, a friend, a lover, a confidante. Walking through life together is an extraordinary gift. Through laughter, joy, passion and adventure, we have loved and loved deeply. We have gone from two fresh-faced kids who quit their jobs to tour with his band to become parents of two girls. Our days are filled with princess gowns, Pinkalicious and shoes of every color and style. I still love to curl up and talk about our day, our ideas, our future. Marriage is truly a blessing. 10 years is a challenge. We have cried as hard as we have laughed. Th...

First of all, let me tell you, there are lots of things my family is working on. There are lots of things my family doesn't do well. There will always be something that I can find to improve on, but lately I've been feeling the need to just sit back and appreciate the things that we have done well. To celebrate and emphasize the positive as I continue to seek to improve. My family does well at serving each other. I think every family tends to emphasize some aspect of life, discipline or behavior. Every family has their language they use with each other, whether spoken or unspoken. For us, it's service. My husband is the pillar of this in our family. I truly am blessed by his serving heart with me and my girls. He is actively serving us in love the whole day. He just tends to find whatever way he can to do things for us to demonstrate his love. No one would question the love he has for his family because if you walk into our home, you'll watch him demonstrate it...

Six years ago today, I married my husband. Here's some of our story.     We met more than eight years ago in April 2002. When we met, I had short, dark red hair - almost purple. He had a mohawk. We were quite the pair. Although, we didn't work out at first. I was 17 years old. He was 21. I know it sounds crazy, but I knew immediately that I would marry him. After our first phone conversation, I just knew. I went to school the next day & told my best friends at lunch that I met my husband the night before. Of course they thought I was crazy. And I was surprisingly not really thrilled by this realization. We went on a date that weekend & it went okay, but not great. I was not very nice. You see, I was 17 & all that entails. I was perfectly ready to go to college & date around & just have fun. I was not interested in a serious boyfriend. I was definitely not interested in getting married young. About six months later, we were dating - officially. He pursued...

If you read my Sickness post, you know I've had a rough day. One of the things I knew would be really difficult about being a mom is that you can't stop just because you get sick. Especially when you're nursing. Well, it's the same for dads, too. Today I went back and forth from being achy with chills to being super sweaty and hot. I felt pretty awful all day. Getting up and walking around was really uncomfortable. Nursing hurt because of the achiness and the mastitis. Well, Lewis really stepped up and helped me a lot. He still had to work, but he just really did his best to make sure that I was comfortable and okay. A lot of the things we usually do together at night, he did alone because I felt so bad. He even called his mom and asked her to make me chicken noodle soup and bring it over! She did and she also made cupcakes!! He is really the best husband and dad. He made my whole day way better!

We were just talking about this and I thought I'd post because I think it's interesting. It's so funny how every couple tends to just mesh in different ways. I think it's neat to see how different couples have their different style. Lewis and I apparently have a weird style. People always comment on how we deal with holidays with each other. Let me explain... We were just talking about Valentine's Day. I said something off-hand about how I would think it was really weird if Lewis bought me a Valentine's Day card or gift. It's just not necessary. I've always thought that. We usually tend to stay in on Valentine's Day and just make dinner or something because we don't want to deal with the restaurants where everyone is going out. Actually, I think there have been several years that we have forgotten that it even was Valentine' Day. Then the weirdest thing that people always comment on is the fact that we don't buy each other birthday or Chr...

We came home from the hospital on Monday. Diana met us at our house when we got home and helped out with a few things as we got settled in. Lewis' mom came over that night and brought us food and helped us give Isis a bath. That night, we went to bed ready for several feedings & very little sleep. It was a little worse than we expected... Monday night, we went to bed like normal - turned all the lights off and put Isis in her little newborn bassinet thing that's on the top of her pack 'n play. That night, she woke up screaming several times. I couldn't figure out what the problem was. She fed several times and would sleep if I was holding her, but other than that, she was just having none of sleeping on her own. I ended up holding her and trying not to fall asleep for several hours at the end of the night. Thank goodness Diana came over at 9:30 that morning to take care of Isis for a couple of hours so that Lewis and I could sleep a little. I spent the entire day Tu...