Ingenue Mom

I have been thinking about this post for a while now, probably at least a month. Isis just turned 5 and seeing her growth and her personality beginning to develop, I just find myself with so many things to say and I want to save these thoughts somewhere so we can come back to this later when it is really relevant.  As Isis' personality develops, I see so much of myself in her. Parenting is a truly brutal lens into your own life and insecurities. Suddenly there is this person with their own struggles and shortcomings & you find yourself going, "oh wow I recognize that struggle. That struggle is mine . That struggle came from me. I am intimately connected to the pain and fear that can come from that type of personality trait because it has been my struggle my entire life." What a humbling discovery. Isis has such a sensitive soul. She is sensitive both in the sense that she loves and hurts with such a degree of depth and understanding, but also sensitive i...

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...

I've been memorizing 2 Corinthians 12:9 after reading Chapter 1 of Ragamuffin Gospel . I mentioned before that I haven't memorized scripture like that since high school. I just haven't made it a part of my daily practice. Well, just in the last couple of days, it's made a huge difference!  First I looked at some strategies for memorization & here are the ones that really stuck out to me: 1 - Memorize the Reference This way you can go back & look it up if you forget. 2 Corinthians 12:9 2 - Memorize the Theme or Main Idea This way you know generally what that verse was referring to. 2 Corinthians 12:9 is about God's grace and His power even through my own weaknesses and imperfections. 3 - Focus on the Key Words Again, just a strategy to remember the overall important points and to help you kinda put it together like a puzzle. 2 Corinthians 12:9 important words: grace, sufficient, power, perfect, weakness, boast, gladly 4 - Put ...

It's been a rough year for some people around me. I've been thinking a lot about it lately and often find that writing helps me sort through it. I'm not even sure yet if I will post this publicly.    A good friend of mine lost her dad this year extremely unexpectedly. Another good friend of my family was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Neither of them were prepared for the fight they've been experiencing the last several months. I don't think we're ever ready to fight like that. But they're fighting. I've been having such a problem with guilt ever since finding out about both of them. How do you do enough for someone you love in those situations? How do you do anything? I feel like I tend to feel so overwhelmed and helpless and I have a tendency to retreat. My friend with pancreatic cancer doesn't live in Lexington, so just finding a way to visit her has been my struggle. I have such guilt for not being there. And then not being there, I...

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...

I love people's Wordless Wednesday posts. And I would like to start doing it. But today when I was picking out a picture to start, the one I kept coming back to was this one. And honestly, it needs some words to explain why it sticks out to me. Pictures by Sara Corman Photography I love my birth pictures . Like really love them. I will cherish looking back at those and remembering that day and that pain and that joy and those tears. It was an amazing day. The thing that is so interesting to me is that something about the way they look makes the whole experience seem so quiet and so peaceful. Maybe it's the black and white, maybe it's the fact that she somehow caught every beautiful moment and when I look, even though I was there and I experienced it, I don't see the fear and the wave of up and down that was going through me in those hours. But this picture says more. In this moment, you can't tell, but I was screaming. Literally at the top of my lun...

Today was a little rough. With newborns, I feel like your whole life revolves around eating, sleeping and pooping, and if one of those goes wrong one day, things feel a little out of control. But with my new decision to focus on the things I am loving at this point, I decided to sit down and focus.    First of all, I made a list of things I'm loving right now... I'm loving when Lux snuggles her face as close into my neck as it can get and then lets out this little sigh. I'm loving when Isis asks to hold her sister and then tells me, "mom, she's really special." I'm loving the me-time I get on good nap days! I'm loving the fact that Lux sleeps really well at night. (We've had 2 different 5+ hour stretches this week!) I'm loving the moments when Lew and I look at each other and just laugh or smile or shrug because we're sharing this experience and although we get tired and frustrated, we do it together.   Then, I spe...

My friend Emily sent me this article yesterday & I have to say I laughed out loud & then read it to Lewis & then sat down & went "whew!" Because it is so refreshing to hear someone else say exactly what I'm thinking. And that is... I do not like the newborn stage. I thought I would enjoy it more this time than I did with Isis. And I do, for sure. But I really hated it with Isis, so there was lots of room for improvement there. This time I'm enjoying it more and emotionally I feel 100% different, but that doesn't mean I love this stage.    Don't get me wrong, I love my newborns. I loved Isis the moment I found out she was really in there! I loved Lux from the same moment and I loved them both throughout the pregnancy and birth and now. But being a mom and loving your kids does not mean that you love every stage of childhood. I am just not a newborn kind of mom.  I love when babies start sleeping more consistently. I love when...

It's so crazy to me how different it has been going from 1 child to 2. The transition from 0 to 1 for us was really rough. If you read back through some of my posts from when Isis was first born, you'll find that it was incredibly emotionally draining. I didn't know how to deal with the emotions, the hormones, the lack of sleep and the fears. It took me at least 2 months to really work through some of that and probably the first 6 months before I felt like I was really back to myself again. This time, it has been completely different. I think part of it is knowing what to expect. It's also helpful when your labor is a total of 4-6 hours rather than 21. I didn't start Lux's life with a huge sleep deficit just from labor. It's also different because I have lots of tools in my belt to figure out how to adjust to Lux's needs and personality. I know what I tried with Isis and I have been able to try those things with Lux and find what works. It was a l...