This was an accidental iPhone DITL. I was going to use my camera but when DJ brought it up to the bedroom before he left for work, it had no charge. Oops. Oh well.
Come see my day! It was very busy and we celebrated DJ's birthday!
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I took this picture yesterday evening because it was so cute that both of the little ones were passed out. Little did I know it would be a "calm before the storm" picture because a few hours later, a stomach bug hit Caleb. There was more puking than I care to discuss; let's just say it was a rough, rough night. After all, life isn't a destination, but a journey. I want to remember mine. I'm not even sure where to start with this picture. We were on our way home from preschool and a spontaneous lunch date with DJ. I had taken the baby's head support out of her car seat because she was doing wonky things with it. Unknown to me, Caleb snagged it and was using it. Then he fell asleep holding onto his shoe. Preschool wears you out apparently. The baby isn't tired either. Sometimes it's hard to put life into words. The 50th time you clean up an infant from a diaper blowout. The sleepless nights of a teething baby. The constant tantrums from your toddler. The cat that pooped on the floor...AGAIN. These events invoke many feelings that are hard to express. Sometimes, fewer words are more meaningful. On my Timehop app the other day, a haiku I wrote a couple of years ago popped up: The child is teething Morning barged in too early Go to sleep critter A haiku is a 3-line simple poem that follows a rigid structure. The first line is 5 syllables. The second is 7. The last is 5. It normally does not rhyme. It's short, simple, and beautiful. I think it would be really fun if you all submit a haiku, so I can combine them all into one big "Haiku Post" later this week. It can be about anything really. Whatever is beautiful, meaningful, or important to you today...and even the most mundane things are worthy of poetry. Take those feelings and put them into a poem! Submit as many as you'd like. Please send me your submissions by Tuesday evening at midnight! So, remember: Submit your musings Tuesday night your thoughts are due I can't wait to see. I have lived all over California, lived in 3 different states, and lived in a few places within New Jersey. I have changed jobs many times and switched churches. I've been in college, gotten married, and had kids. I am no stranger to people coming into and going out of my life. It used to cause me a lot of pain when people exited. I wondered what I did wrong, why they didn't like anymore. It was a very painful, internal monologue with the blame usually directed squarely at myself.
Then, I read this poem and it changed the way I look at people in my life: People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed. They have come to assist you through a difficulty; to provide you with guidance and support; to aid you physically, emotionally or spiritually. They may seem like a godsend, and they are. They are there for the reason you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die. Sometimes they walk away. Sometimes they act up and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and now it is time to move on. Some people come into your life for a SEASON, because your turn has come to share, grow or learn. They bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it. It is real. But only for a season. LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person, and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas of your life. It is said that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.— Unknown You always hope that a close friendship will ALWAYS be close. That your best friend in high school will watch your kids grow up. That the person who you poured your heart out to will always be there. That a work friendship will continue after you leave the job. You never think the people who have your heart will leave. You expect acquaintances to come and go, but not the close friends you share life with. Unfortunately, they sometimes do. The fact is not everyone is a lifetime friend, meant to stick around forever. This poem helped me to realize that I wasn't necessarily doing anything wrong; the time for the friendship just expired through no fault of anyone involved. Realizing that I was not the reason they were leaving was hugely liberating. That doesn't mean that it isn't hard when someone I think might be a lifetime friend turns out not to be. We freely shared our hearts, our kids, our lives, and poured into each other. It was reciprocal. And then calls grew less frequent and stopped getting returned. Visits slowed down, then stopped completely. Things faded and I am left feeling sad, missing them. I wanted them to be lifetime friends, but they weren't. When this happens, I struggle to make peace with the change and that isn't always easy. After being a central part of big events--children's arrivals, weddings, marriage problems, spiritual awakenings--these friends are now absent, or maybe on the outer fringes of my life. Some days I wish things could be as they were. And then some days I am ok with their new role in my life. It sounds pessimistic, but I no longer expect the people in my life to stick around forever. I still hope that they will, but it isn't an expectation I put on people anymore. I love each of my friends and I always dive right in. I appreciate the moments with every person; in fact, I think understanding that they may not be in my life forever makes me appreciate people more. Another bonus is when a friend I think is one of convenience or maybe a season sticks around after the time I thought they would leave. That's awesome. The friendship deepens and grows dynamic. If you have moved out of my life, know that I miss you but I understand that it must have been time. I treasure the times we had together. If you are here now, let's have a blast together and live in the moment as long as it lasts. Know that I appreciate you, and your presence in my life right now. Either way, I thank God for you. My life is richer for knowing you and I am grateful for your friendship, whether it's one for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime. The kids and I visited my dad in Washington State last month. He runs a motorcycle campground called Cycle Camp. They have awesome stuff for the kids to play with such as a shaded dirt/sand pile, a swing set, and lots of room to roam. Caleb was in his glory and spent 90% of every day outside running amok. It was awesome. He spent a lot of time in that sand pit, it was his favorite thing. Look at this happy kid! The other day I prepped 20 dinners, popped them into freezer bags, and froze them, saving myself a TON of time as well as money. I am not a genius, I am simply following the meal plans on this site http://www.5dollardinners.com/. They have weekly meal plans and 20-dinner bulk prep plans. The bulk prep ones are the ones I like. To buy a plan costs $5, but it gives you everything: shopping list, prep instructions, recipes, printer labels, and an instructional video. Super easy. This time around, I picked a crock pot meal plan, so every dinner is a slow cooker meal. These are the ingredients for all 20 dinners bought at Costco. Not pictured are spices I already have at home and a few items I opted to get at the grocery store. (I seriously do not need 20 cans of chili peppers, so some items are better bought at the regular grocery store.) The shopping itself only took approximately a half hour. When you get pregnant with your first baby you think you have an idea of how things are going to go. You think you know what kind of parent you will become. I had been a live-in nanny for babies when I was younger, so I mostly thought I knew what I would be like as a mom. Sometime after that, I decided I would just let Trinity wean when she was ready to. Breastfeeding was very primal to me, and I could not imagine a cavewoman marking off the days until her baby hit a year old on the wall of her cave and cutting him off from the boob when time was up. The thought actually cracked me up. When she hit 2 years old, I started the "don't offer, don't refuse" method. She could nurse whenever she asked, but I usually would not offer (unless she was completely freaked out or something like that). This was a very useful parenting tool to help us get through the toddler years, by the way. Two of the biggest lessons are: I don't know everything, and you never know what you will do in a situation till you get there. I do not judge how other people raise their kids and live their lives. I am not in their shoes and have no right to tell someone who makes different choices than me that they are doing it wrong. Feed and love your children. The details of that are up to you. Live and let live. When I used to blog on Livejournal there was a community called Day in the Life. DJ and I had so much fun on that community. On a specific day every week members would chronicle their day in photos. Then they would post them and people would vote on their favorite for that week. The only thing that bummed me out about the community is you had to do the DITL on the specific day they decided so everyone was doing them on the same day. So I decided i'm going to a DITL on here when ever I want. Also, it a great way for you to see what I am all about. So I present to you a completely ordinary day in my life. Nothing special happened. Just an ordinary day :) The day begins way to early for me. DJ sneaks out to head for work, leaving the rest of us still sleeping.
Today will forever be marked in my memory. September 11th, 2001 could have easily been a forgotten day. A blur of sleep deprivation, pumping, struggling to nurse my newborn, all punctuated by the smell of baby poop and spit up. You see, Trinity was only 11 days old when the attacks happened.
I woke up that morning. I rested in bed with the baby for a bit. I was still recovering from an emotionally and physically traumatic birth, and stuff just wasn't right yet. After a while, I decided to get out of bed to watch Rosie O'Donnell. Her show cracked me up. As I got settled I turned on the TV. That's odd, there was only static where Rosie's goofy face should be. I flipped through more channels and realized everything coming out of NYC was static. Trinity was refusing to nurse again, and was crying her frustrated newborn cry. I started to pump while I continued to search the TV stations. I finally found a Philly station. Confused, I saw one tower had been hit. They were contemplating if it was a local plane that lost control or something. It seemed like a horrible accident. Then BOOM. The second tower was hit. The news anchors started to get into a frenzy of confusion all while reporting what was going on. Our room mate's daughter was supposed to get on the bus for kindergarten. We kept her home. We had no idea what was going on. No one did. And then the tower fell. Fear gripped me as it all unfolded in front of me. This was an hour from my house. People are dying. NYC was under attack. I could not fathom what was happening. Reports came in about the flight hitting the Pentagon as well as the plane that went down in PA. We were glued to the TV all day. I just kept looking at my newborn's face realizing that she will never know life before this day. I realized this was a day that everyone will always remember where they were when it happened. Every moment, every action, every feeling. On top of this I was a new mom. My family had just left days before. I had no idea what I was doing. My baby wouldn't nurse and I had no idea what to do. She would scream every time I tried to nurse her. I know now she was nipple confused, but at the time I had no idea. I was still in a lot of pain from the birth. I was hormonal. Everything was upside down in my world anyway.... and then the whole world really went upside down. There is a small pocket of us, the parents who had babies right around or on 9/11. We all shared this horrible time with a different set of eyes. It was one of the best times of our lives, but also the worst. When it came time to decide when to take the baby out in public for the first time the question wasn't "will my baby catch a cold?" it was "will someone bomb the mall?" We had so much fear. I didn't take Trinity out of the house for a whole month. Not because I was afraid of germs, I was afraid for our safety. I kept hearing stories as the weeks and months went on of pregnant women delivering babies whose fathers were killed in the attack. I felt their sorrow so deeply. I could not imagine what they were going through. I was struggling so hard with my newborn. The thought of loosing my husband and then having his baby deeply affected me. I kept reading stories of these moms and my heart broke with every one of them. The bitterness of losing their partner mixed with the joy of their new baby. The baby is embodiment of the lost loved one. My heart hurt so much. Trinity just turned 14. I will never forget, as her existence reminds me of the terror attacks. I can't think of her babyhood without remembering it all. Hug those you love today, and honor the lost. And be sure to teach your children about what happened, since they never knew what life was like before it all. |
AuthorI'm so tired. The children are so not tired. |