Miss Adalyn has been with us for 6 weeks now. It seems like she has always been here and yet it seems like she was just born yesterday. For the most part she is a really good baby. She loves to stare at our huge book shelf (another book lover perhaps?). The recovery is going so much better than I could have hoped for, especially since the beginning was a little touchy. After about a week or so I was back to cleaning a little. I just cannot stand a messy house! After a month I was back to my weights and walking (another 2 weeks and I will be back to running). Other than being sleep deprived and falling asleep at 7:30 some nights, I don’t have too much to complain about.

Now that my brain is beginning to get back in the game after a few months of time off, I am back to feeding my own soul. I am beginning to get that restless feeling again in my life. Tonight I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I was getting ready for my walk. I had to quickly leave before I burst into tears. I am starting to not like who is staring back at me. There is so much I want to do with my life and so many goals I have that I almost feel overwhelmed. I have my hands full with my family and am struggling with that age old quandary we stay at home moms have, juggling the family while finding time to pursue our own lives. I struggle with not having the support I wish I had. Some roads I feel God calling me down scare the piss out of me. On my walk tonight, I felt God saying, “You are a strong woman. You have overcome much harder things.” I know what God has for me, I just need to step out in faith. As I’m typing this, I am getting teary eyed. Perhaps fear of overcoming some huge mental roadblocks, or maybe the sadness of where I have allowed life to go. I have let someone else take that control for the first time in my life, and they have failed. I keep making excuses and new deadlines. After my walk today, I realized I can no longer be making excuses. In my life I am determined to break family cycles of poverty, emotionally absent relationships, denial, bitterness, being judgmental, and oh so many more.  I have come to realize these are my battles most have been overcome, some are always going to be on going, and one I am having a rough time getting on top of.  Whatever Kevin chooses is on him, good or bad.  The only person I can control is myself.  Therefore I must make choices to propel myself toward my goals and not worry about where he is in his life. I just don’t know how to proceed, or shall I say the first step. I know God will provide that info because I am seeking. I know that in my weakness God is strong. As always He will come through and provide me all I need to meet those goals.  My biggest prayer is for continuing courage to greet this head on and no shrink away in fear.

Over the last month or two, I keep getting these little nuggets that keep me going.  I feel like I am finally getting somewhere.  Today I had another little thing that made me smile and pat myself on the back.  I subscribe to google alert for ideas for my blog.  Basically, you input keywords and every day or so you get a report back on sites with info on that keyword.  The spiders have finally crawled my blog! My latest entry on nursing bracelets showed up on the list!  I know it is a small thing, however, it’s one of those little carrots that keeps me positive.  I just had to share my excitement:)

We have been doing a switch-a-roo of computers between the office and home this week.  I had to figure out how to get the wireless router to work.  Thankfully we have an old tower to plug it into!  It’s nice, now the laptop is primarily mine and I can sit on the couch again while on the computer.  The desktop is now at the office which has greatly improved my productivity at the office.  I bring in the laptop so we don’t have to share a computer anymore.  I was reminded of how nice and lazy I can be without ambition.  I got to take a nap each day and still feel like I was getting stuff non computer related done.  Sometimes I think it would be nice to not have any personal goals and dreams.  I wouldn’t have to work so hard and my brain wouldn’t be swarming with things on my to do list.  On the flip side, I think I would be pretty bored and probably depressed with the daily grind.

Last night I broke down and had a good cry.  I have moments where I get so overwhelmed, all I can do is ball.  I let it out and move on to what needs to be done.  I’m a pretty big dreamer and ambitious.  I am also married to a big, ambitious dreamer.  Sometimes that is awesome, and sometimes, not so much.  On top of his insurance career, he is beginning 2 other side businesses.  That along with me working for him, my doula goals, writing dreams, and blogging ambitions has got my brain on overload.  Did I mention, I am at the beginning of a high risk pregnancy?  I have no idea how I am going to get through this pregnancy with how busy Kevin is going to be.  That’s pretty much why I lost it last night.  I remember how I was after I started treatment when I was pregnant with Vahn.  The day of the treatment and the next day, I was pretty much worthless.  It took a lot out of me.

I am reminded again how I can only take life one day at a time.  All God give us is this moment and we are to be good stewards with the time.  Which means, along with my own goals, I must live in the moment with my children.  God has it all under control.  The more I try to control it, the more out of control I feel.  I get it God!  Really, I do!  When I go crazy, will you remind me of this post?  I want to love the life I live (most days I do), and live in the moment (that will always be a work in progress).

It’s funny how life is so cyclical.  For awhile, I get bored, then I am busy busy.  We are going into the busy season again.  It is beginning to hit me, the commitment in life I have made.

I am determined to have my own identity.  I am beginning my journey of a birth doula, a postpartum doula, and a breastfeeding counselor.  My writing career is beginning to go somewhere.  I am a contributing editor for Posh Mama and have my first review up at Hip Mama’s Place.  This along with my blogs and marketing myself on this big ‘ol wide web.  I also have a passion for teens because of the crap I went through.  I am about to become very involved in this way.  I also am going to be working part time for Kevin as his sexcratary (how cool I get to sleep with the boss!) which means right now we are looking for childcare.

It is beginning to hit me the commitment Kevin has made to be a successful insurance agent.  We have huge dreams and goals.  He is the man of the house and feels he needs to provide for those.  It is amazing to see how he has gone from barely getting by and watching many of his fellow agents leave and find “real” jobs to receiving a nice bonus because of his hard work.  The past almost month he has worked 10-12 hours a day.  It has been tough for me managing everything without much of his help.  It is an internal struggle because I know this is what he must do to get where he wants to be.  At the same time, I’m puking out my brains and making corn dogs or pancakes for dinner (so happy they like salad and raw veggies!).

It seems the kids require more time and energy the older they are getting.  I work with Cozette and Chandlur almost every evening learning to write their name, letters/sounds, and math/counting.  My goal for Cozette is to have her reading by the time she hits kindergarten next year (she is just about to start sounding out words).  Unfortunately we are pretty sure Chandlur has some kind of learning disability which makes Cozette a little bit ahead of him.  He is amazing me with letter recognition and sounds, however, he seems to struggle putting it all together.  He still cannot write his name (the letters are jumbled and many times backwards) which is frustrating for me trying to teach him.  He says he is trying his best.  Yesterday he said his teacher told him he wasn’t the best writer and he told her he was trying his best.  I am starting to see the beginnings of shame and negative self talk.  We have conferences in a few days so hopefully we can have him tested through the school.  The place we want to take him won’t test until they are 7.  I don’t think I can wait another year and half.  It just breaks my heart!  Then we are looking for childcare for Cozette and Vahn so I can work for Kevin in the mornings.  I am also going to start taking them to story time at the library once a week.  Both of them are book lovers just like mama.  It is soo cute listening to them try to read books.  We are also finalizing our insurance stuff which has been a task in and of itself.  It also reminds me of the time and effort my pregnancy is going to take because of NAIT.

I am starting to get that feeling that there is stuff to do and things keep getting pushed to the next day because I don’t have the energy to finish all that is on my list for the day.  I am beginning to see how busy our lives are going to become as my business grows and our kids start participating more in sports and school activities.  I have times where I ask myself “What did I get myself into?”.  At the same time, I have never been one people call lazy.  It is impossible for me to sit still (don’t they say fidgety people are less fat than their counterparts?  I can only imagine how much more fat I would be!) which drives my hubby nuts.  People think I am crazy for all I take on, I call myself driven.