Joy in the Journey

I have a confession: I have been fantasizing...about sourdough bread. For the past 16+ months! Let me explain. When my little guy was born, he was a pretty fussy kid. I know some babies are just more prone to fussiness than others, but he also had a chronic diaper rash that I couldn't get to permanently resolve no what I tried. These symptoms seemed to pop up at the most random times. Took me a few months to realize that it correlated with when I ate wheat. As I was exclusively breastfeeding at the time, I've been pretty much wheat free since he was around 4 months old. It wasn't an easy thing to do, and I wish I could say I was completely unselfish all the time. There were a few times I would take a bite of something and live to regret it when my poor little guy would get all red, and even got blisters! I'm certainly no saint. It was quite a challenge for me. But mamas, it was so worth it! My sweet little angel, so grown up. Weaned, potty trained, sleeping in his own b

When I was in my early twenties, I could go to events nearly every day. I had Bible Studies, College Groups, and volunteer work I did weekly. I had three or four things every week that I would go to. I sometimes even spent an entire day out and about with no down time at all. I would go to work, then shop around town knowing I had something in the evening, and then to my group in the evening, getting home late.  Then, I had kids... You probably know what I'm going to say next: I don't do that anymore. I can't do that anymore. I would be a nervous wreck and a complete crazy women if I lived at the speed that I did before kids, before a family. Now, a good amount of "scheduled things" for me is one per week, not counting church. Sounds very different than my no-kids lifestyle. But here's the thing that I learned in early motherhood. I went from just me to having two young daughters. I couldn't understand why I was SO EXHAUSTED! Then I put two and two togeth

Mom anger. I hate it. But I can't ignore that it's a thing. Last night I battled with my son for ONE AND A HALF HOURS to get him to bed. Most of that time, he was screaming at me. Most of the time, I wanted to scream at him. I didn't, but I can't honestly say that all of my words were gentle, or saintly. And most of my actions were foolish.  It's easy to see that now, of course. It's always easy to see what I should have done differently in retrospect. But when I am caught up in the emotion of the moment...that's a different story. image from workingmother.com It's really frustrating to me that I am not better at dealing with the mom anger. I've been a mom for over twelve years, you would think that I would have made more progress! But I have to give myself grace. Confess that I was wrong, of course, and ask forgiveness. But also forgive myself and learn from it and move on. I know what the triggers for last night were. For one, it was potty training

Holy cow Mamas, I feel like I've been ranting, venting, and sharing about the preteen mom life for ages now... It has been four years, but still, it seems like I just go 'round and 'round on this. Today sucked! Like really sucked. Like by 10am I was texting my husband "I hate today" and had already, first thing after leaving my room (I do all my personal care stuff first), had a fight with my daughter... Again! Over being late to get her stuff done. So that happened and then I tried to calm myself down and pull myself up by the bootstraps and be a good example and yada, yada, you know what I mean. And I did, sort of. I started laundry, I meal prepped, I did school with my eldest, I was still "crushing it"... Then the second fight of the day, with the same kid ... I was less self controlled, less gracious this second time around and honestly, I was just plain TICKED! The disrespect, the sass attitude, and the snide response got under my skin. I yelled, wa

A few years ago, I was in the worse pain of my life (outside of childbirth, of course). I was the victim of a botched hernia surgery and I still had a partially open hernia on the other side. My doctors and insurance were giving me the run around and I had no idea when, or even if, I could expect relief. I had four young children to care for and was waitressing during the busiest time of the year. Oh, and my husband was out of town. He was out of town to go to a Christian conference. We had talked over him going beforehand, of course, and I had agreed that he should go. He felt really led to this conference and it was literally a life changing experience for him so I am so glad he did attend. That didn't make single parenting in my condition that week any easier, though. I had help with babysitting the kids when I worked and even a few hours during the day a few of the days, and that helped. But the pain was still so, so intense. It brings tears to my eyes just remembering it. My h

Recently, we've been getting our eldest daughter evaluated for special ed classes at our local public school. It's been a process... First, there was a phone call and lots of emails. Papers signed and enrollment completed and then a series of assessments (and we still haven't completed everything yet). During this process, I got the name of the curriculum that was going to be used for these classes and looked it up online to see if it was going to be a good fit. As I watched the video of one of these type of classes I saw a rigid, drill style class being held... Along with the information that each class was an hour and a half long! I had a lot of doubts. I sat down to discuss it with my husband and showed him the class. "Imagine doing that for an hour and a half?" I asked after he was sick of watching it after two minutes.  photo credit: wowvisiontherapy.com "I wanted an environment that will support and empower her." I said, feeling discouraged. This t