Looking toward 2017

I made a baby this year, so now I need to look at what I'm going to do for 2017.  I think mothering three kids is going to be a good place to start. But I need to do more than just mother.  Don't get me wrong, I like mothering and I genuinely feel like it is the most important thing I can be doing right now.  But if I'm being totallly honest, (which I am known for being, for better or for worse) I don't always find it to be wonderfully personally fulfilling. It's a long-haul project. Sure there are small victories here and there, but overall, there's a whole lot of boring going on.

Really, that's why I started this blog and my 40 by 40 goals.  The daily grind can get hypnotizing and frustrating.

So that is something I need to work on.  I need to find more joy in parenting.  This summer I put together a schedule to help that. It was mostly to add some structure to very long summer days with out resorting to TV a lot, but it also helped me stay involved with my kids.  (It actually turned out that we didn't need a much help filling our days.  We live in a great neighborhood where the kids started playing at around 10:00 AM and didn't stop until 8 or 9 o'clock, with occasional meal breaks.)  But my 3 year old is struggling with the new baby and not having Mommy's attention as much.  And I was so tired in the beginning that when the baby did sleep I just needed a nap and some time to regroup.  However, I have my first good sleeper, so I'm getting a decent night's sleep most of the time and I have some time in the afternoon that I can dedicate to projects.  We will have an art project day (coloring, paints, playdoh etc); a cooking day for bread, cookies or whatever; a science project day where we can do vinegar and baking soda or magnets or something like that; playgroup is on Thursday mornings, so that can count; we had a hiking day over the summer, but I'm not sure what to include for that... board games? hide and seek? He's a big hide and seek kid.  I also try to have him help me with whatever cleaning project I have for the day. I'm not really good at staying on schedule, but I find that having a cleaning schedule makes it more likely that things will happen eventually.

I also need some goals for my self.  I'm going to try again to get CPR certified.  I watched the schedule this year, but I had something else going on every weekend they offered the class. I also need to wait a couple more months, because it is a five or six hour class and I need to be able to leave my baby for that long before I sign up. But I really do want to get that taken care of.  I feel like its one of those skills that you hope you never have to use, but really want have if you need it.

My scripture study goal this year was to spend more time pondering and really thinking about the scriptures as I read. When I read, I focused on doing this and it really increase the personal fulfillment  I got out of my reading. The problem was that I was really, REALLY bad about regular scripture study. I only made it about 100 pages into the Book of Mormon this year.  I barely read all summer.

This year for Christmas I decided to try and focus more on the Savior by reading the Gospels in the four weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We're only three weeks in, so I just started John today, but I have felt the difference, not only in how I feel about Christmas, but in my attitude about motherhood and even about the holiday to-do list.  Those things didn't feel like chores as much as they usually do. Instead it has been something I've looked forward to and enjoyed getting done.

I'm hoping that regular scripture study, while seeking out the Savior in the scriptures will help me hold on to this feeling.  I know it won't be a 24/7 thing.  We all have bad days, get grouchy and lose it sometimes. But I hope that I can recapture some of the love of life that I've felt lately.

I also want/desperately NEED to get back to a fitness routine.  I walked while I was pregnant, but I really want to go run.  Yes, I WANT to go run.  I still can't get over that that's me saying that.  It would help if the weather would warm up a little. I'm thin blooded now and don't like running when it's in the 30's.  I think I would like to run another half marathon this year. The only problem is now I know what it feel like to run one, so I know what I'm getting myself into.  I really didn't like those last few miles.  But maybe if I train better I won't hate myself as much.

I think a large part of it is that I miss the hours I had alone while I was running. It was really nice to just be with me and my audio book.  I also really miss the internally clean feeling you get when you run yourself a little ragged and sweat a ton.  Stretching after a run like that feel sooooo good. *sigh* I might have to hit the treadmill tomorrow.  I hate the treadmill.

The other big 40 goal I want to accomplish this year: Learn to make a really good cheesecake. I plan on starting by making a cheesecake for my birthday cake.  If I'm going to be practicing this one, I'm really going to have to start running. :)

I made a Baby!

I have to keep reminding myself of that the I start to feel down.  I did build, and am still providing aaaalll of the supplies for continuing to build, a human being. That has blown my mind more than once over the last few months.  It really hit me when I was planting and harvesting in my little garden this summer.  Someone plants a seed. Into dirt! We add some water and some sunlight and through a rather complex process that little seed takes the water and dirt, takes all the pieces apart and rearranges them into a plant! And then that plant, in some sort of programmed effort to make more of itself, makes edible bits. From Dirt! Then we take those edible bits, made from re-arranged dirt-stuff, and we eat them.  Our bodies deconstruct them again and use them to make pieces of us.  For pregnant women it turns them into an entire organ (the placenta), and magic feeding tube, and an entire human being.

Then the baby gets pushed out, which is another miracle all together.

And NOW. Instead of turning that dirt-food into a new human body, it turns it into another food! A food designed for my mini human, which he is somehow instinctually able to extract from my body.

Dirt becomes Baby. We really are made from the dust of the earth.
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I have a lot time to marvel with my every-45-minute eating baby.


The other thing I marvel at is how much we love these little lumps. When they are first born they literally offer us nothing but pain. Sore nether regions, lack of REM cycles, fluctuating hormones, and sore, occasionally bleeding nipples makes it seem like "love" would be the least likely emotion for us to feel for the cause of those problems.  And they offer nothing for the first few weeks. They don't interact, they can't even really see us that well. And yet we love. We hold, comfort and smell them. We stare at them while they sleep. Marvelous.