So, I have been struggling people. Physically mentally and mostly just those two, ha. I think back to last year before October hit, and I was FLYING HIGH. Dahlia was old enough that she was gaining some independence. Aida was now in Kindergarten, Cypress was also gaining more independence and was doing better health-wise.I was getting my body back! I was feeling better health-wise. I felt like my mind and creativity was coming back to me. I felt like my old self was coming back to me, new and improved. And I also knew, I wanted one more kid. Karey and I both. And that was so intimidating to me because everything was flowing if you know what I mean. The kind of flow that just makes you straight up content every day (almost). The kind of content where you sit back and are like, "My family is the bomb. I'm the bomb. Life is the bomb." And then the truth bomb hits. This family isn't complete, no matter how bad I wanted it to be because of its flow and the feelings of being done I had, and how I just wanted it to stay easy, and get easier and easier. But, when I thought of my family in the future, with teenagers, I still wanted more.
When Karey and I were engaged, we said we wanted six kids. After our first-born, that dropped to five. After our second, we said 3-4. Once our third was born, it was like, "Hey, this is nice. We could be done!.....?" Having a family is not this big smiling picture frame that just stays happy and energetic and fun all the time. It is work ALL THE TIME. Work that is not about you, unless you're looking for some imperfections to perfect. And for someone who considers herself a realist (which others consider a pessimist), it sure is exhausting to be expecting reality all the time, which usually isn't what you want or what you planned it to be. But, what having a family IS, is worth it. It fills in all the cracks of life. It creates cracks too, but they are MINOR compared to life without family. Family is life. You can't even be born without a family. Whether they or you are a part of eachothers' life, every single living human has a family tree. Families create society. They create communities. They create CULTURES. They create citizens, nations. Together, we all make up the world. How can something so large and so vital, be thought to be so easy? The funny thing is there are some people that think it will just be fun and easy (like I did). And, there are the ones who recognize it for what it is. A life that no longer is about you. Instead, it is about everyone around you. But what they don't see is everything it fills in an empty soul. Loving people to the extent that you would give yourself up is something too intense to explain.And too beautiful to explain. It creates humility, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, understanding and SO many more characteristics that, quite frankly, I think are dying out of society. Yes, they are there in small things and in small ways, but what about in deep ways? In the ways that matter when everything is stripped away from you and you really have to see yourself for who you are and who you have let yourself become deep inside? Scary stuff, that is. BUT, back to the point. Families are worth the exhaustion. Back before the boom in technology and mass production, family was the pride of people's lives. That has faded now. But it doesn't change the families undying necessity in the plot of our lives and the building of societies. So, when I thought about how at the moment, I really was too anxious to want another kid, but how in the future, I wanted one more. I knew I just had to jump in, or stay content with my decision of three kids. I didn't want to do the latter (see note*) So, beginning of October is when the flow turned into a brick wall and the content feeling was straight up gone. I had never had morning sickness as bad as this time around, and I could barely function throughout the day. I told myself I just needed to make it to middle of November, because usually I start to feel good around twelve weeks. Well that passed and I still wasn't back to functioning status. My husband was overworked from doing EVERYTHING including his work while I laid on the couch wondering if I was actually maybe just dying. Thanksgiving passed, which we skipped because everyone was sick, I had thrown up and peed my pants, and felt horrible and not very thankful (WHAT?!selfish. I know.)Christmas came and passed and I was just glad that I made it through it. The house was a mess and it was probably the least Christmas-y Christmas my kids will have experienced in their lives, so good thing they're too young to remember anyways.Then the first week of January came. The NEW YEAR, bringing with it promises of sunshine and happiness and hopefully feeling better. And I did start to feel better for a week, until the whole family got hit with the flu. Fast forward two weeks later and we're all just barely recouping AND we finally have our ultrasound! Well, a day before the ultra-sound right when I was seeing the light after one of the most horrible flues ever, I got a horrible horrible sinus infection (and could only take acetametaphin! That's like taking water pills!!). At that ultra-sound, we found out we were having twins. Woooooooo. That's about as far as my excitement went at the time. I was so exhausted from being exhausted all fall, and then so exhausted and emotionally shot from sick kids and sick me and sick husband for the last two weeks, and exhausted from the left side of my face and head throbbing unceasingly, I honestly couldn't even REGISTER twins. If I pictured myself watching myself in a out-of-body type of experience I could kind of disconnect enough to be like "What?!Twins?!" and that was all. Fast forward to now, and everyone has been healthy for a total of like 5 days now. I'm still exhausted but maybe seeing the light at the end of this horrible flu season that I would kill if I could! And we've got about two months before these two little angels come and join us. And now that I've gotten a bit more sleep and am emotionally a bit more stable I can feel excited! Or at least I can see the time coming where I feel really excited. But I definitely have a lot of energy work to do on myself mentally and emotionally before these two sweet babes come. What I can say is I in no way regret choosing to have one more and getting two! It makes me emotional thinking about how in the end I will get what I always wanted, a big family! And I will have put in the work for it. And that makes me feel good about myself. Does that mean I'll be the best kindest awesomest mom ever? No. But I don't care, I'm just going to do my best. And one thing you learn quickly is, yes, you teach your kids, but they are already a grown soul inside of that small body. They know who they are, and who they'll be come, all you can do is teach them right from wrong and give them someone who loves them the entire way through life! And that is beautiful.
So, to help me have more energy and fix myself a bit mentally and emotionally, I chose to do this Stand Up and Shine challenge. I follow Ashley Lemieux on Instagram and love her force for good. She has helped so so many people through The Shine Project (an organization she created that I love) and she also has been going through a major loss right now that no one would ever want to experience, the loss of her two children. That hits home hard for me. I'm not the girl that naturally wanted to be a mom and being a mom didn't and still doesn't come natural, but I would never ever in my life wish it away. It's too precious.Anyways, she is suffering but trying hard to push through and still be strong and still be productive and still shine and still find joy in life regardless of her pains. I want to do that too. The Day 1 challenge is "yes, you can!" or "yes, I can!" Everyone has their things that they feel like they can't do. And currently for me, I am having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to think I can do anything. Literally. But I want to make this more emotional and mental for myself. So, I have been having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to feel or act happy. I've been having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to put POSITIVE energy back into my kids. I've been having a hard time feeling like I have enough mental energy to just be hopeful or optimistic about the future. When you are so shot physically, it takes your mental and emotional state right along with it. But, I CAN BE HOPEFUL and I CAN be optimistic about the future. It's my choice. What my brain doesn't want to let me realize is how draining it is to be down and not hopeful and pessimistic. I don't know if it drains me more quickly than if I were to be hopeful, because I've never tried it before. So here is to testing.So, this is my "i can" statement.
Yes. I can be a hopeful optimistic person.
Yes, I can make it through hard things, even if I don't want to go through them.
* This post is completely personal, meaning personal to my life. I don't think having one or five kids is better. I just have always wanted more, and was having a hard time committing to it because I was feeling content, as stated. What I DO think, is that having one kid is better than having none. Kids are the best!
When Karey and I were engaged, we said we wanted six kids. After our first-born, that dropped to five. After our second, we said 3-4. Once our third was born, it was like, "Hey, this is nice. We could be done!.....?" Having a family is not this big smiling picture frame that just stays happy and energetic and fun all the time. It is work ALL THE TIME. Work that is not about you, unless you're looking for some imperfections to perfect. And for someone who considers herself a realist (which others consider a pessimist), it sure is exhausting to be expecting reality all the time, which usually isn't what you want or what you planned it to be. But, what having a family IS, is worth it. It fills in all the cracks of life. It creates cracks too, but they are MINOR compared to life without family. Family is life. You can't even be born without a family. Whether they or you are a part of eachothers' life, every single living human has a family tree. Families create society. They create communities. They create CULTURES. They create citizens, nations. Together, we all make up the world. How can something so large and so vital, be thought to be so easy? The funny thing is there are some people that think it will just be fun and easy (like I did). And, there are the ones who recognize it for what it is. A life that no longer is about you. Instead, it is about everyone around you. But what they don't see is everything it fills in an empty soul. Loving people to the extent that you would give yourself up is something too intense to explain.And too beautiful to explain. It creates humility, compassion, empathy, forgiveness, understanding and SO many more characteristics that, quite frankly, I think are dying out of society. Yes, they are there in small things and in small ways, but what about in deep ways? In the ways that matter when everything is stripped away from you and you really have to see yourself for who you are and who you have let yourself become deep inside? Scary stuff, that is. BUT, back to the point. Families are worth the exhaustion. Back before the boom in technology and mass production, family was the pride of people's lives. That has faded now. But it doesn't change the families undying necessity in the plot of our lives and the building of societies. So, when I thought about how at the moment, I really was too anxious to want another kid, but how in the future, I wanted one more. I knew I just had to jump in, or stay content with my decision of three kids. I didn't want to do the latter (see note*) So, beginning of October is when the flow turned into a brick wall and the content feeling was straight up gone. I had never had morning sickness as bad as this time around, and I could barely function throughout the day. I told myself I just needed to make it to middle of November, because usually I start to feel good around twelve weeks. Well that passed and I still wasn't back to functioning status. My husband was overworked from doing EVERYTHING including his work while I laid on the couch wondering if I was actually maybe just dying. Thanksgiving passed, which we skipped because everyone was sick, I had thrown up and peed my pants, and felt horrible and not very thankful (WHAT?!selfish. I know.)Christmas came and passed and I was just glad that I made it through it. The house was a mess and it was probably the least Christmas-y Christmas my kids will have experienced in their lives, so good thing they're too young to remember anyways.Then the first week of January came. The NEW YEAR, bringing with it promises of sunshine and happiness and hopefully feeling better. And I did start to feel better for a week, until the whole family got hit with the flu. Fast forward two weeks later and we're all just barely recouping AND we finally have our ultrasound! Well, a day before the ultra-sound right when I was seeing the light after one of the most horrible flues ever, I got a horrible horrible sinus infection (and could only take acetametaphin! That's like taking water pills!!). At that ultra-sound, we found out we were having twins. Woooooooo. That's about as far as my excitement went at the time. I was so exhausted from being exhausted all fall, and then so exhausted and emotionally shot from sick kids and sick me and sick husband for the last two weeks, and exhausted from the left side of my face and head throbbing unceasingly, I honestly couldn't even REGISTER twins. If I pictured myself watching myself in a out-of-body type of experience I could kind of disconnect enough to be like "What?!Twins?!" and that was all. Fast forward to now, and everyone has been healthy for a total of like 5 days now. I'm still exhausted but maybe seeing the light at the end of this horrible flu season that I would kill if I could! And we've got about two months before these two little angels come and join us. And now that I've gotten a bit more sleep and am emotionally a bit more stable I can feel excited! Or at least I can see the time coming where I feel really excited. But I definitely have a lot of energy work to do on myself mentally and emotionally before these two sweet babes come. What I can say is I in no way regret choosing to have one more and getting two! It makes me emotional thinking about how in the end I will get what I always wanted, a big family! And I will have put in the work for it. And that makes me feel good about myself. Does that mean I'll be the best kindest awesomest mom ever? No. But I don't care, I'm just going to do my best. And one thing you learn quickly is, yes, you teach your kids, but they are already a grown soul inside of that small body. They know who they are, and who they'll be come, all you can do is teach them right from wrong and give them someone who loves them the entire way through life! And that is beautiful.
So, to help me have more energy and fix myself a bit mentally and emotionally, I chose to do this Stand Up and Shine challenge. I follow Ashley Lemieux on Instagram and love her force for good. She has helped so so many people through The Shine Project (an organization she created that I love) and she also has been going through a major loss right now that no one would ever want to experience, the loss of her two children. That hits home hard for me. I'm not the girl that naturally wanted to be a mom and being a mom didn't and still doesn't come natural, but I would never ever in my life wish it away. It's too precious.Anyways, she is suffering but trying hard to push through and still be strong and still be productive and still shine and still find joy in life regardless of her pains. I want to do that too. The Day 1 challenge is "yes, you can!" or "yes, I can!" Everyone has their things that they feel like they can't do. And currently for me, I am having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to think I can do anything. Literally. But I want to make this more emotional and mental for myself. So, I have been having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to feel or act happy. I've been having a hard time feeling like I have enough energy to put POSITIVE energy back into my kids. I've been having a hard time feeling like I have enough mental energy to just be hopeful or optimistic about the future. When you are so shot physically, it takes your mental and emotional state right along with it. But, I CAN BE HOPEFUL and I CAN be optimistic about the future. It's my choice. What my brain doesn't want to let me realize is how draining it is to be down and not hopeful and pessimistic. I don't know if it drains me more quickly than if I were to be hopeful, because I've never tried it before. So here is to testing.So, this is my "i can" statement.
Yes. I can be a hopeful optimistic person.
Yes, I can make it through hard things, even if I don't want to go through them.
* This post is completely personal, meaning personal to my life. I don't think having one or five kids is better. I just have always wanted more, and was having a hard time committing to it because I was feeling content, as stated. What I DO think, is that having one kid is better than having none. Kids are the best!
