Young love

Earlier this week we got to spend a few days with our friends Noah and Rachael. They are engaged to be married in August and while we were hanging out I was reminded of the excitement of young love.
I love my husband very much and I feel like our love continues to grow and deepen as we adventure through life together. But sometimes I think we forget to just goof around and have that starry love struck look in our eyes. We have two kids, work "real world" jobs, and have a lot more responsibility than we did when we first met. I know there are days I probably forget to tell Jim how much I love him and there are plenty of days that I am stressed or overwhelmed with life that I forget to be "in love". We often spend our time together talking (whether about the business of life or about our feelings and emotions) and while this is important, I know I have forgotten to have moments of young love.
I have been reminded how important it is to really be in love and be in that moment. To put aside all the other distractions and "old people" responsibilities to tell my husband how great he is and how much I love and appreciate him. To find time to goof around and maybe have a little tickle war or play soccer in the kitchen.
Being in love is one of the most freeing feelings and getting to spend the rest of your life with your best friend is the greatest gift.

Jim - I love you more than words can express.
Noah and Rachael - congrats on your upcoming wedding and thanks for the reminder. your love is a beautiful thing; don't ever let that go.

kids make me want to vomit

Yesterday I knew we needed to get out of the house, but it was pouring rain and I wasn't sure where to go. I had already been to the Children's Museum this week so I opted to head to McDonald's so Amalea could play on the play structure. It was our first time...soon after Amalea climbed up into the play structure I realized I had no idea what was up there and that I couldn't really see her. There were tons of bigger kids running around playing rough and I totally went into panic mode. Here I am holding Maya trying to see if I can find Amalea through one of the windows in the tall play structure and I started to feel sick. I literally felt like I was going to throw up I was so worried. What was Amalea doing up there? Was she freaking out and scared? Were the big kids pushing her around? Serious panic set in. I was trying to find something fun for her to do and I ended up stressing myself out. After giving her a pretty decent amount of time to play I finally couldn't handle my worry any longer so I climbed up in the play structure (while holding Maya) and got Amalea to come down. Of course she was having a blast playing and was doing perfectly fine so I didn't need to panic at all...how I am going to handle her going to school I have no idea!!!

2010 Baby Mania

As I begin to look forward to 2010 there is one thing in particular I am looking forward to with great anticipation - babies. No, not another one for me...but instead I get to help welcome a number of babies into this world as some of my dear friends are expecting.
January 1, 2009 was the day I found out I was pregnant with Maya. January 3, 2009 I went to the emergency room because I thought I had a miscarriage. It was frightening in so many ways. I had just come to know there was a little baby inside of me and I thought just days later that I was going to lose that baby. Luckily she was fine and as you all know Maya joined our family on August 15, 2009. Maya is one of the best things of 2009 - and it was a hard year, probably the hardest year of my life. There are many things in 2009 that I am happy to put behind me and I am happy to be able to say this year of my life is over. It was hard. And yet 2009 brought me Maya...and as hard as it has been to transition to having two kids (and a lot of other changes as well) it has been an incredible journey as Maya grows and changes and also changes me, Jim, and Amalea. Babies have that ability - the ability to change us and make us do things we never thought we would do. The ability to make us scream and cry because we are so frustrated and also to make us scream and cry because we are so elated. They make us better people, more loving, more caring, more free...babies truly are a gift that changes us forever.
2010 will bring babies to 5 of my dear friends.
In January we will help welcome Baby Girl Leonardo. This is especially exciting because the Leonardo's also have another daughter, Ania, and so we will be able to go through raising 2 girls together!
In February Everett David Vaughn will be arriving. The Vaughn's are dear friends and we are so excited to be a part of welcoming Everett and hope he loves music and soccer as much as his daddy, Devin, and Jim do.
In April Baby Girl Reed comes. The Reeds have been such blessings to us. They have volunteered countless times to watch our girls and we trust them like no others. They also live about 2 blocks away from us so we get to see them often. We are excited to return many favors to these two wonderful people and can't wait to love on their baby girl.
In May my dear friend Lindsay Pompey will be having a baby boy. This little boy is extra special as we have been waiting for him for some time. Shortly after finding out we were pregnant with Maya, Lindsay had her second miscarriage. There were a lot of emotions for me as I was pregnant with Maya and so badly wanted my friend to have her hearts desire - a baby. For reasons unknown that just wasn't the time...but now it is and I could not be happier. There are some people in our lives that just make us smile and Lindsay and her husband Chris are those people...they will be incredible parents.
Finally, in June my best friend is having a baby. This makes me want to move back to California so badly because raising our children together would be a dream come true. Andy truly was a person that came into my life at a crucial time. She has been there to walk with me through some of life's hardest things. She makes me laugh and challenges me to talk deeply and freely about some of the more uncomfortable topics. Andy and her husband Danny are such special people. I hope to be able to be there for their baby as much as Andy was there for me after I had Amalea - but I know with living in different states it will be hard...thank God for telephones, skype, and airplanes.

Here's to hoping for 5 healthy and beautiful babies. Congrats friends.

Why worry

I am a worrier...I always have been. In college I used to worry when my parents didn't call to check in when they said they would (a bit reversed, huh). When Jim doesn't answer his phone when I know he is somewhere he can I freak out and convince myself he is on the side of the road dead (pathetic I know).
So, when we realized a few weeks ago how tight our finances were with me not working I worried. There are other reasons I started looking for work besides just finances...we were hoping it could provide an opportunity for Jim to have more time with the girls and also for my mental health. But I was stressing...worrying...panicing even about it all.

But why do I worry...things always work out. When will I learn to trust in that, my past experiences, instead of worry and panic.

I got offered 3 jobs! And I am taking two of them.

Job #1: Teaching online. I will be teaching Junior English through Orange Lutheran Online which is a high school in Southern California. This starts the end of January and is an 8 week course. I am super excited because I get to work from home which means it doesn't take away from my time with the girls, but I get to keep teaching which I also love.

Job #2: Site Coordinator for ClubZ tutoring. I applied and interviewed for a position as a tutor in an after school program. I was hoping to get at least 6-8 hours a week doing this. I got called today and they offered me a position, but not just as a tutor, but as a site coordinator. What this means is I get 15 hours a week and will get paid more an hour than I would have as a tutor. There are 8 hours after school and the other 7 are on my own time contacting kids, scheduling, recruiting, and doing other organization things (I love organizing). So, the additional hours don't take away from my time with the girls.

Why worry, right? I feel like this is the story of our family. We realize how things are just isn't working and that we need to re-figure things out and then it all comes together...even better than we could have hoped.

Learning reversed

Sometimes I don't realize how much I learn from Amalea and Maya. As a parent I focus so much on teaching them.

With Amalea it's teaching her letters and numbers, how to play fairly and share, how to use her words instead of have tantrums, how to be creative and explore the world around her, how to love books and reading :-)
With Maya it's teaching her how to sit up, how to lift her head when on her stomach, how to grasp her toys and play with them, how to soothe herself when upset.

But...the learning goes so much deeper than that. In ways I don't even realize my daughters are teaching me every day. These are some of the things I learn from them:

• To play. I get so stressed about life and things that are not important. They drag me away from the worries and help me see the joy of playing.
• To sing and dance. Amalea loves to do these two things. It is so freeing to dance and sing and be silly. I feel a weight lifted every time I do.
• To run. We have a long hallway and Amalea loves running up and down it...running with her while holding Maya makes me laugh every time.
• To smile. Maya's smile has a way of melting me no matter what. I have learned just how powerful a smile can be.
• To cuddle. The warmth of holding my girls in my arms makes me so happy and reminds me to enjoy the moment.
  

There are so many more things I have learned, but in the end what it comes down to is that my daughters have taught me to live freely, to enjoy the moment, to relax a little and to have fun.

Hard decisions

I know I have blogged about this before and I'm sure 99% of you don't care to read more about my journey with nursing Maya - but for you 1% here it is. Actually, in the end I blog because writing out my thoughts and struggles really helps me process them - it's not about who reads it or who doesn't - it's about the journey I am on.
This morning I decided that I am going to be finished nursing Maya. I will try to still nurse her when she gets up in the middle of the night and maybe one other time before bed, but it is not going to be the primary way in which I feed her. For me this is one of the hardest decisions I have had to make as a mother. It was also one of the hardest decisions I had to make after Amalea was born. With Maya I was really determined to nurse her because I was really bummed it was so hard with Amalea. Yet, in the end it has been really hard once again.
I know that plenty of people have told me it's ok if I give her formula and while I believe that I don't think I was ready to give myself the freedom not to nurse. I needed to be ok with this decision and up until today I really wasn't. I was still struggling through it and trying as hard as I could to nurse...but I am now ok with this decision.
I am reading a really good book called "I was a really good mom before I had kids" and one chapter is on guilt and one on judgment and both of these have reminded me that this is my journey - the journey of my family and I need to be doing what is best for all of us. At one point the authors of this book asked mothers what the hardest decision they have had to make in parenting was. Some said whether or not to work and while that was also a hard decision for me I think the biggest struggle was the decision to stop breastfeeding. It weighed hard on me with both of my daughters and with both I endured a lot of pain to try and make it work.
I have come to realize that part of parenting is making hard decisions. I know this is only the beginning - just wait until they become interested in boys!!!

To work or not to work

When Amalea was 9 weeks old I went back to work in the mornings. I got to work about 7:00 in the morning, taught 4 classes and was home by 12:00. I didn't feel like I missed a tremendous amount of time with her and luckily I was home for all the major milestones in her life. Plus it allowed Amalea and Jim to have the mornings together - and if you know how Amalea is with Jim you know that time they had created such an incredible bond between them.
We were lucky we had this option - Jim was able to go in to work at 1:00 because he worked evenings doing youth group stuff and in the end he got all his work done with no problem. This also allowed for us to get great insurance (one perk of teaching) and to have a really great income between our two jobs combined.

When we moved to Portland I continued to teach and still taught just 4 classes. However, my hours were a lot worse this time. I worked from 8:00 until 3:00....the 7-12 thing was so much better.

I took a year leave of absence from my job this year to stay home with the girls. The 8-3 days were really brutal on me and I felt like I really missed out a lot with Amalea. I really missed being able to get home at lunch time (and I was making the same amount of money doing 7-12 as I was doing 8-3...my school in CA was much more flexible with me). We made the decision at the end of last school year that I would take this year off. It didn't make sense to have to pay for daycare just so I basically could keep working (because I do love teaching) and so we could keep benefits. That was a tough decision though...I mean you want to make sure you can take your kids to the doctor when they need to go and my insurance benefits were really good. We didn't know how everything would work out financially, but we trusted that this was the best decision for our family.

I haven't really missed teaching a whole lot....well, I take that back. I have missed teaching - I love Language Arts and I love working with adolescents - but I have not missed getting up every morning and having to be prepared and on top of things every day. There isn't much room to have an off day as a teacher. And things are definitely tight financially as we are trying our best to make it work with just one income...and our health benefits are costing quite a bit more than they did and the coverage is not as good.

I was asked this week to come back and teach 2 classes in the morning. My first thought was that I would love to do that. To be a part of the staff and get to teach and have a little time each day away from my kids (trust me, I love them, but my days have been really draining me lately). Jim and I weighed the option from a financial standpoint, from a benefits and healthcare standpoint, from a time standpoint and what it would mean for his job and the girls getting to have time with him possibly, from a daycare standpoint and if that was an option...in the end though what made the decision was my gut. I couldn't get the feeling out of my gut that I just didn't want to go back - not yet. As much as I truly feel some days like I am going insane I am not ready to go back yet. I know I will have the chance to be in the classroom again, but for now where I want to be is with my girls. I want the chance to find balance with them, I want to see them grown and help them grow. I don't want to be gone every day for a few hours (not to mention that the hours wouldn't have been ideal since school doesn't even start until 9:30 - way too late in my opinion). I want to be here, I want to be present, I want to feel sanity with my girls.

I am so thankful I have an understanding husband who is working his ass of so that I can be home. I am thankful he is willing to make cuts in our finances so that I can be here. It's not easy on him to work long days and then come home and run up and down the hallway with Amalea and take Maya when she cries...but he does it. It's not easy for him to see me in my frazzled and slightly insane moments (sometimes with tears in my eyes) but he listens to me and helps so much.