Welcome to Mommy Life.

Within each day, I wake up groggy headed and grasping for every last second of sleep. By 11 I give up and choose to join the living. J decides then that it would be a good time to either rest or fight with all of his life. Some days, we wake up before that and bounce around from place to place getting things done and stopping a million times to feed, change, etc.

At 1, life suddenly fast forwards. It is a constant struggle to keep him asleep because he has probably fought sleep all morning. He is hungry and cranky.

5 shows up and I start trying to appease the little one as I cook something up. I look around the house and think what did I do today?

And so each day fades into one sometimes super full moment and others very strung out and searching.

* * *

My most coveted time is the quick moment where I read a chapter of my bible. That is one moment where I feel like I got it right- not in the sense of "doing" but in a true moment of peace. I spend the rest of the day at war with myself and with God. I wonder, what am I doing wrong. I search for God in media, in etsy, in tiny worn out places. I find him most in friends, especially fellow believers. Each conversation is like a whisper "I am here" and it is a repeat of my morning reading.

I love those moments.

Most of the time I am at war and struggling.

**

"I loved you (and still love you) at your darkest." [Romans 5:8]

Beauty

It is one of those cherished moments, where my sweet little one releases his tiny grasp, curls up and breathes deeply of rest.

A Savored Sip

Freedom eludes
beauty exudes
in each sun streak that washes
against
the silky smooth
crying
mess
that yawns
and breathes
and dictates me

oh how I love him so
in a way I'll never even know

paci in purses
tucked in chairs
paci's hidden everywhere

without them questionable how we would fare

and yet
gently rocked
into a slumber
he rests
all in me
tests
the waters
of quiet
of uninterrupted
of this

this beautiful
beautiful bliss

to be and to do
and to see something through

and not running
have to save
the one
my very being who craves

yes
i love this little one

but how precious is this latte.

Your shoulders are wider

The better to carry you with 

And check out those hips

The better to birth sweet babies with

Whether width

Or weight

Don't be afraid

These changes are intentionally made

We were never meant to stay the same

But change and grow

New things to know

And acceptance of God given 

Woman beauty to sow

//

On accepting a changed and adapting body, post partum

Victory In Jesus

Wouldn't you know. This is a day unlike any other and yet sadly like every other. One day God gives breath, and another breath escapes at last. A sweet sweet friend, Mrs. Ethel Jones, passed away this morning. An amazing and sweet woman who loves this song.

She surely is smiling in Heaven, resting on God's heavenly porch and singing this song with us. She saw much pain and much tragedy and smiled right through it.

//

As a good friend said, "cry, throw yourself a pity party and move forward". [about my hormonal swings]

Here though, I will cry in words, and give it up the Lord. He holds my sweet friend and she is all the better for being there. I will miss her always.

//

There was a porch
with white steps
and bushes hugging

we spent hours
clipping and cutting

but nothing
was as special as the sweet words
she spoke

I sat a spell with her
knowing now what that means
a moment
where much is gleaned
magic cast
as she shared her past
the good
the bad
the ugly
and the victory given
by our Savior and how he lived it

and with each passing breath
so much depth
and joy
for one who had little
had suffered much
and yet was richer than all the world

and so
forever she lives
beneath the cleansing flood
forever washed in His blood
a testament

to what it meant

to have Victory in Jesus.

                                                 RIP to the beautiful, Mrs. Ethel Jones

Beauty

noun, plural beauties.

1.

the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensorymanifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design orpattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritualqualities are manifest).

Prologue

My parents bought me my mac to go back to grad school with.

My GRE scores just expired and my son was just born. Now it is my lifeline. It is a way for me to maintain normalcy despite a fractioning of all that I have known.

He is a little ball of love and a screaming flurry of fury. He needs milk all the time. I am that milk. I am in some ways little more than a comforter and cow. More than that I am a mother. I know that but when it comes to the moments of craziness where I don't know what to do I feel like a cow. He actually is a very laid back, sweet tempered, talkative and a hilarious baby. However, I am in survival mode and that 5% of the time he is crying- seems suddenly like 100% of the time.

A good friend once told me how its hard to find your identity again as a mom. You lose yourself in a kid. It is easy to see that already as the storm rises from his lungs with an incessant and God given need.

Right now he coos quietly beside me as he dreams of giants and soldiers and swords.

I breathe thankfully knowing I have at least 5 more minutes of this. 5 more minutes of normalcy.

Without him my life would bare an aching emptiness but with him things will never be the same.

//

Here is to the journey of a lifetime!