School Choice

Pregnancy is a time of preparation. The mother’s body is continuously changing preparing to give birth. The baby’s body is continuously growing and becoming stronger waiting for his debut. While preparation in the lives of the mother and father are taking place as well. There seems to be so much to get ready! You have to get all the essentials—diapers, wipes, car-seat, stroller, highchair, burp cloths, nursery décor, clothes, and then more clothes, nursing pads, a nursing pump, bottles, blankets, and the list could go on and on. You are told to take child birth classes and CPR classes. You have to child-proof the house and get that nursery looking perfect. The funny thing about all that preparation is that it doesn’t really matter that much. It can all be done after the baby arrives, and often there is plenty of down time to get it all done when the baby is still in the hospital. However, it seems to consume the minds of the mothers leading up to the birth. Everything has to be just perfect.

In the midst of pregnancy the logical thing seems to be to prepare for when the baby arrives. I’m sure some of you other moms understand when I say most of those things really don’t matter. However, when it’s all you have to think about—it just makes sense. As my children grow I find myself having to make “more important” decisions. As my perspective has changed (seems like daily) those “important” decisions seem to change right along with it. Decisions about nursery décor seem very unimportant when thinking about the decisions we now debate. Our newest decision is where to send our oldest to school.

On one hand we are so very blessed to have so many options. On the other hand it seems like it would make life so much easier if there was one clear choice. In my eyes we have three choices, homeschooling, catholic school, or public school. Each choice has it’s pros and cons—which I could list here for you, but I’m guessing my list and your list would be different. This only makes sense since our children are different and our perspectives are different. There is not a correct answer—no one size fits all.

So instead I will tell you that for now we have decided to send our oldest to kindergarten at public schools. We are very blessed to live in a great school corporation that consistently ranks at the top in the state academically. There are things that I’m not thrilled about such as class size, all day kindergarten, not enough play, and probably some other things I can’t think of currently. However, for now we are going to see how it goes. In an ideal world we would have an amazing Catholic school that was affordable and right down the street from us and that had smaller class sizes, but we don’t live in an ideal world. We do live in a world where we get to decide though. Luckily, I know going into the school year that if anything goes wrong or if we don’t like the decision we made we can pull her out and try a different approach. And I think that is what I’ve learned through the whole process of school choosing, nothing is ever permanent. That fact alone is why I think this “huge decision” (that will look tiny in the big scheme of parenting) isn’t keeping me awake at night anymore.

What about you? Do you have young children who haven’t started school yet? What have you decided for their schooling? Do you have older children who are already in school? How do you feel about where they are?

Going by Fast

It's the third trimester already! I'm not sure where all the time has gone, but there isn't much of it left until this new little one blesses us with HIS presence. Yes, in case you missed it--we are blessed to be having another boy.


I have been pretty awful about keeping this blog updated. I guess with three little ones and being pregnant I have an excuse, but  maybe this third trimester I'll do better?


I don't want to jinx myself, but so far I'm still feeling pretty great. I've been maintaining a wonderful 5-6 times a week workout routine and the baby seems to love healthy food like pineapple so it's been easy to maintain a good weight. I'll try to have my husband take a belly picture soon and post it. I'm not big on pictures of myself anyway, but the 4th time around has given me even less motivation than normal to post pictures of how huge this belly really can get!


I know Lent is half way done already, but since I've posted so infrequently I figured I'd discuss a little of what I'm doing for Lent in hopes that I can motivate you--not only during Lent but for afterwards too.


I've been sacrificing sleep for Lent. I wake up fairly early in the morning get my workout, daily prayers, and shower all done before the kids are up. This is leaving more time during the day to spend with them. It's been wonderful! I think I may try to keep it up once Lent is over too. I have a stack of about 6 Catholic books on my nightstand too. I'm slowly making my way through each of them a little each night. It seems like a great way to end the day and clear my mind before I rest each night. It might not seem like a lot, but for busy moms getting in that daily prayer and a little spiritual reading each day is HUGE. If you haven't been able to lately, maybe try waking up a bit earlier--trust me it's worth it!


The next big milestone during this pregnancy is that fun Glucose test. I've never really minded the test all that much. The part I dislike is getting a rhogam shot--which happens at the same appointment. Yeah for being A+.


Thanks for reading all the pregnancy updates. I'm going to change it up a bit and write about school choices in the next post. Hopefully that will be posted Friday!


Have a blessed day. Don't forget to count all those small blessings!

Second Trimester Bliss

You know those mothering days where you wake up to complete silence, your children have dressed themselves in matching clothes, and they are polite and quietly play with each other all day long?

Yeah. Me either.

However, compared to what life was like just a couple weeks ago these past 2 weeks have felt like motherhood bliss.

I’m sure everyone knows one of “those women”. The women who LOVE being pregnant. They never get sick, they have even more energy than before pregnancy, they glow with beauty, and they are just generally wonderful to be around. I am not one of those women. Let me repeat—I. Am. Not. One. Of. Those. Women.

I’m sure you could already tell that from my previous post. But I want to be very clear-- for some of us pregnancy just plain sucks. We get sick before the pregnancy test even has a chance to turn positive, our hair can’t be helped with any product, our nails chip and break, our faces forget that we aren’t going through puberty anymore, we puke with such a velocity that it is bound to splash back up into our hair, we have less than zero energy, and we are moody. Picture one of those walking dead zombies. That’s kind of how I feel during pregnancy. At least during the first trimester.

After the first couple of weeks of the second trimester I feel like I am in pregnancy bliss. The sickness has subsided, my hair starts to look somewhat decent, no more acne, much more energy, and the moodiness is far less. I have been loving it! All that stuff that I put aside while I was feeling awful is now getting done. I have multiple parties planned at my house. I’ve been cooking dinner every single night again. And my favorite part is that I’ve been working out again! Each and every day I look forward to those workouts. Second trimester bliss! I hope all you other pregnant ladies will have the second trimester bliss too. I won’t even talk about what happens next—let’s just enjoy this time together.

February 10^th is our big ultrasound. We will be finding out if this little baby is a boy or girl—I’m not the patient type. I’ve been having strong feelings that it’s another boy, but I can’t wait to find out for sure. Any thoughts from you??

As a side note, since this is the 4^th time I’ve done this I feel like I should document postpartum so everyone else can see what it’s like. I’ve been thinking about journaling each and every day from what I ate, to what my workout looked like, to my emotions, and of course how my body is bouncing back. I find that it is very challenging to “get back to normal” after baby. I’m hoping maybe I can help lead other postpartum women to their goals. I’d love to hear what you readers think about this! Post here on the site or message me personally with any comments, thoughts, or ideas for the postpartum journey.

Perspective

Today I woke up and realized it is now the year 2014. I feel like the last 2 ½ months have been a complete daze. Between pregnancy sickness, that seemed to last all day every day with no end in sight, and our family passing around the flu/cold bug that has been going around I feel like I just woke up from a long nap. The good news is that I’m feeling great! All the kids seem to be on the mend and things are slowly getting back to normal. The bad news is that we have now been snowed in for 3 days and everyone seems to be getting a bit antsy.

I thought this would be the perfect time to write an inspired blog on “New Year’s Resolutions”. But who am I kidding? I’m 15 or 16 weeks pregnant, (I can’t seem to remember—I guess that’s what happens the 4^th time around) I worked out yesterday for the first time in 3 months and I am so sore I don’t want to lift my arms, no food sounds appealing therefore no cooking sounds remotely fun, my to-do list seems to grow exponentially by the day, and I’m just plain tired. So I’ve concluded that instead of blowing a bunch of smoke up your asses I’ll just be honest—for now, I resolve to get out of bed each morning, do my workouts, play with my kids, do my chores, say my prayers, love my husband, and fall back into bed each night. Hopefully, all my energy and zest will return shortly!

Sometimes I think God just wants us to do the simple things though. I feel like after being so sick from this pregnancy and relying on so many other people that I have a whole new perspective on things. How blessed I am. How blessed we are.

I can’t imagine dealing with a lifelong debilitating illness. I can’t imagine not having a warm place for my children to sleep at night. I can’t imagine my husband not having job that allows us to have nice things, warm clothes, a beautiful house, and general security. I should never have a complaint in the world. God has truly blessed me in this life.

So, with that perspective in mind I’m going to try and do the little things the best I can. I wish you all the best on your own New Year’s resolutions. If you haven’t started on your resolution yet—feel free to join me on my journey to conquer the little things.