What a week

Sunday my oldest Sister came for a visit and stayed until early Thursday. It was the first time she'd gotten to meet Zachary. It was wonderful to see her and she will be back hopefully in August and with my niece and nephew.

We spent Monday visiting my Dad and other sister at his house. Then Tuesday we were up at the Veteran's hospital while my dad had an endoscopy done. Wednesday I had to go back to work and she was going to go home that morning. As a sweet surprise though she stayed the extra day and babysat so Matthew and I could go out for dinner. Zachary took to his Aunt Missa as if she's been here since day one. It was sweet how he watch her every time she walked in the room and even fell asleep when she was holding him.

Up to now, we'd never left Zachary with anyone... we don't have a babysitter. Since Matthew stays home with him for now, he's always with at least one of us. So naturally our dinner out was filled with conversation about the little guy. At the end of the year, Matthew is supposed to go back to work and I still don't know what it's going to be like.

Thursday night during class break - Zachary met his Aunt April for the very first time. It was sweet and sad all at the same time. (drama for another blog, eh?). It was long overdue and he really seemed to like her.

It's all in a week I guess...

My busy life

I've just ended my week with the night pager. (yea!) It's been my worst pager week yet and I'm grateful not to get it back for eight weeks. I have to wonder... what I was thinking getting into IT. I originally wanted to be a teacher but didn't think it would pay well enough to support my family. The hours would have been more predictable and weeks like this, predictability sounds sooo good. Honestly it's still the long range plan. To get my masters so I can teach... sometime in the next 10 years or so.

I'm still taking two bible classes that I need to finish my bachelors degree at JBU. July 16 - I'm done with classes. I'll have to pick up a pe/health credit somewhere and then walk in December. It's only a 20 year project coming to a close. While that makes me feel a bit old, I'm as old as I'm becuase that's when I was born and there's nothing to change it.

My Sebie just turned 18 anyway. He's gone for the summer... maybe longer... I worry. I just don't know. But I've got to believe in him and hope for the best.

My oldest sister will be here Sunday!!!! My house is not clean and there's no time before she gets here. She will not care one bit, but I always do. Oh well. I will just be so glad to see her! She's never met Zachary so that will be wonderful. I might get to see my niece and nephew too. I sure hope so. I have awesome nieces and nephews for the most part. I love having them all together.

Life is busy, ever so busy. Not too shabby though.

A quiet moment

I've had a few quiet moments to catch up on the blogs I follow... to have a good cry... and now to maybe write a bit myself.

Life is truly a journey and there's much along the way. Some of it is blissfully wonderful, and some of it just breaks my heart.

I was asked why read what makes you cry. I read because something within me feels the need to. I follow the journeys of families and children. I don't pretend to understand the mysteries of life. I don't have any answers most of the time.

All I do know is, children are our future, our past and our present...

Ever so simply they are life. They are a reason to hope and to laugh and to cry. For my children I will sit up at 2 am waiting for the washer to stop so they will have clean socks in the morning. They give me reason to do any number of things that must be done, that should be done and that can be done. Then they give me reason to learn the words (or most of the words) to silly little songs and sing them without any thought to how I might sound to anyone else. All because they gift me with smiles and laughter in return.

Why am I so lucky?

I have no idea.

I hope never to take it for granted and to keep perspective with the world around me. It takes so little to spread joy... and so I try... It takes even less though to hurt feelings, so I try even harder to avoid doing that.

Mother's Day

It's Mother's Day...

I always feel a bit odd since my own Mother is gone but I have all my wonderful little and not so little people.
Here are two of them... Em is a petite girl who will be thirteen at the end of this month... and baby Z is a week shy of 7 months. I love how the perspective makes Z look as big as his big sister.

I'm supposed to be working on a bunch of homework... my older sister is in the midst of an unexpected move that will leave her living with my dad... and that led to a flurry of phone calls all evening. I still need to call my eldest sister and see how life is treating her. There's dishes and laundry waiting for me... but here I am playing with photos.

We've taking baby pic's with Z's big monkey since he was a month or so old. An idea I'd never heard of when the other munchkins were little - guess I'm slow or something.. but anyway here's May's version.
Guess I'll head back to the things I'm supposed to be doing... at least until baby Z's night feeding. He's still not sleeping through the night or anything. (pst... secret - as much as I'd like a single night's sleep from dusk to dawn... I love the time I get with him since I miss the hours I spend at work when he is home with his Daddy. He can give up the really early feeding between 5 and 6 though - any time now).

EDIT here for clarification since BabyZ's dad just laughed at me; the little man gets up two or three times every night. I'm a night person so I don't mind anything before say 4 am. Early 'morning' though I'd rather be sleeping myself. I absolutely think 5 am is sleeping time.

Fear is a terrible thing, guilt is even worse...

I've been afraid... frozen in time since November 30th 2008...

I tried to be stronger than the fear for Christmas Eve and managed I guess. We were able to spend our usual holiday time with Nolie. Since then however - I can't seem to find my way.

I have Zachary, and Emily, and Calvin, and Sebastian, and Bryan. I've been blessed - more times over than I deserve. There were three miscarriage interspersed that I'll never forget but in the end - more on the side of luck and love.

This is all to explain... When the dearest, most amazing friend I've ever known lost her son, the day he was born at 20 weeks - fear set in and then guilt.

Fear that I would only cause her pain to bring my newborn, fifth child, beautiful son around in the midst of her grief... fear that it would add to the heartache for me to seemingly flaunt my fertility when she'd waited 16 years for a miracle... fear that if I stayed away, I'd lose a friendship that has been a sustaining rock in my life.

Then there's the guilt. I dare not complain about sleepless nights, when she'd give anything to have such simple worries. How can I feel overwhelmed - when I'm blessed so. How dare I feel like there's not enough hours in the the day...

So now I'm frozen... afraid I'm letting too much time pass, too much distance grow... afraid it's already too late.

Just ten days ago was baby E's due date.

I still cry when I think of him.

I miss Nolie.

Mission Statement

Early this month I was in a training class at work based on Steven Covey's 7 Habits. As a part of the class follow up I was supposed to write a personal mission statement. I jotted down my '1st draft' while in class and went back today to try to write the 'final version'.

The draft version -

My mission is to be myself, to always give my best, to believe in people, to hold on to hope, to let go of heartache, and to look back... with no regrets

It's been the requisite 21 days and I'm also supposed to assess my progress... I wonder if I just embrace my draft, is that progress or laziness?

St. Patrick's Day :-)