100th post

So I again kind of forgot about blogs.  Not just my blog, but everyone`s.  When I am not blogging, I forget to check the blogs I regularily read.  Kind of sad for me when I remember.

My cousin, whom I adore, reminded me about my blog yesterday...so here I am.  Luckily I never forget the password to this address - I am famous for forgetting passwords.

So I spent a few minutes reading old posts and I had to smile.  I had to smile about counting the days until Thankgsving - because Thanksgiving has come and gone and actually my beautiful oldest daughter will be home tomorrow for a few days.  An extended weekend if you will - it is semester break and she already has almost the entire 4.5 days planned out!  Lol!

I have to also smile about the (happy baby who does not sleep) - because now she is a happy baby who sleeps but has the most crazy temper tantrums.  I have never known someone who can so fully commit to screaming and having a fit.  I guess it gives me hope to remember that there was a time where she did not sleep, and now she does, and so this is a time where she freaks out like a crazy person, but there will be a time when she does not. (hopefully)

ANYWAY - as my title indicates, this is my 100th post on this blog address.  100 should be something special, something big, something exciting - I should be able to have a huge giveaway or announce something incredible, or SOMETHING...alas...there is no big exciting announcement, or huge blog candy giveaway, just me and my regular old boring life!

But maybe I'll post something exciting for 103!

Wouldn't it have been cool for me to blog on the last day of school?

But I didn't.  

Blogs...I barely get any time on my computer these days, is it just me that finds it difficult to get through all the junk email?

I don't read blogs or write posts anymore...as you may have noticed...but I want to. That has to count for something.  

We are all back under one roof for the night.  But not so tomorrow.

Life is a funny thing. People tell you that this will happen but in the midst of tantrums and tears and sleepless nights you don't believe them...but they speak from experience my friends.

Our oldest daughter had a great year at Bible school.  She won academic awards, she was elected for student council for next year, and so obviously is going back.  She is working at a summer job at a fast food restaurant and also teaching 5 day clubs again as she has the past 5 years. So she just got back from Prince Albert last night...but that's not all, peeps. 

The next one in line...the Tapper, has also decided that it is time to grow up.  To which I say, "Says who?" She is teaching 5 day clubs this year as well.  I don't know how to much I like this! I mean I like that they want to share the gospel of Jesus with kids, that they want to spend their summers doing ministry, that they are the kind of kids who get hired for these things...but I just want to stop for a second! 

But not really.

This was always the plan. Raise them to be Godly young adults who would love Jesus and serve people. That's what they are doing. And they do it in their regular lives too...not just in the summer. And it's good...I guess!! ;)

I do like having everyone home though! Tomorrow we take the Tapper to work for the week in Strasbourg and the Ballerina goes back to northern Saskatchewan...if I blog again soon  I'll tell you how I feel about turning 40 earlier this year.

New School year

I am a sentimental person.  I have the paper from the first time my husband bought me flowers when we were just dating.  I actually have the slip of paper he wrote his number on the first time he gave it to me.  I have little mementos from events over the past 23 years of our lives that help me think back on good times.  I feel like I need something to mark this day.

Today is the first official day of school for us.  But one of us is away at Bible School!  Crazy.

We took our oldest and dropped her off in her dorm this weekend.  She said goodbye to her sisters outside the grandparents house and we drove away as they were all crying at the door - true story!  I am not being melodramatic in the least.  The hugeness of the event was not lost on my little kids!

Just so you know, I did pretty good....I do truly feel more excited for her than anything, but I was a little sad.  I cried a little while we were leaving, and I was glad, I don't mind that she knows that I am going to miss her living at home!  And then when we drove away I really cried - but only for a couple of kilometers.

But it was so interesting to me because I was thinking of this blog post while it was happening.

I am so proud of her and so happy that she is going to Bible school this year, even when it is hard, even though she didn't know anyone, even though we left her there with a bunch of strangers.  I am convinced that she will come  home from there with a bunch of friends instead!  She called last night actually after her first day of registration and orientation and she sounded excited!  She is trying to figure out how much is too much to take on while she is there, and I am already counting down the days until she comes home for Thanksgiving!

This is a totally cool day!

So we are starting school with one in Grade 9

one in Grade 5

one in Grade 3

and one in Kindergarten

and one who is in trouble!!  LOL!!!

One of my kids WAS in Mexico

(I haven't blogged for so long that I don't know if all my friends who used to read my blog think I died and don't bother to check anymore, but I am going to blog as if you are all still out there in internet land reading this!)

My daughter is home from Mexico, went through a week of 5-day club training and is now gone again to teach clubs for the summer.  We will likely see her most weekends, but she will be gone for the majority of the summer.  Then she comes home for 2 weeks and goes away to school.  How did this all come so fast?

I know that it is cliche - but it is cliche for a reason!

It is so true.  The time really did fly. Do you know that saying

The days are long - but the years are short.

Have you heard that one before?  It is totally a true statement. There were many, many, many long days of parenting that have occured over the past 17 years 11 months and 7 days, did I mention there were many?  But truly, I find it so hard to believe that we have gotten to this place so quickly.  This place, where she is ready to move out and go to school.  Crazy!

How do I feel about it?

Excited, nervous, relieved and sad.

I am excited because she is an amazing young woman who I have no doubt will succeed at wahtever she does.  She is smart, funny, cooler than she thinks she is, she thinks for herself, she has more confidence than she thinks she does, and she is overall a totally cool human being!

I am nervous because she is not fully aware of her coolness and awesomeness so she has a tendency to follow when she should lead...although I am seeing that less and less!

I am relieved because when we started this parenting thing we were not headed in the direction that we are now going in.  My beautiful oldest daughter was a complete surprise.  I wasn't married, I wasn't planning on having children at that point in my life...I was planning on going to hair school - you know, to be a hairdresser.  But there I was, 21 and pregnant.  I came to know Jesus as my savior when she was about 9 months old.  And it changed the trajectory of our lives in immeasurable ways!  My husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) also was born again a few months after me and we started out trying to be a family who loved and served the Lord instead of being people who lived in the same house but served ourselves. It was hard!!!  HARD!!!  And it was not normal, or what we knew at all - when we started homeschooling our views of family and children were changed even more!  We did not know if what we were doing was going to be good or not - but I am relieved because really when I see my daughter now as an almost adult I know that it has not hurt her to be raised differently than I was.  We have not been perfect in any way - believe me I wish I didn't yell at them ever, not even once, and I wish that I had been more consistent, and more decisive, and more patient...but all in all, I do believe that God has filled in where I was void and she is an amazing young lady.  Not that I don't think she would have been if she had gone to school - let's not turn this into a homeschooling/public school debate, because that is not what it is...I am just saying that she is turning out to be a godly young lady and  she is making great choices, I am very proud of her!

AND I am sad because although I will always be her parent, and always be her mom and always be fiercly defensive and proud of her - my time of full time parenting her is coming to an end.  She won't be here to leave her junk laying around and drive me crazy on a daily basis.  At least not for next year,  and even if she does come back to live at home after bible school and go to post secondary, it will be different.  I would truly give anything to go back to those days when she was a tiny kid, so funny and independent, determined and stubborn - wait, she is still most of those things!!  :)

Moms, don't wish it away.  I know that the days are long, and you are tired!!  I get it, I really do, I still have a toddler, remember, I am tired right along with you - but I have this unique perspective of watching one leave the nest as I am still cradling one in arms.  Enjoy the time, count the blessings not the failures! We are not perfect, neither are our kids - but every part of it is worth it!  Count the blessings!!

a post

I haven't blogged, or read a blog in weeks!  I don't feel like I ever get to my computer.  My desktop is usually being used by a little person, my laptop is usually being used by an almost grown up person, and I don't take pictures with a camera anymore so what is there to blog about?

I have actually been lamenting the past two days about how cute my baby is and how no one will ever know it if I don't take some good pictures of her, instead of half blurry ones from my phone.

Maybe I should blog from my phone?

Well I Instagram from my phone and I love that.

It is like mini-blogging...kind of.

I will make it my goal for the rest of the week to get some good pictures to put up here on the blog.

A Video

 

 

From the summer!

The baby finally sleeps - at least at night

I finally did it.  I finally decided that we needed to establish a good bedtime routine and put the baby to bed awake and if she had to cry a little, to let her cry.

I hate that part, I truly do.  But really, at this stage of the game I couldn't function any more without a little sleep.

My house was an absolute disaster.

My laundry was out of control.

And really, I could hardly carry on a conversation with anyone because my brain could hardly keep focused long enough to finish a sentence.  Literally.

So I finally bit the bullet and let her cry.  When I do this, I do the Ferber method - you know, good bedtime routine, lots of soothing cuddles before bed, a song, a prayer and into bed with a happy good night.  Which of course is followed by a blood-curdling scream from the baby!  I almost gave in right off the bat, honestly but I really needed to sleep for longer than 45 minutes. So I reminded myself that I am not a good mom with no sleep, so it is a better mom thing to do to let her cry a little than to let her wake me up every 40 minutes to an hour all night.

It helps me to remember that she needs to sleep too - she, as happy as she is, would be even happier with an uninterrupted sleep.

So she sleeps for about 8 hours! And we both survived.

yay for that!

It took me a few weeks longer to establish some naps, but she naps now too, kind of.  I have hope that it will just keep getting better.