Being a stay-at-home mom

Yes, I know, I haven't really been one yet, but I just can't wait until the time comes for me to be able to stay at home with my beautiful babies. And yes, it will be plural because I'll have Travis all summer long. Even though I'm mostly scared to death, I'm really excited to have that opportunity. I'm really grateful to my wonderful husband who is working his butt off so that we can have enough so that I can stay at home with my kids. I don't think I ever appreciated how much both my mom and my dad sacrificed so that my mom could stay at home with all of us kids. They sacrificed so much time and money for all of us, so that we could grow up in a large family. I have to say that I still can't stomach pancakes because of how many times we ate that as children, and I'm really grateful that eventually my mom realized that oatmeal (no matter how it was prepared) really did cause me to throw up, I wasn't just being stubborn. But as I look back on childhood, I don't ever remember feeling deprived. It wasn't until I hit teenage years that I suddenly thought that life wasn't fair, but now that I'm in adulthood and just trying to figure out how to make life nice with what Josh makes and two small children, I have a lot more respect and appreciation for the life that my parents had. For the worries, for the heartaches, for the dreams that didn't get fulfilled so that they could pursue other dreams, dreams that didn't include big houses and expensive cars, but rather fridges full of hand drawn pictures, rooms with toys strewn all over them, old vans & suburbans and a four bedroom home that was filled to the bursting. Instead of trips to Hawaii and Europe, they traded that for trips to Grandma and Grandpa's house for us kids. Instead of being able to dine at all the fancy restaurants they traded it for dreams of leftovers, of the same (cheap) meal every time they sat down. For a lot of people this may seem like my parents were stupid, but I have to say that I'm grateful now for all of the things that they gave up so that I could be here with my ten siblings. I'm grateful that they gave it up so that I could learn to do without. I'm grateful that they gave it up so that I could learn what is important and what isn't that important. And so I'm grateful for two wonderful people, who at 18 and 21 somehow saw the dream of what my family is today and stuck to the hope of that dream no matter how much they had to give up and how hard they had to work. I'm also grateful for a wonderful husband who is a crazy wonderful dreamer like me, and is willing to give up things and work super hard so that hopefully someday we can have even a portion of that dream.

Nostalgia

So my coworker is playing songs at her desk and a country song "Remember When" came on just barely. I never really liked the song, but two years ago in October my Grandma Hunter passed away. As part of her memorial service/funeral, my aunt took all the pictures that they had found and put them on a slide show. Now you have to understand that my parents are the youngest in their families, and I'm one of their younger children, so even though I have many memories of my grandma, my grandpa died eight months after I was born. The slideshow was the most beautiful thing that I could ever imagine. It showed my grandma as she was growing up, and I have to admit, I never knew that she was quite that rough and tumble. By the time I can remember she had had open heart surgery, and my grandpa had been dead for a few years. The pictures of them were so tender. Even though there weren't any in there in which I would have said they were deeply in love the way they portray it in the movies, every picture I saw of them together showed that they loved each other in the deepest way possible. They were best friends, in every sense of the word. They were a part of each other in a way that you can't describe. They had gone beyond the two of them and had become one. Along with the slideshow they had the song "Remember When" playing as the pictures came across the screen. I have never felt that much sorrow for someone. As I watched my grandma's life come up on the screen I cried, not for myself, but for the opportunity I had always had, and never taken, to get to know who my grandma was inside. I cried as I realized that in the last twenty years since she had lost my grandpa that there really had been a part of her missing. That there was a big gaping hole where my grandpa used to be. I cried as I thought of their reunion on the other side of the veil. But a second now, but a long struggle for both as they were apart for twenty years. I met my husband the very next month. I really do love him with all my heart. It's taken a year and almost a half to realize that slowly our relationship is becoming the same type of relationship that my parents and grandparents enjoy. I don't think about this very often, but when the song came on it reminded me of this, since I met Josh I have known that more than likely he will pass away before me because I am almost ten years younger than him and women usually live longer than men. Even though I don't remember this all the time when the day-to-day struggles come creeping up, my heart will ache for him when the time comes that we are seperated in this life. I miss him when he isn't with me, and the last thing I love to hear every night is him breathing in the bed next to me. As the song played today I couldn't help but be thankful for the short time that I have had with my dear husband, and pray that there will be many more times that we will share. That some day we will look back on this time and think "Remember when..." and not remember the struggles of the day, but remember the days when the sun was shining down on us and the joy that we felt, even if it was just for one moment out of the day. To be able to still be holding each other's hands at the end of this life, with smiles on our faces, and love in our hearts.

Every time I hear that song now I am reminded of what it symbolizes for me. The union and oneness that I could see in my grandparents lives. The union and oneness that I see in my parents lives. I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to build that relationship with my husband, and that I don't need to be afraid for the seperation that is most certainly inevitable because I know that I will be able to be with him again. He is my love, my one and only, my perfectly imperfect best friend. I'm grateful for my eternal companion. Together for not only this life, but all the life to come.

So I just have to say that I feel so blessed to have my husband. I'm one of those people who tends to take things for granted but I just thought I'd publicly say that Josh is one of a kind. Since I got pregnant I have been really sick, not throwing up, but constantly tired, constantly weak, and constantly complaining. My husband has not only been working full time, but he's been going to school part time and doing most of the house work as well as still being as good a father he can to our boy down in Texas. I'm not a very cuddly person (especially when I'm sick) and the poor man has borne the brunt of my "Get off of me" "Do you always have to be so close to me?" "Could you move back? Your making me claustrophobic" and all sorts of other more colorful ways of telling him to just move back. He has been all sorts of wonderful and even though I don't always appreciate every gesture, I really do appreciate when he's trying to be there for me. In short I really do love my dear husband even when I'm yelling at him. Even when I don't want what he's offerred, I am glad that he offerred. Even when I'm a horrible witchy pregnant woman, I do appreciate that he's trying to do the best he can on what I'm telling him. I love my perfectly imperfect husband.