What I'm Loving Wednesday.

Generally, I don't do these sort of blog posts, but... well, Spencer is sleeping soundly, I already showered and did my hair, and got dressed, and got the mail, and did dishes... and my new friend Marybeth did this, and it inspired me to do my own. Peer pressure! Well, there was no actual pressure...

What I'm Loving Wednesday

<--- My new facebook profile picture:

Yesterday, Spencer was doing some tummy time on mine and Jake's bed, while I was taking pictures of his new diaper to show the woman who makes them.

After I had a photo I liked, I flipped him to his back and decided to take photos of his pretty dark blue eyes. The light in the bedroom was yellowish orange, so the pictures don't show the true blue, but I had fun anyway. Then, I realized we don't have more than a few photos of the two of us together (mostly from right after he was born), and I wanted to remedy that. I laid down beside him, and started taking self portraits. He was making funny noises and flailing as I did, but I was pleasantly surprised with the results, and how he was smiling and making cute faces in nearly all of them.

This is my favorite. It cracks me up.

I love looking at it!

Cloth Diapers

Yes, that's right. I LOVE them. I love all the fun colors they come in, the designs, the styles. I even like to wash them and watch them transform from being icky to being sparkly clean, and then stuffing them! For some reason, I like doing that. It's relaxing and kind of mindless. I like to stack them neatly and see how pretty they look on the shelves. And I love choosing which one I'm going to put on Spencer at each diaper change. It's almost like playing dress up! I love seeing Spencer in just a cloth diaper. It's so cute! And I love showing people his diapers, even though sometimes that seems strange. I also like that my family thinks they're cool!

Hot Chocolate with Marshmallows

The other day I purchased a box of hot chocolate, and remembered to get marshmallows this time! Last night I had three cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows and Peppermint Mocha coffee creamer. So delightful and calming!

Popcorn

I love popcorn. It's one of my favorite snacks. I'll even sift through a bag of mostly burnt popcorn to fetch out the good kernels, like I did last night.

Cuddling

I love when Jake comes to bed after his shift with Spencer and cuddles up next to me. And, I love cuddling with Spencer on the couch during the day.

My Husband

He works so hard for Spencer and I that I rarely ever see him, but I know he's doing what he feels is best for us financially, and I support him in that. I'm so excited, though, that he will have Christmas Eve off, and we will spend three days of holiday time as a family! What a wonderful first Christmas!

Random Titles of Emails in my Inbox

I don't open these, of course, but seeing the junk mail sometimes really gives me a good laugh... like the one that just arrived, "A local senior single wants to join you this holiday!"

Immanuel.

Christmas is upon us. Every year, I get excited to put up the Christmas tree, choose gifts to give to those I love, and spend time with family and friends. Sometimes, I feel a little ashamed that the "commercialism" of the holiday grabs a hold of me, but I strive to always keep the real reason of Christmas in the forefront of my mind. With his help, I've been pretty good at it.

The past few months (since October), Jake and I have been going to Falls Church here in Sioux Falls. The services are wonderful, thought-provoking, and always personal. Pastor Lance is amazing at speaking to me, as well as Jake, and many others.

Anyway, a fun thing about our church is that it has "series" for the services. In October and November, it was "Lemonade," where it was focused on turning your crud into wonder by giving it all to God, basically. For the advent season, it's the "Born" series. Yes, it's mimicked (title-wise) after the Bourne series in film, but it's all good.

Last week, there was a clip to get our attention, talking about what the real meaning of Christmas is. Immanuel, meaning "God is With Us."

That really hit me. It said things like, "the woman on the verge of divorce: God is with you. the teenager gripped with addiction: God is with you. the man who watches all of his friends be married and he waits for that someone to find him: God is with you." The Bible, in Isaiah, tells us that the baby Jesus is God given to us, on this earth.

Christmas is the symbolism that we are not alone on this earth. God gave us his son to be on this earth with us. To walk among us. To experience with us. To live beside us and be our friend.

That's pretty powerful stuff.

I've always thought of Christmas as Jesus's birthday. That's pretty special. But to think of it as God giving his son to be with us, beside us, always... while I knew that before, it's pretty powerful. It hit me all over again.

It's comforting to think that although Jesus rose to heaven again, he is still with us. God, Jesus, the Spirit... they're with us always. God isn't just our father, he's our friend. He wants us to keep him with us, to cherish that gift. Don't just throw it away or put it on the shelf and take it out once a year at Christmas-time.

God is with US. Christmas changed the world over 2000 years ago. But the meaning of Christmas, "God is with us," can change the world, every minute, of every day.

That's phenomenal.

If you want to hear the message from last Sunday, the first message of the "Born" series (including the gripping narrative I tried to replicate (and didn't do verbatim)), feel free to listen here: [THE BORN SERIES : week one]

Another powerful thing to keep in mind: We were made in God's image. We're not wrong who we are. We're exactly who he imagined us to be. And when we sin, we don't hurt Him. His heart breaks, not because we're sinning against Him and hurting Him, but because we're hurting ourselves: we are hurting the perfect image that He created us to be.

When did I stop?

When I was in high school, my main goal in life was, "to make a difference." That's what I'd tell people. That idea carried on through high school, to college, and after college... for a while.

Recently, I feel like I've lost that. Not that I don't want to make a difference, because I do, definitely. But, I've stopped vocalizing it. I've stopped using it as a driving force.

I'm conflicted about that.

I didn't necessarily think I was doing big things when I was working on this goal. In high school, it was writing poetry, mainly, and sharing it with the world. I know it sounds totally strange, but man, I was popular when it came to the online poetry community. I was on boards and people were reading my work left and right, praising me, and telling me how much they could relate. I received so many thanks and comments on my webpage (now deceased, due to the collapse or whatever of geocities) that I was completely astonished with myself. I didn't think I was really good at writing, I just wrote because it's what I could do. It was an outlet. It was a release and hey, an avenue for my ever burning creative fire. I made friendships with my poetry, online, and offline too. Even after my mother read my poetry about my inner pain and got mad at me for writing it, I continued, because it seemed to mean something, not only to me, but to the world. I felt powerful.

After high school, I joined outreach groups and other activities in college. At Augustana, I did youth overnight lock-ins with the IXOYE outreach ministry. It was wonderful! We were sharing the love of the Lord with so many children. It inspired me to work at Shetek Lutheran Ministries the summer of 2003 as a camp counselor. I loved the work we were doing. I returned the next summer as a daycamp director, and took other staff along with me as we shared the Lord with children all across southwestern Minnesota and southeastern South Dakota. I remember one camp where we re-wrote the Lord's prayer with the children, in their words. I still have my camp binders. I sang the love of the Lord with my guitar, for me, for staff, for children, for families. I felt I was really making a difference there, too.

I was an RA in college at Southwest MN State University two years later, and I was able to counsel and support freshmen students in our house as we went through some crazy situations. I allowed a random guy, who was drunk and drugged up, to grope and harass me for the protection of the students, and then work through it with them. I did everything I could for that house of students, everything they would let me. We formed some really great relationships, and it was really hard to say goodbye and get married that summer knowing I could never be an RA again.

During my junior and senior year, I worked at a Crisis Center in Marshall, doing supervised visitations. It was a relatively simple job most times, though it was always hard to pry children from their parents. But, I felt like I was making a difference, I was allowing these families to have time together that they wouldn't have otherwise.

My senior year of college, I took an internship at Western Community Action, and made it my mission to help combat the terror of poverty in our area. I loved it. I worked at the food shelf, basically running it, helping people have food. I helped run a free tax clinic where those who couldn't afford others to do their taxes could come and we would help. It was wonderful. I fell so in love with it that I applied to work there after graduation, and was hired. I then took on the food shelf, and started a group for girls, where they empowered themselves and learned leadership skills and other useful things. I ran a Big Buddies program in Redwood county (mentoring), and then my final project was to help form the Circles of Support program, where the community would come together on a regular basis, to relate, learn, lead by example, fight poverty, and form relationships, across all lines that are considered barriers (class, race, age, gender, etc.) I really felt I was doing something big.

During this time, I also volunteered at my other employment, the crisis center, as a Crisis Line advocate. The crisis line was a wonderful way to make a difference, with late night calls reporting rape, and I'd drive to hospitals to be an advocate for women who were going through perhaps the worst situation in their lives. I was there for suicidal callers. I was there for so much. They didn't always know me, but I was there. I was making a difference.

When I resigned from my WCA job and started as a preschool teacher, I felt important then too, not as important, but important. I mean really, I was educating young minds. Same goes for when I moved to Sioux Falls and started working in an infant room. But the impact didn't feel the same. I'm sure it's meaningful, but it just wasn't the same.

I sit here, raising my son, and am very, very proud of it. But at the same time, I don't feel like I'm making a difference like I hoped for, dreamed of, and wanted. I don't know why I feel that way. What did I actually mean when I told myself that? Was it to make a difference for countless people, or could it mean to make a difference in the life of one little boy sleeping on my bed? I don't know. I don't think there are clearly defined boundaries for my dream.

I think I just need to work on seeing the way things really are, and that I am still making a difference, just in a different way than I expected.

And who's to say I can't do something big, yet?

Confessions of a "bad mom."

I must admit. Most of the time, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job at mommy-hood. I mean, it seems pretty obvious Spencer adores me, he smiles at me all the time and calms at my voice. He loves to snuggle with me so much that he'll inch his way upward on my chest so that he's snug up against my neck, and he'll even try to squirm a bit higher than that before I pull him back down (gently) to where I find it the most comfortable.

But there are times when I have these "I'm a bad mom" thoughts running through my head.

For example, last night, he was a bit fussy. I had a terrible, splitting headache, and Jake had worked a long day and got home super late, so when Spencer started getting hungry and fussy at 1am, I got up and fed him, but found myself crying the entire time because my head hurt so badly. Then, he wouldn't fall asleep, and I tried everything I could to get him to. He was obviously tired as his eyes were very heavy, and I was calmed down by this point, but I couldn't him to sleep. Eventually, around 4:00am, I left him in his crib to fuss it out. He did after about ten minutes, and slept until 4:44.

Of course, when I nudged at Jake in bed to see if he could get SJ this time, he barely acknowledged me (I think he was very sound asleep which baffles me because Spencer was loud), so I started crying again as soon as I stood up and my head was pounding, as I went to change the diaper and start the process all over.

This time, I couldn't contain my tears, and after half the bottle, I walked back to the bedroom with Spencer in hand and begged Jake to take him.

As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, but unable at the same time, I kept thinking, "I am kind of a bad mom, I just cry and cry while I'm trying to feed him and get him to not cry, yeah, my head hurts, but seriously, I'm kind of ridiculous."

There are times I feel like I could really use a vacation. I feel bad about that. I mean, for years I prayed and hoped for this little boy, and now he's here, and I want to get away from him? Yeah, sometimes I do. Not forever, but hey, for an hour? Maybe two? Sometimes I would like to get away for six hours, just to sleep non-stop and not have to worry about him or hear him cry. When I admit these things to myself, I feel really badly. But, I have to tell myself, it's only wishing them every once in a while, and not permanently, and hey, every mom needs a break once in a while, right?

Jake gets a night away once a week, in a hotel, for work. Not the best atmosphere for him, I'm sure.

I have been away from Spencer for 57 minutes since his birth. I mean away as in not in the same household as him. I have been "away" from him, in different rooms and such, many times, but I've only left without him once, for 57 minutes, to run to the post office. Sometimes, I feel a burden when leaving, because I always have to pack him up and bring him with. I don't like admitting that, but it's true.

Jake went to the mall on Sunday, alone, leaving me with Spencer. I had wished, in a way, it was me doing the shopping for my brothers. I felt bad about that, too. I feel like Jake can leave whenever he wants without a second thought because it's my responsibility to feed and take care of SJ. I know that's not totally true, it's obviously a responsibility for Jake too, but let's face it, a newborn is usually attached to his mother's hip.

I feel many times throughout the week that I'm totally unimportant. It is my honor and blessing to make Spencer the most important one in our family, and I have no qualms with that whatsoever. It's a joy to me. But then there's the dog, then I feel like Jake comes next, because he works and provides income so we have food and a place to live, and then there's all the dishes and the laundry and the cleaning, and sometimes, if I remember, I find time to nap. I try to remember to eat all my meals and drink enough fluids. And when Jake asks me how I am doing, I feel bad admitting that I have a horrible headache, or my back is killing me, or my shoulders, and what have you.

And I also feel a little shameful when I think about how I'd really like to go out with my husband, alone, for a few hours, where we're not just dividing up household chores or who has to change the next diaper. At the same time, I mentally kick myself for not wanting to be around my baby every waking moment of every day. Though, I know it's not healthy to be around him all the time.

Now, I don't feel depressed or that things are really that bad, but let's face it, it's not always rainbows and butterflies in mommy-hood. I knew that coming in. I just felt the need to let this all out, so that when Spencer wakes up and wants to eat in a few minutes, I can feel much better about myself.

I know I am a good mom. I just need to tell myself that when I feel stressed out.

Now, I feel much better.

Oh, and for now, the computer is fixed again. I think it's got evil trolls living in it.

I miss our computer.

Advanced apologies for lack of paragraph breaks. My phone won't allow me to make them... 2 weeks ago or so, our computer bit the dust. I was devastated at the thought that we were going to lose all of our pregnancy photos and all the photos we had of SJ, but luckily, a friend's husband looked at the computer and said they were salvagable. The motherboard is toast though so until we can afford it, we are without a 'puter. I miss it. When home all day and chores are done and naps are taken but SJ is sleeping, I miss being on facebook or email, message boards and blogs, playing games and editing photos, and so much more. I feel kind of pathetic admitting it but it is true. I'm lucky my phone has limited internet but it doesn't allow much. Yes, I'm whining, but I'm done for now. Time for popcorn and a movie.