Is it april already?

Hello, 2014.  I know you did not just get here, but it seems like I have not been able to lift my head to see you until recently.  

It has been a head down, baby growing few months, and I think I have done nothing but look at shea and smile/cry/pray/laugh/pump and feed people for 4 months.  It has been the most fun and draining time of my life.

When I first have a baby, and I know that not everyone feels this way, but for me, it is bliss.  It is a drug that I can not get enough of and it keeps me higher than high for about 4 weeks.  I am ridiculously happy and excited and everything is illuminated in a new light.   Then, in week 5-ish, it gets a little hairier.  Babies start sleeping less and being awake more.  And dont get me wrong- I love this transition so much.  I love those bright eyes, even in the dead of night. But just knowing those eyes could possibly choose not close even though I am giving it my best college try, gets me stressed.  Shea would let me get into a routine putting her to sleep- be it rocking her with a paci, or swaddling and putting her down awake, or feeding her to sleep- and then decide she was bored with that. She would then need a new routine made for her for a few days, or a week, and once I felt like we had gotten that down, she would change her mind again.  Nothing if not constantly second guessing her direction in life and needing a new venue with the same people.
Dont I know.

I would be remiss not to mention, also, that Jeff has changed jobs three times since we moved here.  

Needless to say, its been a little bit of a ride into our post residency family of 6 life.

But, man, the good days have been so so good.

(Not every minute or job change or late night cry fests).

But this has been a year of newness and changing perspectives.  My kids are grown up. It is constantly blowing my mind.  They do everything on their own.  We ski together as a family and everyone skis.  We ride bikes together as a family and everyone rides.  We go eat dinner and everyone can order for themselves (I mean, obviously not everyone).

I will not for much longer pick up huge dinosaurs and tiny dinosaurs and a million stuffed animals.  It will transition to books and more homework and probably video games or whatever it is the big kids do these days.  I know that I have Shea to pick up after and I am counting on it.  I hope she is naive and young and lets us watch those terribly annoying cartoons that I hate, for a very long time.  But my big kids- they watch big shows.  And do real projects.  And ski entire mountains.  They put away their laundry and they take showers instead of baths.  I drive to practices and answer to mom instead of mommy.

My life, as I knew it, is over.

and 2014 has given me a whole new one.

I have had no plan in store to maneuver this new lifestyle, as you might have guessed.  I am an emotional prepper for things like a new job and new home, and a prepper for outings of the zoo variety (though I forget something every time).  But in mom life, I am not much good at prepping.  It seems like every new stage just knocks me off of my feet and I didnt even know it was coming.

This has been one of those times. The independence of my kids paired with the complete dependence of my newborn is the most incredible juxtaposition of new life and old merged into one.  I am so thankful to be able to see the future and the past, often, in the very same instant.

Since diving into this new momness, I have forgotten to take pictures or document very many moments, because, when I am not rinsing pump bottles or picking up blankets off the floor to wash or searching for soccer cleats, I really am just so caught up in the moment itself.  It is so freeing and so fun, but I do love to document.  Before, I thought I was taking pictures because whatever they were doing was so beautiful or fun or sweet that I had to see it again right that instant, not because I thought I would ever forget it.  I thought every moment, weighed with so much importance, would be ingrained into my head and heart forever.  Now, I look up at avery and realize all the moments that I have forgotten- not because they weren't important, but because as a new moment arises, the old moments get pushed farther and farther back in my mind.  This time around I know better that every stage is only a blink, and that before I know it, I will look up and see an 8 year old out of the corner of my eye doing her homework instead of sleeping in her carseat.

I am ready 2014. It may have taken me four months to really see what was going on, but I think I am finally (getting) ready.