Month: January 2014

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Dear 2014, I am ready for you!

I honestly can’t remember beginning another year as optimistically as I have this one. Last year started off as almost a lost cause, which really was an anomaly for me. But even years before that didn’t seem to ring in with as much enthusiasm as this one has.

My editing/proofreading work has been more plentiful and fruitful these past couple months than it ever has before, which is something for which I am beyond grateful. Knowing that I’m bringing in some steady cash right now and covering a number of our bills each month again is a heady feeling. This helps lift some weights off my shoulders immensely. Unfortunately freelance work is never exactly guaranteed or even that steady, but I’m working hard right now to save up everything I can while my plate of work hours is full.

Speaking of my editing/proofreading work, I think it is the exact job for which I was made. I have never been able to answer the question “What’s your dream job?” because I just never had one before. But now I think I do. And I am SO incredibly lucky that it involves me sitting at our dining room table with a jar of fresh-cut flowers and pictures of our family sprucing up my “office” and the Goonies running around behind me filling the house with the music of their play. Not to mention I can take it with me if I need to, which helps extend vacations for as long as I want.

We are actually starting to plan some work on our house again, a subject which had become almost taboo around here because it was just so much of a black hole to even try to picture. But now we have time frames and ideas and excitement and can almost feel the end result. And that money I’m saving up right now will all be plowed back into our little Money Pit to FINALLY  get this crap done.

I also have a couple, not resolutions really, but maybe hopes? I want to retrain my piano fingers so I can get back to playing and teach the girls. I would love to learn how to play the guitar, too, so we’ll see if I get up the mojo to actually take some lessons. That thing called “time” comes into play for both of these, though, something of which I always seem to run out these days.

And the girls are just at incredible ages right now. Watching the 2 of them run through this house playing with each other is so heart-warming. Never mind that sometimes it involves one crying from something the other one did or 18,000 bumps on the head for Lana every day or Della often coming to sit in the dining room just to “watch me work”. I still get to be home with them to witness all of that, and there is nothing I want more.

So you see, 2014 just feels good. Like a great cup of coffee with my favorite creamer in the middle of this miserable winter. Or putting on my favorite pair of jeans after wearing my black WAC uniform all morning. Or the happiness I will feel when I get to take the girls for a walk or run outside again.

2014 feels like a reassuring hug wrapped tightly around our little family. And that makes me so very, very happy.

 

 

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My year may have already been made

A few days ago, one of the guys with whom I work at the gym unknowingly handed me what may be the highest compliment a parent can ever receive. It came during a perfectly normal, mid-towel-folding conversation, but it really just made my heart so happy.

We were chatting while folding the never-ending mountains of towels, and he asked, “So what made you want to be a Mom?” (i write Mom with a capital M, because that’s just how the question looked in my head when he asked it) I kind of chuckled, thought a second, and then responded, “Well, actually I never really did.”

He looked pretty shocked to hear that answer until I further explained myself…

As most of you know, growing up I was never a girl who dreamed of the day she would become a mother. I was never really drawn to babies like some people are, I usually preferred to have other people’s kids stay with those people, and I was generally pretty selfish with my time and efforts, not really wanting to share my life with a tiny human. To me, kids were just a lot of work, they were loud and cranky, and they always got things dirty. None of which I really wanted a part.

That’s not to say I was ever against having children, I just never gave it much thought. I always assumed I’d have kids someday, but it was never a big gold star on my calendar.

When Ryan and I got married I knew he wanted children, and like I said I figured we’d have them eventually, but they were not on the near horizon. We had a blast in our 20s without the responsibilities of kids, and I enjoyed those years immensely.

As my 30th birthday approached, however, the notion that it may be time to start thinking a little more seriously about building the next generation began to creep into my brain. I knew getting older is generally not conducive to having babies, so that seemed like a good point in time to start planning our family.

Della was born when I was 31, and my view on children changed immediately and completely. It was the most amazingly wonderful feeling I had ever known, I thought my heart was going to burst with the new love and happiness we had created, and I instantly wanted more babies. That sentiment made us both laugh (me and the Ryan at the gym to whom i was talking, not my Ryan), because it sounds very weird to hear me say that almost the second I gave birth for the first time I was already looking forward to doing it all again. But I was. Maternal hormones are crazy things.

And I’ve loved being a Mom ever since. I even like other people’s kids now, too, *gasp!*.

Now here’s where the compliment came. When I finished relaying the tale of my journey to Motherhood, I asked him why he had asked. He said, “Well, you just always seem to have such a good handle on it all when I see you with your kids.”

I internally burst out laughing, thinking he must never notice me straggling through the doors of the gym with these 2 little girls dripping off me – my purse, the diaper bag, their insulated lunch bag, and Lana on my left arm and Della in my right hand, rushing to get everyone in the door before we all fall apart because I now always seem to be running late. Or maybe I really do look ok from the outside, when inside I’m trying to hold us all together with my brainwaves so we can JUST GET THERE ON TIME!

Either way, I was beyond flattered and actually speechless, so I just stuttered a very humble, “Really? Wow, thank you so much.”

I doubt he’ll ever know how much his saying those innocent enough words meant, but I will be forever grateful he did.