Recording My Messy Journey

Summer 2012: Tie Dye Shirts!
Hayley (9), Alice (4), Maya (6)
Audrey (18 mos)

It's been a while...so let me start over.  I am a mother of 4 beautiful, growing daughters.  I am the wife of a devoted husband and father.  I love to organize and plan.  I love to learn and perfect things.  I love to share ideas and improve lives.  On my own I enjoy reading, watching the news, and scrap booking online.  With my husband I love our ballroom dance classes, cooking together, and watching whatever show or movie we are both completely hooked on.  As a family I love it when we are outdoors playing or hiking.  I love one-on-one moments with my girls--board games, experimenting with hairstyles, coloring & reading.

Maya, Hayley, Alice
September 2012

My oldest is 9 1/2 years old.  My baby is 18 months old.  I am grateful for the things I have learned & the ways I have grown up in the last 10 years!  But the last 18 months of mothering have changed me more than all the years before that.  Maybe it was because I reached my limit and had to stretch.  Maybe I was just ready to completely submerse myself in this journey of motherhood and grow from it instead of just surviving on the surface.

Audrey
September 2012

I'm here to record my journey.  Not because it is impressive, heroic, or tragic.  I want to record it for myself and my children and whoever else chooses, because I think it's a normal, everyday story.  I read of mother's who are required to be much more heroic than me.  I know of mother's who have mastered more skills.  But I want to write about me because I have grown.  I don't want to forget that process because it was hard!  I need to grow more.  I am learning to appreciate and love and be patient with the process that is me!

August 2012

I disappeared from the blog-o-sphere soon after Audrey was born.  When she was about 6 weeks old I took a nose dive into post-partum depression.  This was a first for me.  I was lucky that it was like someone flipped a switch one day.  It was so black-and-white obvious that within 2 days of starting to cry all day and have panic attacks about dumb little things I was getting help.  My husband saw it immediately and gently encouraged and supported me as we experimented to "lift" me back up.  My mother swept in and rescued my kids on days that I couldn't function.  The worst of it was short lived.  And I know that I am so lucky and am so grateful for that!  I don't know how our family would have survived me for much longer!!!

March 2011
Audrey: 2 weeks

Since then, I have learned to say no to many things.  I have protected myself from becoming overwhelmed and tried to just focus on all the basics because having a functioning wife and mother is too important to a family!

I have chosen not to blog for a while partly because I wasn't in a happy place but also just to preserve my resources for the people that are most important to me.  But oh, how I have missed it!  Lately I have been ready.  Ready to embrace all the joy I get from regularly recording my experiences.  I know that I see more good in my days when I am looking for moments to share.  I pick up my camera more often when I know I might blog that picture.  I laugh at the hard stuff quicker when I imagine it as a blog story.  I love how spending a few minutes recounting a good moment erases hours of hard moments and hard work. After blogging I am suddenly ready to embrace the ups and downs of parenting and living life because I feel more confident that there will be more good and I can see the big picture more clearly.

So, if you choose to follow along...welcome!  Someday these will be my treasured memories!