Hello

I've been sick since yesterday and just when I think I'm feeling better, I start feeling horrible again...actually right now my back is starting to hurt, but I can't go to bed because I have diapers still washing (yes I use cloth diapers...LOVE THEM!)...ah life is fun in our household! At some point I am going to get this apartment organized and kept up. I don't expect perfection, dang I think perfection would probably annoy me! LOL I'm not a cleaning fanatic, I wish I was more on that way...but well I'm not and it's something I've come to grips with! :) LOL!

Anyways, I was asked a week or maybe two weeks ago how I could find contentment in "just being a mom". This was from another mother, so to say I was blown away is an understatement! I looked at her and I guess I could ask you "how do you NOT find contentment in being "just as mom"." I know God has a special plan and gives us each different gifts. Now I'm not one that always shows a lot of patience with my children and it's actually something I'm working HARD on currently, I haven't been doing so well (so please pray for me in that area), yet with all the struggles of being a SAHM I can't imagine not being here for every moment. I'm homeschooling too! Now I have already heard the questions "what about socialization" seriously...do some research and you'll see that most homeschooled kids have MORE social interaction with kids their own age and so many other variety of people, because they're not constraint by the strict schedule of public and private schools that 8-3 (or what ever your public/private school's hours are). We have more flexibibilty, we have more options of field trips, of hands on learning in so many subjects. Math can range from text book work to cooking (measurements)..science can be experiments inside and finding amazing discoveries outside! History, well we're living in Germany...this country and all of them in Europe are FULL of history and well my children are "blessed" with a mom who LOVES history and enjoys to travel! To say they'll be historied out is probably going to be the understatement of their schooling life....but I hope it'll be something that sticks with them forever! We get to read the bible as part of our studies and I get to teach my children REAL history of our country vs what schools are teaching more and more sadly (changing what our founders believed, why they truly left England, etc... sadly A LOT of public schools are not teaching accurate history and that is a true disgrace to our country and our ancestors). We'll be starting I believe it's this Friday PE with other homeschool families, and we're discussing a few field trips together! It's so exciting that my children are going to be recieving such hands on learning..plus they won't have to fight for attention with 20-30 other kids, and hey no one could ever say I wasn't an involved parent in my child's learning! lol!

Anyways...homeschooling wasn't the main reason to post tonight. It's the SAHM vs Working Mom. I know not every woman is meant to be a SAHM, and there are some kids who are truly better off going to daycare or home care or having a nanny, etc vs having mom home. I do think it's a much more difficult balance though when mom works and don't envy them at all. I worked for 4 months after Jacob was born...from 2mo-6 months and it just killed me to know I was missing out on all these great things he was doing for 8 hrs a day. His provider was about a 2 minute drive from my job, so my lunch hour was spent at her house nursing him, cuddling him, and just spending time with him..but it wasn't enough. We'd get home normally between 4-5...I'd nurse him, make dinner, play with him, and then it was time for him to go to bed..I was getting 3-4 hrs in the evening with him...max, an hour in the morning, and an hour at noon...so we're talking 6 hrs during daylight hours...it was not nearly enough. I was missing out on smiles, laughter, hugs, cuddles, nursing, just holding him, laying on the floor with him, walks with him, too much. I never regretted quitting my job, which I did love...but not nearly as much as I loved Jacob. Chad was so supportive. He'd told me he'd rather have me home raising our son than someone helping in that endeavor...his support meant the world to me, and I can still remember the joy I felt not having to get up to an ALARM clock and waking up my little guy...but instead letting him wake us up as we cuddled in bed together.

I guess this person who asked me just doesn't have the same mindset as I do and maybe God's not leading her to be a SAHM. I'm so thankful God's given me this gift and that although at times money gets tight...we've been able to have me be a SAHM with all our children (take out that 4 months). There's not a single moment of being HOME with my children that I regret.

I also don't understand when people/mom's wish their children to grow up faster than they already are. How many of you have heard "it goes by so quickly". It does. My Jacob is about to turn 5. FIVE! How? Wasn't he just born? Wasn't he just a little toddler learning to talk, learning his abc's, learning to ride his bike, learning to count? Now he's almost 5. Wow these last 5 yrs have flown by. I want time to slow down. No one with children who are teens or older need to tell me to cherish these days...I get it. It goes by too quickly. I want time to slow down just a little, is that too much to ask? I want to breath them in just a little longer. He's so full of questions, that urgency to learn, he wants to know everything and now. The questions he'll ask me blows me away. The "commercials" we have on tv over here are not the American Commercials. They're geography information, history lessons world and American...a few weeks ago he asked me about Hitler. Let me tell you I never thought I'd be having a conversation with my 4 yr old about the Evil Hitler, and explain to him how the beautiful country we live in was so full of HATE, deep, beyond my own understanding cruelty. No, most definately I will not be taking him to any concentration camps...but at the sametime I did my best to break it down on his level that he was a bad man, who killed people because they didn't meet his mold, etc. He didn't understand why a person would do this, and well it's hard to explain that when it's hard for me to understand that sort of hatred you know, but I told him anytime he wants to talk about it...we can. I don't bring it up and he's only asked two other times since. He deserves his innocence. He knows enough about death with the fact that his sister is dead. Thankfully though we have the hope and joy of Heaven!

Wow...this entry really went off on it's on little way didn't it! I'll just end it in saying, THANK YOU JESUS. Thank you for entrusting these little boys in my care. For giving my heart the desire to be with them every single day to watch them wake up and to see them to sleep and every other joy and not always joyous events in the middle! Thank you for showing me the joy of life through the eyes of a 2 yr old and a 4 yr old. How humbled I am.