Grateful

So it's that time again, where I start my post with, "It's been a while since I've updated this..." And, it has. I have some posts planned...Grace is now six months old which is definitely worthy of a post; I took some pictures of Sharlee and Zach this past weekend, also worthy of a post; and I'm currently baking pumpkin bread, which if it turns out, may be worthy of a post too. I have some others in mind as well, and if I wasn't so busy/didn't fall asleep at nine when Grace does, I would actually write them.

For today though, I'd like to take a few minutes to share some of the things that I am especially grateful for this year.

So here it goes, I'll try and condense my list as much as possible. I'm also sure that I will leave some things out.

I am thankful for my home. I am thankful for heat, and running water. I am thankful for doors that lock and keep my safe. I am thankful to live in America, where I don't have to worry about a war being fought in my front yard. Ken and I are always dreaming up ways we could improve our home, from new bathroom counters to hardwood floors, etc. But, in truth, I am just grateful for what we have, as it stands now. Nothing NEEDS fixing. My daughter and step-son are growing up in a safe, warm, home, with a backyard to play in, and a room of their own to have sleep overs in. I understand that although we are always dreaming up improvements, we have more than most, in the big scheme of things, and I am truly grateful for that.

I am thankful for my job and for Ken's. These are such hard times right now. I am constantly hearing stories of people I know that are out of work, or getting their hours reduced. We have definitely taken our fair share of cuts in my school district. As much as I'd love to have our pay reinstated, I am just grateful to have a job. One that I love, at that. I don't know that many people can say that they truly love their job. I love mine. This year has been tough, as I've learned to adjust my schedule to balance both Grace and my students, but I do really love my job. I am not only grateful for my job, but am also grateful for my students. This class has provided my with challenges I have not encountered before, and they are definitely keeping me on my game, but I am grateful for them. I am grateful for the challenge. I am grateful for the energy that most (not all) bring into my room each day. I am grateful that I get the opportunity to help them grow as readers and as writers, as well as people. I have an AMAZING advisory. (Kind of like a homeroom; we meet each day for 25 minutes. We read three days a week, but then the other two we do team building/character building exercises. My students come into my advisory in 6th grade and then stay in my advisory the duration of their middle school experience.) I have grown attached to each of them and am definitely thankful for them.

I am grateful for my husband. This is a given, I am sure. But, I really am grateful for him every day. He is my best friend. Yup, I am cliche. But, he really is. My family has gotten very small. In fact, sometimes it feel like it doesn't extend past our house. I don't know what I'd do without him. I am grateful for how hard he works, for his sense of humor, for his ability to cook:), his selflessness, and who he is as a father. I am lucky. We even each other out.

I am grateful for friends and for Ken's friends. We don't see many of them as much as we used to, but I love them all just the same.

I am grateful for Sharlee and her family. I am grateful for Elise and her e-mails, as well as her blog posts:) I am grateful for Cara and her family. We could not have asked for a better person to watch our daughter. I have no idea what we would have done if we would have put Grace in daycare. Cara is amazing! Her children are amazing with Grace as well. I miss Grace when I'm at work, but I never have to worry about her. I know she is being loved and taken care of. I had this fear when she was born, that she would grow up and feel like she didn't get enough love, because my mother isn't here. I am so, so, SO grateful for the way in which Sharlee's family loves my daughter. They have given me and her such a tremendous gift. There are not many families like theirs. They are truly special.

I am grateful for Amanda and Cecily, and their family as well. For loving our little family and treating us like we are a part of theirs.

I am grateful for Amanda (I have two in my life:) and our friendship. We have been friends for over 20 years, and although we live miles away from each other and don't get to see each other much, I still feel just as close to her as I did when I was fourteen.

I am grateful for Fenix. We have a relationship that I am incredibly proud of. I am grateful that I have been given the opportunity to be one of his parents.

I am grateful for my daughter. The experience of being her mother has been above and beyond what I expected. I know that I have been given a once and a lifetime gift, and I will never take that for granted.

I am beyond grateful for my mother. I had/have one of the best. My daughter will never meet her directly in this world, but I hope that she will through me. I was given the most amazing role model of what a good mom is. My mom was my best friend. She loved her kids with all of herself. There was never a day in my life that I didn't feel loved and accepted. I always mattered to her. I loved my mom with all of my heart and she loved me with all of hers. It's not something that I can adequately describe in words, but I am eternally grateful for her and for the precedent she set for who I am/who I become as a mother.


There is more that I am thankful for, but these are some of the biggies that I've been thinking about lately.

It's a little late, but I hope that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

What Was I Thinking?!

Some Advice for Parents To Be:

DO NOT! And I repeat: DO NOT fill your home with animals before you bring a baby into it. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we decided we needed TWO dogs and TWO cats. I'm very sure one of each would have sufficed (However, once we got one, we figured they were lonely and needed another one of their kind to keep them company--THIS IS NOT THE CASE. THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY FINE!). So, here we sit, two kids, two dogs, and two cats. I love all of our animals. We could never give them up. But I tell you, sometimes our house feels like a zoo (Because of the animals, not the kids part:)

For example: Today Byron (our Doberman Pinscher) is trotting around the house like a horse. The neighbor's dog is outside barking, and Byron is having NONE of that. Somehow he thinks that by pacing the house and whining that he is accomplishing something of great importance. Not sure what it is he thinks he's accomplishing, but it's something important for sure. He will NOT stop, and when he does, it's to look at the back door as if an intrudor is about to break in. My gosh this annoys me!

Meanwhile, Bella (our wretched little min pin who I love, but if I could have given my young, newly married self, one word of advice, it would have been to NOT buy a min pin) is growling and attacking our cats every chance they step foot into our kitchen. Apparently she just realized today that they live here, and it pisses her off.

Maynard (cat) is crawling into the boxes of Halloween decorations that are sitting in rec room, and Mimi (our other cat) is doing this thing where she sits on our bed in our bedroom (bedroom door open) and cries as if she is lost or stuck somewhere. She will proceed to do this until I come into the room.

Seriously! What was I thinking?!

If I Stay

This book is phenomenal.




Really.

I read it in a span of three days, which is really saying something. Now that Grace is here/school has been keeping my schedule swamped, I have had less time to read. I suppose it helped that Ken had surgery, therefore I had a couple of hours to kill while waiting at the hospital. (He is fine by the way! He has had a hernia for years, but just recently it started to hurt him, so we decided to take care of it while our deductible was still met. I would post pictures of him in his oh so attractive hospital gown, but I think he would possibly kill me.)

Anyway, back to the book. It was beautifully written. It made me ache. It's one of those books that you don't want to end, so when it does, you read the acknowledgments at the end, followed by the discussion questions, and then if you're lucky (which I was), there will be an additional note at the end in which the author discusses where her idea came from. I read all of that. I ate it up. And then when that was done, I placed the book on my lap, looked at it, and sighed. It was just THAT good! I probably would have sat there for a while staring at the cover of the book, but the nurse came to tell me Ken was out of surgery, which broke me out of my reverie. It's the type of book where you need to take a breather from reading for a few days. The type of book, in which you grieve.

Cutest Little BSU Fan Ever!

Getting the Dirt on the Dietz's: Excuse the Cliche...

Getting the Dirt on the Dietz's: Excuse the Cliche...

Excuse the Cliche...

You'll have to excuse me quickly, as I use a cliche. But, as predicted, my daughter is growing up way too quickly! I had been told this would happen many times throughout my pregnancy. I don't know that I realized just HOW quick quickly really was until I became Grace's mother though. On Saturday, she'll be five months old, and these past five months have FLEW! It's sad and exciting at the same time. Sad, that it's flying by, but I manage to fall in love with each new stage she's in. I've had multiple times in these last few months, where I've though, "It can't get better than this." And yet, it does. I love watching her grow. I love the new hair she's getting on her head, and the new noises she loves. I love each phase she goes through from constantly flipping onto her belly, to holding on to her toes every chance she gets. I love her. I don't know that I can find the words to describe what I feel for her. It is all encompassing. It's enveloping. I get lost in it. And, I thank God every day for entrusting me with her. I am so grateful to be her mother.

Before these next few months speed by, I thought I'd try to slow things down a bit by recording and sharing some of my favorite moments/things from these last five months.

-Waking up to feed Grace during the night. She's not at a point where she sleeps through the night yet. I really thought I'd have a hard time with the lack of sleep thing, but I'm going to be honest, I think I'll actually miss waking up to her in the middle of the night. She usually goes to bed around eight and then wakes up between two and three. I don't wake up to her crying. In fact, I'm not sure what wakes me up. She sleeps next to our bed the first half of the night, and so I think I just hear/sense her movement. Once I do, I get out of bed to pick her up, and I am ALWAYS greeted by her little grin. It's like she's saying, "Oh, there you are Mommy." I love it. Despite being sleep deprived, it is one of the highlights of every day. I look forward to it. It's like our secret.

-The way she laughs at Ken. I'll admit, sometimes I'm jealous of it. I can't get the laughs out of her the way that Ken does, but I love it all the same.


-Her bum dance. She loves it. We love it. It's a staple in our house. Bum dancing usually occurs once per day. I attempted to upload a video of this, but had no such luck.

-Bath time. Her first two baths she screamed bloody murder, but now she's my little bath time girl. She loves the warm water and she is so good in the bath. Lately, after we're done getting her clean, I drain the tub so there's just an inch or two in the bottom, and I lay her down and let her splash.



-The first time she laughed. It happened back in July. She was swinging in her swing outside while we ate and she discovered the mobile for the first time. Apparently, it was hilarious!

-That first night in the hospital. I couldn't put her down. They took her to the nursery around three a.m. because she had swallowed some amniotic fluid, and I ached the minute they took her from the room. I was immediately hooked.



-The way she looks at Fenix. She most definitely knows who her brother is. They already have a special bond. If he is in the room, her attention is on him.




-The first time Ken put her in a hoodie and she was so cute I could have died.



-Our morning playtime. Those first few months when I was home with her we had a routine. She'd wake up and eat. Then I'd sit with her on the couch with my legs curled up, and I'd lay her down on my legs, and we'd play. If it was a day Fenix was with us, he'd play with her too. Then when she was all played out, I'd wrap her up and we'd lie down on the couch and nap. I miss those naps with her.

-The first time she cried at our house. Every animal rushed into our bedroom to check out the noise. Byron was alarmed. He actually started to cry himself. The cats were equally upset, both of them hopping onto the bed to explore our newest noise maker.

-Her new obsession with her toes. She is always reaching for them. Just the other day, she was able to get them into her mouth.



-Her constant curiosity about everything. She is always reaching out to play with something; my hair, necklace, yarn, the carpet, you name it. One of her favorite's is Ken's beard:)



-When our delivery nurse first saw the top of her head. "I see dark hair!" And, then my reaction, "Dark hair? Are you sure?". Once she confirmed that she did indeed have brown hair, the waterworks began.


Of course there are other favorites too, and there are daily things I love, like her laugh or the way she talks non stop now. Her constant need to bounce when you are holding her, or the how closely she pays attention when you read to her.

I'm sure as these months progress and turn into years that I will only have more moments to add to my list. These first few months having been nothing short of magic, and I am very grateful to have the happy, healthy, daughter that I do.

Thank You!

If you know our family, then you know that Fenix only lives with us half the time and and that he spends the other half of his time with his mom and her family. This is tough, as I'm sure it is for the billions of families who are in similar situations. However, despite splitting his nights between his two homes, we still get to see Fenix every school day, even on the mornings that he is technically with his mother. Why? Well, my husband meets Fenix's step-dad or mom at 6:30 every morning that they have him. Ken brings Fenix back to our house and they eat breakfast together and then Fenix gets ready for the day and Ken takes him to school. Usually once a week on one of Fenix's mom's days I pick Fenix up from school and take him to religious ed as well. Sometimes, this annoys me. Having Fenix in the morning DOES NOT annoy me, nor does having extra time with him in the afternoon, but the fact that Fenix's mother can't seem to make the time to take her son to school does (last year she worked from home, so her schedule was more than open to take him to school, etc. This year, she is going to BSU, therefore she passes right by his school on her way to school, and she is also working part time at a place located 3 minutes from Fenix's school/5 minutes from our house.) Yet, despite all this, she absolutely cannot take him to school. I have to admit I don't understand this AT ALL! God forbid, I ever be in the situation where my child is living in a split home and I only have her half the time; however, if that did happen, I can guarantee you that I would be spending every moment I could with her. In fact, I spend every moment I can with Fenix when we have him. We make plans around our schedule with him because we want all that we can get with him. We make sacrifices for him because we want him to be happy and because that's just what you do when you're a parent. Although to be honest, we don't look at it as a sacrifice. It's just what you do. Needless, to say, I am completely baffled by Fenix's mother. And in truth, kind of think that if she can't budget in taking Fenix to school in the morning, then maybe Fenix should just be with us during the school week. It would be different if she worked at that hour and so she had to drop him off with Ken in the morning. However, that's not the case.

This morning was one of those mornings where my husband picked Fenix up and he spent the morning with us before school. I have the day off because Grace has her four month doctor's appointment. We ate breakfast, Fenix and I played with Grace together, and when it came time for Fenix to go to school, Grace and I walked him down to the bus stop, because Ken had to leave for work. Now, despite my annoyance with Fenix's mother, if I could say something to her about this situation, it would be this:

Thank you!

Thank you for giving us more time with Fenix. Your selfishness is only resulting in a loss for you and a gain for us. I'm sure there will come a time (especially when Fenix begins to realize and vocalize which of his parents have been the one to always make time for him) that you will look back, and regret the time that you gave away.

But in the meantime, thank you! We will take all the extra time that we can get.