When to let go and when to hold on

Just got home from our first trip to the beach...as parents. Threw all the luggage in the living room, put her to sleep and sunk into my bed. It was wonderful and exhausting. The summer I was pregnant we were at the pool almost every day and I remember someone saying "enjoy closing your eyes!". It's almost impossible to fathom the small things that will become luxuries. All I wanted to do was lay out, take a nap in the sun, do a crossword, read a book....all the things my previous self associated with going to the beach. I was fortunate to have a few of these moments due to the help of my in-laws, but the old me and the new me were at odds with each other most of the time.

It felt very similar to how I would shop for clothes post baby. The autopilot part of my brain would look at medium sized items to try on while the current part of my brain laughed as I tried to squeeze into them. "WAKE UP!!" "This isn't your size anymore!!!" It's like having to retrain yourself. Everything you knew is out the window. I hadn't felt that in a while until this trip. I felt stuck between a relaxing vacation for me as it always had been, and the constantly alert family trip it actually was. This trip was about her. All future family trips will be more about the kids than about us. This isn't a bad thing....just still so different than what I'm used to. It took me a couple days into the trip to stop trying to have it all and let go.....to just enjoy focusing on her and enjoy seeing it all through her eyes. The vastness of the ocean, the sound of the waves as they crash over your toes, getting covered in sand and not caring, the sunset, the fireworks, watching crabs peek out of their shells and slowly march away once they think no one is watching...

I wonder if this struggle will ever go away, if I will ever get used to it...or if the selfish, independent part of me will always put up a fight when it feels threatened. There's a healty boundary in there somewhere. Most of the time motherhood wins and we just have to quit fighting the inevitable and choose to see the beauty of it all...but I also think that there are times we put up a fight because we are so desperately trying to hold on to who we used to be...to not let the important parts of ourselves slip away....because those are the pieces that make us each unique in this world. As mothers, as wives, as sisters, as friends, as daughters and grand-daughters.  Anyone can be a mom....but no one can be you. I suppose the challenge is knowing when to let go and when to hold on.

my future family

I'm reaching the time in my motherhood journey where people begin wondering about baby #2, myself included...The theories running rampant through my thoughts about whats best, whats ideal? Because let's face it, no matter what the topic, those theories are out there. I've known for a while now that I wanted to wait until I was 30, until I had a chance to feel in shape again, etc. So when our friends decided to have a destination wedding in the upcoming fall I felt a weight lifted. I kept telling myself..."now i don't have to think about it until October because I REFUSE to be pregnant on the beach in Mexico!" It felt nice to have an event on the calendar to help narrow down my timeline.

As i was driving home from my sister's house the other night, i was watching her in the back seat. I was confident she would fall asleep since we were already an hour passed her bedtime, but instead i watched her looking out the window....at the street lights, passing cars, trees, buildings....and it just hit me like a ton of bricks, like someone pressing a giant pause button on my heart...

...the truth is, in 10 years, even less, our family will look completely different....and forever. This tiny family of three we have right now will not be how people remember the Todd's. This time of it being just the 3 of us is mere seconds compared to the rest of our lives. And it broke my heart...not necessarily in a sad way, just in a way that made me stop feeling rushed, like if i miss the ideal window to have #2 that i would regret it. It made me so excited about spending another summer with just her...not the newborn version of her where I'm constantly trying to make sure she doesn't overheat and where all the activities we do are simply for my sanity.....but the toddler version of her that will be running around and getting excited and actually sharing in the memories with us.

If anything, it just made me very aware of how small a piece of our life this will be and that I want to soak in every minute of this summer of adventures with my first born...the one who really changed it all, the one who pushed and pulled me in ways I didn't know were possible, the one who changed how i see everything, the one who was here from the beginning as we looked at each other wondering how this whole mother/child relationship was gonna work out.....

yup....i need more time with this one.

my future family...whatever it may look like and however many years apart, and however old i am....will be perfect.

Exhibit A

I hate what a challenge it is to stay consistent with blogging. I hate that it's been almost 2 months since my last post. Since doing the Artist Way I've been writing 3 pages of freehand almost everyday for several months which has somewhat replaced blogging a little. I just finished my third notebook and haven't had a chance to get a new one yet so it's been almost a week since I wrote and I can feel my brain and my heart filling up with no where to spill over. The daily writing has become such a significant part of my day. So that's why I'm here.

I don't even have anything to say really other than I felt the urgent need to be heard, even if by a blank page. I can't stay still, I can't focus. Maybe it's the very little caffeine I had today....maybe it's because I didn't get a good workout in, maybe it's because I'm restless. Restelss because I'm ready to start seeing results...in my body, in my creativity, in my role as a stay at home mom. To clarify, the progress is there and always has been but it's so gradual that it's easy to become impatient. Maybe I'll only feel that today or maybe the rest of the week. It's a constant ebb and flow. Shocker.

I want to be done now because I can't think of anything else to say, but the tugging is still there, that there's a need for something to get out. Possibly the fear that we are quickly approaching the time we will begin discussing baby #2 and I feel very unprepared...or that my best friend is NOT in fact moving back to Nashville and it's completely unfair, or that 4 of my friends have new babies and I'm worried I'll be forgotten...or that I'm turning 30 this summer...or maybe (and most likely) this is just what happens when I don't get it all out on the page daily. No mother should be left alone with her thoughts for more than a couple days. There are a multitude of consequences and this post is Exibit A.

You're welcome.

P.S. Here's a video of an Instagram series I started called #momdiary. Enjoy. If it's works that is, I feel like it's not gonna work. Oh well..

The glider chair

As I rocked her to sleep last night, I felt thankful for the glider chair a friend had handed down to me. I didn't receive it until she was over a year old and wondered if I would even use it that much. Even though it isn't every night, the nights that I do rock her to sleep are quite possibly some of my fullest moments......where there is still and quiet. When it feels like all that exists is my love for her along with the looming heaviness that every time I look down at her she is a little bit older.  Motherhood is like a constant tug-of-war. On one side is the sheer need of just getting through the day while the other side is screaming for time to slow down or God forbid, stand still. Thankfully, rocking her in that chair it feels like God hears my screaming...if only for a second.

I began thinking of the dear friend that gave me the glider and the moments she may have had while rocking her children to sleep. Some full of contentment, some exhausted and weary, some racked with lonlieness, but all beautiful. I looked around my nursery taking in all the things that had been handed down to me from other mothers and it made me so grateful. Not just for the things, but for the constant reminder that these items are filled with other mothers' laughter and tears, other women taking one day at a time, trying to balance it all, trying to be the best, trying to ignore the guilt, trying to have a routine while trying to be flexible, trying to be a constant safe place while trying to be prepared for anything at anytime....a mood change, a blowout, a fall, a choking hazard, a glass of wine being knocked over in slow motion. They've all been there. And when I rock in that glider and take in the walls around me, it makes me feel connected. And when motherhood can feel like an island, that reminder is priceless.