31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · motherhood · pinterest

31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When You Know Life Has Changed

or when you would trade showering for a nap.

or when you offer to do the dishes to avoid reading that book one more time.

or when you would rather stay home and eat leftovers 
than face the challenge of an actual restaurant.

or when you look at old pictures and wonder why in the world 
you thought life was hard then.

When did you know your life had changed?

31 Days of Embracing Motherhood
is where you can find the rest of my posts
in this series.

31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · Friends · motherhood

31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When You’re Not Alone

Everyday I make a thousand tiny decisions.  Some are big and affect more than just the faces around my dinner table at night. Most aren’t.

Most of my decisions like what to have for dinner, which coupon deals to grab, how to style Amelia’s hair are simple choices I make everyday and can usually do without a lot of advice.

But sometimes…sometimes I need to know I’m not the only one struggling with how to decide what’s best for  my family.  I need to know I’m not alone in my quest to have my kids eat more vegetables, my baby sleep through the night, my jeans to fit again.

One of my great blessings of motherhood is my mommy friends.  Lately, friendships aren’t defined by the years we’ve known each other, the schools we may or may not have attended together, the church where we fellowship.  Instead, I find my best and closest friends right now have toddlers who are delighted to be tinkling on the potty, first graders who sometimes venture past “green is good”, or babies who prefer their milk straight from the source and 98.6 degrees, thank you very much.

We’re friends because we empathize, we totally 100% get why there is Pop-Tart on your shoulder and spit up on your shoes, and we DVR shows on girls’ nights so we can wait until everyone has put the kids to bed before getting together.  We’re friends because we’ll share a homemade casserole or a really good bottle of wine when someone’s having a bad day and sometimes even when they’re not.

We’re friends because motherhood brought us to each other.

And as I get older and farther from the person I was in high school or college, I find myself coming back full circle to those friends who mattered so much then. Now my facebook message account fills with group messages from girls I shared dorms and cafeterias with, girls whose closets I’ve ransacked, girls who knew me when I was going to change the world in an inner-city school.

Girls who now have two year olds and pregnant bellies and questions about vaccines and breastfeeding and carseats.  So now we’re more than roommates and alumni, we’re mothers together.

It’s a blessing to share the journey.

Friend, I hope you have someone to share your motherhood trials and tribulations with, but if you don’t, I hope you’ll visit here often and drop me a line or two about how I can support you.  

For all my 31 Days posts venture over here.

31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · motherhood

31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When You’re Tired

I’m tired today.  Not soul weary or burned down or exasperated.  Just….tired.  Long weekend helping give a beautiful day to a beautiful bride.  Sick baby who cries all. night. long.  Until as the alarm is going off, he settles into nurse and tucks himself close to my chest and finally, finally breathes deep.

So, I’m tired.  Like, curl up on the couch and sleep with the baby on my chest and thank the Lord that it’s Columbus Day and Joshua will be next to me.

Forgive me for the lack of posting in this brief period of fatigue from yesterday and today, and instead join Rachel as she writes what my resonates so deeply in my heart today.

It won’t be long before he can’t be comforted just by me when he’s sick.  So while these days are long and torturous and sleepy, I can’t bring myself to wish them away.

31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · family · motherhood

31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When Letting Go

Today when they’re up and the sun is still fresh on the horizon and you’re still bleary-eyed and haven’t had your coffee, when the errands and the ball games and the fall festivals and the scout meetings and the dinner time and the clothes ready for church time threaten to overwhelm your precious moments of having them all here, with you, wholly yours from God for just a short time, remember this…

today my uncle will walk his last baby girl down a woodsy aisle in an outdoor chapel 
and give her away.
Are you ready for that?  Are you?
I’m tired of cheerios grinding under my feet and pink toothpaste in the sink
and rewashing soured laundry and shoes left everywhere except where they belong
but I’m not ready to let them go.
Someday I will be…or maybe it’s just that someday I’ll be able to realize
that it’s time to let go 
and my heart will break 
and heal 
and embrace the new journey
but for now
I’ll take all this.
31 Days to Embracing Motherhood · amelia · gus · http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post · madelynne · motherhood

31 Days Embracing Motherhood: When Pictures Tell Your Story

They still seem too little for this.

They pose whenever the camera comes out.

Gus is still not sure what to think.

His uncle Corey wore this thirty years ago.

My children will eat anything we grow ourselves.

Swimsuits can’t dry in the rain.

She’s almost always smiling.

He is always chewing his fingers.
He love his mama.

She loves him.