When God Answers Prayer

The secret prayer of my heart for the last four years has been for God to provide some way for me to stay home with our kiddos. If you would have asked me in everyday conversation if I wanted to stay home I would have shrugged off an answer and said “sure, maybe. I don’t know.”  I didn’t allow myself to dwell on the possibility because it was just mostly a silent hope. 

It took having our first child for me to have a reality check that our lifestyle did not match the life we wanted to have for our family. But at that point we were too far in to be able to change things. Lance was the only person who really knew that I was no longer finding fulfillment in working full-time. It took major commitment to paying off our debt (minus the house, I always feel compelled to add that so people know we still are paying off our house) to be in a place where I am able to walk away from my 9-5 job. Four years, one major budget overhaul, two children, one bout of unemployment and two jobs later, life is about to take another radical turn. I’m leaving the full-time corporate world and starting my dream job. I’m going to work for Des Moines Moms Blog as the Sponsorship Coordinator and will start the challenge of being a work from home mom. 

Truly, this job is a God-thing. I feel like the phrase “God-thing” can be a cop-out but in this instance it really is a God-thing.  I was approached by Des Moines Moms Blog with this position because I had been on their hearts and minds. I had applied to be a contributing writer and they really only knew me through the blog and a through a mutual friend. The timing was perfect. We had just made the final payment on my student loans and were ready to explore the possibility of me finding part-time work and staying home with the kiddos. I had applied for a part-time job earlier that I thought would have been a good fit too, but it had some aspects that we would have had to figure out. But it wasn’t the job God wanted for me and He didn’t grant it to me. At the time I was disappointed but I accepted this wasn’t where God wanted me. Then this job came along and it truly was God’s hand at work.  I can’t imagine a better fit – being able to write, use my marketing knowledge and spend time with my family. God’s perfect plan.

So we are taking this leap of faith and we are going to see where this is going to go. Both Lance and I are nervous (any new job or big lifestyle change is heart stopping!) but we're hopeful. Hopeful, cautious and thankful. Thankful to be given this opportunity.

 

How to take 2 hours to eat supper in 31 easy steps

I totally get why my friend Erika can eat her supper in 4 minutes flat. It’s because she has three kids and if she doesn’t eat fast, she’s not going to get to eat. Here are 31 easy steps to take two hours to eat supper:

1. Be a naturally a slow eater.
2. Have this weird food thing where you  refuse to eat anything until everything on my plate is exactly how you like it.
3. Have one child. Automatically tack on an extra 45 minutes.
4. Cut your child’s food into minuscule pieces otherwise your oldest child will try and take a bite the size of their face.
5. Blow on their food. It’s too hot.
6. Eat one bite of your own food. Retrieve sippy cup that was accidentally knocked off the table.
7. Try and convince your child that kale is delicious! Not poison.
8. Give your husband a dirty look when he mutters under his breath that kale actually is poison.
9. Have a second child. Tack on another 45 minutes.
10. Get your eldest more milk, a glass of water and juice. Because sometimes you’re really thirsty.
11. Realize that your food has gotten seriously cold.
12. Reheat it in the microwave for two minutes.
13. Start feeding your youngest the delicious homemade pear sauce you made for her. Watch her drool it out the side of her mouth.
14. Hand your eldest child a napkin as he’s spilled all over himself.
15. Oh! My food’s done reheating, retrieve it from the microwave.
16. Spoon another bite of pear sauce into your daughter’s mouth. Get excited when it appears like she’s actually eating and enjoying it!
17. Ack! Your own food is REALLY hot now. Must wait for it to cool.
18. Sigh when you realize she’s actually just chipmunking it in her cheeks to spit back at you in one momentous blow.
19. Get up to get your husband’s seconds on the soup. Because everyone eats soup year-round.  
20. Eat another bite of your own food now that it’s cooled down.
21. Slice up a pear for your eldest because if you start with fruit, he won’t eat anything else.
22. Force feed your daughter another bite of pears. Spoon the pear dribble back into her mouth.  
23. Your son has announced his need to use the restroom. Get up to move the stool so he can wash his hands.
24. Eat another bite of food.
25. Mom: 2 Daughter: 1. #winning
26. Eat another bite of food in relative quiet.
27. Realize that your son has been gone for a really long time … and go to investigate.  Stop him just in the nick of time from throwing copious amounts of toilet paper in the toilet.
28. The come to the realization that he has poop EVERYWHERE. Spray him off in the shower as damage control.
29. Finish his bath. Remember that his sister also needs a bath. Retrieve her and give both of them a bath.
30. PJs & lotion.
31. Finish eating your ice cold supper. But consider it a win as both kids are bathed and in pjs by 7:30 PM!

Week One Under My Belt

I’m tired, to say the least. And I don’t even have it terrible as Gracelyn will sleep through the night. But going from a solid 8-9 hours/night to 6ish is ROUGH. When I fall into bed at night and my head hits the pillow, I’m out. Thursday night Lucan woke up crying in the night. I didn’t hear him. Lance was the one who woke up and went to him. I only woke up when Lance went into the bathroom to get him a drink and I was back asleep before he got back into bed.

 

Gracelyn is … adjusting. Not say it hasn’t been hard, but she’s doing okay. Normally chickie boom (my nickname for her) will sleep a good long nap in the morning and some smaller naps in the afternoon. She’s used to quieter rooms and being swaddled which neither is happening at daycare.

 

On Wednesday she slept a total of 30 minutes. I was AGHAST.

 

On the flip side, she’s taking bottles now. I suppose if you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat from whatever is offered to you too.

 

I am beyond thankful that we kept Lucan in the routine of going to daycare while I was home on maternity leave. Lu does not transition the easiest and I’m glad this isn’t something we’ve had to worry about. Getting up and getting out the door every morning is second nature.

 

Below are my solutions for getting everyone where they need to be in the morning:

1.       Meal plan for the entire week. No one needs to be hangry and dealing with “what’s for dinner?”
2.       Meal prep for the entire week. I chopped all my vegetables and did all my meat prep over the weekend.
3.       Utilize your crockpot. We did two crockpot soups, two casseroles and one leftover night. This is not the time to be trying out new recipes or to need to sauté vegetables endlessly. Be smarter, don’t work harder.
4.       Pack everyone’s bags the night before. Bottles and parts for pumping stuff? Check. Lunches? Check. Bottles? Done. Check the calendar for any one-offs? Done.
5.       Make your kids sleep in their clothes for the next day. Gracelyn gets her new clothes at 10 pm the night before. Lucan loves his jammies, so he won’t wear his to bed. But Gracie has no vote! If I could wear my clothes to bed and not wake up wrinkled I would. Thus leading to …
6.       Decide what I’m going to wear the night before. Otherwise I stand in front of my closet staring bleary eyed trying to decide what to wear. I try to implement this in Lance too because I’m too crabby in the morning to answer “what belt do I wear this with?”
7.       Shower at night. I hate showering at night but where I have a 40 minute time investment of breastfeeding and pumping in the morning, this is a must. Season of life folks, season of life.
8.       Refill my water bottle. One of the things I learned is that most people wake up dehydrated in the morning. I make it my goal to down a quick 8 ounces before I scoot out the door.
9.       Plan your breakfast. If I’m having a smoothie (and there’s room in the refrigerator) I try and assemble the night before. And I set out my smoothie cup. If I’m having something else, I try and get everything packaged before bed.
10.   Meeting first thing in the morning? Grab phone numbers and have print offs ready ahead of time.
11.   I can’t remember to take my vitamins in the morning. It’s just one more thing on my list so I’ve moved vitamin intake to just before bed.

Those are my eleven tips for me being somewhat on time to work. You’re welcome.


5:00 PM the first day after daycare. PASSED OUT.

Wednesday night after only sleeping 30 minutes that day. Again, passed out.

Lucan's 3 Year Milk & Cookies Birthday Party

Birthday Par-tay Recap

This year marks the third birthday party I’ve thrown for Lucan. As a reminder, we’ve had a) a crabby themed party b) a Hungry Caterpillar themed party and c) and now a Milk and Cookies party. I figured this was the last year I really got to “choose” a theme for the party so I milked it (ha! Did you catch that!?) for all it’s worth. That and I got really lucky in the fact that my friend Molly had done a Milk and Cookies party for her son and let me borrow a ton of things from her. Where would I be without my friends? Nowhere NEAR as blessed :)

 

Molly loaned me all of the milk bottles, the cookie containers and shared the printable files that weren’t personalized. The bottles were definitely one of the cutest things about the party; Molly had asked around on facebook if there was anyone who had extra Starbucks Frappucino bottles and hit the jackpot when she found a friend who was addicted to the stuff. 

 

I purchased an art file off of Etsy for the party invitations and then had them printed at a local printer here in town. Easy-peasy. The rest of the printables I printed off a color printer and then cut them out in my "spare time" (spare time meaning the Wed night before the party at 10:30 PM).  The pennant banner was a last minute addition. I printed off the individual triangles on just regular paper because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of going and printing them at a professional printer or purchasing cardstock. I made a slightly larger triangle and traced it onto paper bags I got from the grocery store! Each paper bag pennant triangle served as the backing for the colored pennant. I used glue dots to adhere the two layers together, checked with my mom to make sure she had some twine, punched holes and called it good. And it was the item (besides the milk bottles) that everyone commented on at the party. 

We served four different kinds of cookies, two kinds of milk (white and chocolate) and my mom had one of those giant chocolate chip cookie cakes made for Lucan. Lucan loved his cookie cake, especially licking off all the frosting and not eating a bite of the actual cookie. Silly boy. I made monster cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies and hot chocolate cookies. I purchased the chalkboard clothes pin labels off of etsy with a credit I won in a giveaway. My momma, the saint, made peanut butter cookies and graciously hosted the party. One of the nice things I’ve found that if I’m having “family” only parties is that if I have them at my parents’ house I don’t have to make a full meal for everyone. And I don’t have to clean. 

 

Another kind friend, Kelly, loaned me the glass drink dispenser for the chocolate milk. Chocolate milk was definitely the crowd favorite. The straws were from Molly. Like I said, I have great people in my life. 

 

Last minute party details included assembling the pennant banner, taping on the milk bottle wrappers and adding decorative paper to the cookie containers. If there isn’t a ton of last minute things the night before the actual party, it isn’t a Kara party. Lance says that he’s just come to expect it out of me :) I think he'd appreciate if there wasn't last minute stuff, but we don't always get what we want! 

For Lu's first birthday party, I made a laminated "happy birthday" and "lucan" pennant banner and I reuse them year to year. I forgot to make a welcome sign so we hung the Lucan pennant banner outside. Just in case people were confused.

No birthday party is complete without a few construction themed birthday presents.

It was at this point my really nice DSLR Nikon unexpectedly up and died on me. I was happy that I had captured most of the party up until then, but I still wasn't pleased. I naively thought that if I took out the batteries that it would fix itself. I was wrong. I ended up working with a local photography retail store to have them mail it into Nikon in which I received a bid of almost $300 to fix my camera. I wasn't pleased as the repairs basically equaled the value of the actual camera. Annoying.

Anyway, I missed getting to shoot everyone's expressions as Lucan opened up his final present: ours. This present included his "big brother" t-shirt and our announcement that Lucan was about to be upgraded to big brother this December.

On Lu's actual birthday, he was pretty sick with strep and an ear infection so he got to hang out with Mom and Dad. We had thought it would have been fun to take him to Chik-Fil-A or out for ice cream as his special birthday treat, but it just didn't happen. Instead we stuck around the house and had his special ice cream sundae at home. Not nearly as fun in my eyes, but fun in Lu's eyes, which is the most important thing. This boy loves his ice cream!

The Choice to Add

I failed to plan just how stubborn my toddler would be. I mean, I’m stubborn, Lance is stubborn, so shouldn’t genetics take a leap and produce a mild-mannered little man instead of a small-ish toddler terrorist?

Boy was I wrong. Parenting Lucan is HARD. It’s tiring and exhilarating all at the same time. I love my little man and I love seeing the world through his eyes. The world a child is pure and imaginative. Lucan has taken recently to imagining there are sharks and alligators just outside of his crib that are trying to bite his fingers. It's hilarious. But he’s a ball of opinions and ideas, none of which seem to match mine. The only time I can convince him to do what I want him to do is if he thinks it was his idea in the first place or it’s something he wants to do. Otherwise I’m bodily shoving him into non-Elmo and non-Thomas the Train socks which is akin to torture. And that’s just before 7:30 AM. 

The thought of adding another le bebe to our brood is terrifying. I barely have the energy enough to be a good mom to one, let alone another child (part of my worries could also stem from being an only child and having no experience in raising a duet). But the heart of the matter is this: there is hardly ever a perfect time to add a child to the mix. The excuses are endless; the reasons are both plausible and real. 

I think that adding a second child is harder than deciding to have a first child. Really you say?!? Absolutely. With the second child you can fully grasp the stress and anxiety of being responsible for a little one because you’ve been there, done that. (Yes, I have a tendency to over-think things. If you are of the mindset "the more the merrier" good for you. I wish I could have some of that!) You know that things rarely go as planned and that your child may only require miniscule levels of sleep is quite likely. Or on the flip side, perhaps your first child was great and you think that things could only go downhill from here – also a very real possibility. Or if you are me, you worry about the germs = double the sickness = double the number of sick days I’m going to get in trouble for taking. At the end of the day, you could end up with a very hefty list of cons as to why “now is not the right time to add.” But the moral of the story is this: Let go and let God. You have to stop getting so caught up in worrying about the future and all the things you can’t control. Just stop. 

No, this isn’t a pregnancy announcement. But as Lance and I talk about family expansion plans, these are some very real things that come up. And I love Lucan with every bit of my being, he gives the best hugs! 

PS: the “Let go and let God” mantra can apply to all areas of life. Just sayin’.