Contentment

For the past two years of my life, I had been having a pretty hard time. I was going around feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I was just a mooch and pretty much useless. I was jealous of other people who had "real" jobs, and not happy that I was stuck at home taking care of a kid. I had a breakdown last October while in Gunnison at one of my husband's shows. This particular show was a big breakthrough for his band and everyone was so happy about it except me. I was carrying this huge weight around with me and it felt really heavy that weekend. Traveling with a toddler and being five months pregnant is not easy. I just really wished and prayed that I could for once be happy with the way my life was, to be satisfied and content.
Content: happy enough with what one has or is: not desiring something more or different: satisfied
At Christmastime I went to church and heard the message of Jesus' birth and all the same old stuff, but something different struck me about it this time. I realized for the first time how important Mary's role in the life of Jesus was. She gave her body so he could be born, and then she raised him. Mary was Jesus' mother. What would Jesus have been without a mother? It dawned on me that being a mother is so important that God chose to highlight that role when he sent his Son to Earth. I realized then that what I am doing, sacrificing my time, my body, my life, energy, sometimes happiness, is one of the most important roles that anyone could ever fill in life. And I thank God for revealing that much to me.

Now that my second son has been born I have been experiencing a contentment that I don't think I've ever felt. I'm really happy with my two sons and my family and feel very complete and fortunate now. I'm embracing my role as a mother, realizing that I have a lot of control over how my sons turn out, and that its a big job, an important job, a highly useful job that I must do to the best of my ability. I'm not a mooch because I am taking care of needs my husband never could (and, sorry, but no daycare worker could better than me) because he is fulfilling his role of supporting our family. I chose this role and I'm happy to be in it. I'm thrilled to be hearing the snores of my newborn and look at his sweet little face as he's sleeping, and delighted to hear my two year old tell me that its "byooful" outside. Thank you God for seeing enough in me to allow me to become a mother and bless me with a wonderful family. Thank you for showing me how important I am. You're Awesome, God!

Siblings

I keep on having recurring nightmares about my eldest son, Drew hurting my youngest son, Beau. I think worrying about your elder child hurting your new baby is probably pretty regular, but I wonder how many people have bad dreams about it. I guess maybe the dreams are my paranoia about it manifesting. I was paranoid about Drew dying when he was a newborn. Now I'm paranoid about my newborn dying at the hands of Drew.

Drew has already done a few things to Beau, fortunately none of them fatal. He has tried to punch beau in the head. Not full force, just these little jabs, while I was holding him. Maybe a jealousy thing, maybe something he saw on TV, maybe he just didn't know how to communicate that he wanted to touch this new little thing that is always taking up Mommy's attention. A few weeks ago, he sat on Beau while Beau was swinging in his chair. This he knew was wrong, because he hopped off real quick when I came running back into the room. Yesterday, he threw the TV remote on Beau's head.

Most of the time, Drew is pretty good with him. He gets a little rambunctious here and there, but he tries to give Beau his lovins and is pretty affectionate, for a two year old.

Hopefully the nightmares will stop. One of my friends says that someday, Beau will get Drew back, and then I can have nightmares about that!

My Crazy Weekend

This weekend I went to Denver to do a lot of dress shopping with my sisters, mother and the rest of my sister's bridesmaids. It was a crazy weekend to say the least. But, yes, you guessed it: I'm not going to say the least! We spent the whole of Saturday looking at dresses, dresses, and MORE dresses. Actually- I spent half of that nursing my baby. Which got me thinking: why am I here? I mean, there are a lot more comfortable places I could be doing this (nursing.) BUT, I got to see Ariel try on several beautiful wedding dresses, plus I got to see Hannah and bond with the other bridesmaids- so I guess that made it worth it all.

Talk about an emotional trip though! I think I experienced almost every emotion with the exception of hatred, well no, actually- I hated the price of our bridesmaids dresses. Which was $110 to be exact- with the small sale that was going on $92. I was hoping for like $30- that is how much my bridesmaids had to pay for their dresses. I guess I'm just super annoyed at my sister's champagne tastes affecting everyone elses beer budgets! "Annoyance"- was definitely a common emotion experienced on this trip. Lets see, there were the loud birds at my cousin's house, giving directions to blondes, bad communicators, selfish people, and I could elaborate- but we must get to the other emotions. Lets talk about "happiness". I was happy to be able to go, happy to see my beautiful sister try on dresses, happy to finally find bridesmaids dresses (and that's another story), happy to eat, happy to take some ibuprofen, happy to see Hannah, happy to have a margarita, happy that my mom found my wallet (which contained my debit card and cell phone!), happy to talk to my husband and son on the phone, happy to find a store with a small lounge where I could breastfeed, happy to see my in-laws, happy to eat (sorry, had to mention that at least one more time), happy to be surrounded by awesome girls the whole weekend, secretly happy to be stuck in a cozy house with 7 girls during the Denver blizzard of 2005, happy to eat turkey dinner (yum!), happy that the roads were clear and it was sunny Monday, and happy to finally go home. So I'm going to be honest now and talk about my "jealous" emotions. I was jealous of the other girls freedom. What I mean by that, is that they were not strapped down with an infant. But also let me take this opportunity to say that I love my son very much and I am so thankful for him. Just sometimes, it would be nice if things were a little more convenient or easier. But you know, I have what I have, I am what I am, and I am determined to make the most of it! Now, "sadness" also occured a few times this trip. I was sad to say goodbye to Hannah, she lives in Phoenix, and I don't get to see her that often- and it was just too short of a visit with her. I was sad to know that my son at home missed me, but you know, kind of happy about that too- at least I know he loves me! There are a few things that happened this trip that I am not sure what emotion would best describe them, possibly because they involved so many different emotions. But it's over now- and I'm glad- now I have to get through the bridal shower, bachelorette party and then the wedding- which I'm sure will fuel many more vent sessions- so tune in again for adventures of the wedding monster, her annoyed sister, and the amazing wonder-baby at the feed lot!

First Day

Okay, so here goes my first blog.
First I'm going to put down my sleeping infant son, so I can type better.
Anyways, so lets start by talking about the insanity of my life at this point in time. It all started a little over a month ago, when I was two weeks overdue with my second son. I don't understand what happened- my first son was only four days late and came out all on his own. They had to induce me to get the second out. And let me just say that the second labor, though a lot shorter than the first, was lot more intense and hurt a lot more. I must have scared every yet to deliver mother on the floor, because you could hear me yelling all the way down the hall!

Funny story: During this whole ordeal- I was in the jacuzzi ( for pain management) when the contractions hit really hard and I started to basically yell to help myself deal with the pain. My sister was down the hall and looked at my mom and said, "Is that Sarah?" My mom listened closer and confirmed that yes it was me. She also happened to catch a maintenance man who was outside the jacuzzi door, he commented and said, "Sounds like someone's having some fun in there, " and my mom looked at him and said, "No, someone had some fun."

Anyways, my son came out in fine form, is perfectly healthy and kind of a chunk. He gained 2 pounds in the first two weeks!

So two weeks later, my younger sister, who is 19 got engaged, and is getting married in 3 months! Yes this is exciting, but I forgot how much planning a wedding consumes your life, and the lives of those who are involved. I mean, I'm still trying to adjust to having two children under the age of 2, I don't want to deal with a wedding!! All I have to say is, at least it will be over in 3 months!
So this weekend I am heading to Denver with my sister, mom and all the other bridesmaids, mother of the groom, etc. to do the dreaded wedding dress shopping. This wouldn't be so bad if I had not just been to Denver last week with my mom and both boys! This could have been avoided had we learned about the wedding dress shopping trip before we were on our way to Denver last week. But such is life. I get to see my other sister, who just got married last September, so that is a plus. She hasn't seen the new baby yet, so that should be fun for both of us.
Last week in Denver, we went to the Aquarium there, which is pretty neat, by the way. My oldest son, who just recently acquired the ability to imitate a machine gun, (Thank you Incredibles), was viewing the shark tank when a rather large one came straight at him. What did he do? He stuck out his little hand like a gun and pointed right at the shark and made his machine gun sound, all business! I unfortunately was unable to actually witness this, as I was downstairs nursing the little one, but Grandma replayed the story for me pretty well.

So just a quick explanation of my blog title, sermon on the mount (of laundry). I hate, HATE to do laundry- so it is always piling up on me because I put if off, and because I have four people who's laundry I am doing- so my title is a reference to my everyday life, and now my ability to vent about it, thanks to this blog. And also, a special thanks to Allison, who inspired me to start a blog with her own. (pretendingsanity.com)

Wednesday, April 6 2005

Okay, this is my first time doing anything like this- so this is kind of a test drive before I start writing any real stuff.