Finished?

On Thursday, my littlest munchkin turned 2 years old.  All the cliches about time passing by in the blink of an eye seem to be truer and truer with each passing year, and each successive child.  Although day-to-day (and all night long) life can be exhausting, taxing, and seemingly endless; the past two years have been a couple quick blinks of the eye.

Shortly after having Raegan, a question I commonly heard, "You done now?".  After shuddering over the abomination of grammar, I would smile and give my response du jour, "oh yes, three is definitely the number for us", or "no, we're trying to breed our own basketball team", or some other random response depending on what mood I was in (or how much sleep I'd had).

Done.  Or, rather, to sound slightly more educated, finished.  What a powerful word.  'Having been completed or ended; perfected'. According to my 'dictionarial' skills (and yes, I made up that word).

It sounded so harsh to say that my family was 'finished'.  While I like the word 'complete', it can still sound like there is still a finite connotation to the concept of family.  I knew (and still do) that three kids was 'our number', even though I told Randy there would *always* be a part of me with a weakness for the nostalgia of infancy, toddlerhood, and early childhood.  And, even now, after two years of crappy sleep and non-stop-toddler-terrorizing, I can say three things.

1. Three kids is definitely 'our number'
2. I still have little pangs of sadness for the long lost days of teeny tiny baby (who doesn't love the smell of a freshly washed newborn?)
3. I am not 'finished'.

True, we're finished having babies, but we're not finished raising them.  As the kids are getting older and all becoming ever so slightly more independent as the months and years pass, the primary focus of parenting shifts. Now is when we help develop their character and morals, guide them as they make {appropriate} decisions, teach them social appropriateness, model {model, model} many things, keep their hearts, spirit, and innocence safe, and giving them a strong sense of security.  I'm sure I'm missing things...in fact, I know I am...but those are the highlights that keep me awake at night and bring worry lines to my face.  Parenting.is.hard.  There is no way to deny that fact, so why not accept it.

A few weeks back, I got the opportunity to hear one of my favorite 'mom bloggers' speak at a book signing for her new book.  Glennon Doyle Melton is well known in the blogger world as Momastery.  Her new book, Carry On, Warrior has been one that I've been eagerly awaiting since hearing about it last year.  As a 'Monkee', I follow Glennon's blog and applaud her as she lays it all out on the line in her writing.  She is real. She tells it how it is, shares her struggles, and inspires countless moms, dads, people.

I've been slowly working through her book.  It's not a challenging read, in fact it's funny, emotional, inspirational, real.  And for someone like me, an avid reader, I could finish it in a day.  If by 'day' I meant a stretch of time where I can sit on the couch for longer than 2 minutes before having to refill a sippy cup, clean up a spill, wash markers off the wall, open a cheese stick, break up an arguement, help with a homework assignment, switch out the laundry, or prepare a meal.  {and then there's the baking...oh...the baking.  I think in the past 2 weeks, I've gone through about 10 dozen eggs and 12 pounds of flour.  Trust me, I love it, and I'd better since I've been bringing in order after order since featuring my little baking biz at the school carnival}.  But I digress.  {shocker}.

The truth is, I want...no, I crave to read her words, be inspired by her thoughts, and feel like a more 'okayish' mom.  I'm at a crossroads and feeling some change on my horizon.  I've always said I want to use this blog to help document life for my kids, to give them the stories of their childhood since I've done a not-so-stellar job of keeping up with baby books {and by that, I mean Gavin has like 3 pages of his filled in, Brynn's hasn't been opened but once, and Raegan...well...you could say I'm still looking for the 'right' one ;) }.  It's true that I still want to tell our stories for the kids.  I have to.  They're my life.  But, if I'm in the midst of this phase of parenting that encompasses a world of modeling, modeling, modeling...I need to model for my kids just what it means to be true to myself.  Not to comply with what others want from me, but to give myself what I need.  And what I need is to get it out, set it free, let it go.  I need to Carry On.

shine bright, lone light
<3