After The Long Silence...

I've intended to post something so very many times in the last year, but somehow just never had the time, or the "something" to write about.  And when too much time goes by (like, over a year?!), one begins to question whether it is even worth it to say anything at all - whether any readers are still following, whether anyone still wants to hear anything I have to say.  However, since I don't want this space just to fade away, and since writing needs to remain a part of my life, no matter how small, I'm biting the bullet to do a "general update" and hopefully in doing so, eliminating my main excuse for not posting more often.

So what's happened in the last year?

The biggest change is that after my miscarriage last February, we waited a few months to "try again" - but it didn't take long before I was pregnant again.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a lot of anxiety in the first few weeks after that positive test, but this time around, our little one grew right on schedule.  We welcomed our baby BOY in mid February, via planned c-section.  Which is a story in itself: how we found out he was breech at 37 weeks, all the ways we motivated him to try and turn, and then coming to a place of peace about the necessity of the c-section.  However, as all of that truly deserves its own post, I'll save that for another day; since it's a story I definitely want to share, hopefully it'll be another reason to post soon.

Adjusting to life as a mom of two, with a high-need four year old, has been... a challenge.  I've found myself turning into (even while I was pregnant, but much more since Little Boy was born) a mom that I didn't like or recognize.  As a result, I've spent a LOT of time in the last few months reading every positive-parenting type book I could get my hands on.  I now have lots of thoughts and suggestions in this area, although truth-be-told, peace in our household is definitely a day-by-day work-in-progress.  But we're working on it, which is more than I can say about six months ago.

Other than behavioral challenges, I have been really enjoying having an almost-four-year-old though.  We're finally reaching the age where so many of the things I looked forward to when I was pregnant with her are becoming a possibility!  Grand plans await this summer, such as hiking, visiting my favorite hands-on science museum, visiting many of our state parks, more gardening, and starting somewhat more formal homeschooling in the fall.  LW (who incidentally needs a new and better blog name - something befitting her spirited, persistent, energetic nature) currently loves everything outdoors, especially bugs and creatures (for instance, she took an ant in a jar to Mass recently!); is a perpetual motion dynamo; can talk a blue streak when she wants to but is also often quietly observant, especially in social situations where she is beginning to bloom but still can be quite shy.  She has also developed into an incredibly dedicated big sister, who has totally adored "baby brudder" from day one.  She may have acted out quite a lot with US but her love of HIM was never something that could be questioned.

Little Boy (who also needs a better blog name - I will have to ponder these things) is in a lot of ways a very different baby than LW was.  He seems mostly a lot more mellow; the type of baby that you can actually put DOWN when he falls asleep.  He still has strong wants/needs, and makes those known, but is otherwise (especially now that the colicky first 12 weeks are over) an affable, happy little tyke.  It's been really neat getting to know him, to see his own personality emerge, and to find myself totally falling in love with another little person.  I found that the bonding happened much, much faster this time around - nearly immediately, vs taking several weeks with LW.  This was interesting to me, because it upended my belief that c-sections always made bonding harder; in my case, the c-section was radically less "traumatic" than my completely natural, med-free birth with LW.  Anyway, I've been enjoying every stage of Little Boy's growth.  I find that this time around, I'm not in such a hurry for him to grow and change; just reveling in the new little developments as they happen.  I was also worried, before he was born, about going back to having a newborn/infant, and how I would adjust.  I felt like I'd gotten used to the "freedoms" of an older child, and would be bored and irritated by the constant demands (and non-talking-ness) of a younger child.  However, I've found that I didn't account for the bonding/love element.  Other people's infants may still be boring to me, but just like with LW, I could stare in this little guy's eyes all day.  It's amazing, too, how much more relaxed I am with a newborn this time around.  Nothing seems hard or foreign, and I'm much more comfortable breastfeeding in public spaces, and going out and about with him than I was when LW was tiny. If anything, I find being the mom of a four-year-old a lot more challenging, which is probably how it will always be: I expect LW will always be the one to challenge us to rise to new heights as parents, simply because every step of the way is new with her.

In other news, we continue to make renovations, slowly, on our house.  It's fun to watch it really becoming "ours," even if it sometimes feels unbearably slow!  One recent addition that meant a lot to me was my birthday present: a crabapple tree for our front yard.  Growing up, my grandmother's house (which was right around the corner from my parents', and thus I spent a lot of time there, literally living there for a couple of weeks in the summer when my cousin was visiting) had a crabapple in the front yard, a mature tree big enough to climb in, and my cousin and I used to make "houses" out of rags up in the branches.  Since then, I've always wanted a crabapple in my own front yard, and this year we finally found the time and $$ to plant one.  It's funny, but our house really reminds me so much of my grandparents' place, anyway; it has the same worn old pine floors, it was built around the same time, and just "feels" similar.  Since I associate my grandparents' house with some of my most pleasant childhood memories, this really pleases me; it's funny that it would be their house, not my parents', that I seek to recapture, but my cousin would say the same thing: not that there was anything wrong with our own childhood homes, but there was just something so very special about my grandparents'.  I guess that was partly the mystery and allure of a place that held so much of our fathers' childhoods, but also the physical and emotional presence of my grandfather and grandmother, made it very, very special, because they were such special people.  I suspect LW is beginning to set the same sorts of nostalgic impressions of HER grandparents' house (my childhood home), and that suits me just fine.  Anyway, memories of Grammy and Grampa's place help me to be "OK" with our snug little house with (essentially) one bathroom, in this day and age of McMansions.  Whenever I begin to question raising a household of children in this place, I remind myself that my grandparents did it with an even smaller space.  They had an eat-in-kitchen, too, and no one ever seemed to mind the fact that there was only about three feet of room on any given side of the kitchen table...

Dealing with "keeping up with the Joneses" and house-jealousy, however, is definitely another thing I've dealt with in the last year, and something I'd love to share...

I've also been pondering lately how so much of my life seems to be wrapped up in domestic affairs (and truth-be-told, domestic enjoyments, more than anything - sewing, knitting, reading, baking, feeding my family, homesteading, learning more and more about real food, composting, and many "crunchy" endeavors, and loving it), and sometimes I wonder whether I'm being "Christian" enough in going about my days.  Should I be enjoying these domestic delights so much, shouldn't I rather be spending my time in spiritual reading and pursuits?  And yet, I am heartened by the thought of Chesterton, who certainly loved domestic pleasures as well as God.  Another post for another day :)

Of course, there are so many more things to talk about, but my daughter's scheduled morning Curious George episode is almost over, so I've got to wrap up for now.  I hope that there are still readers out there, and that I can find time to keep up posting here a bit more frequently than once a year :)

With that, and a photo of my two babies, I'll end :)  Peace be with you all!