Oh Shart

Today was not anything out of the ordinary, but today just was. I was reminded this morning that it was National Pregnancy and Infant Loss day, which is indeed a special day of remembrance. But really it was an ordinary day for me with school volunteering, a SAMs club stock up, Trader Joes run, school pick up, etc. Like any normal and busy day I think often of the little one we lost a few months ago. The void is still there. My womb still aches with the feeling of loss and sadness. The tears were unusually accessible today, right behind the eye balls. But as I pushed back discussing my feelings today, or letting myself cry, the day got heavier and much less ordinary than most. This evening as my hubby and I kissed briefly as he left for the evening for practice at church, the dreadful school night routine set in. 

First dinner, that two thirds of my children didn't eat. My mood felt a bit heavier. Then bath time, they use conditioner instead of shampoo, and water is everywhere, ugh.  It's officially time to graduate from the tub to exclusively showers. And after brushed tangles and pajamas, I send them in the other room to read and finish a math game. Oh how I loath homework math games. I hate homework, I hate math, I hate games. Torturous combo for me. But upon tossing the dinner dishes in the sink I can hear giggles from the other room. The loud and sort of naughty giggles, you know the kind. I yell down the hall an inquiry to the noise, with a quick response,  "(Blank) is farting so much and it's so funny!" Yes, I have girls who fart, a lot. And think it's hilarious. One in particular was gassy and taking the stage as master tooter for the evening.  But when I go and check in on the reading, and stupid math game...and fartiing... I have discovered this superstar farter has sharted in her pants in the middle of her performance. Awesome. Yes, this really happened. *Disclaimer for my friends without kids, kids are gross. They poop themselves trying to fart, they lick playgrounds, eat their boogers, and just plain smell! Guys, it was not funny at the time and just about sent me over the edge. After finishing homework with what felt like a pace of knee deep mud walking, I notice bedtime has come and gone. Another 10 minutes spent on teeth and actually laying their bodies still, in a bed, I keep peeking on the clock. 40 minutes past bedtime. Oh motherhood is draining. 

October 15th ended with prayers, and the normal stalling of sleep. But the normal stalling somehow led to the discussion of their lost baby sibling. They asked how big the baby would be now, and how sad it still makes them. We don't discuss it enough. First of all because we just get so busy, but also its just hard. I hate seeing their sadness that still lingers, but it's getting better with time.  I feel uncomfortable with answering all of the "why" questions, when I myself struggle to comprehend it all. But it was wonderful. They knew I wanted and needed to talk about it tonight, even if I didn't. More importantly, Jesus knew I needed to talk about baby tonight. Thank you, Jesus, for your faithfulness at the end of the day. You show up in the small things, in all things. Thanks for showing You really do care, and You really want to listen. Thanks for using my girls to do that today, even if they shart. See? He can even use the most unclean and unworthy of us! My smelly children are a prime example of that. 

 

On a very serious and amazing note...

My husbands cousin is doing an amazing thing, check it out: http://www.youaremissingfromme.org

Don't Forget Leg Day

You've all seen the memes, the ones about leg day.  The dudes who only work out their biceps and chests, leaving their legs scrawny and unproportioned to their upper body. If you haven't, you need to Google that ASAP.  This last year as I have been working out and running and lifting again, I can feel my muscles. I can see my muscles. Even under the chub I'm still trying to loose I can feel the strong muscle under all that. Results I have enjoyed seeing through the grueling pain and long mornings in the gym, (or at the park :). But the last couple of months I have not been able to workout as much as I have been working out a different muscle, my heart. In August I found out that I was pregnant, a very shocking and almost scary discovery as we were not planning on having another child. But then soon after we fell in love with our unexpected blessing, we found out that I had lost the baby. We had to break the news to our girls who were elated at the idea of being big sisters. As we mounrned and cried as a family, we were left asking, why? Why did we all have to go through this? We were left confused and sad. I always said that I could never endure a miscarriage, and never understood how women get through it. And here I am, I made it through. But It was one of the deepest pains I've ever felt. 

While I may never know why I went through what I did, I do know that my heart muscle is indeed stronger front the experience. Like so many difficult things I go through, I hate the pain and suffering, but enjoy the outcome. I am stronger, wiser, and my heart can handle more. I cannot forget that my heart muscle also needs a workout. Otherwise I will just have a small, puny, and weak heart. Incapable of handling stress and hard times. And with little capacity to love and unable to feel others pain as they go through the same struggles I have. As I look back into my past heart aches from years ago, I see more clearly why I went through what I did. I hold onto hope that the same clarity will come when I eventually look back at this time of my life. 

“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Romans 5:3-5 

As as my heart recovers from its massive workout, I can count my blessings that it was a short time. Many struggles can be long and seem never ending. I have a friend going through an ugly divorce, another looking for a job for months while she single parents her daughter, and an old neighbor fighting cancer. These people, who are undeserving of such trials, are still in the storm. Although God is not the creator of our hardships, He does promise to never leave us. So I pray that He makes himself known to them, and to you today as you battle through life's most difficult times. I pray they, and you, know their hearts will be stronger in the end.  Life is BRUTIFUL, as a favorite blogger of mine has said. I couldn't have said it better myself. 

Living by His grace and mercy daily, Nina

Weak Sauce

Since my last blog post I've been trying to write a lighter and funnier entry. But it doesn't seem to unfold as I begin to write. The difficult things in my life are what materialize into blogs most often. The lessons I find in my weaknesses usually are more worth sharing. 

There are plenty of joyful and fun things that happen to me daily, but none unravel  into a profound lesson quit like my short comings do. And the main reason for this is because quite frankly, I am weak. Did ya hear me?? "I SAID I'M WEAK!" At every confession of this I am able to then boast on the strength that is my God. Through every hardship I encounter and every mistake I make I can allow The Lord to show His greatness through my weakness. Which allows me to be a million times stronger with Him than I could ever be on my own. 

Kara who has stage 4 cancer and writes the blog, Mundane Faithfulness, says this: 

"Faking strength leaves us all weaker in the end."

Isn't this so true? Even admitting when I'm feeling weak gives me strength as I let go of the pressure to be strong all the time. 

Check out her amazing journey, blogs, and book here   http://www.mundanefaithfulness.com

"Each time he said, "My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me."

 2 Corinthians 12:9  

So stop pretending you have it all together when you're feeling inadequate. Being a mom, wife, and plain ol' human being some days is just tough. 

So expect many more posts in the future that follow my current writing trend :)

If you can relate to this, than try other related blogs of mine:

Bored and Restless: http://mommynina.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-bored-and-restless.html?m=1

I Got This:

http://mommynina.blogspot.com/2012/09/i-got-this.html?m=1

The Investment

Last week was one full of sadness and obstacles. All week I was fighting off tears each day. Running through the daily routine with little tiny speed bumps put in my way. I can only think of my roller blading days (yes, my sweet middle school mode of transportation!) when I used to get tripped up by a twig or giant gap between sidewalk tiles. I would often lose my balance and feel as if I was heading for a nasty fall (which I'm sure occasionally happened) but I would recover and stay on my feet to keep on bladin' to the pool. Oh the life of a middle schooler in the 90's! And those wrist guards! Wowsa.

Life feels like there is no return lately. Like I'm investing in so many areas in my life and I'm yet to see my investments pay out. Living in a society where we feed off of instant gratification, I have a hard time waiting for results. When the girls were younger I often felt restless when mothering got mundane. Feeding after feeding. Diaper after diaper. And some days all I felt like all I was doing was discipling them. Only to see no changes in the following day.  But now I can say that my children are healthy and (for the most part) well mannered and sweet girls. Making those deposits into their lives visible years later. 

Now I'm currently focusing on myself attempting to change. I'm once again on the rocky weight loss journey. Again. I'm investing into myself which is hard to begin with. Then investing 4-5 workouts a week makes it harder. It's been an investment of time and money. After my initial weight loss I have now plateaued. Of course the holidays had some effect on this. But as I continue on I'm frustrated with no results. And just like the twigs I used to trip on roller blading, so many things this week have tripped me up. I was told that I had a baby in my tummy by a 4 year old. Yikes. A day later I figured out, in a round about way, that  I was being told that my brand new heart monitor can't find my heart rate through my fat. Ouch. And to top it off the scale went up.  After 5 workouts this week. It. Went. Up. 

Speed bumps. Waiting. Discouragement. I know you can relate.  

But the bottom line is this. The investments we involve ourselves in will always take time. At least the most worthwhile investments will. Whether you're a pastor building a ministry one person at a time. A mom raising children, littles OR teenagers. A man working his ass off for 4 years with no raise. A women taking fertility treatments and blood tests trying to get pregnant. The time and wait can be disappointing and incredibly frustrating. Just like investing in the stock market, there are ups and downs. There is so much on the line. 

Today I wanted to quit. As I rowed on that stupid rowing machine and fought back tears of inadequacy, fatness, and failure I wanted to walk out and cancel my next week of workouts. But I didn't. I saw through the lies. I stuffed the tears and rowed through the pain. I reminded myself why I was there in the first place. Years of not investing into myself. So this investment will take awhile to finally see my return. I will deposit a little piece of myself daily. I can't see exactly what my heart rate is doing when I workout, but I do know that it's doing something. I know I'm sweating my face off and I can't breath. And my clothes are fitting differently, even if the scale doesn't reflect it. The results will come. I press one. Well....row on, to be exact 😊

"He reminds us almost everywhere to walk by faith in a promised future and not by the sight of immediate gratification (2 Corinthians 5:7)."

Mop Up and Recovery

As my blogs become fewer and fewer as of late, I've had numerous people ask why. I only blogged twice in 2014.  My sweet friends have been inquiring as to when I'm going to post again. Honestly, I'm just not sure anyone really cares about what I have to say. Plus, there are WAY too many blogs floating around about the craziness that is mothering small ones. Far less chaotic and funny things happen in my day-to-day life as my kids grow. I mean, it's still crazy, but now my chaos consists of getting in and out of the car for school drop offs, trying to balance a baking business, teaching part time, play dates, and telling my kids to get off the ipad because they've been on it too long. Opposed to my previous chaos with 3 kids under 2 years of age, which was mostly diapers, bottles, naps...survival. I was in survival mode. And guess what, I made it! The kids made it. AND my marriage made it! But now what?

Now I'm in survival mode. I was sitting outside my friends apparent building the other day waiting to get my kids. And I saw a man carrying an industrial fan inside, which was no doubt for a lot of water. My friend had experienced a pipe break last winter which drenched everything. They had to quickly try to save everything they could from the water, And after, they had the big fans plugged in to dry out everything. Life with littles is like this (especially with twins). You can't count everything in your life as a total loss, but it is all somewhat damaged. Everything is drenched and dripping with water and goo, literally poop and boogers everywhere from kids.  Nothing has been untouched from the craziness that takes over your life. My friendships did not remain untouched from this damage, neither did my relationship with God, and certainly not my body and health! 

I'm feeling like we have pulled out the fans, and we are waiting for everything to dry as we are in this new season with the girls. Time to bring out the fans and see what can be salvaged in our life. What can be saved. The mop up and recovery season begins. A season of needing my mom less, and the gym more. Needing to wash clothes less frequently, and seeing friends more. Less little butt wiping, and more "me time".

 

For those of you still in survival mode, hopefully this will give you an idea as to what's ahead. Or feel free to go back and read my old blogs. The one about all 3 girls getting the stomach flu at the same time was particularly amusing.

Happy mothering! No matter where you are in the flood 😊