The kind of mom I am

One of my most favorite bloggers recently posted these words,

"Self reflection is so very much a part of these motherhood moments. I have thought about why this is so hard, what I could have done to make it better. We chose not to do daycare or preschool for Lainey, and I don't regret that decision at all, even though it may have made this transition a little easier. I wonder what things we can do to help smooth out these first few weeks, and we are trying lots of fun ideas--some our own, and some wonderful suggestions of yours. The thing is, there are a hundred billion ways to raise a child--to nourish them, to teach them to think on their own, to instill confidence, to show them kindness, to challenge them to be respectful, to educate them, to show them the world. And when you choose a way to do these things--a way that fits and feels good for your family and your child--I think it's only natural to wonder if maybe one of the 99,999,999,999 other ways might have worked better." -Kelle Hampton Enjoying The Small Things

 

Amen...right?!?!?  Seriously I don't think I was three words into this paragraph and my eyes welled up with tears. By the time I finished the paragraph I wanted to reach through the computer screen and hug Kelle with the kind of hug that almost hurts more than it does feel good. I feel like at any given there are trigger words or phrases that can be said and regardless of the mood I'm in or the day I'm having I instantly become emotional. Not always emotional with tears, but just emotional, like the words that were just spoken knew the secret passage way to that extra vulnerable part of my heart. The part where things taste and smell and sound and feel so much more intense, that place where I feel on an entirely different level. This topic is one of them and I don't know Kelle personally but reading these words made me instantly feel not so alone in some of my own quietly harbored struggles.

 

                                            

 

 

 

I remember the episode of Sex and The City where Miranda is pregnant and Charlotte is interrogating her on what kind of mom she wanted to be, of course referring the socially established "styles" of parenting, attachment, marsupial, etc. And Miranda responds, " I don't know....a good one!?!?" I wasn't a mom when I first watched that episode, and in fact being a mom wasn't even on my radar at that point of my life, yet that scene has forever been etched in my mind. I remember watching it at the time and thinking, " Geesh Mom's have it tough, who knew there were so many different ways to mother?!"

 

         

 

                    

 

 

 But in the many months since becoming a mother I have to tell you when that scene plays in my mind my response is a little different. Now I think about it and I kind of want to punch Charlotte in the face. I think about her voice and her incessant questioning about Miranda's plan for parenting her unborn child, and I feel like it is a perfect spot on depiction of the kinds of battles us moms face everyday.

 

 

 

Why is it that we must define ourselves as moms? I'm a protective mom, I'm a laid back mom, I'm strict, I'm a structured mom, I'm an artsy mom, I'm a christian mom, I'm an all natural mom. I mean I understand the idea of having beliefs and finding the direction you wish to point your sail, but why do we feel the need to take all the adjectives that describe us as moms and fit them into one perfectly labeled box? And if we are being honest here I think the better question is, why does it make us as outsiders feel better when other mom's are labeled and compartmentalized it our head? Is it because it makes it easier to judge them? If they are a "creative/artsy" mom for example, does it make it easier on us to then view everything they do through that lens so that when we don't understand their way of doing things we can have an easier time judging them? I fear that as much as us women don't want this to be true, it might be.

 

 

 

       

 

 

 

Being a mom is hard, oh Lord it's crazy hard. But trying to explain what kind of mom you are might be dang near impossible, yet somehow I constantly find myself trying to do this very thing.

 

       

          

 

       

 

 

 

I think the beautiful thing about God's design in becoming parents is that there really are 99,999,999 ways to parent. There are ways of doing things that are supposed to be right for you and not right for me. There are supposed to be different choices, different areas where you are strict and I'm more relaxed because we are raising entirely different little tiny humans. God's plan and his story for those little souls are not supposed to be the same.  If I'm raising a stubborn child and parenting according to the things I'm learning about her on a daily basis, taking in account her stubbornness then you better believe God is using it to bring her story to fruition. I would be doing both her, I, and God a disservice by trying to do it more like someone else. And while I do of course think there is so much we can learn from one another, I believe we should be trying harder to listen to our instincts, to find our own way that feels right, feels God driven, and follow that instead of the status quo.

 

                                   

 

    

 

 

When talking to other mom's I sometimes want to stop and tell them, "you know you are doing a really good job with Johnny, you and I we do things so very different in some areas but watching what a incredibly cool little man he is becoming is such a testament to the awesomeness of you being true to the kind of mother that you were designed to be." I don't say these things, but I think them, and I often leave wondering why I don't say them. But it's the truth and I think if we were more patient with ourselves, with each other, and even with our little one's we would find that who we are, as moms, as friends, and wives, it was never intended to be wrapped up in one pretty little box. It was meant to be fluid, and ever changing.

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

I don't believe God ever meant for us to be so easy to define that you could label who we are without even needing to see  the way we do things. Sure I may be overprotective or more of a worrier in some areas, but I am equally super chill in other areas. I might need to be extra sensitive with one of my children, while needing to find my more strict self with another. Being health conscious, a mom who practices CIO, a full time working mom, or a stay at home mom, it's all a part of God's design.Those are all roles we were meant to fulfill. Those choices we make we make for a reason, and collectively when you put all the millions of choices we make as parents together, it is inevitable that they will both harm and help our children in certain areas, but even that I believe was part of His plan. It's all a part of what is shaping our little children into who God is calling them to be.

         

     

                     

       

 

So what kind of mom am I, well let's see...I'm a mom who loves my child so much it hurts. I'm a mom who's parenting sometimes follows a certain parenting style, and also a mom who's parenting often times looks a little all across the board. I love to read, and research helpful tips for raising children yet I mostly parent off of my instincts, of my gut, the leading of the Holy Spirit, and what Derek and I both feel is best for Olivia. Since all three of us are ever changing and evolving we are definitely learning as we go. I am a mom who does things differently than some moms I see, but they are things that I feel are right for our family, and because I love and admire and have crazy respect for these mom's, I get great comfort knowing that they are doing a wonderful job raising their children in the way they are being led to as well.

 

 

 

                                              

 

 

 

I am a mom who doesn't always fit in in certain ways, but I'm okay with that. I'm not saying it's not hard, and that there aren't times where the worldly parts of me want to compare and conform, but still I believe it's okay, it's good for me to have to practice being confident in who I am as a woman, a wife,  and a mother. There will come a day when my children are older and they too will feel the pressure to conform, there beliefs and passions won't look like everyone else's; so Derek and I must set the example that it's okay to be different, it's okay to make some waves while pursuing your passions.

 

 

I'm a mom who desires above all else that my child accepts and loves others and God. I want my children to fight for the underdog, and feel comfortable in their own skin, in order to teach them this I must be the example. Basically I'm a mom who wants to love and nurture, inspire and educate my children the best way I know how, and if Charlotte asked me that question today, I would guess my answer would be similar to Miranda's, I want to be a good mom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My prayer for us as mom's is to be easier on each other, but mostly be easier on ourselves. I pray that we can lift each other up, be more intentional to call out each others strengths in parenting. My hope is that as our children grow we can celebrate their own personal successes and their differences. As time passes our children are going to pave their own ways, they will all have strengths and weaknesses, they will have great accomplishments and failures. Some will struggle in math, some will be very athletic, some will be more reserved and quiet, some will be stubborn and rebellious while others will be sensitive and creative. They will be human, ever changing and evolving, and my prayer is that we can raise them in a community where whatever they are they are accepted.

 

Today I hope we can take a moment to ask ourselves, "what kind of mom am I?" and I hope we can see that whatever we do and however we do it, we are good moms. I hope we can breath a little deeper and slower and accept ourselves as is, no judgement and no comparing. I hope all we see at the root of our motherhood is the immense love we feel for our children, because in the end I do believe that that is good enough.

 

 

         

 

 

 

      

  I added this picture in because some days it's the perfect illustration

     to define me as a mother.....exhausted!!! :)

 

 

 

The Bloggy blog is getting a facelift

 

Oh sweet bloggy blog it's not that I don't love you, it's not that I don't accept you just the way you are, and it's CERTAINLY not because I judge you by your appearance. It's just that you are looking a little drab, and sad, and like a girl who needs a little blow out and blush.

 

 

I'm super excted that in the next 30 days my blog will have her first makeover. It won't be anything fancy but it will look a little bit better than it's current state....stay tuned....

 

xo

Starting somewhere

You know that moment when you feel inspired, you discover something so big and new and exciting you can't possibly wait one more second to share it with the world?! Then the buzz wears off and you realize, "holy crap this is a lot of work!" Ummmm. yes this is me in 85% of my life.

(horribly dark picture because I was reading it last night in bed with a night light.)

For anyone who knows me even just a little, knows I am passionate, I am fiery and full of a zest for life. I am always seeking after things that are good, and fun, and healthy, and pure; but sometimes in the midst of this Marry Poppins way of living I am quickly, and most often abruptly reminded that I cannot blink something into existence.  That really awesome inspiring relationship with the Lord that that person over there has, took work, a lot of it! And that really nice fit and healthy body I'm admiring requires maintenance, determination and a heck of a lot of consistency. I forget all too often that those things that I see that get me excited, they are often times the end result, the result of what came after a lot of hard work, and  after navigating through the huge learning curve that comes with starting something new.

They say all roads are paved with good intentions and the road of Heather Harty is no different. I want the best for myself and my family and I am willing to do whatever it is God is calling me to do to make that happen, but sometimes I jump in too fast, rearend over tea kettle, and I forget to start at the beginning. Taking things one step at a time.

For me it seems those things that I get most excited about are also the very things that bring out my extreme lack of patience. I believe we are all instant gratification seekers by nature, but I just might take that concept to a whole other level. I came, I saw, I conquered, except in my world it's more like, I came, I saw, I conquered, I got really really excited, but really overwhelmed, sometimes too overwhelmed to get even get started. I am so someone who feels like I have to be 100% prepared for anything that I'm about to do. I want to have all of the knowledge, all the supplies, and every and anything that I may even possibly need to do what it is I'm setting out for. I just have that innate need to be a master at something before I've ever tried it, or to have that 'just in case' item even if I will never actually use it. It's defintiely not my most favorite trait although sometimes it comes in handy. This new eating way of life is no different. Up until today I have felt so intimitdated with the knowledge I've been given so far, I have felt too overwhelmed to put any of it into motion.

I have had many conversations with Derek lately over the In's and outs of these health changes and we both finally came to a conclusion that made sense for us and our family. Our health, our food habits just like all other things in life must happen in a fluid organic motion, in moderation, and in faith. Which basically means I need to chill out and turn the pressure cooker down a few notches. My intentions are good, my approach is a little abrupt. Shocking I know.

So in honor of this gradual, toes in the shallow end, feel out the sand before you head goes under, kind of living, instead of plotting and planning exactly how it will go and what it will look like, I just decided to start somewhere. I made a decisive decision to stop waiting until I had all the information, till I felt qualified enough to get started, and instead just jumped right in.

Page 76 'Double Double Drive In Burgers.' My first Vegan meal, (although for the record we aren't trying to be vegan's) I made it all by myself, with a 1 year old by my side for over an hour. I spilled twice. I put garlic powder on potatoes when the the filter sprinkle lid wasn't on it, I almost burned myself, the house was covered in lentils, and my baby may or may not have almost choked twice from dried Cheerios's she somehow found under the dishwasher (yuck) even though I SWEAR I sweep daily (almost).

It was like watching a homemade backyard circus, where the finale is filled with a collapsing tent, and toppled over elephants, but praise the good Lord I did it!!! And not only did I do it but it was fanfreakintastik!!! It was clean eating, healthy (for the most part) wasn't pre-frozen or pre-made or loaded with a bunch of junk, it was an actual made from scratch homemade new lifestyle healthy meal and I did it, which is seriously dang near a miracle!

 

 

The food being so delicious was definitely a part of what made me beam with pride, but really I was most excited because I just got started. For once the excitement and intimidation of something new didn't veer me away from just getting out there and getting started. This time I just picked a page, threw caution to the wind, and got started on what ended up being the first of many fabulous meals.


I love moments like these because it really sums up the essence of life; live now, don't wait to get started tomorrow. You will never truly be more ready or qualified to get started than you are today. Ultimately life and it's lessons are learned as you go, they are learned from the doing, and the sometimes failing. You can read, google, and talk about it all day long but at some point you must get out in the field, you must start somewhere. My somewhere started today, and the smell of garlic and basil tells me it was a success!

Happy almost Tuesday.

xoxo

Easing back in- What I know today

Well I'm here. I would say I'm back but typing that would be kind of like a verbal agreement with myself, an agreement that would declare that me and my blog are going to rendezvous daily, and that's just not a promise I can make in good conscious, but Lord knows I'm gonna do my best!

 

 

Apparently summer break isn't just for grade schooler's, or immature college kids who want to grasp one last beat of childhood before the real world  swallows them whole. Apparently summer break is also for mommy's and wives who still can't seem to get the swing of a consistent daily routine .This summer I took a break from quite a few things, and it's due time I get back to what makes me thrive like the moth bathing in the light of our front porch, I need structure.

 

This summer was paramount, and monumental, and magical, and busy and crazy and pretty much so many of my most favorite things wrapped up in a few months. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that having a child has pretty much turned me into even more of a sap, and a dreamer, and a suck the marrow out of life, unicorn loving, overall just much cheesier happier person; but add that with a season I love mixed with some warm weather and a few hundred instagram pics and you've got way more than one could or should ever wrap up in just one blog post. So today I will post on a more focused finite scale, painfully ignoring the overwhelming urge I have to post all 2,376 pics I took of our summer. That post is for another day (lucky you.)

 

 

Today, in spite of all of the elated joy I've experienced these past few months, I have had a day. One of those days where you think you're going to break out in tears, then you don't, but you definitely still feel the lump in your throat and aren't a hundred percent confident that they won't sneak up on you on the phone, or while cooking dinner, or possibly while trying to kill a spider with a swiffer that happens to be 3 inches away from your favorite blanket on the couch. (that happened) Honestly I think I'm hungover, I think the late nights, lake swims, family sleepovers, and the millions of nuggy summer firsts, have caught up with me and I'm full on hungover from summer. D has been working late for the past two weeks, and I've been lonely and tired, and overwhelmed, and well lets face it, being hungover sucks.

I love being a wife and a mommy and I literally can't possibly think of a time in which I have done anything more fulfilling than those two things, but with the sun comes the rain, and with the extreme volume of joy those things bring so it also brings with it a gazillion questions, worries, doubts and fears, and when I'm hungover on life I just don't handle these things well. Perspective is nowhere to be found and irrational illogical thoughts whirl around in my head and rent space in my heart. I think in the last two days I have said, "being a mom is so hard!" like a thousand bagillion times, 95% of the time to myself, but man is it true. The smell of fall slowly creeping in only reminds me that one day not too far away that crisp clean smell will bring with it intense sadness and anticipation as my first born will be navigating her way through kindergarten, and the volume of questions that plague my mind at the thought of this makes me just a wee bit anxious. It brings to mind so many of the challenges of being a parent. The unknowns, the things that your heart wants so badly for them, yet also the things you can't be guaranteed they will ever hear, or learn. That's the funny thing about life, about being in charge of raising another life, the questions, the worries they never go away.

There are so many things I don't know, that I simply can't know right now, or maybe ever. The sheer volume of things I desire for my family, for my marriage and for my children, could never be counted, they are literally never ending; But every morning that God has woken me up I have continued to be intentional about putting what he places on my heart into action. If I see it in my head, feel it in my heart, conceive it in my mind then I try real flippin hard to make it happen, to place the right foot in front of the left and move in that direction. I haven't arrived as a mother, or as a wife, and I think the big 'surprise' moment will hit me about 80 years from now, when the sheet is dropped and it is revealed that as a mom as a wife, and possibly as a human being you will never fully arrive, you will evolve.

So in lieu of the millions of answers I don't have, and the millions of things I wish I could control but can't, I will write tonight, those things in which I do know. For memory's sake, just in case I forget! I have felt so emotionally drained and a bit overwhelmed these past few days and I think solidifying a few truths I can conclude from today will help settle me, and help hydrate my soul and rid the hangover headache of these past few days.

 

 

Things I know today-  

Motherhood is hard, so is childbirth, but with an opened mouth baby kiss, or the offering of macaroni given out of the death grip of a chubby baby hand, the pain and difficulty can quickly be erased from the hard drive of your brain. You frequently become mush, the furrow of your brow softens and the rose colored glasses go back on. It is hard, but it is the best. Ever!

I am madly in love with my husband. Profound huh? Well let me tell you when you feel like you're finally seeing the top rim of a pretty long and deep valley, when you can see the light, and breath in the fresh oxygen of that which is often referred to in life as the 'peak or mountain,' that statement is in fact pretty freakin fantastic! Marriage has to be one of God's crazier ideas, right up there with forgiveness, but my goodness how incredibly beautiful, wonderful, and holy it can be when you really work hard for it. When you succumb to God's instruction, when you dig a little deeper, and discover those crazy truths that have more meaning now than they ever did; I am crazy in love with my husband.

 

 

I hate spiders. I Have a legitimate, hives, rash, frantic crying and paralysis, phobia of those little spawns of Satan. They freakin suck, and Senske is on speed dial for a reason. Not only did my mom and aunt have to move all my living room furniture and vacuum, dust and shake out every blanket in the room, but D and I gutted all of our landscaping around the house and have decided to replant all new NOT spider friendly foliage. Dramatic? Not in the slightest. Necessary? Totes!

I ate FIVE zucchini muffins in a matter of minutes. Yep Jo Jo that's right remember 3 hours ago when we were all frolicking in the grass watching the girls play and you sent me home with a bag of homemade zucchini muffins? Yep they're gone, and no one helped. Suuuweeeet!

I honestly 100% unequivocally without a shadow of a doubt could not imagine doing this life, living in this world without Jesus. Our relationship is not perfect, He is, but I'm not. He loves me anyways, and I kid you not there are mornings where I can tangibly feel His blanket of grace and love and mercy laying on me so heavy I actually feel equipped to live this life, not just surviving but like really truly living.

And in conclusion, as I wrap up this list of things I know for sure, these truths of mine, I end with this one.... I need an earlier bedtime, and an earlier wake time. I SUCK at getting to bed early which consequently means my Utopian vision I have of myself being a glorious chipper and productive morning person dies a slow death. I long to be the 9 o'clock bed timer that wakes fully refreshed at 5 am starting her day long before her loved ones, yet somehow I am the last out of bed and often times a shower is how I seem to end my day although it was scheduled at 9am :) So off to bed I go 10:46pm, I'll try much harder tomorrow night, I mean it is still summer break...

It feels good to be visiting this familiar place again, it feels necessary, and comfortable, I have no expectations for this silly little blog, it is what it is, kind of like me, some days it will be great, some day's not so much, but I will keep returning when the time is right. THIS too, is something I know.

Nighty night.