Blessings

I know I have been slacking on blogging lately. There has been lots going on but somehow not quite the words to blog about it. Plus all that is going on is nothing major, nothing newsworthy or blog worthy to report. But the past few weeks and months even, I have been thinking a lot about blessings and gratitude....

For the first six months of Jamie's life, I had a true, 100% "babymoon". I would say that 99+% of my days were filled with complete and utter joy and elation. I loved having Jamie in our family and I loved him. Those six months were so incredibly amazing and I will treasure them for a lifetime. When he reached 6 months old, it was the end of August-he started crawling, sitting, standing-all within 2 weeks of each other. He, like any other normally developing baby, started to be more demanding and slowly but surely the babymoon was coming to an end. Reality and real life-full of frustrations and irritations-was starting to come back. Around November, I started to have some down days. Thanksgiving and Christmas helped to mask some of the feelings I was having but by January the seasonal blues were in full force and I joined the rest of Chicagoland in feeling generally down. It hit me harder than most (I think) because I have never had this before. I thrive on schedules and busyness. If I am busy, I don't have time to reflect and feel down. This is the second winter I have not had a job (by choice) in my life. Last year I was full-literally-of baby and anticipation. Jamie, all 8+lbs of him, resting on my bladder and pelvis, was wiping me out and most of January and February was spent waddling and sleeping. So although I wasn't "busy" I was distracted. This year, I have none of that. I have 2 kids and I am busy with church and house and them but I also have plenty of downtime to reflect and as a result I had a really hard January. "Really hard" is probably a bit overstated but I struggled with it.

The past 2 weeks have been so much better-I am anticipating the spring, longing for warm but doing what I can to make it these last few months until that happens. I've been cooking warm comfort food, making decorations for the house, and focusing on the kids. Building towers and jumping on mattresses pulled off beds at 4pm, as the light gradually starts to fade to a purple. Going out to the library and sitting, reading their books, playing with there toys, and lingering. Focusing on them, instead of things to do, and it has been good. There is still a place for chores and cooking, but the past 2 weeks I've been able to find a good balance between the two. So as a result, my mood has been lifting and at times I feel like I'm back in the days of babymoon-not completely enthralled with my new baby but immersed in feelings of gratitude for my life. So grateful for the amazing kids I have-my sweet, adorable, loving kids. So grateful for my selfless, loving, best friend of a husband. So grateful for my church which truly fills me spiritually like no other church I have attended in 14 years of attending church every week. So grateful for my God-for saving me, for bringing me into relationship with Him, for adopting me as His forever child, for seeing me as Righteous because of Christ and being pleased. And around 4pm each day as the light fades to purple and I notice that it is staying lighter later and when I walk to get the mail and smell something different that tells me spring is coming, I am overflowing with emotions of gratitude. Thank You Lord.