We Have Four Kids

The other night something made me look up this old blog.  I haven't been here in a while and once I stopped in, I couldn't pull away.  Instagram has taken over that spot in my life for documenting and sharing pictures.  If I'm "wasting" time online, I'm perusing pinterest or instagram.  But never reading blogs.  Gone are the days of getting on each morning and checking in to see what ventures my friends and their new babies were on... and gone are the days where I'd sit down and start typing all of the current thoughts of this mommy of one baby.... two babies.... a boy! I never even touched the surface of our fourth.  I hardly use to miss the opportunity to post a good meal I made, and now I've missed an entire pregnancy and the first 8 months of Knox's life.

This kid is so cute.  What if I finally print this blog someday and he's not in it?  I think I'm back.  Knox needs stories about his first words, his favorite foods, the crickets he eats...

Not to mention these other three just keep changing! I die when I look at old posts and see Sophia as a little girl. I don't know when it happened but she is practically a young woman.  She turned ten a couple of weeks ago and it blows my mind.

I think I said this in my last post a year ago.  But I don't have time to look back at it.  But I'm making a new resolution to write again.  Instagram has made it super easy to document and save some photos.  But I can't help but be dissuaded by that unwritten rule that everyone is annoyed if you post too many pictures and one a day or less is just not always enough. And sometimes there is so much more to say than is appropriate to put in someone's instagram feed.

So again, I think I'm back. I'm writing to myself now and later. I can't imagine anyone else will check this which might make it a little harder to be motivated because those blog days were fun when we were all back and forth with comments.  I'm not above that and for sure all of that validation gave me all the more fire to write.  But along with nobody checking in comes incredible freedom.  Like right now, I'm not even re-reading this. I don't think I will.  Who has time?  It might be pure gibberish and I'm quite confident it is, but I think it's worth it.  I don't have time to words and I don't have time to edit photos... I don't even have time to edit thoughts.  I probably don't have time to write at all since every night once my kids are in bed I think of a million things I wish I'd done better while they were awake.  My life has a chronic MOUNTAIN of things I could be improving on. But maybe that's exactly why I want to write.  So that all of those thoughts and goals and wishes and regrets can be documented somewhere.  To either help me remember and better myself.... or at least give my kids proof, later, of my good intentions. :/

For now, I'm tired and not sure I actually said anything in this unedited mash of words but I'm hoping this will crack the door to that part of my brain so all of the stories and conversations and moments that are happening in this amazing family and life of mine will start pouring out and be recorded.

This is it.  I used to be a new mom and it feels like yesterday.  But now I'm a 34-year-old woman with four kids ranging from 8 months to 10 years.  I still do diapers and baby food and lullabies but now I do homework and soccer and volleyball and piano and friend problems and FableHaven and chores and sometimes I just don't know when my brain is going to catch up with these crow's feet between my brows.  I'm not sure it ever will-- but I know this is it.  I'm IN my life.  It's not like leading up to it anymore.  I'm in it. Making the forever memories for my kids.  More than halfway done raising Sophia under my roof. I'm in it.

It's so overwhelming but so wonderful.  And I'm just so grateful for these four personalities I scored.. and for such a solid partner in Ross to cross our fingers together and hope we do it right.

And for prayer.

Life is still super good over here.