My baby forever

I went through a major mourning time when I was deciding that I was done having children. I went over it all in my head again and again. I played advocate for each side, arguing with myself. I discussed it with collin at length. It was an easy decision for him. He’s always wanted four. I’ve never known how many kids I wanted. I was playing it by ear each time. And recently I had the number 5 in my head. I didn’t want to be done forever with having babies. Being pregnant. Feeling all those kicks inside my belly. Sacrificing for this special life I was growing. I would never give birth again. I would never nurse for the first time again. And someday, I would never nurse again.
I had an experience finally that hushed my fears and anxiety over the whole thing and gave me peace and allowed me to confidently decide that we would be moving on to a new phase after this baby was grown. I decided to recognize what I had and to give myself permission to be sad about whatever I wanted to be sad about in the future. But I wasn’t going to regret.
Covid distancing began in March 2020, and it became even more clear that I wasn’t going to have another child. Then, months later, I was talking to some good friends who are our age and are thinking they will have another. Suddenly all the feelings and thrills of having a new baby came back to me. I was jealous too.  It looking at Annette, playing with the kids today...warm feelings of confidence and finality come to me, reminding me that for reasons that are important to me, Collin and I are done having kids. We will focus on these. They are wonderful incredible humans, and I’m excited for our lives together.

School is out for SUMMER!

After the most different school year of our lives, including 12 weeks of distance learning at home, the kids are done and school is out for summer. Hattie finished kindergarten and is now a 1st grader. Fred finished 2nd grade and is now a 3rd grader. Ella will begin her preschool year. We don’t know what school in the fall will look like. We don’t know if they will start with distance learning again, go with major restrictions, part time, or if everything will be completely back to normal. We can’t know for a while. I am so proud of them and all their work. They did work hard. I am honored that I got to experience it along side them. There were hard and frustrating days, and many rewarding, good days. There was about a week that we didn’t finish most or any of the work, but we did finish almost all of it. And there was a LOT. BUT it was all so valuable. There were some people saying we shouldn’t force school and that the stress wasn’t worth it, and I did keep that in mind. Though there were some stressful times, I felt strongly that my kids needed to do as much of the schooling that they could, that I could guide them, that it would bless their lives and give them and me guidance and purpose during this global pandemic. It has. I feel so much accomplishment and it did bless our lives as we found our rhythm together and worked at our goals every day. The Holy Ghost guided me through this school year the whole time. 

This was the rhythm that we settled on that worked best for us (after much trial and error!!) 

Wake

Breakfast and scriptures

Exercise (eye of the tiger!)

Get dressed/ready (there was always a day or two a week that we stayed in our PJs all day)

School time Fred and Hattie while I nursed Annette to sleep on the couch for her first nap and Ella would do trues school with her)

Lunch

Outside play until dinner time 

(At 2pm if we didn’t finish all of school and music there Was time to work on that)

Dinner

Chores

Family walk

Bedtime

Looking back, this has been some of the best times our family has ever had. Collin would be working all day and would usually make lunch and dinner. 

Happy summer!!!