before & after...

There is a part of me that is completely humiliated to be sharing this with the world...but hey, it's life.  REAL life.  I don't know what yours' looks like, but mine is kinda like this...

I life to take before and after pictures lately.  Helps me feel accomplished.  I do know that the 10+ hours a day I'm spending studying are important, but somehow that doesn't really translate to what my home actually looks like...more specifically, my children's bedrooms.  I'm appalled.  Clearly I have failed in motherhood in teaching my children how to take care of their things.  Not sure where I went wrong, but we will be working on correcting that, like ten minutes ago. 

So...the before's.  They are honest and unadulterated.  This is how Katie and Carter have been living (and consequently not playing and constantly complaining they have no toys...I'm beginning to see the connection)..

Katie's Room

 

I know, eek, right?  Serious issues all over these pictures.

Three hours later....

There that's better :)
Sheets, and quilt are in the wash.
Serious organization: done :)

And then, there's my bubbers.  Who, oddly, LOVES to be clean, but apparently not when it comes to toys...

I would like to take a second to comment that organizing boy's toys is so much different.  There's cars and blocks and action figures and trains, and where does all that stuff go?  We did some "purging" (shhh...don't tell Carter :) and found a place for all the rest of his favorite things...

TA-DA....

Refreshing, and exhausting afternoon.
Needless to say, some lessons on "cleaning up your own crap" are on their way :)

Five Years of Having a Son...

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I should really be reading about Diabetes....

Yes, believe it or not, I am still alive, despite my complete lack of comittment to this blog.  And, oh man, do I have SO many stories to share and pictures to show.  But, alas, it shall wait.  Just wait.  Like all the rest of the things in my life before I started nursing school.  Today I went to the grocery store AND the pharmacy and I felt like I was in heaven.  That's one cool study break.  My reading these days consists of my Med-Surg Textbook that is at least 8 inches wide (seriously), Fundamentals, Pharmacology, Pathophysisology...and I'll stop boring you now...and giving myself a slight panic attack.

Nursing school is THE hardest thing I have ever tried to accomplish.  And...so far...by the grace of God, I'm making it, one class at a time.  And I will make it.  Because I said so.

But, and my apologies if this is TMI, I get to escape to the bathroom, and sometimes even spend a little longer than usual reading something that ISN'T a textbook.  Now, don't get wrong, sometimes it's just a little light reading or a lovesick novel.  But on my way to the bathroom a couple of days ago, I happened to pick "The Jesus I Never Knew" by Phillip Yancey, which was on my "college textbooks shelf."  I figured it would serve it's purpose for the moment, and I'd pick up something else.

But I am so intrigued....
It's not an easy read, that's for sure, but it is SO thought-provoking, which is nice when most of my thoughts are centered around the names of drugs and deep suctioning trach tubes. 
Today, I think it might have been especially good to read this:

pages 160-161
"One question, however, no longer gnaws at me as it once did, a question that I believe lurks behind most of our issues with God: Does God Care?  I know of only one way to answer that question, and it has come through my study of the life of Jesus...By no means did Jesus eliminate all suffering--he healed only a few in small patches of the globe--but he did signify an answer to the question of whether God cares.
Three times that we know of, suffering drove Jesus to tears.  He wept when his friend Lazarus died.  Grief, I found, is not something you get used to.  Grief hit like a freight train, flattening me.  it left me gasping for breath, and I could do nothing but cry.  Somehow, I find it comforting that Jesus felt something similar when his friend died.
Another time, tears came to Jesus when he looked out over Jerusalem and realized the awaiting that fabled city.  He let out a cry of what Shusaku Endo has called mother-love: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."  I sense in that spasm of emotional pain something akin to what parents feel...or the pain of a man or woman has just learned a spouse has left...the pain of a jilted lover.  It is a helpless, crushing pain of futility, and it staggers me to realize that the Son of God emitted a cry of helplessness in the face of human freedom, Not even God, with all His power, can force a human being to love.
Finally, Hebrews tells us, Jesus "offered up...loud cries and tears to the one who could save himself from death."  But of course, He was not saved from death.  Is it too much to say that Jesus himself asked the question that haunts me, that haunts most of us at one time or another: Does God care?  What else can be the meaning of his quotation from that dark psalm, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"
Again, I find it strangely comforting that when Jesus faced pain he responded much as I do.  He did not pray in the garden, "Oh Lord I am so grateful that you have chosen to me suffer on your behalf.  I rejoice in the privilege!"  No, he experienced sorrow, fear, abandonment and something approaching even desperation.  Still, he endured because He knew that at the center of the universe lived his Father, a God of love he could trust regardless of how things appeared at the time.
Jesus' response to suffering people and to "nobodies" provides a glimpse into the loving heart of God.  God is not the unmoved Abslute, but rather the Loving One who draws near.  God looks on me in all my weakness, I believe, as Jesus looked on the widow standing by her son's bier, and on Simon the Leper, and on another Simon, Peter, who cursed him yet even so was commissioned to be found and lead his church, a community that always finds a place for rejects."

I think it's not so much just about me anymore.

these days.

I've spent the last year, literally, preparing for this...and yet it is somehow nothing I expected.  Yes, I'm frustrated at some aspects of the program, but I'm also kinda dissapointed in myself.  I had so much confidence.  And now I feel so overwhelmed.

So, so overwhelmed.

I have so much I've wanted, needed, to say but the four foot stack of textbooks now littered on my kitchen table leave no time.

This is not a pity party.  Nope.  I knew what I was signing myself up for, that this was an accelerated program.  I knew all of that.  I just had no idea how very hard it would be.  So, I'm adapting.  Everything.  My life, my time with the kids, my relationship with the man I love, my patience, my tolerance...and I'm also teaching myself to say that it's okay.  This is for now.  This is not permanent.  I will not fail.  I will not fail.

I have so much to say.

(curlygirldesignsdotcom)

Six Years of Katie Jade...

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

(almost) five.



Periodically, I like to stop and pause and remember my kids just as they are, at that exact time.  My babiest boy is changing so much, and I'm feeling those familiar growth pains that come with motherhood.  He is just that...my last baby.  I am lucky to have a son, and I am blessed to have Carter as a son.

Carter Taylor at (almost) five years old.....

I used to always call you my "laid back lovey," partly because I stole the description from your auntie momo because it just fit you so perfectly, and for many many many months, you were just that, very laid back, go with the flow, loves to snuggle little boy.  I joke that this was a welcome change from your horrific infancy, but it's not really a joke at all.  I've loved you every day of your almost five years, but those first six months I would pay A LOT of money not to relive.  Recently, though, I've realized that there is a whole lot more going on in that head of yours then you always let on...  You, my sweet boy, are full of so much personality and character and love.  You are, genuinely, a good good boy. 



You are such a silly boy, you love to laugh.  You love to make your sister and your momma laugh.  I can see the little jokester in you that I'm told was a big part of me :)  You are also, though, very serious.  Sometimes, it's a little annoying, I won't lie, and maybe later in life you will laugh at how dramatic you were over hangnails, but right now none of us are laughing. 

You are so inquisitive....so eager to learn.  When you ask a question, you expect a real answer.  Not a pat "almost five year old" answer...the REAL DEAL.  Sometimes, this makes mommy's life very hard, as I tread lightly around too much information, but I love how much you want to know, and how it all needs to make sense in your little head. 

You absolutely adore your sister.  I will never fully understand how pure your love really is, but your concern and doting over her is adorable.  You are such a sweet boy, always looking after Katie, and even when I'm not looking, bubby, I know that you're giving her the first turn on 'puter games and the Wii.  You're such a good brother.  She will always be the luckiest to have you.

  And you, my sweet boy...you are still my momma's boy.  You love our afternoons together when you get out of school.  Sometimes we have snacks and watch your favorite cartoon, sometimes we play nerf guns, sometimes we play outside...and I treasure this time with you.  Just because I've already sent one child to kindy doesn't mean it is going to be ANY easier to send you off in that great big world.  And right now you are still so happy to snuggle with your momma.  And that makes this momma very very happy.

I wouldn't change a think about you, my amazing little boy.  I love the way you want to know how everything works, why things happen, how problems will be solved.  Your future is so bright.  And when you want to snuggle, I will always be here, with open arms.

I love you baby boy.

big girl. big decision.

I know it seems silly...it's just a haircut.

But she's my baby girl, and she hasn't had a significant haircut one single time in her almost six years of life.  I adore her curls.

Katie begged me right before spring break to cut her hair off.  She said that she wanted it short like some of the other girls in her kindergarten class.  I thought that was a stupid reason, I'm not going to lie, so I was a horrible mother and all manipulative and started showing her pictures of her long curls and telling her how much I loved them and right about the time she started nodding along with me enthusiastically, I realized that it wasn't about me anymore.  It wasn't about her hair.  It's about Katie wanting to make a decision without me.  And I'm going to have to be okay with that.  And right now I don't know how to be okay with that.  But I'm working on it. 

As much as she grows, I'm growing, too.  Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it feels natural.  This motherhood thing is hard and keeps me constantly questioning. 

I have a feeling that I'll be saying that for many many years.

But this was a good day.
And my Katie is as beautiful as she always is.

so excited ;)

look how long it is... :(

at this moment, I did not like that woman.  Not at all.
Don't worry, I still tipped her well.

my lovely

happy.  so happy.

Her first big girl decision.  All by herself.

I know it's just the little things.
But they feel like the big things sometimes.