mother's day & six years

first off...thank you for all the encouraging comments on the last post. i have spent many nights re-reading them all. thank you, thank you, thank you. 

today our family is celebrating mother's day and our six years of marriage. i had no idea that being a mom to ava and lyla would give me such purpose and life and joy and that my love for justin would be more real and intimate and honest six years in. we sat at lunch today and talked about our marriage and all that we have walked through together. just one year ago i peed on a stick at barnes and noble and my dollar store pregnancy test confirmed what i sorta already knew. baby number two. the one we had prayed so hard for. that my body would be completely healed and healthy enough to carry another child. our little miracle baby. who would be even more of a miracle if she slept better at night. kidding.

on mother's day every year we sit at lunch and justin shares with me things he loves and appreciates about me. it's kinda nice. ava got involved in that a bit today with some prompting from daddy. mostly she likes that i let her watch tv, feed her breakfast, and read her books. glad those are the three things that stick out in her little mind. i do like today. i know that not every person likes today. there might be a lot of hurt around this day. for all sorts of reasons i am sure. but my hope is that every person has some woman in their life and that today they make sure they know how loved they are. you don't have to have your own kids to necessarily celebrate today. there are a lot of ladies who love my girls and are guiding them and teaching them. thankful for the people we have around us. it's a special thing.

when we celebrate our anniversary we always talk about the last year and all that it held and what we think is next. not sure why we do that since basically every year of marriage has brought some sort of surprise. some joyful and some terribly sad. we prayed hard that this year would be one of joy. i do prefer joy over hard things. i know we can do hard things. the past few years have shown us that. but it does take a hold of your heart and sometimes things never really go back to how they once were. justin says we lost our innocence when i got cancer. i think he is right. although we are young we have walked through real.  real hard stuff...like many of you...and sometimes it feels like your drowning. it's too sad and too scary but we do it. because no one said life would always be joyful. i have been thinking about this a lot lately. how the Lord really does have a purpose in the hard stuff. i am toiling over it all a bit. plan to write about it this week. so check back.

i like being a mom. i don't recall being obsessed with the whole mom thing as a young girl, but i am not sure so i will ask my mom. i guess it just seemed natural. i desire to create memories and take walks and get ice cream and be a mom that says yes more than no. ava often says to me..."oh, mom you say yes all the time." i am glad she thinks that because my heart doesn't always feel that way.
i have not felt "on point" lately. i don't wanna be a broken record here but i am blaming it on lack of sleep. so this past week without justin home i kinda lost it. i yelled. i cussed (mostly under my breath and in my head because ava is very impressionable). i cried. i lost my temper. i got mad easily. so ava...if you read this some day i am sorry. i am so sorry for this past week (i did tell her in person too. but you can do it more than once). for getting way angrier than probably necessary. i am going to try better tomorrow.

i think when an off day happens...we should confess, ask for forgiveness, be forgiven, and move on.  try again tomorrow. because although i would not trade being a mom for anything else in the world there is a lot of stuff about being a mom that i don't like. just to name a few: laundry, sleepless nights, a three year old who does not listen, repeating myself all day long, taking kids in and out of car seats just for one quick errand. if this were safe i would love if every parking lot had an attendant that would watch your locked car while you ran into the store for literally 2-3 minutes. wouldn't that be so nice? if it weren't illegal. i don't love unloading the dishwasher either but i am pretty sure that is just part of life not a mom thing. just me being lazy and taking for granted that a machine washes our dishes.

but as my husband shared some thoughts with me today and spoke into my heart and into my life as a woman and a mother i felt okay. i felt okay about not loving everything about being a mother or a wife. i am not a failure if it is not always joyful and fun. but my heart...my desire is that my life, my husbands, and my girls is one full of hope and purpose and laughter. i want to laugh more. i want to have fun. you know? we should all just have more fun with each other. i know people do annoying things. i sure do. justin does. i tend to harp on him about the things he is not the best at. but what if for year seven...i complimented him more. encouraged him. wrote him little notes. always said i love you. always kiss. anytime of day. you come home...kiss. you leave...kiss. you get it. just be close. be intentional. but because we get busy and we get lazy and those little things. those important little things that are actually the huge things...well they make the difference. i am convinced that the more justin and i laugh and have fun and say i love you...that is what will keep this thing going. maybe i am naive. i probably am. but i don't care. i want that. i want real. i want deep. i real deep love. so that's my goal for year seven. my goal as a mother. same thing. express my love for the girls so much that it annoys them. i am totally fine with being annoying. because life is hard sometimes and i want our home to be one of joy. where we can all breath a little easier because the pressure is off.  

i take things for granted. maybe you do to. after cancer and losing pop pop i want our life to matter. each day. every choice. the little things and the big huge gigantic things. they all matter. this will be the year. this year will not be wasted. seems like it should be the new year or something but i kinda like jump starting the year on our anniversary. so here we go.

happy mother's day to everyone out there. happy mother's day to my own mom. you shaped me into  the person i am today.