My Flock of Five

Wow, 2018 has really flown by for me. Anyone else?

Looking back, it's hard to take in everything that happened.

• Lisanna turned 5 and Arrow turned 4
• I finished up my 3rd year of teaching and started my 4th
• We hit the 2 year mark of living in Japan
• I turned 27
• I found out I am pregnant and carried this baby for 8.5 months (hoping he comes soon!!)
• Brandon and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary and 10 years together mark

Finding out about this little babe in April really changed a lot. I went from being a traveling mama and instagrammer/blogger to being more stay at home and finding joy in the little things.

I think this has been a really good thing. It's caused me to sit back and examine all the blessings in my life. I've slowed down and become more intentional about the time I spend with my kids and husband. The wanderlust was eating away at me, and as I looked at bloggers traveling the world, I wished to do that more. Instead of focusing on raising my family and growing in my relationship with God, I focused on what I didn't have. Instead of enjoying life in Japan, I had a compulsion to go out often enough to take pictures to share. I was letting social media eat up my joy and make me blind to my blessed life.

I'm ashamed to say, instead of appreciating my amazing family, I felt weighed down and held back by them.


Then, in April, I found out I was pregnant for the third time. And then in June, my first baby turned 5. I remembered being pregnant with her and all of my hopes and dreams for her, and took a good look at the young lady she is becoming. And I realized that I wasn't being fair to her. I had been taking her for granted and despising the little moments and the little days. And I decided to change that. To spend more time really listening to her and playing with her, instead of mindlessly scrolling and looking at deals to get away from it all.


And what I discovered is this amazing, brilliant little girl who makes me so proud. She brings me so much more joy than anything else in my life, and I had been blinded to that by my discontent.

And that discovery changed everything. I'm still walking in that love and joy and thankfulness of being her mom. Today we cuddled on the couch all day, then played whisper phone with stuffed animals. We've been building forts and making bracelets and drawing pictures and playing cards and going on coffee dates - opportunities that are so fun and are slipping away with each passing day.



So for this coming year I have only one resolution - do more of what matters. Spend more time with my baby girl and my husband and my two baby boys and quit spending time on the things that are fleeting, the things that still won't matter when my kids are gone and I'm scratching my head and wondering where the time went.

I need to be intentional about where my time goes so I don't wake up on her 10th or 18th birthday, panicking because of how few years are left.

I am so very excited about this new year with a new baby, but what I need to do most is what I started doing halfway through this year. Be thankful for that which I've had, which isn't completely new but is constantly changing and growing before my very eyes every single day.

Sometimes it's hard to be a working parent.

Don't get me wrong. I love my job. It isn't like I just happened into it, it was very intentional.

I wanted a job that would mean something. I knew when I decided that I would one day have a family and someone would need to provide for that family. Whether it would be me or my husband, I didn't know. What I did know was that I wanted the job to be meaningful. I didn't want to just clock in and clock out, spending forty hours a week only providing for my family.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with that - really, there's something noble about doing something that you don't like for the people that you love. It's what my dad did and I'm so thankful for that.

But I guess I'm too much of a millenial for that idea to hold much sway. So I decided to be a teacher - where I could love on and invest in kids every minute of that forty hours.

I find that a lot of people are surprised to learn that I was homeschooled. Someone who was homeschooled becoming a teacher almost seems oxy-moronic. But, if you really think about it, it makes sense. I've met a lot of teachers who do it because someone they love did it - their mom, dad, or grandma. It's not surprising to meet several generations of teachers.

My mom was my teacher - she taught me to love learning and now I do the same for others.

Anyway - back to my main point.

I miss my kids sometimes. A definite plus to teaching is that I get to see them so much more. Now that I've been working in schools for 8 years, it's hard to remember a time when I didn't have spring, summer, fall, and winter breaks. Now that I've been teaching for 3.5 years, I don't know what I would do if I didn't have that time with my kids.

This Christmas break has been so vital for all of us. Especially with the pregnancy, work has been draining me to a point where I just don't get quality time with my kids and husband. Between sheer exhaustion and excessive pregnancy brain, I just hadn't been able to be mentally present.

This break has been chalk full of that quality time already. Am I still tired? Yes, but I can take a short nap (let's be honest - a long nap) and then still wake up and spend time with my kids. The cuddles and smiles and "Mommy, look at what I did!" or "Mommy, will you play with me?" has been recharging my mama heart.

Both kids know a change is coming. They're very excited to meet "our new baby," but even they have been intentional about how they spend their time.

All that said, as I type this on a chilly, peaceful morning I'm ready for them to wake up and disrupt the silence.

Don't get me wrong - silence is golden. But my kids are gems.

Time is a funny thing. It passes by too quickly and not at all. I pause for a second to take a breath and then notice that months have passed. I promise to love this man for my entire life and suddenly seven years of that life have slipped from my grasp. I hold my babies’ hands and teach them each day, only to realize all that once that they are now children. I anxiously await moment after moment only to look back a few years later.

 I can’t slow it down or speed it up. I can’t stop it from ebbing and flowing. All I can do is intentionally monitor how I spend that time. If I’m not careful, even guarding my time passes me by. It’s too easy to get caught up in the day to day. It’s too easy to count the seconds to bed time when the kids are driving me crazy and to take for granted the sweet innocence with which they view life right now. They won’t always desire all of my attention or be so excited to tell me about each and every detail of their little lives.

 I can see my children growing up before my eyes. Suddenly, my chubby baby is a tall, thin, friendly, and intelligent girl. Suddenly, my little squishy ball of energy is a boy with striking green eyes, insecurities about a new brother joining the family, and the ability to build Legos according to instruction booklets. I see them living this life, loving their family, and struggling with being human, and I see my time with them under my wing slipping away. This last seven years of marriage has flown by, and their 4 and 5 years of life are no exception. This new baby is entering our lives soon, too, bringing even more starkly into contrast how very quickly time passes. It seems like I just found out I was pregnant and now this little one is due in less than a month. 

And I wonder, am I doing my best as a parent? Do they know how much I love them? Do they know that I adore them? That I rejoice with them in successes and mourn in failures? That even though they sometimes drive me crazy, I miss them every single second we are away? That sometimes I even want to wake them up to spend more time with them?

 The answer is “I don’t know.” But I’m going to tell them again today.