Recently my daughter started crawling, even more recently my daughter started standing, and a few days ago she started walking while holding on to something. Call it hindering, bad parenting, or whatever else you want too but I started to feel like each time she did something new I was sad. I would usually throw out a smile and encourage her but inside it was heartbreaking. The days seemed so short, and she was growing so fast. When she was first born, the days couldn’t go by fast enough. I wanted to get her off of those machines, the beeping was driving me insane, I wanted those stupid tubes to come out of her nose and mouth. I was tired of watching her repeatedly rip out that feeding tube. Those days lasted FOREVER. Then once she was home we had some difficult days and some difficult nights and I thought I can’t wait till morning or I can’t wait till your father gets home. Now I am constantly finding myself asking when will it slow down? My answer is always never. It doesn’t slow down, I don’t need other mom’s to tell me that, it’s becoming increasingly obvious. I recently started a new job at a company not far from where we live. Obtaining a job was completely my decision, Evan makes plenty of money and we were comfortable but I was being called to do something, and that was to find work. Being out of the house is wonderful, I loved spending all my days with Baby K do not get me wrong, but I had this overwhelming feeling God wanted something different for me. So we found a daycare and we have made this transition with limited complications. Looking back on it, I’ve had this job for a little over a month and I started to think about why I was called to work. And recently He gave me an answer. I needed to realize it’s not the quantity it’s the quality and it hit me almost as instant gratification. It made sense and I truly felt like His message had come in more bold than ever before. The time I have with her is all about the quality. So we changed things a bit, in the mornings Baby K and I have special mommy and me time which we both love, where we eat breakfast, play with toys, get ready and sing songs like Jesus Loves Me. In the evenings when Evan gets home, we read stories, eat dinner, give her a bath, and play till she is tired out. No stress, no fussing, no sitting at home wondering if she is tired of being at the house all the time. I am a happier person and I am a better mother for it. The milestones she makes are beginning to feel less cumbersome on my emotions and are making me proud and encouraging and she is such a social butterfly she loves being around the kids at the daycare all day. To top it all off the Lord blessed me with a wonderful job, with wonderful people, in a wonderful environment in which I can come home stress free with a smile on my face to ensure the time with Baby K is nothing short of such quality which was ultimately the quest from the beginning.
Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it. Proverbs 22:6
Love always,
Baby K and Me
Does He hold your hand…?
I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.
1 Samuel 1:27-28
I did not always have the greatest relationship with God. I was not raised in the church, I attended private school till the first grade and then that was it. I left terrified of God and only went to church occasionally on Easter or Christmas Eve. I knew he existed, I never doubted Him. I always knew He was there and I never wavered from that feeling, however, I did for many years live without a relationship with Him. I did not talk to Him, I did not pray to Him and I did not attend His house every Sunday. But He found me when I got lost and I am forgiven and now walk back hand and hand with Him. Except now, it is not just me and Him, now we are joined by my husband and our daughter and for this I am forever grateful for the blessings He has given me.
Baby K was baptized today. Methodists believe baptism is essential for babies although salvation is a life long process and as she becomes older she will have to profess her love for the Lord and Jesus Christ by herself. Of course Evan and I will steer her in this direction to the best of our ability. As our preacher was reading the vows Evan and I had to accept as spiritual guiders in her life and accepted them wholeheartedly I thought to myself how beautiful she was in her long white dress as she held so still and serene for the preacher. I had been so sure she would try to wiggle out of his arms. But she didn’t, she stayed motionless, the only time she has stayed calm in someones arms all week, practically all month. And I thought isn’t that something? The Lord has made her steady, held her so she did not waver like her mother. I truly believe God has a plan for her, that she will be raised up as a model for Christ in the whole lot of living she has left to do.
Often I think of my life before I truly accepted my faith, how I never felt completed or satisfied. How I would drive past churches and think why people wasted two hours of there weekend every weekend. And I think to myself praise the Lord he steadied me. I wouldn’t have the blessings I have today without the hand of God in mine. Without the hand of God in my husbands. And for this I realize I would have nothing if I remained the same. It fills my heart to know Baby K will always be wrapped in the arms of the Lord, that she will never fall off His path, and if she does Evan and I will be there to guide her back into His loving arms. What a glorious day, praise the Lord, we are immersed in His love. She is a beautiful girl, and I will continue to thank God for her everyday.
Love always,
Baby K and Me
Gone Baby Gone – To Daytona…
I basically wanted to use this particular blog to say happy mother’s day and share some photos from our vacation. I hope you enjoy them, and I hope you enjoy the last few hours of this great holiday to celebrate all the amazing women in all of our lives, the ones still here, and the ones that have left us too soon.
Love always,
Baby K and Me
That’s What I Love About Sundays…
Sundays are for family, they are for cooking Sunday dinner, they are for grocery shopping, they are for leftover homework I put off, BUT MOSTLY they are for God.
When I was younger, probably about 4 or 5 I was actually terrified of God. I am not sure what it was, I think it was probably me taking the lessons the wrong way, like I thought he would flood the world and I might not make it on Noah’s ark (after all I thought he only had room for 2 of each kind), or maybe it was the Jonah and the whale story that scared me, or maybe it was when they taught us one day Jesus was going to come for us and take us away. Of course, I didn’t fully understand these stories and my childhood mind was a creative one so I elaborated these stories and made them many moons more intense than they ever actually were, but the point is, these thoughts faded and I quickly became an adolescent of God, and eventually became the woman of God that I am today.
Now I have a beautiful daughter, a beautiful daughter who has no earthly idea who God is or who Jesus is, or what in the world the bible is and it is my responsibility to introduce these things to her. MY RESPONSIBILITY. In my opinion, the biggest responsibility I will ever have. It is my responsibility to send her to church on Sundays, to read her stories from the bible, to make sure she even has a bible, to make sure she knows that God is not only reserved for Sundays, that she knows she can open her bible on a Tuesday if she would like or to make sure she DOES NOT have to be afraid of him. I want church to be a part of her life, I want church to be a part of our families life, something not just for Easter Sunday or Christmas Eve, something we get up and go to every Sunday, or even a Monday, or if we feel the call to go on a Thursday, we go. We pray. Whenever we feel the need. I want that to be my daughters life and I hope she will accept that kind of life when she has the ability to say no, but chooses not too.
Baby K only now knows the nursery of our church, the large brick walls painted with scenes from Noah’s ark and Daniel in the lions den, but soon she will be receiving Sunday school lessons with the older kids in daycare and I can only hope she feels some sort of completion, some sort of heart felt love, some sort of recognition that she has someone other than mommy and daddy to run to when she needs him. This is what I want for her, and I hope one day she wants the same thing for herself.
Sundays are for lots of things,
but mostly Sundays are for God.
Love always,
Baby K and Me
The Beginning…
7 months ago, I got saved. But it is not what you are thinking, it didn’t come in the form of a revelation, in the form of a baptism, or a salvation statement. I guess in that since I have already been saved. This was a different kind of saving. My baby girl was born 7 months ago August 27th, 2013. I often felt the world had ruined me up until this point, most of my childhood, teenager years and early 20’s were spent feeling sorry for myself. I frequently felt cheated, or abandoned, or found myself making questionable choices. I did not like who I was or where I was going, wherever that was. Sure, I graduated high school and eventually graduated college right before my daughter was born, but even success hides things you want no one else to see.
My mother died when I was so little, she was the victim of a hit and run accident. This has had 21 years to resonate with me. I absolutely felt cheated out of a childhood with my mother, I often still do. My dad was never around, and still keeps to himself, leaving me in the dark about his life. So my grandmother took up the slack, and she is WONDERFUL for it. She is all I have ever known – my grandmother, mother and father all wrapped up into one, and topped with a bow. But this doesn’t mean I didn’t feel like still pieces of me were missing. REALLY OFTEN. But then came August 27th, 2013 and all the negative faded away. The world had ruined me, had brought me down, made me feel hurt, jealous, confused, but when I saw her face, heard her cry, watched her look at me for the first time, everything changed. She made me whole again, she put all my pieces back together. My entire life I had been snorkeling without an oxygen tank but at 3:02pm on that glorious day, I got to come up for air. I could breathe for what felt like the first time. A bond between a mother and a child, something I thought I was robbed of, I would never have, I finally got to experience with the birth of my daughter. I could feel it, touch it, hold it and it was more amazing than I could have ever imagined or dreamed of. I am in awe, always, everyday of our relationship.
So this is my blog about my journey through motherhood, what I have learned, what I am continuing to learn and what we are up to. I hope you enjoy it.
Love always,
Baby K and Me
Coming Up For Air 