Blogs are becoming very popular. It's a space to share your opinions, ideas, parenting/cooking/schooling/cleaning tips...
There's something to reading a blog - this person has it together enough to put their thoughts in one place, so we dub them somewhat of an expert. We look to their sage wisdom and advice....
I started this blog back in the days of myspace. I started it as a means of keeping up with family, posting semi-anonymous updates wondering if my voice would be heard out there somewhere in the world.
I've dusted it off every so often, spewed some pearls of my own wisdom...or lack of it...then promised myself I'd keep up with it....and lost sight of it again.
To me, Blogdom has become a place of community of sorts. I follow a few blogs and mostly I do it because I read them and I realize I'm not alone. I'm not the only person to feel lonely in a crowded room, or to feel overwhelmed when I've spent hours cleaning my home just to return to my living room and discover it's now covered in every toy that was once in its proper place in the play room.
I'm not the only one to wish for bedtime at 3 in the afternoon, or to think "oh my bob how do people with more than one kid do it?!"
One of the blogs I follow, Scissortail Silk...she's such an encouragement. and she never makes me feel like that meme where the mother is disheveled in yoga pants looking at posts on pinterest thinking "all these moms are making their own soaps and I'm here thinking I took a shower and kept the kids alive"
yes, I've got my productive and creative side and there are projects I'm very proud of. Then there's stuff I'm not proud of....like the empty box of snack cakes that I ate in one sitting. (shhhhhh....)
One night when I couldn't sleep I read back through my blog from the beginning. There were a lot of whiny posts. There were some good ones where I was learning the lessons God had for me and recognizing them as good things and not just "Why can't I catch a break here!?"
My last post was around two years ago....talking about my (now) three year old and finding the beauty in the mess and the blessings in the chaos (giggle break here...as I'm thinking back to that blog and remembering watching the peaceful sleeping child after I wrote it my daughter is shouting "UM A LITTLE HELP HERE!?" which means she's tired of trying to figure out how to unzip something herself....)
My living room no longer has a bright colored alphabet foam mat on it. I'm back to a pretty rug....but there's a rather large conspicuous corner staring at me - it's full of books, crayons, markers, crafting supplies and in place of the pretty painting of the flowers there's a chart of the alphabet and a cloth "tell me about today" mat hanging. Yup, my tiny baby is homeschooling. It seems like just yesterday I was in the hospital, (I'm on the fence about posting that birth story....I had an unheard of short labor for a first child who had to be encouraged to show up...) I remember breathing through the pain, determined to have a natural childbirth and remembering that every contraction brought me that much closer to holding my little girl. The doctor placed her on my chest then she was whisked away for all the usual newborn things...then I finally got to really hold her and look at her - and I looked at this tiny baby that I had called "Bean" for nine months and thought wow she is REALLY tiny....I looked at my bundle of joy and said "oh hi Peanut!" and it stuck. She's been my little peanut ever since. We knew she wouldn't be a huge baby...they estimated she'd be between 6-7 pounds. She was 5 pounds 8 ounces and 18 inches of adorable.
Now she's three. She stands just over three feet tall, her vocabulary makes most people ask me "HOW old did you say she is???" She loves books, music, art - she adores sign language and is a little sponge. She is probably the most eager student I've ever come into contact with. It doesn't matter if it's a weekend or late at night "mama I want to do school!"
So I searched out Christian homeschooling blogs. I reached out to friends who homeschool. we joined a co-op.....all the things we should do right?
But I can't seem to find the blog that tells me how to press pause on this kid.
Yes. I take an obnoxious amount of pictures of her. I try to remember the hilarity of her telling me "this one will have to do" when pulling a tissue out of a box. I post to facebook about her antics....write in her baby book when I remember that she has one.....
She's three.
how on earth did that happen?
She's good at it too.
She can stretch a bowl of soup over two hours when she knows nap time follows lunch. She can make you think mutant spiders have invaded by the sounds of her shriek when she's told no.
A lot of times I look at her and the things that she can do that are far beyond her age level...and it shocks me when she does the things that are "normal" for a three year old....like throwing herself on the floor when I say it's time for a nap. Or entering a room it took me an hour to clean and organize and dismantling it before I can reheat my coffee.
But she can also climb up next to me on the couch and tell me she wants to say her verse then rattle off every verse I've ever taught her...and surprise me by remembering the newest one that we've gone over twice. She grabs her little pink guitar and sings Jesus Culture songs. She'll bring a book that she's memorized and go through the pages "reading" it aloud - then take it one step further and point out the words that she CAN read.
She's an only child and will remain that way....so I do my best to treasure it all...the beauty, the mess, the chaos, the lessons....but really, I'd like to find that blog on how to pause.
