Running with Tabblettes: November 2013

Monday, November 4, 2013

GRACE

Jared and I have been feeling quite sleep deprived lately...It feels like we have a newborn again. Over the past few weeks, the girls have been taking turns being sick, Chloe is teething, and Lucy is in a twin bed now which means she gets out of bed through the night as she pleases. Our new norm is to get up in the night at least once every night and it's starting to wear us thin. A lot of nights we get up 4 or 5 times with the girls and this recent time change hasn't helped! Our earliest riser is now getting up at 5:00! We have been consuming large amounts of coffee and taking big doses of patience and grace but it's not that easy. I don''t know about you but I need my coffee before I can truly function. When I'm up so early in the morning with Lucy after I hardly slept the night before, there is very little patience or grace, folks. Just being honest.

Chloe, my 14 month old is getting her 1 year molars in and therefore has spent the majority of the past few days screaming. Just walking around the house, aimlessly, screaming. It. Has. Been. a delight. :P

To get to the point; no, I'm not trying to vent online about how horrible my kids are, blah, blah, blah...
I want to share my outlook on getting through the tough times. We've all heard the phrase, "This too shall pass" and in my little world, that phrase offers me so much hope because it's true! Every tough phase that I've gone through in life has indeed either "passed" or God taught me how to live through it. For example; when each of our girls were newborns, we felt like we would never feel normal again! We were SO sleep deprived and I was on an emotional roller coaster with a touch of the baby blues. Eventually, our babies did learn how to sleep through the night though and we felt normal again, more rested, and ready to go through the next phases of parenthood. Right now I know, or at least I hope that our girls wont be getting up in the night forever. In the middle of the night and early in the morning, it's hard to have grace and to be patient and even loving but I just have to remember that wether they're sick, had a bad dream, teething, or just plain being ornery and not staying in their bed, I am called by God to treat them in the way that God treats us, His children.

I was up at around 5:30 this morning after a night of on and off sleeping and it would have been so easy to use my sleepiness as an excuse to be grouchy and let my kids sit in front of the tv all day but the show must go on. I've heard it said before that you have to be the person that you want your children to become. They are always watching us and mimicking our actions, good and bad. (scary!)

Even though I'm so tired and weary in this phase, I know that it too shall pass so until it does, I am going to make the choice to be a good mom. I will take my extra dose of patience in the morning. I will look to God's word for encouragement and strength. I will try my hardest to hold my tongue when I want to lash out because that only results in fear or resentment. I will be loving, caring, understanding, and fair. Most of all, I want my actions to reflect God's love. I want my children to see my love for Christ, not my anger and frustration toward them.

I know I will make mistakes. I've already made plenty, but while my children are still so little and impressionable, I want to give it my all to mold them into the women that Christ longs for them to be and to remember to apologize to them when I do mess up so that they know the difference between right and wrong. There are so many memories to be made in these years and I want those memories to be good ones.

I recommend reading, "Grace Based Parenting" by Dr. Tim Kimmel if you haven't already. I'm currently reading it and it was definitely the inspiration for this post. Here's a quote from the book to think about: "You've been handed a piece of history in advance--a gracious gift you send to a time you will not see.

Friday, November 1, 2013

No, I'm not M.I.A

Whew! These past two months have been a whirlwind! Let me get you up to speed on all the happenings.

Since my last post I have been training for the half marathon, started a new job as a pre-school teacher and therefor put my kiddos in the pre-school where I teach, injured my knee from running, was sick and had sick children on and off, husband traveled for work, 2 of my daughters had birthdays, I had a birthday, Lily-Kate started dance, and Jared and I started working in our church's youth group on Wednesday nights. I'm out of breath from typing all of that. ;)

Let's start with running. A few weeks ago, when attempting my 7 mile run, I felt a new kind of soreness in my left knee. Seeing as I am a new (stupid) runner, I didn't pay much attention to it, thinking no pain no gain, right? Wrong! I tried to run 6 miles the next week and had to stop after mile 4 because my knee was in so much pain. I iced it at least once a day for a week and took about 2 weeks off from training as well as purchasing some new running shoes from Fleet Feet, per the advice of a more knowledgable, more experienced runner friend. You know who you are. ;)
Once the knee was feeling better I got back to running, starting at 3 miles and now I'm up to 9 miles. 9 miles!!! I'm incredibly proud of myself because I NEVER thought that was possible! I will be running my first 15k race this Saturday, the Tulsa Run, and the Route 66 half marathon is in 4 weeks!

The job: A couple weeks after my daughter had started pre-k, the preschool director at our church approached me about taking on a teaching position. One of the teachers had decided last minute to not teach this year and the school year was about to start. The director told me that all 3 girls could attend Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday and I would only teach Tuesday and Thursday. That meant I would have 1 day a week all to myself to do whatever I needed to do/ wanted to do. Ever since our third child was born, I had been saying, If I could just have ONE day to myself, I could get so much accomplished and that's exactly what I got! One day where I can clean the bathrooms, do the dishes, or go shopping minus the kiddos. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely treasure my time at home with the girls, I really do, BUT, I have a 14 month old who insists on "helping" me load the dish washer and who unrolls an entire roll of toilet paper while I try to clean the bathroom and two other little helpers who think that if I'm sweeping, they need to sweep too with their little play brooms and suddenly my pile of dust and crumbs on the floor is once again strewn about the house. (sigh) When I'm home with the girls, I'd much rather be playing with them so that's why this "mommy day" is so nice. Also, now that we are a family of 5, we are so thankful for the extra money. I didn't think there was any way I could have a job at this phase in our life but this job provides me with the ability to take the girls with me. I love teaching my class of 3 year olds. They are at such an enjoyable age. It's definitely a challenge but I do love it. I'm so thankful that I was given the opportunity to work amongst friends at a christian pre-school and share the love of Christ with the little boys and girls in my class and also SO grateful that my girls have the opportunity to attend! They LOVE it and have learned so much already! We took Lily-Kate out of public school but she will return next year for kindergarten. (tear) God basically opened the door and lovingly pushed me through it with this job. =)

Life is BUSY, folks, but we are happy, blessed, and doing the best we can during these precious years while our kiddos are little. =)

Here are a few pics of what we've been up to the past couple months.