connections

So many thoughts crashing around in the ol' noggin for the past 5 months. Maybe I can finally put some of them into words. To start out, the pregnancy is going along fast. Too fast. The first trimester is long gone. I wasn't really sick. That is what clued me in that it was probably a girl. Hunter and Mack gave me the yucky sick feeling when I was pregnant with them and I was never sick when I was pregnant with Preslie. I find it interesting, even if it is just a coincidence.

I am excited to have another baby. And by excited I mean terrified. Because it has become all too apparent in the past 5 months that I can barely handle the three children I have. Mostly that is because I can barely handle myself. I still feel like a child. But time relentlessly surges forward not allowing me to stay in my 18-year-old mind set. I miss the feeling that I had everything figured out. The Lord sees fit to push me and try me and works to get this stubborn teenager to grow up and become more refined. It is a painful process. It is humbling. The scripture "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding" has never been so hard. I do believe that life is supposed to be hard and to gain anything worthwhile takes hard work. That is why I believe that Heavenly Father wants us to have children. Many days I wonder why older Mothers and Grandmothers always say, "These are the best years of your life." Then I have a quiet moment--and it doesn't happen very often--that I can step back and get a glimpse of what they mean.


As I am nearing the third trimester of this pregnancy it has hit me how quick time goes. I think God has pushed fast forward button. Even my kids tell me often that they never have time to do the things they need or want to do. I don't remember it being that way when I was little. Days were long and Christmas always seemed forever away. Now our years are a blur with tiny specs of memories scattered in. I feel like I cannot afford to hope things will happen. I have to make them happen. And I have to pick which things I want to happen the very most and do those and forget everything else because there really is no time to waste. I am talking about my family. I want us all to have beautiful relationships and fun memories, and so much love that it cannot be contained. And I am overwhelmed that it must start with me. Not that I don't love my family with all my heart, but sometimes I lose that lovin' feeling when I am cleaning up [fill in the blank] off the [fill in the blank]. And so I guess I need more patience with myself than I need with my kids because I have still not learned the lesson I need to from these experiences.

But the Lord does have a plan for me. And rather than try to figure it all out, I need to take it one day but mostly one minute at a time. Because it is all the little things that add up to something really big.