Living with Less

Dear Life,

On Christmas Eve I was feeding Emberly before church and fiddling on my phone. I occasionally (and by occasionally I really mean at least 3 times a week) check the West Fargo Public Schools webpage to see if there are any job postings that sound interesting. Why do I do this? Oh... probably just to torment myself. Well this particular time there was a job posting for a half-time first grade teacher position in Harwood. Um... interesting! I stewed over it the rest of the day and all day on Christmas day too. It sounded absolutely perfect. But that's all I knew about it... half-day, first grade teacher. So I emailed the principal and found out that the class was too big and was being split just in the mornings for math and reading. So... the person hired would be teaching my two very favorite subjects to about 14 kids in the mornings only (which is usually the time Jordan does not work so we wouldn't need daycare). UGH.

I went into hyper panic excitement mode and started emailing for references and filling out the application and digging out my teaching license...

But you see, Jordan and I are reading this book called "Living with Less so your Family has More" (it's by Jill and Mark Savage). The little tagline on the bottom of the book is redefining your priorities to put your family first. And this little voice kept creeping in, asking me what I would gain by taking this job, and what I would lose. You see, I LOVE Emberly more than I could ever explain to someone. I LOVE Jordan more than that. I love being able to be a mommy and a wife and not feeling like I'm always cutting someone or something short.

This book makes us think about what "less" really means, defining it as... less money, less insurance, less to invest for the future, fewer promotions, fewer opportunities and activities (which are definitely things to consider)... but on the flipside defines more in terms of intangibles that we often forget about because we're thinking of the dollars. More availability, more peace, more patience, more kindness, more joy, better health, more organization, more energy and intentionality for parenting and in our marriage, more attentiveness, more time, more margin...

Even when it was just Jordan and I, we were eating out a lot, we were living in the same house and working opposite hours, we were frustrated with each other more, and we were not able to keep up on laundry and cleaning and house projects. Adding Emberly to the mix with both of us working would only make it more that way.

You see... we may live in our modest home for a very long time. And we may need to do without cable TV for...ever. And we may have to live with our measly amount of "fun money" we allow ourselves each month for a very long time. And we may not get to go on huge vacations. And we may not be able to buy brand new cars. But we are not hurting - in fact, we are splendidly happy. Dare I say even more satisfied than we were when we were both working full time jobs and hardly seeing each other?



So about that job I mentioned. It turns out that Jordan's schedule just wouldn't allow it to be possible anyway. His schedule is just too unpredictable and we wouldn't be able to find daycare so sporadically. But... I think it's a blessing in disguise. I'm into the more peace, more availability, more patience, more kindness, more joy, better health, more organization, more energy, more margin...

Did I want that job? Absolutely. I love teaching. I really really love teaching. But there will be a time in my life where that will happen again. And if it doesn't - I'm ok with that. I really am. (And I'm documenting this because I am absolutely 100% sure that I will forget some days and need a reminder.) I can't wait to teach Miss Emberly about life. About Jesus. About sharing. How to read. How to bake. About kindness. About giving. About truth.

One of my former coworkers told me when I was making my decision about staying home this year, "Molly, you'll have plenty of time to raise other people's children later (in reference to teaching). Go ahead and raise your own children right now." :) I didn't realize I needed permission... but I think I did. Staying home is so counter cultural right now, which is really a sad thing. I know it's not the perfect solution or the answer to everyone's situation... but I believe it is in our situation. So here's the end of my winey piney road of missing teaching. I get to be a MOM - full time. Best benefit package around.

Plus... who'd stuff the fluffy cloth diapers?? I am not sharing that job with Mr. Spouse!

Yours Truly,
Molly

PS - I do get to go help with AIMSweb testing in the schools part of next week and the full following week! I am anxious, excited, nervous, and thrilled to get to do it. My former principal contacted me to see if I'd like to help and I jumped on the short-term committment. Why am I so anxious? Well... I have never left Emberly for that long and she still won't take a bottle. Hmmm... we'll see how this goes!

Emberly's First Christmas

Here are a few Christmas favorites...

Four Generations!

Ice fishing maddness...

Passed. Out.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Love,

Emberly

(Almost 4 months)

Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas!

I wish I could explain how long it took me to get a copy of my Christmas card on here.Seriously. I am so not technologically savvy. (And it's still kind of blurry... sorry!) But I really wanted to document our very first Christmas picture/letter…and let’s be honest… I’m so going to lose it by next Christmas.If Emberly has any hope of remembering her childhood, it will be thanks to the internet.

NOW… I am hoping most of you have gotten our Christmas card by now, but in case you haven’t, here it is! If you are looking at these pictures and thinking to yourself, “I did not get those pictures – I got a homemade version…”well… it’s because I had this brilliant idea that I’d make our Christmas cards this year.So I had pictures printed and started the process… and then remembered I had a 3-month old baby.I scrapped my plan and ordered cards.Apparently, however, I did not order enough cards, because we just kept thinking of more people to send Christmas cards to!So… I dug out my partly finished homemade cards and some people got homemade cards, and some people got Shutterfly made cards.Don’t read too far into this folks – I do not like you more or less if you got one or the other. Who are we kidding?I do not have the brain power to distinguish between the two right now.I was just happy I got them mailed out!

It is Christmas Eve and Emberly has been sleeping since 9:00.I have been working on this since (not telling!) and now I need to go to sleep.This seems to be the story of my life.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Molly

Thankful

Dear Life,

Today my heart is absolutely full to the brim with excitement for Christmas and thankfulness for the wonderful people in my life and love love love for my wonderful husband and precious baby girl. What makes the difference from my oh-so-crabby day yesterday you wonder? I'm ashamed to say that my time with the Lord has been lacking absent lately. I've prioritized stuff and a clean house and even being a good mom and a good wife over spending time with the Lord. These things aren't bad in themselves, but they aren't good in themselves either. Balance, balance, balance. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. More of Him and less of me.

Jordan and I have been memorizing Colossians 3 since... well... before Emberly was born. We are slooowly adding verses day by day. The first verses just hit me like a ton of bricks this morning though as I realized my priorities were all out of wack.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on this earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1-3)

Got it, Molly?? Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on this earth. Above above above.

So there. If I get crabby and icky again, feel free to Jesus check me. I need it every day.

Yours Truly,
Molly

PS - Other things that aided in my peachy day? 1- Emberly took a bottle again! YAY!!! 2- I got to run some errands while grandma babysat! YAY!!! 3- I bought some clothes that fit me well and actually are kind of fun! YAY!!! 4- Christmas is in 6 days! YAY!!! 5- We had crockpot Chicken and Dumplings for lunch today and they were amazing! YAY!!!

Little Complaints and Big Blessings

Dear Life,

I'll be honest... I'm in kind of a "mood." You know, the kind that colors everything an ugly shade of gray? I obviously woke up on the wrong side of the bed... which is too bad, because I totally wasted my day with my crabbiness.

There. I just wanted to be honest, because I think it's easy to color my days as sunshine and daisies in form of a blog post. So let me vent for 30 seconds, that's all I will take, I promise:

1. Why, oh why, do you ask if my baby is a boy or a girl when she is wearing an outfit with bright pink stripes, a giant pink cupcake on the front, and is wrapped in a pink blanket?

2. It hurts my feelings when you ask me what I do with my time at home. I am busy. All.Day.Long. I feed the baby, change the baby, play with the baby, clean the house, do the laundry, clean the messes, shop for the groceries, do the best to plan healthy meals, cook, run the errands... and it might seem trite. But it's not. At the end of the day I am absolutely exhausted. And I'm embarrassed that I'm exhausted because I only have one bambino. I don't know how parents of more than one child do it. The worst part is that there are days that I start to believe the lie that these things are not enough because I'm not getting paid for them or leaving the house with a "real job" (hate that).

3. I hate that I am a people pleaser. It leaves me exhausted at the end of the day because I can't say no. (Working on that.)

4. Why does my sweet baby girl not nap during the day? I think this would make my life much easier.

5. Why won't the pregnancy weight just drip off of me like it is supposed to? Baby has been out for almost 4 months.

I promised only 30 seconds, so if you are a fast reader I think I held true to my promise. I'm sorry I took it out on you. Will you forgive me?

So now let me think of some things that I am grateful for because those are the things I should be dwelling on anyway:

1. I have an absolutely fantastic husband who works incredibly hard to allow me to stay at home with Emberly every day. This no doubt results in more sleep, more quality time, healthier meals, more organization, less stress...

2. I just ate my emotions in the form of a bowl of Reeses peanut butter cereal. Delicious.

3. I only have 7 pounds left to lose from my rediculous baby weight gain. Woot woot!

4. Emberly sleeps well 97% of the time.

5. My mom is babysitting tomorrow so I can get some errands done. The rest of the working world will be at work so I don't have to deal with holiday shopping crazies. Praise the Lord!

6. Christmas is in 7 days and I cannot wait to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

7. I got to go to Bethel's Christmas program tonight and it was super refreshing to sing Christmas music, listen to talented musicians, and snuggle a sleeping baby.

8. Jordan's 'Friday' is tomorrow and I cannot wait to have a weekend with him.

9. I had a lovely conversation on the phone with my mom tonight and she let me vent and made me laugh. Both were a necessity. We talked for 56 minutes. When we hung up I still had more I wanted to say. Blessed by that friendship.

10. Jordan will be home from work in less than 2 hours.

11. Emberly is sleeping and the house is delightfully quiet.

12. I haven't done laundry other than diapers and baby laundry in at least a week and Jordan doesn't care.

13. Tomorrow is Monday and I do not have to be anywhere.

14. Jordan, Emberly, and I went on a walk today. It was 55 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze. There is no snow on the ground and it is December 18th.

15. My brother comes home on Tuesday or Wednesday! I miss him a lot.

16. Emberly is a fantastically healthy, growing baby that shares lots of smiles with us every day.

17. I have a comfy cozy bed that I get to sleep in every night in a warm house.

Speaking of that warm cozy bed... it is time to crawl into it before sweet baby girl decides she's hungry.

Goodnight!

Molly

Rolling

Emberly rolled from her tummy to her back yesterday for the first time.

Hip Hip Hooray!

How is it the middle of December???

Dear Life,
Um... how in the world did it get to be December 15th without me noticing?! I'm a little behind in seemingly every aspect of my life it feels like...

(Intermission - Crying baby)

Ok... where was I? I think I was filling you in on the craziness that is our lives these days. I will try to do an abreviated version.

We had the honor of introducing our sweet Emberly to my 92-year-old great grandma two weekends ago. It was an absolutely special time. Grandma Clara even asked if she could hold Emberly. It was so sweet.

Emberly had her second play-date with her friend Harper who is just 8 weeks older than Emberly. (Mind you, she had no idea it was a play-date, and slept through the entire first one, and most of the second one. We'll work on manners later...) It was so fun to see how much more Harper is doing at just 8 weeks older. I think my favorite moment though, was when Harper started crying, and Emberly just looked at her and started right in on the crying too. Ha. Goofy girl. (Um... notice how Emberly is pretty much the same size as Harper? Yeah. 8 weeks younger. Yikes!)

We also went to lunch with my Westside first grade teacher friends. It reminded me how much I missed school. School, mind you... not the craziness of firsties right before Christmas. :)

What else? Oh! Jordan and I decided to plough into our basement bathroom and change the nasty flooring into something slightly more our style. We also took out the nasty mirror/medicine chest-ish thing and put a flat mirror in, and took out the countertop and changed that too. We LOVE the final result:



Before & After

We also got to spend some time with Grandma Tracie when she was in town, I brought dinner to the Perry Center with some ladies that I go to a mom's group with, I hosted a baby shower for my sweet sister-in-law who is due at the end of January (cannot wait!), we got together with two couples for dinner on two occasions, we took dinner and dessert to our Missional Community we are a part of through our church, I have been teaching River City Kids (preschoolers at church) on Sunday mornings, I have been working on making Christmas gifts... and the list goes on and on. Yesterday I took the day off from "stuff" and Emberly and I just cuddled and talked and played. It was much needed. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of what is important in life. I love people and I love to help other people, but if my family is suffering because of it, I have my priorities out of order.

So - here is to a fresh start. I know it could be so easy to be consumed by our culture's idea of Christmas and the craziness of the season these next two weeks. I often measure my worth and success by what I am doing and how clean my house is and all of the extras. However, Christmas is about celebrating the birth of a precious baby, born in a manger, that came to save you and me from our sinfullness that we deal with each and every day. The sin in our lives that places us and our importance over the importance of our Savior, whether we do this consciously or not. Thank goodness for Grace.

AND... at the risk of this getting all too long, I'll give you a brief Emberly update:

1. Emberly has decided that sucking on her hand is the bomb-diggity. She very consistently gets it into her mouth now, unless she's tired. She even likes to try to suck on her hand while nursing. This does not work the best.

2. She wakes up happy 99.9% of the time. Love, love, love!

3. She had a spell of about a week or so where she'd wake up several times during the night and want to nurse all.the.time. I think it's over. We've been back to sleeping 12+ hours a night, and only waking up once. Praise the Lord!

4. She is wearing 9 month clothes. Yes. My 3 1/2 month old.

5. She loves to talk and coo and has THE.BEST. giggle ever.

6. She loves the bath. It works as a great distraction if she is a tish on the crabby side.

7. She looks in the mirror and smiles at herself and it's probably the cutest thing ever.

8. If I had a dollar for every person that told me, "She must look like your husband because I can't even tell she's your daughter!" or "Wow does she ever look like Jordan!" I would be rich.

That's all for now. (That's plenty for now, isn't it?)

Yours Truly,
Molly

Clipping Fingernails

Dear Life,

Maybe you'll laugh... but one of the things baby-wise that I'm most terrified to do is clip Emberly's fingernails. I'm not kidding. They're just so tiny and she's so wiggly and I oh-so-accidentally clipped her poor little finger once and she cried and cried and cried and cried. I felt all kinds of terrible.

So... if I can somehow manage to leave her with her Grandma for an hour or two and conveniently slip the fingernail clipper in the diaper bag and drop an (oh-so-subtle) hint that her fingernails are really long... sometimes she comes home with freshly cut fingernails and I didn't have to stress over the process. (Genius, right?) :)

Today, however, Emberly had given herself quite a gash on the nose from her sharp little fingernails, so I knew I had put off cutting her fingernails long enough. Grandma was not around (I checked). I had to do it myself.

So, my friends, I took that fingernail clipper out, opened the blinds for optimal lighting, and I cut those teeny tiny little fingernails. Each and every one. And I didn't even get her finger this time. Sigh.Of.Relief. Phew!

Yours Truly,
Molly


PS - Just in case you were wondering, my sweet sleeps-through-the-night baby stopped sleeping through the night. She was waking up 2 or 3 times and wanting to nurse for a very long time (for it being the middle of the night and all). It happened about the same time I tried stretching her out during the day by setting up a feeding schedule. SO... I quit. Yesterday she ate whenever she got hungry. Sometimes it was every two hours, sometimes it was 4. Yup. And last night, baby girl only woke up once and went right back to sleep. Is this related, or am I making it up? Someone experienced, please feel free to offer experience. Do I just need to tough it out? Oh - on another related note, my I-took-a-bottle-like-a-champ-the-first-time baby will absolutely not drink out of a bottle anymore either. Gee whiz. Are we regressing??

Dad and Daughter Entertainment

Someone told us that once you have kids, they become your entertainment. This is so very true. Here are a few Dad & Daughter randoms that made us smile or laugh recently...

Jordan is teaching Emberly how to play Uno.
Don't worry, we'll save poker for next week.

Emberly discovered her voice was super interesting if Jordan bounced her on his knee. She did this for 15+ minutes. (Notice us laughing hysterically in the background? Remember me mentioning that your children become your entertainment? Yup. We are suckers.)

Jordan and Emberly talk all.the.time. In their own language. I don't understand it, and she won't do it with me... but she'll do it with him for long periods of time. They bond.

Stuff

Recent milestones:

1. I've tried to switch over from my feed-on-demand theme to more of a schedule. Today was day 2. Yesterday was awesome. Today was a little trickier. I think, however, it will be worth it if I can stick it out. I hesitated blogging this because some of you can't believe I've fed on demand this long, and others of you think I'm mean for switching to a schedule. Oh well :) I am just trying to do what seems right at the time!

2. The past two days I've been sitting Emberly facing out on my lap and reading books with her so she can see the pages. She loves it. I might be making that up because I'm a teacher and I so desperately want her to love books, but if she is upset it seems to distract her and she flails her arms and stops crying and seems to be enthralled. :) love.

3. We set up the exersaucer today. It says 4 months and up on the box, but we put a blanket behind her so she's well supported, and she loved looking at the toys. We only had her in there a short time, but I have a feeling it will be a fun new toy before long.

4. Her (whole) fist is more consistently going into her mouth. She has thrown a few little baby tantrums when it goes away and she can't figure out how to get it back.

5. We seem to be back to our regular sleep schedule of her waking up once around 5am or so and sleeping from 9pm-9am give or take. So blessed.

Ok those are the major things that I can think of. Baby is tucked into bed and I'm headed straight for a glass of wine and a hot bath. :) I've been staying up far too late after I tuck her in, so I am determined to crash on the early side tonight. Goodnight!