All About Grace

Everything is about the kids. Every moment is spent playing, teaching, keeping the peace between our two little ones. I feel like I'm back to the infancy stage of having a child. Every moment new and all encompassing. Quckly the things that I loved for myself have fallen off of my independent radar. Tennis, reading, singing at church. All of these things take away moments of physical touch and immediate attention to Prim so slowly they are added to a list of things I will do again once she is more adjusted. At first I felt a bit resistant to giving up these things temporarily. After all, I've only had one child for so long and had finally gotten into a routine that was comfortable for me. G was in preschool and I had all of the time in the world to play tennis, run errands and do things that I enjoyed for myself. I had finally found the "me" in motherhood and I loved it.
It has been hard letting go these past few weeks. At first I felt like I let myself down by not being able to keep the same schedule. That I had allowed my time to be dictated beyond the needs of the individual I had become after moving here. I could finally define myself in words other than wife, mother.....
It took a friend saying to me, "you only have this time once in their life and you have all of those other things to start again forever" for me to finally relax. I don't know why it wasn't ok for me to say that on my own. That it took permission from someone else for me to breathe and not feel guilty. I think it was God's way of shifting my focus once again. It's so easy to get off track, even with the change that we've had in our family. Instead of grasping for the way things were, I should have been holding on to this precious gift in those first few weeks with gratitude.
Now I'm ready. Thank you Lord for these two children that make me a better person. Amen.