"Hilda Must be Dancing"

 
Like any mom who has nowhere else to meet other moms the first thing I searched for in Conyers was a library. They have a beautiful library with a lot of children's programming that I took the kids to last week. Believe it or not, library story times can be a social jungle for someone like me. Nightmares about having the kid who throws a tantrum about leaving while they all shoot laser beams from their eyes at me danced through my brain before we went. Luckily no such thing happened.

 

I was reminded something important about Jameson while we were there though. While reading "Hilda Must be Dancing" all the other kids were getting down, shaking their tailfeathers etc. Jameson wasn't. He has not ever danced on his own accord that I am aware of. We're raising an introvert. A cautious, deep thinking, wonderful introvert. I think the biggest fear of any parent of an introvert is that the rest of the world will never see how wonderful we know our children are. He's talented at so many things but doesn't like to share his talents until he really trusts someone.  He truly enjoys playing by himself. In a setting like this it can be difficult as a parent. My child isn't doing what all the other kids are doing. He's not answering questions that I know he knows the answer to. And then I remember that it really doesn't matter. I know how smart and wonderful he is, and as long as we make sure he knows it too, we've done our job.

So many more things happened this week, including but not limited to an awesome visit by my aunt, Christmas festivities, a one eyed cat and a visit from the wobbly plumber. I won't go into the plumber thing.

My aunt lives only four hours away. It is the ultimate saving grace for this place. You see, I'm not great at being a girl. Other than pictures of my kids I don't get excited about decorating. I don't enjoy shopping at all. I get lost in details, tend to only look at the big picture and have the attention span of a knat. My aunt is the opposite of all of those things. Organized, detail focused and efficient she's exactly what I needed to finish getting our place in order. I could list everything she did while she was here but then I'd be way too tired to finish this post. She was a Godsend as usual. Worth more than a million dollars in my book. However, I'm a stay at home mom. Which means I pretty much have whatever money I find in the laundry on any given day so thanking her with cash was out. Instead I made some meatball sandwiches that were edible. She seemed to like them, anyways.

 

She also watched the kids so we could go on a d-a-t-e. We watched the Thunder beat the Jazz. Let me rephrase that, I watched the Thunder beat the Jazz while my husband talked too much during the game. I do the same during football so I think he does just to get back at me. On a random note:

If KD ain't mad, I'm not either.

 

I get asked a lot how Will and Jameson are adjusting to living together.

 

 

I think this picture kind of sums it up. It's a lot of learning and adjusting. I'm blessed that my husband loves Jameson for who he is as a kid. Not just as my son or as his daughter's brother, but Jameson, for his personality, as an ornery almost three year old. Going from a single parent household to a two parent household is difficult in general. My brain knows that children aren't meant to be raised by one parent but when you live that way for a while, well, habits are hard to break. I find it difficult to let him help me with things because its scary to rely on someone else for help when you haven't in that area before. But it's important to him and I want my children to see a balance so I do. And sometimes the product is

 

mismatched pajamas. Or bedtime thirty minutes later than we're used to. What I've learned though is that my husband is an incredible father, whether he does things exactly like I would or not.

 

While he definitely loves our kids, he does not so much love Christmas. I live for Christmas. Such hope and promise and excitement and hot chocolate and warm fires and, well, you get it. To be fair, he's been deployed or away from his family for the majority of holidays over the last nine years. He's been a real sport and played along with my excitement though. Decorating the tree as a family for the first time was in the top ten moments of my life so far. I have the same ornaments we used on our tree when I was a kid. When my parents divorced a few years back I was the only one who really wanted them. They remind me of a time when everyone was happy and I hope someday they will do the same for my kids.  

 

 

 

 

 

Will even helped out too. We won't talk about the groom's hand placement.

 

 

We made it to church this morning without any bodily function incidents which is a step up from last week. Its really hard to break in a new church. Services are different, preachers are different and at least for me, meeting new people is hard. Go figure, my husband has already met 4 "friends" in his million plus trips to Lowe's, but it just doesn't work that way for me. If you belong to a church I'd like to encourage you not to get so happy with the current congregation that you stop trying to grow the church. The church we've been trying isn't the right fit for us so we're going to try a new one next week. The preacher said something that I liked this morning though. He talked about how when we decide to follow Jesus he gives us a new "title." A new job in a sense, a new why. I'm still kind of searching for mine but I'm enjoying being a wife and mom and letting that be "enough" for now while I pray about what's next.