Ok so yes I realize I’ve been quiet up until the past few days… I was even planning on getting on here on last Tuesday and do a whole truthful thing…. but truthfully… I’ve been a bit overwhelmed trying to keep up with stuff… and blogging keeps getting pushed down to the bottom of my list. 

It’s too bad too. The other day I was looking back at the years of blogging I have compiled here, and it means so much to me to be able to read back over special moments my family has had the past few years.  Time slips by so quickly and, I’m always surprised the things I’ve forgotten just in the past few years.  I can seriously get sucked in reading back and seeing things that seem like just yesterday and ages ago all at the same time.  Baby Reecey sitting on the counter with me in the kitchen while I cook.  Gareth and Owen sitting together and hugging and smiling which in their heads meant calling each other "twins"… and probably one of my favorite posts of all time, from way back when I was still blogging with blogger, "best day ever"… there are soooo many moments I am glad I have to look back on….why is it that just three years earlier, I look back and life seemed so simple.  I mean… I know realistically I’m idealizing it some, I was actually facing my first serious bout of depression, and i mean, it isn’t like I was blogging the bad memories or something… but still… why does it seem like those simple sweet mornings with pancakes are further and further apart now.

I KNOW that these are the moments that are still happening today… but the difference is, I feel like they are just slipping by… and I have to admit! it stresses me out!

Once upon a time, I had one less baby, I had no job, I had no children getting up for school, coming home with homework, no little preschool carpool to pick up.  Once upon a time, honestly, I was more lonely, and less fulfilled personally.  Really, I was sad… but I worry… is my personal life, my own little "career," my new found sense of self – is it all costing my family???

It’s a balancing act, a juggle for sure…. I’ve got all sorts of things in the air, I’m standing on a high wire…. over a… flaming pit… and hey, if I’m fantasizing here… I think I’m wearing a really hot circus costume too and impressing the hell out of everyone around me.

Just like everything else in this life… you have to accept sometimes the things you can’t change… I can’t stop time, I can’t have as much energy/patience/focus to chronicle it all like really wish I could…. I DON’T make pancakes as much as my little crew of clowns might wish I did.  I’m probably always going to be behind on the laundry, scrambling some to meet the next deadline…. but also…. I’m proud, I mean really proud, of who I am. I’m strong, strong enough to juggle and walk the wire do the dance that it takes to raise a family of six, strong enough to say no sometimes, strong enough to go out and run 3 miles at the end of a really crappy day… more than anything I am proud that, since that first bout of depression 3 years ago, I’ve been strong enough to face and fight my demons every day…. You know what else, I am feeling more myself than I have ever been before.  My kids – they are healthy, and happy and smart (that is for another post though), and most of all, they are really really loved…

But also, I think it is reasonable to ask myself, what little things I can do?   My life is filled to the brim with little moments I can cherish every single day, and when I feel like that might be lacking, I can make them happen.  I know how to make pancakes, play mario cart with the whole crew, or sit, just sit and hold my sleepy baby.  I can listen, every day to the amazing things my boys have to say to me.  I am the mommy here after all, those things are my job, and I’ll be damned before I let that job of mine fall by the wayside.  Beyond that it is just a matter of doing my best to remember it all, to write it down, takes pictures, and even scrap a page here and there – and most of all, to soak it in.  I won’t take for granted the fact that this life I have is a good one. 

And I really do know, although I don’t type it all out everyday, how much I am truly blessed.