Hard Lessons and Second Chances

It was a typical night I suppose. I had just finished doing a ton of laundry and my almost 18 month old was watching Frozen in Spanish, or so I thought. A neighbor came to our door and as I peeked around the corner I could see the sliding door was open. One of the dogs must have gotten out I thought. Worse. My daughter had gotten out. They had spotted her “running down the street.” Now we live in a trailer park so it’s not that kind of street, but none the less it was scary. I was relieved and thankful that my neighbors were outside having a fire and had quickly spotted her, but also felt so stupid for allowing something like that to happen. I knew God was watching out for us. Life is so precious. Just this week I sobbed as I read of a 3 year old that was hit by a truck and killed. Playing frisbee one moment, gone the next. His parents didn’t get a chance to “learn a lesson” or be thankful nothing worse happened. The worst did happen. What if that had been me tonight? How could I have moved on, or forgiven myself. Life is so so precious.

I contemplated telling my mother who I live with about what had happened. I wasn’t going to as I knew more likely then not she would say something to make me feel worse then I already did, and I was right. At first she wasn’t so bad, and even almost sympathized with me, but later she had to sneak in one remark that reminded me how I never want to make my daughter feel. What she said wasn’t even that big of a deal, but it was how she made me feel. It’s hard being a young adult and living with your parents. They’re use to seeing you as this person that doesn’t know any better and constantly needs to be taught a lesson, and I do have many lessons that are yet to be learned, but being lectured or put down is not the best way to learn them. My mom isn’t perfect and I’m not either, but when we know better, we do better. My moms mistakes as a parent have helped me know better, and I hope my mistakes will help my daughter know and do better too.

Tonight was scary and it was yet another reminder of how blessed I am and how quickly it could be taken away. I thank The Lord for every day he has blessed me with and every second chance He has ever granted me.

Giving Our Worries to God and Other Single Mom Challenges

I was at the park with my daughter today when I had another one of those “freeze moments” I talked about before. A moment that seems to freeze and give you the time to realize how significant it is. Ellie was so happy at the park with me. My attention makes her happy, being with me makes her happy, and I realized one day, that won’t be the case. I started to think of all things she wasn’t aware of. How we don’t have very much money, and I don’t have a college degree. How she’ll never know her father. My fears came over me. My greatest fear – that ellie will hate me for what I did. Hate me for not giving her a father. For not being married and providing a man she deserves, to love her and tell her how beautiful she is. For not providing a better and bigger home and not having a good job.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but these things make me feel as though I am some how cheating on her. That my love and relationship to her is a lie because she is unaware of all these things. That as soon as she becomes aware of everything I am, she will no longer love me.

Then I started to think about what I wanted for her in life, even if one day she chooses not to have me in hers. I want her to be happy. I want her to love The Lord and know how truly beautiful and precious she is – no matter who her parents are. Happiness may not mean getting married for her, or even having a fabulous carrier. It may just be a simple life doing something she loves. And I realized, in these moments all those things don’t matter to her. She doesn’t know other people have big houses or more money. She doesn’t know it’s my former colleges graduation today or that I don’t have a degree. She knows me, and for her at least right now – I’m enough.

I’m not sure what it will be that makes her happy, but I do know if I can’t model what I want for her, she may never know to go after it. Now I love my mom. I love her more then words can express, but I don’t feel like I get the drive and motivation to follow my dreams from her like I want to give Ellie. I don’t even know exactly what my dreams are yet, but I’m ready to find out. I’m ready to show her that I’ve made a lot of mistakes in the past, but God is merciful and my mistakes don’t define my future – our future.

I know that my fears about my daughter hating me for my past will still creep in here and there, but at the end of the day I have to love her as much as my heart can love and give all my fears over to The Lord. I would have never imagined my life just a few years ago, but now that it’s here I couldn’t imagine life any differently. She may never truly hate me, but she is certain to question why things are they way they are. We all do that at some point. She’ll question why she doesn’t have a father, and she won’t have anyone to blame but me. I hope to gain the wisdom from God to have the right words for her and be what she needs during those times, but no matter what she thinks of me I know she means the world to me and nothing will change my love for her.

Thoughts on Motherhood

So many thoughts, realizations and new perspectives on my second Mother’s Day. My second Mother’s Day already? Time seems to slip away much too easily. My little baby is nearly a year and a half already. Though that may sound so young to many of you, this year and a half has gone by so quickly. Too quickly almost. It’s incredible how soon we forget how things once were. Fleeting memories truly appreciate pictures, old baby clothes and handprint crafts. Though my sweet girl is still so small, it amazes me to look back on where she once was and see how far she has come and how much she has grown.

Just the other day I had one of those moments I wish I had more often. One of those moments where time feels as though it’s frozen, and you notice things more. You notice what is always there. I was watching Ellie play, laugh and smile. I noticed every detail of her sweet face and realized how truly blessed I am. I remembered how things were when I was pregnant. Uncertain, scary and unknown. I had no idea what my life would be like as a mom. I had no idea how hard it would be. I had no idea how much I would love my daughter. I had no idea. Motherhood is certainly one of those things you cannot understand until you become one yourself. And even then you are learning new things about it every day. I’ve already learned so much, I can’t imagine how much more I will learn in the years to come.

Thank you Eloise, for giving me one of the best gifts I will ever receive. Not only the gift of motherhood, but of becoming your mother. We were meant for each other, and I will never doubt it.

Photo Cred: Sarah Kaggwa Photos

Reality of Freedom and Becoming a Driver

It took me a long time to get my drivers license. Long in today’s standards at least. Why I didn’t was largely due to circumstance. I didn’t have the money or the need for it. I still don’t have the money but there is a need. I’ve only had my license a couple of weeks and haven’t driven at all until a couple days ago when my mom and brother left on a cruise for a week. My mom left me with her car and I was anxious to finally have the freedom I had long dreamed of.

In high school my mom drove me everywhere I needed, in college I tagged along with friends and now I’ve been getting rides from my mom again. I couldn’t count the number of times I thought “if only I could drive myself.” It’s hard being a parent and living with your parent and on top of that depending on your parent for rides.

The day before my mom and brother left, my mom drove to where I would be dropping them off. She has a way of rattling on so much that I tend to tune her out after a while. When it came time for me to get behind the while I started to tear up and said I couldn’t do it. In all honesty, I was scared. I had only really driven 5 or 6 times in my life and although I had a drivers license I did not feel confident enough to drive. My mom told me what I needed to hear – that I can do it. Those aren’t words I often heard from my mom, so I was thankful to hear them. I got in the drivers seat (literally) and started driving. It wasn’t so bad. As soon as I started my nerves were at ease. I wouldn’t call myself confident but I felt much better.

I would be a liar if I said I didn’t wait so long because part of me was scared to drive. I use to have dreams that I was forced to drive and didn’t know what I was doing. You hear about car crashes every day. Driving really shouldn’t be taken lightly, but at some point I knew I needed to brave up.

I dropped my mom and brother off and was exiting the parking lot when a taxi honked at me – what a great start. My first day driving alone was uneventful, which is good. Uneventful for a new driver is definitely good. Yesterday, my second day driving was decent as well. Today I started to feel more confident. I could do this. But then it happened. Reality struck. I was going to take a right turn when the car ahead of me went. I quickly looked to my left and saw another car looking to take a right as well. I go to make my turn and I hear a loud honk and a truck just inches from the car. Thankfully I put my foot on the break and I don’t hit that truck, but I just wanted to cry. I wanted to go home and just cry.

My head was screaming – SEE you can’t drive. You’re an idiot. You have a child in the car – go home and never drive again. I could hear my moms disappointment and anger in my head too. I just wanted to crawl in hole and stay there for a while. But I knew that was ridiculous and I needed to be thankful nothing happened and learn from it.

I started to feel okay later when it happened again. Not the same thing, but another mistake on my part. I was waiting to take a left and started turning when the light turned green. All of a sudden I see a car coming straight and I realize it wasn’t a protected turn. I had learned this in my driving lessons, but somehow forgot.

Driving isn’t like learning a sport or even learning how to ride a bike. There isn’t much room for mistakes or for “forgetting.” Part of me wants to say forget it and avoid driving as much as I can, but another part says not to give up. I knew I would need to take it easy driving this week. I think I wanted to do a lot to not waste this week of freedom I have, but maybe for me I need to take it easy more then I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t give up driving, but I should give myself time. Maybe I should be confident that I can do this, but realize I really am still learning. I don’t know all the answers, but I am thankful to God for protecting me and my daughter. I pray He continues to watch over us and guide me as I learn to drive.

Do you remember when you first learned to drive? What was it like?

Toddler Easter Party

Yesterday I hosted my first Easter egg hunt and it was so much fun! It was just my daughter and three friends around her age. The youngest was 15 months and the oldest was 21 months. I had a lot of fun planning it and it couldn’t have gone better! We plan on making it a yearly tradition.

So what did we do? Well we had an egg hunt of course. I wanted to be a little more creative then just throwing eggs out in an open field so I brought my daughters pop up tent and put some eggs in there.

The tent was cute, but I’d recommended using this for older toddlers. I ended up taking the tent away towards the end so they could focus on getting the rest of the eggs. I also happened to have these large boxes, and thought it would be cute to paint them and have them apart of the egg hunt as well.

The boxes were less distracting and the babies seem to understand the idea a bit better. I gave each toddler their own basket and attached card stock with their name on the front. Everyone thought they were cute! I put bunny ears and an Easter themed rubber ducky in each basket. The smaller basket was for a 5 month old who couldn’t really participate (next year!)

I didn’t put any candy in the eggs but had a variety of baby/toddler snacks and a few toys. For more details on what I put in the eggs read my post here. We had a special bunny egg for each toddler with a number in it. The number corresponded with who got to pick a prize first, second, third and so on. I wasn’t sure how this would work with the variety of prizes I collected but it went over great.

I had fun making Easter themed treats! I found this great idea for chocolate and caramel Easter nests on Wifessionals. You can find the recipe here. Photo Cred: Wifessionals.

I knew I had to incorporate peeps but I wasn’t sure how. I thought I would turn them into party favors of sorts, so I got these mini plastic bags at michaels and tied them off with a ribbon.

But that didn’t seem quite enough, so I took them back out and dipped them in Wilton’s white candy melts and Easter themed sprinkles.

I also dipped regular marshmallows in pink candy melts and those were pretty tasty too! I used the same sprinkles to top off some vanilla cupcakes I made. Sweets galore! In addition I found this adorable idea for “carrot strawberries” over at sugar bean bakers. For the complete recipe click here Photo Cred: Sugar Bean Bakers.

We also had veggies and dip, cheese and crackers, plain strawberries and Store bought Easter themed cookies. The babies enjoyed juice boxes and the adults had a selection of soda. I brought my daughters little tikes picnic table and some plain Easter eggs for them to decorate. They did the best they could!

Overall it was a great day! I’m definitely excited for next year.