I have been journaling more and posting, anywhere else - less. But this morning I am wondering if today is the day - and if so, I have a few thoughts I don't mind sharing somewhere special. Oh yes, I have a blog! I remembered this and so came here. A lot has changed in the world since my last post (which I was pleased to see was more recent than I would have guessed). Namely, Covid has spread across our tiny earth - locking us in homes, distancing us from loved ones and friends from whom we regularly find so much comfort and joy. What hasn't changed since my last post is there is a baby girl growing in me. Still so wild and odd to say.

She was due 5 days ago now and this morning I decided to crawl out of bed, soon after 4am, shower and start my day. As I dressed I had this thought, it could really be today. And then, today is a great day to have a baby. This thinking has changed over the past couple months - after months and months of thinking "This is such a hard time to be pregnant."  "What a difficult time to be having a baby." A challenging time. A strange time. An odd time. Etc, etc, etc.  Then on a drive one day I heard, "This is the perfect time to have your baby - this baby - these babies. This is the time I chose for them." And just like that, I felt a download begin of who my little girl would be, who her friends, mostly all here by now, would be - what character, calmness, wisdom - brought into this world when much was stripped away, laid bare, up in the air for examination, and so many questions and loud opinions shared.  So many tears too. That is the time they step forth? Like, their first breaths?  This would be a horrible time for me to be beginning, but it is the perfect time for Juniper to be born - because it is when He chose for her, and her for now. So a week ago when my UPS delivery man said, "Wow, what a hard time to be having a baby." I responded, "Any time is a great time to have a baby." And I meant it, this gift I didn't know I'd ever have - I'll take her during a pandemic, happily.

Truthfully, I don't know what to expect in any measure when it's finally go-time.  At some point every piece of the typical process has been up in the air. I know my family won't be out in the waiting room this time, my friends won't visit with their little ones the first day, my Godmother won't hold my hand and pray over me just as my labor begins. There's this little chance John could be stopped from joining me in labor, and another that June could be isolated from us for two weeks.  We hired a doula, but she could be at another birth at the last minute. The hospital has changed its precautionary measure several times - and remains completely different than our experience with Nolan. Little is guaranteed. But, nonetheless, I know at least a measure of who this little girl is to be and so today is a great day to have a baby! So little June, feel free to arrive any time, you've got this, sweet girl and your family is all very excited to meet you.

I am convinced I am living the best days of my life right now.   I spent a small part of the day crawled in my bed with my fingers in my ears, praying in tongues.  This wasn't because I was about to lose it, though I was pretty emotionally spent.  I wanted to keep my cortisol levels down, my body calm - and it's hard to do that when you are listening to a toddler who doesn't want to nap, scream.  He and I had rounded past an hour of this battle and I needed a window for my body physically.  It helped.  I did stay calm.  And after 4 rounds of me going in, calming and soothing, but reaffirming that he needed to take a nap and he would have to nap - and him going from calm to very angry as I left again with a "we'll play when you get up!"  - eventually, he napped. About 1 hour and 45 minutes after we started the process.

I just want you to know that this isn't a rose-colored glasses kind of proclamation.  I am living the best days of my life right now.

But after his nap, now close to 4pm, he woke up happy, and thanked me when I picked him up. We cuddled and ate apples and cheese and watched a show about trains.  We went to the play area at uvillage and he pretended to make me coffee at a little play counter - taking my make believe money, moving his hands around above my travel mug before handing it back to me with a giant smile so proud of his coffee skills.  And then he'd say "More?" and take my cup back, only to repeat the game of pretend a dozen times.  He asked me to go down the slide next to him.  When we stopped in a store and they had a childrens coloring section, we sat and colored together for 15-20 minutes. A little girl about 5 months younger than him wanted to color, and he picked up a chair and carried it over to her, right next to his and patted it for her to sit.  Then he handed her a crayon and slid his paper over toward her.  Her mother was shocked, "Wow, you are a very nice little boy."  I was more shocked.

Today at one point I thought how incredibly grateful I am for my job - being overcome by how exhausting and challenging and near breaking the nap time saga had been.  And now as I crawl into bed I think how grateful I am that I was able to spend so much time home with him today - how I never want to miss it.

I guess I knew to expect that Toddlers feel ALL the feels and at a 10, but I didn't know to expect that I, consequently, would also be feeling all the feels throughout the course of a day. 

As we finished our stories tonight, cuddled into my bed, I told him how grateful I am that God chose him to be my son, and he chose me and John to be his mommy and daddy.  I told him we were all - him, me and his daddy, very, very lucky that God chose us all for each other.  I told him how proud I was of him today for being so kind and thoughtful, and that I appreciated that he took a nap today even though it was very hard for him.  It certainly wasn't obvious if he understood much of it, but he did look at me and say "mama, dada, doggn" and smile.  So, he got the gist.

I am living the best days of my life right now. It is a fact, and it is up to me whether or not I actually enjoy them.

John and I have been listening to The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and it has solidified a goal I've been considering - I'm going to write down three good things each day.  A moment with Nolan that swallowed up everything else or just made me laugh, a tender or fun moment with John, a good deed a friend, stranger or politician did in the world, a pretty flower, peaceful drive, good run, a success at the office - mine or others. 

Maybe I will write some of these here.  It can't hurt for others to see a few more positive things. 

I may not visit here often anymore, but I'm still too devoted to this old gal to move my words someplace else.  I am not one for change for changes sake. I'm one for intention, returning, and returning again. I'm for grabbing drinks with your old friends, because they are your old friends.

And yet I feel I have outgrown this place - it doesn't fit right anymore. It may be a skin I should have shed years ago.

If I don't dedicate a piece of my life to writing, I will continue with some small place empty inside me. It doesn't have to come together in a book (though I'd like that), or result in income (again, certainly would be great), but I need to be writing and it needs to be something that both frees me and stretches me.  This is where I've come back to every time I've stopped to assess. 

Currently to make room for family, work and home - and do them all as well as I can, I need to be up around 6am.  And adding another thing in doesn't sound plausible, nor do I feel it necessary. But my work is seasonal enough that when fall rolls around my hours will likely dip and my plan is to substitute in this other kind of work to my early mornings.

It's not important that I write any of this here, but with all of it in my heart the past few weeks I felt it time to pull out my old trusty macbook and put my fingers on its keys. They are a different click than my work laptop - accepting my hands in softer way. I just wanted to remember how it felt, see if it would still turn on and if we still had the same connection. I feel a bit awkward and clumsy at it really.

And that is the other part of what has been on my heart - what if its gone? What if I've taken so long getting to this one, most obvious piece of what I feel called to that I've sacrificed all the work I've done in the skill? I'm hoping its just misplaced and if I wander here enough this fall and maybe some of the mornings or late evenings leading up to it, perhaps I'll stumble upon all the pieces.

So this fall, I plan to write each morning.

Something I know:  

We help each other make it. Strong ties hold us. 

There are those anomalies of people who manage to survive, thrive and move across the world on their own. But there aren't many.  

Most of us are here because of a friend, a first job, a person who didn't have to but did. And then another, who did. Someone who showed up when they said they would, followed through, extended an offer - extended their confidence. 

I've been the recipient time and time again - my first office and then marketing job was because of someone who said "If I'll trust you with my kids - I'll trust you with my phones." That grew to: "Just show me you know how to learn." And that likely set my entire career in order.  But there was also the time my sister decided I was going to work with her - and her boss offered me a job I hadn't asked for (or really understood I was being offered) - then the girl who trained me there and called to offer me the next role.  The next two jobs I got the "traditional" way - searching, applying, interviewing, accepting, working with recruiters. 2 out of 9 jobs I received that so called "traditional way" -  6 were from relationship and respect, from doing well at a previous role and proving I could be relied on to learn. The last, I created myself, my baby, Whittle. She's the quiet dream I always keep in the room. She's there for whenever that offer comes to do what I love - the moment when "helping others make it" and writing intersect. 

Build strong ties.  Help others make it. I believe those two things will benefit you more in business than anything. But I'm no tycoon - and I hope I never am. 

One year ago today was undeniably the day we would welcome our son.  We'd checked into the hospital the afternoon before, and after a long night... things were underway. My water broke of its own, while I sat with my godmother in the hospital room. She was the only family to arrive so far, we'd told everyone to hold off because labor wasn't progressing as far as we knew.  She hadn't received the message and drove from Renton to spend the day waiting with us. Thank God, because literally it was as she said a prayer over us that things started to suddenly happen.

From there, we continued to discover that my body wasn't going to do things "normal" - but it was going to do them, in its own confusing, amazing way.  It was a healing experience - a tying together of my body, mind, soul that had been severed apart many times and for many years. Very few things happened as I'd been told they would. And basically every item we'd written on our birth plan as a "would like to avoid" got checked off one after another... including having a Halloween baby.  But it didn't matter... we loved our story. We loved being in it. We operated as a team, we trusted and watched and worked. And in the end, through a cesarean delivery at 12:25am we welcomed our son, Nolan into the world.

His birthday is the 31st, but the 30th will always be all about him and the goodness and healing that was worked in me on that day. It will be about new beginnings - about light in the dark. That's the word we both felt deeply in our beings from the earliest days of our pregnancy. The grief. The glory. The pain. The healing. The guilt. The gratitude. The light shines in the dark and the darkness has not overcome it. 

Nolan William Robert, be a light, Son, in dark days and bright times alike. 

Nolan - Son of the Champion. A reminder that we can be brave and courageous because others were first.  Be grateful for the hard choices of others that paved the way for your own. A brave and victorious legacy. Champion.

William - Resolute Protector. A piece of his Dad's name and his character. Be strong and use that glorious will of yours to stand up for others, protect and guard. Defend what it is you discover you are called to protect.

Robert - Bright Fame. Light. Be who you are; it matters greatly to the world around you and the story unfolding. My godfather's name; a man who beamed with joy, love and strength. A man born 68 years ago today, October 30th.



I've never thought about it before, how beautiful it is that he waited until the start of a new day - the morning. Darkness still everywhere, the promise of morning light. 12:25am.

My dad calls Halloween a dark day - I guess that was the day God saw fit to call this new little light into the world. It's really rather perfect.

I'm a schedule person - a todo list person - a boxes checked person. It feels so good!  And there is something in me that keeps stretching out, craving that schedule. A new normal. Something to organize and erect like a golden cathedral to look to - a bell tower to direct my days with its ticks and tocks.

But its foolish just now to try. This baby boy is yet to fit into any exact schedule, and I'm trying to let this change me a bit, reform me before I begin trying to squeeze him into boxes. For now, I watch his rhythms and I move with them. I study him and try to learn how he tells me what he needs, what he feels, what he sees. And I'm doing my best to learn how to fit the rest of life's requirements in there too, around him.  And I sometimes day dream about a predictable, organized life where I begin scanning my favorite blogs with a cup of coffee at ___am each day, drawing in inspiration. Then clocking into work at ___am. Nolan up at ___am. Down for a nap at ___am. Clocking out at ____am. Where I can schedule things, create calendars, have room.

Not yet. Right now I watch for little hands that still and lay beside him, long looks, a yawn. There it is - time for a nap.  And I note the time, watching for a pattern, ready for a schedule. Soon, I tell myself, soon.