The Baby

I think it's funny when people ask me if our baby was planned. It seems like an inappropriate question to ask when you think about it. However, I guess when you're kids will be 18 months apart, it's a reasonable question I suppose. So to answer the question, yes this baby was quite the surprise, but it was planned! God had it all planned out for us. 

It was within the first month of school when I can running into the kitchen and shoved a pregnancy test into Jason's face demanding him to "LOOK!" Jason, thinking it was negative... looked and just shoved it off and said, awwww well we can try again. And I said... "NO LOOK you dumb dumb" and then he proceeded to laugh for the next five minutes. 

It's not that I was angry... it's just that it wasn't MY plan. I had just started the year, and now I was finding out I may not even make it through the school year. It's always been in the back my head that once we had a second kid I would stay at home. So when I found out it was going to happen sooner rather than later, I was a little thrown off. It's taken me a while to warm up to the idea of having another kid. What helped me get over myself, was knowing that the Lord has a plan for us, he won't give me more than I can handle, and that His plan is far better than anything I could come up with myself. 

So, for now... I will finish off the year. The baby is due June 6 and school is out June 11!! Maybe we'll make it. I'm having a hard time with the job decision. I love my job. I love my family. If I don't work, that's half our family income... gone. It would be quite the adjustment. I guess the one hard part is that now I feel forced into stopping my career for the time being, instead of choosing to. I still don't know what I'm going to do. Obviously, I do still have a choice. I have some time to think about it though. 

 

In other news, dating back to October... here's Sara and her two little friends Ben and Isaiah for Halloween. We thought Sara would get a kick out of seeing herself as Minnie. 

This girl and her books. It makes me so happy. She loves to sit in her chair at our house and she loves being in the library area at school. Now, she'll even drag a book over to one of us, crawl in our lap, and hand us the book. She's so stinkin cute!

And Sara had her first birthday. Here's some fun shots of that.

First cake! She was so dainty

Sara and her little baby friends!

She was so pooped.

Super Mommy!... Or not.

Three weeks ago I started back at work. After being at home all summer and getting to be a stay at home mom, it's been really difficult leaving that behind and getting back into the motion of being a working mama.

There's been a lot that I've learned the past several weeks:

1: Why do I even bother going back to work? We'll, honestly I love my job. It has been incredibly overwhelming this year. I feel like I'm never ahead of the game and that I'm pretty much just treding water most of the time. But, to me, it's where God wants me. He has put me there with those 26 fifth graders in room 12 and has given me them to guide to the best of my ability. I know that no matter how hard and overwhelming the rest of the job becomes, it's more than that. It's being a "mother" to those kids. Teaching them about what's right and wrong, teaching them how to be honest human beings, and teaching them the knowledge that will take them far in life. And to me... It's worth it. I know that I am working (and working HARD at that) for the glory of God and even if I can't actually teach them about Him, at least I can show them love and that they belong.

2: Sometimes doing God's work down right sucks. That's right, I said it. I like to think that maybe Jonah said the same thing when God made him go to Ninevah. But what sucks about it is being away from my sweet not-so-much-of-a-baby-anymore girl. I have to trust that it's the best thing for us right now. It breaks my heart when I drop her off and I leave her with tears in her eyes. I hate that I miss out on so many hours each day of her exploration and development. And honestly, when it gets close to the end of the work day I'm packing up and getting outta there as fast as I can so I can soak up the few hours I do have. 

3: I cannot be a super teacher AND a super mom. So yes, I love my job and I know that's where I'm suppose to be. But I can't spend loads of extra hours going above and beyond anymore. And yes, I miss out on Sara's life during the day. But any extra energy I do have after work, all goes to her. If I have to choose, I choose being a better mommy. The other night we had our Back to School night. So I had to stay at school until 8:00. I remember early on in my teaching listening to other teachers complain about how they had to stay so late. I always use to think they were annoying because it was only a couple days out of the whole year where we had to stay after, but now I understand. 

4: I am not a perfect mama. I realize I have much to learn and that it's much different having one child than 2+, but I have to remember that I'm doing the best I can with what God gave me. I can't spend my days being a Pintrest perfect mom. I just don't have the time or energy to do that. But I have my love, laughter, and arms to hold her in when she cries. God decided that I would get to be Sara's mama and when you think of it that way, it seems more of a privilege. 

5: I am needed. I get caught up in feeling like I am the one who has to do everything. Sometimes I don't stop and thank God for letting me feel needed. It's exhausting being the only one who can nurse her, or doing all I can to pump at work. It's exhausting having to prepare meals, clean up, keep her safe and happy. Luckily I have a man who helps out with the little things and he is such a blessing. But sometimes, all Sara wants is her Mama. I know it's not going to be this way forever and instead of being annoyed that I can't do something for me... I try to stop everything and enjoy being needed. Every time I pick her up from daycare, she does this happy, excited cry. All she wants is for Mommy to hurry up and get over to her and hold her. So the past weeks or so I've really just tried to hold on to these moments of feeling needed. 

6: Balance. It's easy to be consumed with being the best at one area in life. I've been trying really hard to just BE. When I'm at school, I try not to think so much about what I'm missing and I try to give my all to my work and kids. When I come home I try to leave work at work and be with my family. But even further, I've had to learn to balance my time with Sara, and the time I put into cleaning the house, and then the time I spend with Jason, AND on top of all that, my relationship with God. It's hard. 

That's all I have floating in my mind for now. I love being a mama. I love being a wife. I love being a child of God. I love being a teacher. I love being Melissa. 

I Knew You...

I was going through my pictures, and looking back at some of the ultrasounds and it made me smile because her ultrasound looks just like her! It's kinda funny because before she was born and I had seen the ultrasound pictures, I still wondered WHAT she would look like. Come to find out... I had already seen her! :) It also amazes me how she still does things that she did while she was in my belly. I found three examples. We always know when she's getting sleepy, because she puts her arm up to her ear like that!

 

 

 

 

  

I look at these, and I just think to myself that God knew exactly what he was doing. It makes me stop and praise God for who He is and what He has done for me! Even though I don't deserve any sort of grace or mercy, he is faithful, forgiving, and full of grace. I like this verse below. How comforting and uplifting it is to know that God had a hand in her creation and that he has known about her!? Even though our miscarriage we had, he KNEW that Sara Nicole Lawyer would be a part of our family. And He has set her apart! What an amazing God he is!?  She's a miracle! Knitted together in MY BELLY! It's just insane!!! I'm just in awe of what God has done!

Having a baby around sure does make life a little harder. Especially my spiritual life. It's almost like God just takes the sideline because I'm always so worried about what Sara is doing, what I need to be doing for her, or how I can help her stop crying. And then when I finally do get some time to do things, I feel like that time is dedicated towards cleaning, organizing, or just sitting doing something mindless. Even with church, yes we go.. but how often does my mind float to think about how she's doing in the nursery, or watching my phone to see if the nursery calls me because she's hungry. I guess I'm just really trying to find my place with God in all this. It's hard being involved in church because I feel like we just go straight to the nursery afterwards, pick her up, and by then she's hungry or sleepy so we don't hang around much. So if you think of us, or as you finish reading this, just say a prayer that Jason and I can figure this whole thing out to not only be great, godly parents, but also that we wouldn't lose sight of what we believe in. 

That's all. :) For now...

To Ohio... and BEYOND!

The week after Spring break seemed to be a little bit harder to come back to then when I came back from maternity leave! It was also hard because no matter how hard we tried to keep Sara on California time... it just didn't work. And with her getting back into Daycare, we've all just been a bit of a mess this week. Even though it was SO much fun spending time in Ohio, it was also a little exhausting. So this weekend, we have just been doing pretty much nothing but resting and cleaning the house. She did choose to roll over for the first time while we were in Ohio, so that was fun to share with the family!

Sara did pretty decent traveling all around. It kinda sucked because in order to use our free Southwest tickets, we had to drive all the way to LA. Our plane left at 1:00 pm, so we had decided to leave around 6:30 am just in case. So not only did Sara have to put up with a long car ride, but she had two plane rides to get through too. The first leg to Atlanta wasn't bad. She slept a lot and loved looking out the window. But when we landed, we thought we only had time to get from one plane to the next. Unfortunately, we ended up sitting on the plane for an HOUR!!!! It was very frustrating. It was a very long day.... poor baby. The return flights were a little better. She freaked out a few times because I think she was just overly tired, but people loved to look at her and tell her how cute she was. hehe

Some things we learned about flying with a baby (for those of you who are interested).
1. Obvious one... keep the baby sucking on something. One decent, Sara was very unhappy and as soon as we landed, she was fine. But it helps their ears.
2. We really loved having our baby carrier. I got to "wear" Sara and when we went through the security it was SO easy. We were watching a family in front of us who had so much stuff with them! And we were happy to just have been carrying two bags and the baby girl.
3. If possible, find someone where you're going who has a car seat! If we had to deal with all that, and a stroller... it would have sucked. Especially with a layover as short as ours.
4. Use leg warmers! We put Sara in a long sleeve onesie and leg warmers! It made changing her diaper quick and easy.
5. If it's their first flight, ask for their "First Wings". The whole airplane crew signed a little certificate for her and she got little SouthWest Airline wings. It's pretty cool.
6. When people give you dirty looks... give them dirty looks back. Grrrr It's like they think I'm purposely making her cry to tick them off. But mostly, I was just more uneasy about not being able to make Sara comfy.
7. Ask if the flight is full. We lucked out on one flight and left our bag on the middle seat so no one would sit there. So Sara got to sprawl out for that flight.
8. Be patient. Flying sucks! And things happen. So just try to go with it and just be as calm as you can! I found that when I started to get tense, it only made things worse.

Ohio family was so much fun! She got to meet her cousins for the first time, who just loved on her so much! And we surprised Aunt Jama at school, and she loved laughing at her Uncle Kar. She did SO well with all the new faces we came across. She would smile and talk and just be happy with anyone who held her. But, by the end of the trip, I think she had had enough. Rightly so. We put her through A LOT! She was such a trooper though. I'm so proud of her. We took Sara to her first baseball game! Honestly, I don't even know what happened during that game! Ha I was either nursing, changing Sara, or hanging out with the nieces! But the atmosphere was nice to be around in. Then we also were able to spend Easter with the Ohio family. Sara wasn't much into decorating eggs, nor was she into sitting in the Easter basket. hehe This girl also really loves her books... and eating her toes.

It's always so hard to leave family though. We think of all the people who she gets to play with her here in California and it's just sad that our families aren't around. Obviously we LOVE the people we do get to spend time with, but there's only so much we can share through blogs, pictures, and videos. That's just the hardest part of this whole thing. So we always have to remember that God has us here for His purpose and to do His work here in Cali.

We're looking forward to celebrating Mommy's birthday next week, Mother's Day a little time after, then Daddy's birthday after that! Sara has been sick with a stuffy nose the past couple days, so we've been trying to help her feel better with that. Poor little girl! Last story... at daycare the other day, her teacher was telling me about one of the boys in her class and how he kept trying to hold Sara's hand. hehe I guess Sara wanted nothing to do with him and kept throwing her hand in the air and tried to get away from him. ha Good girl! Enjoy all the latest pictures!