By the way, we added one more to the mix.
Today is my baby boy's first birthday. Yup, I didn't write anything in my blog about my struggle with God on His desire to have me give Him control on my fertility again, or about how I finally saw that God really had my best interests in mind and gave Him that control, nor how I got pregnant shortly afterward. I never wrote about how He gave me all the desires of my heart on the matter, either. Sad, really. What a missed opportunity to show how wonderful God truly is!
I did do a vlog on it, however! Here is the link to the video where I talk about my birth story.
I have many videos on that specific channel about mom stuff, Christmas, Vlogtober, and so on. It is more of my 'mom life' and 'homeschool life' channel. Oh yeah, did I mention we started homeschooling? We are entering our third year, and it has been a fun time! The kids enjoy it, and I have been blessed to make friends with a number of other homeschool moms and families in our area. I have been taking on less things this year than I did our first two years, mostly because I just cannot mentally deal with it all, but I still want to do more because the kids love it. I am a bit introverted and would rather spend all my time at home with my family, so having the homeschool group doing things in the area is fantastic. Now if only my husband could join us more often. His work schedule has gotten even busier in the last year, which is crazy to think about. And this year has put a lot of stress on both him and myself as a result in regards to farming. We've been needing a lot of prayer.
Speaking of prayer, I need to spend more time praying for a number of things. One of those things being Christmas. I have become very depressed about Christmas this year. I had issues with things last year as well, and it seems I haven't fully dealt with those issues and they are coming back to bother me this year. I believe Satan is just trying to steal my joy. And make me feel all the mom guilt. You see, I have had a busy 2018 with birthday parties (A's 5th, M's 10th, my husband's 40th, and the new little guy's (we'll call him Baby Z) first birthday) and I did nothing for the baby. Nothing. His birthday was today and we went and bought him some sleepers because I didn't realize the ones I had added foot windows. At least 3 sets of sleepers I currently own need to hit the trash. So, sleepers for his birthday gift. In all honesty, I have so many baby toys from the other 4 kids, I don't want to get more for him right now. But, I feel the guilt because I never made him a birthday cake. I never had anybody over. I did nothing. And I don't want to do anything. I mean, I do... mainly because I know if I don't he'll be asking years down the road why there aren't any pictures of his first birthday party like all his older siblings had. And I want to celebrate him, too. But I don't want to bother doing all the work it requires.
You know I will do it anyway, right? It is just going to be late.
That said, I am dreading Christmas. I usually love Christmas. Love it. I adore all the fun winter activities to do with the kids, the baking, the wrapping and decorating. This year, I don't want to be bothered with any of it. I feel like the grinch. I am sick of the commercialism of it all. I want my kids to have fun, sure, but if it was just me, I would forget about it completely (except for the Christmas plays, I still enjoy those. And the music. I love the carols). I just feel like it has all become some gag for spending more money on unnecessary things. I know, that sounds terrible, grinchy, and in all like such an 'un-mom' thing to say, but I am just so tired. I know my kids are excited for all the things I loved doing with them every year, and I want to be excited for them as well, but I am not. Partly because I am also tired of doing it all by myself. My husband, bless him, is working ALL THE TIME. The farm cannot operate without him, and since before summer, his dad has been unable to do anything in the barn anymore, so he has shouldered all the responsibility his dad had as well as his own stuff. It is straining him, and he very rarely gets a half day off. So, I know that anything that requires doing stuff with the kids will require doing it without him. Which is hard. Especially for a home-body.
And don't get me started on Christmas shopping.
Most years, I have my stuff half purchased by summer. Not this year. I was on declutter mode after Christmas last year, so I didn't buy much of anything. We have a few items for A, and bought all the pajamas for our Christmas Eve tradition right after Christmas last year, but nothing else. And then we have ticket gifts to purchase for as well, and I don't see when we can go Christmas shopping at all. I am trying not to stress out, but I am anyway. And I am in declutter mode again, as there is so much STUFF in here! I totally understand why most larger families do less gifts. IT isn't so much a money thing as it is a space thing!
Anyway, I am rambling. I'm good at that. Especially since with NaNoWriMo, we have been told to just type words and not worry about editing. So, call this my NaNoWroMo entry, hahaha. Which reminds me, I need to catch up on my word count tomorrow. I am only at 4800 words, and should be just shy of 6700. Oops. At least I finally started the third book of the trilogy I wanted to write... that I wrote the first book of in 2006. Ouch. I had to reread the two other books to even remember what I was writing about, and I couldn't remember much of what I even wanted to do with the third book because I cannot find where I wrote it down. I had a plan for it, but it's gone. So, new plan. I'm mostly winging it.
I may never publish this story, but at least I will write it.
Wish me luck!
