You Were the First

Greetings interwebs! I have been wanting to get back to blogging but lots of (mostly fun) life changes have gotten in the way. Our family has slowly, or maybe quickly, become an even 4 with the addition of little Lucy in August. Finn is now almost 4! I both can and can't believe it. Veteran parents love to tell new parents "enjoy it while you can, because it goes by fast!" This is both true and not true.

It is hard to not enjoy the moments of a new baby since they kind of take over your entire lives and change everything as you once knew it. The phrase, "enjoy it while you can" puts a lot of pressure to make sure you don't miss a SINGLE MOMENT! Well, you are going to miss things. It's just the reality. But, it doesn't mean you can't keep enjoying other things you don't miss. Maybe Dad got to see the first step or Mom heard their first word or saw their first smile but what about their second, third, thousandth, etc.? Those are just as exciting because your babies are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing.

Maybe I am one of the weird ones in that I have been excited for when my kids are older. Sure, they are super cute as babies but newborns are exhausting and, not going to lie, a little boring. Both of my kids, especially Finn, have been the worst sleepers. They just are too interested in the outside world to waste any time sleeping! Thankfully, now, Lucy is 6 months old and our sleep training has been going quite well. She has gone several nights of 10 hours straight and a few with only one time getting up. It is surprising the things you forget from the first to the second kid, especially since they are 3 1/4 years apart. It is also interesting how you expect your kids to be the same but that is definitely not the case! Finn was a very active, busy little dude and Lucy, while sill very alert and interested in everyone like Finn, she is much more content and happy just sitting, and playing with toys. Maybe it's girls? Maybe it's the second kid? Maybe it's because she has Finn as a constant entertainer? Whatever it is, both kiddos absolutely adore each other and I love seeing them interact as they continue to get older.

Ok so shifting gears slightly... while things with the kids are starting to smooth out, and we have figured out our routines, it has not been easy. I mean, duh, but my title, "You Were the First" has to do with how I have been the first in regards to starting my adult life. ("You Were the First" is also a sweet book Finn was given when I was pregnant with Lucy in order to help ease the transition from one to two kids... if you are expecting a second, it really is a darling book!)

Anyway! it was my inspiration for this blog because I want to talk about the excitement and frustrations with being "the first". Being the oldest child and oldest grandchild, I was the first to do a lot of things. While this is a good thing sometimes, it was also a little stressful in trying to figure things out since I didn't have anyone to look up to as an example... you are welcome younger siblings and younger cousins! I was the first to go to college, first to get married, first to move away from home, first to buy a house (which, by the way sometimes feels like a one room homestead... especially in the winter when we don't have any fans for white noise and one bathroom, but I'll get in to that later) and first to have kids. So, since everyone else that had maybe done that (aunts, parents, grandparents, for example) it was far enough removed that things were different. Going to college changed since, say, my grandpa went to college (a person from whom I received a lot of guidance) but I didn't know. Even aunts... very different. So getting to college was, to put it lightly, a rude awakening!

Not only was going to college a very different experience than what I was expecting, so was getting married, moving away, and having kids. We were "young" to be getting married and many of our friends were not even in serious relationships yet. (I do want to make sure,before I move on, that people do not think I am bragging or saying nah nah nah nah nah I am first... that is NOT at all what I am trying to portray...) We then moved abroad and then away from home to Boise, a place we THOUGHT would be close to home or at least easily accessible to Kalispell or San Diego... um, not the case, we found out. The drive to Kalispell, though beautiful, is long... 13 hours. When you look at the map, Boise does not look to be that far away but wow, there are a lot of mountains, rivers, and windy roads that make it quite the trip. Driving to Portland or even Seattle is a closer drive, as we have found... which is crazy! And up until recently, no direct flights to San Diego... but it's not like it's cheap to fly from Boise to SD... something we also underestimated. So, here we were, by ourselves, with family not as close as we thought, but we were slowly making friends.

Then we got pregnant. Being pregnant when you don't have family or mom friends around is harder than you would think. I got a rude awakening when I would post things on facebook, looking for support when the most common response I would get was, "welcome to motherhood". Gee. Thanks! Feeling alone here and legitimately asking for help and support but yeah, just tell me to piss off and deal with it. That's a cool thing to say to a new mom who has no idea what they are doing. So I just dealt with it. Because I would be shut down every time I would ask for help. This is why I never ask for help. However, people love giving advice when I am not asking for it... smh.... If you're a mom, please try to be understanding. There are people out there legitimately asking for help and if it takes a village, then be a village. I didn't have a village so I was looking for a village but didn't find one.

Fast forward to second pregnancy.... it was SO much harder than the first just in a physical sense. I was uncomfortable pretty much from day 1. I also felt more emotionally drained and was very unhappy at work. Again, did not feel supported from people I thought would be supportive. Oh, and I lost my job. Lots of strain on a pregnancy. It was tough all the way to end. Labor went 21 hours and Lucy was flipped face up so her head was pressing on my spine. I basically had a natural birth despite an epidural (leg cramps like I have never experienced and back labor). On a scale of 1-10, my pain was at like an 11... and I believe I have a pretty high pain tolerance.

However, Lucy represented the end of a challenging time and the beginning of a new, still challenging, but exciting time. 2 kids! Whew!

 I tried to enjoy my time as a stay at home mom but still had that feeling of uncertainty. Not sure what I wanted to do for work, not sure if what I was applying for would work out or if I would like it (I applied and interviewed for one job but it ended up not feeling right and declined the offer). Fast forward a little more to mid-December... I got another interview for a paraprofessional job and got the job! I would start after Christmas break working in an Excel classroom with children that needed extra classroom support due to behavioral or academic issues. This was exciting to me but also nerve-racking since my last experience in a brand new program (BIS in Korea) was very stressful and not at all what I thought...

After a joyous Christmas celebration in San Diego (Lucy's first!) and an extra week of vacation due to snow days, I started my 8th new job in Boise...