Been a long time...

I was reading back through my blog yesterday. I almost don't even know that person anymore. Things in my life are so incredibly different now that I don't even remember some of those feelings that I had. I have gone back to work full-time. And when I say full-time, I mean I leave my house at 6:15 and the earliest I ever get home is 5:20. Most days closer to 6. I don't know what's going on at the kids' school. I don't know what's going on with any of my friends or their kids. It's just really strange. I am very thankful for my job and the new friends I have made there, but it's just really different. Maybe Stephen will be able to find a job soon and I can come back home again, but I am not sure, even if he does find a job, that things will ever be the same.

Luke started Kindergarten this year. It is SO hard to fathom how fast these 5 years have gone by. I was looking at one of the first posts on here. Stephen had gotten me a digital camera for Mothers' Day because I had started this blog and he wanted me to be able to post pictures on here. Luke was almost a year old and the most precious littly baby boy. I almost didn't even remember that. He used to make this face where he would wrinkle his nose and it was so cute!

I also found pics of Claire's first day of school. She looks SO little!!! And I found a pic of Jordan and Luke and they looked like babies. I guess because they were :) Jordan will be 11 in December so he certainly doesn't look like a baby anymore. Campbell was about the sweetest thing you have ever seen.

So, all of that to say, I woke up today and found myself in a whole new world. It's one I don't recognize and one that I thought would be forever getting here. I am still supposed to be that young skinny mom taking my babies to playgroup and coming home and making lunch, then naps, then more playing...the simple life. I miss it so badly I can hardly stand it. Most days, I feel like I don't know how to be a mom of big kids. I always wanted to be a mom, but I just never pictured the growing up part, just the baby part. And now to feel like I am missing the last of the baby/toddler stuff just about does me in.

Now that all that venting is over, I would like to take this time to brag on my husband. While this isn't the ideal situation for either of us, I do think when I can take a step back and look, we are both doing a pretty good job of handling things. Does he want to be at home with the kids right now? Probably not, just like I don't really want to be working. But usually when I get home from work, on the nights he doesn't have a soccer game, he has the living room/kitchen picked up, dinner almost done, homework on its way to being finished, so that I can come home and not be totally overwhelmed. Just like when I was home, some days go better than others :) But he is doing an amazing job and I don't ever feel like he is taking what I am doing for granted. He is also writing his column agan, which I am so happy about! He is an amazing writer and gets so much satisfaction from doing it. Even if he does "stir the pot" a bit with his column ;)

Anyway, I realized how much I missed writing out my thoughts and how much it used to help me get these feelings down on paper and move on from them. So here I am. Not sure how often I will be writing, but hopefully it won't be months again.