Ode to Valentine

Ian took the girls to Minnesota for the long weekend.  I am all at once so so thankful and incredibly anxious.  I always am when I'm away from parts of my family.  Half of my heart is in that big blue van.  It feels funny.

Tonight they pulled out around 5:30.  Felix and I made dinner.  Pasta Carbonara, cheesecake for dessert.  I gave him a bath.  He almost didn't know what to do with all that room in the tub.  I read him his favorite books.  I sang him lullabyes.  I laid him down and covered him with his Auntie Jenny quilt, propped the door and heard him playing with his crib toys for about 10 minutes before settling into sleep.

I tidied the girls room, I did the dishes from the day, I folded three loads of laundry.  Halfway through my folding I decided to record the Olympics I was watching and spring for a movie.  It's so rare I get to do that.  I chose Perks of Being a Wallflower.  A book I'd liked, a movie I'd wanted to see.  Oh man, it sent me reeling.

I don't know how good it was.  But I love Emma Watson, and I always enjoy a cast of mostly unknown actors and actresses.  It just brought me right back to high school.  It's something I've been thinking about a lot lately.

I turn 30 next Thursday.  It's so weird.  On one hand I feel so thirty.  I have three kids, I have a husband, a house.  My day consists of poopy diapers and toting kids around and tying bows on clothes and in hair, and cooking and cleaning, and sewing and knitting.  It seems appropriate that I am thirty now (soon!).  Still, I am a touch sad.  Sad because I'm leaving another decade behind, a decade that contained so much good and change and amazingness.  I don't even know what to expect from 30.  How can it top my 20s?

Honestly?  I'm hoping it can, just by being steady.  In my 30s I want stability.  I want predictability, but first, I want change.

Today was so so hard.  We were in our house all day.  Ian had to take the van to get it serviced so I was without a car all day.  We could have bundled and ventured out but we didn't because we aren't in that routine.  It's been so dang cold and snowy I don't even attempt anymore.  I'm so down about it all.  We need a new routine.

It was very hard with Ainsley today.  She's been very hard lately.  Some nights I find myself searching online for an  to our struggles with her.  Spirited child advice books always leave me wanting.  She doesn't fit in to any category I've found.  I so so need to find grace with that girl.  I am so so thankful for this break.

But the truth is I already miss her.  I've been holding my breath until Ian told me they're safe at a hotel in Tomah.  I teared up a bit when I heard my girls on bluetooth from the car, telling me they're entertaining daddy with knock knock jokes and that they love me so so much.  I love them too.  It's crazy how much I miss them after only a few hours.  How am I going to survive three days?

Well, I have a plan.  Felix and I area going to live large.  We're going to get out.  We're going to get organized and have some fun.  I'm excited to indulge a bit with my tiny guy.  Paint the town 9 month old and mommy style.  Remember how blissful this baby age is.  I love Felix so much.  He is so dang cute.  He is communicating and playing and chatty and I just can't wait to absorb him fully (and enjoy two nap times a day like the good old days).

10 years ago I was a sophomore in college.  I was hanging out with friends every night,  meeting Ian for caf dates and film noir club movie viewings.  I was taking German, and conceptual drawing, and reading Beowulf and working Saturday morning shifts at Blue Mondays.  I had friends, I was in love, I was independent, I was free.

Now?  I am almost thirty.  I have a 5 year old, a three and a half year old and a 9 month old, sleeping upstairs in his big sister's crib.  I have very few new friends, since those glory college days.  I so desperately miss those relationships and fear every day that some are lost for good.  I have a husband who I love something fierce.  This boy I knew in college somehow became this man who is everything I could ever hope for in this adult life.  I stumble daily, trying to find my way.  I look into the eyes of my children who I made with this man I love and I see hope and beauty and simple pure joy, and I crave it, am reminded that it is within me.

This weekend I'm going to do my damndest to find it, my tiny guy and I.

Happy Valentine's Day to you all.   I hope you hold on to the love in your life.  It is so very incredibly precious, isn't it?