How do I love my life....let me count the ways: Part 1

I love being a mom. I love my daughters so fervently, and I cannot imagine my life without them. While I am far from being a supermom, I am happy that I can say I am not a yeller, and I would even say out loud that I have a wonderful gift (God-given for sure) of being able to be very patient with my children. I have not always been able to say this. Being a mom has not always worked out in an ideal way for me, with having a husband who has been gone for months 1 and 2 weeks after the births of our youngest two daughters. I have had my standards adjust multiple times over the years. It is just now that I understand the fluidity of my standard goals, and I am okay when they are sometimes far from where I perceive them to be.

I always wanted to be a mom, ever since I was a little girl. I had a special relationship with my own mom, and I always wanted to have a child to have that relationship with. When I was younger, I never had an idea of how many children I wanted, or genders, I just knew I wanted to be a mom.

I've always loved children and started babysitting as soon as I was able. Children have always loved me. I went to college for a degree in elementary education. When I dropped out of college due to financial reasons, the career path I chose involved teaching children. I have always felt younger and more alive when surrounded by bright, beautiful little minds. When Mr. Cat and I married, we knew we wanted to have children some day. We had our little plans, those plans you make for your future when you are newlyweds. We decided we would have 3 children, a girl, a boy, and then another girl. We even had names picked out.

We were married in 1995. In 1997, we started talking more seriously about starting a family. I had recently switched to a new career, one that was not child-centered, and we felt like we were a little more stable and we decided that starting with the following year, we would begin to try to start a family. I had no idea that God had other plans in store for us.

It was Thanksgiving of 1997 and Mr. Cat was making sausage in our tiny little apartment kitchen (I actually think that kitchen was bigger than the one we currently have!). I started gagging and felt very sick to my stomach. I ran out of the room and down the hall to our only bathroom. The smell was just awful to me. I had to go into our bedroom and run an air purifier to be able to stand the scent of the sausage that was looming in our place. That was our big clue. Mr. Cat went right out and bought a pregnancy test. I took it and we both waited. We found out we were going to be parents.

When talking about my entrance into motherhood, I say one thing that always throws people who know me for a loop. I never intended to be a stay at home mom. Ever. I had plans, people. I had a career. I was going to stay home for my 6 week maternity leave, and after that, baby would be put in a home daycare and I would go back to work. We would eventually move into an apartment that had more than 1 room, but it was no biggie. Babies don't take up much space.

Ha. I had it all planned out. Again, God's plans greatly differed from my own. Long story much much shorter, I sailed through the first trimester, and towards the beginning of the second one, had complications that left me on bed rest and in danger of losing our baby. For 30 days I was made to stay in bed other than getting up to use the bathroom. I was alone all day while Mr. Cat worked in the next state. He left me with a cooler of food and drinks at my bedside. I slept clutching my Bible and praying for that precious life within me for each and every day.

Things improved, and I made plans to return to work. The day I was to go back, complications arose again. God made it very clear to both of us that I was to stay home. This was no easy task. To sum it up, we moved our entire family up to New York to live with my mother in her tiny two bedroom apartment. Remember, no biggie because babies don't take up much space. In the summer of 1998 Mini Me was born, and I have never looked back.

Fast forward through the years. Old Soul was born in December of 2000, Joyful was born in October of 2002, and Gift was born in March of 2003. Four children, all daughters, some of the names we chose, some other names. Two of the four involved a lot of solo-parenting. Two weeks after Joyful was born, Mr. Cat left for Korea and was gone for the first 15 months of her life. He was in Iraq, was able to come home for the birth of Gift, and then a week later was back in Iraq. My experience with mothering has definitely had its ups and downs and many many challenges. Being a mom is rarely how I imagined things when I was young and dreaming of motherhood, or even when I was older and babysitting or working with children.

Especially now that I am past the baby days and are into the teen aged years, the pre-teen years, and the school-aged years, my definition of what it means to be a mom is constantly morphing and changing shape. Even still, the title "Mom" is the most rewarding thing I have ever had the honor of being called.

I am so blessed to be a mother. Someone once told me, children are only lent to us from God. We are charged with raising them, and teaching them, and helping to shape them into productive purposeful people, but they are only on loan to us for a time. It is true. We have to make the most of this little bit of time. As we grow more and more attached and in love with these precious creatures, we have to entrust them back to God. It isn't always easy, for, who can possibly love my children any more than me? But take that love that I feel, magnify it and multiply it by infinity, and you still can't reach the amount of love that God has for them. I am so incredibly honored to be the one that God chose to be their mother, and I love being a mom.

Let's start at the ending

Well, this isn't the ending, but instead of starting at the beginning, which would be way too lengthy and time consuming, I will start at the present, and work my way backwards. (sticking in a length disclaimer: this will be lengthy. I promise to try to keep my words to a manageable content in the future, but this is about as condensed as I can get it and still make the point.)

Today -

I am a Catholic woman, wife, and mother. A convert, really, even though I was baptised into the Church as an infant. I never had catechism, and never went through my sacraments as a child. I was a protestant for many years, trying out various denominations, trying to find a "fit" and at the time of my decision to follow the conversion path, I was an active member of a southern baptist church. My entire family converted, all 6 of us. My husband and I were welcomed into the Church in April of 2012. My oldest 3 daughters received their First Holy Communion that May, and my oldest daughter, her Confirmation. This past May, my youngest daughter received her First Holy Communion. I try to attend daily Holy Mass with my family.

I am a home schooling mom. This is my 8th year total, and 7th year consecutive. Or something like that. Our faith was not the main reason for our decision to home school our girls, but it has been an important part of our curriculum choices. That hasn't changed.

I have the vocation to stay at home with my children, raising them, and teaching them, and doing any number of domestic things.

I am the wife of a full time college student.

I am the wife of a disabled combat veteran, and the wife of an Army retiree.

I am living in an apartment in a small town in Florida. My apartment complex is sandwiched between a hay field and a cow pasture.

This is the present. Now I will back it up a bit, and you can see some of the major life changes we've gone through in the past .......(whatever)

This summer -

In June, I found out my mom was sick, and cancer was suspected. I flew to see her, and provide as much support for her as possible. I expected a long, arduous journey with cancer, but I was hopeful for her, and my plan was to get her as settled as possible. I arrived on a Saturday. By the following Wednesday, she was gone.

The summer started when school let out for the husband. We were an unemployed household. He applied every possible place he could think of, and yet, no job was to be found. Where we live in FL, the summer is pretty slow due to the lack of snowbirds. There was no being picky, there was just nothing available. During the school year, we survive on Mr. Cat's retirement/disability pay, student loans, and the GI bill housing allowance. During the summer months (and the month school is out during winter) there is no GI Bill or student loans. That leaves us with not enough to live on. At least, on paper.

This past spring 2013 - Mr. Cat was finishing his second semester as a full time college student. The girls and I found a home school group. We were really starting to meet people and get involved in our parish.

Last winter 2012-13 - Our first Christmas in Florida

Last fall 2012 - We moved into our little apartment, close to the college and our parish.  Mr. Cat enrolled in college full time, using the GI bill, which was our backup plan for "just in case".

Last Summer 2012 - In order:  Mr. Cat retired from the Army. We got our house in GA ready for rental, picked up and moved everyone to FL. We were going there because he had a job that was "unofficially his, blah blah blah just a formality, blah blah blah". We had no place to live, and moved in with some extremely generous and gracious friends.  He did not get the job. We were left scrambling to figure out what to do.

The year prior to that - Mr. Cat found out he was being medically retired from the Army and it was a long long process.

The muddle of years before and before -(not in order) I was an Army wife. I birthed 4 daughters, and survived one 15 month unacommpanied tour to Korea (starting with a 2 week old baby), 2 deployments to Iraq (one with a birth in the middle, one ending in medical evacuation), any number of occasions of solo-parenting.

Anyway, you get the gist. Basically, the last couple of years have been real doozies for our family. We are finding our way. Slowly, but we are getting there. We aren't where we planned, or even wanted to be, and in many ways, it almost seems like we have taken a giant step backward. Yet, here we are. Right where we are supposed to be. I have 2 parting words to leave you with: Divine Providence