I don’t come here to write very often anymore. It’s not that I do not want to, because I do. I want to write about our busy little family. About how Piper is getting so big and so mature. She has a job and is saving money. I want to spread the news that Davilyn has joined the Church Youth Choir and with each time they sing, I see her confidence grow a little bit more. I want to tell you all how seriously funny Quinn is. That she gets jokes that seem years beyond her. That she is still our little chatterbox.
But I don’t.
I always knew there would come a time where I would start to wonder about their thoughts on my blogging. How they would feel about me telling everyone about all their stories. Even if it comes from a place of pride and love. How social media has impacted their lives in ways that I will never truly understand because I didn’t have to live with it while I was growing up. Now when someone googles their names, pictures and posts from my blog pop up. I always knew that this was a possibility, of course I did. I just didn’t really think about how they would feel about it.
They aren’t babies anymore and they are their own beings with their own wishes and desires and thoughts on life. Life got so busy and even though I knew this day would come I did not stop to think about how barren and deserted my blog would look when it happened.
I ghosted my blog this year.
It seems like yesterday and it seems like a lifetime ago, that I first roared this place to life. When I blogged about wanting a family, to finally starting a family, to being a family. From spending all of our free time together, to going in three or four or five different directions some nights. It’s a funny time in the life of a parent. Enjoying the independence that comes with your children growing up and mourning it all at the same time. I think about what life will be like when Piper goes off to school. I think about it more than I think I should since she is only 12. And when I do, the tears immediately spring to my eyes because I know that my heart is going to cry for her. It already whimpers at just the thought. How do you do this? How do you get through it all? Because I can’t imagine her in a different city. Living on her own. Will she be safe? What if someone hurts her? What if she needs me and I can’t be there?
What if Davilyn has an anxiety episode and won’t go to school because she feels sick…. because she does you know. And it’s been a struggle. Some months are better than others.
And what about Quinn… who loses track of time. Will she be late to class. Who will be there to remind her?
I count our time together now. In three years, Magoo will be driving and in five years she will graduate high school. In ten years, my house will sit empty and silent for 9 months of the year, and that’s only if they decide to come home during their summer breaks. And at one time, ten years felt like a long time. Not anymore. Now ten years hardly seems long enough. It isn’t long enough.
I wrote about all this last year in my Year in Review. How I wasn’t blogging much and was considering giving it up. I just didn’t think that I would go cold turkey. But I did and it was a bit unexpected.
We spent two weeks off together over the holidays last year. And it was lazy and relaxing and awesome. Craig started a new job this past summer so he didn’t have a full two weeks off but we still had lots of time together.
We had a great summer together in our back yard pool. I love that it brings all the friends to my yard (damn right, it’s better than yours). We renewed our vows in the Catholic Church on our 17th Anniversary. We ordered up a keg from Lake of the Woods Brewery and it was delivered to our back door. We partied and danced and swam and emptied that keg in our back yard until after 2:00 a.m. It was just as fun as the first time we did it! We are so blessed with the people in our lives.
Craig and I are crazy thankful for all the relationships that we have had made over these past few years. Crazy thankful for our families friendships. We hosted Friendsgiving this year. We had friends over for a turkey dinner and games after wards. I hope that they know how their friendships fill my heart and make me smile when I think of them.
I have had a very successful and prosperous year at work, my best ever for many reasons. Moving slowly into another field of law. Stepping out of my comfort zone and learning new things. Doing new things. I’m going back to (online) school this winter to complete a certificate in Restorative Justice. And I am terrified. What if I cannot do it! Where will I find the extra time to complete all the work? What have I gotten myself into…
We continue to spend many many hours at the rinks and travelling as a family to hockey tournaments. It has been the most awesome thing that we have done as a family. It has it’s downs for sure, like the constant running with three girls playing hockey. The constant busy. The cold. The time it takes to volunteer and the unthankful jerks that one will always run into. But the fun and friendships we, as a family, have made cannot be measured. There are not enough words to describe the joy that being part of a hockey family has brought into our lives. The blessings are bountiful and watching these girls all grow up together and come together as a team has been one of the most rewarding things that I have experienced. You may have no idea that you could fall in love with a team of hockey playing girls… but you can and you will. You will cheer the team and each of those players when they have success and you will want to cry for that team and those players when they don’t. If anyone had ever told me that some of my best memories of my girls would be from watching them play hockey and spending time with our hockey family, I’m not sure I could have believed it. They are, in fact, some of my best memories.
So I’m not sure where this will lead me. Whether or not my blogging days are behind me. I think they might be. Let’s see what 2019 brings.
