The best compliment you can get on the web is an email or comment from someone saying that something you wrote touched their heart. That happened today. A girl named Katie contacted me to tell me she had re-posted something I wrote and it literally made my day. I haven’t been the best blogger lately. I used to love posting because I felt as though I had something to say or a story to tell. Lately that hasn’t been the case. I was talking with my mom recently and she said that she felt my blog was a bit bipolar. It used to be witty, and sometimes still is, but now it is just really reflective. She asked what changed but in the same breath commented that the addition of Eli really appeared to have changed me. I nodded in silent agreement.

Baby #3 did me in. I mean really. A lot of people talk about what it is like to add a second child or a third or fourth. I asked everyone I knew with 3 kids what the transition was like.  Sometimes they said it was no different than having 2 kids. Sometimes they said it was exponentially harder. I sensed that for me it was going to be the latter and I readied myself for the onslaught. God was gracious and gave me a baby that made the transition easier than it could have been but I will be honest – 3 has been really different. And hard. I’m sorry for the brutal honesty and if you are preggo with baby #3 right now, stop reading. I’m kidding. It’s not that bad. Well, not really.

I love Elijah. More than I’ve loved any baby. Not to say I didn’t love my others but what I mean is that I love him as a “baby”. I rushed through the baby stage with Isaac and Joshua. Barely taking time to think until they were walking and yelling “Mama” with their mouths full of cheerios. Eli is different, I am immersed in his “babyness.” I love it because I know that this is it for me. Drinking in his infancy has calmed me and allowed me to reflect on how quick this parade of childhood goes.

Okay, that said….I will be honest and say there are days when the weight of being responsible for 3 small children and a full time job and a marriage make me feel like I might crumble. I start at 6am and fall into bed at 9pm, feeling exhausted and a little sad. I have heard many people say that the hardest time in a woman’s life is when she has children under the age of 6. I think is couldn’t be more true. But when you add to that a woman who doesn’t really know who she is and is still searching for her purpose, you have a real problem.

So, if you sense a difference in my writing, well there is. I am in a learning stage. I am trying to figure out how I got to be 33 years old with 3 kids and yet still feel like I’m really just an overgrown teenager waiting for real life to start. I have a feeling though that I am not alone.

I sense desperation in some of my fellow mommy’s eyes. I see the longing for a goal and purpose beyond diapers and midnight feedings, playgroups and school drop-off lines. If you have stumbled onto this blog and feel just a little of what I’ve described then you are in the right place. Let’s find out together how to feel whole when little parts of you are walking around asking for cereal and string cheese and someone to wipe their bottom.

For my friends that come here for my ridiculous sense of humor or tips on beauty products, I promise it hasn’t been shelved…I’m still hilarious (just ask me) and I still love make-up.  Bare with me though, after 9 months of growing a baby, it appears that the next stage includes some emotional growth that was much needed.

It is a season for change in my life. I am doing a lot of writing, just not here. Some of it is too personal at this point. Some of it needs to be refined before other eyes take it in. I am working on me. All of my longings, my desires – where do they come from and why are they there? It is a season for self introspection. The girl in me thinks that it is time to grow up, in a good way, a healthy way. I have been living with the heart of a 17 year old on my sleeve for many years now. I love her enthusiasm, her hope for all things possible. However, she’s not fit to be a wife or mother of three.

As I put down my toys and turn toward real life, good and sweet as it is, I am also turning toward the One who made me. He has taken my hand in a new way and has asked, so gently, for me to look and see what He sees. With His eyes, His grace.

On my commute, I glance at the clouds. They are lined up, with the sun behind them, looking like lighted rails. As though some cosmic train could come barreling down them, whistle blowing, at any moment. As this pregnancy enters it’s third and final stage, I find myself caught up in moments like this. Where all is still and calm and I am lost in thought. Other times, most of the time, I am doing the opposite of cloud gazing. I am the train, barreling down, whistle blowing. SWIM LESSONS! LUNCHES PACKED! DRY CLEANING! SCHOOL SUPPLIES! I SAID GO TO BED NOW-STOP ARGUING-EAT YOUR CARROTS!

Life as a mother and wife can eat you alive. There is always something to do, someone for whom to do it. Glimpses of clarity, the girl you once were – flip flops and pig tails – come out of nowhere and leave you stunned. How did I get here? I never thought the last words before my love and I fell asleep would be, “make sure you get the dry cleaning tomorrow” and “did you set the coffee machine for 6:15?” I don’t know when the transformation occurred, it seems like yesterday I was driving too fast in my Volkswagen, No Doubt blaring on the radio, with a Big Gulp of Diet Coke perched perilously between my legs as I reached to shift to 5th gear.

Now, I wear cardigans. I keep extra sweaters in my car in case the weather changes. I drive a car with three rows and I think to myself, I need to switch the clothes in the washer over to the dryer before I go to bed so that they don’t smell like mildew, while I am applying anti-aging moisturizer. My best days now are not filled with Big Gulps, rock bands and tanning beds. They are spent chasing my kids around a swing set, hearing Joshua say “I cozy you Mama” and grasping my husbands hand in church, turning our fingers over to see that after all these years it still feels the same.

Somewhere between 2 hours of pushing, midnight feedings and mortgages, I grew up. As we prepare to open our hearts and lives to another child, I will admit I am a little scared of loosing a bit more of the pig tailed girl who drives too fast. I am more scared however, of looking back twenty years from now and missing the 30 something woman who knew what it felt like to soothe a two year old Joshie in the middle of the night, walk a 5 year old Isaac to his first day of kindergarten and feel the subtle movement of a precious child in my swollen belly.

It is so easy to look back and say “what if” about our lives and experiences. I want to know that I am here, in this moment for a reason, for a season of time. While I am here, I will collect every memory of my young children and hold it tight for this too,  much like the transmission on that old Volkswagen, will eventually become a memory.

Dear Kenna Marie Alexandra,

First I need to apologize. When you were born, I wasn’t your biggest fan. You were little and squishy and you cried a lot. I was 15 and self involved…you can see how the two of us might not have meshed well. My friends thought you were cute and that it was pretty novel for me to have such a young sister. Herein lay the problem at this point, I was convinced everyone thought you were my daughter, not my sister.

You see, we had just moved to Turlock and no one really knew us. Then you were born, less than a month after I started high school. When we used to go out to dinner as a family and inevitably I would end up sitting next to the infant carrier with you in it. The waitress would smile with pity and kindly ask me “how old is she?” I suppose now I would just giggle and answer the question. Back then, at 15, the best answer to this question was, “She’s not mine. I am 15!” (insert major attitude and corresponding eye roll, possible hair flip as well).

Frankly, those first few years I was convinced you were bit of nuisance to me but at least you were a cash cow. A few hours of babysitting and I was off to the movies with a $20 in hand. I think it worked out well for everyone (sorry Mom, I think I milked the system a bit). However, something began to happen when you turned 4. You were funny. Really funny. You would say stuff and do stuff that made everyone laugh. Like the time I was standing in the kitchen, asking Mom what was for dinner. She said enchiladas. You were in the adjoining room and with a flash you threw open the door and proclaimed “Hello Encha-la-las!” To this day, everyone in the family calls them “enchalalas.”

When I went away to college, I was expecting  to miss home. I wasn’t expecting to miss you as much as I did. You had become such a big part of my life and I was fascinated with how much you were growing up that I didn’t want to miss a thing. I remember crying after talking to you on the phone about your first day of kindergarten. I think I had come to realize that you were more than a sister, you felt like a part of me. As much as you drove me crazy with multiple screenings of the Little Mermaid and constant requests to “swim with you,” you had begun to teach me what it would be like to be a parent. I felt responsible for you, in a good way. I had a stake in how you were going to turn out.

This weekend was your senior prom. You are on top of the world right now, a new car (well, new to you) a prom on a boat in San Francisco, graduation weeks away, and a new sense of adulthood rushing up behind you like a fresh breeze. You are still the same funny kid that couldn’t say enchiladas only now you look a lot more like a grown women (and exactly like Mom by the way). I just wanted to tell you that I am proud of you. I am proud to be your (gasp) 32 year old sister. I never pictured our relationship as it moved into adulthood, you were always a kid to me. Now I am getting a taste of what it will be like to also call you my friend and, it is sweet. Also, I think it is time to officially apologize for the second middle name (Alexandra) that Mom and Dad begrudgingly gave you at my request.  I insisted you have this name and then subsequently attempted to get the nickname “Alex” to stick for a time. I had watched one to many episodes of Family Ties for your good. Thank you for humoring me.

You are such a joy in my life Missy Marie that I can’t even express it with the appropriate words. You are a responsible, creative, compassionate person and a fantastic dancer (which you did not get from me). In my minds eye though, I can still see you running across the street to play with your childhood buddy Doug, forcing him to act out all kind of things with Barbies against his will.  I can see you swiming in the pool for hours on end, begging me to show you how to do a back dive and wondering why I kept applying baby oil to my already skin cancer exposed teenage body. Where did all the years go? Now we share shoes and you change my kids diapers, as though the time never existed when I changed yours.

I can’t imagine our family without you and I can’t believe Mom gave birth to you when she was in her 40′s! She is a rock star and you are taking after her in all the good ways. I am excited to see what you have to offer the world little sister.

So, even though you are all grown up and beautiful beyond compare, please know that this is how I will always remember you:

Even though, this is what you look like now:

I love you sister.

Jenn