The choices we make

Someone said to me the other day, "Our life is not our own." Now to put context to this assumption, it was said in regard to taxiing our children around to their activities. So I got to thinking, which always leads to writing simply because I can formulate my thoughts much better than when my fat tongue gets in the way of actually speaking. Plus, have I mentioned my eighteen month old son does not sleep through the night yet? Sleep deprivation and verbose don't mingle. But, that's another story...

See, for me its simple: my life is MY own; my children are now my life so therefore they are two in the same. Call it 'child centric' rearing if you will but I have embraced motherhood and my role of providing opportunities for my children. If that involves me driving my kid to piano lessons, attending library story time or packing dinner in order to eat at the soccer fields after practice -- I'm game.  I am comfortable in knowing that I have achieved in my short lived career, advanced my education and traveled. I feel very fortunate TO be with my children at this time, raising them as a full-time mother. Full-time not because working moms are somehow deemed part-time mothers when they step into their office after dropping their kid off at daycare, but because I am with my children every waking moment--did I mention my son doesn't sleep through the night?

I was work centric, always striving to be the best for so very long. It took a few missteps and an exit from that lifestyle to truly understand "my own life." When my husband and I tried to have a baby for over one year, it became an intangible yearning, an unattainable goal. And so I, striving to always achieve applied my work ethic to that of the biology of my body. Researching infertility and going to see a specialist, I began our determined quest which would eventually lead us to our happily ever after. After much sticking, probing and monitoring there was nothing to diagnose. A realization set in: control was not to be had, time and patience would prove true. A sentiment golden with both making babies and raising them. 



My first born: Anderson

When my son was born, so was I-reborn in a sense. My "own life" was in the mercy of this child. In my previous life I might have done a happy dance given the project was successfully executed. This however was the ultimate project, HE would have my time and everything that I could provide him-his emotional, spiritual and material needs met for his taking. Followed by his sister twenty-two months later, and then with no special help we were surprisingly blessed with another baby boy, twenty months later. Yes, your math is correct three babies in four years! Yes, I am a self admitted overachiever.

 

I believe our lives are our own. "Your own life," is defined in the choices we make, in concert with those things we cannot control.