Oh I will miss 2010! I have loved this year, and I feel sort of sad to see it come to an end. I love the even number (petty detail I know!). Neil spent most of the year out of work and I guess it could be easy to see the negatives from this past year, but honestly I can only see the blessings. How wonderful it has been to have him home from work all the time for such a long time! He has been so great with the boys and so helpful to me around the house. And how God has blessed us by providing for us along the way - we somehow scraped by! And then by blessing Neil with a new job to keep us going in November. And he really likes his job, which is great!
In March, I got pregnant with Samuel, and so I have spent basically the whole year pregnant. I LOVE being pregnant! :) It's such a blessing (yes, I think I will be using that word a lot this entry - I just feel like I have a LOT of them to count right now). Samuel was born on December 21st at 1.41pm, in my bed at home! He weighed 9lbs 9oz and was 59cm (23.5in!) long!! My biggest baby by far! There are photos and such at my pregnancy blog but I will try to get some photos up here too soon. Right now he is 10 days old and Neil is still at home on paternity leave. It is unpaid so we'll feel the pinch of that pretty soon, but never mind. He was not eligible for paid paternity leave because he had only just started the job, but they were very willing for him to take the time all the same, and we felt it was important enough to take the financial hit. Thankfully Christmas and New Year are falling right within the 2 weeks he is taking, which is wonderful for our time as a family over the Christmas holidays, but also there are 2 Bank Holiday Mondays within it, which save him taking unpaid leave on those two days! :) He is going back to work on Jan 4th, which is coming up pretty soon actually! I am resting completely, mostly in bed nursing or napping. Last time we discovered it was the best way for me to be the most efficiently recovered by the time Neil went back to work, and this time it seems to be working out that way too. I feel very well rested already, and am eager to get stuck into the housework (of which there is PLENTY building up, yikes!) and my days raising FIVE little boys now.
I am so very blessed to have five children, and five sons at that! I feel somewhat nervous about the task ahead of me, especially getting used to juggling five and sleep deprivation and homeschooling (though I am not turning my thoughts to school until the end of January, to give myself chance to adjust first), and alllllll the constant discipline and so on that's involved in mothering so many little boys! I am pretty sure I am completely inadequate to the task, but THANKFULLY (oh so thankfully!!!) I have Jesus. And I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Pheweee. Because otherwise I would be toast! But I've got to remember to lean on Him and not try to do it in my own strength all the same, because if I forget to do that, I will also be toast. Yes.
I always miss being pregnant when I'm not, and that has kicked in already! So I'm sad to leave 2010 behind and move on to a new year. Since 2004 I have been pregnant every year:
2004 - Arthur was conceived and born.
2005 - Matthew was conceived.
2006 - Matthew was born.
2007 - Nathan was conceived.
2008 - Nathan was born, and Benjamin was conceived.
2009 - Benjamin was born.
2010 - Samuel was conceived and born.
How BLESSED am I?!?! Just looking at that list fills me with such joy! Now 2011 would feel strangely empty without some part of a pregnancy in it, and I am praying that God will bless us again later this year. I don't think I could ever get tired of having babies. Raising them is much much harder, but I would not want to be doing anything else all the same.
Well there are 4 minutes to go until midnight. I am sitting up in bed with my laptop, and Samuel is sleeping next to me in my bed. We have no TV so I can't count down and see Big Ben's "bongs", but oh well. I hear fireworks already all over the place. Right after this, I will snuggle down with my tiny boy and he'll probably wake and I will nurse him and fall asleep with him. I love my life. I am so happy and feel so blessed. I'm so thankful for this past year, and feel excited and eager about the year ahead. Nervous, if I forget to look at God, but otherwise just happy and excited. Thank you Lord! I love you!
Happy New Year everyone! Be blessed and healthy in 2011!
3 comments:
Happy New Year Alice and Family! If you and/or the boys love fireworks I'd highly recommend looking on iPlayer to see if the New Years countdown and fireworks are on there - the fireworks lasted absolutely ages and were amazing - not seen them like that before xx
So I know this is the second time in as many comments as I've done this, but I just had your new post and Corey's new post up in different tabs and it occurred to me, duh. Corey runs "Watching the Waters" http://www.watchingthewaters.com/ I know she's a Christian, but her worldview is probably quite different from yours. Don't even know if you're still curious to read adoption blogs - and the kids she has who were adopted, weren't adopted because of disability (to my knowledge).
YES THAT'S RIGHT it's the third time now. BUT you should read this even if you're not after adoption blogs anymore. I love, love, love reading Matt Mooney's blog and hearing about his family. And considering the fact that I'm a cranky atheist, and he's a fundamentalist-y Christian who talks about that A LOT, that's probably saying something. He blogged when he and his wife found out their child was going to be born with Trisomy 18, and then through their son Eliot's life, and after his death, and what it meant to him and them: http://www.mattandginny.blogspot.com/
They've had two children since, so he talks about that sometimes, and he just announced that they are intending to adopt. I find that terribly exciting, but maybe you'd like to read about it too, especially seeing as he's coming from probably a very similar perspective to you AND he's specifically adopting a disabled child from eastern Europe. Even if he never blogs again, or never mentions adoption again, I think you'd probably like to take a look: http://theatypicallife.com/blog/
ONE DAY, ONE DAY I will actually comment on what you've said in your post
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