Beginning of Summer

Today it's hot outside. I'm talking 93 degrees hot!!! The lawn mowers are running in the neighborhood, and you can hear people outside. You can smell the grills, and the fresh cut grass and the breeze is just perfect! It's summer outside today! Now this is Minnesota, so by the end of this week it could be cool again, but today, it's summer!

Hitting Home

The apartment complex dropped off our lease renewal form yesterday. We have until May 31st to either renew our lease or turn in our written notice of intent to vacate. We have to be out by July 31st. We simply cannot afford to stay here. I wanted to be candid about the emotions I have concerning this move. I hope I don't come off wrong. But, here goes nothing...

I'm sad. I LOVE our apartment. It has become home to me over the past two years. It is the first place Nathan and I have lived that didn't have an end date on it. We brought our child home to this apartment. I love the location, and the neighborhood. I love the suburb we live in, it is clean and safe and you never here of people getting murdered here even though we live in a very diverse area. It's great! We live across the street from the mall, within walking distance of a beautiful park with an awesome walking path, and within minutes of anything you could ask for! So I am incredibly sad to leave all this behind.

I am angry. Sort of. Moving was not on my agenda this year. I feel like I've just gotten the hang of this balance of being a mother and taking care of the house, and now I'm being uprooted. I knew we would not be staying in this apartment forever, but I always envisioned our next move being to a house where we would be for the next good long chunk of time. Now we are going to be moving to another apartment, and it will not be half as nice as the one we live in now. We have to cut the rent cost by several hundred dollars, and the way to do that is to get a smaller, not as nice apartment somewhere else. We are looking at another suburb. This one is okay, but not really as nice as the one we live in now. The apartment complex we are looking at is not within walking distance of anything. The ones that are, are too expensive. It is next door practically to the transit station... gotta love the smell and sound of buses in the morning. This is a suburb where people have recently been murdered... not too far from where we would be living. (Don't get me wrong it's not a totally dangerous area, it's just not as nice as where we live now. You would be hard pressed to find a suburb where there hasn't been violence! :)) Basically we are looking at a step backwards and I don't like that.

I am worried. I don't want to keep moving from temporary housing to temporary housing. It starts to get pointless after a while, and at some point you have to stop uprooting your family, especially your older children. I don't want to always think of where we are living as a temporary deal, but I don't want to be in this apartment for very long. I want to buy a house as soon as possible, so it's hard not to think that way. I am worried that we might never settle down somewhere. I am worried about Derek's schooling (even though I know it's way early. I never said these worries were rational!) The schools in the area we are moving to are not the greatest. We would be left with the option of private school or homeschool, and since I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be able to afford tuition at a private school, I would be forced to homeschool, which to be honest, I'm not sure I want to do. There's a lot of pressure in Christian circles to homeschool, and I'm not sure I would be good at it. (That's another blog post entirely! Haha!) Again, not that these worries are all rational at this point in time, I'm just being candid about how I'm feeling. I'm worried about going back to work. I'm going to have to go back to work part time at some point, and I don't want to. There aren't very many part time jobs out there that aren't retail and I do not want to go back to retail. I may not have a choice but I can't think of anything worse than going back into retail to be a sales associate at some store after being a manager for so long. I don't know, then there's the issue of childcare. What do I do with Derek while I'm working? My mom works part time, and it's pointless to pay for childcare when I'm only going to be making enough to cover that cost anyway. Then all I'm doing is throwing my paycheck at childcare. Right now my only option is to try to work my schedule around my mother's and hope that at some point I will be able to see my husband.

So anyway, that's where I'm at. I feel so bad because this is not where I want to be. I want to be thankful that we have the means to afford any roof over our heads! I want to be thankful that we don't have to move in with my parents. I want to be thankful that Nathan has a stable job even if it doesn't pay alot. I want to be thankful that my mom is willing to watch Derek for free. But I'm not any of those things right now. I guess I'm just not there yet. Maybe you all could pray for me that God will change my heart to have the right attitude about this. :)

Please continue to Pray for this family

I posted about a week ago a link to Kayleigh's Story and asked for prayer for that family as they battled for their baby girl's life. She went to be with Jesus on May 11th. Please keep this family in prayer. My life would be shattered if I ever lost Derek, and my heart is going out to them. Please continue to remember them in prayer.

http://kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com

Welcome Isaiah!!

Congratulations to Eric and Jessi on the birth of their son Isaiah Levi on May 1st at 9am!!! He is totally precious!!

Curiosity

I am wondering, to all that read this, what do you think of those backpack leash/harnesses for young kids? My younger sister was horrified when I registered for one, and I have read a lot of negative feedback on mom message boards about them, but in my opinion a toddler who is ready to explore will not be happy sitting restrained in a stroller. Nor do I think they should be restrained in a stroller all the time. I have a good friend whose 2 year old refuses to hold her hand in public places. She screams, pulls, twists, and sometimes even bites to get away. Now I acknowlege (as does my friend) that this is a behavioral issue, but this little girl is completely well behaved if she's allowed to walk on her own and be free. Toddlers are learning that there is a big wide world out there, and they want to see it, and they are not able to comprehend the idea that there are people out there who might take them or hurt them so they should stick close to mom or dad. Toddlers live in the moment without thinking of the future or the past. If you have a toddler you understand this in that you have to constantly repeat every instruction. Even if it's something they do everyday. While sitting at a restaurant with my husband's family, my sister in law had to remind my 2 1/2 year old nephew several times that if he needed help, rather than screaming, he needed to use his words and ask for help. They had the same conversation 20 times!! She would say "Caleb do you need help?" He would answer, "yeah." She would reply, "Then you need to say 'help me Mommy'." He would say "help me Mommy." Then she would help him with what he needed. Because of their short attention spans and instant gratification way of thinking, it can be a difficult process to train a toddler to stay close enough to you in a public place to let them walk by themselves. It would seem to me that a harness/leash would be a good alternative. It would give them a certain measure of freedom without jeapordizing their safety. That's just how it seems to me. People use the argument "they're kids, not dogs!" but I don't think you use a leash because you have the intent of treating your kid like a dog. If you think about it, why do you put a leash on your dog? You put a leash on a dog you do it to keep your dog close to you, and to keep the dog safe (preventing him/her from chasing cars, running away etc.) and to keep those around you safe (preventing the dog from jumping, biting etc.). The same goes for your child. You might use a leash to keep your child close to you, and to keep him/her safe. I don't know, it just seems like a pretty controversial thing, and people really look down on those who choose to use them. So, I am asking for feedback from people who read this blog. To leash or not to leash??? :)

Please Pray!!!

Please pray for this family and their precious little baby girl!!!

http://www.kayleighannefreeman.blogspot.com

Welcome Baby Yosef!

A good friend of mine posts shout outs to her friends babies on her blog, and I really like that, so I'm going to start doing it here!!

Yosef Micaiah was born on April 25th weighing 7lbs. 2 oz. His happy parents are Andy and Sarah!! Congratulations you guys!!!!