Feels like home

The last weekend in May I had the honor and privilege of standing at the front of the church and watching my brother marry the love of his life. And as I gained a new sister, I was touched to see my husband serve as my brother's best man. I could write a whole blog about how eerily similar those two guys are, but I get scared when I think about it too much. Unfortunately I have no pictures of the beautiful bride and only stole a couple pictures from my sister's facebook of myself.

Fortunately Stanton was smart enough to snap a shot when he and Heath got their tuxes for the big day.
The wedding was beautiful and touching and very personalized. It was so special!

After the festivities were over, Stanton went back to Waco to work and I stayed at home with my parents and my kids. I was afraid of what it would be like to have two kids away from my husband. But I was home and that's exactly how I felt. Throughout the week, we played with the family.

We played on the farm.
We met up with old friends. (Sorry Al, somehow I forgot to take any pictures of our lunch together.)
We learned the benefits of finding an indoor playground. Thanks Ducky, CrawDad, and Chic-fil-a!
And made all 4 games of the Razorback Regional baseball tournament where we met up with our "extended family".
We all had an amazing time. We lived and learned. We missed Stanton, but learned a little about ourselves that we didn't know before. Chaselyn learned that she can play with others and doesn't have to be afraid around strangers. She's still cautious when they confront her directly, but she's more than happy to run around and put on a pretty good show. Jacob learned to squeak even louder and decided to wake up a little bit more. I'm pretty sure I saw him raising his arms for a hog call too.

As for me, I found out a little more about my stubbornness. I'm an independent person. I like to do things for myself. People were endlessly asking me if I needed help. I know they only do it out of love and any sane person would always welcome the help. But I just wanted to see if I could do the whole two kids thing by myself. It turns out, I think I can do it. In fact I did better than I thought I would. I know it's going to get harder as Jacob grows and is more demanding and heaven help me when I've got two mobile ones. But in general, I was greatly surprised at my ability to cope and manage. I even had toting the two tots up the stadium stairs by myself by the end of the series.

But, after a week of being away I was ready to be with my husband. I wasn't sad to leave Arkansas this time. I had a lot of memories to take with me, but there was a strong draw for me back in Texas. And as soon as I got home to my loving husband, I learned something more about myself. I am most at rest when I'm with him. He alone is the one who I rely on to help me. And even more, he doesn't even have to ask if I need help. I just expect him to swoop in and save the day. That is where my biggest lesson was learned. After a week of doing it all mostly by myself, I was feeling confident in my parenting. I had been patient and balanced. As soon as I walked in to our house I dumped quite a bit of responsibility on Stanton. Only I didn't tell him. Within a few hours I was getting impatient and frustrated. As I laid in bed trying to figure out why I could do it all at home with my parents and now I was failing within minutes of being home with my husband, it hit me. Stanton is a wonderful man, but he isn't a mind reader. I have to communicate the jobs that my brain has allocated to him. I can't get frustrated at him for not doing things he doesn't know he's supposed to do. On top of all that, I can't get frustrated when he doesn't parent the exact way I would. So what if he lets Chaselyn whine for a little longer before he steps in to stop it. He's taking care of it.

So that's my story. A wonderful week of family, friends, fun and baseball.