Faith, Fun, Fashion, & Family

Faith, Fun, Fashion, & Family

My Family. Motherhood


The Seaton Family

Shannon, Tabitha, Maisy, & Madelynn


Me and My Girls

Beginning a new journey as a widowed single mom...
Video Diary of dealing with new grief...
How are we making it...?


We love keeping it real and exciting with music in our home...
we kinda got skills too, just look here!

Singing to GodSpell's Day by Day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KT3lEtc4n-Q

Dancing to Jamie Grace's God Girl...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2lXVwFIgLY




My Hubby and Best Friend of 10 wonderful years, Shannon
November 1977-July 2013
http://thelostsocklife.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-best-friend.html





Being a Mommy is such a wonderful blessing... although sometimes seems surreal to me. I feel like a kid playing mommy the best I can. Remembering dates and times for practices and recitals is not my natural instinct. Remembering to restock the diaper bag and know exactly how to get to the doctor's office is not in my wiring! I am used to having others take care of me... I was always the one along for the ride, looking at the car window singing softly to myself, while somebody else did the driving. I am a daydreamer with my head in the clouds, a space cadet. I can hardly take care of myself, let alone a dependent mini-human. So, being a mom seems to go against what i have been used to all my life.
             I have always had a big part of me that was a child myself. I was always a little scared of being responsible for other living creatures other than myself. While my older sister was pushing babies around in strollers and passing out babysitting business cards, I was in my room dancing and singing Cyndi Lauper and painting my walls. Babies were not necassarily something I hated, but more like afraid of or intimidated by... 
 I had a very small albino frog that somebody game me as a gift when I was a teenager. At first, I thought it was so cute and awesome and fell in love... It was the first thing I got that I was solely responible for keeping alive... my fear suddenly kicked in... and my lack of maternal instincts and naive irresponsibility made it eventually die. I was not the type that was really confident with kids. LIke the frog, i thought they were cute, but was not really sure I wanted them for too long, for fear of... well, you  know... them "croaking" on me..
   I always knew my own kids would be different though. I just had faith it would be different than other people's kids, or well... a frog. When I got married, after 3 years we decided to try to have kids. I wasn't afraid. I was curious. But I never was really scared that I could not do it, cause I knew it was in God's plan for me. I knew that he would put those motherly instincts inside me... and he did.
    From the moment I first held my girls in my arms, the confidence came to me. In my arms is where they were meant to be. God would give me all I the knowledge I needed to know how to take care of them. If I forget a diaper on the way out the door or am late for soccer practice, I will find a way to manage.
    Last Christmas, when I was pregnant with my littlest Madelynn, one of my students at school gave me a present. It was nothing fancy... I could tell the giver was not from the most financially privileged family by the way the gift was presented (wrapped in newspaper instead of a fancy bag with gaudy bows). It was humble, sweet, and tender from her heart. When I opened it up, It was a figurine of a bear dressed like a mom/cook sitting on the floor in front of a messy cake she had baked. She was proud even though she was dirty and covered with flour and made a mess on the floor. It had a saying on it, "Do your best and let God do the rest". I thanked my student and gave her a hug. I put the figurine on my desk next to my computer and never really thought about it much.
   After coming home with my newest baby, Madelynn, over the summer... this saying became my motto. At the times when I struggled the most with nursing, sleepless nights, marital stress, jealous siblings, hormones, loneliness, and little time to my self... this saying would ring in my ear till I would say it out loud. Suddenly when I was in tears, my 4 year old Maisy would come to me saying it too. SHe must have heard me saying it to myself at some point. I realized then what motherhood is all about. It's not about how we wrap it up, pretty or in a bow. It's about what is inside, how the gift is given, taking what little we have and giving it anyways, with pride... it's what rings in our ears and keeps us going. even when the floor is messy and our cake is ugly, being proud of what we accomplished... It is the force of love behind it all. It is giving it our best, pushing through, then letting go in faith to surrender it to our Father to take control when we just cannot give anymore. God used my girls to make me a better person than I ever thought I could be. He shows me what real love is all about through them. He teaches me more about Himself through a mother's heart.The honest truth is, I am honored and blessed to be be a mother to my girls.  But... no more frogs please.













                                             


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