January Highs & Lows

WHAT A MONTH.

I'm so glad January has come and gone, didn't it feel like it was longer than all of 2017 combined?! So many hard and wonderful things happened and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year holds for me.

Highs:

• Goalzy trip to St. George! We have a tradition of going to St. George over New Year's to just relax and rejuvenate after the crazy Christmas holiday. I always like to use the time to set goals and think about what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year. We also spent a lot of time swimming and hot tubbing and eating yummy food!

 
• Hanging out with Peter! (I've been debating sharing his real name online but for the moment I'm just going to go with it.) He is becoming such a darling, happy baby! I absolutely LOVE seeing his personality grow. I think I'm his favorite person right now and it just melts my heart to see how much he loves me. I've learned so much in the past month about what motherhood and family really mean to me personally, and I've felt so inspired to try and be a person of influence for my family.

 

 
• Finishing a MAJOR personal project: The Blackbird Pages. I won't go into a ton of detail here, but I decided last summer that I wanted to improve my web design skills, so I built a website completely from scratch. It took months and months of hard work but I finally hit "publish" a few weeks ago and I'm so proud of myself! If you want to check it out, you can see it at theblackbirdpages.com.

 

 
• The West Wing. If you don't think this was a major highlight of my month, you are dead wrong! This show is the best! If you've seen it, I'll tell you that Josh is my favorite character, with CJ Cregg and President Barlet at a close second. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it tonight!

• Getting fresh manicures every few weeks. Nothing makes me happier than a good coat of pink polish on my fingernails. I know I'm vain, sometimes I just don't care!
 
 

 
• Teaching temple prep in the YSA ward. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to find greater joy in my calling and I have really tried to do that, not just by being more outgoing in the singles ward where Cob and I are serving, but also to put more time and effort into planning my temple prep lessons. It's been so fun for me to plan them out and try to do a good job!

• Exercising! Since I hit the 6 week mark, I've been trying to exercise 1x a week and it's been SO GOOD for my body and my brain. I'm trying to find exercise that I really love, but just making the habit of doing SOMETHING has made me really happy.

Lows:

• Feeling the opposite of home-sick. I don't know a better way to explain this, but being home all day with Peter is making me crazy! Of course I love him, and of course I want to take care of him, but the transition from working all day to staying home all day is killer. I'm scheduled to go back to work in 1 week and I am honestly really looking forward to it. I don't know if being a working mom is the right thing to do. I'm really trying to rely on the Lord and do what He wants me to do, and I feel like He has told me that I can choose. I found a quote about what it means to be a good mom that I want to share here, because I've found a lot of comfort in letting go of the guilt and the expectations I have for myself to be a SAHM.

If you provide, to the best of your ability, shelter, emotional and physical safety and emotional and physical nourishment and care to your kids YOU ARE A GOOD MOM. It doesn’t matter whether your kids go to bed at 7pm or 10pm, whether they are breast or bottle fed, whether they eat salad or prefer chicken nuggets (again), whether they have been to Disney world or not, whether they have one pair of shoes or 20, whether you “wear them” or teach them to play independently, whether you work or stay home, whether you are a free spirit or live by a schedule, whether you are a size 2 or a size 22, whether you homeschool or send them to public school, whether you read to them each night or are lucky just to get them to lay down in bed at all, whether you are classroom mom or avoid the PTA, whether you are fun or serious, whether your kid is super shy or super social, whether they appear tidy or disheveled, whether you can afford to travel or must make the best of adventures at home, whether they are learning Latin or learning manners,whether they can read on time, walk on time, talk on time, graduate on time, whether they are sick or well, whether YOU are sick or well... THESE THINGS DO NOT MATTER! So let’s stop saying to each other that we’re “not a good mom” and only perpetuating a debilitating and ever-changing social standard of what being a “good mom” looks like. There are just a handful of things that make a mom a good one and they span history, culture, economic status and geography. They are the same for the mom in western suburbia as they are for the third world tribal mom. Will you make this the last day you use those words! Will you replace them with truth? There is no perfect mom - there are only imperfect women chosen because they are the right mom for those kids.


Shay Cochrane

• Spending too much money. Don't get me wrong, I love to spend money. But since we are essentially living on savings while I'm taking maternity leave, it's not a good idea for me to go shopping all the time. Which is basically what I've done during the month of January. Only because of what I mentioned before. I'm going crazy! Shopping is the only thing I can think to do that's interesting and INDOORS and doesn't take a lot of planning. I'm trying not to beat myself up too much for being so spendy, but it's definitely something I don't want to happen next month.

I'm sure there's other highs and lows that I forgot to mention here, but I'm happy to report that January was a net positive, and I'm feeling even better about February!

♡♡♡
Rebecca