Nostalgia, Joy & a New Year...

I've decided that motherhood truly feels like an endless pull between nostalgia and longing --

 For the tiny little baby loves of my past and the grown children of my future.  I see pictures of my little babes from those first days of life outside the womb, and my heart literally hurts with nostalgia.  I get hand written letters from my loves scrawled in Preschool and Kindergarten penmanship and I just beam with pride at all my boys are learning and becoming.  I mean what IS that?  Will this ever go away?  No, right?!

I actually feel my hips aching each night with a babe I've never met who is about to make an appearance.  His movements prompt me to look at those first precious images of his brothers, with their pink cheeks and corn silk hair, and I just desperately miss them, and at the same time... I still have that delicious newborn stage to look forward to with this new babe.  It isn't even explicable or logical in the least - but it is this pumping heart of mine, full of love, and preparing to grow another two-sizes to love even more.  Complete joy and complete something else too - that indicates each sweet phase is fleeting and temporary.

He will probably sleep fitfully and I'll be exhausted and trying to keep it all together for every one of the gents in my life, and as I'm pulled in different emotional directions... and life seems the most wonky -- that will be it -- my moment of clarity.  I will revert to what I do most naturally.  Sway and hug and snuggle and love.  Little hearts will beat skin and bones next to mine and just like that my vision will be clear and my whole world will be peaceful again as my heart is on the brink of bursting.  This is it.  Love.  Nostalgia.  Longing.  Joy.  It all comes together in the most awesome beautiful mess you ever could imagine.  I'm so grateful I get to experience it.  So eternally grateful for all of it.

And I've realized the only thing I'll ever truly have is what Ryan and I create with these boys of ours.  That's it.  That's all that matters.  Good news... I've become quite a DIY maven and I'm all about making MUCH with whatever resources life throws at me.  And I do mean literally "throws"... I think I'm onto a basket weaving of sorts with Nerf bullets?  Just a thought as one whizzes past my head.

So here we go - a new year, a new babe, a new chapter in our life.  I plan to fully pursue living my best life with the best boyfriends in the history of the world.  I am the luckiest.
2016 -- Watch out for the Gardner 6!  Baby boy of ours... We are SO ready for you!