Blog Your Heart

Yesterday, my sweet friend Stephanie issued a challenge (inspired by the honesty in Ali's post) to blog what's on your heart. You know, the real stuff that gets lost in the posts about menu planning and making homemade playdoh and working on plans for the holidays even though it's only September. (Those are all things I would be blogging about, by the way, if my son ever took reliable long naps and if our house wasn't on the market forcing me to spend all of the aforementioned short naps cleaning) Of course AJ barely napped yesterday, so I'm just now sitting down to take part in Steph's challenge. So here I am, a day late, with what's on my heart right now.

• Family: I have been thinking a lot about the relationships I want for AJ to have with his extended family. I've always dreamed about having a big family and lots of loud holiday get togethers. I've wanted to be "that house" where everyone comes and eats and drinks and laughs together. But the truth is, I don't know how big God is going to allow our family to be. There's a possibility AJ will be an only child. And there's a good chance none of our extended family will ever live close enough to make frequent trips. It makes me sad. And helpless. And maybe feeling like it is time for me to change my vision of the future, amend my definition of family, and find ways to open my home to more people.
  
• Comparison is the thief of joy: I saw this on pinterest a couple of weeks ago (and apparently *didn't* pin it so I just spent five minutes trying to track down the quote) and I've been thinking about it a lot ever since. I do a lot of comparing. I do a lot of listing ways that I don't measure up. It's a hard habit to break. And it's hard to be joyful when you're trying to see how your highlights compare to someone else's.
  
• Loss and Moving On: It's been almost 7 months since I miscarried for the second time and I still think about it every single day. I wonder what our life would be like with a 2 year old and a newborn baby girl. I wonder what she would look like, if she'd be a good sleeper, if she'd be allergic to dairy. I wonder how AJ would be doing as a big brother. I wonder how we'd be managing it all. And when it comes down to it, I wonder why I'm not pregnant again yet. I wonder if we've missed our window. I wonder if we're going to have to invest thousands in conceiving again. I wonder who I would be if this wasn't part of our story.
  

There's more on my heart, but there's also a little dude making noises from his room. Nap time is apparently over. Thanks for the challenge, Steph.