Teething is upon us once again, and nothing is predictable.
But I'll take naptime whenever I can get it.
I left off at the end of TBS, when I had reached a breaking point.
Like, for real, y'all. I was o.v.e.r.w.h.e.l.m.e.d.
I sent S.O.S. messages to my close friends.
I begged for prayer for grace to respond in trust and love in serving my family instead of reacting to my circumstances out of my selfish, rebellious heart. I was being held and carried by those prayers. Jesus answered those prayers. It was a hard season, but it was a relatively short season. We were getting ready to move, and so many family members and friends stepped in to help shoulder our load and meet our needs. Friends helped us pack, cleaned our house, made us meals, made phone calls to repair our window AC unit for us, and poured out love and encouragement. I was desperate, and God met my needs through so many people. It is a humbling thing to accept help. You have to admit that you have needs. I had reached a point where I couldn't pretend I could handle it or had it all together anymore. I am so grateful.
Guess what? It's 12:52 and Jax just woke up fussing/crying. I was most definitely hoping for more than 30 minutes after being awake since 6:30am (and getting up 3 times last night!)
The end of June, Tim graduated from TBS. He was able to take off 3 whole weeks, which we filled with packing, swimming, spending time with family and friends, saying goodbyes, and preparing for a 25 hour road trip with an 11 month old :) While it wasn't exactly a "vacation", it was most definitely sweet time together.
On July 10th, after spending the morning at MCV in Richmond for Jaxon's brain MRI (talk about last minute haha), we locked up our storage unit, packed up the CRV, swept the floors one last time, and said goodbye to our first apartment. 715 William Street held three sweet years of marriage, growing, stretching, becoming parents, and lots of friends. The end of an era, for sure. But the adventure ahead felt so right that it wasn't as hard as I had imagined to say goodbye. No tears. Just happy to be on a new journey together as a family of three.
We took 4 days to get out to Oklahoma. Stopping every few hours to feed Jax helped us take our time, and enjoy the trip. He was seriously the most amazing little traveler. We stopped in Chattanooga to visit old friends. We spent a day in Nashville exploring and met up with other friends. We drove through Arkansas for the first time in either of our lives. We hit Oklahoma, and on July 14th we moved into our new apartment - the little place we call home for this season.
God has been gracious and we connected quickly and easily with a few of the other USMC couples here who live in our apartment complex and across the street. While none of them have kids, they all adore Jaxon and its so much fun to see him bring joy to others. We spend lots of hot mornings at the pool, and lots of hot afternoons inside playing with toys and watching tv shows.
So that's how we got to August 9th, where this whole story started.
One year with Jaxon Kane in our lives.
One year of more gifts and joy than we could imagine.
One year of more struggle and pain than we thought possible.
One million reasons to be grateful.
When all is said and done, we made it. We survived that year by God's amazing grace and we celebrated.
Jaxon's year as a one year old is already off to an incredible start. He is growing and learning right before our eyes.
In his very first month as a one year old he has started crawling, gotten another tooth (top one this time), learned the sign language for "more" (which he uses constantly, for everything), started pulling up to his knees, babbling up a storm, going backward and forward in his walker, is knocking blocks together, and is starting to take an interest in listening to books.
This mama cannot wait to see what the rest of this year holds.
And I certainly hope to be better at recording the stories here. The good, the bad, the ugly...and Jesus!
And I certainly hope to be better at recording the stories here. The good, the bad, the ugly...and Jesus!
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