18,250 Days of being a woman- The decade of my thirties
This decade, while beholding some very momentous events, wasn't quite as life changing as the decade of my 20's. Here are some highlights, lowlights and observations written as chronologically as possible. I started this blog in my thirties so some of what I'm mentioning here, I've likely blogged about already.
Almost exactly five years after we moved into our first house, we moved again. This house was also a new build and is our current home in Springboro. We moved about five miles south of our first house. We moved where we did to be in a better school district. The street we moved to was full of families with young kids, many our kids' ages and the kids quickly made friends; many of those friendships still exist to this day. I'm not sure how much longer we'll stay at our current house but if/ when we move, we will leave behind a host of good memories as the only home that Alyssa has lived in (I was pregnant with her when we moved in), the only home that Abby remembers (she was two years old when we moved) and the one where Jacob has the vast majority of his home memories: he was four when we moved to our current home in Springboro.
The biggest event of this decade happened in the early part of it. Alyssa was born and our family was complete. Alyssa was in many ways what Jacob and Abby were not as babies: she was not a good sleeper and she let us know in the loudest way possible how she felt about not being held and being hungry or tired. In short, she was not a chill baby but in the most important ways, she was just like Jacob and Abby: loved, prayed for and appreciated.
Within about two years of Alyssa's birth, my sister and her family moved from a suburb of Indianapolis to Ontario, Canada. Her two daughters were quite young at two and three years of age when they moved. Up until the move, we'd easily been able to do day trips to see my sister and family as Indy is about two hours from us. Now they would be about seven hours away from us. Not good! Though we would (and still do) enjoy and appreciate times spent together since those times are far and few times in between, we miss not being able to spend more consistent time together.
My mom died during this decade. Though she had been very sick for a long time, there was something, of course, heartbreaking about her passing. And no one wants to be an orphan at age 34 (my dad died when I was a teenager). Such is life. Or death, as it were.
All three kids started preschool and elementary school in this decade. In that regard, I view this decade as one of sweet kid things- first day riding the bus, first day of school, field trips, school programs, etc. This was the only decade for me when the kids were truly "kids" throughout all of it. By the end of my thirties, Jacob had just turned 13 years old, Abby was eleven and Alyssa was eight.
Related to this is that all three kids began participating in activities that would become very time consuming for them and for us. However, our really busy season would begin in my next decade. In my thirties, I think of this time period as being "busy 'lite'." The kids were all in activities by the time they were four years old (so when I was in my thirties) but they weren't in three practices a week for one activity phase yet when I was in my thirties.
None of the kids drove when I was in my thirties, so this decade constituted my prime mommy chauffeuring days.
My thirties was (were? singular or plural?) the only decade (so far) that I was a true housewife/ stay at home mom. I'm grateful for this! Though my current job is well less than full time and is completely flexible which is great, I am glad that I spent a portion of the kids' childhood with having no job of any kind.
The girls had their American Girl Doll phase when I was in my thirties. Oh, what a fun phase that was! The girls played with their dolls for HOURS. They made up doll worlds, scenarios, props and whatnot. My friend Kristen and I took our girls (my two and Kristen's daughter Giovanna) to the AG doll store in Chicago. The girls (and Kristen and I) had a blast in the big city. Ohio's first AG doll store opened in Columbus, OH during the girls' AG doll loving phase and Kristen and I took the girls to Columbus for an amazing weekend there. Lastly, Donnie and I surprised the girls with a trip to the AG doll store in St. Louis when we took a family trip to STL to see a professional soccer game. So many good AG doll memories and I'm glad the girls' childhood was in part defined by their love of playing with each other and the dolls. I find the politics of the company (now) to be appalling. I'm glad we aren't supporting them anymore, but it was a fun phase (and when the girls were into the dolls, the biggest issue that I find the company to support to be appalling wasn't a political issue then).
Speaking of politics, I read Tolstoy's War and Peace in my thirties. What does politics have to do with W&P? I will explain. I went into college tentatively planning on majoring in literature (I know, right? What was I going to do with that??). The only lit class that I could get into the first semester of my freshman year was Intro to Russian Literature and the first book that the class was covering was War and Peace. The bookstore had no copies of the book by the time I went to buy the book (and there was no Amazon from which to order the book...) and I was behind in the class from the get-go which caused me no small amount of stress. I ended up dropping the class and with that, my plans of majoring in literature. I liked the first political science class that I took and decided to major in that. That, of course, changed the trajectory of my life since I went on to law school after college. For a long time, the book War and Peace was symbolic to me as the book, the absence of which in a bookstore and subsequent me falling behind in the class, which led to a change in majors to me. In my thirties, I decided that I wanted to associate War and Peace for what it is to everyone except for me: a great piece of literature. So I read the book, liked it (naturally, it's WAR AND PEACE!), read more by Tolstoy and decided to try another Russian author, Fyodor Dostoevsky whose works I also liked.
I started this blog when I was in my thirties. It has changed so much just as the kids have changed...When I first started it, for some reason, I could only post five pictures at a time. I don't know why that was, but it resulted in very few pictures for each post. I started making slideshows via Smilebox and putting a link in a post to the Smilebox slideshow as a way to add more pictures. (Unfortunately, sometimes the Smilebox slideshow won't open so the pictures can't be viewed if someone views the post today.) The kids like it that I have a blog in their namesake! Well, ok, maybe not like so much as find it kind of funny and very "me" since they know that I like to take pictures and to write. The girls get a kick out of reading posts from back in the day; they've not retained the memories of random days and find it interesting to see random pictures and read about things they did when they were younger. As they've gotten older, they will occasionally say things like, "Don't post pictures of this...," (event or activity or whatever I'm taking pictures of) and of course I don't! Often, they'll say things like, "This is going on the blog, isn't it?" Or, "You're going to write about this on the blog, aren't you?" I'm writing more about me now (not to the kids' chagrin, lol) and everyday life whereas I used to write posts mostly about a specific event like a soccer tournament or a dance competition or a play that someone was in, etc. Anyway, I hope that the kids (and Donnie and I) enjoy looking back at old posts, and if the kids don't recall the specific event that the blog post was about, I hope they realize how much I cherished their childhood (and beyond!) and want to document the love, joy, successes, ordinary-ness and sometimes even the pain of the extraordinary gift from God called life and the family we are fortunate to have.
One last thing about this decade.... I realized that we had professional family pictures taken four times during this decade. Seeing as how that number was 0 for when I was in my twenties (except for wedding photos) and a big fat ONE in my forties, I'm glad we managed four when I was in my thirties ;).
A few pictures of the family and/ or me when I was in my thirties:
Best part of the decade- this little munchkin's birth...
T-R-O-U-B-L-E, but make her cute!!
Oh Maria- I am loving these posts- the memories are precious and the pictures are amazing- You are such a beautiful soul!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Holly! I have enjoyed looking back and writing them!
DeleteSuch a fun, fun look back! All 3 of my boys were born while we were living in this house. Funny enough I am totally fine about selling it and moving but my husband does not want to do that-- ever. You are really inspiring me to tackle a few posts like these.... at some point.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joanne! It has been a fun look back. It's been interesting to see what happened when and in what decade. My husband and I have mixed emotions about our house and knowing when to move. We both agree that we'll move at some point but we don't know when or where. Didn't your husband help build your house? That is likely making him want to stay more. Your house (and view) is so lovely. It would be a hard decision to leave all that!
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