Back in my prime blogging days, when I was building Nancy Ray Photography and speaking at conferences and doing all the things, I remember someone attended an event I was speaking at and shared all that she wanted to do. I was cheering her on to create this business and work that she was so excited for!

I checked back in on her blog a few months later, to see what she was up to. She had one blogpost up, announcing she was pregnant and had been so sick for months, she couldn’t really muster the strength to do much of anything. And I remember two thoughts that crossed my mind:

• I was so sad that she wasn’t able to do all the things she wanted to do.

• Then I thought, “maybe she could have still done them and mustered the strength to work through her pregnancy!”

How incredibly naive I was.

How incredibly narrow my view of life was.

I’m honestly a bit sad and quite embarrassed to type those words - a confession of sorts of a pretty ugly side of myself that exalted work as the highest achievement in life. But now, I have so much compassion on her. I understand the feeling of being sick and not being able to muster the strength to do anything. And now I have so much JOY for her! Knowing she was doing her best work, growing life, caring for her body, putting other things on pause to focus on a beautiful, lasting dream of building a family.

And, I relate so much to the feeling of not being able to do work that you really want to do. Putting some dreams on hold. And how feeling sick is just dang hard.

While I’m not sick with morning sickness from pregnancy, we (me and my four kids) have been sick for most of this year, with little bouts of wellness between that don’t last very long. (Will’s immune system is apparently amazing - he’s only been sick once!) And I don’t have much to show for this season of my life work-wise, but I can tell you that we are all still alive and have started school, so that’s a win!

Below I’m writing out our sicknesses… mostly for myself to look back on, so I can say “No, I was not exaggerating. That year was no joke.” Here we go:

December was strep throat over Christmas. (I cried… a lot.)
January into February was Covid and ear infections.
March was the stomach bug
April was triple ear infections and a throat infection and another round of the stomach bug.
May was another Benji ear infection.
June was fevers and croupy coughs - Milly missed most of summer camp and almost went to the ER
July was an intense ear infection in the middle of a trip to the mountains, followed by fevers and coughs for me and all the kids, including losing my voice for a week. (We were all sick for a solid 2 weeks)
August was ear tubes surgery for Benji, followed by strep throat for me and 2 kids, which came right on the heels of that last, awful lose my voice cough and fevers sickness.

And today, August 31st, I’m heading back into the doctor for another strep test, and taking Benji for his follow up appointment with the ENT because he’s been pulling on his ears with a fever on and off the last few days.

And here’s the thing - I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting some sickness in this list. I just cannot remember them all.

I am exhausted.

In fact, it has been so difficult for me caring for myself and all of these sick kiddos all year that I’ve started going to counseling every week. Because my mental game has been on the decline, and I’ve been feeling quite hopeless.

There are so many reasons it has felt so hard for me personally. It’s a lot to feel so needed all the time, and to have a lot of needs myself that feel out of reach. Most fun things we had planned this summer were somehow affected by sickness. Trips and camps were cut short or cancelled altogether. My travel anxiety has gone up quite a bit. Playdates postponed. Looking forward to the gym/pool, and then not going to the gym for weeks. All of my work I’ve wanted to do for my podcast or here on my blog, either completely dropped or I barely made them happen. Not to mention the day to day snuggles, nursing while both me and the baby had fevers, cooking, cleaning (so much laundry to keep things sickness free), sleepless nights, and so many visits to the pediatrician. And I think the hardest part was that I was looking forward to summer, because surely we wouldn’t be sick in the summer!

As weird as this is gonna sound, I’m gonna type it anyway: I totally feel like I’m having a mid life crisis.

Everything has been taken off my plate by all this sickness. Plans, dreams, all of it. And as we start the school year, I’m getting really deep about all of it and asking some pretty beautiful and difficult questions:

What do I want to add back into my life?
What is worth keeping, and what needs to go?
What work do I want to be doing anyway, and why?
How do I make plans and look forward to them again?

This is my blogpost, just like that girl, who said “I’m going to do all these things, but I’ve just been sick. So this is what I’ve got.”

And this is me, looking at myself with compassion, trying to remind myself that even though this year feels hijacked with sickness, I’m still doing my best work, growing life under our roof, caring for our bodies, putting other things on pause to focus on a beautiful, lasting dream of building a family.

And this year of sickness is a chapter in that book, but not the whole book.

One thing I know is that sickness can be incredibly isolating. My hope for this blogpost is that I’ll never forget this year, that I’ll never forget how hard it is for mamas when littles are sick, and that if another mama is reading this and has had a similar year, that you’d not feel quite as alone.

I wrote a blogpost titled “Hi, I’m back!” last year about this time. It was all about how excited I was to get back to blogging. I know better now, and I won’t promise anything. But in uncovering some answers to the question “what do I want to add back into my life?” blogging has come up again and again.

I miss writing. I miss photography. And while I’m not sure how consistent I’ll be, I hope to post a bit more, for no other reason than to answer that one question. 💞

One of the things I was MOST nervous about before having our 4th baby was the fact that my due date was 2 weeks before school started! Having a first grader in a University Model School (Milly in class on Mondays and Wednesdays and she homeschools with me Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays), with 2 preschoolers at a different school than Milly, and a newborn baby who needed to eat every 2-3 hours was quite overwhelming to me! While I had a few days of feeling panicked, thinking how in the world am I going to be able to do this, I decided to try to get a game plan of help in place and put in place rhythms that would help me. I listened to this class called the Back to School 3 R’s and it reminded me of practical ways I could train my kiddos to be more responsible and help themselves instead of relying on me for every little thing! Many of my ideas listed below come from that class, and some others are things we’ve just done on our own.

Here are 5 things that have helped this transition back to school run much more smoothly than I even anticipated!

1. Worship Playlist for our drives
   There is something SO powerful about getting our minds and spirits singing praises on the way to school! It cheers up some of our grumpier mornings and honestly, it helps me get my heart right on hard days too.
   

2. Clipboard Checklists
   My girls, ages 6 and 4, each have a morning checklist, afternoon checklist, and evening checklist. They only have to complete them Sundays through Thursdays, and they get a reward at the end of each checklist if the complete everything by the time the timer goes off! I made them in Pages, and I grabbed the icons through Canva.
   

3. Time Timer
   I cannot say enough about this timer. It is such a helpful visual for kids who literally have zero concept of time! Before we leave in the morning, I set the timer in front of them, and they know that when it goes off, we hop up and get in the car to leave. Same for before dinner, same for bedtime. THEY are responsible for doing their checklists, and only when they check everything do they get to watch TV, read a book, etc! It helps them understand time and manage it at an early age. It takes a few days of getting used to (and saying “I’m sorry, but you can’t watch TV because the timer just went off!”) but it is so worth it once they catch on!
   

4. Weekly Family Meetings
   We are juuuust starting this one. But I can already tell it’s going to be a sweet little rhythm for us. It goes a little something like this:
   - Share encouragement for each member of the family (What do you love about ___? Then we each take a turn sharing uplifting words for that person)
   - Go over weekly schedule
   - Share our feelings (when they get older, we can discuss problems / issues)
   - Pay them for their work / chores
   - End with a game or family activity! (Last week we did the hokey pokey, ha!)
   

5. Organized Grandparent/family help for the first 2 months of school
   Asking for help is so hard. SO hard. I want so badly to be able to do everything myself and not feel like an inconvenience. But what I’ve learned is that A) I CANNOT do everything in this season of life and B) the grandparents actually like to help! They just need details, communication, and planning ahead. So I got a game plan / loose schedule outlined before Benji was even born, of pick ups and drop offs for school and preschool in September and October. It has made ALL the difference. Also I know that this won’t last forever - it’s just helping me get on my feet with 4 kids. I’m so blessed to have grandparents who live close and I never, ever want to take that for granted!

Any thing on this list you’d like to try? Also I’d love to hear any rhythms you have for making school transitions more pleasant and fun! Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!

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These photos. Gosh they already hold such a special place in my heart. Thank you to my dear friend Olivia Suriano for taking these photos we will cherish forever!

As I’m approaching my due date, these photos remind me what an absolute gift it is to carry life inside of me. Something I will never, ever take for granted.

Things I never want to forget about pregnancy

• Feeling flutters for the first time

• Crying when I heard the heartbeat

• Driving to my midwife appointments, and also welcoming her into my home for some appointments as well

• Being surprised by the gender - the mystery of wondering the whole time is so special. One of life’s last greatest surprises

• The taste of ginger ale while pregnant (it’s soooo good, but only when I’m pregnant haha!)

• The look of Lyndon’s face when she feels the baby’s hiccups. Pure wonder and the biggest sile I’ve ever seen!

• Beaufort saying “It’s moving!” every time he touches my tummy (even though the baby is sound asleep and not moving at all)

• Milly having little midwife hands! She feels for the baby and can even guess the body parts and positioning… and she says she wants to be a midwife one day

• Laying in the bed with Will at night and letting him feel baby dance and kick

• Watching my belly move and change shape completely by itself as baby moves

• Learning to trust God deeply, claiming faith and giving no place to fear, and focusing on victory in the months leading up to birth, as well as during labor and birth itself

• Being so hot and sweaty and swollen in the summer

• My legs going numb when I sit too long, and my ankles getting swollen when I stand too long

• Waking up every time I need to roll over

• My pillow tower for my heartburn

• Feeling like everyone everywhere smiles at me - being pregnant literally creates so much wonder in everyone around you

• Teaching our kids about how sacred and beautiful life is, how mommy’s body was made to do this, and how special it is to have a secret brother or sister who will come meet us any day

This pregnancy has for sure been my most difficult one, but I’m overwhelmingly grateful to be healthy and have a healthy baby. Trying to soak in every feeling, every emotion, every baby kick and roll, and the mystery of it all. What a gift, thank you Jesus.