Something Beautiful

Today I joined a dear friend for lunch. She's one of those friends who helps me gain perspective, remember what's really important, chill out when life is careening into total chaos...you know, the -iron sharpening iron- pick me up when I've fallen on my face- laugh with me about the ridiculousness of myself- type of friend.    As we're both fairly new to the whole motherhood thing, we talked about our newest priorities, the struggle to maintain a household, maintain a marriage, and maintain some semblance of a normal social life. (Social life: periodic times in our lives where we can talk in sentences composed of more than three words, using words longer than three letters long, with an adult, regarding topics other than cat, dog, book, bottle, or diaper.) And mostly we laughed at our struggles, because if we keep a sense of humor about it, these struggles are hilarious.
  A priority we both agreed on is the need to cherish the struggles, even when they don't make us laugh. We both really want to remember these sweet times, which include the sleepless nights with screaming children, even the times when our kids have snotty noses and coughs and somehow manage to make a "snail trail" on our dark shirts in public when they rub their faces on us.  We especially want to remember the first time our children smile, the first time they get shots at the doctor's office, the first time they scare the crap out of us, the times they make us laugh until we cry, and definitely the first time we look at our lives  and think, "WOW!! What an amazing, merciful God I have that would give me such a gift." (Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!)
  One way she encouraged me to remember these times is to create a blog. This is something many family members have already encouraged me to do (so they can keep up with the latest and greatest thing my child is doing) but I have balked, mainly because I fear that no one will really want or need to hear what I have to say. Or worse, that they'll really want to hear what I have to say. (No pressure, right?)  
  In the end, I've decided to create this site for my husband, my son, and myself, so that we can look back one day, remember and laugh at our struggles. So that my boys can know how much I love their part in my life, even through the sleepless nights and snotty t-shirts and zombie-like mental states in which I so often find myself. So that they can know I remember the important stuff (like the first time I watched my husband change a diaper with his t-shirt covering his mouth and nose, or the first time my son grabbed a fistful of the dog's fur and squealed, or the first time the dog heard my son pooping his pants and turned and ran into another room), and that I cherish every bit of my life. I don't have anything life-changing to say. I just want to remember the important stuff.
  DISCLAIMER: This blog will be spotty, unpredictable, and maybe sometimes gross. That's because family life is spotty, unpredictable, and sometimes (ok, a lot of times) gross. I am not likely to write on a regular basis, but I'm hoping to write often enough. (So if you're reading this and you're one of the few people in this world who actually want to hear what I have to say, please don't pressure me to write more. I will not be able to preserve EVERY memory. I will simply try to preserve as many as I manageably can.)
So this blog is about preserving memories...and using vocabulary consisting of words greater than three letters long. If I don't use said words somehow, then my poor husband's ears are going to detach themselves from his head and run away screaming, because I have a tendency to talk faster than any teenage girl can on those days where I've not had a chance to use my "words." I don't have anything to prove. I just have a need to remember that this life I've been given, this gift of family, friends, joys and sorrows, truly is SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL.