The School Of Life

I have a lot I kind of want to get out there in this post but since I'm writing while my baby is asleep I'm not counting on being able to mention it all.

We never stop learning. I have been out of any kind of formal educational classroom for years, but I've probably learned more valuable things than what I learned at any class at ACC.

God is teaching me the true meaning of love and support and submission through my husband's career. He just got his official license and we officially own Anders Air Conditioning LLC! I'm very excited about what this (HOPEFULLY) means for our family in 3 to 5 years but the means to get to that point bring me down.
I have been working on business cards, a website and a business e-mail! I am THE secretary and dispatcher as Ryan can't do personal business at work or from a work phone. We opened a business bank account yesterday, got a business computer and two books on the Quickbooks computer program. (Haven't purchased that yet.) All of this is fun and exciting to me! And the idea that in five or so years Ryan will be fully launched into his own business and not have to work as much and not have to go to school and be a part of our homeschooling etc... I love it all...
Here's where I get stuck: Over the next several years we have to endure Ryan working his normal 40hr a week job plus responding to every possible residential/side job AND going to union school twice a week. This means seeing him a whole lot less, and to be selfishly honest, it means a lot less help for me. This is hard for me. I am learning how to see that the end justifies the means, to put my big girl panties on, and find solutions to the problem.
The biggest problem being that outside of my husband and family, I don't really have support or friends or really anything to help on long lonely days. You'd think that's where my church comes in but they only really check in with me to solicit my service to the church which I'm not willing to leave my baby for. Maybe that makes me a bad Christian...

I'm planning on joining MOPS, (Mothers Of Preschoolers) Thrive, (another Moms ministry) Women's Bible Studies, and the YMCA this September. Hannah Kate will be 7 months old, eating lots of fun yummy food where she isn't solely reliant on me for nourishment and I expect her to not only be sitting up but also crawling by then and she will probably still be quite the hearty baby so hopefully I'll be a little more adjusted to the idea of getting a little more Mommy Time by being able to trust her care to someone else for an hour or two at a time.

Sadly, most of these things are not an extension of our church. I'm kind of sad about that. Like I mentioned, my church only seems to contact me when they want me to serve. This upset me the most when it was claimed that it's because they are so concerned about my spiritual growth.
They are so concerned that they want to get me plugged in to a service but haven't realized I've been absent for nearly two months, much less know what's going on in my life.
If they were really concerned about my spiritual growth they might check in every now and again without ulterior motives, and find out that life is actually kind of tough for me right now, and maybe see where I can get plugged in to find friends and support... Maybe that's a harsh and mean perspective of my church....

I went to the grocery store and spent way too much money on low glycemic index foods for my new diet. I discovered that PCOS and insulin resistance are not really fertility problems but pretty serious health issues that can cause all sorts of issues if not treated; you know, like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, etc... fun stuff like that. So Ryan and I are doing our research eating appropriately, scheduling appointments with the right kind of medical professionals and trying to get this under control BEFORE I'm at a higher risk for such things. But it makes me sad. It's a hard pill to swallow... I learned sad statistics that have only caused anxiety and I wish I could erase the information from my brain...

But onto more positive things! Hannah Kate's sleep had been gradually getting worse and I was disappointed because she used to be such a great natural sleeper and the whole time I was pregnant I prayed for a good sleeper and for the most part felt like God had answered that prayer.
For the past several weeks it has taken 3 - 5 times to get her settled in for the night, only to be up with her every 1 to 2 hours which means I wasn't getting any sleep.
It got to the point yesterday where I was near tears and told Ryan "I'm so frustrated and tired and out of patience that I just need you to take her so I don't say something in a mean voice to her." (She was being really fussy at the time.)
We had been praying over her every night that she would sleep well, and I began to look up sleep training methods. Ryan even implored me to let her cry for a little bit to see if she would go back to sleep. I lasted about 8-10 minutes before I went in and got her. I was so torn yesterday about the right way to sleep train a baby and just didn't know what to do!
We decided to try solids more than once a day, took Hannah on an evening walk, then food, then bath, then some snuggles before nursing and bed.
She went down at 9pm, got up at 2am to eat, went back down until 6:45 and then slept again until 9:30am!
It's amazing how different you can feel about life when you have slept! I feel amazing! I'm praying this is the first night of many good sleeps!  Thank You Jesus!

One thing I know about life is that I will never be done learning! God is teaching me so much, and a lot of times the learning is slow. I have a lot of questions and most of them take time and experience to get an answer, but wisdom comes from such learning.

And no matter what life brings, God is bigger.