Travel // Marriage // Motherhood

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Motherhood has been on my mind a lot lately. First, I went to my first baby shower on Saturday morning, for the wife of Frank's college friend. Second, Frank and I babysat on Saturday afternoon for one of his law school friends. Her two-year-old, Mack, has ginger hair and chubby cheeks, very sweet manners, and best of all is an enormous football fan. After dinner he stood in front of the TV and pointed at it, saying "Footbaw! Footbaw!" until we turned on the Alabama-A&M game. Then he ran around excitedly whenever the players ran, gave us high-fives on command, and echoed everything Frank said ("Good catch!" said Frank; "Catch! Catch!" Mack repeated and vigorously nodded his head). We were dying. Not to get ahead of ourselves here, but Frank told me afterwards that it made him really excited to have kids.

Then, while we were babysitting, my best friend Maggie called me and I found out she is expecting her first baby!!! I almost cried with happiness. I love Maggie so much and the thought of meeting and holding her little one brings such joy. I don't even know yet if this baby is a boy or a girl, but I already know I'm going to love this little one so much. Maggie is due a month and a half after my wedding and I'm hoping to travel to be with her before and after the birth, and hopefully help with anything she needs.

At Maggie's wedding

After going to the baby shower, hearing about Maggie, and babysitting Mack, I had dinner with one of my friends Sunday night. We talked about our plans for the future and what the next few years will look like. She is in grad school and has plans to study in Europe next year. I meanwhile told her about Frank's and my results when we took the FOCCUS test last week. Frank and I found ourselves in perfect agreement about lifestyle expectations and parenting: we are both fully committed to our vision that he will be work outside the home while I stay home with our children, and also that I will keep writing on the side and he will be a very involved husband and dad. We know those choices might mean we won't have a lot of extra money, but we think our time is much more valuable to our family than money. Yesterday I found this quote that beautifully sums it all up:

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I had a brief moment of envy on Sunday as I heard my friend describe her plans to travel and see the world, but it died away quickly. The thing is, I've been there; I studied in London and have been lucky enough to travel all over Europe and even to Israel. I know that travel can be lonely and doesn't actually make me happy. Knowing my personality, I have a sneaking suspicion that motherhood is going to make me much happier and more fulfilled than traveling ever could. I know it's not for everyone, but I'm looking forward so much to this next great adventure.

On a lighter note, lately I've been sending Grace's Simon Says posts to Frank whenever they come out. Frank says they're the only mommy blog posts he actually enjoys (and I send a lot of them so he knows what he's talking about). Anyway, Frank made a funny comment on Saturday about something Mack did, and after I had finished laughing, he smiled very proudly and said, "Didn't that sound like something that Simon would say?"

Aiming to be as witty as Simon Patton... Frank's new goal in life. :P