How Old Am I?

Tomorrow I turn 28. TWENTY EIGHT.

However, this whole year I've been hyping myself up for my last year in my 20's...I thought I was turning 29. All. Year. Long.

In spin class three times a week, to pump myself up for the hour long "climbing" we do (heaven help us) I talk to myself (and sometimes the neurosurgeon next to me, but not on purpose...hey, it's early!) about how I really want to be in shape before I turn 30 and that this is my last year to do it.

That's how convinced I was that I was turning 29. (I even texted my mathmatical-minded dad last week to double check because I just knew my math had to be wrong when I realized my years totaled 28 and not 29).

So I have 2 good years left in my 20's! 2 GREAT years! Yay! Let's all go quit spin class!!! :) Just kidding...kind of.

Aging myself when I wasn't in fact aging that fast got me thinking about how I've always envisioned my life at this point. ("this point" being around 30...but whatever)

I used to daydream about "arriving" in life. Like I'd finally hit the "This is Your Life" moment.

Those daydreams and that arrival may or may not have involved a white picket fence and a cute 1940's house and a big oak tree behind it, but I'm pretty sure it did. I'm pretty sure it also included me as I appeared on my wedding day (except with more diamonds! gasp! and less dress), my husband with a big grin on his face and cute leather boat shoes on his feet (why?!), and our little family matchy-matchy and posed just so beside our sweet Z71 (I don't know why but those are the ultimate family car to me...issues).

Somehow these daydreams also included us in another country so I'm not quite sure how I got the car and the cute little American house all the way overseas, but just go with it...it's a dream. A bipolar dream, maybe, but a dream.

As I've grown up (ie: the past 5 years - ha) I've come to realize more and more that that picture of my life was in fact just a daydream. And so much of of that moment of "wow! we have totally arrived and THIS is our life!" has occurred multiple times over the past few years.

Most recently, and most pointedly, it has happened this year. We are far from a white picket fence (if you have visited us recently you have the permission to say AMEN) and a cute wood-floored house (and a Z71 for that matter), but we have so arrived.

When I married Jeremiah, it felt very normal to wake up next to him in our first home and do life with him. Life was difficult sometimes as newlyweds, but it was just so right. THIS is my life!

When we brought home (our 2nd home) Josephine Joy, our first born, it was much of the same...soooo right. (soooo difficult sometimes, but so right!) THIS is my life!

And when we brought home (our 4th home) Lucille Dawn, our chunky monkey second born, it was like a light kind of went off. No, really, THIS is my life. THIS is it.

Not that two children, or one child for that matter, is IT...because it's not. A husband isn't even it. A home is DEFINITELY not IT.

IT is acknowledging that the here and now, and the people invading the here and now, are IT...

THIS is it. These are the times I look around and realize I've arrived. I am 28 (whoop whoop) and THIS is my life.

I'm loving it.

(and yes, also loving that I'm a good year younger than I thought I was! best birthday gift ever!)

A typical day...

...finds Josie dressed up from head to toe in princess attire...this day was "no mama, I'm Ethiopia-Princess-Cinderella-Josie!" oh. Of course.

...finds Lucy into something...this day was the wipes. Yesterday was the water in the toilet. Yep. This girl keeps me on my toes, for sure!

...finds Papa challenging us all to push past
our fears to have a good time.

...finds Mama hanging out with two fun little girls

who are growing up WAY TOO FAST.