A cheerful, thankful post

ok, I feel like my last two posts have been kind of grumpy. I've decided I need to do a cheerful post.. this is supposed to be my thoughts blog, and after all, I do have cheerful thoughts. :) I think in general people would call me a cheerful person. I don't know why, when sitting down to write, all my grump comes out.

So, cheerful. :) I recently found a blog of a woman who, instead of talking about how depressing it was to deal with infertility, she wrote about all the good things in her life while she waited. So I decided to take a page from her book and think about how great my life is right now.

Some things that are great about just having one child..

1. Ainsley sleeps until at least 9am every day.. sometimes later, depending on how late we kept her up the night before. Most days I sleep until 9am too. It's so decadently lazy.. but i love it so much.. sleep is a beautiful thing.

2. Speaking of late nights, Ains is a total night owl like her parents. We frequently stay out on the town later than we really should because Ainsley does so well. Sometimes we just forget what time it is, and sometimes we know and don't really care because we are having so much fun with her.


3. Eating out. We LOVE to eat out, it's our biggest fault. All three of us. Ains has been a good diner pretty much her whole life. She's not hard to keep occupied while we wait for the food. And while, yes, there is usually quite a mess when we leave, there's no big screaming fit or throwing food.. and I figure a nice tip makes up for the mess. We never hesitate about taking her out to dinner with us.

4. I get to hold her as long as she'll let me. She's getting so big that most of the time she's too busy to sit still long enough, but she's starting to play 'baby' lately and she'll bring me her blankey and ask me to hold her. And there are days when waking up is hard to do and she wants me to hold her until she really gets there. I am so lucky to have the freedom to hold her as long as I can.

I guess it really just boils down to the fact that I get to really focus all my attention on my child. Sometimes I wonder how other people manage to spend time with each child once they have more than one. I'm sure I'll figure it out when it's time, but for now, it's such a luxury to be able to spend my time playing pretend, and reading, and stopping to talk about something serious with her when it comes up. I've gotten to really enjoy Ainsley, and the fun person she is, and give her my full attention.

I've always been one to bemoan what i wanted instead of embracing what I had. When I was single I only wanted to be married.. and then once I was married I could look back and think of how much fun I had and how much I had grown as a person while going to school and being on my own.


And then I was married and of course we hadn't been married long when I started to think fondly of the patter of little feet missing from our house.. and then once I became a mom I could look back and see all that Tom and I were able to do while it was just us. How we had time to get to know each other as spouses before learning to be parents. That we were able to smooth out a lot of the bumps of early married life and get to a really good place, so that when that bundle showed up we were better prepared to tackle new challenges together.

And now.. I sit here, with a beautiful daughter, a loving husband, a sweet life.. and I look around for whats next... but I'm going to try and nip this cycle in the bud. Life is much easier right now than it would be if I had a baby.. or even if I were pregnant. I've decided to be thankful for this extra precious time, rather than resentful for not having what I think I should right now.

Sure complications are the spice of life, and I will enjoy them when they come,.. but for now I will sit back and enjoy the simple pleasures.