Today feels like Spring. It is almost 70 degrees outside and sunny—bless.

Life Lately

So many thoughts. Henry is getting so big! He’s starting on solids. The hope is that this will help with the middle-of-the-night feeding which has still been happening since November! Monica had no issues sleeping through the night since day one but she was also formula-fed for the most part so not sure if that is the difference or what. Babies are v mysterious. (and v cute).

Today is the LAST day of our three-week leave period. It has been a dream. Having time together as a family has been so wonderful and well-needed. There’s really nothing better. Stephen has been diving into the job hunt pretty intensely over the past few days especially. It’s a little concerning not knowing what’s next but I’m hopeful he will find something before the paychecks from the military stop at the end May. In the meantime, we’re having fun house-shopping even though we don’t even know where we’re moving lol.

Life Lessons: Kids & Travel

I posted a reel about our 2.5 week trip we took to visit family. It was a lot. The last stop we made was in Savannah, GA. Savannah is only two hours away and I’ve been multiple times but I was really excited to get back there. It is so charming and walkable which I love! While we were there the kids struggled. I think everyone was just a little overtired from all the moving around and lack of routine. There were multiple times that day when I questioned whether or not the stop in Savannah had been a good idea.

This was my takeaway: Traveling with kids can be super hard. But I think (like most things), the more you do it the easier it gets. I think a lot of us think traveling with kids is just not worth the difficulty, but I honestly wonder if that is just because we so rarely do it. I suspect that those brave enough to push through the initial (and possibly disastrous) outings get to a point where even if it is still full of well, disasters, you are at least more equipped to handle them.

If traveling is something you don’t care about then maybe doing it as infrequently as possible is the goal. But the point is: don’t stop doing the things you love after you have kids—even if it is harder than it was previously. The misconception we have as a culture that life ends after having kids is so detrimental to families because parents feel ‘stuck’ due to their state of life. Dreams might change but we should all still have them and pursue them—even if it means a very loud lunch at a rooftop restaurant in downtown Savannah.

Info & Inspo

I recently discovered the Catholic Saints podcast which has been fun! Stephen and I binge-listened during one of our many car trips. One of my long-term goals is to become a saint expert. I also really appreciated this episode of Pints with Aquinas about alcohol consumption (which I gave up for Lent—thank goodness for Sunday feast days). I’ve also been listening a lot to the Gabrielle Lyons Podcast. She has some super interesting interviews on the topics of health and wellness which is one of my favorite subject matters!

I also ordered a few books from Cor Jesu Press. One of them I’ve already read, is called The Christian Mother and Her Prayer. I LOVED it but lost it a few months back when I was traveling a ton. I was super bummed especially because it has some amazing prayers in the back that I loved. So when I saw that Cor Jesu was selling it I jumped on the opportunity to re-stock and picked up a few other spiritual reads as well. I’m FINALLY at the very end of Confessions so I’m excited to start a new book this week.

Looking ahead

This week I’m working on:

• increasing weight load at the gym + adding in some more cardio
• getting the house back in order after our extended absence
• staying true to my 30 min social time limit
• finishing Confessions and starting my Lenten read!!
• Daily rosary (my other Lenten resolution)

Tomorrow is back to the grind—but I am insanely grateful for my family and the time I just had with them and I will take heart in the literal and spiritual Springs that are forthcoming!

Here’s to the hard and good things.

In camaraderie,

Miranda