Plans

Today is the last day of my thirties. How did I get here so fast? Wasn't I just trying to figure out the roller coaster of a 17-year-old life yesterday?

(Now I understand how my parents feel. My mom will tell she just got back from her honeymoon and now her fifth child, her baby, is forty. It's not possible. I have no doubt someday I will feel exactly the same about the Agents.)

I'm certain my life so far is not what I imagined, but . . .

Does anyone really end up where they expect? (And if we did, how uninspiring would that be?)

I never dreamed I'd be capable of leading the stay-on-your-toes life of a military spouse (because, frankly, I'm kind of neurotic) and yet here I am.

I have been pregnant, breastfeeding, or both for over seven years now. My last baby will turn two in a few weeks. In the not-to-distant future there will be no more nursing, no more co-sleeping, no more diapers. As a family, we will enter a new season.

(Sometimes I can't even wrap my own brain around the fact that I'm forty and I have a two-year-old. Does that make me an "older mom"? Would other people see me that way?)

When I studied developmental and social psychology as a college student, I intended to have a career researching it, teaching it, writing about it. Instead, I'm living it.

When I first started working, I couldn't fathom being a stay-at-home-mom. Breastfeeding toddlers? Homeschooling?

None of that was on the agenda. 

And you know what?

I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. Are you?

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.