Sarah Who Wanders...

Sometimes I think I am a rare creature. I have friends, but few close ones, and I often feel very misunderstood. I don't mean that in a woe is me-I need sympathy way, because I am fine being misunderstood. It is more a statement of fact. I have NEVER felt as though I have fit in. I have always felt like an outsider for as long as I can remember. Does that surprise you?  I was the shy bookworm in my early years. I even hid from family members. I was the outgoing queen bee in junior high because that is what people like, but craving alone time to recharge. I had a million good acquaintances but few actual friends in high school, being both very nerdily intelligent as well as a drama and choir kid, still shy but often mistaken as aloof, and boy crazy. What a combination!   I always felt more at home with adults than peers (only child thing), and sadly, I remember hiding things such as my IQ score when we tested in school psych class (I am in the top 5% if you believe in ...

In 6 days I will be the mom of a teenager. Everyone always says that time is but a blink of an eye. That time goes so fast. It does, and it doesn't all at once. I remember vividly the day that Matthew was born. Emergency C-section at 34 1/2 weeks. It was a Monday, and I remember that because the day before I was at church, singing my heart out to hymns, and he was tumbling all around his cramped living space. The next day he moved not at all. I went to work (I worked at a dental office back then), and I had some light spotting. I was concerned enough to call my OBGYN office, and we planned to have me seen after work. Long story short, as many of you have heard it before, Matthew did not move again all day, nor later at my appointment despite countless efforts to elicit a response-movement/positional changes, sugar, shock. Nothing. I would love to say that I remember his first breaths, but he came out not breathing at all. His first breaths were delivered via ambu-bag by his fat...

I thought I would write a short little post to update you all on how this dual living thing with my parents is actually going now that each family has their own space. It seemed like such a long journey to get here, but we have been in the house (new portion) for a few months now as all the final touches have been getting finished up. Before the addition, we had 4 adults, 2 kids, and 3 dogs sharing 2300 square feet (which doesn't seem too bad), and our family of 4 was crammed into 2 bedrooms. We had all of our things stored in the garage/shop, and shared the living rooms and kitchen as well as the laundry room. Barrett had set up his office in the garage amidst boxes and boxes of stuff. It was doable, but it was a tight squeeze and we were often at odds about who was going to use the kitchen or the laundry, who was in charge of cleaning what, etc. Barrett was constantly interrupted while working by a flow a traffic through the garage as that is one of the main exits my parents us...