Rachel has been a family friend since she was born. I remember her and her blonde siblings toddling around. She was a quiet, soft-spoken child and still is, as a lovely mother and wife. Rachel is well-loved by her family, church, and community due to her kind and generous heart.
Life With Rachel
A Little Bit About Me
Hey everyone, I’m Rachel. I’m a young mom, a mere 25 years of age to three sweet kiddos, Sawyer (4), Ivy (2) and Solomon (10 months) and have been married to my husband Jesse for just shy of seven years. Previous to my venture as a stay at home mom, I worked for a short period of time as an Occupational Therapy Assistant. I enjoyed my job and loved the people that I got to help. But once I had Sawyer, I started my new job as a stay-at-home mother, and I don’t have much of an interest to go back into the workforce.
I have a great desire to stay home with my kids and love them until they leave me!
My Daily Routine
I sometimes refer to myself as a “chaos coordinator,” heck I even have a shirt that states it, and this chaos coordinator drives a crazy train!
Chaos and crazy, with a whole lot of scripture reading, worship, prayer and iced coffee to make it through the day! Luckily, amongst the chaos, there are a lot of sweet moments to savour and be thankful for.
My kids are my alarm clock, going off daily around the same time of 6 o’clock. I stumble out of bed find my glasses, and we are off to the races! I spend the next 2-3 hours getting everyone ready while sipping some coffee.
The youngest (Solomon) goes down for his morning nap an hour or two after waking. This is usually when the older two will play or get to watch a show, while I make an effort to sit down and sneak some precious bible reading, and prayer time in.
I then move on to the dreaded household tasks while I listen to some worship music with a lovely addition of someone screaming or crying, calling for help, tattling or having a tantrum. We usually try to get out and do something in the morning, whether its groceries, visiting with friends, going to the play centre, or now that the sun is shining and its warm, just playing outside. This means we are usually out of the house between 9 -10 am.
I find getting out of the house and connecting with others, or getting a few things accomplished really is enjoyable for me, even if it comes with its chaotic moments.
Lunch often consists of a packed lunch in the van because of the timing of getting out and trying to make it home for nap time. Sometime between 12-2, my kids start to go down one at a time for a nap and then there is a short period of quiet where I get to have a brief intermission to my day. 3 o’clock always comes sooner then I expect it to, and one by one they start waking up and then the bus arrives and drops off the young boy I babysit after school.
The dinner-making gets underway, while the kids play and then it’s a short visit with Daddy and a bible story with him before they are back in bed for the night. My husband works long hours regularly, as well as being away for two weeks at a time and home for a weekend – for 6 months of the year – in the summer. So, the kids always look forward to him getting home in the evenings.
The house usually ends up looking like the kids and dogs ran wild all day with toys, dirty dishes and tuffs of dog hair everywhere from the lovely spring shedding-season. If the energy is there, then my husband and I will make a last-ditch effort to do a quick tidy before it all commences again tomorrow.
Struggles Of My Day
Life brings challenges, but man oh man, when you add kids to the mix that comes with its own set of challenges!
There are many daily challenges:
🌺Breaking up arguments
🌺 Potty training
🌺 Disciplining
🌺 Learning who my little people are and how they work – their likes and dislikes – since they each have different personalities
🌺Trying to remind myself that I’m doing Kingdom work amongst the daunting repetitive tasks
🌺 Trying to keep the love and communication with my husband a priority and not letting our marriage get stuck in the pass-off of the kids
However, my biggest challenge I think may surprise most people: I am a calm, quiet, and patient person (or at least I thought I was until I had kids of my own) and the challenge is; not to be overwhelmed and let my own temper run rampant.
Teaching kids how to manage their feelings, and reacting in the right way, not the instinctive way can really make me want to lose it.
I feel like all I do is play referee some days and the tantrums, and screaming of strong-willed toddlers, really makes me want to join in the yelling and have my own tantrum too! I find it easy to forget that I am the adult and they are little and still learning. Oh how quickly I forget to choose grace and often have to remind myself of the abundant grace that the Lord has shown me.
Joys In My Life
Amongst the crazy and chaos, there is much joy to be seen and enjoyed.
I love seeing my kids interacting sweetly with each other. Sawyer (my oldest) often walks around telling his younger sister Ivy that she is his best friend and inviting her to play with him.
I see them learn new things and It’s fun when I get to learn something new about their personality, likes and dislikes. Like when we put a life jacket on Ivy to go swimming in a friend’s pool when she was about a year and a half old. We had expected her to take a while to warm up to the idea since she can be a bit hesitant. But to our surprise as soon as Ivy was secure in her life jacket, she took off swimming, without our help. She only got out of the pool to warm up enough, so her lips weren’t purple and then went right back in!
It also brings me great joy to be able to encourage and serve others. I can’t necessarily do this to the extent that I want to, because I have small children to take care of. But many things bring me joy like:
🌷 Helping someone else by making a meal,
🌷 Dropping off coffee and a note of encouragement to a loved one
🌷 Having friends over for play dates and playing hostess
🌷 Sending a text to a friend to let them know I’m thinking of them and see how they are doing.
🌷 Sharing my love of gift giving, encouraging and serving others with my kids and then be able to see them want to participate. That right there is a double whammy! Cue the tears of joy!
My oldest son, Sawyer, this Christmas came to the realization a week before Christmas that we give gifts to people to show how much we love and appreciate them. When he figured this out he was quite concerned and came to me asking if he could buy gifts for his friends.
I sat down with him and, he told me everyone who he wanted to get gifts for (it probably came to about fifteen friends and family members!). Sawyer and I went to the dollar store that evening and, he walked the isles thoughtfully picking out what he thought each friend and family member would want. He stayed up later then usual that evening wrapping all of his gifts. He was so excited when he got to deliver presents to everyone.
What a sweet moment full of Joy for him and I.
My Dreams
As a parent, I have endless dreams for my kids. I pray and dream that my kids will know the Lord, that their character would be of more value to them than their credentials, and that they will grow to love each other, despite there personality differences.
As for my dreams; I just want to love the Lord, my kids, and husband better.
To be able to give, encourage, and serve others abundantly. I have a pretty dreamy life as it is even with the everyday challenges of raising young children – there is much to be thankful for!
Moments With God
I have become more dependent on God in the past four years of becoming a mom then I have in my lifetime. I think becoming a Parent really brought to light how sinful and selfish I am, and how much I really do need God.
I’m not perfect, I regularly need to assess my sin and ask for my kids and others to forgive me – but the great news is that Gods grace is sufficient for me. So here I am sharing my weakness and imperfections with you so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
Oh how much peace and reassurance that gives my soul.
Rachel’s humble-heart reminds me of another mother who knew it was her fault her child no longer was willing to spend time with her. Read about what this mom did to make things right with her adult daughter, click here: When a Mother Asks For forgiveness
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