Changing Focus - Sam's 4 Boys

Well, I certainly have not been keeping up with my blog. I am having a really hard time finding a place to begin again, a way to get reacquainted with my own words and thoughts. My goals have changed since I started this blog and my life has changed tremendously, all of our lives have changed. All of us have grown in different ways, we have all healed some of the wounds that were so fresh when I started this blog. The boys are certainly older and bigger, and hopefully, Steve and I are not only older, but smarter, too.

I have started many posts since my last one in October of last year, but I just haven't been able to finish them. I began this blog to recount a very painful time in our lives, a time when I was still reeling from the aftermath of Steve's accident. I needed to put the pain into words so that I could process exactly what I was feeling. Now I want to change gears.

What I want to do, what I need to do, is document the good times, too, and the mundane day-to-day life that we get to enjoy now, the ordinary that I so craved back then. I want my boys to read this blog someday when they are all grown up or even as they are growing up, and know that I truly enjoy them. I want them to be able to read my words, and maybe gain some wisdom and insight into what it is like to be their mother, to be a parent, to be a grown up, to be me. I want these words to be of some value to my sweet boys.

So, here's to a change of pace for Sam's 4 Boys...

It's been a full 6 months now since I have posted, and there is just no way to catch up. It's amazing the things that change in 6 months, and too, the things that stay the same.

My last post was about wanting my bed back, moving Corbin into the bed with his brothers. Well, that certainly has NOT happened, and that's ok by me. Corby is my last baby boy, and I want to enjoy these fleeting moments of babyhood. No one but me would consider him a baby at all. He's 2 1/2 now, he's starting to show interest in potty training, he's talking and telling me what he wants, he is trying his best to keep up with his big brothers, and doing a pretty good job at it, too. There is almost no denying that there is hardly any babyhood left. So, as much as it would be nice to sleep without toenails scraping my back, and waking up to "Be-be, Mama, be-be!" I cherish those last sleepy moments, when he snuggles up close, and his baby eyes flicker fighting the impending sleep. There is a sweetness to sleeping with your babies, a sweetness that I am going to miss when I finally do get my bed back.

I won't try to fool anyone into thinking that my Big Boys never sleep with me either, even now. Last Saturday night, the night before Connor & Carson's birthday party, Connor asked if he could sleep with me since the next day was his birthday party day. How could I say no to that? So, Corbin slept on the couch with his Daddy, and me and my Big Boys piled into my bed. Carson on one side, me on the other, with Connor in the middle, and Cadan at the foot of the bed, stretched all the way across. We watched cartoons and talked about the big day ahead, Con & Cars were so very excited about their birthday party. I woke up sore all over, but my heart felt so full and happy.

Piling up with the three Big Boys in my bedroom reminded me of the months before Steve's accident, when I was pregnant with Corbin. We had my queen size bed and a toddler bed in my bedroom back then. Steve was working nights, so it was just me and the boys at bedtime. Cadan was 3 years old, almost 4, Connor was just over 2 years old, and Carson was just over 1 year old. I didn't feel secure with them sleeping down the hall in another room, I wanted them as near to me as they could be. One of them would get put into the toddler bed, usually whoever fell asleep first, but by the time morning came along, we would all 4 be back in my bed, snuggled up every which way. Steve was usually stuck with the couch. Those were some of the happiest times I can ever remember.

These happy memories are the ones that I tend to tuck away in my mind, and unfortunately, I sometimes forget that they are there as I plod through another day, another week, and on and on. That is why I need to commit myself to writing some of them down, so that I can remember all over again, and so my boys can share in these cherished memories.