The Westons: Amy

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Wednesday, November 25, 2020

Gratitude Journal - Day 6: Growing Pains

Day 6: I’m grateful for the growing pains I’ve had in my life. The difficult experiences in our life give us lessons we couldn’t have learned any other way. This is a real life post here, so buckle up.

I consider myself happy. I feel grateful for my life and my heart is full. I am blessed to just be alive. Yet on occasion it’s easier to think about the things I don’t have or didn’t do. I have felt especially reflective over this last year of my life. I will try to put it into words. Maybe it’s my type A personality, but now and again, I look back at my life and start picking it apart, wanting to tweak and change things. I remember being eleven and being horribly bullied at school and feeling desperate and sad. I’ve wished so many times to go rescue her and to tell her to stick up for herself. I look back and wish I would have chosen to date more in high school and early college instead or having such long serious relationships. I also have wished I would have tried more sports, stuck longer with soccer, joined more high school clubs, & had secretly wished I would have joined the drama club, ran for student council, and more. I have wished to go back in time and keep myself from making some mistakes and save myself a lot of sorrow. There are times I wish I wouldn’t have done the “sensible thing” for my particular career choice which I thought was to do community college for my first two years to earn and save money. I had wished to have done college away from home to have that “classic” college experience. I longed to have had more roommates and more fun activities. I’ve kicked myself for not studying abroad in college when I had the chance. I always wanted to do a humanitarian aid trip for dental hygiene prior to having kids. I wished I would have danced more, learned to play the piano, spent more time with girlfriends, and had more confidence in my abilities. I wish I would have had better boundaries. Now and then I’ve even wished I could have a do over of Truman and mine’s first 8 or so years of marriage —I would have gotten myself some therapy and learned to communicate better which would have saved a lot of heart ache.

It’s so easy to look at life in hindsight with that bird’s eye perspective and see what I “should” have done or wish I could have changed. This is where the white space of reflection comes into play —Being bullied as a child has given me incredible empathy and a desire to treat others with kindness and taught me how to be a better friend. Staying locally for my first two years of college allowed me to really bond with my younger sister Shelly who is 6 years younger than me. We didn’t get along growing up and we really forged a special bond in those two years. It also allowed me to save money for dental hygiene school and pay off my school debt in a year a half. Staying locally ultimately allowed me to meet and marry Truman! Getting married young allowed me to grow up with Truman and grow together. Marrying him helped me see myself through new eyes & I’m grateful for the rock he was for me. Not participating in as many things as a youth has given me a great desire to create and be more bold. It has given me the desire to look for and create opportunities as an adult to enrich my life and people’s lives around me. It also had made me especially attuned to looking for the strengths and interests of my own children. Not having had good boundaries growing up has made me more sensitive and a better advocate for others. Making my mistakes has given me a greater understanding when I see people make those mistakes. It also helped me to discover early on my Savior’s awareness of me and His love for me. From a young age, I was better able to understand how we can only be perfected through Him. I could go on and on, but all these experiences in my life —the wonderful things but especially the sorrow, challenges, trials, mistakes, timing, and missed or not taken opportunities all contribute to the person I am today. So would I go back and change it? If one thing changed, it could have changed the entire trajectory of my life. Even though I did not want and still don’t want difficult experiences in my life, I am also grateful for those growing pains. I can choose to have gratitude and a forward looking mentality that helps me see that it’s the sum of our experiences that make us who we are. When we can learn and grow from the good and the bad, I think God smiles with who we are shaping up to be and for that I’m grateful. #GiveThanks

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Happy Easter! 🐣🐰

Happy Easter from the Westons! 🐣🐰 -Elle (7.5), Trooper (4.5), & Magnolia (2)

Truman & I cracking up as he tries to put his compression socks over my crazy abnormally swollen pregnant feet

Saturday, April 11, 2020

37 Weeks Prego with Willa

I am just over 37 pregnant, due April 30th! I get to meet my last little baby soon and excited to hold her in my arms. Each pregnancy has gotten harder and I'm looking forward to feeling like myself again. We talk about this being our #fourthandfinal

My body hurts and I wake up at least 20 times a night due to back and carpal tunnel pain from pregnancy. I'm super grateful to have a healthy pregnancy though and we are all looking very forward to meeting this baby girl soon!

This quarantine has been very strange being away from everyone so I thought it would be good to post an update pic. I figure I better get at least a couple photos of me this pregnancy for posterity sake as well.

I am using my amazing midwives again to do a home water birth, they just dropped off the tub today for my home visit and so it's all feeling very real!

Dear Wilhelmina 💕

What a time to be born! The Coronavirus has covered the Earth and stolen so many precious moments --Graduations. Prom. Weddings. Baby Showers. Church Missions.
22 million Americans are without employment. I was laid off from my job as a dental hygienist on March 5th. Luckily, your Daddy is still working and working hard. There is a big feeling of uncertainty for everyone. Things change weekly and even daily at times. It almost feels as we are in an alternate reality. We live right next to cousins and grandparents and many friends but we are not supposed to see any of them as we practice "Social Distancing". There is a "Shelter in Place" order where all the schools in California and around the nation have closed for the rest of school year. All of Elle and Trooper's extracurricular activities have been canceled --gymnastics, jazz and hip hop classes, piano lessons, Elle's Love of Learning classes, sewing lessons with Grams, and Reading Hour with Gramps. Even church and all church activities has been canceled until further notice.

We anxiously await your arrival as we finish Elle's 1st grade home schooling and spend lots of time at home. We are finding ways to keep busy by doing neighborhood walks, riding bikes and scooters on Berry Court, doing puzzles, bead pets, squirt guns, sidewalk chalk, science experiments, games, & more. I have been working on finishing home improvement projects during tax season to get our home ready to sell. There are so many pesky detail oriented things I have worked on --caulking, filling nail holes, painting baseboards, touch up painting rooms and all the cabinets and bead board, 5 trips for paint, re-painting the bathroom walls and ceiling, scrubbing doors and baseboards, sealing granite countertops, replacing hinges, spring and deep cleaning, dejunking and much more. My body has been very angry to be this pregnant and doing this many projects. This is the most acute and chronic pain I've ever felt in pregnancy. The last month of my pregnancy, your Daddy urged me to see the chiropractor twice a week and do therapeutic massage as well. It has been helping but sleeping has been very difficult.

I think everyone is wrestled with many mixed emotions regarding the corona virus: fear, uncertainty, depression, anxiety, or anger. Your Daddy and I have talked about how grateful we are to have already made the decision to do a home birth with midwives. The hospitals are not where I want to be or want you to be right now. Many hospitals are not allowing and family or even husbands at the birth. My friend who just had her baby in the hospital had to wear a face mask in the hospital as she labored and birthed her new baby boy. Even my midwives have made it so I can no longer bring your older siblings to my prenatal appointments due to COVID-19. There are days that I feel anxiety about everything going around me and other days that I feel grateful that I was already taking a slow down in my life to get ready to have you.