A Two and a Half-er

Hi! Hola! Bonjour! Thank you for joining us! My name is Bianca. I am 22. I have been married to my husband for almost three years now! Well, just over two and a half. It just isn’t fair to those who have ACTUALLY been married for three years to have a two and a half-er claiming a three year marriage status. After all, marriage is NOT easy. So I willingly retract that “three years” comment.

 

Here are some important experiences and facts that have shaped who I am today:

I was born in Camden, NJ. Interesting and sad fact: Camden, at some point, was rated the fourth most dangerous city in the US.

I was raised in New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and Florida! I speak Spanish and a little French. A very little. I do consider myself a Floridian now.

I spent a portion of younger years in foster care. Years later, I reunited with my father and two of my siblings. Then I reunited with my mother and more siblings!

I have two older sisters, two younger sisters, and one younger brother. One of my younger sisters is adopted into another family and lives in Puerto Rico. She’s utterly obsessed with Justin Bieber.

I am an aunt to two girls, and three boys!

I love to dance, but never get a chance to. I love salsa, hip-hop, swing, ballet, and tap. My ankles are still recovering from my ballet years. If I’d only known!  Somebody, please invite us out to dance!

 

Here I am dancing at our wedding to Shakira’s Waka-Waka something song. One of my favorites!

 

I attended the University of South Florida where I studied Advertising and Marketing for just under 2 years. I haven’t graduated. Don’t know if I ever will. I’ve yet to find a good personal reason to go back. There's a possibility I'll go back years from now and pick up where I left off with Advertising. We'll see.
 

I’d like to start my own business someday. Something that involves hands on creativity and design.
 

I met my husband at Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens during a group outing for some of the singles (like myself) in the church. We flirted. We became friends and stalked each other on Facebook for about a week. Now we’re married. That’s usually how it works, right?

Our son was born to us on July 5^th , 2011. His name is Jesse. He’ll be two very soon!

 

Here we are together with our new baby for the first time! We were so proud!

 

Look at how happy and exhausted I look!

 

  

 

My son has some physical and mental challenges. He was diagnosed with infantile spasms, which we are still trying to get rid of with ACTH. He also has some congenital deformities cause by Amniotic Band Syndrome. He meets with therapists five times a week. He works out more than I ever will! He is incredibly happy most of the time and has an inspiring motivation to be independent!

 

Here is in his fairly new gait trainer. He loves going out for walks.

Daddy swinging him high!

 

 

 

I have Hoshimoto's Chronic Thyroiditis. It just means that my body has antibodies that attack my thyroid glad, causing it to misfire and get aggravated. The side effect I struggle with the most is anxiety and lack of energy. Often, I feel great! It's unpredictable.

 

I design, make, and sell tutu dresses and accessories on Etsy.com. It’s a hobby that pays. I work at night once the little guy is snoozing away in the comfort of his crib.

 

 This picture sums up my work. This is the Ella Belle  Birthday Tutu Dress.

 

I love to sew. I am not very good at it yet, but I love to learn.

I am Mormon. I have been a Mormon since August of 2009, two days before leaving my small home town, Palatka, FL, to head to college.

My days are usually pretty jam packed! Scheduling and going to doctors’ appointments. Making tutu dresses. Cleaning. Washing. Bathing. Diaper Changing. You know, the usual!

 

Here is Jesse with his hand surgeon, Dr. Hess, admiring his new and improved hand with separate fingers!

 

After the day's chaos has subsided and I’ve successfully cribbed the toddler, I usually sit on the couch and weigh my failures and triumphs.

I usually feel a bit of separation anxiety (this never fails to surprise me, but he IS with me ALL the time!).

I decide whether I deserve to relax and watch an episode or two of One Upon A Time and Dancing With The Stars OR do some more chores. Despite the outcome, I try to remind myself to “Never let a problem to be solved, become more important than a person to be loved,” as Thomas S. Monson once said.

When I remember that, I have to redefine and reexamine my triumphs and failures. Did I love my baby and husband enough today? Yes? Great! No? I’ll do better tomorrow. We can always count on the sun to rise again! At least here in Florida we can!

 

First portrait as a family

 

Well, I hope that something about me and my experiences will in some way make you feel at peace with your abilities and potential as a mom and individual. I hope that you are able to feel that you’re not alone in your journey.

I hope that you may acquire stronger feelings of individuality, affirmation, and confidence in your personal parenting methods. Hopefully you’ll feel some sense of safety from the unyielding societal influences that we moms are often bombarded with.

Thank you for getting to know me! Hope you have a simple, complication-free day! Oh, and who cares if you didn’t have time to shower today?! Maybe your husband… But, hey! He’ll still love you! (:

Woo-hoo! I'm introduced!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Worth It

Hi Ya’ll! (that’s what I feel I should say now that I have lived in Texas for nearly a year!)

I am Sarah-

a young mama to 3 teeny boys

a lawyer’s wife

a lover of yellow

a two-time thyroid cancer fighter

a daughter of God and divorced parents

a girly girl who doesn’t mind if her little boys get dirty

a West Virginian turned Kansan turned Texan

a stubborn soul

a crier

a chocolate chip cookie addict

a student (surprise, I’m starting my college education again this fall)

a lover of music from classical and country to rap and rock (current favs:  Fall Out Boy’s “Light‘em Up” and Amber Carrington’s version of “Sad”)

a little naïve

a hater of washing dishes

a Mormon

a friend, I love GNO!

a DIY’er

I am on a journey to rediscover myself now that I have three boys four and under! My newest edition, Aaron, is 12 weeks old today. My oldest, Payton, turned 4 in April…so for two weeks I had three kids three years old and under!

Basically, they are my world. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes it drives me crazy. But, always, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

I am married to this man, Brandon:

It’s been a hard, but blessed, five years of marriage. He is my best friend.

Brandon is a smarty pants and just graduated with an LL.M. in tax law. Now he is on the hunt for a nice-paying job (three kids = $$$). In the meantime money is tight as he clerks for a local law firm.  

I truly believe that my life comes in waves:  waves of ease and waves of trials. My pregnancy with Aaron and that time in our life was pretty simple. It was not trial free, but it was doable. Then we had the fussiest-least sleeping baby on the earth, and then Brandon graduated and needed a new job...and then I was recently re-diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer. Previously, after Derek (age 2) was born the cancer was discovered and I went through surgery and a type of radioactive treatment called I-131. Sadly, at a routine checkup after Aaron’s birth, the cancer was found again in lymph nodes in my neck.

Two days ago I had surgery to remove those lymph nodes. And, lucky me, an MRI showed still more lymph nodes that need further investigation. Soon I will have more biopsies and probably more surgeries.  

But, today, I feel peace. Life is not easy but cancer doesn’t define me. It adds to me. Motherhood also doesn’t define me; it too adds to who I already am. When it comes to motherhood…well, I have a lot to learn. I fail at it every day. But, you know, I also triumph in little--and sometimes big-- ways. Each of us does.

So breathe, try to be happy, let your kids get messy, and to be easy on yourself. At the end of the day this motherhood thing, this life thing, is not easy but it is worth it.

keepin' it real
this is what my family pictures typically look like

I’m excited to blog for “To Each Their Own”! Selfishly, I’m happy to have something to think about other than cancer, cloth diapers, and cleaning!

So here’s to this new adventure!

Once Upon a Time...

Once upon a time there was a quirky, flat-chested, 18 year old girl who set-off for college.

In the end they all lived happily ever after.

I’m stuck somewhere between those two lines.  I’m no longer 18, no longer quite-so-flat-chested, but still pretty quirky.  In the fall of 2007, I met my best friend (my knight in shining armor/handsome prince as it were).  We started dating early 2008, got engaged that June, and were married in November.   Four and a half years and two kids later, I think we’re doing pretty good.

I used to blog- a few years ago.  I felt like I wasn’t too shabby at it either.  I would post daily (sometimes more than once daily) but then life happened and I started to post monthly, quarterly, yearly, never.   Once I graduated with a degree in Elementary Education and we had our first child (Graham-June 2011), I pretty much gave up on the whole social-journaling “thing” and started with the whole trying to get a job and raise a child “thing”.

With much searching, applying, interviewing, and praying- I was blessed with a job teaching Middle School Science.   I think I’m pretty good at teaching- and I enjoy it.  I feel like I’ve learned so much as an educator.  I have the opportunity to spend time with kids, to inspire them.  That being said… it is also incredibly challenging. Especially now that we’ve added baby number two into the mix! (Xander- June 2013)

While I am off battling the beasts of pubescent body odor, apathetic eye-rolls, and the general wrath of working-mother’s-guilt, my knight in shining armor is home conquering nap-time, temper-tantrums, and swimming lakes of spilled-milk.  I greatly admire him as he takes the time after hours to also overthrow the evilness of chemistry, statistics, and slay all other dragons of dreadful college academics. 

One day, when he’s done with school we will switch places.  The thought is both thrilling and terrifying.  But I don’t think about it too much now.  I’m more concerned with this part of the story than the ending.  I already know the ending.  I know everything will turn out right- we will get our happily ever after. 

But it is definitely being an adventure getting there.

I’m really looking forward to writing for “To Each Their Own” and I hope my posts will be a positive addition each week.

Here we go!

My Awkward Teenage Introduction

The first thing you should know about me is that I am supremely unoriginal. No, I'm not being modest. No, I'm not self-bashing. It actually doesn't bother me because what I lack in originality, I make up for in mimicking skills. I'm an excellent copy-cat. Google and I? Well, we're close.

So under normal circumstances I would blog-stalk. I'd read everyone else's introductory post and then I'd change important things like names and dates, I might tell a joke. For the most part, however, I'd follow the template provided by my previous posters. The problem with this situation is that there are no previous posters. I'm the previous in this scenario. In other words, I have no idea what to write.

I feel like a teenager introducing myself to a new group, worried that I have food stuck in my braces or my sneakers are not the trendy kind.

I suppose in following the definition of an "introduction", I can start with the very basic, the who, what, when, where and how. Hello, my name is Jenny. And much like Lucy Pevensie, I am a human, specifically a girl. And when? Well, it's been a while (let's not dwell on that shall we?). I was born and raised in Virginia and lived there until December of 2012. I now reside in Florida, it even says so on my ID (though I've heard those lie on occasion). I haven't changed my license plates yet, I'm not ready for that level of commitment. Oh, and the how. Obviously, I came from a pea pod. Everyone knows that.

As for writing, it's always been a love of mine. I once read a book that says that most writers are (or were at some point) socially awkward. This explains a lot.

When free time is available, I love to spend it reading. I was an English major in college and have enjoyed dabbling in some free lance writing. I would love to take it up a notch at some point, if my childhood dream of becoming a mermaid doesn't work out.

I'm excited to be a part of "To Each Their Own". My love of the written word comes in second to my love of being a wife and mother. Combining the two is a little slice of Heaven. Motherhood, after all, is not so different from slaying dragons or falling through wardrobes, even if the dragons are more like carrot-sized cockroaches and the wardrobe looks more like an over-flowing laundry basket.

Here's to the adventure ahead!

Introductory Post

[Photo Credit]

To Each Their Own is a team blog sharing the unique points of view from six mothers on life and motherhood.  Each week we will have a different topic and our authors will have a chance to share their thoughts and experiences as related to that topic.

On Sundays we will have a special guest post from a mom on a topic of her choosing.

The name of our blog, "To Each Their Own" was chosen to highlight the concept that we all have different experiences, thoughts, and points of view.  These differences make us unique.  They should be highlighted and used to strengthen us as a whole.  Ultimately as mothers, we have the special calling to love, protect, and nurture our families to the best of our ability.  No one else can fill our role the way that we can.  That being said- there is no one "right" way to be a mother.  "To Each Their Own" reminds us that our lives and our families are our own, and encourages us to draw strength in our own untapped abilities as women and mothers.

We hope that you will find our experiences enlightening, uplifting, humorous, and helpful. Thank you so much for stopping by to read and please feel free share your own perspectives in comments.    We ask that you keep your comments constructive and uplifting.  Please avoid any form of negativity or hatred toward others and/or their point of view.  

Other than that- post away! The more the merrier. :)

-To Each Their Own