I’ve at at this keyboard for quite some time thinking of just how to contextualize what the last month has been for me.

Thus far, each adventure with color has been pretty light, manageable I should say. Not much that I hadn’t been through before and certainly nothing that required anything more than a shift in mindset, a serious look at my excuses and a fair effort in daily disciplines. All of which, I felt that I had grown enough to look at myself and be willing to apply myself.

Little did I know how everything I had been doing up until this month was preparing me for the moments held within.

I started the month finally prepared to release a truth that I had been holding onto to twenty-five years, I can’t say that I ever really believed the I could or would do it. To let it out felt selfish, I wasn’t expecting how guilty I would feel and I didn’t expect anyone to stand by me the way they did.

It took some time to settle in that it wasn’t selfish at all and in fact, I would have been safe to come out with it sooner. I was honest because I was tired of lying, I was honest because my inner child deserved the truth and as a mother I needed to trust that my own children would be safe.

Something I was expecting to come out of that was an apology and to this day I still have not received one which has only further cemented my trust in myself and the divine timing of when I chose to speak up about what happened to me as a child.. I’ll be honest when I say that I think now that might hurt just as bad as the abuse itself. There is definitely a part of me that wanted him to seek my forgiveness, to repent and I don’t know that I currently have the space to pretend like even after the truth was out there was only more pretending on his part. Therefore, the best thing I know to do with my present awareness is to no longer have contact with my abuser and with that I mourn the loss of my father.

Through that loss however, I have been able to meet my husband on a level greater than before. As I cut myself out of those lies and false narratives, I have recognized my partner to be in his masculine power like I have never seen him in before. His self-discipline and confidence has softened me up like a stick of butter at room temperature.

While I have toyed with the thoughts over and over that perhaps he has always been this way and I have simply had too many walls up to see him clearly it ultimately does me no good because it pulls me out of the delicious present. A place in which I don’t have to worry because I trust him to be my shield should I need him and still it is a place in which I feel powerful, free and wild with passion. I am madly in love.

From that love and union, we’ve grown three extraordinary humans. And this month, all three of my babies contracted Hand, Foot, Mouth which affected each of them differently. Intuition feels different when you’re a mother in my opinion because I feel like there will always been a contrast of insecurity because there is so much about raising children that we cannot possibly know it all. It’s a fine line between that insecurity and a gut feeling that something isn’t as it should be. On some level, we will have to be okay with the possibility that our ignorance can cost us and we have to proceed anyway.

The girls were the first to come down with HFM and when our son got it, something felt different. In the days prior, he had been wetting the bed and we knew something was up when it just didn’t feel like it was because he was drinking a lot of water before bed.

Monday of that week, he had been moody all day which we attributed to perhaps him still not feeling his best after being exposed to HFM although he never developed any blisters. That evening, he randomly began to throw up while we were all outside caring for our animals. From there his health began to quickly decline.

In less than a week, our son lost nearly ten pounds which became our main indication that this was not just a virus and something else was going on, it didn’t seem plausible that throwing up in two days would cause what we were seeing in him.

By Wednesday morning, I KNEW I had to get him to our provider immediately or urgent care. It was the strangest thing to me that he was only asking for sugary drinks, he wasn’t interested in eating anything and then began to refuse water.

I have found myself in this place where past experiences have caused me to have a mistrust in medical professionals, however, this time I am so grateful that his doctor recognized his signs immediately and because of her quick response we were able to quickly rush home to gather a few things and I drove off to the Children’s Emergency room.

Our son, just shy of his fifth birthday was quickly diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes which meant a lifelong dependency on insulin.

Our son and first born daughter were both born via cesarian and to date this hospital stay was the most traumatic as a mother because I saw fear in my child’s eyes and I can only hope that my best will be enough for him to heal from that experience without too much suffering.

Gratitude cannot express the feelings I have for every single person that was involved in caring for my son in those two days.

On my way to the hospital I made a very specific request for a sign that everything would be okay and I maintained my awareness as I kept looking for that sign. I didn’t receive that sign until after we were released from the hospital and on our first day of this new life journey with T1D but there was not a single second that I did not wholeheartedly believe that God was guiding us through. Fear surrounded me but I couldn’t let it in.

That is where I will leave you today friends. This month God guided me right into fear and brought light into my secrets, my fears, my suffering and my whole life. I walk out of this month once again reborn, qualified because God has deemed me to be the One and I stand a little taller in that knowing.

Thank you for being here, I love you.

Well here is me writing something I never thought I’d write, the 2021 Paintball season has begun and I’m not even remotely upset about it.

To share some back story, my husband Casey has been playing paintball for nine years now which is almost the entire length of our marriage and while maybe paintball may not be as well known of a sport it is a lifestyle for those who commit to it. I certainly did not know that going into it as a paintball wife.

As we headed to Louisville this weekend to join my partner for the MSXL tournament, I remembered how naive I was the first time we ever went up there. Vivienne was just a few months old, I was still a new wife trying to get to know my husband and really had no idea what to expect. It is pretty wild to me now to be making this road trip with three children considering how long the years in between have felt.

It may seem pretty silly to those who may not know what the paintball schedule is like but a commitment to a team as a wife means you won’t be seeing a lot of your husband on the weekends from February to November and when you’re a stay at home mom, you know that weekends are the days that you get some much needed support.

To be honest, its never been about the time he’s away but the way it triggered so many unhealed emotions within me from abandonment wounds to co-dependency and everything in between. When the first year or so went by and I realized just how much of his attention it required I grew to resent everything to do with the sport. I felt so angry that this meant so much to him that he was willing to spend that kind of money and time away from home to do it when I was here taking care of the family we chose to have together. And to be honest, there are a lot of times I still feel that way, it puts a knot in my throat and I have threatened to leave more times than I can count.

When I began my healing journey, it only added to that pain because I felt like he wasn’t making any effort to begin his own journey and it felt like we were living together but miles apart.

It is funny now because in truth, not much has changed but I have. Him playing with a team means that he’s gone a lot but the emotions that would rise up and consume me don’t have the power they once did. I really feel that the last nine years have given me the opportunity to look at myself and ask what I want to do for myself that makes me really happy and not feel guilty for wanting something for myself that is independent of my family. It has made me look at the many different facets of my partner and grow to love each one, him being more than a provider, lover, husband or father. I have grown to respect him but more importantly respect myself, learning just how far I have gone in the past to please a partner but seldom choosing to go that same distance for myself and that has liberated the knot from my throat and lifted a massive boulder from my chest.

I think a lot of us struggle with that whether you are a mother, wife, partner, whatever. We normalize going to extraordinary distances for people that we empathize with and care for but when it comes to ourselves and the things we enjoy doing that bring us to life? We settle for our excuses, we limit ourselves with nasty self-talk and we’re in pain when if we made the space for ourselves we could be so happy and create more happiness in our lives and for those people we care so much about.

The change in my perspective has come from a deep surrender, of realizing that I cannot control my partner, I cannot make him see me the way I want him to until I see myself that way and also in a major understanding that because he views his role as a parent differently than I do does not mean that I get to subject him to my judgement. I still get to choose how I want to be a mother, I still get to be clear about my time and being a stay at home mom doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve the space to work on my creative projects or build the business I dream of.

I spent many years feeling so angry, feeling like I was being taken advantage of and I am so grateful to realize that being married does not mean that we must be in mental shackles. It was my belief around what I thought marriage should be that kept me stuck and feeling like I was left behind to struggle alone.

This weekend was really beautiful for me and I hardly spent any time with my partner outside of the time we spent in the van driving but that time together we communicated and the time away I spent doing what I love, enjoying being a mom and adventuring with my children. We came back together once the tournament was over and enjoyed a drive home, ate dinner together and while I am comfortable in bed (which wow isn’t that the best feeling?!) he is watching Jurassic Park with our children.

This July makes ten years of marriage, if you’d ask me what I thought was a key in making it this far I would tell you that trying to control your partner will twist your perception of them and it doesn’t serve either of you. It is possible to be free within a marriage and have a true partnership with boundaries but most importantly respect.

I knew I wanted to share this story but I didn’t consider the ways in which I would sit here staring at the screen and crying. So I apologize if this isn’t as “well written” as I think it better to simply allow the emotions the space to flow and say what they need to.

Around Vida’s birthday I had been doing a lot of reminiscing, as I think most mothers do when their babies are getting older. Not that it is exclusive to birthdays, I find myself doing it often. How do they grow so fast?? In this case, I felt like I had to be really honest with myself if I was wanting to have another child or if three really is our number and we’re all done. After all, we have been been saying we were done having children since Vivienne and look at us now. But I think there is a much deeper kind of honesty once you’ve already had three children because realistically it does take quite a bit to raise them, not just financially but on all levels.

By the time Vida’s birthday came so did my moon. It was early and more painful that I had had in many years. It was different, I felt different.

I have done my best for quiet a while now to stay connected to my body, I try to listen to her, keep track of my rhythms and since that moon nothing felt quite right.

Two weeks later at what would have been my ovulation date I began to spot and the cramping never seemed to stop. After a couple of days I finally took a home pregnancy test and sure enough, PREGNANT.

You can imagine that this came as a shock, I cried a lot. I knew in that moment something wasn’t right, a trip to the urgent care confirmed the pregnancy again putting me at about five weeks which didn’t make any sense to me.

I have never been one to bleed during my pregnancies so five weeks was extremely confusing.

We had the HCG levels tested again within 48 hours and it confirmed that they were declining and I should expect to miscarry.

A big part of me feels so silly grieving this loss the way it has affected me but I wanted that baby from the moment I began to felt my symptoms. And something that makes it feel harder to grieve is that I don’t know how or when I got pregnant due to how irregular my cycle had been during that time.

I have so many questions.

Was I pregnant in January and miscarried at the beginning of February?

Or did I get pregnant in February and miscarry very early on?

Why were my levels so high?

What was the point?

February was really tough emotionally and honestly I feel like I have been floating but with my hands clawing to dig into the Earth doing everything I can to care for myself, to feel everything this experience has had to offer me even though it also feels like it could rips me into shreds.

It is such an interesting thing to experience grief in this way where you still have other children to care for and have to put your grief inside of a box just to get up and make breakfast, wash laundry and go about your day waiting to the few minutes you have to yourself to cry after everyone has gone to sleep or maybe in the shower.

My mind knows that this is something that happens, it is not uncommon, but my body..she knows. I know.

I knew before I took the test that it was going to be positive, I had been having a lot of dreams leading up to it. One dream in particular in which I saw myself having a miscarriage and I suppose that is an element that makes it even harder was that I really hoped it would be different.

I took a pregnancy test on 2-22 I thought to myself immediately how magical, I cannot wait to write down your special date that we found out we were expecting you. I had a dream that night in which I found myself at the beach, before the last rays of sunlight have gone home and I very clearly heard the name “Bridger” which I was told meant to “bridge together two worlds.”

I will hold that name forever close to my heart.

This life experience had been a reminder of how much is outside of our control and it has brought up such an intense anxiety that I am navigating with as much compassion for myself as possible.

Our plan with having children had always been “whatever God gives us, we’re good.” We’ve been given three extraordinary, healthy children and for that I am so thankful. If I can find any gratitude right now it is that my children who are here with me now made it safely and I must appreciate that more often.

Five Daughters Bakery-12 South

I grew up in a Catholic, Mexican household.

The first born, first generation Mexican-American, female, you could say that “no” was something that I heard often. Something I feel that isn’t spoken about enough is the expectations that are placed on the children who are either bi-racial or born first generation American in their family. In my experience, I knew early on that I had to be really good at both speaking Spanish and speaking English without an accent. I recognized the ways in which I would never be able to wear things that were “too Mexican” and yet had to retain just enough of my culture to know that I needed to respect my elders and “Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.”

Growing up in American to Mexico born parents meant that my friends in school had a much different way of living even if they lived in the same neighborhood or went to the same school. I didn’t get to attend sleepovers, stay up passed an 8:30pm bed time and I most certainly would never even dream of taking back and slamming my door. I couldn’t wear makeup before the age of 15, much less date and the rules weren’t to be questioned. No meant no.

You get used to it. You get used to not asking for anything because you already know the answer is going to be no and that belief stuck with me into my thirties. A belief that is so closely intertwined with the belief that “beggars can’t be choosers” and it took a lot of healing work to replace that belief. It began to seep its way into my own parenting, manifesting as both lack and overcompensation, a lack of boundaries with my children, not saying “no” when necessary and then witnessing all of us unable to have our true needs met.

One of the toughest parts of homeschooling for us, or should I say for me is the freedom. It goes so much further than homeschooling because truly we are all learning how to live life together and when you go through to do your inner child healing there is this incredible personal freedom that comes with it but then what? We understand now that its not healthy to be overbearing and strict but never saying no is also an excess and comes with its own imbalances.

Our oldest daughter was an only child for nearly five years, we were so sure of ourselves as young parents thinking that we were only going to have one child. We had no problem giving her everything she wanted, my husband worked a lot while he was in the Army during those years and her and I had no boundaries. We were always together, whatever she wanted she got, I never wanted her to feel the way that I did growing up and in order to avoid being the strict parent I wanted to be the cool mom.

Then our son was born and two years later our youngest daughter was born and boundaries became necessary. It’s been an adjustment for our oldest and there has had to be a lot of patience because she has now had to learn that the boundaries and “no’s” aren’t intended to be mean or hurtful but are healthy and necessary. You want to talk about inner child healing? It’s an entirely different experience when you are going through it at the same time you are getting to walk your own child through it. How important it is to have the conversations and sit through the emotional outbursts that come with “no” when it feels easier to just give in. Those are the moments where you really learn about yourself as a parent and gauge your own inner child work because it can be very triggering, it helps me to continue to come back to a space of compassion for myself and my child to know that it is best to help guide her through these boundaries now than later when the stories become long held beliefs about why she cannot get what she wants out of life.

Learning to find the balance is, at this stage in our parenting vital and also something that we have to permit ourselves an extraordinary amount of grace because we don’t always get it right. Sometimes we give up in the moment and have to go back to apologize when emotions have settled down. It’s learning when to act in the moment and when it’s best to step back for a better approach.

In our case particularly, we have the freedom to be outside of the public school system but we are deep into this generational healing. Our home has been filled with more questions and communication than I ever know was possible in a parent and child relationship. We’re learning that we don’t always have to agree with each other, respect is not simply given because “I am the parent and I say so” but understanding just how valuable respect really is when it is earned through an open door of communication. On both sides of this relationship we are testing the scales of balance to see what it takes to have a relationship between children and parents in which they are free to claim their autonomy while existing within healthy boundaries of the parents who love them and want the best for them without trying to define what the best really means.

As I sit here and reflect on this, I don’t know that what I have felt my whole life was ever about being Mexican-American, being raised in a strict or Catholic household. Maybe this journey has had more to do about what it is to find the balance between freedom and discipline. One cannot exist without the other and it is only when we believe that we are missing one that we are ever out of balance.

I want our children to KNOW that. I don’t want “no” to carry a heavy weight for them but instead to consider it as a redirection, or perhaps even as lesson, one that carries blessings for their journeys and a chance to get to know what they are made of. And lessons aren’t learned the same for any of them, as I grow more and more confident in my ability to not only become aware of myself but also aware of how they need to be loved and supported, I understand exactly why these wonderful children were entrusted to us to be their guides in this life.

I consider myself to be a conscious parent, the last six months have really put that title to the test.

In general, I feel that being a mother has pushed my perceived limits and stretched me so far beyond anything I knew to be true about who I am as a human being. There isn’t a single day that I don’t learn something new because of my children and while them mirroring me has felt like being I’m being dragged, it is also what gets me up off the floor, knees shaking and willing to do better.

Before the pandemic, my oldest daughter was still in Montessori school and we had a pretty good routine from school drop off, to the library, errands, and finishing up with school pick up. Viv could sit at the table to do her homework while I made dinner and we’d relax on our own before we did it all again the next school day. Then suddenly there was no more school drop-off, there was no more mornings at the library for Ollie with his “best-friends” and there were no more trips to Target to wander around buying things we didn’t need when all we needed were paper towels.

The first couple of weeks were a welcome time for us to enjoy the pause, to let my daughter play Minecraft and Roblox for hours while she chatted with her friends. It was easy for us to hang around and snack in the beginning, my husband was working from home and it felt comforting to know that we could do this together. We would go out for a drive just to get out and we’d drive to the new house while it was still in it early phases and dream of what was to come.

After the initial quarantine period when my husband went back to his schedule is when the work really began and it hasn’t stopped since. I had known for a long time before that the way life is lived whether you call it in society or under capitalism, was just not normal or really even designed for children to be curious, creative or intended for them to have autonomy over any aspect of their lives.

One of the most obvious things that came to light as parents was how easily we had drifted into this habit of buying our children “things” in place of going out for experiences that required more planning, social interaction or physical energy when the routine already felt tiring, frankly raising three children asks a lot of energy as a whole. This habit of using errands as a means of filling our lives with things to do and toys in place of adventure made me realize that I was programming my children to fit my schedule rather than making space for them to show me who they are outside of being busy or along for the ride.

I believe that was something that was highlighted for everyone during this time, who am I when I’m not busy or stressed or working, driving to and from school, buying groceries or filling some role?

These beautiful children of ours, how do they manage be such brilliant teachers when they hold no degrees, no formal education, nothing but their spirit and curiosity.

Writing out this post is medicine for my own inner child because thats it y’all, we’ve always been more than enough from the moment that we were conceived and every moment since. Our value, our lives cannot be measured by what we produce, the amount of work we get done in a day and it certainly cannot be measured by material things. Its inherit, it has always been.

Since the pandemic, there has been less places to go, less things to do and definitely less stuff to buy. Well, with the exception of groceries and let me tell you that my babies CAN EAT.

It seems that the energy that I was spending on trying to keep them busy and engaged has been turned inward. Asking myself if that is what my children really need or want from me and if I am avoiding allowing them to experience who I am out of fear. That hasn’t been an easy question to answer because its roots go so deep and I have been walking along this journey as both a mother but also as a child myself.

We’ve been using these last few months to be mindful of the connections we want to make, the spaces in which we want to be present in most often have been outside in nature because that is what feels best. We’re doing our best to listen to the emotions beneath the words and behaviors, relishing in the quiet moments, trying to be aware of how we feel when life gets really loud and chaotic, above all we’re taking it one day at a time.

So what have we left behind in the world before the pandemic? We’ve left behind being busy, we’ve decided to stop selling our attention for stuff and we’ve decided to embrace being human. Being human, as I am seeing it for the first time through the eyes of my children, feels like more than enough.

This journey isn’t easy, as we are having to uproot some of the patterns we normalized as parents but I know that through our ability to communicate and bring it in, we got this.