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foxxy_tate
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Name: Genae
Gender: Female
Interests: www.jfci.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.darfurgenocide.org
www.fairtradefederation.org
www.worldvision.org
www.heifer.org
www.agreatergift.org
www.invisiblechildren.com
www.witness.org
www.ugandacan.org
www.child-soldiers.org
www.ijm.org
www.stopthetraffik.org
Expertise: http://www.picasaweb.google.com/genaelako
Occupation: student of all things
Industry: Sustainable Development
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
1/20/2003
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| i love this time of day. 10 am. porter is down for his first nap. a (still hot) cup of coffee to enjoy. i don't feel like it's time to rush into the day just yet....i use this time as my "me" time. i read. sit and reflect. watch a morning show. catch up on emails. it doesn't really matter what i'm doing, it usually changes day to day, but it's my time to not feel like i have to be rushing around using porter's nap time to clean, cook, etc. i thought this morning i would catch up on a blog since i haven't written in almost a month. wow, how time flies.
when we moved from boulder back to new haven, we had a plan...well, over the summer we gradually watched our plans unravel, and life started looking more and more intimidating and overwhelming. the last few months have been extremely difficult in some ways but amazing and refreshing in others. feeling insecure about your plans, both the now and the future, is never an easy place to abide, but in the midst of the chaos - feeling closer and more united with my husband and as a family made it all worth it. i suppose that we are still up in the air a little bit; our plans to hinge on a few things working out, but over all i think we feel content and at peace with where we are at, and where we are headed.
my life, however, is about to become drastically different. i am officially a registered full time student at Southern Connecticut State University. i am back at SCSU for nursing...because of how the program and pre-requisites work, my course load this fall (well, let's be honest, from here on out) is going to be quite demanding. i had two options: 1) take part time classes for the next two years to get all of my pre-reqs out of the way, and then apply for the 2011 nursing program, or 2)work my butt of this year and apply for the fall 2010 program. with many factors weighing in on the decision, we decided that it would be best for me to work my butt off and try to get into the 2010 program. see, in order to for the school of nursing, you have to have 7 of the 11 (nursing) pre-reqs done in addition to most of your university requirements...and then you have to have all of them completed prior to starting the fall nursing classes. at first i didn't even think it would be possible for me to do this because when i was in college before i was not, to say the least, pursuing anything that remotely had to do with science or nursing. my college science credit was in geology (thanks for that advice, academic advisor, definitely a good science because it applies to so many university programs - NOT) not to mention the fact that i now have 33 elective credits! yahoo. i'm so glad that i paid thousands of dollars at american university to take environment and development classes...and now they are unnecessary elective credits!!! no, really though i am glad for my time at AU, and any other university or experience really, because they have been a part of shaping who i am - and education in any subject is never a negative thing. so, back to the point......the point is that i only currently have 2 of the 11 nursing pre-req's completed. however, after january 22nd, 2010, i will have all 7 completed. this fall i am enrolled in: biology I, general chemistry, physics, and statistics. (like i said, kick my butt!) then over winter break i will be taking a class for 4 weeks, i am hoping for microbiology....then i will be applying in january for the program, and the spring semester i will be taking organic chemistry, anatomy and physiology, math for natural sciences, and infant and child developmental psychology.
i am fully aware that my life this fall will be class, labs, studying, baby, husband, eat and sleep. luckily, i have one friend who is a first year nursing program (she also wants to do midwifery eventually) and she has a little one, so we can struggle through it together. :)
the rest of my summer will be busy...sandra is coming to visit us for two weeks starting on wednesday. we are going to take her up to boston one day and probably into the city another to visit our good friend brandon....then, on the 19th, the same day san flies out i will be flying to texas with porter to visit my parents for a week. i get back home on august 26th and classes start 6 days later!
i'll end the post with a few pictures of my little boy who is quickly growing up. he has recently started crawling backwards...sometimes it is still just a scoot, but other times he gets up on hands and knees and crawls, usually backing himself against a chair or wall, and then i have to go get him and move him forward - only for him to do it all over again. he really is the joy of my life. i enjoy watching him change and grow so much....
porter and his bestie, amelia, being entertained by joshua....they are 10 days apart and so much fun.
me and porter downtown new haven on the green, for the arts and ideas festival.
cute face.
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| tomorrow is july 7th....two years ago tomorrow, on 7.7.07, i married my best friend.
alot has changed for me in two years. the day we got married i remember feeling like we were embarking on an adventure...just the two of us. we were moving to colorado, away from everything we knew, and making a new life for ourselves. what i remember most about our first couple of months of marriage is laughter : we had so much fun (besides the occasional married fight :) ) and laughed a lot.
last july i was 16 weeks pregnant with porter. we went to the denver aquarium and enjoyed the day together with my baby bump. we were filled with anticipation, knowing that we wouldn't be just us anymore, that we would be a family....we spent dinner talking about our future, what was important to us, what we wanted to prioritize, what we wanted for our baby.
and this year, well, this year we are here. marriage has been so much that i expected and everything i did not. it challenges you every day. it forces you to look at yourself for who you really are and how you treat people, because you see it reflected from your spouses face every day. some days are fun and carefree. some days are romantic. some days are stressful. some days are monotonous. some days are normal. but i love that no matter what the day holds, every night we crawl into bed together, together. always.
i feel like marriage and motherhood has taught me more about the heart of God than i could have imagined before. He is beautiful and i love being challenged every day to be selfless.
what has marriage taught you? | | |
| i rock my son to sleep in the same rocking chair that my mom and dad rocked me to sleep in....
last year when i was pregnant my mom said that i could have it, that they would bring it up to me when they came for christmas. we picked out fabric and she re-upholstered the cushions for me, since the old ones were looking a little worn. the chair was my great aunt luvah's - i believe it was painted and in not great condition, but my dad rescued it years ago and stripped everything off of it and refinished the beautiful wood. the caning started to unravel as well and so although all of us kids were grown and gone, my mom and dad fixed that as well, and stored it in the storage unit until someday i think they hoped a grandchild would need it.
every night i sit down in it in the darkening room, i stare at porters face as he starts to drift off - his little arm is usually reaching up somewhere to grab my face or hair, and he has a look in his eyes (even if he is fighting sleep) of security and safety. we are comfortable there together. i've recently become aware that these moments together won't last forever...that he is already growing up quickly and sooner than i would like, i am sure, these times will be memories. at my baby shower last october, an older woman in my church gave me some advice:she said to remember that nothing lasts forever, the good and the bad. she said that when her two boys were little, she wished away so much that now she just wishes she could bring it all back. when they were first born and they woke up every two hours, she wished they would be old enough to sleep through the night. when they cried because they were teething she wished that they would push through, when she had to carry them everywhere because they couldn't walk yet, she wished they would learn to walk....she told me to remember that no matter how it feels, everything passes and to relish even the things you think you cannot enjoy in the moment because someday - believe it or not - you would wish you could enjoy those moments again. i think about almost daily. every time i find myself wishing this or that, i remember what she said and i see the moments ticking by, and all that i am missing by not enjoying each second of them.
each night as we sit down together in his room in the rocker, for me this is not only a time for nursing and letting him wind down before i put him to bed, i have also made the habit of making this my little prayer time for him. as i pray peace, rest, safety, blessings, and promises over him every night - i often find my thoughts drifting back to when i was a baby. how many times did my amazing parents gaze down at me, like i am gazing down at my son, pray over me and envision the kind of person i would once be? i'm sure that there were hundreds of nights that i was held, cuddled and rocked in that chair throughout my babyhood and childhood, and when i sit and hold porter there i am reminded of the amazing legacy that i am passing down to my son...i am so thankful for the kind of mother and father that my parents chose to be to me. if it were not for them, i would not be the person that i am today. maybe someday i will give my rocking chair to my son or daughter and they will share the same peaceful moments with their little ones. | | |
| lena left a comment on my previous blog, which was in all reality only a thought, as it was a sentence long and really a lame excuse for a blog - anyway, she said she missed my blogs. i do too. i may have mentioned earlier that since having porter, there is a part of me that has been put on the shelf...mostly because i don't have the time to sit down and actually think. let alone write about my thoughts. i miss it so much though - learning, communicating, writing, these things are like air to me. i love being lost in my thoughts and writing without thinking. i decided tonight instead of collapsing on the couch and falling asleep to tv while i wait for stefan to get home from work, or finishing the dishes in the sink, that i would sit down and write, even if i didn't have anything too terribly inspired to share.
moving back to new haven has been an interesting experience. isn't it strange that even though we are adults, we have to learn how to grow up continually? every time i find myself in a new place, i find out new things about who i am. although now, i have to grow and change as a wife and a mother - changing with my husband and son. life is so much more challenging and complicated now than it used to be, but so much more worth living. i can't imagine life without sharing it with steef and i can't stand the thought of not knowing the little man that porter is turning into.
we live on whitney avenue, one of the main roads that runs from downtown new haven to hamden. our apartment is in an old U shaped apartment building, built probably sometime between 1900-1920's, it is cream colored, with brown trim, has a courtyard in the middle, and is covered with ivy growing on the walls. luckily, we are set off the street and it is quiet in our building because every time i walk out the front door i am met with the sounds of (crazy) new england driver's driving way too fast down whitney, sidewalk construction, sounds of sirens coming from the fire house a few blocks down, dogs barking, and the stereo's coming out of either peoples windows passing by or houses near by. even though i love east rock neighborhood, it is not the quiet, serine streets and trails of colorado. i never knew i loved silence so much. in order to find my sanity, i've found my favorite street to walk down...luckily it is right behind us running parallel to whitney. i walk down whitney, past the Wine Thief and the Manna food market, and turn the corner to walk the block up the hill to St. Ronan St. It's almost the second that i turn the corner that silence greets my ears and i don't feel so lost in the chaos. on one side of the street lines perfectly beautiful homes, of which i couldn't even imagine having enough money to own, and on the other side is a green hill, filled with graceful trees, which is a park that runs the whole way behind the Yale Divinity School. there is also a small dog park surrounded by an old iron fence - of which i still have to take jax to.
in our house, our tub and sinks are old ceramic, the walls have who knows how many coats of paint on them underneath the colors that i painted them, and the light fixtures in some of the rooms are the originals. our living room is open to the hallway and dining room by two large doorways and 4 large windows. the kitchen has an old glass cabinet lining one wall, the windows are all original (functioning on the rope "pully" system), the ceilings are so tall that when i stand on a chair, i still cant reach, the doors are adorned with the old glass door knobs, our light switches are the original glass mirrors with two buttons you push to turn on and off, and the floors squeak like they have been walked on for a hundred years. i often find myself wondering how many people have lived here before us. who were they? what were their life stories? did a soldier live in this house during one of the wars? was there ever a young woman, primping in front of the age old mirror in the bathroom? did a family live here? how many children were brought home here, or born here? i wish there was a story book hidden somewhere so i knew the story of our building.
i feel right now, like the story book of our lives is open - but the pages are blank, and it's waiting to be written. i feel like coming here hasn't given me any hints of what all it is going to say either.
i'll end with a few pictures....
porter and amelia
learning this whole "sitting" thing
my crazy boy
morning sunshine. | | |
| everything is all the same and totally different.
*sigh* | | |
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