The many hats of a mother...

Yes, a mother wears many hats. I keep remembering Dr. Jones (my OB) talking to me at my 6 week check up after having Davis. He said..."Remember a mother wears many hats. You are HEATHER first, then a wife, then Blake's mom, then Davis' mom. Don't forget to wear everyone of those hats everyday." It's definatly a juggling act. I've been thinking about Dr. Jones' words a lot lately as our lives get busier and busier. Mainly I've been thinking of ways I can improve my life with each hat that I wear. Blake and Davis are both playing Fall Rec Baseball and Challenge Baseball. We spend more nights than not at the baseball field. I joke that it's our home away from home. On top of that Davis is in Cub Scouts and Blake is starting a basketball handlers club at school. I feel like most of our week consists of school, homework and running to and from extra activities. With the help of one of my newest addictions, Pinterest, I started "Mommy & Me" notebooks with each of my boys. These are cheap (.50 each from Walmart) composition notebooks, or cow notebooks, that we write notes to each other in almost daily. I will write a little something to Blake in his and leave it on his pillow one night and the next night he will write back and leave it on mine. I feel like this is just an extra way that I can make sure to tell them I'm proud of them and they can share anything they want with me. They are loving it and I'm so glad we started this. They will love going back and reading through them as the year goes on. Now, when it comes to the wife hat...I gave Steve a gift for Christmas that I also found on Pinterest. It was his FAVORITE gift! I made 12 envelopes with pre-planned date nights. One for each month of the year. It's been almost a year since I gave him that gift and I have to be honest...we haven't done a good job of keeping up with monthly date nights. We HAVE done a lot better about making time for "us" than we have in the past. This weekend we had one of our date nights. It wasn't one of the pre-planned ones and I have to say it was one of my favorite dates so far! We went to the Harvest Fest at Dennis Vineyards. We tasted wine and listened to great music. Then we went to one of our old favorites from when we were dating, Yadkin Valley Steakhouse. We stuffed our faces with steaks and all the fixings and then finished the evening at the Badin Road Drive In. We took the Jeep, put the seats down in the back and snuggled up in blankets while we watched The Odd Life of Timothy Green and Trouble With the Curve. Both GREAT movies! It was a wonderful night and made me realize we need to do things "just us" more often. The hardest part of wearing many hats is remembering to do things for yourself. Most people tend to put themselves on the back burner and I'm no different. I just turned 35 last month and I've decided that it's past time to do some things to better myself. I want people to be able to look at me as ...Heather and not just Steve's wife or Blake and Davis' mom. I've been trying my hardest to run. Now, let me say I am NOT a runner. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Just ask my track coach from High School. I only ran short distances. Yes, I have long legs and should be able to be a runner, but I've just never been good at it. I've been working with the Couch to 5K program for several years off and on. I've finally gotten serious about it and try to run at least twice a week. It's hard to find the time when you are a busy mom, but I've been know to run in my neighborhood at 10pm just so I can say I got it done! I'm on week 7 (and may be there for awhile), but I'm proud of my progress and feel confident that soon I'll be running my first 5K. I ran today and it was a horrible run, but at least I did it. :) The other thing I've decided to do is go back to school. I know I must be crazy and I don't have a clue how I'm going to fit it in. I'd love to have my Degree in Early Childhood Development. Steve is behind me 100% and that means more to me than anything. I'm starting out slow and only taking one 8 week course to see how it goes and my class starts tomorrow! If this class goes well, I may try to take 2 classes next semester. We will see. The good news is, I have a lot of credits already left from when I did go to school forever ago. At least I don't have to start from scratch! Yes, a mother wears many hats...she just always needs to remember to wear all those hats well!