Melancholy Moments; Meaningful Moments

I am naturally a melancholy person.  That may be surprising to some people, even those who know me fairly well, because I generally try to hide my melancholia.  Don't get me wrong, I am happy...I do my share of dancing in the kitchen and singing at the top of my lungs; but the truth is, I am prone to feeling a lot of guilt, stress, and discouragement on a daily basis because I can't do everything that I feel like I "should" be doing or want to be doing.  I am a perfectionist, I am a worrier, and I am hard on myself.  To make matters worse, I am very aware of how incredibly blessed I am--I know that I have no reason to ever feel unhappy--which makes me beat up on myself all the more.

Unfortunately, when my husband is stressed out from work, he develops quite a bit of this temperament as well.  He's naturally an easy going person, but he craves peace, and when he works from dawn until midnight and doesn't get a moment throughout the day to relax (which seems to be the constant reality these days), he is not a very happy camper.  He becomes self-critical, discouraged, and overwhelmed.

So we've been a couple of Debbie Downers around here lately.  Not proud to admit it, but I am against blog facades in all forms, so I thought I would go ahead and acknowledge the truth.

Back in January, we chose a verse from The Book of Mormon as our family "theme" for the year: "And it came to pass that we lived after the manner of happiness" (2 Nephi 5:27).  We decided that we wanted to spend the year focusing on being happier in our daily lives.  We thought we would devote each of our weekly Family Home Evenings to discussing a different aspect of happiness, and we also set daily goals that I call the "habits for happiness": personal and family prayer and scripture study, exercise, healthy eating, adequate sleep...you know, the basics.  Sounds simple enough, right?

Wrong!!  Why is it so hard to accomplish all of these "little" goals in addition to everything else we have going on in life??  And we've only had FHE about three times since declaring our theme in January!  We are awesome!!

In all seriousness, I have a lot of thoughts about goal setting and happiness and perfectionism, but I am going to save those for another post, and I am going to end my day by focusing on something that does make me insanely happy: my adorable son.

Noah wakes up early.  I think it's Ryan's alarm that wakes him up (our apartment is very small), so Ryan will give him a bottle, change his diaper, and let him play in the bathroom while he gets ready.  This morning, I woke up to the sound of Noah's jabber moving closer and closer to me.  Confused, I opened my eyes to see where it was coming from, and I saw a shadow crawling down the hallway outside our room.  I couldn't stop grinning as I watched that little shadow getting bigger and bigger.  I knew that at any moment, Noah's cute little face would peek around the door frame.  What a way to start the day!

He is really moving now.  Sometimes when I turn my back for two minutes, I am shocked to turn back around and find him in a totally different room.  He is a little speed demon, and he loves his new mobility.  I am finding that all of his pants and pjs have dark brown spots on the knees...oops, I guess I better start vacuuming!

He has two tiny teeth poking through his bottom gums now, and when he grins, you can see them.  It is the cutest smile in the world.

Watching Noah grow is such a joy, and I know it will go by way too fast.  I often get frustrated with myself because I feel like I never change.  I have the same weaknesses that I had a year ago, which is sooooo discouraging.  But I try to remember that I can't spend my days focused on my same old imperfections because right in front of me is a little being who is changing--so much, all the time!  I have the rest of my life to worry about my to-do lists and my goals.  Witnessing my son learning to crawl and sit and pull himself up on things--these moments and milestones are so fleeting.

So I end tonight's post with some recent videos of Noah that make me happy.  The first is a video of him splashing like crazy in the bathtub (his favorite thing); the second is a video of him doing his "happy wiggle" while eating breakfast (Ryan filmed this moment sideways); and the last is a video of him giggling in delight when he first learned to crawl (this might be my favorite video of them all).

These are the moments to focus on when I am feeling melancholy.  I am one lucky mama.