the 14th birthday

it's the 30th of may, elias is turning 14 and he is a great teenager, being happy with a few little surprises a big table full of friends and family to celebrate for dinner and absolutely loving the visit of his grandparents. thank you for making it over here the four of you! it means a lot to elias and us all.
the day turned out to be wonderful, and slow on my end. i found myself wandering off in my thoughts, back 14 years ago, when we got ready to birth, when our live as a couple turned into a little family. everything was new and in many ways foreign. we were not just living far away from our families but across the atlantic from anything i remember and meant to know at least a tiny bit, how family could work. my language skills were not the best, i often was struggling to find the correct wording to express myself in english. though it also meant a lot of freedom, as a young european mother i was allowed to do or not to do without people around me thinking anything strange about it. ("maybe that's how the swiss do it" they must have been thinking)
i loved this all new and all different and figuring out how we wanted it to do, to live.
it was much later, way into the first year, when we visited our homeland, that i realized for the first time, the mothering is done even more different on the old continent as i was dreaming. now i understand much more and feel very strongly, that families have to find their way, there is no one way or often wish for young parents to feel able to do it their way. it is important to me to help young mothers to find their way to become mothers to their first (and any child following) child. as it does look different for each family.
now back in switzerland for over three years (we moved back when our youngest, thea was just turning one) i realized, that i was not doing it "traditional" or in any way the way it's generally approached here. well, that's fine we learned our way to be parents. the way our kids helped us find our roles and idea's how to live in community with each other and so many more people within close proximity of our house.
elias reminds me, to be brave, to try finding new ways or discovering old ones. and then it's again different each time we go through a new phase. in all that i'm thankful to joel, my beloved husband and wonderful father of our four children, for taking time, finding energy and loving me/us. in all this i'm praising the Lord my God for the blessing of my family.