Saying Good-Bye to the Blog

I feel so blessed to have this life that I am living. I mean that whole heartily and while that may sound as if I am trying to convince myself more than I am trying to convince all of you, you can rest assured that I am actually not trying to do either of the two, I am simply stating how grateful I am and that is the main purpose for this post. 

I have put a lot of time and effort into Making the Most of Today. The blog has almost become a part of who I am, in ways. Its important to me. I initially started it to keep everyone updated on Vada's and my medical issues while I was pregnant with her and then I continued with the blog after she was born. I often wrote about our hospital experiences and I always tried to write from my heart as I wanted others to take some knowledge away from what they were reading. Most of all I wanted everyone to see what a blessing Vada was, that this sweet little girl whom God had entrusted to our family was not a burden but a miracle. So many people say that God wont give you what you cant handle or God only chooses those to have the children with special needs who are capable of raising those children. I have come to believe that this isn't always the case. God does however have a purpose for each and every child that He creates and I believe that He created Vada for us and us for her. I wanted people to see that in this blog.

As time past and Vada grew healthier we as a family could breath normal breaths again. We could look into the future with more certainty and hope and we all began to live our lives a little more. Talk of early intervention for Vada was on the top of our conversation list and as most of you know, that option just didn't feel like the right path for our family to take with Vada and so we choose to homeschool her and here we are today with a blog all about our homeschooling and what we do with our three and a half year old princess who happens to have Down syndrome.

I have been asking myself and talking with my husband for some time about this subject, why do I do this? Why do I continue to blog?
Is it that I feel so strongly about the capabilities that individuals with Down syndrome possess, that I hope to inspire others to feel this same way? Well, yes, but I don't actually believe that I alone am not making that much of a difference just by sharing what Vada and I am doing in our homeschool classroom. To completely honest, I don't think that many people will understand how awesome it is to have someone as a friend or family member with Down syndrome until you actually have a friend or family member with Down syndrome.
Homeschooling in general is important to me as well but do I write this blog because I want others to homeschool their children with Down syndrome? Heck yeah! Homeschool all of your children! But that's not really why I am writing the blog. I believe that homeschooling has its place and while I think it is a wonderful option, I also know that it is not for every family or child. One reason that I share what Vada and I do in our homeschool classroom is so that others can get ideas from me. I love looking at other homeschool blogs and finding new ideas through them, to do with Vada, and I hope to do the same for others. The thought of inspiring others inspires me to be more creative!
One main factor to my blogging (and I wouldn't have to look too deep inside to find this), is that I am looking for others acceptance and approval. Im not an overly accomplished person at least not in the eyes of many and so the numbers of views and the comments and emails that came from this blog became comforting and almost uplifting and then kind of obsessive, in a silly immature school girl type of way. That's when I began to realize that I may be doing this for all of the wrong reasons.
On top of all of this, each post I write, takes a great deal of time from me. This time I could be cleaning my house, helping my children study, exercising, reading a book, preparing for classes, doing a Bible study and so on.
When it comes down to it, I really wanted to inspire others with this blog and somewhere along the way I kind of lost sight of something really important. The people who I want to inspire the most, who I want to make proud of me and who I want approval from are right here under my roof and in my family. They are my close friends and members of my church. They already know how awesome Vada and my other girls are. They know the great man, father and husband that I have and they know that I work hard and sometimes that I screw up but also that I always get on track. While I appreciate all of your comments and emails, all of your support and kind words I need to step back and focus on whats really important. I need to make God and my family first again and work on making them the focus of my getting their approval, appreciation and admiration.

Time goes by too quickly. If we waste what we have today we may not have tomorrow to get it back and so it's today that I say good bye to Making the Most of Today so that I can focus more on what I do have today, my family.