You change when you say "I do". You're no longer your #1, only caring about and for yourself...you open your life and your heart to your husband. There's now another person to consider in all the choices you make in life.
Then you have your first baby. If you didn't change too much when you became a wife...you're bound to change in leaps and bounds when you become a mommy for the first time. It's life-changing. You can no longer do whatever it is you please at any given moment. There's a precious blessing who relies solely on you to live.
I love being a mommy, but it was definitely a transition that I had to make. I couldn't run out and go shopping whenever I wanted or go out with my girlfriends or even go out on a date with my husband. You're at home more in your life than you ever were before, at least I was. It's not as easy to just run out the door and meet your friends for coffee. You have to wait because the baby is the boss of the house now, literally!
Then, I got used to being a mommy of 1 and spreading my time and my love for myself, my husband, and my child in good sized portions...and then we welcomed baby #2. I wondered how my heart could love another child as much as it loved my first, which was so so SO much. But it does.
I can't even begin to quote who said this or something similar, but I've always firmly believed that if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else...and certainly no one else is going to love you back! My husband loves me unconditionally, he has told me many times...but I imagine for him it would be harder to love me if I didn't love myself.
I think it is so important for me as a wife and mother to still recognize that I am Sarah. I'm not a single, childless girl anymore...but I am still me in there. I've just had to mold myself and change over the years. It's so important for me to still have girl's nights and coffee dates and "me" time. Even if my me time right now is limited to a bubble bath and a glass of Moscato - I'll take it!
There's an old saying that "if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" and for me...that's certainly true! I radiate my feelings. If I'm not happy then I radiate that to my husband and my children, and they don't deserve it, which is why it's so important for me to remember to love myself.
We love because he first loved us. -- 1 John 4:19
Do everything in love. -- 1 Corinthians 16:14
