Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Dear Aria. Letters To My Littles.

Dear Aria,

There are so many things you are doing right now and I just wanted to take a minute to write a few down.

You are a precious little girl. Even with the naughty things you do I have to hold back the laughter. At 22 months pretty much everything you do is cute. If only there were enough video space to document your every move. I'm trying hard not to be that parent, but it's hard.

You are definitely your own person. You march to the beat of your own drummer and you definitely do not like to be told what to do. Oh my, it's going to be a long life for you. I will find you off by yourself and doing something you shouldn't, you look up at me with the sweetest, most innocent look. I think you know exactly what you are doing.

One thing interesting is that you HATE having your diaper changed by me. You are so good for your daddy and pretty sweet with anyone else while they are changing you, but with me, you are nothing but kicks and screams and it's pretty much World War Three for us.

You definitely love your Daddy. He's the one who is best at going in and calming you down if you get a fright in the evening. He's the one you will be excited about seeing in the morning, and when he comes home for lunch and when he comes home from work in the evening. This afternoon he corrected you and you cried and cried and cried. He's going to have to start getting used to having an emotional little girl around.

I think my favorite thing to see right now is your sense of humor. If you pick up that something is funny you will do it over and over. This evening you put on Daddy's winter hat and had Levi and me laughing as your ran up and down the hallway. You looked so cute in his oversized beanie. You love to dance, as soon as you hear music you start in, waving your arms and prancing around. If you fall, you get right back up. Not much can hurt you, which is good since you will be in between two boys. (Don't worry, I know how you feel.)

Something that … well, makes you unique is that you like to growl and yell. It's not so bad when we are at home, however, when we are walking through the grocery store, it's a little embarrassing for you to just be yelling at the top of your lungs.

Another thing right now is that physical touch is your love language. Well, maybe not just touch, it often comes out in the form of punching and hitting and biting. It's like you get so excited about something it's the only thing you can think to do. Tonight while I was rocking you, you told me to look at the door, when I turned back to you, you slapped me on both sides of my face at the same time. You thought it was hilarious. I had to laugh too. This made you do it again, much to my pain. I was laughing so hard though, it took me a while to get control of the situation.

Aria, you are a joy to our family right now. Yes, we struggle with you and there are difficult times, but really, it's all worth it. You are worth it. Lord, help me to enjoy this little girl. Thank You for her. She is so precious and fun and unique. I pray that she would become my sister in Christ someday. Let her know You deeper than I ever could.

I love you Aria.

Your Mama

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

I'm Not Holy

I can't believe that this is my 303rd blog post. Maybe I should have said something about my 300th, but that already passed me by.

Oh how I love blogging. And oh how I hate it. I'm thankful I have the record and I'm able to share my heart on here, I have people come up to me in person sometimes and tell them that they appreciate my honesty on here, and that is so cool. What I hate about it is the time it takes to blog. Also, coming up with interesting topics… I will finally get the time and then end up staring at my computer thinking, what in the world was I going to blog about earlier today? It suddenly doesn't sound that interesting and then even trying to translate it into a readable thought, well, I'm not awesome at that. But it obviously hasn't stopped me yet.

Some thoughts today.

I have been posting a lot of scripture on my Facebook/instagram feed and I had the thought this morning that I probably look like a holier-than-thou Bible thumper. I apologize if anyone out there has been offended or thought that I was trying to clout my faith on the internet. Honestly, the only reason why I post it is because it speaks to me. Also, the Lord has been showing me about all the meaningless, mindless things I do on the internet and in my life that don't amount to a hill of beans. I've come to the conclusion in my life that the only thing that means anything is the Lord and His kingdom come. So really, I am over trying not to offend people and I'm over trying to cover up the fact that Jesus is my hope, my peace, actually, I'm just going to go ahead and say something really offensive and that is that Jesus is the hope, the peace of the world. If I believe it for me, I have to believe it for the world, otherwise my belief holds nothing.

In that same vein, I just want to admit my own frailty. Geez, I'm a sinner.

I have had a bad attitude.

I think it's a lack of gratefulness in my life. I just keep struggling to look for the good. I keep thinking, I'm going to kill this child if he or she continues to (fill in the blank). I have just been struggling with anger at my kids and my husband. He tries to help and it's not good enough, I see all the things he's not doing and focus on those (I need to keep in mind that he has a full-time, difficult job that he works very hard at every day, and his hard work puts food in our mouths and clothes on our backs, why am I ungrateful?!)

This morning I woke up to read the Bible and did NOT want to read. I did NOT want to get out of my warm bed. But, it was mind over matter and I knew that if I didn't get up and read that I wouldn't get to it and if I don't read the Bible my day usually goes about a thousand times worse. Also, it would put me behind in my daily Bible reading plan and I hate trying to catch up. All of these are such holy reasons aren't they?

My reading today was on the crucifixion of Christ.

Oh my goodness.

Luke 23 and John 18-19

Jesus did not open his mouth to his accusers. He did not try to defend himself. He had just spent the night weeping in the garden, in dread of what he knew was about to happen. He was betrayed. He willfully gave himself up. He was denied friendship by his closest friends.

He was mocked and beaten. And he never said a word.

On the way to the cross, he told the women, "Do not weep for me, weep for yourselves and your children … for if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?" His heart was compassionate towards these people. He was despised.

Then he hung on the cross for six hours. In darkness for the last three.

He hung there. He died slowly and painfully. He cried out to God, "My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?" The Father turned his back on Jesus, he poured out all of our sins onto him. All of the shame, all of the guilt. Onto the perfect, sinless, Lamb of God.

And he gave up his life.



To pay for my sin.


I can only sit and weep.

That God would come down and allow himself to be nailed to a cross and pay the penalty so that he could rescue us out of darkness and bring us into light.

Lord, let me be forever grateful.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Advice On Pregnancy

The other day I got to hear a fellow blogger Carol Spenst share about blogging, why she blogs, how it has impacted her life and the struggles that go along with blogging. It definitely inspired me to write. So, here I am.


Also, it's nap time, so I can actually put a complete thought together. That helps.


I finally picked up my prenatal yoga DVD again. It was not a priority while we were doing our kitchen and it's just kind of fallen to the wayside since then. The reason I decided to do it today is because I'm at the place in pregnancy when you start to feel like your body is going to fall apart. Or just bust open. I'm starting to have heartburn every time I bend over, which is often since I have little kids. I've also been experiencing some more serious braxton hicks contractions, especially when I pick up Aria who is just over 30 pounds. She loves to be held and since it doesn't' cause major pain yet, I'm still picking her up.

As I was doing my video I was thinking, what would I tell myself during that first pregnancy? What about my first labor? My VBAC? I was thinking about labor and how it's coming soon and how I know it's going to be difficult and painful. That the goal is survival and that it's worth it. It's worth it … it's worth it … I'll get a sweet little baby at the end and feel really proud of myself for surviving … (I will have to keep telling myself that).

So, I'm making a list of all the things that I would tell my former pregnant self and that I'm telling myself during this third pregnancy.

1. Be busy. Don't stop, don't concentrate on your pregnancy, it takes forever. Just do whatever you can to act like life is normal and keep going.

2. Eat right. With Levi I ate well because I was already heavy and was terrified of getting really heavy. I gained about 30 pounds with him but then lost around 60. With Aria I threw caution into the wind and gained 50. After those two pregnancies I knew the difference was me and my attitude. The problem was the girl in the mirror. So with this one I have been more conscious of what I have been eating. So far, by week 29 I had only gained 15 pounds. We will see what this next trimester holds though. I'm going to really have to watch all these holiday treats because honestly I LOVE sugar.
**Update since last week and crashing with ice cream, I just have to confess that I continued to crash and continued to eat uncontrollable amounts of sugar. It was terrible. It was almost as though I was trying to make up for the lost two weeks of sugar. The yeast infection has not come back (yet) and I'm hoping it will stay away. We will see. Things have been better this week, a lot of prayer and soul searching to realize that everything in moderation is best for me. No more cutting out, no more major deprivation, no more forbidden fruit that just makes me want it a thousand times more. I'm also very aware of my own sin tendencies and weaknesses in my heart. Wow.

3. Chiropractors are awesome. That reminds me, I need to call and schedule and appointment.

4. Doulas are awesome. Although, I'm a hypocrite right now because we are not getting one for financial reasons, but for the first time around, they are amazing.

5. Learn about the positioning of your baby. It's important. If you live in Little Rock I HIGHLY recommend going to see Amy Cefalo, she is a midwife here in Little Rock and she will help you figure out the positioning of your baby and has awesome strategies of turning babies. It's just 45 dollars a visit, and it could change your whole delivery. I wish I had known about her when I had Levi, I might not have had a C section with him.

6. Deny, deny, deny labor. That's going to be my mantra this time around. I don't care how strong (I want) the contractions to be, I'm just going to deny it. I want to spend the least amount of time acknowledging the pain and get the most sleep I can before I have to endure real, hard labor and delivery. It takes everything you have to do that stuff. No joke.


Okay, so that's the list right now. I also remember something that my friend Sarah, who had a home birth, said on her blog that I want to remember. Don't let anyone tell you what position to get in when you are in labor. Do what is comfortable for you. Suggestions from those around you are good and you can try them, but really, the most important thing is to do what you want to do during labor. I'm going to try to remember that. Listen to my body, do what feels right.

Anyways, those are my two cents. Not that it matters much, just thoughts I had today about all this baby-making stuff.