Rebellious Much?

In my experiences as a mother I've realized so many things about myself.  As I watch my daughter grow, learn and explore her little world I am constantly enlightened by her.  She'll do something and I find myself going, gosh...I do that!   The most recent development in Isabel's personality is rebellion.  She certainly is testing her limits and boundaries.

If I say, "Isabel, those bees go OUCH.  Don't touch."

What does Isabel do?  She gets closer to the bees yells, "BEE" and frantically tries to grab one of them before I can reach her and pull her away.

If I say, "Isabel, we walk on the sidewalk not the street."

Isabel is looks at me with a mischievous look in her eye and  before I know it she turns and makes a beeline for the street then giggles as I run to grab her just before she hits the asphalt.

Also? She's learned the word ow-ee (among many others, she's become quite the motor mouth) she knows what it means and if she falls she'll say ow or ow-ee.  So why is this significant?  Because when she gets angry or frustrated she'll scratch or hit my face while yelling OW-WEE.  She's still really little so it doesn't hurt but man, where did she learn this aggression?!?

Isabel is definitely becoming her own little person with her own BIG personality.  Her independent ways and little bouts of rebellion have made me reflect on my own rebellious heart.  If I were to be honest with myself I would say that my urges to be rebellious are among my biggest flaws.  My husband points out the fact that If I have something that I HAVE to get done these are the times when I am most aggressive to spend time with him.  I totally recognize it now but for years I've put things off not in a spirit of procrastination but seriously? I think it's because I need to have some control or something so I rebel and think, I'm not gonna do that because I'm just not.  Dumb huh?!?

My most recent rebellion comes on the heals of another disappointment.

Maybe this is TMI for a blog but sharing through writing heals me.  So forgive me if I share too much.

Dave and I want a big huge family.  We both feel that it is our mission here on Earth to raise wonderful children.  We both feel so incredibly blessed to have Isabel, even if she is a little stinker sometimes. :)  But, we've been working on another addition to our family.  We've run into a little bump in the road and just experienced our third miscarriage this year.  This time around wasn't so bad, I was only 4 weeks and had only known for a few days.  But, any loss is a loss I feel.  I think the worst part for me is that when I see that little pink line on the pregnancy test telling me that I'm growing a new baby I feel dread instead of excitement.  This time around I didn't allow myself to think about having an actual baby in 9 months.  Instead I waited for a miscarriage.  And when the miscarriage happened I wasn't surprised.  I wasn't devastated, just a little worn down.  Because seriously, if we never have another child of our own we'll still be the most blessed people ever because we get to be Isabel's parents!  We can still raise a big huge family and wonderful children it just may come in a different form than we had intended.  We can certainly adopt and then there are foster children who need good loving homes.  Whatever God has in store for us, that is what we'll do.  I know this now, but for a minute I was a little bitter and rebellious.

My bed time routine consists of brushing teeth, brushing retainers, and then taking a prenatal vitamin.  If I don't take my vitamin at night then I'm done for, I'll never remember.  But you know what I did?  I eyed the prenatal vitamin bottle and thought to myself, "Well if I can't have a healthy pregnancy then I'm not gonna take my vitamin" and I didn't.  Then the next day when I was a little tired I decided to have a soda WITH caffeine.  Okay, yeah my rebellion consists of skipping a night of vitamins and drinking a soda with caffeine in it, but rebellion nonetheless.  Even if my moment of weakness led me to do things that are pretty inconsequential I still feel ashamed for the attitude that was behind it.  The little spoiled child inside me that says well if I can't have what I want then I'm going to throw a fit about it. Instead I want to experience life with an attitude of gratitude because every day is truly a gift.  And I'm so thankful for this experience that we call life where I can realize these little things and work through them.  Where my loving savior has made it possible for me to become perfected through him.  Where because of the atonement I'm able to have my little fits and then repent and realize my weaknesses and truly progress towards godliness.

So, among all the other things I'm working on in regards to myself I'll add giving up rebellion.  It's going to seriously be so hard for me and I just know I'm not always going to succeed but, one battle at a time I know I'll get better at living with an attitude of gratitude.  :)

What more can I ask for than these sweet sweet smiling faces, the oodles of giggles that surround me every day and my wonderful husband who picks me up when I feel like I can't stand?  Thank you Heavenly Father for the joy that you put into my life!

     

My Garden Project

This year I took over the gardening duties.  I wanted something that Isabel and I could do together outside.  Plus? I think it's totally awesome to be able to grow our own food!  Dave put in a few extra garden beds and has let me plan out the whole thing.  I planted some seeds right in the garden beds without starting them first and was a little nervous that nothing would grow.  But, to my delight my little seedlings popped through the soil today.

 My strawberries are just starting to get ripe and I can't wait until they are ready to eat!

 Above is a picture of all we have going on this year.  Tomatoes, peas, lettuce, watermelon, squash, zucchini, cucumber, peppers, basil, cilantro, mint, strawberries and lavender.

Dave also built me some composting bins, so excited to be able to make my very own soil amendments from stuff that would usually get thrown into a yard waste bin!  We're very resourceful around here. ;)

So far, Isabel has been very helpful with the watering.  She loves to play and splash in the garden beds immediately following my irrigation pools.  Seriously though, she's been so good.  She plays around in the back yard and keeps herself busy while I'm getting my chores done.  We really enjoy our time together outside.  Back yards are the best!

On another note, I bought Isabel a potty.  Wishful thinking I suppose.  She loves to sit on it...as long as her diaper is on.  Otherwise she is terrified and I think maybe she's thinking, woman I'm too dang little to pee pee pee in the potty, and your incessant cheering is not helping either.

You Are Beautiful

Recently while spending time with my girlfriends the topic of body image came up.  A friend who I look up to and whom I find gorgeous commented on her desire to lose a little here and there.  Which led me to express my feelings in that I don't think no matter how I look I'll ever be satisfied with my body.  She looked at me surprised and said, "Even now, you're not happy with how you look?" I was a little taken aback that she would assume that I'm happy, because seriously, I sometimes cry when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror pre-clothing.  Even when I was the most fit and at my skinniest I was terribly sad that I didn't look like the girls in the magazines.  Now that I've had a baby with breastfeeding and stretchmarks my body is definitely not what it used to be.  I find myself apologizing to my husband for the way I look and lovingly he reminds me that I'm beautiful and that my mommy badge is so much more appealing than anything else.

I couldn't stop thinking about this conversation with my girls and tried to think back to when I started to hate the way I look, because certainly I didn't always feel this way.  My thoughts led me back to high school when all my friends had cute bubble butts and straight hips and I had huge hips and a womanly figure.  In fact my nickname was "hips".  I remember one instance when I was jumping on the trampoline with my two best friends and one of them said, "It's really weird because you're so skinny but you have so much cellulite."  I went home that night devastated and after dinner decided to inspect this cellulite anomaly.  When, in the mirror, I saw the dimples my friends had referred to I panicked and resolved to run it off.  I ran and ran and ran but it didn't seem to make a difference.  I was doomed to have cellulite on my thighs.  (Oh the injustice! ;))

Looking back on this story as a woman I feel a little foolish.  Of course I have cellulite on my thighs, I'm a woman.  Don't most women have cellulite on their thighs?  I wish I could make that teenage girl (me) realize that she was beautiful and that she didn't need to worry that she looked like a woman and not a young girl.  I wish I could go back and reverse the damage that has led me to struggle with the way I look.  Because seriously such a dumb little incident has negatively impacted my self image in a huge way over the years.

So....what's my point right?  You are beautiful!  No matter how bad you think you look there is someone else out there who looks at you and thinks, "man that lady is beautiful".  As bad as I think I look I have friends that have told me they think I look great not to mention my husband who reassures me every day that I'm beautiful.  Let the little nitpicks go and stop living for, "someday I'll be beautiful".  My resolve is to stop telling myself that if I just work out I'll be okay, or if I just put makeup on everyday I won't feel so unattractive or whatever nagging feeling I get when I feel not good enough.  Instead I'm working today and tomorrow and the next day to tell myself that it's okay that my bewbies don't look like they used to because I fed my baby for 10 months with them and isn't that so much more beautiful that having them perky? ;)

Ladies, let's be gentle with ourselves.  It's bad enough that we have a world telling us that we aren't beautiful enough, let's not also be the ones telling ourselves this.  Because seriously we ARE beautiful.  And you know what's the most beautiful thing of all?  I used my body (cellulite and all) to grow this sweet little baby girl.  This eternal spirit gets to be here on Earth to learn and progress because my body was able to change and grow in order to bring her here.  How cool is that?

    

The Sandbox is Complete

We finished the sand box and Isabel seems to like it quite a bit!  Here it is.

 

Dave spent the morning leveling out the ground and then changing the grading around the box to make sure that water drains away from it.  He never does anything half asked. :)  I think we got a little too much sand but that's okay because I'm sure half of it will end up in the rocks surrounding the box.  Now all we need are some friends to come play, it's big enough for quite a few friends. :)  Here are some more pictures of Isabel playing with the sand for the first time.  Does my girl know how to smile for the camera or what?