Perfection!

What is Perfection? This is something I have been thinking about lately. Google defines it as "the condition, state, or quality of being free or as free as possible from all flaws or defects." It has been on mind because I truly believe that my daughter embodies perfection. It's okay to laugh at me and/or roll your eyes. I know I am that parent and I don't care. From the very inside of her soul to the tip of her head down to her toes I think she is perfect.There is not one single thing that I do not love about her. Some days she has a sassy attitude and may not make the best choices, but still I find her perfect - perfectly toddler. She is to me what I think God means when he calls us to have the heart of a child. It is pure as can be. She has a genuine concern for everyone around her. A child falls and she's the first one at the scene in her sweet voice asking, "are you ok?" And she means it. She is determined, patient, understanding, and beautiful. In my eyes, even when she is disobedient she is still perfect. The definition according to google says "as free as possible from all flaws." I think she is as free from flaws as possible considering she is a two year old discoverer and learner.

Now that I have bored you all and made you want to gag while I brag about my daughter I will get to my real point. My feelings of looking at my daughter and seeing perfection tends to make me feel very emotional and just filled with joy, awe, admiration, and love so much so that I can't possible imagine witnessing anything more perfect and it often brings me to tears. And.... that's when I started thinking about what it must be like to stand in front of God witnessing his perfection. While I see perfection in my daughter, we all know that physically it is not possible for her to be completely perfect, but God in fact is perfect. What kind of effect would that have on me when I get to heaven and see it first hand? Surely, it will be a much more emotional and awe inspiring experience than watching my two year old, but it is almost unfathomable. How amazing! What a thought! Nothing in the world could possibly compare and I really only can imagine such a thing as best as I can because I don't think there is anything truly comparable.

Anyway, I know it's kind of a random blog post and doesn't have much to do with anything specific. It was just a thought that really settled into my heart. I hope you read this and can look past the mommy bragging part and see what I see, which is the perfection of God.

Friendships can be exhausting

Today I am feeling a little overspent...or a lot overspent. While such a simple thing it has really exhausted me. My daughter is back to her happy go lucky self and the weather has been beautiful. That is the plus side of things. On the down side, I have spent the last several weeks in doctors appointments for fertility tests, pediatrician appointments for my sick munchkin, tending to my hubby and Madi during their long lasting stomach virus, and doing favors for many different friends in last minute moments. I am just tired. No way around it.

I have really tried to make a huge effort staying in contact with our friends from back home, but even that is starting to take its toll on me. The truth is most of my friends don't venture out this way to see us. It's only an hour, but for some that is just too far. I can understand that. With a toddler in tow even short distances can feel like a lifetime. That being said, somehow I have ended up driving back home 2 to 3 times a week for the last several weeks. It's getting to be too much. And my husband is not happy with how I have blown the gas budget out of the water :-/ We have been here 5 months already and some friends have only ventured out here once or twice, yet here we are week after week trying to make time for everyone and the day long trips multiple times a week are just getting to be too much. And despite this, I have still not been able to spend time with everyone that I would like to. I'm so torn. I want to keep up with our relationships and fight to keep them strong, but I don't want to feel so burnt out and exhausted and I don't want to keep dragging my little girl around like some accessory. She's a person too and she needs to be able to stop and smell the roses as well. I feel like I am caught between a rock and a hard place. All of which continues to exhaust me.

I still enjoy the couple of friends who have remained steadfast and really made the effort to drive to our home and/or meet us half way. There have been memories built with these people and making this effort for each other has strnegthened our friendship. These friends have helped make our move an easier transition and are people that I will continue to love and spend time with for years to come. We have also made some wonderful new friends here in our new home and as time goes on I can see them getting deeper and stronger. Good friendships take time to create, but I can definitely see them in the making and I am enjoying the process.

All in all, I miss our "old" friends and wish our move had not impacted those relationships, I still enjoy the friends that we spend regular time with who have continued to love me and my family in such a special way, and I am looking forward to the new friends that we are in the process of making and many more to come as the years go on.

It wasn't a great day.

Today was definitely not my favorite day. It wasn't all bad, but it was definitely discouraging. Because we have been home quarantined due to the virus that had plagued our household cabin fever has gotten the best of one adorable toddler - though not so adorable today. I think mostly out of boredom she began to get into and destroy everything she came into contact with. She whined about everything all day long and on top of that chose not to take her nap and played in her bed for two hours instead. On average she probably only needs 1 or 2 time outs a week to keep her in check and in a particularly great week there are no timeouts. Today it felt like she was in time out all day. At one point, I was giving her yet another warning before her millionth time out when she interrupted me to say, "you close your mouth right now!" Needless to say my chin hit the floor. Sassy was full on and she was testing her limits and all boundaries. On top of her poor attitude, she was exhausted and clumsy. She hit her head about seven times, bruised her elbow and burnt two fingers by reaching up onto the stove. Finally almost in the home stretch we had one big catastrophic melt down right before bed. She stamped her feet in place screaming at the top of her lungs in time out because she was refusing to cooperate and get her pajamas on. It was quite the welcome home for my husband. Once I laid her down she was sound asleep in under 2 minutes, thank God.

That is my venting for today. Most days I really do find her to be sweet, charming, sensitive, and obedient. Overall she is my greatest joy. There were a few of those sweet moments making cookies and snuggling on the couch to watch a show together, but those moments were quickly over shadowed by the many difficult moments. But she wouldn't be a toddler if she didn't have her moments to freak out. Today was disappointing. I feel like it was a wasted day that had potential to be a wonderful snow day. oh well. Here's to a better tomorrow.

What is love?

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending a marriage retreat hosted by our community church with a guest speaker, named Kelly Petre. I wanted to share a point that he made that was truly profound and really got me thinking about this thing that we call love.

Kelly said, "love is not a feeling first and foremost, but an act of will." He went on to explain that throughout the bible when we are asked to love it is commanded of us and you cannot possibly command a feeling, but you can command an action. After all, how can you feel love for your enemy with the snap of your fingers. That would be a tremendous feat, but to act in love towards your enemy is a choice that can be followed through on. He also mentioned that in centuries past most marriages were arranged marriages and that often these marriages worked and in time the husband and wife actually grew to feel love towards one another. His point was that we get to choose the person we love so of course we should be able to make that marriage work. And in fact, statistically most couples that are not truly happy in the early years of their marriages, if they stick it out, after five years they will become happy. You just have to do the work of love. How sad is it to think of the marriages that fail, because they couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel? I thought of an analogy of my own for mothers that helped me understand it better.I think it must be like breast feeding. Breastfeeding, while natural, does not come naturally. Both you and the baby have to learn how to make it work and in that process it hurts like hell. I remember having to tell my self 'don't squeeze her head. Don't squeeze her head.' When she was first latching on it hurt so bad I thought I was or months the pain just vanishes and it becomes this beautiful, priceless moment with your child. If I had quit, I would never have known what I was missing out on. Likewise, if marriage gets hard in those early years while you are trying to learn to love each other in a new way and quit, you'd never get to the beautiful and priceless moments.

This spurred my brain on further to think of the difference in my love for my daughter and my husband. I love them both an immeasurable amount, but they are a different kind of love. Falling in love with my husband was a process; a wonderful process. I prayed for a man to love me the way he does and that God would give me the partner that I was meant to have and he did. When he first showed up in my life I had that enormous girl crush and an attraction to him, but to say I loved him instantly would just be dramatic. I did not believe in love at first sight. I believed in the possibility of love at first sight. Over time, after countless words of encouragement, cards, flowers, gifts, dates, and acts of service, I had fallen in love with this man. I liked and still do like to serve and encourage him. It has become part of my being to love my husband. Some days it is easy and other days it is hard. And sometimes I have to love him with my actions even when I am not feeling loved by him and that is where the hard work comes in. It is safe to say that when I am finally humble enough to follow through on that it is well worth it. This is when I see so clearly and am reminded of the things that I love so much about him. He is so calm and reassuring when I need it most. He is affectionate, supportive, serving, funny, kind hearted, sentimental, and easy going. He shows me these things in his every day acts of love for me. It helps me to love him in return in a better more serving way.

My love for my daughter however is very different. I remember walking and praying for her very specifically, just as I had for my husband. We had already picked out a name for a girl before I was even pregnant. Just as God had hand picked us, I like to think I played a role in it with God to hand pick her. I was yearning to love her the way I believed children should be loved. I didn't grow up with a constant feed of this kind of unconditional love and it pushed me to want to love the way I think I and all children should have been loved.  I loved her before she was even here and then more when I felt her move inside me, more when I heard her cry and first saw her, and more and more every day. The thing about this love is that it was a feeling love first. She did nothing by way of actions but lay there and look beautiful. She was not writing me cards or words of encouragement or sending me flowers. I just loved her anyway and I served her letting my love grow and expecting nothing in return. I have been sad to see her get older missing that tiny baby I first fell in love with, but I have also fallen more and more in love with her and I didn't realize until this weekend hearing Kelly's words what specifically had done that. I have fallen more in love with her because she now can love me back with actions. She tells me she loves me and showers me with hugs and kisses. She is generally concerned with my well being and shares everything with me from snacks to toys to secrets. She now serves me too and I can see her heart more and more every day and the love between us just grows.

Love is so vast and can be incredibly difficult or simple depending on our view and understanding. I can only hope to remember to act in love allowing God to teach me more and more what love is supposed to be.

Sooooo sick :(

On Tuesday my little peanut was hit with her first stomach bug. It was around midnight when I first headed up to bed and moments later I heard Madi crying. I was not prepared for what I would see when I walked into her room. The poor little thing had thrown up all over her bed. I quickly called for my husband, grateful I had a companion willing to help me because we needed all hands on deck. He took her to the bathroom to clean her up while I did damage control in her room. I was hoping she had just had something to eat that didn't sit right and that would be the end. After she was cleaned up and changed we tucked her back in and said our good nights. Ben then returned to bed and I began rinsing all of her bedding out and then started a load of laundry. Minutes later I heard her getting sick again. This time it was everywhere including her hair. Nothing like a 12:30am bubble bath. This time I did not wake Benj. I knew at this point it was going to be a long haul and he needed to work in the morning. It was time to rally and conquer the disaster. Madi sat in the bubble bath while watching a show on the iPad to allow me free hands to clean up her room. I blew up an air mattress, got plenty of towels, a bucket, water and crackers ready. I knew I would be camped out there for the night. Madi and I laid on the air mattress watching The Lorax while she continued to throw up every fifteen minutes for 4 hours.

 I had never felt so helpless. All I could do was hold my little girl while her worn out and lifeless body was taken over by this vicious virus. I would rub her back and tell her she was doing a good job. And bless her heart, her response was, "it's all gonna be fine mama." She said it in the sweetest most surrendered little voice I had ever heard. She couldn't even hold her head up and still she trusted me. Oddly enough, it was a very special moment where we both knew we were there for each other and we would make it out of this. She had no energy left and the way she so fully laid on my chest felt as if she was literally attached to me and I fell even more in love with her. I didn't even know that was possible.

 This situation is a prime example of how a mothers heart really shines through. I slept only 3 hours and I was unphased. The adrenaline took over and my being became about serving my baby at all costs and that's what I wanted to be doing.

The next day the poor thing had a case of diarrhea (sorry for the too much information). I knew this was not just a 24 hour stomach bug. I called the pediatrician and based on my description of events she quickly came to the conclusion that she had norovirus, also known as the winter vomiting bug. The only thing that can kill it is bleach and the victim of the virus is contagious for up to 3 days after symptoms stop, and often families can keep passing it back to each other. Well that's terrifying. :-/

 To add to the madness Ben and I had planned to go away this weekend for a marriage retreat with our church. I did what I could to get and keep everyone healthy. Every night I wiped down the whole house with bleach and washed bedding about a million times ( it really felt like that). By the time Saturday morning rolled around Madi was in full blown bathroom disaster mode, clearly still fighting this bug. Our dear and faithful friends wanted to stay with her despite. It broke my heart to walk out the door away from my sick baby. My mind and heart were divided and I was that parent that had to check in on their daughter a ridiculous amount of times. I felt we still needed to make our trip because our marriage is important and I do believe that our parenting depends on the foundation of our marriage built by God and that we need the tools to know how to continue to be happy and have a happy family, but my heart was aching. Still I knew, she was in good hands and everything wood be fine.

 But that's not it... Saturday night after dinner at our getaway the virus struck Ben. He was sick a few times in the night and by morning I just wanted to get home and take care of my two loves - and rebleach the house ;) we headed right home and skipped the last day of our weekend get away. This weekend was not ideal. I am exhausted! I have been puked on, pooped on, laundry piled up to my eye balls, cleaning all surfaces and taking care of my darlings. All I can say is, God help me to escape the wrath of this bug and to continue to be diligent about keeping my family healthy during theses disease ridden winter months. Don't be surprised if we go into hiding until summer ;) this experience is taking my germ phobia to a whole new level.