I never went far for college. Never packed my belongings into a handful of suitcases, bags and boxes, minimizing what was important based on what I could fit into a car and then fit in a dorm space. I never had to watch my parents drive away from me in a car out of a town in complete excitement and fear. Instead, I stayed close to home and enjoyed the perks of living college out with home cooked meals and my Dad available any weeknight evening for a math or science tutor session.
My New Season With God
Nearly two years ago, give or take a month or two, I was baptized at the age of 28, alongside my 5-month-old daughter. It was a special day for me for many reasons. One, I was standing before our church alongside Nathan, and proclaiming that our daughter would be raised in a Christian home, honoring our Christian faith and proclaiming our love for Jesus among our Church family, and two, I declared publicly my love for Christ and made an outward statement that I believed in the power of God and that I accepted God into my heart and life. I was spiritually connected to God and my Church, more strongly than I had ever been in my life. I enjoyed Sunday mornings, I sought worship, learned from the sermon and walked away from service feeling revived and energetic.
Parents Say The Darndest Things
Our dear friends just recently had their first child. We were invited down to their home to spend some time with their week and a half-year-old little guy and to introduce him to our very ornery, can’t stop – won’t stop, two-year-old, Lo.
I was a nervous Nancy watching my daughter bounce from step to ground, fearful she was just a mere tumble away into the peaceful newborn’s bouncy seat, where he so quietly slept. As I watched this beautiful boy stretch and yawn and wrinkle his oh so tiny nose, I looked over at my rowdy, rambunctious daughter, “No, Logan, we do not lick the concrete,” I calmly announced as my daughter was on all fours on my friend’s patio, lapping up the hard surface. In that moment, I turned back to the newborn so peaceful and dependent and then back at my puppy, I mean daughter and thought well gee this is my motherhood.
Lately, I feel like I run around chasing my daughter saying “No!” Our dialogue with our child has totally shifted and now I just find myself and my husband speak and think nothing of our dialogue until a moment later when it hits me, “Did we just say that?”
So I started this list – Parents Say the Darndest Things – with our recent conversation at our friend’s house when I asked my daughter to stop licking the concrete, in mind.
Darndest Thing #1 – The same night as the concrete and moments later Lo ripped a leaf off our friend’s hedge bush that lined their patio and placed the leaf in her mouth, “Lo, stop eating their landscape.”
Darndest Thing #2 – After a quiet moment, my husband walked into our daughter’s bedroom and found her on the floor playing in a small travel bag I have packed which contains band-aids, thermometers, and an extra toothbrush. My dear husband yelled, “No, that was in your butt, get it out of your mouth.” Hmmm… I thought from our bedroom across the hall. Turns out Lo had placed the reserved anal thermometer in her mouth. Then Nathan asked me, “Right? This goes in her butt?” Holding the red and white thermometer in his hand in our doorway. “Yes, dear, that typically goes in her butt.”
Darndest Thing #3 – One morning while playing with chalk on the front sidewalk that leads to our house, “Logan, chalk is for sidewalks, not for faces.” She had bright blue dusty chalk painted on the tip of her nose and was holding the red and outlining her face as I caught her.
Darndest Thing #4 – I dressed Logan, I gave her a bottle, her blanket and set her on the couch with a TV show so I could water my annuals in our front yard. Nathan yelled, “Ashli, did you change, Lo?”
“Yeah, why?” I call back.
I turned around to see my daughter with her top on but completely naked from the waist down standing in the front door looking out at me. “Logan, no, we do not walk around pantless.”
“Yeah,” said Nathan scurrying her along. “And, we don’t stand at the front door when we do,” I heard Nathan say as they walked away. 😐
You know how they say kids say the darndest things, well clearly us parents do too. Just another day, another dollar (no – wait) and another moment in the life of parenthood. And, I cheers to you on that!
Enjoyed this post? Awe, thanks. I am blushing. We can connect through facebook || twitter || instagram || pinterest || bloglovin’
Easter Recap
Happy post-Easter! Hopefully everyone had a beautiful holiday celebrating the most Holy holiday. We had a great and busy weekend full of celebrations. My mother-in-laws birthday fell on Saturday so we enjoyed dinner, a sunset four-wheeler ride and nighttime glow-in-the-dark egg hunt.
Our little family began Easter Sunday on my husband’s family’s farm, which for the past four years has been the site of our church’s sunrise service. I did not take any pictures because I felt it would be frowned upon during the service and afterwards, well I was just too excited to get us back home to Lo that I hurried us off the farm. We knew we wanted to attend the service but were a little unsure of Lo’s attention span. Of course Easter morning Lo decided to try something out – sleep in, so we had to wake her, add a coat over her pajamas and head out the door with a blanket and bottle in hand. Thank goodness Nathan’s sister, brother-in-law and three kids came in for the holiday and offered to watch Lo while we headed onto the farm for the 40-minute service.
When Your Heart Feels Heavy
When your heart feels heavy, where do you turn?
There is a lot on my mind these days. In fact, I feel like I am at a point where I literally cannot sit through another meeting, attend another training, open another lengthy email, hear another terrible sadness, watch another devastating event on the news – because quite frankly I cannot fit anymore in my brain. Nope. Nada. The capacity of what goes in is full and until I can start eliminating some of the madness currently left behind, I am a gazed over human.
My heart hurts. A month ago I lost a family member suddenly and tragically. It was unexpected. The death was torture to my family who now feels riddled with guilt and “could of, should of’s.” Not to mention words unsaid and situations left unmended.
There is sickness. People near and dear to me and / or my family are suffering. Fighting silent battles where worry and fear exists as we wait for the medical community to answer unanswered questions.
Soon my dear brother who serves this country will depart for his first overseas mission and while we are blessed with a small amount of time away from home, it is scary to think of him in a foreign land with little to no contact.
And then there is the way of the world. The evil and the heartbreak. The attack on Syria and the sad, horrible images of suffering and death. I cannot get the vision of the father holding his two nine-month old twins who died from the warfare out of my mind. I close my eyes tightly and scream in my mind and nothing will ever erase that image.
When I awoke the night before last, just after 11 pm, after accidentally falling asleep next to Lo, I carried her to her crib and I turned on the news. I read the headlines of our country bombing Syria and I turned to the bathroom to shower. As the water poured over my head, I cranked the heat up more and let the hot water trickle down my neck and back. I felt sore all over. Like a nagging sick feeling.
As I climbed into my bed, my safe place, I felt the tightness creep into my chest and anxiety fill my body. I did not sleep. No, I tossed and turned all night. Waking and thinking of one of many worrisome images in my mind. Stresses within our home, within the family, within work, within the world.
When I awoke, not much had changed and instead I felt like all day I carried around this feeling of uneasiness and sadness.
I know I am not the only one with this sick gut feeling. In fact, I know for a fact so many more people in my inner circle who are suffering a painful loss and I know this feeling I feel cannot compare with the world they now face. And, yet, I find myself aching for them too.
Faith is the only constant that I know I can 100% undoubtedly rely upon to pull me through. Last night as I tossed and turned, awaking each hour and sitting up to look across the room at our alarm clock, then as I laid there staring at the ceiling, I turned to prayer. Sometimes returning to the same words time and time again. I would eventually calm down, breathing would become more normal and soon I would drift to sleep. My anxiety became manageable. It was like the weight of the words and the heaviness of the matters transferred from my heart and into God hands.
As Christians that is what we are taught to do. Turn to God.
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
We know this yet we have such trouble casting our worries away and praying to God for the strength, the guidance and the grace to let go and let God take control. I know worrying won’t cure others, stop the piles of stress, fix what seems like in this moment as unfix able problems, and yet I continue to worry.
It takes hours and days and months of build up until finally I find myself at a point at 2:00 am, staring off into the darkness of my bedroom, overthinking and anxious. But, soon the light shines through and while I do not physically see the rays striking my face, I feel its warmth in the darkness and know that sometimes the greatest things in this scary, stressful world are the things we cannot see. And, in that moment I feel and know God’s grace.
Enjoyed this post? Awe, thanks. I am blushing. We can connect through facebook || twitter || instagram || pinterest || bloglovin’
Easter Bunny Popcorn Dessert
Lo is officially a graduate of Sweet Tooth University. I know, I know – sugar city. Not good. Well, she gets it honestly. In high school I begged guys to break up with me so I could sit on my couch and down a pint of ice cream with no regrets or guilt. Just kidding. I hated heartache. Nathan, well he loves chocolate chip cookie cakes and just about any pie, especially Razzleberry. Then add the fact that Nathan’s family has an ice cream parlor and I am all like – yeah just give me an ice cream sundae with some hot fudge.
I admit. We are sweet tooths in this house.
Rose Colored Glasses
My rose colored glasses faded as I grew up and lost my sense of innocence and childhood make believe. Just like the young boy, Jonas, in my favorite childhood book, “The Giver” who ultimately learns the true pain and pleasures of the ‘real world,’ so too do our children. Right now my two year old is in the pre-enlightenment stage if you will. She sees the world within an arms reach of us. To her, the world is us, our home, her extended family, and that one dream trip to a water park, which she does not stop talking about.
Best Books For Toddlers
Bedtime. It is definitely not the sweetest spot of our every day. Lately Lo wants to stay up later and later, and I tend to be mush when it comes to bedtime. I am that Mom who cannot stand when her child stands at the dinner table, or when her two-year old refuses to eat decent food and instead insists on white bread with butter, but two hours of fighting bedtime and I am all like, “Oh, she is just a baby.”
Logisms – Part 2
We are back – Logisms Part 2. When I typed that in my mind I heard the voice from the Cha Cha Slide. You know when the guy says, “This is Part 2.” Is there a Part 1, Part 3? I have been to many, many weddings since the Cha Cha Slide was first introduced and to this day, I am always cha cha in again and turnin’ it out to part 2.
Because I want no reader in the dark, This is what I am talking about.
So, I am back with Logisms Part 2, and if you missed Part 1, well, you missed out. Luckily for you I care and will easily redirect you to Part 1, Here.
Top 10 Reasons Living With A Toddler Is Like Living With A Drunk Person
Yes, you read the headline right. Parents, I figured it out. As I stared at my wide-eyed, what the heck just happened to me two-year old, who laid on the bathroom floor in disarray looking up at me, it hit me… living with a toddler is like living with a drunk person.
You see, I asked my daughter to join my in the bathroom as I was home alone with her and needed to iron my clothes. Our ironing board is attached to the back of the bathroom door, so technically I lock myself in when I need to iron. Of course, she could not do damage with me by her side unlike if I was locked in a room with her free to roam the house. It was two minutes. That is it! And, in two minutes she caused enough damage for an hour worth of repair work.
“Look at me Mommy!” And as I turned, my two year old, Lo, had moved her potty over to the wall, stood on top of its lid and was hanging from our towel rack. When she lifted her little feet backwards into the air the towel rack ripped in a hurry from the wall, pulling some of the dry wall, and she crashing to the ground.
Yep! Just like living with a drunk person.
#1 – They spill their drinks all over the floor
I have physically witnessed my daughter laugh as she squeezed the life out of a juice box and watched the sugary substance spill all over the floor. Leaky bottle in the bed? No worries! We like sleeping in wet bed sheets. If there is a drink in our home without a screw top lid, well then we are just that – screwed.
#2 – They are always getting hurt
Clumsy! My toddler will walk straight into a wall or door. This morning when we opened the front door to leave, she tumbled outside onto our porch. Flat out tumbled. It is like her feet are their very own tripping hazard. She had so many bruises on her face that my husband posted this to SnapChat last month.
#3 – They cry… a lot!
Their emotions are all over the place. Lo has cried recently because I would not allow her to open glitter eye shadow she found in my old makeup bag (heck, I cried that I wore that stuff), because her bottle of milk seemed too cold, because the toy bucket in the shower had cold water in it from the night before, and because I told her she could not eat butter out of the butter container with a spoon.
#4 – They ask why way too much
Everything is why? Everything! Our dinner conversation the other night went something like this.
Me: Eat your food.
Lo: Why?
Me: Because it is dinner time.
Lo: Why?
Me: Because you have to eat before you go to bed.
Lo: Why?
Me: Do you want to be hungry before bed?
Lo: Why?
Me: Because.
Lo: Why?
Me: Because I said so.
Lo: Because Why?
Me: Why?
Lo: Why?
Fork dropped.
#5 – You cannot have nice things
Hence my story above. We now have a hole in our bathroom wall and ripped drywall. All thanks to a “Look at me Mommy,” hang! Don’t even get me started on my carpets!
#6 – They do not care what scene they make in public
It does not matter that the restaurant is full and your client is seated with his wife across the room. They could care less if the lady at the end of the grocery store aisle goes to your church. Really care less as they knock over the display and you are left deciding if you should clean it up or run for cover. Heck, the mere fact that there are eyes upon them means nothing, their emotions show through regardless of who is around. There is no need to impress and zero care about causing a scene.
#7 – The flip their dinner plates
Don’t like that? Ah! Just throw it off the table. We love cleaning up beneath and around you.
#8 – My phone has drunk dials
I do not know why I have not yet learned from my mistakes. Lo has called a business contractor on my husband’s phone at 9 pm at night and Facetimed one of my old colleges. Awesome!
#9 – They want pizza, Oreos or chicken nuggets for breakfast all the time
My daughter wakes up asking for gummies! Partly my fault since we do give her a vitamin gummie so she then thinks she can have a bag. She will cry for pizza for breakfast and ice cream just before dinner. It is like she could eat all the time.
#10 – They can fall asleep anywhere
In the car, on the floor, across your lap, any where other than their crib or bed. My favorite was after a long day and a missed nap, she walked in the house, boots and snow coat still on, scuffled over to her toy couch and face dived into the cushion and just laid there.
Motherhood and all its craziness, I mean greatness! More motherhood reads here:
- When You Give A Two Year Old A Mini Shopping Cart
- The Best Parenting Advice I Can Give
- Sunday Morning and Poison Control
Enjoyed this post? Awe, thanks. I am blushing. We can connect through facebook || twitter || instagram || pinterest || bloglovin’
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 8
- Next Page »