Baby Boy has recently started coming to me whenever he gets hurt, wanting me to give him a quick hug or to kiss it better.  I love seeing him walking towards me, fake crying and sticking his hand or a finger out to be kissed.  Once the hurt has been kissed or a hug has been given the crying stops and he is off playing again.  All he needed was a little recognition.

It happens with the big boys too.  Most of the time when they get hurt they’ll come to me and stand there with their head hanging down or crying until I ask them what’s wrong.  Once they’ve told me their story and I recognize their pain, whether physical or emotional, they’re better and they can move on.

You read about it in parenting books all the time too; acknowledge your child’s feelings no matter how unimportant they may seem to you.

I don’t think we grow out of it.  All of us want our feelings to be recognized.   To have someone hear about our pains and tell us they’re sorry.

Recently one of my sister’s friends lost a child.  I was talking to my sister about it and the funeral which she was planning on attending the next day.  She was nervous, not knowing what to say.  I told her that it didn’t matter what she said as long as she didn’t say something stupid that made things worse.  There wasn’t anything she could say or do that would make anything better or the situation any different.  What matters is that she was there.  She was acknowledging their loss, recognizing their pain.

Unfortunately a kiss and a hug doesn’t dissolve grown up pains the way it does childhood ones but I think a little recognition can help make the pain easier to bare.

Recognition isn’t only for bad times either.  Aren’t we much happier when we have someone to share our happiness with?  Someone else who can be proud of our accomplishments and cheer us on in our successes.  I know I am.

photo credit

photo credit

Baby Boy was up at 5:30 this morning.  I know that with the time change it felt like 6:30 but it doesn’t matter.  When it says 5:30 on the clock it is entirely too early for anyone in my home under the age of 30 to be awake.  I tried to get him back to sleep or ignore his crying until 6:00 but it didn’t work.  You know what it did, wake up the other two.  So even though we all went to bed late last night, we all had an early morning.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a really fun afternoon/evening.  Luckily for me I get to handle it all by myself.  No reinforcements arriving at 5:15 pm to help.

The problem with Baby Boy waking up early, other than me having to wake up early, is that it throws off his whole sleep schedule for the day.  I have no idea when he’ll need a nap which means I can’t plan out my day.  It also means when I put him in his bed and he cries for an hour I don’t know if he’s crying because he isn’t ready for a nap and wants to get out or if he’s crying because he needs a nap but doesn’t want to take one.  What it all boils down to is a lot of crying.

You see, Baby Boy has learned recently that if he throws his binky on the floor and cries when it’s time to go to sleep Mom will come in his room and give it back to him.  If he cries long enough mom will get him out, rock him and maybe give him some warm milk.  If he can be really persistent with that crying mom might even get him out and let him stay up for awhile longer even though he is really tired.

I’m on to him.

You would think that with #3 I would have caught on much quicker.  He has always been a good sleeper though which makes me second guess when he cries when he’s put to bed.  Does he have a poopy diaper?  Is his arm or leg stuck in the crib?  Is he not feeling well?  All those thoughts that go through your head.  But now I know.

He just cried himself to sleep.   The silence never sounded better.

Mormons have been in the news lately.  It is interesting to listen to people make arguments for or against your faith.  Most of what I hear doesn’t bother me.  Sure we might fit the definition of a cult if you want to see things a certain way.  I’m not waiting for a space ship from behind the Hale-Bopp comet to rescue me nor am I locked up in my home surrounded with weapons so that I can fight off anyone who might disrupt my way of life.  As far as I see it, I’m not in a cult and if someone else thinks I am, I’m not going to let it bother me.

There is one thing that I’ve heard a few times that does bother me and that is that we worship Joseph Smith.  We don’t.  Never have.  We revere and respect Joseph Smith.  He was a prophet who restored (not founded) the gospel of Jesus Christ.  He translated the Book of Mormon which is our main book of scripture.  He suffered much in life and ultimately was martyred for his beliefs.  He was a great man and those of us in the church have sacred thoughts about him but we don’t worship him.  We also have sacred thoughts about Moses, Abraham, Noah, as well as many other men we consider to have been prophets.  We have a man today that we believe is a prophet, Thomas S. Monson.  We don’t worship him either.

We worship Jesus Christ.  We believe that he is our Savior and Redeemer and that he atoned for our sins.  The Book of Mormon‘s full title is The Book of Mormon; Another Testament of Jesus Christ.  We believe Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him directions on how to restore the church that Christ organized when he lived on this earth.  The name of our church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Here are some scriptures from the Book of Mormon:

And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ…that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.              2 Nephi 25:26

Be faithful in Christ…may Christ lift thee up, and may his sufferings and death,… and his mercy and long-suffering, and the hope of his glory and of eternal life, rest in your mind forever.                  Moroni 9:25

Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him…                          Moroni 10:32

There are many, many more that speak of Jesus Christ and his teachings.  The whole book really.

If you want more information you can go here and read the testimony of the leaders of the church on Jesus Christ or you can go here for one of my favorite talks of all time.  You can read it if you want but I recommend watching and listening to it.   You can also go here where there is all sorts of info on what we believe about Jesus Christ.  What ever you do, please don’t think we worship anyone but him.

 

Today I was looking at a blog and saw this post.  Do you know what my first thought was?  “That’s not a very safe place to hang pictures.  If there was an earthquake those would fall on the baby.”  And that’s what happens whey you’re married to an emergency manager.

Have you heard of Hapari swimwear?  I’ve read about it on a few blogs lately and my sister has a suit and loves it.  They’re having a 60% off sale right now.  (You have to use the code FALL60)  I bought myself one for Christmas.  I think I’m in love with the tummy tuck bottoms.  I noticed a difference in them and they feel like they’ll actually stay up.   Granted I’ve only worn them for a few minutes in the dressing room but I think they’ll be awesome.  There’s a store in American Fork if you’re in the area otherwise you’ll have to shop online.  The sale ends Monday.

Overwhelmed.

That is how I’m feeling.  It seems there is always so much to do.  Of course there is the regular stuff like feeding kids 3 meals a day plus at least 2 snacks and trying , mostly unsuccessfully, to have it be real food instead of Halloween candy.  Then there’s the laundry, diaper changing, sippy cup filling, school drop off and pick up, homework nagging and general helping that happens every day.

Add in the house cleaning which really hasn’t happened lately.  I’d really love to take down the Halloween decorations.  Shouldn’t be too hard to put them away since the plastic tote they go in has been in the living room since we put them up three weeks ago.

There’s also the menu plan/shopping list that needs to be completed before Baby Boy wakes up from his nap tomorrow morning so that I can run to Walmart, shop and hopefully get home before it’s time for his next nap.  I guess we’ll have to add lunch in there somewhere.

While I’m shopping I have to be sure to stay within the grocery budget but buy enough to last.  Then track it all once I get home. While we’re talking about budgeting we have to try to figure out how to pay for National Guard officer dues, Friends of Scouting, a donation to our ward service day, renewing both mine and my husbands drivers licenses, registering the car (which also includes safety and emissions) and buying curtains for our front window.  (Now that it gets dark earlier it really isn’t great to have your whole living room and dining room open to the viewing pleasure of the neighborhood.)

Bills to be paid, a package to deliver that will take 1 hour round trip, a yard FULL of leaves to be raked and a box of stuff to be sold on ebay.

There are two piles of shorts in the big boys closet that really need to be removed so they’ll stop wearing them even though the weather has turned cold.  Not to mention the pile of my winter clothes on the floor in the basement that need to find a place in my closet.

Speaking of the basement, it’s a disaster.  We haven’t put things back together from our remodel this summer.  Okay, lets be honest here, there are boxes down there that we haven’t unpacked since we moved here almost 5 years ago.  I’m sure they’re full of really important stuff.  Our goal was to have the basement cleaned and organized by Thanksgiving.   I’m pretty sure that’s NOT going to happen but I still feel responsible to try my best to work on it.

The kitchen counter is full of apples, plums, grapes and pumpkins that need to be juiced, roasted, made into jam or something soon so that they don’t go bad.  I’m so glad to have fresh food that we grew or was given to us by great friends but it’s another thing to add to the list.

We’re quickly heading into the holiday season.  We have three birthdays this month to plan and pay for.  There is one stocking that needs to be made but I can’t start until I find some trim that matches (or is close to) the trim that is on the other stockings which means time spent at stores.  I have a list of things that need to be done before Christmas.  I wrote it about 2 months ago.  Nothing is crossed off yet.  So much for starting early.

So much to be done with one arm while holding 25 lbs of wiggly toddler in the other arm (that has a very sore elbow and shoulder from holding said wiggly toddler).  Yet all I ever want to do is sleep.

That is why I haven’t been blogging lately.

(Dear family, please don’t think this is a call for help.  I’m really okay, just revealing why the posts have been lacking.)