For the Mothers of Boys

I'm sure this has happened to all of us, but to catch it on film?  Priceless.

ENJOY! 

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2011/02/28/baby-pee/

Strogaburgers

Here's a great and healthy recipe I tried this week--my friend also has a great blog about eating healthy, and this and all of her recipes rock.

Enjoy!

http://eatplaylove4life.blogspot.com/

Strogaburgers
1 pound lean ground turkey
6 slices turkey bacon, sliced  (I confess I used the real stuff.) 
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 1/2 TBSP flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. paprika
Dash pepper
1 can fat free cream of mushroom soup
1 cup fat free sour cream
Whole wheat hamburger buns

Place ground turkey and bacon in skillet. Cook and stir until meat is browned. Add onion and cook until tender. Spoon off excess fat. Blend flour, salt, paprika and pepper into meat. Stir in soup. Cook, uncovered, on medium-low heat about 15 to 20 minutes, stirring often. Serve in buns. (The Orowheat Sandwich Thins were great.)

I thank my God upon every remembrance of you

(Philippians 1:3)

My heart is so full today, and I want to write about it. 

I have a new favorite song.  Call it my theme song.  Here are the lyrics.

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream
I’ll cross the stream - I have a dream

I've been really enjoying this song for awhile because it affects me on many different levels--the personal changes I'm making in my life and so on.  But, this song took on a whole new meaning when...

A friend of mine passed away suddenly yesterday.

We weren't best friends, but good casual friends.  She cut my family's hair and she made me feel great whenever I saw her.  I am heartbroken.  I just talked to her on Monday.

How short life is!  How fragile it is!  Do I have my priorities straight?  What really matters?  People matter!  Love matters!  Have I told my family and friends how much I love them lately?  Do I focus on the important things, or do I get caught up in the nonsense of day-to-day things?  

And what of that dream?  Well, I hope you don't mind me relating the gospel to an ABBA song, but it seems to fit for me.  Because I have a dream of that final destination, I can push through the darkness of this for still another mile.

And yet, I know my friend.  I can hear her voice saying to me, "Becky, why are you so sad?  It's just me.  I'm just fine.  Don't you worry.  Go on now, be happy."  And so I am trying to be happy.  I trust Heavenly Father.  I know He knows what's best.  And I am so grateful to have rubbed shoulders with this wonderful woman for a few short years.

Thanks for listening.  I just want you all to know that I love each of you, and I appreciate your influence in my life as well.

What a day!

This morning I ventured out for my weekly grocery shopping trip.  Today, I was headed to Walmart.  As we got ready, and left the house, things had thus far gone quite smoothly, so I had high hopes that the trip would be uneventful.  I was quickly proven wrong.

During the car ride, Lexi had messed her diaper, so I slowly meandered to the back of the store where the family restrooms were.  I'd picked up a few items on the way, and was about half way finished with gathering all the needed groceries.  I took both the girls into the family restroom so everyone could take care of business, however, Abby wanted to use the big girl bathroom (it has a little sink that is just her height, and is the highlight of every Walmart trip).  I was in a hurry, and asked her to just use this bathroom.  This is when the crying and screaming started.  I finished cleaning up Lexi, and gathered my things and left the bathroom.  I hoped that Abby would settle down after a few minutes, and stop the crying.  I wasn't prepared, however, for her screaming "I have to go potty!!!" over and over and over.  Now, imagine, if you saw a kid yelling that they needed to go potty, and their mother was ignoring the request, what would you think?  Honestly, I'd probably pass a little judgement, and wonder why that mother WASN'T taking their kid to the bathroom.  After several minutes of this, and no real sign that the fit was going to die down, my patience was wearing quite thin, and I was becoming more than a little embarrassed.  I can't even remember what happened, but something happened that elevated Abby's crying fit, to a full on tantrum.  I knew at this point, I was going to have to leave the store.  I picked up Lexi, abandoned my groceries, and dragged Abby out of the store SCREAMING.  I kept my eyes forward, and avoided looking at ANYONE.  I was completely mortified, and knew we were making quite a scene.

Once I was out to the car, we got in, and I seriously comtemplated just leaving, and doing my grocery shopping another day.  Then I remembered that I had been asked to take a meal to a family in our ward tonight, and didn't have the needed ingredients to make a meal.  I was going to have to go back inside Walmart, and get at least a few items.  I waited till Abby had calmed down, and gave her a stern talking to about what is acceptable behavior in the store, and headed back into the store.  Fortutely, I was able to locate our cart of groceries, and had high hopes that I would be able to quickly finish, and get out the store for good.

It was at this moment, that Lexi decided to mess her diaper AGAIN.  What made this even better, was that I had only grabbed one diaper to bring with me to the store, which I'd already used.  I desperatly wanted to just finish shopping and wait to change Lexi till I got home.  But I knew that I would get even more stares from the other shoppers, if I was ignoring the fact that my 1 year old stunk to high heaven.  So, we, once again, headed back to the bathroom to try to see if I could figure out some way to salvage this diaper.  I managed to get Lexi cleaned up as best as I could, and left to hopefully finally finish shopping.

This time, I was actually able to get the last needed items, and head out of the store.  As I got in the car to head home, I finally broke down.  The tears came.  I just kept wondering what people were thinking if they had witnessed our little episode.  Here I am, obviously pregnant, with a little 1 year old (which in and of itself gets stares from strangers, wondering WHY in the world I would be having another baby already), and dragging a screaming girl all around the store.  I'm sure at least one person was thinking "that lady should NOT be bringing any more children into this world.  She can't even handle the ones she's got."  And truthfully, at that moment, I would have to completely agree with them.

These last couple of weeks, Abby has really been testing our limits.  She's started giving me a lot of attitude, and I feel like every little thing is a battle.  As I sat in the car, crying, I truly felt like I was failing my job as a mother.  I was dissappointing my Heavenly Father, and not raising the sweet little baby that he had given me in a respectable way. 

Why does our jobs as mothers have to be so difficult?  It's so hard to see Abby be the sweetest, cutest little girl that makes me laugh, and fills me with such pride, turn into a snotty, tantrum throwing 3 year old.  I feel like I am trying SO hard to do everything right, and am getting no where.  I spend hours thinking about what it is I could possibly be doing wrong.  I feel this huge weight on my shoulders all the time.  I keep thinking of that article that Becky posted where it said that some parents are "selected by some divine process to be worthy of very difficult parenting challenges".  And I just want to scream, "I am NOT worthy". 

I actually doubt that my "parenting challenges" would be considered "very difficult" to some moms.  We are just a typical family, raising a typical 3 and 1 year old.  I'm sure most moms have gone through a very similar experience, and suffered very similar emotions.   

I think I'll just be walking away from this experience with more confirmation that our jobs are hard, and we are not alone. 

Mormon Times Parenting Article

My friend read me this article by Linda and Richard Eyre, and I thought it was wonderful.  There's a lot of good things we could discuss in here, but right now, I'm too tired to write anything intelligible. 

Enjoy! 


Getting rid of Pride and Guilt

http://www.mormontimes.com/article/19600/Getting-rid-of-pride-and-guilt?s_cid=queue_title&utm_source=queue_title



We were visiting a little ward in rural Idaho, and the Sunday School lesson happened to be on parenting. We sat quietly and anonymously and listened.

There was another visitor there, kind of a sophisticated city slicker who seemed to have all the answers. He also seemed to have perfect kids because he prefaced each comment he made with something like, "Well, the way I communicate with my son, the student body president ..." or "The way I handled that with my daughter, the valedictorian ..."

If it had just been a couple of times, it would have been fine, but about the sixth time he gave his perfect, pat answer about his perfect kids, you could almost hear the groans about this self-righteous guy who seemed to have no problems.

Then, just after the first bell, a small, quiet-voiced farmer raised his hand, got called on, stood up and turned to face the big bragger. "Excuse me," he said with a high-pitched country twang, "but God must notta thought much of you as a parent, sendin' ya all them easy kids."

There were some soft giggles from every direction and an almost audible murmur of agreement among the class members. We gave each other's hand a little squeeze and both mumbled, "Amen!" No offense was taken, but we all knew exactly what that good man was saying.

Knowing what we know about our children's pre-existence, about the eternity they have already spent becoming who they are, we had better not take too much credit for who they are. As LDS parents, most of us recognize that we have much less to do with who our kids are than their own growth and development over their past parts of eternity. So we had better not feel too much pride for their gifts and goodness.

And for the same reason, we had better not feel too much guilt for their imperfections and problems.

Because that courageous little farmer could have also said, in another situation to another parent, "God musta thought quite a bit of you as a parent, sendin' ya that difficult kid."

When we see other parents struggling with serious behavioral problems, instead of judging them as poor parents, perhaps we should respect them for how hard they are trying and for the fact that they were selected by some divine process to be worthy of very difficult parenting challenges.

Part of eternal perspective parenting — and a big part of looking for spiritual solutions — is remembering and understanding that we didn't create our children; that they come as who they are from a Father who entrusts us with stewardship for them. We do our best to help our children grow and develop in ways that are uniquely right for them, and we seek God's help.

Thus, we try not to judge other parents or ourselves. We replace pride with gratitude when a child does something well or shows promise in some way, and we replace guilt with perspective and added love when a child falls short or makes a mistake.

Personal Progress

As some of you may or may not heard, I am working on Personal Progress to help strengthen my testimony and my relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior. If you'd like to join me, you can find the Personal Progress Program online at the new lds.org. Unfortunately, you can't track your progress online, unless you are a young woman or a young women's leader, but I'm just writing about it in my journal every night.

So, tonight, I'm working on Faith #2 and I'm supposed to talk to a mom, so I thought I'd post here to see what you moms have to say! Are you up for helping me?

"Discuss the qualities a woman needs in order to teach children to have faith and to base their decisions on gospel truths. How can these principles help you in your life today and help you prepare to be a faithful woman, wife, and mother?"

I'm interested in seeing your responses and seeing what I can learn from your good examples! Thanks, ladies!

When you just need to vent

I have a question for all you amazing ladies.

What do you do when you just need to vent?  Specifically, if you need to vent ABOUT someone.  I try to avoid negative talk about other people (family, friends, etc.), but I know it seems that, especially for us girls, it can rid a lot of the thoughts running around in our brains, it we just vent, and GET. IT. OUT!

So I feel like I can either be stuck in a fowl mood, with lots of negative feeling and thoughts bottled up (like Becky's previous post) or vent and then feel horrible because I gossiped about someone I care about.



P.S.  I hope I'm not dominating this blog too much.  I feel like I put up posts all the time.  I just love blogging, and love being able to "communicate" with you girls so much!  Let me know if I need to back off.

Negative Effects

I learned something today. 

I was feeling guilty about something, and even though I tried to talk myself out of it, I was having a really hard time letting it go. 

However, I found myself becoming more frustrated with little things Drew did (waving a spoon around full of cottage cheese) and the like.  Finally, I realized that although I was treating Drew as normal (at least to my view), my guilt and worrying were negatively affecting our interactions.

Once I realized this, I let my guilt and anger with myself go.  It was a huge breakthrough to me.  Although I've always understood this concept, now I realize that harboring my guilt hurts me...but it also hurts my family. 

A trip down memory lane

I was going through some old pictures the other day, and came across some from the high school years.  I thought you'd all get a kick out of these.

 

Crystal and Steph

Crystal and Becky

Leisa and Christine.  Love the Winne the Pooh shirt, so cute!

Luckily for you guys, I think the most embarrassing pic is of me.  But it was taken at girls camp, so that's kind of an excuse for the awful hair, right?