They called me yesterday and should be in on Saturday.  I’m so excited!  We finally finished Justus’ room, we removed the bottom bunk and slid his TV & gaming system under there, with a lounge chair and a bookcase/table… a string of cool lights and an electric dolphin-light-thingie finish the effect.  Pretty cool.  I’m jealous. 

Brett’s room got revamped too.  New mattresses, cleaned out, weight bench finally put in the proper area so he can walk, stereo hooked up.  Looks sweet.

I can’t wait til they get here.  I miss them so much.  The family really has been incomplete with them gone.

My beautiful sister-in-law Carol has cancer.  It’s rampant, and the docs have done all they can do.  She can only be made more comfortable now, with pain medications and the love and care of her family.

My brother is so amazing.  I hurt so badly for him.  Physically, really, my heart hurts.  I cringe every time the phone rings, for fear it’s the “call”.  He’s such a good man, she’s such a good woman.  Four children, grandchildren, very active members of the church, very loving people.

Why does this happen to the nicest people?  I think Tony Snow said it well, in his testimony.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/25.30.html

Please take a moment to read his beautiful words. 

When you sit with your family tonight and groan about, well, anything… think about those that sit with their family and wonder when God will take them.  Will it be today?  Tomorrow?  Next week?

Sort of makes your “I gotta get the lawn mowed” a little insignificant, doesn’t it?

Until I started visiting internet birth boards.  Wow.  There are some truly perfect mothers out there!

I mean, how can you compete with this:

TV?  My child won’t even go in the same ROOM that a television is in until they’re at least two.  Possibly 10.  I don’t know yet – I don’t have any kids, but this is what I will do.  I read that TV is baaaaadddd.  I actually think it’s the Devil incarnate.  That’s what the book says, anyways.

Food?  By golly, I’m growing all of precious Timmy’s food.  Nothing has passed his lips that wasn’t grown right here in my back yard.  A grocery store?  Are you MAD????  You can’t buy good food from a grocery store!!!! I raised this pig from an egg.  He’s only eaten whole grains – that I grew right over there.  Nothing else is good enough for MY baby.  And, let’s not forget, pureed until Kindergarten.  At least.

… oh, and never ever EVER can you get healthy food at a restaurant.  Hubby and I know we will be going out to one in 18 years, when we send Junior off to Harvard.  Until then, there’s no way eww restaurant food could pass his tender lips.

My child only is allowed one toy at Christmas.  We give the rest to charity.  Grandma really resents the fact that I’m so strict and she can never give her widdle grandbaby anything, but it’s for the good of my baby. 

Soda?  Heck, I have a teenager that’s never even tasted it.  Yeah – he’s never sworn either.  Really.  I know this.

I have all of their water shipped in from the Arctic – nothing but pure spring water, run thru a distiller twice, and then boiled.  Three times. 

A taste of ice cream at the age of 6 months?  GASP!  Well, I never!  I can’t believe any responsible mother would allow such a detriment.  That’s just ASKING for obesity and diabetes.  I’ll bet baby has it right now, as a matter of fact.

ROCK my baby to sleep?  Are you insane?  That means I’ve started a bad habit and will have to rock my baby to sleep all the way to high school – maybe even later. 

I could go on, I suppose… but I put Ayla in front of the TV watching cartoons while I typed this. 

Ahhh.  And what nearly every visitor to these boards know, is that typing the holier-than-thou statements and living up to them are two realllly different things.  As you sit there, preaching your quotes from the “experts”, we know your child sits on the floor eating a cracker from a box, drinking water from the tap, while you sneak a french fry to him on occasion.

And you know what?  That’s OKAY!!!  Your child will be perfectly fine.  Why hide behind what you THINK people want to hear, and just be honest.  What does it matter?  It doesn’t.  You are not, and never will be, perfect.  You can try to sound that way in your words, but we all know better.  Why paint a picture that no one’s gonna buy?  If you like looking at it, peachy.

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I know there’s the couple of people that really do live that way.  I know there’s a lot that change their minds about all that is “right” after they actually have a child.  But the vast majority – nahhhh.

And those are my thoughts for today.

Was today, about 3 weeks late…

In this corner, weighing in at a massive 20 lbs. 6 oz., and 28 3/4 inches long, we have Ayla “Dimples” Stehly!!!

Wow.  Big gal, this one is.  She has now surpassed what Autumn weighed at 12 months.  She is stretching some of her 12 month outfits to the max.  Hopefully she will slow down on her weight gain since she’s eating so many meals with us, and the doctor concurred with that…

 

Then why would you do it at all?

I read so many posts on boards with women that “hope they don’t have to” let their baby CIO to train (ugh) them to sleep.

Or they start a question with “I don’t want to debate”.  And this topic always gets very heated and ugly on birth boards, often leading to threads being locked and posters being banned. 

Doesn’t that mean that somewhere, deep down in your soul, you KNOW that CIO could be wrong?  I mean, I hope I don’t kill my child.  I hope I don’t blow my house up.  I hope I don’t die tomorrow.  I don’t have to hope I won’t leave my baby alone in a room to cry himself asleep and give up on her mama - this is a conscious choice that I get to make.

Just thinkin’ about how people word things, and how it’s clear that they KNOW this is not the right choice to make, otherwise they wouldn’t have the feelings that they “hope they don’t have to”.

Your choice is your choice – you are the parent.  I hope you’re making an educated choice, and explored your options.  And if you have to wonder if you’re right, and defend your choice allllll the time, then maybe you’re not.  Good luck.

’sall.

 

http://geriatricmama.wordpress.com/2007/06/02/cio-information/

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