Sunday, May 18, 2008

Blogged Brain

Sick Day (below) SO ROUGH! (taken with my cell phone)

I think more blogs form in my head than actually ever make it to my laptop! Who has time with a family of five? Better yet…better make the time! Not only for my one personal sense of well being, but to capture so many memories and instances that pictures and videos just can’t!
Like this one: When Brielle gets upset (about anything) she rubs her heels together. She’s been doing this since birth! We had the hardest time finding socks that stayed on her during these heel-rubbing episodes! Forget little shoes/baby sandals. I know they are for show anyway…but I always thought they looked so cute on babies. Not for Brielle. She is going to be so happy and carefree that this summer she can be barefoot.
That is so hard to capture on a video clip! Dealing with a fussy, crying, mad, heel-rubbing baby is hard enough. Who’s going to say, “oh hunny! get the camcorder!”
She’s also rolling over now. Not always consistently, so that’s been hard to video too, but just a few days ago (how horrible of me to not record the exact date!) she began rolling to her back every time we placed her on her tummy. She gets a big kick out of our excitement.
She’s becoming quite intelligent too, not that she’s not always been. But she seems to be aware of the attention that her brothers and doting daddy now give her. She sometimes seems to be in demand of it. Hahaha, we shall see how this summer goes with the boys home everyday for that!
Everything must go INTO Brielle's mouth!!!

Only 4 ½ days left of school? How did that happen exactly? NEVER has it snuck up on me that fast. I think that’s because for the last 5 years I've had to count down the days of preschool so that we could cram all of the fun stuff in before the end of the year.
Now here we are, rolling into baseball season, and filling up our calendar with what we want to do this summer. The list includes but is not limited to: getting a pool pass, going camping (hopefully 2x), visiting New Jersey (that is in major question due to its extreme cost), cub scout camp, free summer movies, free tennis lessons, Tie Breakers Family Aquatic Park, basketball camp, and possibly the kids and I venturing to Arkansas for about a week. And how many weeks long is summer? I better check that out. I’m looking forward to it though. Really.
I’ve been really thinking a lot about parenting lately. There are so many different styles, techniques, and beliefs out there on how to do what, when, and why…. It’s almost overloading to my brain if I think too much on it. But I do think there is good cause to have reasons behind why we do what we do, and not just base them off of the “way we were raised” and “we turned out okay.” I’ve always felt there were better ways than what I’ve been doing, and more recently I’ve been motivated to take my job as mom more seriously.
I did think it was weird to have pre-teens and a baby…but it’s really a great combination if you think about it. The older boys get to see how to parent a baby, toddler, and then young child! Not only does that help me really hone in on how I’m going to do that this time around, but it challenges me immensely, as I know it will for sure affect how they parent their children one day. And though having a colicky, high-need, fussy baby (though she is getting better-despite her two recent set back with having viruses) has been sooooo demanding…it has also convinced me that if I God has given me the patience for it, He will do likewise with the boys. As I’ve heard and often thought, “He didn’t bring me here to leave me here.” Sometimes I feel Him working most when I’m at my neediest; broken, crying, questioning, and overwhelmed. He waits for me to say it. “I need you now.” And He’s there. I don’t know why we have to go through valleys to stand on mountains, and I don’t know why we have to do it again and again, as if we just didn’t get it the first hundred times. But I know the view is extraordinary, I know God is with us during the trials, and I know He is waiting to show us great things that we do not know.
And I know that that is where I want to be: waiting to see!!!

No comments: