like mommy

A few months ago I walked into the kitchen and discovered this:

She'd found my shoes, carried them across the house to the kitchen so she could have a chair to lean on and and tried to figure out how to put them on like mommy. I stood there for a minute undetected and marveled at her carful concentration.

I'm just so blasted thankful I was there to see it - and had the camera nearby. She's one special little girl.

monday monday

The two awesomest parts of my day:

1. Got Nana and cousins to do our incredibly fun (and cheap) music class/gym morning with us. (Katherine did remarkably well following the boys around). I've been telling everyone how fabulous it is but no one has believed HOW awesome it is until now. I love being right!


2. Family Home Evening at PapaNana house - a lesson on thankfulness and saying please. The best part? The activity which involved everyone sitting around the table and Jared holding a cup of butterscotch chips - handing them out to people ONLY if they said "please" and "thank you." The kids caught on pretty quick, but when I tried to get Solei to say them at one point, I told her to say the "Magic Words" - she looked earnestly at her daddy, held out her hand for candy and said "Magic words!"

Happy Monday!

I sure do like my husband!

One of my most favorite pastimes is torturing my husband. This fact itself tortures him. So I accosted him with the camera today and found a place online to make animated gifs to capturethe progression of his annoyance today after dinner.

Heh. You can make one yourself here!

Now this one was HIS idea. He recruited Aaron and Dad to give a tutorial on the progression of the men's hairlines in our family.

Classy.

Our Modern Times...

Forgive the posting here, but I had to get this off my chest.

Many of you may not know this about me but, I’ve had a very close relationship to homosexuals and their struggles. I’ve sat with a gay friend in my arms as he sobbed as he struggled with dealing with his same sex attraction. I’ve attended support groups with friends who needed some companionship to get up the courage to go. I’ve never stopped loving my gay friends, in spite of my disagreeing with their choices.

California Proposition 8 has brought up a lot of questions. I supported this proposition and this is why:

There are no provisions in any law (because no law was ever passed) protecting churches from legal action for not performing or recognizing same-sex marriage. This means that there are no stopping a homosexual couple from suing a church for not performing a marriage. You may think it is silly but, this has happened ALREADY in the United States.

Unfortunately, specifically in California, this law does nothing to change the rights of any person. The only change is the terminology used. Each right given to an individual in the state of California by marriage is available without a marriage. According to Family Code 297.5 - Any two individuals in the state of California may enter into a domestic partnership, which, by statute, grants them all legal rights and responsibilities of married individuals. So, why do they need the title “Marriage”? Personally, I also oppose these domestic partnerships and any other law that condones sin.

Legally speaking, when you open the door to re-definition of marriage you open it all the way. This means that Warren Jeffs and his followers are equally able to challenge the definition to marriage using the same arguments and precedent that our same-sex marriage proponents have used – requesting that their multi-wife marriages be recognized. Frighteningly, they actually have an additional weapon in their arsenal – the first amendment, which guarantees their right to freedom of religion. Their religion has taught polygamy much longer than it has been illegal. I come from a religion that taught polygamy. I consider myself grateful that I am not asked to practice it. The thought of polygamy becoming legal again opens the door for the my church to re-institute the doctrine – something I am not excited about being asked to do (this may be the reason so many of the LDS fought so hard for Prop 8).

In addition, if we abandon the values on which our country and society was founded, you create a totally arbitrary and fluid set of morals upon which our legal system is based. Popular culture becomes the basis for our legal and moral code. Looking at how much popular culture has changed in the last 100 years and looking at the direction it is going, I’m really not interested in handing over the legal “keys” to our culture.

Finally, and this will only have significance to members of the LDS church, in October I raised my right hand to publically confirm that I supported the church leaders. How can I very well not put stock into what they counsel me after doing that? If we look through the history of the LDS church we see that when people strayed from the prophet they suffered (think Haun’s Mill). Jesus himself taught us to love the sinner and not the sin. Nowhere in any scripture that I have read have I seen the sin of homosexuality, or any other sin, condoned in any form. I love and support everyone I know in all of their righteous desires that I can. This will not change.

It saddens me that there are any Christians at all who would be comfortable with opening the door to gay marriage – and that those who are for this change in definition of marriage are allowed to use the word bigot to describe those who continue to hold up the values upon which our society was founded.

As a note - there have been lots of great thinkers who have affected my thoughts on this matter. My brother-in-law posted a great post here: http://dandafamily.blogspot.com/2008/10/defense-of-traditional-marriage.html
And I was also very inspired by Princeton's Dr. Robert George's address here:
http://www.byub.org/devotionals/?selectedMonth=10&selectedYear=2008
My wife as done wonders to help me to articulate my opinions by challenging me on them.

violining

Today I attended an introductory class to the Suzuki methood for parents and teachers. That's the methood of violin that I learned from age three and have taught for over 10 years. The reason I went was that it's now required for teachers who want to do further certification, but I am also curious about seeing things from a different perspective.

Suzuki depends on a high level of parent interaction - from attending classes with their kids, listening to the music constantly to being their teacher at home and practicing with them every day. I've been telling parents how to do this for years, but now that Solei is entering the age that kids are encouraged to begin - I'm suddenly feeling lost and terrified that I'll introduce it wrong and it will be a total disaster!

It was a HUGE help to attend the class. It talked about the main points of Suzuki and was a helpful reminder to me of what I already know.

In the method, violin is used as a tool to teach patience, confidence, discipline, cooperation, self-control, fine motor skills... well, you name it, it teaches it. The goal is NOT to grow professional musicians - but good people. The side product is they end up playing violin at a very high level.

I don't know how soon I will get Solei a teacher, but I'm already starting the framework - playing the CD for her, singing the songs, teaching her rhythms, and letting her try her "own violin" while supervised (it was the one I started on at 3).

But after all these years of smiling at the child and parent for 30 minutes a week and telling them what to do - it's now my turn to see if I can practice what I preach. Wish us luck!!

bonding

Me: Psssst - Mike - do me a favor. I'm going to take a picture of you and Jared in a minute, but could you pretend to kiss him? I want a funny picture.

Mike: Sure thing!

later...

Me: Hey sweetie - can I get a picture of you two?

Jared: Sure thing!

Did Jared know about the conspiracy? No, his brain is just as twisted as mine is. Well, and Mike's. He just got to the smooching first.

Dang he's perfect for me.

Thankful Mommy

We had the missionaries over for Family Home Evening this past Monday and took the lesson from the new nursery manual. If you don't have one, get it!! It has been such a blessing to our family already and it is so wonderful at giving me ideas how to get the gospel across to my toddler in a way she can get it.

Our topic this week was Heavenly Father has a body just like us, and when we tried to teach her what a body was, she insisted we do the "Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes" song. It was hysterical, the missionaries did it along with us and she danced around the middle of the room, thrilled to pieces. She did get the point of the message though!

After we did the lesson, I showed her a picture from the book to show her Heavenly Father and Jesus Christs's bodies.

I pointed to the people on the top and told her who they were, and for the heck of it, I asked who the person at the bottom of the picture was.

Without blinking, her answer was "Joseph Smith!"

Those missionaries were sooo impressed. We would have been more impressed, but we already knew she was a genuis. Heck, she could pick Jesus out of a picture she'd never seen before she was even 18 months. I'm not writing this to brag, just to say she also can name every single character on Sesame Street, Super Why, Clifford, Arthur, all the muppets by name and she can quote the entire movie Finding Nemo.

I'm just thankful she's giving the gospel equal time:)

Toddler game idear

This year Solei's birthday snuck up on me - she's only had 2 now, I'm not used to remembering it yet! So as I tried to think of what I could do for her a few days before the big day, my heart sunk as I realized the best gift I could give her was a party since she loved nothing more than a party!

Enter my amazing friend Vonae, who called right as I was mourning my lack of knowledge and preparation, and saved the day by asking me if I'd want to share a party with her son Nick in a few weeks. AMEN!!!

I'll post more about the actual party and how awesome it was, but for now I'll share one of Vonae's awesome ideas. Since Nick was turning 3 and Solei was turning 2, the party game options were limited. The theme ended up being nothing more than balloons! There were helium-filled balloons with strings attatched to the floor all over, then regular balloons covering the floor. They really went ga ga for them. Anything structured we tried to do was only moderately successful, until Vonae had a burst of inspiration, grabbed a basket and had all the kids hurry and throw all the balloons into it and she then dumped them all out over their heads. Sounds too simple, but they went APE!

They really LOVED it all!!

So stash that in your brains for toddler parties. I really lucked out this year.. maybe she'll let me piggy-back on Nick's party next year?? ;)

How to turn your basment into one of those fancy expensive gyms

First, get your huband to fix that eliptical machine you made him buy when you got pregnant a few years ago and you stopped using around the 6th month:

Second, make one o' them killer smoothies you can now make because your husband got you a new blender for your birthday to replace the 2 you broke in a row:

Then, turn on your projector TV that husband snapped offa Cragslist, mess with that snazzy On Demand feature on the cable box and find the Backyardigans - those wacky and strangely hip adventurers with fabulous tunes:

Finally, enjoy working out, sipping your smoothie and basking in your toddler completely ignoring you. Why didn't I do this before?? Our basement is AWESOME! I was at it for 17 whole minutes!! That's huge, when I was pregnant and trying hard to stay fit, all I could get out was 15 minutes. I have quite the short workout attention span.

I'm really enjoying our "7 fat years" right now - the lean years will come, but I feel blessed by every turn. Even my basement is fabulous!

Happy Halloween!!

After my sister(inlaw) Megan died just before last Christmas, putting together a holiday for Solei was pretty much impossible on my end, and I was grateful she was too young to know the difference. I thought I had more time before I had to step up and make holidays and birthdays awesome, but nope, she KNEW this year. She talked about her birthday for months even though I hadn't said anything about it (I think Elmo told her) and she WANTED Halloween, so mom had to deliver! She was so excited, that every person who has come to our house in the last few weeks has been dragged by her to the family room and told very loudly "MOMMY DECORATED!" Just a few Halloween-y things here and there, but she was into it and she wanted more!

And people, I did AWESOME.

First off was Trick-or-Treating at Jared's work the day before Halloween. I got her all gussied up and thought I'd just be putting her on parade around the office. Nope, she KNEW there was candy involved and she was there to WORK.

See that lollipop?? She wanted MORE.

Off we go!

She learned super fast that if you say "Trick or Treat" to someone, they give you CANDY. She was like a bloodhound, running from room to room screaming "TRICK OR TREAT!" at people and taking full advantage when they said "oo, take some more!"

I even dressed her in another costume to go another round and get MORE candy... (for me!)

The next morning I realized how much she was into Halloween how important it was I find something to do that day to support that. On the web I went, and I discovered a free carnival from 10-12 at the Smyrna community center! Games, treats, it was perfect! And as I rushed to get dressed and out the door - saw my pair of orange and black witch socks and thought - if I'm going to get all Halloween-y on Solei and make her dress up and try to show her how fun holidays can be, I'd better put my money where my mouth is and dress up too. So, I went as a witch. Not inventive, but I was the only parent dressed up and we had a ball playing together!

There was even a hayride, which she loved. I know this because as all the other kids sat there silently, she kept laughing and yelling "HAHA! I love it!!!"

I thought she'd like siting on the police motorcycle, but she surprised me with being the most uninterested little girl I've ever seen.

This was not the case later... I'm figuring it was because she'd been thinking "Hey! This isn't my daddy's scooter!"

We went trick or treating in Nana and Papa's neighborhood and it was positively wonderful. It was so great to share a holiday with family, and Solei loved every minute of it.

Nana even look her out later to trick or treat more while Jared and I went out to dinner with a friend and everyone had a fabulous time. When we came back, we found Papa dancing disco out on the front steps because he wanted in on all the action while he handed out candy.

All in all, it was a wonderful holiday and I'm so blasted happy. My mom always made every holiday like an event and went all out to make the days special, and I feel like I acheived it so far. Now, only about another 985 to go! (or more? I am SO not doing the math on that one).

I'll leave you with our family at Halloween last year. I love how far we've come and where we're headed!

NaBloPoMo

I'm taking on a project this November. I've been doing NaBloPoMo every November for the last two years, and this year I'm adding the family blog into the mix. Husband is excited. He says I'm a bad family blogger. Well, technically I really am, since I was so busy yesterday and I forgot to start... but thank heavens for blogger and back dating!

He'll have to pitch in every now and then, but it's nice to have goals to try to stick to. So watch out November - here we come!

Humanity...

So, every now and then my faith in Humanity is restored.

At the grocery store today I watched as a mother stood in line with her two boys. The younger one - about 2ish - wanted no part in it. Finally the mother grabbed her second son, put down the box of frozen something that she wanted to buy and left the store.

My mind thought immediately about Brazil and that parents with young kids (and the elderly) automatically go to the front of the line. Not here. I was honestly a little disappointed with the whole situation.

Well, then the woman ahead of her grabbed the item the mother left behind, paid for it, and ran out to the parking lot and handed it to her.

Sometime people surprise me for the better.

WEEEZZZAAAHHHH

Okay - This won't matter much to the majority of you - but I thought it was awesome.

I haven't been to an honest concert, unless my wife was playing in it, for years. Well, my awesome friend (who I now will love forever) hooked me up with tickets to one of my favorite bands ever - Weezer.

I forgot how much I love concerts. It was amazing. My poor guitar has sat alone for the better part of the last year and a half. Now I yearn to play again. I just need to find a way...

Voters? We don't need no stinkin' Voters!

Voting thoughts:

The wife and I have given lots of thought to the vote this year. We certainly consider ourselves independents. I’m stuck this year. Last time around I voted for myself (you are welcome to write me in if you want, it’s spelled “Jon Jared Paget”). My list of demands from a candidate are simple:

Balanced budget. What kind of message do we send to people when the federal government is running in the red? We need some fiscal responsibility. We need to be responsible for our federal budget and do what it takes to balance it. There needs to be a plan to control and reduce the deficit.

Taxes. This is an ugly subject. No one wants to raise taxes. Bush lowered taxes when he took office to “give back” the people the excess money in the federal budget. After 9/11 that money disappeared, the war started, but tax cuts stuck around. When we are in the red in our personal budgets we think the only solution is to make more money – so then why don’t people support raising taxes? It’s simple – we are spending more money than we have revenue – we have to BOTH cut back on spending and raise more federal revenue.

Foreign Policy. I honestly could write a book about this. The Bush Doctrine (for those of you, like Sarah Palin, who don’t know) states that the USA has the right to attack anyone they feel is threatening them - it’s contained in the document “The National Security Strategy of the United States of America.” From our side of the fence it looks good: If we feel threatened we can attack. Now, think this through: what if other countries take the same approach? North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Russia, even Laos all could very easily adapt the same policy, citing the USA as their inspiration. Do we really want every country on earth attacking everyone else as soon as they feel threatened. I don’t. We need to set the global example.

Iraq. We should have never gone in. As congress voted on the issue, a room full of foreign policy grad students I was in agreed that we could never be successful in Iraq. If graduate students can come to that conclusion, why can’t our foreign policy leaders. Now that we are in Iraq, we can’t leave and not expect a full out civil war. The only real exit strategy is to pick a side and arm them to the teeth and train them all to smoosh anyone who opposes them.

Healthcare. This is a hot button issue. Healthcare insurance should not be a for-profit business. Talk to any economist – we already pay for the healthcare of the uninsured. Yes – the government does a horrible job of managing a lot of things (just go to your driver’s license office); but who better to manage healthcare?? I can’t think of anyone…

Abortion. Here’s where I take a right hand turn. Abortion is not a form of birth control. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. I do not think it’s too much to ask people to use some self control.

Gay Marriage. I find it sad that this is even an issue. I don’t believe in condoning homosexuality activity in any form. I love all of God’s children and will do what I can to help them be happy within God’s commandments.

Energy. We need to dump billions into solar power. Imagine how much better we would be if we put the money and effort into Solar Power that we put into the Iraq war.

Education. Imagine if we put the billions from Iraq into education. What a total revolution our school system would have! We need the best and the brightest at the head of our schools. Stop skimping on our future!

Environment. Mandatory full recycling. They do it in Japan. We can do it here too.

That’s a basic outline. I don’t think I’m that far off base on any of these. You are welcome to disagree. Unfortunately, I don’t see that any candidate agrees with me.

I honestly would most likely vote for 0Bama if it weren’t for the “moral” issues I have with his policy. If he does win, it gives us 8 years to derail Hillary’s next attempt. In 8 years you can really ruin someone. If McCain wins, he has to run against Hillary in 4 years. I really don’t like her. If 0bama wins, Romney runs against him in 4 years. I don’t see the economy being much better with either of them in office and there is a good chance the next president will be a one-termer.

I still think we should all just make Mr T dictator. He'd be the man.

To move or not to move...

SO – we almost moved (again). This time to Texas.

I got a call a few months ago from a headhunter that I talked to a few years ago when I left Motorola. He asked if I was interested in a role in Austin Texas. I promptly told him I was not. I’d lived in Texas before and so had the wife and we weren’t all that excited about the idea.

Well, a few days later I got a email anyway – from a small company in Austin called Apple Computer. It seems they launched the iPhone in Brazil and needed someone to manage the customer relationships. Well, that kind of overshadowed the Texas aspect. After a few phone interviews, Reva and I were on a plane to check out Austin and I would do some interviews.

Apple loved me. The recruiter and I worked out the details of the package they would be offering. We looked at real estate in Austin.

Meanwhile things at work were going downhill. It really looked like we were moving.

My boss and I have an excellent relationship. We talked and he didn’t want me to leave.

The CEO felt the same way when he found out. I met on Monday with the CEO who told me he wanted me to stay. We had a good talk and I told him what I thought I could do – given the chance.

Long story short – my company made me an offer to stay. I accepted. We plan to have 3 new hires (in addition to another one we just did) in the next month. I finally see light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you for all of your prayers for us (those of you who knew). We greatly appreciate it.

Happy birthday to ME!

Formula for the best birthday to date:

First -find the world's greatest hair stylist:

Second, have her do this to you:

Third, add your hottest red leather peep toe heels (at the insistance of your husband who thinks you don't wear heels enough - despite the issue of them being completley painful and I'm already almost 8 feet tall as it is):

Next, spend an hour dolling yourself until you look even HOTTER than you were when you were "on the market" or as I like to call it - BAIT:

Then allow your sexy husband to take you out...

.... to WICKED!!!!!! It was a total surprise and I actually cried all the way through Defying Gravity.

What a crazy surprise - and the best birthday gift he's come up with, which is saying something what with Jared being killer awesome at gift ideas. Yep, I'm 29 and don't tell me that I'm a baby or a geezer - I have my own pet issues with aging, thankyouverramuch. Thanks for all the cards, facebook well-wishes and happy thoughts. And thanks to my sexy husband for giving me the chance to feel gorgeous and incredulous at his willingness to sit through a musical with me. Woohoo!!

Things You Never Thought You'd Hear

Daddy, you're the queen!

Weekend recap

This weekend we made the trek to Kentucky to visit 1. my nephew, who is staying with some family, 2. the family, and 3. my mom, who was visiting everyone. It was a ball - Bethany has 5 of her own and Teaq made 6, and this weekend the kid count ballooned to 7 with Solei! Oh, and it was also Solei's 2nd birthday!!!

This is Bethany, the saint who manages to corral all the kiddos and stay sane in the process:

This is my nephew Teaq. He just walked out of the house wearing this like it was completely normal.
Solei adoring her amazing Gama.

Again with the Gamma loving...


You would not believe this van...

Happy birthday!!!!!

Jared distracted Solei while Bethany did the fastest french braid pigtails I've ever seen - it was gorgeous, but there's a good chance the only time she'll ever look like this again is if Bethany comes to visit!
All the kids post-nursery and primary.

All the boys - including Teaq here - wore crowns along with Solei for the birthday festivities. Real men do pink.

Birthday pumpkin pie! Lots of candles to allow all the boys to help blow it out.

Daddy was generously given a 1/4 of the entire birthday pie. He then ate the whole thing!


I love these 3 generation shots!



My personal favorite - Gamma and brood on the way into Chuck E Cheese.

Picnic!

Movie time- all the kids lined up in the bed and patiently watched a movie about fish or something. It was hysterical!

Turns out our little girl loves hoops - that's handy, seeing as she'll probably be 8 feet tall.

I think that's enough for now. Happy 2 years, Solei!!!!!!!!!

big long entry so Husband will be appeased

Husband has recently railed against me for not posting enough on this blog. Personally, I think his posts are either 1. so blasted cute or 2. so blasted educated, that I just bring the blog down with my uneducated, uncute self. But nope, Husband is actually angered at my blogging lack, so I will regale you with a post, inspired by the fact that Solei's 2nd birthday is approaching in less than a week - I give you:

My Tribute to Heavenly Father's Plan Especially Involving Motherhood

The first thing I understood about the Plan of Happiness was that families were Heavenly Father's classroom. I don't where I got this idea, especially since I have always known that I didn't not particularly want to be a mother - prossibly due to the fact that I know how genuinely rotten I was to my own mother and was quite worried that I deserved a little horror just like me. But as I learned about the Plan of Salvation - how we came to this earth to learn, to make mistakes and to grow and how we can all return to live with our Heavenly Father again - it just occured to me that nowhere else did I learn anything as valuble or as important as the lessons I learned interacting with my family - watching my father and mother serve others, in the church and their children - learning to love my brothers despite how much I wanted to kill them - and learning about our heritage and feeling gratitude for the sacrifices my ancestors went through to bring my family the blessings of the freedom of this country and the joy of the gospel. So in my mind, the only way I could ever think of a family was as a classroom.

After I was married, I prayed that perhaps my dislike for mothering would disappear and that I'd love serving my family. I did get pregnant and had a beautiful, healthy litle girl- but the dislike did NOT disappear. I wanted to love her, and I really wanted to love being a mother, but the postpartum depression was more than I'd anticipated, and suddenly being in intense pain all the time from giving birth and trying to nurse and not getting any sleep made me wish every day that one of us would not be there in the morning. Those first few months, I didn't bother getting dressed in the morning, I'd just sit in our house trying to get Solei to eat, to sleep, and try aiming her away from me when she threw up. She was not a happy baby - she was appalled at the lack of control she had of her body and appalled at my lack of compassion or skill. The only time she really came alive was when my Brasilian sisters would come over and hold her. I watched them intently, trying to learn what they knew - how to love this creature that was making my life so miserable.


This is where I learned my first lessons of motherhood. Most of all- I learned empathy for Solei. She was a full grown spirit stuck in this strange body and strange place where she couldn't communicate or understand anything. I felt exactly the same way, so far from home, sick and unable to speak the language, and I learned to try and give her comfort like my Brasilian friends would comfort me. Slowly I began to see her personality shine through when she was given the things she needed to feel at peace. I saw myself in her smiles, because I understood why she cried so much more.

Coming back to the States I learned different lessons. I returned to my home country, but as a completely different person with different needs and responsibilities than I had before. And I hated it. I was living in someone else's home, I couldn't be free do do anything easily because of Solei who was constantly demanding more freedom and trying to jam her timy fingers into light sockets or crawl down staircases. I didn't know how to get her to stop, so I watched other mothers with children and tried to teach like they did. I learned that watching for examples to teach her is invaluble. We are taught by our Heavenly Father by others examples, and I learned that He will always send me friends who are much more competent than I to teach me.

And with her age - and all the boundaries I worked so hard to set and all the rules I've tried to teach her - every month, she has become more of a person, and I've been able to starting seeing fruits of all those difficult labors. There's the genuine love she has for anything that moves, the way she will say please and thank you, the way she'll hug my neck when she knows she's been naughty and cry "I so sorry mommy!!" I guess I'm a results kind of person, and those long months where all my best efforts were met with hysterical crying and being covered in vomit made mething that none of my efforts were good enough. But seeing my toddler fold her arms, bow her head and thank her Heavenly Father for SpongeBob SquarePants has taught me that I just had to be a little more patient, and my blessings would come.

Before I got pregnant and was praying that if I did have a child, I would be able to learn to love them, I had a dream. I had given birth to a little girl and I was not quite sure how I felt about her and the whole motherhood thing. I went to visit her in the hospital, and all the nurses were around this bright, blonde haired little girl who was laughing and charming the socks off of them. She made me smile,a nd I watched how she made every person who met her smile, and it made me fall in love with her right there in the dream. The dream gave me hope, and I felt like I had enough courage to think about getting pregnant.

When Solei was born, she had dark hair and was as uncharming as a newborn can be. I was confused and wondered where the little girl from my dream was. The dark hair eventually gave way to blonde curls and a few months ago, I caught Solei laughing at herself in the mirror - and realized that she was now the little girl I'd seen in my dream. I don't know if I had anything to do with bringing out her bright personality, but it had happened. She does indeed amaze and charm everyone who meets her. I learned that blessings will come from everything if I don't expect them in my timeline.

On that vein, I've been aware that I should think about expanding our family, and terrified at the thought of Solei seeing how dark pregnancy and new motherhood made me. I've felt like I should at least try because I'm supposed to, but have had very little hope of it being different from the first time. And as I've waited, I've become more aware of how much I have grown to love what I have now, despite the hardship it began with. I don't know if Heavenly Father will send another soul to our family to live through what Solei had to endure for so long, but I don't worry about that. I'm so thankful He knows me and loves me enough to have sent me the most perfect-for-me spirit He had. I still pray that if I become a mother again that I'll learn to love them, and I also ask that I not have another until I am really ready. I'm so thankful that I've had the last year to really get to know the spirit inside her crazy body, and to learn to fall in love with serving another person this much. Every day I spend with just her, I feel a gratitude I never expected to feel and I don't want for anything else.

One thing I detest is when people say those common phrases - "You'll never have another good night's sleep again!" or "Say goodbye to having an adult conversation again!" or "Say hello to a sagging tush - you'll have have that pre-baby body back!" I heard so many of them before I had Solei and thought they were all true, and I sobbed on the delivery table, unwilling to push because I didn't want this horrible change everyone had spoken of to happen to me.

2 years into motherhood, I sleep like the dead, my relationships with my friends and husband are stronger than ever, and my body is as fabulous as it was pre-Solei. I wish I hadn't heard so much negativity, and I'm so thankful I've learned not to believe the naysayers. My Solei has proved to be the exception to every rule. True, she does drive me bonkers, but with every day I've known her, I've learned how to diffuse her, to redirect her and to get what I need. Lessons that I couldn't have learned anywhere, but right here with her her every day.

I'm so thankful for this this classroom. With every lesson I learn and every roadblock overcome, I am more and more aware of how much my Heavenly Father knows and loves me. And I couldn't have learned it any other way.

Hello Gamma!