Dear Livi...9 months

Dear Livi,

Happy 9 months sweet girl!  Mommy is trying so hard to do all the same things I did for your brother, for you, and one of those things is writing you letters throughout your childhood.  I chose a blog to do just that, because it keeps me more accountable than if I was doing it on my own.  

Livi, you are growing up so fast!!!  You are crawling all over the place (as you have been since around 7 months).  You're pulling up effortlessly and you're trying to stand by yourself.  You are currently cutting your 5th and 6th teeth and you've been pitiful this week with a cold (that I think is due to your teeth).  You love real food and are trying to wean off your bottle.  You had your first Milo's last week (niblets of grilled cheese and french fries) and you loved it!   You love cheese puffs, cheerios, puffs, goldfish, yogurt, and you will eat any baby food I serve you (unlike your big brother who hated most of it!)  You ADORE your big brother and you want to play with whatever he is playing with.  You light up when your daddy enters the room and he is the one who can get a smile out of you if nobody else can.  Daddy wakes up with you ever morning to give you your early bottle (5:30 range).  This is Daddy's time to bond with you and it is obvious how much y'all have bonded because you have him wrapped around not one, but all ten fingers!!!  You only have two moods...you're either super happy or super mad...there's no "in between" with you :)  You love to smile and you giggle often.  You turn your little head into Mommy's shoulder when someone talks to you and you appear bashful, however you have never met a stranger.  You love to be talked to, read to, and sung to.  You are the best car rider in the world.  You rarely cry and you usually fall asleep within minutes. You are getting a ton of hair and got to wear your first bow to Bible Study two weeks ago...although sadly we did not make it home with said bow.  You have just started taking baths with Will and he loves having you in the tub with him.  He puts all his toys in your lap and pours water all over you...I said he loves bath time, I did not say you do:)  You have just started getting attached to your "lovie" and it's a pink bunny. When Mommy lays you down at night, you reach for it and snuggle up tight with it.  Mommy and Daddy still call you "Livi Lou"...have no idea why, but it has stuck, so you'll probably think Lou is your middle name.  

Livi, I want to thank you for the way you have completed our little family.  I truly cannot stop praising God for choosing me to be your Mommy and for making you so perfect!  You are a little ray of sunshine and I cannot imagine our lives without you.  I rock you to bed every night and pray over you...not just for protection, but in admiration at God's gift.  I am smitten with you sweet girl and I cannot wait to watch your little personality develop.  I can already tell that you're going to be feisty because you don't give up a toy, to Will, without a fight.  You also will fight your Mommy and Daddy when you don't want to be put down...you throw your head back and bow your back, and you make it known that you are still wanting to be held :)  

We love you to the moon and back Angel Girl!  
Love, Mommy

When our best feels mediocre...

Lately I have had more and more conversations with women who are feeling overwhelmed in some capacity.  I will confess that the majority of these conversations have begun over my own confession of feeling overwhelmed, but the fact that others are so willing to jump in with a "yes!! me too!" leads me to believe that there is probably some element of this in everyone's life.  If you happen to be that one person who has it all together and never feels the burden of "trying to keep up" then go ahead and close this page because my candidness is probably not going to appeal to you.  I am so far from the one who has it all together it's ridiculous.  My 9 month old is still not on a schedule, my toddler is not potty-trained, my floors have not been mopped in several weeks, I sometimes cram my week-long Bible Study into one night, I can't talk on the phone without someone crying in the background, I can hardly make it to Bible Study with "real" clothes on, I use a lot of dry shampoo, I bribe my toddler with fruit snacks, I feed my child Totinos pizzas, I am not organic, I pretend fruit pouches are real fruits and vegetables, I think breakfast for dinner means I really tried, I "text" people back in my head but never actually text them, and this list goes on and on-but I'm doing my best!

Have you ever considered the phrase, "you did your best, that's all that matters".  I am sure I am not the only one who heard this as a child(maybe not when I got a 7 out of 100 on a Chemistry test)...and I know I will say these words to my own children when they are old enough to understand.  "Our best"...I feel like the older I get, the more pressure I put on myself to be my "best" for so many people...and somehow along the way, "best" has been twisted into "perfection".  I am a self-proclaimed people-pleaser...always have been, and while I have worked on this, I probably always will be-to some extent.  I think people-pleasers are at their very core a bit of a perfectionist.  I hate the term perfectionist because I know there is no such thing as earthly perfection, so I think it sounds almost vain, but the type of perfection I am referring to is more of an emotional perfection.  The emotional need that some of us women feel to be "all things" to all people...to make everyone happy.  I am that person.  I have always been that person, but now I am that person with a husband and 2 precious young children.  I am that person with dinners to cook, friends to be called, a house to be cleaned, family to be checked on, etc. etc.  At the end of the day, I just don't feel like I can keep up.  I feel like I have let people down because I forget to send a birthday text...or forgot to check on their sick child, or forget to take a meal to the church member who had a baby, and so on and so on.  

As I was standing in the shower the other day, I asked myself, "am I doing my best?"  And to my surprise, the answer is yes.  While my "best" feels very mediocre, at this stage in my life, it truly is the best I can give.  As simple as this sounds, it really freed my mind and my heart to stop being so hard on myself.  I don't have to beat myself up for being forgetful, or for not doing as much for others as I would like to be doing, or for sometimes serving the same meal 3 nights in a row (I have a great husband who doesn't complain), or for not having a Pinterest Award worthy gift for my son's class at Christmas.  I am doing my best.  Period.  I don't want to go through life feeling overwhelmed or feeling guilt for not being able to do it all.  I have spent a few weeks now trying to simplify things as much as possible.  One of my favorite sayings-"you make time for what's important to you".  This requires determining what IS most important to you...which for me is my Savior, my family and my friends.  Even our friendships need reassessing from time to time-which is no easy task, but a necessary one...to determine which friendships are worth your time, energy and love.  

Each season in our lives brings about new and different challenges...and I'm finding the importance to treat each "season" as just that...a season.  I think in recognizing how taxing the challenges of our current season can be on us, it can also create a deeper understanding in what those around us may be feeling.  Grace is a beautiful thing and we all need it...but I sometimes forget to give it to myself.  So with the new year, I am going to give myself the gift of grace as my New Year's Resolution...so that I can let go of feeling mediocre :)

"But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes 

the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6