Good Mom, "Bad" Mom

I just posted today on Facebook about how I'm so excited that my 1 year old really loves nutritious food. Here is a picture of her covered in black beans, one of her favorite foods:

We'll call this "Good Mom" picture. Not that it's necessarily a personal accomplishment that she loves foods that are good for her. Since people are quick to credit mothers with their children's bad behaviors, so I'm going to give myself as many points as possible.

I just want to point out in this next picture, she is at least eating chopped up organic pears.

But since she also has a black eye, we'll call this "Bad" Mom picture. Bad is in quotes because I know her black eye isn't my fault and that it happens to a lot of kids that are learning to walk. I know that she's got a lot of clumsy genes not working in her favor (maybe partially my fault). But I still feel so gosh darn bad about that eye. She looks like she's been boxing.

If I were to make a post called Good Dad, "Bad" Dad, I'd say how "Good Dad" got our child dressed in her pajamas so that I could have a few minutes of rest. 

But then I would post this picture to show how"Bad Dad" dressed her:

But I'm not going to post about that.

A year of growth

Our sweet little girl turned one this week. I haven't been able to blog in awhile because I'm so busy chasing her, tickling her, playing patty cake, reading books and laughing and laughing and laughing. I'm still wondering how this:

turned into this:

and then became this:

and then way too quickly became this:

and then I blinked for ONE SECOND and she became this:

Next thing I know, we're having her first birthday party and I'm smiling on the outside but freaking out on the inside thinking Where did that year go???

Pregnancy was so...stressful. Partly because I made it that way. Should we have waited longer to have a baby? Are we ready for this? Do I have enough clothes for her? Am I going to be a good parent? Everyone wants to give parenting advice and each person's advice was conflicted with the next person's and I read too many things about parenting and baby raising and took the advice/criticism of others WAY to heavily. Basically, when I went in to have the baby, I was a wreck.

Then that baby came out and they placed her on my chest and she opened her eyes and stared at me. My brain reset and my heart exploded and absolutely nothing that happened before that moment mattered. 

My husband and I talk often about how silly we were to wonder if we were ready for a baby. We weren't, but not in the way we originally thought. Nothing could have prepared us for such inexplicable love and joy.

Working with it

I'm envious of how my husband can turn his brain into a complete blank. This is what my brain was thinking in its "relaxed" state this morning: almost walking toddler keeps rearranging all my kitchen furniture, phantom baby poop smell...where is it coming from? $1000 bucks to fix our car, ugly striped wall paper in the kitchen WON'T.COME.OFF, coffee not available in an IV, laundry up to my neck, pouring outside, negative groceries in the fridge - do I have time to go to the store, house is a mess. nothing prepared for first birthday, no prayer time, cat litter traveling all over laundry room, how do people save enough to maintain their home? i want to curl up in a ball with a blanket and a cup of tea and read a good book.

Sometimes I think that's just how women are designed. I can't control that I'm always thinking, but I can work with it and turn it into this: baby is almost walking so exciting, I'm so glad we have the money to fix our car, what a BLESSING that we finally got a nicer house than we ever dreamed of, i love cooking in this kitchen, I'm glad my herbs are getting water from the rain, Lord help me use the abundance in my life for others, let's see what i can whip up with the pantry items, one project at a time, i think we have too much stuff we should donate, i think i'll curl up with the baby and the very hungry caterpillar and read using silly voices.


I couldn't think of how to turn the baby poop one positive. I really need to find out where that smell is coming from.