I’ve been on bedrest twice with two of my pregnancies.  With Engineer I had pre-eclampsia and was down for three weeks.  With Sugar I had "pre-term labor" (not sure how serious/legit it was since she was born at 40 weeks gestation) and was down for six weeks.  Bedrest is lonely, dull and difficult and I always longed for visitors who didn’t seem to come often enough.

I always try to understand purpose in my trials and what I gleaned from my bedrest experiences (aside from healthy babies) was compassion for others experiencing the same situation.  I vowed to never let anyone else suffer with loneliness and lack during a time of bedrest.

A friend of mine recently was hospitalized for pregnancy issues– she’s been in and out of the hospital on bedrest for a month and a half or two.  I have visited once.  Yes, you heard me once.  Every time I was ready to go for a visit, my kids would get sick or I would get sick.  I’ve been trying to get out to the hospital for three weeks now and we have just been pillaged with the plague. And yesterday she had her baby 13 weeks premature.

And I have learned yet another lesson.

Forgiveness.

Not that I am super quick to forgive myself mind you, because trust me I am kicking myself right now, even though the situation is mostly out of my hands.  But I realize now,or am willing to believe, that all those people who didn’t come and visit me weren’t necessarily avoiding me– they just had life happen to them too.  Life pretty much stops for a person on bedrest, but it continues to go on for everyone else, regardless of how good a friend or how close a relative to you they are.  So with this realization I forgive.  And I continue to be a champion for the bedridden with a new resolve.

Who do you know who could use a visit from you?  (That’s sort of rhetorical, no need to leave it in the comments.)

I have no babies to name as of yet (well besides the ones I already named).  But a lot of my friends have newborns right now and baby names are a hot topic, so I thought I would put out some thoughts for those pregnant or future pregnant women.  (And anyone else who will name a baby at some point in their lives.) 

Let’s assume you’ve found the perfect name.  Totally unique.  Easy to pronounce based on the spelling.  Right number of syllables to correspond with your baby’s last name.  This is the one!  You have got the PERFECT name for your little angel.  But before you curse bless junior for the rest of his life, I would ask, have you considered the repeatability of the name?  Is this a name you are going to be comfortable saying over and over every day for the next 18 years or more?

"Carraway!  Don’t hit your sister!  Carraway!  Get your shoes on!  Carraway!  Carraway!  Carraway!"

Is the name sweet enough that you can yell it at the top of your lungs several times a week without making it sound like a curse word?

"What the.. SHAQUAN!  SHAQUAN!  I Can’t believe the… ShaqUAN!  SHAQUAN!  GET DOWN HERE!"

Does it go well with the siblings names when spoken/shouted in rapid succession?  Or is your tongue going to get tied?

"Serendipity, Shawntika, Temperance, Declan!  Who made this mess?"  (Heaven forbid you add anyone’s middle name..).

And lastly, if you plan on having more babies, don’t pick a name that could potentially cause sibling rivalry.

"Suzy, why can’t you be more like Favorite?"  "Jimmy, take heed from Exceptional’s example."

And these are the thoughts of my mind as I got the uncooperative people in my house ready for school this morning.  Happy Naming!

*Pssst!  All these unique names were found at:http://www.babynameworld.com

Disclaimer: If you are the super baby proofing mom who keeps her children away from scissors until their teens, please take no offense at this post– none is intended.

We are doing a preschool co-op group this year.  Five moms take turns teaching preschool and for the other four weeks get "free" education for their little one.  I haven’t decided yet if I like it, but I think it’s going well.

Yesterday was my turn to teach.  

The first activity we did involved cutting out little animals along very straight lines.  Two of the children (mine included) cut perfectly without need of any of my help.  Rocked it.  The other three… umm… struggled… as in didn’t even know how to hold the scissors.  It was very frustrating for them.  It was frustrating for me as well (I’m untrained in scissor instruction and not being paid) trying to help each of these kids individually, while praying the other helpless scissor children did not cut themselves during this time of private instruction.  It quickly became clear that these kids never had any opportunity to use scissors at home.  As I glanced at my own rockstar scissor-ess sitting amongst my chaotically unclean home, I pictured these other kids in their super clean, well kept homes and I got a little irritated.  Felt a little judgmental. Thought, how dare these moms clean their houses and never let their child cut paper with little blunt scissors.

Until I called my mom.

Hoping for validation that my way was clearly better– I may not have a tidy house, but my children have experiences– I asked, "Mom, which way were you, I can’t remember, were you the free and easy mom or were you the mom who kept the scissors away until we were in jr. high?"

Her answer: "I was the one who kept the scissors away."

My reply, "Really? But I’m not that kind of mom."

Hers? "Your children cut their own hair."  (You know how everyone says that every little girl cuts her own hair at least once?  I never did.  Now I know why.)

So of course, I felt deflated.  Because at near 30 years old I am expert with the scissors and I pretty much turned out awesome, so clearly the clean scissor free house method of parenting works…ahem… well. So much for my parenting theories.

So to all the scissor free and tidy mom’s out there, I apologize for my judgment and criticism.  I salute you for your baby proofing skills.  It does not make me excited for scissors at preschool, but at least I now know your children stand a chance of turning out as great as me.  And I hope my parenting style yields as great of results in my own children.  I think I’d be okay if my girls turned out to be hairdressers.  They do have mad scissor skills after all.

And I don’t usually use that word very often…

Between the new liquid regulations and the luggage fees, I am having a heck of a time.  It is a NO WIN situation here and it ticks me off.  I would rather have the airlines charge a slightly higher fee to travel and include at least one damn bag!

Picture this: sweet, beauty consultant on a budget is going to a destination wedding for the weekend.  Said beauty consultant has a need of many liquid products for her, ahem, beauty regimen.  Not to mention that lovely woman is going to be IN the destination wedding.  She only needs ONE bag, which she does NOT want to check and PAY a gazillion dollars for.  BUT she has need of many products.  Fortunately, all the products she can SURVIVE ON fit in a quart size bag.  Do they fit "comfortably"?  Debatable.  Do all the little potions look like something someone could create a b*mb with?  If you watch a lot of crime shows on network television: most definitely.

So where does that leave me?

Pretty irritated and crossing my fingers.  I hate being nickled and dimed!

There is something about having three kids that causes people to ask me this question.  "Are you going to have more?" they ask when they find out the ages and quantity of kids at my house.  I didn’t get it as much when I just had two, so I have concluded it is because I have three.  Or it could be that they are so close in age.  Or it could be because I don’t look older than 22–it’s a curse, I know. 

So what is it about having three people in tow that inspires this question?  In a nation where most families have one or two kids (if any), do they see people with three as being some kind of "mass producers"?  Is there some invisible line you cross when you have a third child?  Is there a sign on my forehead that says "BABY MAKER?"

I mean, the truth is, I totally do it to other people too.  When a mom is young, her kids are close in age and she has more than 2 kids, I ask.  I want to know.  I ask people with 2 kids or 1 kid too, so maybe maybe people are just naturally nosy. Maybe we (I include myself) shouldn’t be inquiring so much into other people’s reproductive plans!

A few months ago when people would ask me if we were going to have more I would tell them I didn’t know.  Or I would say, "not right now" or "maybe."  I mean, really, who knows for certain anyway?  I could say no, and then get pregnant on accident.  I could say yes and then be infertile for the rest of my life.  I’m not really in charge when it comes to the miracle of life department.

But I have finally made the crazy decision to go big or go home.  When people ask me now, I say with certainty that, yes I want another one.  I sort of wish I could answer with my previous response of vaguey vagueness, as people’s responses have been varied and surprising.  My peeps at church smile and ask me about pregnancy every time they see me eating a cracker so no worries with them.  My protestant mother has been practically begging for another child to emerge from my womb for months now, so again she’s a fan.  But other people, mostly strangers and acquaintances give me borderline negative responses.

Most people just look at me in shock.  (Which is funny, because they asked the question, they knew it could only go 1 of 2 ways).  "Really, why?"  "How could you handle ANOTHER one?"  "Wow."  I mean no one has ever gone off on a tirade about population control or told me I was unfit, but sometimes when they don’t say anything, I can see it on their faces– the disapproval and disbelief in their minds is formulating.

It made me really thankful that the nurse practitioner who took my iud out was pretty neutral on the subject.  She asked why I was getting the iud out, how many kids I already had and told me to take some prenatal vitamins and get a flu shot.  (Trust me, I was ready for the lecture/the refusal to remove my birth control).

I think I know why we ask each other though, if we are going to have more.  I think it’s because we want to seek commonality amongst each other.  Moms seek validation from other moms.  Validation for why we don’t want more, or why we do.  I naturally ask other mom’s of three kids if they will have more to see if they are like me.  It doesn’t matter to me if they don’t want more, because I totally get that, I haven’t always wanted more myself and at times (during Sugar’s tantrums) still don’t. But when another mom of three says she wants more, it makes me feel more normal.  It makes me feel less alone in wanting a big family.   So I think it’s probably okay to keep asking.  But I think we all could be a little more careful in our response.  Mom’s are fragile people too sometimes. 

P.S. Don’t take this post as an announcement, Mom.  Definitely not pregnant yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about forgiveness.  But what is up with these celebrities and their bad behavior?  First Serena, and then Kanye.  (Beyonce, however, is a classy lady I must say).

What gets me, is that they do these reckless nasty things and then they issue these elaborate apologies to the public.  To me they always seem sort of "not sorry" like their mom is making them apologize to the neighbor kid.  It drives me nuts, because while I think apologizing is important, these public appearances seem insincere and pointless.  And when it comes down to it, they still did a really jerky thing that people are not going to be quick to forget.  If you are constantly doing mean things and then saying sorry, and then doing mean things– you’re still mean.

Real life is kind of like that too.

You can always apologize for what you’ve done.  You can do something horrid and say you are sorry and then be forgiven.  But if that’s your life plan– do first, apologize later– you are going to lose a LOT of friends.  It is so much easier if you take the ten extra seconds to THINK about the action you are about to engage in, and consider not how it will make you look, but how it will affect the people around you.  Because while you can always say you are sorry, you can never change the thing you did. 

You can say you were an idiot, Kanye, and you can say you’re sorry.  But you can’t take back the hurt and shock and embarassment you caused Taylor Swift.  You stole her moment, and even though Beyonce tried to make up for it, you can never give it back to her.

Today I am crying and I’m not really sure why…

I am crying because I put Sugar on the kindergarten bus for the first time

I am crying because of the rain

I am crying because summer is over and when the sun goes away, the sadness will come

I am crying because I have too much time and not enough time

I am crying because I don’t know what I am doing

I am crying because I don’t know what I am supposed to be doing

I am crying because other people are crying and I can’t take away their tears

I am crying because change is coming and I don’t know how to let go or if I am even supposed to

Is it okay if I just shred my to-do list and waste the day with tears today?

That’s what the wrongly convicted, now freed prisoners in Texas are saying.

Some of these men have been imprisoned for 25 years or more.  Can you imagine?  Prison is a horrible place, as it should be for societies criminals, but to be there unjustly?  To spend a third of your life there for something you didn’t do?  Now granted, these men are being released and compensated heavily, but like one man said, "no amount of money can replace the time we’ve lost."

And this brings me to another thought.  I waste time.  I lose time everyday doing things that are of little value and will not bring me long term success or joy.  Most of it on the internet to be fair.  Time is precious, it’s the one commodity we can never obtain more of.  What things am I missing?  What is being lost?  In 25 years no one is going to pay me for my lost time– and it wouldn’t satisfy me anyway.

So… what about you?  Where is your time being wasted?  And what are you going to do to fix it?

In our church we put a strong focus on the family.  Families are important and eternal, and this is a good thing.  Husbands and wives have unique strengths, attributes and also different roles.  Whenever possible husbands should be the providers, and wives should be the nurturers and caregivers of their children.

I am not "employed" outside the home.  For the most part that is fine with me– I don’t want to be away from my precious little ones for 40+ hours a week and have been blessed to not have to do so. I like being able to stay home with my kids, but I don’t love being a "stay-at-home" mom.  Maybe it’s because I have always been a driven and goal oriented person.  Maybe it’s because I never had a "career" after college.  I don’t want to leave my babies and work for the man, but I crave adult stimulation and rewards for work well done.

So I own my own business.  I am an independent consultant with Mary Kay.  In the fall I will be teaching a Musikgarten class and I also have a booth at the local antiques store.  I love bringing home a paycheck (be it ever so small) with my name on it.  I like being with other women, setting goals, attaining those and being rewarded for it.

Now with all that background, let me tell you, I don’t always know where I "fit" among the other women at church.  I identify the most with those that work part time, but those are few.  Most of the women are stay at home moms and that is what they do, and they often don’t even interact with other women outside of church.  And because I am at home with my kids most of the time, these are the ladies I should identify with the most– but I don’t.

It’s totally laudible that they stay home with their kids, put total focus on their children and keep clean houses.  But it’s just not me.  I always thought I wanted to be like that, but as it turns out I have different desires.  Is it totally selfish that I want more from my life?  My children will only be little for so long– should I make my life ALL about them?  And yet even if I made that shift I don’t think I would be able to relate to these women any more than I do now.

Just my thoughts.  Yours?

Have you ever played the game Katamari Damacy?  It’s pretty much the reason my hubs bought a ps2.  The gameplay is simple– you roll around the house/the world accumulating stuff on your little ball.  The ball gets bigger and bigger and at the end of the level the king of the cosmos throws it into the sky to become a star.  To give you an idea:

Anyway.  Before he throws it into the sky he tells you what you collected the most of and the name of the star is based on that factor.  Maybe Japanese food is what you got the most of and your star is then named Blowfish Star.  When it’s toys he calls it Bratty Star. 

In my quest for organization, I have to wonder what it is that I have the most of all over my floors.  I think it just might be laundry.  My katamari would definitely be made up of dirty laundry.  What kind of star name would that be?  Tide Star?  Polyester Star?  No, Racing Stripes Star.  Yes that is it.