Mommy Guilt Sucks

This little guy used to be the center of my world entirely.... him and him only. He was the only baby in our family. My brother and sister hadn’t had children yet and the next baby in the family {my nephew} didn’t come until Jayden was 5. That’s 5 years of being spoiled by not only his mom & dad but my mom, my brother, and my husband’s family.

When he was 6 the next baby of the family came and that baby came directly to our little family. Miss Ella Bella.

I love how my family is growing, honestly I do ~ and the fact that we’re adding yet another to our family is beyond exciting. But my little man just keeps growing up, and our family just keeps growing. I can’t help but worry is he getting lost in the shuffle? Ever since Ella was born a lot of attention has been put on her, because of her heart. I hope I’ve never made Jayden feel like he wasn't special or important, because he is still my everything. He is still and always be my first born, and he will always be the center of my world…. This little man changed my life for the better the minute I felt him move inside me.

I think that I need to do more things with just him so that he feels special.

Now to elaborate a little more on this….

Jayden’s growing up. He’s going to be 9 in a month and he’s much more independent than his 3 year old little sister. When I’m home she literally consumes me. Ella and I have spent the last 3 years together day in and day out. She’s venturing into being little miss independent and she needs constant supervision. And now there’s going to be a newborn in a few months ~ and I’m terrified that Jayden is going to not feel important…. And I need to make sure that this doesn’t happen! I need to make sure that everyday I am making him feel special and important in some way…. And that he gets alone time with me w/no other children getting in the way.

To top all of this off, tonight as I'm frustrated and trying to get Ella to bed and my frustrations were apparently showing, Jayden says to me, "Geez! What did I ever do to you? Why do you keep yelling at me?"

*GASP* was I yelling? I didn't even realize I was yelling. I knew I felt frustrated, but in no way shape or form was it towards him. I had to grab him, hug him and apologize right then and there, because I deserved the BAD MOM award for that one.

Am I alone in feeling like this with my children?

Welcome to another week of me pouring my heart out.

Pour Your Heart Out.... she's a girl and I'm going to let her be one!

I've been having blog issues... in fact my blog has been a bit MIA ~ literally over the past couple of weeks. I finally have at least this back and am working on getting my domain garibaysoup.com back.

With that being said....

I'm making a come back with a post for Shell's awesome Pour Your Heart Out Wednesday... because I have some major pouring to do.

I have a daughter. And I've always dreamed of having a daughter. I've had dreams for my daughter forever. Maybe her dreams will be different, and that's fine, but until she realizes what her dreams are I will be fulfilling mine for her.

I've always envisioned my little girl to be a little girl, a dancer, dressed in tutus and everything like sugar and spice. I know, this just might change when she's older, but for now she's living my vision.... and she loves it. She loves to dance, she loves to dress up, she loves being a girl. Keep in mind I'm not like putting makeup on her and throwing her in pageants and being like toddlers and tiaras, but I'm letting her be A GIRL...... does she look like she's suffering in this picture?

SO.... here's where I pour it all out.

We had my in-laws stop in for a night on their way to Washington {because we are a completely awesome pit stop place to stay} and for a night on their way back home. On their way up the visit was nice.... extremely short, but whatever. Apparently spending an extra day with my kids wasn't in their plans, but the visit on their trip back SUCKED.

There's a lot of things that went on that I'm not going to get into right now, but one thing irritated the hell out of me. My husband's little sister is going to be a freshmen in high school. Since she grew up with only brothers I guess her parents found it right to put her in sports all her life. Which is FINE! However.... I AM NOT DOING THIS WITH MY DAUGHTER. I REFUSE. If she comes to me and says, "Mom, I would like to play basketball." I will support her. But I am not going to shove her in sports, and I sure as hell am not going to shove my son who doesn't want to play sports into sports.

Well, apparently I'm unreasonable to not put Ella in sports in addition to dance classes. Um.... I'm pretty sure that she's my kid. I'm pretty sure that I carried her for 9 months, pushed her out and get to make the decisions for her until she can make them for herself. And that's the privilege I GET because I AM HER MOM.

So to have people enter my home and try to argue with me about this is the most IRRITATING thing in the entire world. We are not them, we will never be them. I am pretty sure that my husband and I are raising our children the way we WANT TO, and we will accept outside opinions when you are financially, emotionally and physically supporting my children... until then, please keep your opinions on what I should do with my children TO YOURSELF!

And my daughter will NEVER NEVER NEVER play softball... I would like to make that clear to my sister in law.  So, you can put your daughter in softball, but mine will not be in softball.

Okay, that felt good.

My Little Stutterer

I love Shell's Pour Your Heart Out Wednesdays, because I am one that REALLY loves to pour her heart out on her blog.  This week I'm dealing with something new and heartbreaking so here I go ~ 

A little over a week ago my little girl started to stutter. At first it would just be her repeating the first sound of the sentence over and over for a few times before she finally spit it out, but now it's worse. She actually will open her mouth and have such difficulty getting the word out that she just attempts trying.

This mama is HEARTBROKEN! I pray HARD that this is just some phase she's going through and she will outgrow it, and she won't stutter for the rest of her life.... because my heart can't handle her feelings getting hurt from the mean kids she'll encounter.

I made her a doctor's appointment, against everybody's advice. Even my son's speech therapist's advice. Luckily I saw him at the park and snagged him for a little insight into his brain on what we're going through.  His main advice was patience, don't put words in her mouth, basically just let her work on it on her own.  But she struggles and all I want to do is help her slow it down and give her the word she's trying to say.  

Now here's the downfall of parenting.  You hurt when they hurt and the more kids you have I think the more hurt you're going to have to feel!  With having an SPD child I've hurt a lot.  My heart has felt like it was literally stabbed when he comes home to tell me that some evil child has told him how weird he is.  My heart has been stabbed as I've watched him with his beautiful manner at the age of 5 walk up to a kid to play with him and introducing himself as Jayden, while putting his hand out to shake it ~ only for that evil child to turn around and walk away from him.

I don't want my kids to hurt more than general life already will make them hurt.  I don't want my daughter to come home crying because somebody made fun of her because no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't get that word out.

I'm taking Ella to the doctors even if it's a waste of time and he tells me the exact same thing as the speech therapist told me, because I want to do everything I possibly can as early as I possibly can if this does indeed turn out to be a problem and not a phase.

Faith ~ Scripture Journal

Attn my dear blog readers.  I understand that my Faith is likely to be different than your's and while I may make references to my faith at times I try to speak from my heart on a certain values or subjects.  So, while you might not believe in what I believe in, you might find a little nugget from my heart that might touch your's.  And my brain is scattered and sometimes my blog posts might come off that way as well 

With that said..... 

Without faith we don't have much.  I was born LDS, but was not necessarily raised LDS.  I don't think I ever once had a sturdy go to church every Sunday structure in my life.  Honestly, I didn't know much about the church, but there was a seed that was planted in my heart at a very young age, and that seed grew.  So while I never knew much about the church my heart belonged to, in my heart and with faith I knew this church was true.

I've been studying up on Faith, which is a very important value in all of our lives.  I think this scripture pretty much sums up Faith in the most amazing way {Alma 32:17-32}.  

Without faith, what dreams would we have.  I dream big and I dream with faith.  I have faith that my dreams will come true.  I live my life knowing with faith that my family will be a family for all eternity.  Do I have perfect knowledge of this?  No, but it definitely gives me something to be thankful for.  If I had perfect knowledge would I experience the lessons in life that I experience?  Probably not. If I had perfect knowledge would there be much room for forgiveness from Heavenly Father for my sins?  Probably not.  

President Spencer W. Kimball once wrote a book called {Faith Precedes the Miracle} which is definitely on my list of must reads.  In it he talks of how men reverses the process of Faith.  Using a seed for example we plant a seed with FAITH that a blossom will form.  We don't expect to see a blossom without planting the seed, right?  We as human have reversed the process.  We expect results without exercising Faith.  I quote from President Kimball "We want to have health and strength without keeping the health laws.  We want to have prosperity without paying our tithes.  We want to be close to the Lord but don't want to fast and pray."

We have to have faith that there is a reason that God has set up our lives the way that they are set up.  We have to have faith that there is a purpose to every day.  We have to have a faith that we will be together with our families for all eternity, because could you fathom the contrary?  Faith gets us through each day, through our lives, but we have to remember that the miracle comes after Faith.  If you have a dream, you have to have faith in God that he will help you do everything possible to make that dream come true.

With parenting and marriage I think I have experienced far more faith than ever in my life.  Not only faith in God, but faith in myself, faith in my husband, faith in my children.  Parenting alone has so many trials and without faith I don't know how I'd get through my day.  Even the little things, faith that bedtime will indeed come and I will have that peace I so desperately need, faith that the tantrum being thrown will pass.  Faith that the phases that they go through that make you want to literally pull every single hair out of your head is just indeed a phase.  Faith in yourself that you are what your children need.  

Marriage, I have to have faith that my marriage will succeed all trials that it faces.  I have to have faith that he loves only me, as he has to have faith that I only love him.  We do not have perfect knowledge of these things, which is why in marriage faith is one of the most important things there is.  Faith in our sacred relationship is what helps us get through the trials.  I have faith that every trial we face is dealt to us for a reason and that there is a lesson to be learned through it.  In my marriage we have faced some ROUGH, and I mean ROUGH ROUGH ROUGH trials.  I've said it before on my blog, things people throw the towel in over and call it quits, but FAITH kept us together.  Faith that we were bigger than the trials we went through, and Faith that God would help us to get to the point we needed to be at in order to continue on with our marriage ~ and love each other.

I close this post with a quote from {Alma 32:21} "Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true."

His First Meeting with Bishop

The first part of this post really isn't my Pour Your Heart Out ~ it's more towards the end.  I originally didn't write this post as a Pour Your Heart Out post, but realized that towards the end that's kinda what I did :)  

We've set the baptism date {this Saturday, 5:00pm LDS church in Ashland on Clay Street} So, if you didn't know about it, now you know about it. You can consider this your invitation :)


A picture of my favorite LDS Temple in SLC ~ Jayden loved going to this temple

Today Jayden had to go talk with the Bishop like every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints gets to do before baptism. When we set the appointment I thought to myself... 'Uh oh! Does Jayden even know what he's doing?! Why he's getting baptized?! What the heck this all means?!' So, we sat down to ask him a few questions to see how much he knew. Even though he goes to church, loves Jesus, loves God knows that the Holy Ghost is a good thing and not a creepy thing.... he really didn't have a clue.

I've tried to explain it to the best of my abilities, and I was very pleased today when he got out of his appointment with the Bishop that Bishop said... "He did great! Answered all the questions I had right." THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! I really didn't think he was paying attention to the things I was telling him.

I'm so excited for my handsome, little man.

I look at our lives 5 years ago, when Jayden was only 3 and wow, what a difference. I never would have thought in a million years we'd be where we are at in our lives. I never thought in a million years I'd be back at church let alone bringing my entire family with me. I never thought I'd be planning my son's baptism. 5 years is a HUGE difference. 5 years ago my marriage was on the rocks, 5 years ago I never thought my family would last.... and now look at us. It makes me smile and makes feel so proud of US, because we did this together ~ and it makes me borderline emotional to think about it.  I think that we have the church to thank for where we are at in our lives right now, because it gave us the missing piece in our lives that we never knew we were missing.  It's really funny how that can happen, how you can discover that when you thought your life was complete it really wasn't.  Just another interesting little weirdness about life.

An Update for my 2nd Glass of Pour your Heart Out

I SERIOUSLY never know what to expect with the situation with my niece and her mother. If you haven't read {THIS} post yet, you should.  This is an update to my post for 

The original plan was that my niece's mother was leaving Sacramento yesterday at 7pm to drive 5 hours, in the snow to pick up Alana. Then after she picks her toddler up and disturbs my family in the middle of the night, she then was planning on traveling back to Sacramento, in the snow, with her toddler. Needless to say, I was frustrated and upset.

Then I get a phone call from her saying that she's going to instead be leaving at 2pm today. Then I get a message left on my voicemail from her brother saying they'll be leaving around 2 and will be arriving here around 7. Whatever.

Oh, that's when things change. This morning I could tell her mom had been partying all night and now she's having issues with her family and has canceled the entire thing. So, now after I have prepared Alana for her mom coming to get her she has changed her mind.  Alana was expecting her mom, and I am relieved.

Her brother most definitely had not changed his plans, because I received a call from him letting me know he's running late.  I had to inform him that I most definitely will not be handing Alana over to ANYBODY except for her own mother, and at this point her own mother prefers her to remain here with me.  Thank God.  Did he actually think I would hand over my niece to an absolute stranger {in my eyes}, he obviously doesn't know me and the protective mother hen I am when it comes to my children and any child in my care. 

People.... this is a very, very crazy roller coaster.  I really never truly know what I'm going to wake up to.  So for now we still have her.  For now, she's still safe. 


Believe it or not, there's more {HERE}

Pour Your Heart Out - #2

On Wednesday's Shell {if you click on the image below you will be taken to her awesome blog} has one of my new favorite carnivals ~ and I'm EXTREMELY early in posting this, but tonight was a night that I absolutely had to........

so if you're reading this post and would like to participate in Pour Your Heart Out, Shell will have it up for linkups Wednesday morning.

I have had my niece Alana for 44 days. For 44 days a mother has been putting something before her own child. For 44 days a child has been without her mother. For 44 days I have struggled with trying to give this child normalcy, structure and love. Things I don't think she's seen very often, because unfortunately most of her life has been spent being tossed here, being tossed there.

I'm writing this after I received the phone call that after 44 days her mom will be coming tomorrow to get her. She's done with her party {for the time being} and is ready to play mommy for a while. But how long will it last? This is the part of taking a child into your home that's the hardest.

I HAVE to put this in God's hands and know that there is nothing I can do at this point. This child unfortunately was born to a girl who should have never been given the blessing of a child. She has no clue what honor it is to be able to love and teach your child. She has no clue what being a mom is all about. To her, when she's tired of playing the responsible role, she just tosses her to the next willing person that will take her in. I'm sad to say that unless rights are going to be signed over to me I will not be this person anymore. I can't be. It's too unstable for her and my family. My children get close and attached and then have to have her ripped from them. 44 days is a very long time in they eyes of a child. Bonds have been made.

I now have to worry about my daughter and how she's going to feel that a member of our family who has become a huge part of our life is ripped from her. Jayden is old enough that he understands that Alana was not here on a permanent basis, but my 2 1/2 year old doesn't. As much as they fought, they got along. Ella will be getting more one on one attention with me, but what about her constant play mate? I've tried to be strong and put a wall around my heart, but tonight I'm sad. I'm sad of what's to come of this precious little girl's life. I'm sad that I didn't fight harder for her. I'm sad that she's leaving the one place in her life that actually had a family feel. Not just a mom, but a dad, a brother, a sister... although we were just aunt, uncle & cousins... but it's the feeling I'm talking about. She got to experience going to church, praying before meals, getting tucked in at night. She got to experience love. And I'm sad to say that what she comes from doesn't shower her with love. Any mom that ever puts drugs and men before their own child doesn't know about being a mom.  

I wish I could give Alana the life she deserves, but for now it's not in my hands.  All I can do is put it into God's.


UPDATE TO THIS CAN BE READ {HERE}