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There are days when I really wish that I weren't Mommy. Today is not one of them. I am so proud of my little boy today. He is sweet, and helpful, and utterly innocent (meaning he's not malicious).

My Mother-in-Law (MiL) bought this little boy a movie "Once Upon a Potty" and a doll and "potty" to go with it. My son absolutely loves this little anatomically correct doll, and calls him Tony. Today he saw that I had a sink full of bubbles. BabyBoy bathes in bubbles, and to his recollection, Tony has never had a bath. So Baby Tony got tossed into my filthy sink water, to get a bath.

There is a certain children's character that has the same name as my FiL (Father-in-Law). Yesterday we put a diaper on BabyBoy that had this character on it, and he yelled, "Papa!! Papa!!" and we tried to tell him he was wrong, it was just a character, but he just kept shouting "Papa!! Papa!!" This morning he demanded that he "Papa Talk Call!! Papa talk call!!" So we called Papa, and my son actually talked to him. He told him where he was, and what he had for breakfast, and about his diaper, and the puppy knocking him over. And I sat here in amazement as my tiny baby carried on an entire conversation with his grandfather, who didn't have a clue what was being said to him. :D

In short, I am proud that my son is sweet, and caring, and mostly obedient. He is a joy to have around, and I'm not the only one who says so. I love it when I have to let someone watch him, and they tell me how polite he was. I love that the Lord has worked in our lives to the point that when my son mimics us, he mimics politeness and kindness, and good behavior. What a blessing the Lord has given me. And what a blessing that HE has given me the heart to see HIS hand on my son.

Mommee... Kisses

So my son is at this delightful stage in which every "boo-boo" can be fixed with a kiss. I love it, actually. I love *him*. He scraped his knee on a friend's trike pedal today, and he keeps coming up to me and asking me to kiss it. I wish all our problems were so tangible that we could just kiss them all better.

Grin -- don't you love it?

Last night I had four awesome, feature-length dreams. I know that I've gotten good sleep when I have a good, feature-length dream. And I had four last night!! Four that I can remember really well. I love dreams like that. And they were happy dreams. I like happy dreams.

Anyway, I swung my feet out of bed this morning, and immediately felt that finally - at long last - I have escaped from under the cloud that has been following me around the last few weeks. I felt like I was back to my happy, satisfied person.

I had a great day today. I went to a informational meeting for Foster care. I signed us up for the classes you have to take, and we're all set for the adoption stuff too. I am so eager, so excited. I filled out a lot of the paperwork today. My husband went to the doctor, and got some meds to help him feel better. I got part of the den cleaned out, and put like six pieces of furniture out on the lawn to be taken, and they all were!! Hooray!! So I cleaned some clutter out of my house, and I got rid of a bunch of boxes in the garage. I just feel soo... accomplished, so DONE!!

And I'm happy. I'm not thinking too hard about things. I got enough sleep, and I feel like I've settled something for myself, although I'm not really sure what it is. And I'm Okay with that -- the not knowing. I feel like during my sleep last night, God waved a little pixie dust over me, and said, Look chica!! You need to just relax!! I've got it all in control, and you'll figure it out in time. Just let things be, and let them happen. And the pixie dust hasn't worn off yet, and I love that feeling.

I danced tonight. I turned on the TV to watch one of my shows, and the theme song is really upbeat and peppy. And I waggled my hips and flailed my arms, and I just danced around the living room. I feel great. I feel AMAZING. And I know that God has begun a good work in me today. I know that this joy, this moment right now, will spread throughout my life, and will intoxicate all who come in contact with me. I know that *I* am in control of my emotions, not the other way around, and that just a little time spent with HIM can remind me of that, and can turn my whole attitude around.

Oh, I wish you could see me right now. I am sitting here, typing madly, chewing on the corner of my bottom lip, and just -- GRINning. I love to grin. I love the way a true GRIN starts deep down with the beat of your heart. I love that it spreads up, and you can see it in your eyes first. I love the way the corners of your eyes will crinkle up right before you just bust out with a huge smile, that makes the apples of your cheeks swell up and turn just a little pink. I love the way that even when your lips are done turning up, and the smile part is over, and you're just looking at someone, something... you still feel the grin in your cheek muscles, and in your eyelids, and in the beat of your heart.

Dark thoughts...

Today I'm doing -- okay. I'm struggling with some of my personality, and we all know how difficult that can be. I have a tendency to cling to the past, but I usually attach my past to a tangible object. I'm struggling right now, however, with a few relationships. I wonder if perhaps I am clinging to these relationships as a way of clinging to my past. I wonder if perhaps I'm thwarting God's best plans for me... I still have a lot of soul searching and prayer to do before I come to a conclusion for this.

I keep finding myself being angry at people who did me wrongs very long ago. I am surprised to see some of the violence I am feeling toward these people -- I thought I had conquered this tendency. I wonder if I am reacting physically now because that is what I used to do. I mean... for example, last night I was thinking about something that my birth sister did to me that really hurt my feelings, and was one of the final straws before my parents sent me away. She hid some food wrappers in my room -- food she had stolen from stores and from our family's freezer. Then she pretended to be sick, and while I was at school, she took Mom into my room to show her all these wrappers. She said she had wanted to borrow a book from me and had found a wrapper by accident. At the time I was furious with her -- I got a great deal of punishment and had to pay for all the food that she had stolen. It was *a lot* of food. I actually wanted to hit her, but knew that I would get in trouble. I still have that desire to hit her... and I wonder if I have that desire because I am dwelling on something in my past, so I react the way I would have in my past. But I still don't understand -- we had plenty of food in the house, and our parents never said no if we said we were hungry. Why did she steal the food? It would also have been much easier to simply throw the wrappers out in the neighbor's trash, or at a friends house, or school, or the store, or anything. Why did she go to the trouble of hiding them all over my room? At the time, we were getting along great, and I hadn't done anything mean to her in a long time. Why did she feel the need to hurt me like that, to get me into so much trouble? That's why I'm so angry. I don't know why she did it at all -- the thought that she planned it, and acted purposefully, just infuriates me.

At this moment I am not angry with her, I am merely sorry that she did it... sorry for her and her soul... and somewhat puzzled. There are other circumstances I keep remembering, and I keep feeling the same feelings I felt then -- frustration, injustice, trapped, and *hurt.* I don't know how to deal with these issues now, so long after they have happened, except to choose not to dwell on them. And I can't help but wonder -- am I merely stuffing them down, so that they will resurface later? Or am I actually choosing to forgive in that instant (which is ultimately what I *want* to do), and I just have to consistently forgive when the thought comes back?

Any thoughts?

Missing You...

I've been struggling a lot today with the "what if's" of life. Not just things in the past, but also in the future. I find myself very sad, and a little heartbroken, and I can't really explain it all.

It really started a week ago now, when I found out that my best friend from High School (I'll call her Pearl) was being visited by two other very dear friends of mine. I found myself immediately jealous of all three of them. I was jealous of Pearl because she got to see these other dear friends. I was jealous of my dear friends because they got to see Pearl.

For me, this is a daily struggle. When I was in High School, the Lord positioned me in a very tight circle of friends and family -- for the first time in my life I belonged. I met people that I grew to love and that loved me back -- for the first time in my life love was a two way street. And these people are still so very very dear to my heart. And I live two hours from them. We very rarely talk -- we all have busy schedules and long distance is expensive. We see each other even more rarely, and with the rising price of gas, the time that passes between visits will stretch longer and longer.

I miss these people with every fiber of my being some days. Today is one of those days. I want nothing more than to sit in a circle on the floor of my parents' living room and just enjoy my friends and my family. I want to see my parents more often. I want to hang out with my friends. I want to journey down to see Pearl for myself. I hate that life is moving on all around us, and that they're not a part of my daily life anymore. I just miss them so much!!

I love my son and my husband, and I wouldn't trade them for the world!! Please don't misunderstand me. I just wish that somehow I could drag them down to Indy and we could all live there. I don't want to be back in High School. I just want to be a part of my friend's lives. I guess I don't want to be forgotten. When I see my friends, I don't want to be reenacting a chapter from my past -- I want to be extending my future. I once knew these people backwards and forwards. I knew who all their friends were, and had heard their stories so many times I could tell them better than my friends sometimes. And now I call and they're living life with new friends and loved ones. And I don't know who these new people are or what part they play in the life of this person I love. What things could they tell me about my friend that I don't know anymore?

I know that I struggle with change. I tend to cling to things just because they remind me of someone or something I loved, even though I will always have those memories, even without the memento. I wonder if my calls to my friends are like those mementos -- am I trying too hard to cling to my past? Have these people played out their roles in my life, and I'm trying to drag them back onto the stage, when they don't really belong? And how come they get to be a part of each other's lives, but I can't be? I'm not really bitter, like that sounds... I'm just sad. I miss my friends.

KER-TWHAP-BUMP-DONK

A friend of a friend posted this, and I feel that it is particularly appropriate tonight. My son is two, and is very, very fond of his "Bath!! Buzzles!!" (Bubble bath) Tonight I turned on the water and poured in the bubbles and went to put the dog outside. When I came back, BigBoy was sitting in the tub, happily playing with his ducks and foam letters. I turned off the water and left again, staying within earshot. All of a sudden I hear "heehee heehee heehee... HA HA HA!!" This odd sound repeats itself a few more times, really really loudly. Then I hear KER-TWHAP-BUMP-DONK. I go rushing in, in time to see my son stand back up and run to the other end of the tub. KER-TWHAP-BUMP-DONK. Feet hit side of tub, butt hits water, feet hit tub again, butt hits tub again. "HEEHEE HEEHEE HEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

I looked down, and I had to be standing in at least an inch of water. I said, "Topher, keep the water in the tub!" He grinned, pointed, and said, "You mess, Mommy." And I said, "Do you know how the mess got here?"
"Nope!"

Ahh... Sleep.

So I'm feeling pretty good today. I'm wearing new pants that feel great. I have a love/hate relationship with my new pants. I love that they fit great, feel great, are a beautiful color, and were inexpensive. I hate that I found them in the women's section. But I feel more attractive in these "big" jeans than I have felt in any of my "thin" jeans for the last two years!! I think this may be the motivation I need to lose that extra ten pounds. Who would have thought that buying a bigger pair of pants would make me want to lose weight -- not because they're bigger, but because they make me feel great!

Okay -- beyond the jeans. :D I went to work at 5:30 this morning, and we flew. I did pretty well: not my best by any means, but still respectable. We had very few corrections to make, and we were out of there by 12:30!! I stopped by my best friend's house and talked with her for a while. I got to feed her baby and play with her puppy too.

My son's sitter's cat just had five little kittens yesterday. She's very protective of them, but they're very beautiful. Two are going to be tiger stripped -- orange and tan, and two are going to be dark slate grey, and one is going to be brown and grey speckles, like his momma. We actually haven't determined the gender of any of the kittens yet. I'm dying to have one, and so is BabyBoy, but Hubby is allergic. So I won't try to slowly poison my husband to death, no matter how much I want a tiny little kitty. Plus, momma and daddy are both really tiny cats -- skinny and small boned -- so the kids have a good chance of being really sleek and beautiful.

My son has been begging to sleep in the "big boy" bed at his sitter's house, and he's done really well at staying in it. I'm really thinking that he's completely ready for the toddler bed my MiL got him. It's got a guardrail, so it would be a great transition from crib to toddler. My sitter's kids don't have rails on their beds, and Baby does fine in those. It's amazing to me, because she lets her kids leave toys all over the floor, and Booger doesn't try to play. He lays down really still, and stays until she opens the door and tells him he can get up.

Life isn't really complicated right now. I'm getting better quality sleep than I've gotten in a long time. God has really blessed us: a new mattress, new sheets (big difference!!), a healthy tummy, a good job, a sweet hubby, a relatively clean house, and a support system to help me deal better with stress. I'm not lying in bed at night thinking of "one more thing" that needs to go on my list. I'm not waking at two in the morning with a desperate need to journal to get all my thoughts out of my brain. And if I do wake at two, I can get back to sleep in like ten minutes. I'm taking a natural supplement to help hair and nails, and it helps me sleep better. A lot of my stressers (money, clutter, health) have been getting better slowly. And I talked with my dad for a while a week or so ago, and we really worked some things out for me, I think. He showed me how I've forgotten to include God in this struggle, and as I remember to include HIM, I sleep better and better.

Reality Check ~sigh~

Well, today I finally did it. I went into a store, and I walked straight to the women's section. I didn't even pause in the juniors' or misses'. Do you know how long it's taken me to even meander into the women's section? I never have!! And because of my refusal to face reality, all of my jeans have holes worn into the seats. I looked at all these cute little jeans in sizes 0 and 2, and was a little envious. But I didn't fool myself any longer that if I just work out a little longer, I will someday be a size 8 again. I'm a 16. Wow... seeing it in print just seems so... definite. I may maybe eventually someday get down to a 12, and be able to shop in the misses again, but I will never again look at a 5/6 and think to myself, "two more months". It kind of hurt, walking up to the register, and knowing that I had finally succumbed to reality.

You know... when I started this journal, I thought it would be an outlet for all my deepest thoughts. I thought that finally I could get some of the heavy stuff off my chest -- maybe gain some validation, some appreciation, some perspective. And a lot of this I've gained. My friends back me up, or set me straight when I need it. But I'm a little disappointed to find that my deepest darkest secrets consist of the size my butt has grown to, and what word my son learned to say today ("big butt" in case you're wondering).

So I'm facing a reality check on many levels. 1) I am a human being, and a female human being. My body changes and will continue to change, and it will never be the same as when I was 16. 2) I am not the deep, intellectual being I thought I was. I am simply a person with a few simple, and relatively inconsequential, struggles. In the end, my being is not changed by either of these realizations, and perhaps this is what disappoints me. I feel that I have a reached a plateau in self discovery.