I'm Pregnant, but shhhh don't tell anyone yet; I only just found out!

So to those of you that actually follow my blog, you already know this is a journal for me, so in keeping true to myself I am excited to share with you some very exciting news that I have been dying to write about. Even though this news is early and I am not posting it anywhere else I felt my journal needed to be suplamented :).  I have a ten month old son who has blessed our family.  You see it took three years to conceive him.  I had been told I couldn’t have children so his birth was nothing short of miraculous.  My husband and I knew we wanted a large family and with his next deployment already scheduled we wanted to try and conceive again so that he would be home for it this time.  Although we were both hopeful, we feared it would be just as difficult to conceive again.  Yesterday, I found out I was pregnant after only two months of trying.  My elation is indescribable!  This means my husband will be here for my pregnancy and the first 3-4 months of life before he has to deploy to Afghanistan again.  We couldn’t have planned it any more perfectly.  I was so excited to tell him so yesterday as soon as I found out, I went to Walmart and bought an “I’m the big brother” shirt for my son.  I then went to the mall to make a custom shirt for myself that said “new recruit” with an arrow pointing to my belly.  I made plans to meet my husband on post for lunch.

                As soon as I saw him my heart started beating a mile a minute wondering when he would notice.  As we got out of the car I realized my son’s diaper had overflowed and my husband offered to change it.  I took picture after picture thinking he would notice my son’s shirt, but it went unnoticed.  We started in on our burgers when I noticed my husband eyes on me.  I saw the wheels in his head working as he looked up from my shirt and asked, “Really? (short pause) Really (said in a high excited voice)?”  I told him to look at our son’s shirt (which gave me time to get the camera out again) and caught his excited happy smile

New Goal

So I haven’t posted in almost a week because I have been feeling pretty low emotionally.  I felt as if I was on the verge of tears and everything seemed to irritate me.  I was overly cynical and feeling a little worthless; pretty much I was depressed.  My sweet husband has been so patient with me trying extra hard to put a smile on my face and slowly over the days I have felt this burden slowly leave, leaving me feeling lighter and more myself.  The reason I am posting this for viewing is for two reason, and these are the two reasons I feel I am more myself.  Let me explain.  While I was in this deep funk, I spent extra time doing the things that help relax me: which is mostly crocheting.  When I had finished what I was working on I sent it off to a friend.  I just got word from her on how much it meant to her and I couldn’t help but feel valuable, appreciated and validated in who I was and what I did (something us mothers don’t always receive from our children).  Honestly, I hadn’t thought it much of a sacrifice to send the gift and I felt edified in at least thinking of someone else other than myself for a short while during those somber days.  So really in this convoluted paragraph all I am really trying to say is remember to serve someone today and also to compliment or recognize someone and it will surprise you how well you will feel after you get outside yourself.  I have a new goal of trying to reach out to someone once week in some sort of service so that I might become an active participant in my life as well as those around me.  I will post about my experiences if I feel they have inspired or taught me something.  May I encourage all to do the same! J

Hubris

I have noticed that we as humans are a very deprecating race.  It seems that we feel we have to destroy or tarnish something in order to claim it as our own.  Is our own carnal hubris so fragile that we must destroy something in order to exert ourselves over it?  Think about this; time and time again across time, culture, religion, etc. we damage something in order to claim it as our own.  When explorers traveled to new lands they would thrust their counties flag into the countryside to claim it as theirs; same with mountain climbers who are first to reach the peak.  Let’s narrow our focus to even just a personal level.  Is it not the same thing when a man claim’s a woman’s virginity; or when a graffiti artist tags a building?  When it snows and there is a freshly laid blanket on the ground why do we have this manic urge to be the first on to put our prints in it? 

A Soldier and the Atonement

I wrote this while my husband was deployed (soon after he was injured) and I came across it this morning.  I was really hating the Army this morning so this help put things back into perspective for me.       

           There is no argument over the fact that in this mortal life the greatest gift we have been given is the saving, graceful gift of the atonement; a sacrifice of love where our Brother gave his life to save us all.  No one else could give this gift and our Savior willingly took the mantel and burden of our sins upon his shoulders because of the love he has for each and every one of us.  It is through the power of this gift that we have been invited to try and be like Jesus and the Gods we are preparing to become.  Although emulating perfection in this lifetime is impossible, it is not unattainable.  Our test here is to follow Christ and I want to recognize a special group of people who are following in his footsteps whether they recognize it or not.

                As we know the atonement came at a great price that required a perfect life and a willing heart that was given freely to secure our freedom in the afterlife; similarly, our men and women serving in the military offer the same thing, but on a mortal level.  Just as Christ, they willingly offer their lives as payment for our freedom to defend and protect our basic, unalienable rights.  Although this mortal freedom takes more than one sacrifice, I am amazed at how many willingly dedicate their lives to this calling.  Christ did not sacrifice his life for glory or worship and neither do our soldiers.  This is a gift both Christ and the member of the military offer freely because of the love for their brothers and sisters and for the love of freedom.

                On Christ’s way to the cross he was spurned and hated, mocked and discriminated; yet, he stood steady in his task and his duty to follow through with the plan.  The soldiers in our military deal with this injustice as well.  Even after these valiant individuals gave their lives many are faced with people protesting at their funerals, belittling the gift they gave.

Sadly, the gift of the atonement is not believed in or accepted by everyone, but yet it is a gift that applies to all whether it is wanted or accepted.  Just as the atonement applies to the atheist, so does the military’s gift of freedom apply to the hard hearted and ignorant.  Although these men and women willingly give themselves to the cause of freedom some people accuse that they are war mongers looking for a fight.  However, the sacrifice given is a sacrifice for all.

The purpose for this comparison is not to give glorify the soldier; instead it is meant to show how these individuals serve as an example to the rest of us what we can accomplish in this lifetime as we too strive to become more like our Father in Heaven and to appreciate to the fullest the eternal gift of life given to us through Christ as well as the gift of freedom to enjoy life given to us by brave men and women who sacrifice daily for our behalf.

More Than Words

I got my degree in English Literature, so to me words are very important, especially the written word.  All my life words have been the way I have been able to define myself as I try to describe the words around me.  However, this week there we no words available to put into writing the emotions I was feeling.  As I cradled my sick baby I realized some things cannot be experienced thought story or text.  Some things can only be comprehended through experience.  I can try and describe in great detail the fear that continually set on the edge of my mind waiting to be voiced as I switch one cool wash cloth for another.  I could try and describe how you could feel the burn of the fever from the hot sweaty touch of his skin.  I could tell how we stripped him of all clothes and gave him multiple cold baths or how I rocked him for hours allowing him to whimper all the while because of his discomfort, but none of that would be enough.  There are no words to describe the utter inability in which I would be able to make him better.  And words can’t fully describe the feeling of aloneness as you already start fearing for the worst.  Words would do these emotions injustice with such a statement as it was just a high fever and a long night.  But the emotions, the fears, the memory play themselves in my head and heart more than any words could.  So for the first time in my life I can distance words from the “real”: the feeling, the emotion from the “unreal”: the attempt to make a snapshot of a life.   

Numbers

When I was a child and had a hard time sleeping I would lie on my side and watch my digital clock.  It was probably around the age of twelve I realized that some numbers looked more feminine while others looked masculine.  I had forgotten all about this until I was up late last night having a hard time falling asleep and I posed the possibility of assigning genders to numbers to my husband.  Although he thought it was silly he played along.  Out of nine numbers we only disagreed on one.  I doubted this was just common thinking or a coincidence so I then asked my best friend to do the same thing; her answers were also almost identical to what my husband and I had agreed upon.  She even asked her three year old daughter whos answers were very close to our own.  It was at this point I realized that to me the feminine numbers were the curvy ones while the males were linear.  Now intrigued with the social implications this held, I posted the same question to several Facebook friends.  Although there were a wider variety of answers, it seemed pretty clear to me that we have been conditioned at a very early age to what is “feminine” and what is ‘masculine” and the numbers in greatest dispute were 5 and 8.  Five has both the curves and the linear, making it debatable and 8 although all curve does not fit the desired feminine our society wishes to portray (dumpy), thus making it male to some and female to others.  How interesting that something as inanimate as numbers can be assigned gender based on shape.  Do we unconsciously do the same thing to people?  Do we judge a boy for have feminine features or judge a girl for looking butch?  Is this something that has spanned time or is it only cultural or locational?  Does the definition of male and female change over time?  How are we perpetuating this unconsciously?  Numbers, silly numbers….what do you see?  Here are my personal answers
1: male
2: female
3: male (although curvaceous it seems distant like it is holding its arm out)
4: male
5: female/male
6: female
7: male
8: male (also curvaceous, but to me it looks like a short, fat man)
9: female
I also realize that my reasons for 3 and 8 seem sexiest, but that’s my point.  Why at the age of 12 was I able to apply such judgements?

Another beginning to another story

Brooding and broken, she rested her hands and head on the railing of his crib, looking in on him as she always did when she couldn’t sleep.  If she couldn’t make her life what she had wanted, how could she guarantee she could give him a good life? She felt the tears clogging her eyes again, but she refused to acknowledge them, not when her sweet, beautiful boy lay sleeping in her sights.  How had she become so blessed and so cursed?  He was in every way her miracle, the key linking her here to responsibility, honor and duty.  Otherwise, would she not still be with his father, living a life where you are seeking the next pleasure, the next fix.

She hadn’t intended on getting pregnant and when she realized she was she didn’t take it very seriously.  How could she when all she had known for years was based on fulfilling her own selfish desires?  It wasn’t until she felt him kicking that someone had finally knocked some sense into her.  Upon waking from her ostentatious living she realized how alone she was and how ephemeral her life had been.  She needed stability; she needed to take care of this baby.

On nights like these where the cravings hit her the hardest she felt pulled because half of her hated who she had been; that had been the point of rejecting that life, but at the same time, she missed it.  She felt as if she was still that person who had only put on a mask of adulthood.  Sometimes she imagined friends, co-workers and neighbors could see through it all and every day she waited for someone to pull of the mask and show her for what she really was.  Her heart rejected that life, but her body craved it.  She feared her toddler could see the two people inside her constantly fighting and that frightened her.  Would she ever escape it all?