love them

I had another moment, you know, a motherhood is great moment. 

I was feeding Henry his bedtime bottle, and singing the latest chosen song I sing to him, My Own Story from My Turn On Earth. 

He finished his bottle a verse early, but I decided to finish the song anyway, so we just stared at each other while I sang. 

And the last few words to the song are" A wonderful story of sadness and glory was written by Jesus and Me."

And it hit me, Henry is writing his own story with our heavenly father. I have been here thinking this is my journey in motherhood, teaching him the gospel etc, but he is his own spirit, that needs to have his own relationship with Heavenly Father. Its as if I thought Henry knows about Heavenly Father THROUGH my relationship with him, but thats completely wrong. He knows Heavenly Father I am sure better than I do. He's amazing, his spirit is so strong and so present in our home. 

I was born to be his mom, and I feel like he is constantly teaching me how to be Charlie's mom, too. 

ah. I love my kids. 

They are who I am. 

How will you parent?

Henry is to the point now, that we need to develop our parenting habits.
What kind of parents we will be.
what our discipline strategies will be.
One thing I know for sure, you won't know until you get there.
but for now, here is what I want.

I don't want to yell, or even be stern.
We only said the word NO, when its dangerous.
I do not want my kids to always be hearing the word no, and especially in a stern voice.
So when Henry needs to be told a non dangerous no, we phrase it differently. "Henry thats mommys toy." "Henry we have to be soft with the cats." "Hands are not for hitting, hitting hurts." I want to EXPLAIN life to my child, not just say no all the time.

I picked up a book long before Henry was born called "Calm down time" by Elizabeth Verdick.(Google it cause blogger isnt letting me post pics or hyperlinks). This book teaches children, in a child way, that their feelings are normal, but that they need to learn to calm themselves down. I think its incredibly harmful to just put a child in time out everytime they are naughty or angry, it tells them that those emotions are bad and they will be punished. It teaches that kids should have a calm down place, maybe a bean bag chair with a blanket, or just somewhere cozy, by themselves where you and the child can read the book and teach them about their feelings.

Now I know this method with probably be harder to do than just throwing the kid in time out, but I think in the long run it will be better for OUR family.

So there ya go. Thats all I have got so far and I am sure as I need to put it it in to practice that things will change and develop. I know that. But this is where I am starting.

General Conference

As we prepare for General Conference I was reflecting on the last session of General Conference, and I remembered how much I loved one of the talks.

This one.

If you have a minute you should go read it, rather listen to it, it can get a little confusing with his wording.

" as a parent, when can I check a child off my list as done? We are never done being good parents. And to be good parents, one of the most important things we can teach our children is how to be more like the Savior."

There are a lot of passages from it that I like, but its more powerful if they are in context. I loved this talk because its one of the few that I felt actually told you how to parent, instead of giving guidelines, ideas, feelings, etc. I felt so much more prepared to have my first child after hearing this talk, and Henry came 3 days later. :)

Happy Conference everyone.

my wish for you

Dear Henry-

I hope you learn humility by being humiliated, and that you learn honesty by being cheated.

I hope you learn to make your own bed and mow the lawn and wash the car..

And I really hope nobody gives you a brand new car when you are sixteen.

I hope you get a black eye fighting for something yo u believe in.

I hope you have to share a bedroom with your younger brother/sister. And it's all right if you have to draw a line down the middle of the room, but when he wants to crawl under the covers with you because he's scared, I hope you let him.

When you want to see a movie and your little brother/sister wants to tag along, I hope you'll let him/her.

I hope you have to walk uphill to school with your friends and that you live in a town where you can do it safely.

On rainy days when you have to catch a ride, I hope you don't ask your driver to drop you two blocks away so you won't be seen riding with someone as uncool as your Mom.

If you want a slingshot, I hope your Dad teaches you how to make one instead of buying one.

I hope you learn to dig in the dirt and read books.

When you learn to use computers, I hope you also learn to add and subtract in your head.

I hope you get teased by your friends when you have your first crush on a girl, and when you talk back to your mother that you learn what ivory soap tastes like.

May you skin your knee climbing a mountain, burn your hand on a stove and stick your tongue on a frozen flagpole.

I don't care if you try a beer once, but I hope you don't like it.. And if a friend offers you dope or a joint, I hope you realize he is not your friend.

I sure hope you make time to sit on a porch with your Grandma/Grandpa and go fishing with your Uncle.

May you feel sorrow at a funeral and joy during the holidays.

I hope your father punishes you when you throw a baseball through your neighbor's window and that he hugs you and kisses you at Christmas time when you give him a plaster mold of your hand.

These things I wish for you - tough times and disappointment, hard work and happiness. To me, it's the only way to appreciate life.

wasnt so bad.

This is what I had myself prepared for tonight.

We have decided its time Henry learn to put himself to sleep, so we were going to let him cry it out.

we would put him down awake, and go in every 10 mins if he was crying to sooth him, and then put him right back down.

I prepared myself for hours of crying, from both Henry and I, I prepared to go in there numerous times, holding him thinking I was ruining him.

So Jason and I fed him a bottle, rocked him for a few minutes, sang take me out to the ball game, kissed him good night, and put him down.

7 minutes later, he was asleep.

success.

its the simple things

Happiness lies in the simple moments of our lives.

Happiness for me today, was walking to my bedroom, and passing this along the way:

I love watching Jason take care of Henry.

Jason talks to Henry, and warns him of his moms obsessive need to document things, that may or may not include painting Henry's feet to get cute footprints.

He made a pact with Henry, to watch each others back in this regard.

I am still unaware of the details of this pact.

But its totally cute none the less.

Henry is 6 weeks, and completely adorable.

He has the CUTEST laugh.

He also has the CUTEST scream. lol seriously.

we call him: the little gremlin, tyke, little dude, H-Dawg and peanut.

I love my boys

I love the simple moments in life that bring such happiness

sweetness

Newborns are hard, I've said that before, but let me tell you my favorite part.

Rather let me show you...

Nap time. more specifically cuddling during nap time.

I really suck at nap time. I want him to sleep in his crib for naps, but he doesn't fall asleep on his own yet, and I just love snuggling with him.

in a few weeks I will start the tough love phase and teach him to self soothe and what not, hopefully I am not shooting myself in the foot by letting him nap on him.

Cause its so sweet!!

Wanna know my absolute favorite part?

This...

When I snuggle him to sleep, he grabs on to me with his teeny tiny hand.

melts.my.heart.

only a few more weeks of this, and I am kinda sad to see it go soon. :(

BUT, hopefully doing so will get him to sleep through the night better.

3 more weeks, then Babywise starts.

wish me luck.

A day in the life

I thought this would be fun, to take you through a day in the life of Kati and Henry.

:)

The pictures are out of order as far as whats first in the day, but oh well. :)

This is ground zero for the main chunk of the day. I am usually sitting against that brown pillow, holding Henry, or he is in the swing under the brown blanket(which is currently is in the picture). Its bright in there so he stays asleep for naps longer in the blanket is over the swing. There are burp clothes everywhere, bottles, his bag, seat, etc. Its a baby mess.

This is ground zero for feedings. We only have 3 bottles cause we are still deciding if we like them, so I have to wash the bottles 2 or 3 times a day. There are little syringes for his medication, his formula and some binkies.

My favorite part! Ground zero for cleanings. I love baths, and I love giving my son baths. He gets so clean and yummy smelling, and I loooooove swaddling his wet little body in a towel and snuggling him. My bath area has turned into his bath area. Sigh, he's worth it.

Ugh, the worst part, ground zero at night. The bassinet is in the crib, and on the floor is my bed. Sometimes I just lay down on the floor for a few mins cause I know he is going to wake up again and I will need to coax him back to sleep.

This is our morning ground zero. For some reason I prefer getting him ready and changing his diaper for the morning in here. Theres burp clothes, wipes and other crap on the bed each morning.

Well there you have it. That is where Henry and I spend our days. We leave maybe once a day, and I really don't like leaving the house, its somewhat stressful to me. I just hate when he cries while I am driving, it kills me that I can't soothe him.

Motherhood

Some homes try to hide the fact that children shelter there,

Ours boasts of it quite openly, the signs are everywhere.

For smears are on the windows, little smudges on the door,

I should apologize, I guess, for toys strewn on the floor.

But I sat down with the children and we played and laughed and read,

And if the doorbell doesn't shine, their eyes will shine instead.

For when at times I am forced to choose the one job or the other,

I want to be a homemaker-but first I'll be a Mother.

-(Author unknown)

Sometimes the house gets neglected, and thats ok, because I am learning that there is a huge difference between being a homemake and a mother. Being a mother is so much more important.

sweetest moment

Being a mom to a newborn is hard.

But there comes a moment, when you see that it is all worth it.

A moment, that just melts your heart.

That moment comes, when this little face is sound asleep snuggling with you, you are wondering if you can sneak him into his crib without him knowing, and then he wakes up, looks at you with his big blue eyes, looks at you for a second before going back to sleep, and you know, you can just tell, that he woke up real quick, just to make sure you were still there.

That moment is enough to make your heart skip a beat.

I hope I never forget that moment, and the love that was there.