Security

"relationships tend to challenge our security rather than reinforce it"

The quote was taken from my longtime friend's blog and it really made me think. I've always considered myself a confident, secure person, but since Ive gotten married, I've felt much less confident in general. This doesn't make any sense to me, since I've never been under the impression that a relationship will complete me or make me more secure. If anything, I was under the impression that I would be "fine": I'd always heard that if you get married and your self-confidence is low, you'll only feel worse, but if your self-confidence is high, then you will have a healthy relationship. I never heard anything about relationships challenging our security, but I think Joseph has hit the issue straight on. For me, life with another person is wonderful, first off, but it is also a bit confusing. Making decisions on my own was a fairly easy task, mostly since I was the only one to be accountable for those decisions. Married, each decision before God isn't only a matter of what God wants me to do, it's what God wants US to do...and that is a lot more complicated. Same with human relationships, time management, planning, money, etc. It is difficult for me to describe. I'm not saying that it is bad, just that it has surprised me and I'm still working out how to incorporate my self-confidence into our relationship-confidence (does that even make any sense?). It's surprised me in the same way that I was surprised after having a baby: everything was just as I expected except that there was all of a sudden three times the amount of laundry. I'd read all the baby books, been around babies and talked to other Moms - why hadn't this topic come up? Why wasn't I prepared for this? Life as an adult has also surprised me. I grew up in a healthy home, emotionally, spiritually, financially, educationally, etc. I've always considered my parents to be great parents that taught me well: I could budget, clean a house, do basic cooking, but the culmination of adding all those and the rest of life in full force and at the same time has caught me off guard as well. Five years, three houses and two children into this marriage, I'm still trying to get "caught up" with my feet under me. Why did I expect this all to be so easy??

Painting

I feel so feminine!! I have black fingernails and red toes. The last time I had anything painted was before I was pregnant with my firstborn. When I told Mom I was pregnant, she flipped out that I had fingernail polish on, insisting that it would hurt the baby. Four years later and I haven't painted them since. I take that back. I had them done once and they were ruined a few days later. We'll see how long these last. By the way, Kendra's fingers are pink and her toes are sea green. She was the catalyst for all this nonsense. Surprised? I didn't think so.

Chubby Bunnies

This video is from tonight at dinner. Video is compliments of Jess, who insisted that I post this especially for Eve and Drew to show Joseph's sense of humor!

Recent LIFE, more abundant.

This weekend we made a volcano, er, made a "volcano mess" because of Joseph's fascination with volcanoes. It was composed of homemade play-doh, specially colored by James, too much baking soda, too much vinegar, an attempt at an eruption to blow the house down (thank you, James) and lots more food coloring. I did go so far as to print out a cross-section of a volcano and try to explain it to Joseph. As a result, I think I've explained the core of the Earth and my limited knowledge of volcanoes no less than 300 times. I think he's walked away from all of this with the understanding that the Earth is like a ball. That's it.




At dusk last night while we were waiting for dinner, Joseph took a box to make a "house" outside. Then he needed a light and books and he was set for about half an hour, until he decided he needed a pillow to go to sleep in his house. (He slept in his bed last night, to his dismay. Will somebody PLEASE take this boy camping already??)



School is becoming an increasing problem. Joseph has taken on the proud title of "trouble child" and does everything in his power to maintain that title. Yesterday he spent naptime licking the floors and tables in the classroom: the teachers were unable to stop him. We made a chain that represents how many more days of school they have: 17!! (In the background of the picture on our calendar, you can see the "last day of school" card on the last Friday.) The kids watched me do the chain for a while and then got right to work on theirs. Joseph did amazingly straight cutting and Kendra's turned out very, um, artistic!



I am extremely NOT artistically creative. Colors don't work for me. Decorating, composing, editing, photography, shapes...I wish I could do more. My hope is that by getting these guy's creative juices flowing early, they might have more creativity by the time they reach, say, my age :) From the looks of things, that plan is going along swimmingly!

Torture

I'm sitting here reading a blog from a 23 year old woman who lost her Marine husband in Iraq three weeks ago, while listening to Dixie Chicks "Come Home Soon" and 3 Doors Down "I'm Here Without You"from another Navy wife's blog . Yes, I'm crying, knowing that the possibility of J deploying this year is one that I'll most likely have to face. Why do I do this to myself? I should be studying...