F.H.E

Tonights F.H.E. we decided to have a quick song and lesson and then take Macie in the Hot Tub for the first time, she loved it and had a blast.

Motherhood

I remember when I was about 14 weeks pregnant with Macie and everything was looking good, the comments and thoughts from people came daily.

- your life will never be the same
- say goodbye to your life
- you will never get a good nights sleep again
- oh the money and time you will spend on diapers
- you will have no time to yourself anymore
- be prepared for a screaming, crying, child that spits up all the time
- don't spend money on cute clothes, they just spit up on them, poop and them and grow out of them so quickly

I have never been given so much advice in my life while I was pregnant and even know as a mom

- don't let them cry themselves to sleep, they need to be comforted
- let them cry themselves to sleep
- bundle them up like crazy whenever you go out
- don't over heat them by bundling them up to much
- don't cross your legs it hurts the baby
- don't eat this that and the next thing
- don't work out or push yourself to hard
- start feeding her pablum at 3 months
- baby can not eat food until 6 months
- why do you breastfeed for so long
- she only eats for 20 minutes, she should be eating longer then that when she feeds

I could go on and on and on and on and on with the amount of mix messages I got and negative comments people gave me about being a mom, but with hoping to not be offensive to anyone I would love to share my thoughts on being a mother.

Being a mother to Macie is the most wonderful, amazing, incredible, exciting, enjoyable experience of my life. There is nothing about it that is hard, overwhelming, stressful, annoying, or makes me mad. When she wakes up at 5:00 in the morning my heart starts pounding out of the excitement I feel to start another day with my girl. She eats and quickly falls back asleep for another 3 hours, when she awakes from that sleep to start her morning I leap out of bed to go in and get her as it is received with the biggest smiles and greatest hugs. We then usual get dressed, eat our breakfast and play in her room. I think this is just as exciting for me as it is for her, the smiles and giggles I get as we sing songs, make funny faces, and I give her soft gentle tickles and lots of wet kisses is priceless. Diaper changing throughout the day is never annoying as it means I get to blow on her tummy and wiggle her legs and get more smiles and giggles that melt my heart.  There was one point when breastfeeding annoyed me, but as I get closer and closer to going back to work everyday I am starting to cherish those sweet tender moments I have with her. Macie is definitely not perfect and she has her moments when she is fussy, spitting up, not eating well and waking up every 2 hours at night time. However I find when those moments happen all it does is make me appreciate Macie even more that these occurances are very rare that 90% of the time this little girl of mine is pretty wonderful. When Mark and I were having our struggles at getting pregnant I once had someone say to me just enjoy this time, be grateful you are not tied down, I am so jealous of you, you get to do what you want, have money for vacations and clothes and fun, have time to go to movies, workout and enjoy life. It is true we did get to do those things and I did try to enjoy my life the best I could and tried my best to not be down about not being a mother, but to that person you are a fool, there is no greater thing in the world, no experience that makes me feel closer to my Savior, and nothing that brings me more joy then being a Mother to Macie. It is worth the lose skin that might never go away around my stomach, the sleeps I have lost over the last 4 1/2 months and the future sleep I will lose, if I never get to see another movie again in my life I could care less, and if this half marathon of mine does not happen oh well. I would not trade being a mother for anything in this world. I LOVE it and I LOVE her and will never be able to thank my Savior enough for allowing me to be a Mother to one of his most precious daughters. There truly is no greater calling.

So Happy Mothers Day to Me and every other Mom out there