Death...and Taxes

Dudes, I have sad sad news. A has killed his phone. The good news is, that the cost of killing a phone is not nearly as high as that of killing a person. We will just have to pay the deductible to get him a new phone with free overnight shipping. Saweet! The thing is, what killed the phone is the death that we have allowed to be brought into our lives. It's funny, becoming a parent. You suddenly want everything to be great for your kids. You don't settle for less than what you feel they deserve. When they are kids, that's great. But, when they are adults we need to let them decide for themselves. Equally hard though, is when your kids become parents. I'm obviously not there yet, but we have been seeing how hard it is first hand. It's a struggle, especially when parenting ideals between the new grandparents and new parents don't align. At that point it all comes down to respect. But being a parent changes your outlook on life. You start changing your own life because of the things you want for your child(ren) and family down the road.

That's what has happened here. Someone said something to me yesterday that really resonates with me. Really has me stuck on what it means to have relationships and to have positive and healthy relationships. I got a lot of good advisement yesterday from a variety of sources and after sleeping on those things I have some words to say, some pride to swallow, and some wisdom to impart.

Words:
"You are speaking death into my marriage" Those were the first words that actually spoke to me about the situation we have been encountering with family lately. These words are true about all relationships though, not just marriage. I'd never heard it put this way, but I've said something similar to A. I have a friend whom I love. I don't dislike her husband, but I'm not his biggest fan. A asked me why don't I say something to her about it. I was shocked, and asked him why would I do that. After all, he's not my husband and it's her life and all that it would accomplish would be to cause a rift between my friend and I. Why would it cause a rift? Because I know her, and she (like myself) would be like, that's your opinion but he's my husband and I don't want to hear it. It speaks death into her marriage. Think about why we say the nasty things we say about other people. It's because we want to cause them to be separated and isolated from others. We may justify it as wanting to protect those we love, but the end result is the same: death to that relationship.

Swallowing Pride:
I am sorry to Natalie Hansen. I am sorry for the hurtful things I have said to her and the pain that I have caused her. Not my best moments. I hope that someday she can forgive me, when she is ready.

Wisdom:
If I want my son to know how to be a grown up (someday), or how to be a good man and have a good marriage then WE need to model that for him. We need to show him how to be a good person, respectful, caring, and genuine. I want my son to know that adults are not perfect, that family is important and that we need to have healthy boundaries to have healthy relationships. Healthy boundaries include those boundaries we place on ourselves. One of my own personal boundaries is to: live a life I'm not ashamed of. This is a part of that. Instead of being ashamed of my actions, I can learn from them, offer them to others as an example of 'what not to do' and I can atone for my misdeeds. If I want to give my son a better life, then I need to start by being a better model for him. If we want to change this world, then we need to start with changing ourselves. I want my son to fight for a relationship with us, if God forbid we find ourselves in the same situation again. So, WE need to show him what it looks like to fight for that, while protecting our hearts and each other. Because, when your children are grown what you have left is your spouse. So you need to protect them as much as you protect your children.


We have allowed death to be spoken into our marriage, and we have spoken death into the relationship with A's parents. We both have. We also allowed for it all to happen. We didn't stop and make the conscious effort to stop it, not do it ourselves, and sow in health and happiness. And that's about to change. We are changing that. It started last night and it is going to go on everyday of my life; so that our son will know what humility, respect, honor, love, family, and devotion all look like.  

Peking Duck

I'm not sure who decided to spread the myth that children are selfish and not good at sharing. But, they weren't correct. Not to say that they are wrong, they just aren't correct. Adults make kids bad at sharing. We teach them they have to give up whatever they have whenever someone else wants it, or after they've had it for a preset amount of time. Lets talk about unfair. We aren't teaching our kids to genuinely give and share when we do this. We just teach them that their wants don't matter and that they will get trouble if they don't give up their toy, color crayon, or stuffed animal.

When we let our kids play with their toys and crayons etc for as long as they like then, we are teaching them that their feelings matter to us and that when they are ready they can freely give up the item. No bullying, no punishment, no screaming. Just genuine love. Think about when Andy gives away his toys at the end of ToyStory3. He does it with such love, you know you bawled your eyes when it happened. That's what we should be teaching our kids. Sharing is caring, when it's done from a place of confidence not fear.

What does this have to do with raising a Little Dude to love the outdoors? Well, at some point we must address sharing. Ideally we'd address it now, because being squished between A and LD isn't cool and I don't want to share my bed with this many warm bodies, especially since A has been sick all day and I had to drag him to the grocery store earlier. Anyways, where was I...oh yes, what this has to do with our LD. He is an excellent sharer...if sharing his duck with dad counts. The other day it happened. He started offering A his yellow rubber duckie during their bath together. I came in to find the happiest LD shoving his duckie into A's mouth and then retrieving it and shoving it in his mouth. Back and forth whenever A asked for the duckie. My Little Dude can share!

Enjoy some of the beautiful moments caught on camera.

*Disclaimer
No duckies were harmed in the making of these moments and there aren't any visible penises.

"You have tomatoes in your front yard..."

Back in Sacto! Lots of changes going on with us, daily! What hasn't changed is that raising our LD is still an adventure. Now that we are back home the adventures are around every corner! LD is older and he's standing and starting to work on walking. Of course this also means he is getting into everything and our poor Stew is his favorite thing to chase. We have to help keep him out of LD's reach. All dogs are fun to LD!

We are also getting more teeth! #7 and #8 are coming in as I type. He is also biting my calf as I type, OUCH!  I hope we get a break for a while after these two finish coming in.

Almost first on our agenda for coming home was the garden! No more apartment, garden rules! I did some reading up on hugels and we are working on one of those in the actual garden. So for this year we planted a very small garden in the front flower bed. 2 tomatoes, cantaloupe, bell peppers, patypan squash, and pumpkin. Super small, but it's something, and now Z will get to have a home grown pumpkin for Halloween! (And of course his grandma has a lovely garden coming in with some butternut just for him). It's only temporary, just this one year, while we get the hugel set up and the backyard rototilled and reseeded. It doesn't seem to bother anyone in our neighborhood and they aren't coming up to our house to take veggies, so I think we are solid! Although, it has elicited some comments from family about the location of my tomatoes and curb appeal.

Curb appeal, for one summer it's not going to hurt our curb appeal. Plus, maybe that's the kind of buyer we will be looking for whenever we do sell our house. A nice young free spirited couple, like ourselves, just trying to make it in life while living the dream.