Reality Check!!

I am sitting here listening to Bailey. She is in the bath and talking to her toys. You can tell a lot about your parenting by listening to your kids talk. Sometimes, like now, I hear the way she talks to her babies and think do I sound like that. I don't want to think so, but I know I do. She tells her baby to do something then gets louder and louder each time her baby doesn't do what she is told. She says "Do you hear me". I'm not a yeller, but I do sound worse than I ever thought I would. I always envisioned myself as being a parent who would handle all situations calmly and rationally. How could I ever get aggravated at a sweet innocent child? Then I became a mom.

Don't get me wrong, I adore my child and I think overall I'm a pretty good mom. I spend lots of time with her and we talk constantly. I tell and show her how much she is loved nonstop, but there are definitely some areas I need to improve on. One of those is the way I handle her when she doesn't obey. I am easily frustrated and then don't handle the situation as I should. I worry all the time about the person I am teaching her to become. I pray God's grace will cover all of my parenting mistakes and somehow highlight the good things that I do.

I guess God is doing that because, I think anyway, Bailey is a wonderful little girl. I am tearing up right now just thinking about her. I definitely need to work on some things and become closer to the mom I always hoped to be. Don't think I'll ever reach the goal, but I will try each day to get closer. I think I'll go now and talk to her about what is going on with the babies in the tub.

Busted!!

Oh the things kids say and the way they think. I have been trying to teach Bailey to tell the truth. The other day she lied about needing to go to the bathroom after she was in bed. I let her get up. After sitting on the potty a few minutes she told me she didn't need to go. I asked her if she said she needed to potty just to get out of bed. She said yes. I explained to her that telling me she needed to potty when she really didn't need to is a lie and it is not nice to lie. Without hesitation she replied, "Mommy, do yall lie?". I stuttered for a few seconds then admitted that Mommy and Daddy lie sometimes, but that isn't nice for us to do either and that we all needed to work on telling the truth. What can you say?

A few days later Nana was in town and we decided that we would go to On the Border for supper. It is one of our favorite places and we have eaten there several times. Bailey asked where we were going for supper and I told her On the Border. She asks, "Where is the border?" I tried to explain that On the Border was a restaurant that we were going to. I don't know what she had in her mind that the border was. When we pulled up to the restaurant she pointed to the roof and said, "Is that the border? Are we going to eat up high?" I again tried to explain we were going in the restaurant and that was On the Border. When we got inside and they took us to our table she began crying as I put her in the high chair. She was saying, "This is not the border". She was very upset that we were not at the border. We couldn't help but laugh. Austin and I still laugh about it and wonder what in the world she had in her mind that the "border" was.

I guess the best times though are the times like just a few minutes ago. She wrapped her little arms around my leg and squeezed hard. She said "I love you sooo much". Melts my heart.

Pretty as a Picture

Bailey is growing up so fast!! If you don't believe me just ask her. She says "I'm getting bigger. I'm almost grown up". I try to take as many pictures as I can but I go through dry spells sometimes and realize it has been weeks since we have taken any. These are a few pictures that we took today at a park here in town. Bailey loves to pose. She is such a girly girl. Hope you enjoy them.

Who's Out There????

I always wonder who is reading and keeping up with our blog. I know people don't always have time to comment. That is understandable because I know I don't often take time to comment on blogs I read either. Sometimes I have a few spare minutes and quickly check a few of my favorite blogs just breezing through them. I am glad that any of you out there take a few moments from your busy lives to keep up with ours. Austin and I were talking and we thought it would be neat to get a list of our readers. If you could take a moment to just leave your name as a comment (or more if you like) we would appreciate it. Hope to hear from you.

A Fun Day

Yesterday when we woke up Austin told us to get ready and we would go do something fun. We decided on bowling and miniature golf. Bowling went great. Bailey loved it. We knew it was going to be fun when the guy asked what size shoes Bailey wears. I didn't know they had bowling shoes that small. She was so excited. Check out the shoes in the pictures above. Then he found her a special pink ball that was only 4 pounds so she could pick it up and throw it all by herself. You can see in one picture above how slow her ball went down the lane. She had time to throw it and comfortably sit down and watch it roll down the lane. It was fun.

Next we went over to the miniature golf course. As good as bowling went golf was that bad. It was hot outside and she wanted nothing to do with that. She didn't even try it. She had a pink ball and a putter just her size but that didn't matter. After about 15 minutes of trying to get her to play with us I gave up and began taking pictures of her instead. It helped that we were the only ones there.

When we came in from golf Bailey spotted a video game with a horse that you could sit on. She climbed on and Austin rode beside her. By then it was nap time and we had to get home.