Thursday, January 26, 2012

Ava And "Uncle" Nathan

Last night at church, I had to hand Ava over to our good friend Nathan Moore so that I could meet with several people about the upcoming scrapbook meeting at church. Jeremy had to meet with several people about this upcoming Sunday afternoon service. Nathan watched Ava and Avery while Jeremy and I held our little meetings. When I came back to get Ava, she would not come to me! I would reach down to get her and she would turn her body away from me and bury her face in Nathan's shoulder! Little stinker! I finally had to just grab her up while she protested!

Incognito!

Rigatoni Pasta

Monday, January 23, 2012

Greta's First Outfit!

Yes, this picture has been previously posted on my Facebook page too. 

After Jeremy, Ava, and I returned home from worship services last night, I decided to take a little shopping trip to Target. Jeremy stayed home with Ava and I went out. I was planning on just buying a few bigger onesies for Ava (she has outgrown her 9 month onesies) but I got sidetracked in the girlie clothes section looking at newborn stuff. I found lots of adorable little newborn outfits that would be perfect for Greta. I hesitated to buy that size because I don't know how big she will be. Ava was 6 lbs. and 15 oz. when she was born and part of me feels like Greta will be the same size, but I don't want to chance it. I bought a three month outfit that will still work whether she fits into it right away or in three months.

Here it is:


I guess you call this thing a romper! Anyway, I showed Jeremy when I got home and he had his feelings hurt. When we found out Ava was a girl, we went together and bought her first outfit together. He wanted to go with me to pick out Greta's first outfit. I felt really bad, but not bad enough to take it back! :) I laid a pretty good guilt trip on him, and he is now okay! :) So, the yellow romper stays. I guess we will have to go together and pick out Greta's second outfit! I like all this shopping!

It Was A Dark And Stormy Night...

If you are my friend on Facebook, you have probably noticed that I have been using the same pictures on my blog as in my Mobile Uploads Album. I know that is probably boring for my family, who will want to see updated pictures and not the same ol' pictures posted on Facebook. I will get better at uploading more pictures from my camera but it has been out of commission for about two weeks. Jeremy accidentally took my camera/computer cable with him last week to the Gulf coast instead of his iPod charger. He assures me that he has it...somewhere. Until I get it back, mobile uploads that have been imported to Facebook and then downloaded onto my computer and blog will have to suffice. I don't have the application on my phone that allows me to upload pictures straight to my blog. Sigh...maybe the iPhone 4S is somewhere in my future.

Anyway, it was a dark and stormy night last night and mommy was scared to death! Let me explain:

I have had 3 really bad storm experiences in my life that have affected me deeply. The first bad experience was at my daycare center, The Learning Block. If you attended The Learning Block, you will remember that it was situated on a street with several other businesses and backed up to a very deep ditch. I remember the morning of this really bad storm. My mom was about to drop Brittany and me off at the day care after we were able to turn right at the four way stop. While we sat in our car at the stop sign, my sister and I noticed that the stop sign had almost completely broken free of its screws and was waving in the wind. We could feel our car shaking. We lived in a very flat part of Texas and fast, straight-line winds were the norm when a storm blew into town, so my mom felt no hesitation at dropping us off at daycare and continuing on her way to work. A few hours after we had been at daycare, the tornado sirens went off. All the teachers gathered all the children into the hallway and closed off the doors to the classrooms. I remember one of the teachers handing me a baby to hold while she held on to one of the classroom doors so that the suction did not force it open. After the danger passed, a huge thunderstorm passed through with a flash flood warning in effect. This is where the deep ditch comes into the story. It rained so much that the ditch filled up with water that started to flood the day care. The teachers in our daycare loaded us up on daycare buses and called the police to help evacuate our daycare center. I rode with my sister in the back of a police car to the police station where my dad picked us up an hour or two later. All the children from the daycare sat in one of the courtrooms while we waited for parents and guardians to arrive. The daycare center was closed for a few days to clean up the damage. I was only 4, but I remember how scary it was.

The 2nd really bad storm experience happened when I was in about 4th grade. During a thunderstorm, a straight-line wind hit our house and tore off the roof on half of our house. Here is the kicker: my sister and I were sitting on my bed in my bedroom when it happened. Imagine being a child and realizing that the roof that was protecting you against the storm just a second ago is no longer there. I still remember what we were doing. Brittany and I were coloring in our The Little Mermaid coloring books. We heard what we thought was a crack of thunder (it was actually our roof being torn off) Brittany immediately jumped off the bed and ran into the living room where my dad was looking out the windows yelling, "Oh my gosh! I think Frances's roof just got blown off!" Frances was our neighbor. He didn't realize that the roof he saw flying in the wind was ours. I still had my ceiling in my room, but with the roof not protecting it, water started pouring through it immediately. My mom had just redecorated my room in cream and pink roses and had done a quilted accent wall with pink and cream striped fabric. We were able to salvage a lot, but my quilted walls were ruined. That was a scary experience.

My 3rd and final really bad storm story happened the summer after 7th grade. My family always vacationed at the same destination year after year. We always rented a spot at Crider's campground on the Frio River. My dad would haul our camper to Crider's every summer and we would camp out near the river. This particular year was interesting because a momma cat at our house had just delivered a litter of six kittens and then had died. My mom and sister and I were in the process of bottle feeding those kittens. We took them with us on vacation that year. One night, a thunderstorm came through the area with flash flood warnings in effect. Unfortunately, there was a huge amount of rain that caused a dam to burst upriver. All the excess water flooded the river and our campsite. It was about 3 a.m. when some other camper finally knocked on our camper door to let us know that our camper was about to float away with us in it. Our camp site that year was near a deep ravine that connected to the river. My mom got all the kids (us, my cousins, and the kittens) into her car while my dad used his truck to try and pull out the camper, and it was no small camper! (40 feet long) By the time he was able to work on it, water was over a foot deep in the camper and my dad had no choice but to wrap a chain around the hitch and hope that he could pull it out. He finally did, but when the water receded the next day, we saw a scar in the dirt that was about a foot deep where the hitch had dug into the earth. We were lucky to have almost all our possessions intact. My sister and I had nightmares about storms for years after that. I think that storm affected me the worst because I had always felt safe in our vacation spot. I felt like nothing could invade that protection. But weather is to be respected. It, like God, shows no favoritism.

Fast forward to last night. It was about 2:30 a.m. when the sirens went off. I ran to Ava's room noticing on the way that the sky was almost like day because of the massive amounts of lightning. The thunder was continual. Ava slept on my shoulder until I got her into our bedroom. Jeremy was trying to look up the storm on his phone. We had no idea if the storm was near us or if it was in another area of the county and we would be unaffected. Ava woke up and blabbered away in her gibberish jargon. We found that the storm was not going to affect the cities of Tuscaloosa or Northport. Jeremy and I kept Ava with us until the warning expired, then fed her a bottle and let her go back to sleep. 

I  thought of families on April 27th, who had babies ripped from their arms during the tornado. I don't know what I would have done if that had been the case for us. Ava is so precious to me. I worried about my life too. If I was not pregnant, my life would just be my life. But my life now represents two. If something happens to me, then Greta would not survive. If something happened to me, I know that Jeremy would take wonderful care of Ava. But, I feel scared when I think of my unborn daughter not being viable yet. These are grave things to think about. 

It was a scary night for us, as it was for many others. I was so grateful that the storm passed us by this time. I hurt for the ones who lost loved ones and who suffered damage, but I thank God that he kept us safe last night. I am so glad that Ava had no idea what was going on. She talked and laughed the whole time. When we finally put her back to bed, she talked to herself for a few minutes and played with her feet. She finally cuddled up with her grossie (her giraffe that is completely gross from her sucking its ears) and went to sleep. I prayed again last night that God would just give us enough time to get Ava if a tornado was going to hit us. I don't care about this house or the things inside. I just want our family intact.

I did not mean for this post to get so heavy. It just kind of ended up that way! I find that when I start transferring my thoughts from brain to blog, there is a lot more there than I initially thought! To lighten the mood, I want to post a picture of Ava after the tornado warning expired, before she settled down to sleep. Yes, it is a picture that has already been posted to Facebook!

I apologize for the large bars on the screen. They only appear in pictures!

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Ava's Bible Class

Here are some pictures of Ava's Bible class that were taken by Miss Janeice. They are group of sweet little toddlers and babies!


Pictures Of Eli Moore

On Wednesday, I went to visit Maggie, Avery, and Eli while Jeremy was at work. Ava and I woke up early that morning so we could see them for a few hours before she had to come back home for a nap! I got to hold him for quite a while. He is a peaceful, sweet, little baby! When Ava and I were walking out the door, I remembered to get some pictures. Unfortunately, he was crying. Oh well! I guess babies do that! He was still precious!


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Storytime Tuesday: The Cow That Went Oink!

Storytime Tuesday took a two week hiatus during the holidays. During that time, Carla Taylor and Cindy Middleton went to the building as they usually would and redecorated the storytime room! I had no idea until I walked in today and saw how wonderful they made it look! I missed the last two storytimes because our family has been out of town for the holidays and for my sister's wedding. The room looks fabulous!

Two Chicka, Chicka, Boom-Boom trees flank either side of the teacher's chair (off centered because little hands got a hold of it!) and spray painted cardboard letters now litter the walls. Too cute!

 White exterior gutters are used to hold books! Great ideas, ladies!

More letters on the opposite wall and a legit toy chest to pack away all those storytime toys!

It was so neat to teach storytime today. Instead of sitting on the floor, all the kiddos sat in little red chairs in a semi-circle around the teacher chair. I love this because it promotes personal space and everyone can see without having to sit on their knees.

I will go ahead and apologize for the poor quality of the photos today. I did not bring my camera as I usually do because I was running late this morning (surprise! surprise!) :) All of these pictures were taken from my phone. It ended up being pretty fun, though, because all the kids wanted me to take their picture and then scroll back and show them. A few of them were even smart enough to know how to use their fingers to zoom in on a photo on my phone. Smarties!

We started off by singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm (just 3 verses) and then I got into the story for the day: The Cow That Went Oink! I love this cute little story because it is just plain funny. I also like that the cow (who says, "oink") and the pig (who says, "moo") get the last laugh! The kids had a great time listening to and interacting with the story. I asked them several comprehension questions during the story and they answered all of them with a lot of thought. I will be the first to admit that the "craft" today was a bit dinky! All the kids did today was paste a strip of green construction paper onto a piece of white cardstock (grass) Then they pasted a pink pig and a brown horse (we do not have a cow shaped die-cut) to look like they are walking on the grass. Still, they don't know the difference and had a great time. The teacher in me cringed, though! If I had been presenting that lesson to a group of students with an administrator grading me, points would have been deducted from my total score because I used a horse instead of a cow on the craft! But, I have to remember that I am not a classroom teacher anymore and therefore have the freedom to do WHAT I WANT!! :) Whew! Can you tell that I still have some pent up frustration from my teaching days?! I need to stop being so hard on myself! :) After the craft, the kiddos ate Scooby Snacks and had a Capri-Sun to drink. They all played pretty hard (they acted like friendly snakes) and then cleaned up the room to go back home. Hopefully they will all take naps for their mommas'!


 We had lots of our baby boys today! This is Webb Barger. 

 Tripp Scarvey

 Sam Tayor

 All the kids enjoyed their tasty snack!

 Kate

 Luke and Jaden

 Timber

 Lauren and Aunt Beck-Beck

 Canyon

 Gabby and Molly Jane

 Aubree and Molly Jane

 Aubree and Gabby

 Lily Grace, Aubree, Gabby, and Kate

 Silly faces!

 Silly little girls!

 Lauren wanted me to take a picture of just her!

 Ava was sporting the pancho today! She didn't care, as long as she got to eat her Scooby Snacks!

 Sweet Anna Caroline! She is precious!

She finally sat down! There were so many kids today that Ava roamed the classroom the whole time! I really did not have to watch her because she just followed the kids around. It made teaching today really easy!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

By The Way...

I forgot to mention that I felt Greta move for the very first time on the evening of January 2nd! Jeremy and I were laying in bed watching a movie and I felt some soft thumps. I smiled and said, "I am pretty sure that I just felt our baby move!" Jeremy put his hand on my abdomen, but could feel nothing. I did, though! I was super excited! It seems that she moves a lot more than Ava did. I feel her all the time!! In fact, she is nudging my insides right now! It is crazy to think that my unborn 19 week (tomorrow) old child will be reading this one day (if the Lord wills) Maybe it will be when she is expecting her own child and she can go back and read my words to compare her excitement to mine! I can only hope and pray!

Greta Elizabeth Pate


About a week and a half ago, Jeremy and I found out that we are expecting another little GIRL!! I went to my 17 week appointment (I could not schedule a 16 week appointment because of the holidays) just expecting to hear the heartbeat. I was wrong! Once again, our little Houdini played a trick on us! The doppler could not pick up a heartbeat, so I was scheduled for an ultrasound. I was really nervous because we NEVER had problems picking up Ava's heartbeat. From 12 weeks on, we heard her heartbeat every time we went to an appointment. Little Greta is a bit different!! :) I think she wants us to see her on camera!

We got into the ultrasound room and saw our baby. The heart rate was a very healthy 150 bpm. I asked Jeremy what his gut told him. He said he didn't know. He has been saying another girl since the beginning of this pregnancy, but I really thought we might be having a boy this time because everything has been so different. It took the technician a while to find her "gender" because the umbilical cord was between her legs. Finally, we got a good shot. The technician said, "that's a little girl." Jeremy and I smiled at each other and told Ava that she was going to have a sister! She didn't know what she was supposed to be happy about, so she just smiled and clapped. 

We called our family first and then close friends. We went ahead and told the name because we wanted to share it this time. Everyone was really happy for us! Now when we pray with Ava, instead of praying for the baby, we call her Greta. We want Ava to go ahead and learn her name. We are so thrilled!!

Why We Chose Greta Elizabeth

I have said before that Jeremy and I have three girl names picked out and one boy name. Ava was the name we picked our for our first girl. We chose her name before we were married. We didn't decide on Greta until the day when we found out that Ava was a girl. I know that sounds wierd, but we started planning ahead, picking names that would "go" together.

I have never seen a movie with Ava Gardner or Greta Garbo, but obviously that is where we got the idea for "matching" names. I think I said in an earlier post that when I was 16, I saw that Heather Locklear named her daughter Ava and I had loved it since. I did, but I also wanted a second daughter to have a matching name. Greta was it. And I also should point out (as Jeremy did to me) that when you re-arrange the letters of Greta, it can spell GREAT! :) It can also spell GRATE or TEARG, but we won't get into all that. :)

Another neat thing about Greta's name is that it is a short form of Margaret. Margaret is my mother's name. It means pearl. I always look up names before we decide on them because I don't want any child of mine to have a name that has an awful meaning!

We chose Elizabeth as a middle name because it is my great-aunt's middle name. Aunt Jane is my grandfather's sister. When I was little, she would take me to the library on special occasions to let me see children's films and special characters. She also took me to the circus for the very first time and let me ride the elephant! I have lots of special memories with her! Every year when Aunt Jane and Uncle Bob make their pilgrimage to Washington DC for her DAR convention, they always manage to stop by our house or meet up with us in Birmingham to do something special with us. She means a lot to me!

It is only fitting that our second daughter should be named after my Aunt Jane when Ava is named after her mother, Elna Catherine (my great-grandmother) This is just another way that we wanted our names to go together. 

I explained all this because I know that the name Greta is pretty uncommon. The most common question I have had for the past week and a half is, "How did y'all decide on Greta as a name?" I thought I would give a good lengthy explanation here on my blog for my readers and for my sweet little second daughter who will be reading this one day. :)

Eli James Moore Is Here!

My friend Maggie delivered her second child on Thursday morning at 8:50! Eli weighed in at 7 lbs 15 oz and was 20 inches long. I don't have pictures of him to put on here yet, but they are coming soon!

Maggie and I joked around after church Wednesday night that she could now go into labor because Jeremy and I were back from Texas. Nathan was working the Alabama basketball game, so Maggie and Avery drove home by themselves. I left my phone on just in case. 

At 12:30 that night, Jeremy nudged me awake because my phone was ringing. Sure enough, Maggie was in labor and needed to drop Avery off with us until her parents could make the trip from Indianapolis. Avery was such a trooper! She came into our house that night and fell right asleep! We did not hear a peep from her! 

Maggie and Nathan made the trip to Birmingham (she delivers at St. Vincent's) safely and her labor progressed to the point that they could prep her for her C-Section at about 7 that morning. Eli arrived almost two hours later!

Meanwhile, Ava and Avery partied here at our house. They had such a good time playing together! I will say that Ava slept really hard that night! She was tuckered out from her playdate with Avery :)

Ava At 13 Months!

Yesterday was Friday the 13th. It was also Ava's 13 month birthday! I have a few pictures to share as well as a few milestones!

Pictures first:

This picture was taken at my parents house in Corsicana, TX. Ava and Brendon laid down on the carpet and played for a while! I love this shot of them!

This was on our way home from Texas. We stopped in Mississippi to get gas and Ava wanted out of her carseat! I combed out her hair because it was a rat's nest from sweating and rubbing her head back and forth on her seat. She was so mad at me! I gave her Jeremy's iPod to calm her. She stopped fussing immediately and giggled! Faker!

My Nana and Pop got to see Ava! This is only the second time they have seen her. My Nana enjoyed getting to feed Ava.

Back at home, Ava likes to play in the drawer below the oven :)

 Playing on the floor in her room

Everyday, Ava and I spend some time playing in her room. She loves this table and chair set that Jeremy's mom and dad (Nana and Poppy) bought for Christmas! I put her little interactive tea set on the table (a birthday gift from Bobby, Keri, Owen, Nate, & Nora Crowe) and she has a blast! Too bad the teapot and cups always end up on the floor!

My poor baby! She is getting in 3 molars at one time. Honestly, I am kind of glad. I know that sounds mean, but I would rather her deal with 3 at one time instead of one right after the other. No sense in prolonging the pain!

Here are a few milestones:

  • Ava still has just 8 teeth. She is currently working on 3 molars!
  • Our little girl wears a size 4 shoe and a size 4 diaper.
  • She is in 12-18 month clothing, but can still wear some of her 9 month cardigans, jeans, dresses, and onesies.
  • She is working on table foods. I still do one serving of baby food at each meal. I probably am not supposed to do that, but the control freak in me tells me that she still needs that nourishment. I will probably have someone lecture me on how a child will eat when they want to, and I believe that, but I also believe in a predictable schedule.
  • We are in the beginning stages of weaning from a bottle to a sippy cup. Ava's pediatrician said it needs to be done by the time Ava is 15 months old. I will be honest and say that weaning is not a top priority right now. If she is weaned by then I will be surprised. I am not worried about it, though.
  • Walking is now the preferred mode of transportation. She is almost quicker than I am!
  • Her vocabulary is increasing so much that I can barely keep up with her new words. I will try to list a few: cup (cuh), pretty (preh), okay (tay).
  • I can ask Ava to point to an object and she can usually recognize and point to it. Ex. Ava, where is the rooster? She will then point to the rooster paintings in the dining room. She can also point to the light and a tree.
  • She is still sleeping 11-12 hours every night and takes 2 two hour naps every day. Sundays are questionable. She can usually get in one three hour nap.
  • She does not like to be held still. We are still working on Sunday mornings. She does well for a while and usually falls apart for the last 5-10 minutes of the sermon.
  • She LOVES her daddy!! I try to make it a big deal every afternoon when Jeremy comes home from work. When I hear him pull into the garage, I look surprised and say, "Guess who's here!" She gets a big grin on her face and sometimes takes off the the door to the garage while she waits for him to come in. It is so sweet to see her face when Jeremy walks in the door! He always says, "There's my girl!" She will usually giggle really hard as he picks her up and kisses her.
  • She loves to dance!! Her Aunt Berrie bought a musical walker for Ava's birthday. I would say that it is probably her favorite toy of all! She will start to push it and as soon as music comes on, she will stop and bob up and down.
  • It is kind of early to tell, but Jeremy and I both think that she will be left handed. This scares me a bit because I don't know how to teach her to write left handed. We may have to ask some lefties for help!
  • Ava is such a CURIOUS child! She is into everything. Sometimes she will be defiant, but most of the time, she just wants to look at things and touch them.
I probably missed a lot because I am so tired! If I think of anything else, I will add it to this post or make a separate post :)

Sunday, January 1, 2012

My First Day Of 2012

I finished blogging last night around 11:00pm. I think I had 7 posts to add before the new year switched over. I plan on making a book out of my blog, so it was important to me to have all of 2011's stuff in the 2011 blog posts. 

I got in bed and could not fall asleep. Fireworks kept me awake until about midnight. When I did fall asleep, it was a restless sleep. I don't know why my legs are hurting so bad this pregnancy, but they are. I woke up this morning with sore muscles all over my body. It feels like I had a fairly strenuous workout, but I didn't.

I was excited about worshipping God this morning. Our family has been out of a routine because of the holidays and travels, so this morning was a welcome shift back into our old routine. I had my clothes and Ava's clothes laid out so that I didn't have to put much thought into what  we would wear. Jeremy is usually home on Sundays to help get Ava ready, but he had to go into work early today to get his Bible class ready. It was all up to me to get there on time.

The first part of the routine went well. I got dressed and ready in the amount of time that I had allotted myself. I went to wake up Ava and thought that her part of the routine would go smoothly as well, but it didn't. I want to pause right here and make sure that everyone knows (including my sweet daughter who will be reading this one day, Lord willing) I am not about to complain about how hard parenting is or how my child misbehaves. She is still a baby and therefore cannot be expected to act as an adult. But, this morning was not a finer moment. Jeremy and I are in the process of switching Ava over to table foods and a sippy cup. She has done really well so far, but she decided this morning that she had no interest in table foods. She flat out refused anything I tried to give her. I do not believe in force feeding, so I picked her up and put her in the car and headed out to the church building. I packed her sippy cup and some puffs for her to snack on if she needed them.

I got to the building and got her situated in class. I was holding back tears already because I felt like a horrible mom for not feeding my child breakfast. I quickly exited before anyone could talk to me because I knew all it took was someone asking, "Are you okay?" and I would start bawling. I am not a fan of crying in public. If I am going to cry, I like to keep it in the privacy of my own home or car and get over it. I sat in my Bible class that Jeremy teaches and bowed my head to pray with the rest of the class. I couldn't even concentrate on the prayer. I kept thinking, "what am I doing here? My child has not had breakfast?" It kept on nagging at me until I got up in the middle of the prayer where no one would see me and walked out of class. I walked into the bathroom to dry my eyes and compose myself. I decided that I needed to get Ava from her class and take her back home to have a proper breakfast. I could not in good conscience give her puffs and water for breakfast when she is accustomed to having fresh fruit and oatmeal. I knew if I didn't get something in her, she would not be well behaved during worship. My plan was to take her home and feed her and then come back for worship. I had about 45 minutes which sounded doable.

I walked into Ava's class and apologized to her teacher (Mrs. Cindy), but explained that I needed to take her home. As I was walking to get her coat off the rack, I started bawling. I could not hold it back any longer. I was so embarrassed. Mrs. Cindy stopped the class to make sure I was okay and then told me to compose myself before I drove home with Ava. I tried to and then left class. As I was driving home, I was almost hit by a car that tried to merge into my lane of traffic. I honked several times (which I never do) and started crying again. I know if they had hit me, I would have been okay because my car was bigger, but it would have been on Ava's side. I got home as quickly as possible and put Ava in her high chair. I breathed a sigh of relief because we were back home! I tried to feed Ava again and although it took some heavy persuading, she eventually ate her bananas. I cut up a strawberry and she played with it for a minute and ate it. I cut up another strawberry and she threw a temper tantrum that I didn't know she was capable of. I watched the clock. She screamed at me for almost thirty consistent minutes. I don't know what anyone else would do in this situation, but I let her scream. I didn't pop her leg because that would make her cry more and my goal was to get her to stop crying. I also didn't talk to her because everything I said, made her scream louder. I really believe what the Bible says about not provoking your child to anger, so I ignored her. She was going to be angry with me about any decision I made, so I figured the best decision was to let her be angry on her own instead of at me.

She finally calmed down after about 30 minutes. I wiped my eyes because I cried along with her the whole time. I don't like seeing her that upset. It bothers me to watch someone cry and not be able to do anything about it, but this was a situation where she was going to have to work it out on her own. Could I have cleaned the strawberries off her plate the minute I saw that she was upset? Yes, I could have. But, I am not the type of person who caters to every whim of a 1 year old. She has to learn that she cannot get her way, every time she cries. After she calmed down, I cleaned off her plate and gave her the sippy cup. She was fine after that. I gave her about 5 minutes to stay calm and get rid of her hiccups, then picked her up and told her how much I love her. I put her down on the floor and let her play for a minute then got her ready for her nap. By this time, we had already missed worship.

I got Ava down for her nap then went into the kitchen and cried my eyes out. I know skipping breakfast might seem trivial to some people. But, it is important to me. Lack of a good night's rest mixed with pregnancy hormones got to me today. I still tear up thinking about this morning's drama. Tomorrow I will probably be able to laugh it off, but not today. Today was the kind of day when I wondered if I really am equipped to parent my child. My heart tells me "yes" because God would not have given her to me if I was unable. 

I am learning that parenting is a different mindset that you never get out of once you are in it. I am not able to switch gears as easily as I use to. But I did learn one valuable lesson today: no matter how angry Ava got with me and her strawberries, I  never stopped loving her. It taught me about God's love for me. He doesn't stop loving me because I make a mistake or show bad judgment. My New Year's Resolution is to understand God's love for me through my children.