Comparison Crazytown

Sometimes blogs, Facebook, and Instagram can make you feel like your life sucks. Like your house isn't as beautifully decorated as hers. Like your husband doesn't love you as much as hers does. Like you don't have the money to purchase a nice DSLR camera like she does but have to take pictures on your iphone. Like you are stuck at home with a teething angel crabby baby while she is enjoying her nice relaxing day at the beach with a tropical drink in hand. Like how is she able to go out and buy a new cute outfit while you have to sit back and know that there just isn't room for new clothes right now with a one income budget. Like look at her baby drinking from a bottle...why can't my sweet baby boy drink from one? Like how come she gets to live 5 minutes from her family and spend so much time with them when my whole family hasn't been together since Thanksgiving.......

STOP the madness.

Seriously, Audra, look at your heart. It's pretty ugly. You are jealous. You are coveting. You are greedy. You lack contentment. You are selfish. You don't even see how MUCH The Lord has blessed you. You don't see how The Lord has not only provided for every single stinkin one of your solitary needs, but he has given you more than you could ever ask or imagine. You have been given grace, which if you never had anything else, would be SO much more than you deserve.

Why do I get caught in this trap? Why can't I just peruse my friends' lives and be happy for them without feeling sorry for myself? I'm pretty sure the answer lies in spending time with Jesus and where my priorities lie. Some days are good. I wake up and read the word, pray to him and pour out my heart, and ask that I would glorify him with my life that day. Other days, not so much. Other days I wake up and immediately go to Facebook or check blogs or look at Instagram. I get caught in the trap of seeing what others post and think that their life is perfect and mine is far from it. None of our lives are perfect. I have to realize that what I see is just a glimmer of what others choose to post about their lives, it's not the real every dayness. I am guilty of it myself...only putting the flattering pictures, the sweet status' where my baby did something sweet or my husband did/said something kind and thoughtful. Never do I post about a bad fight we had or a picture where I'm not looking so good. But as women, we need to free ourselves from the comparison trap and know that we are far from perfect, we all have messy lives, but for those in Christ we are loved, redeemed and treasured by the king of kings. He didn't die on the cross so that we would live our lives in constant comparison and covetousness. He died so that we could have LIFE and have it more abundantly. So we could live real, refreshing, this is my mess and I want you to see it so you know how small/sinful I am and how forgiving and amazing and big God is. I need to wake up every single day and cry out to The Lord to help me see just how blessed I am and never flaunt that in front of others, but always point it to Jesus. Not by anything that I deserve do I have a husband that loves me and works hard at a job to provide for my family, a precious baby boy that was such an easy, perfect, healthy, happy blessing (how have I hardly thanked God that Grayson was literally conceived the very first time we started trying? This alone makes me nauseas bc I know so many precious, beautiful women that are struggling with infertility), a warm, inviting home, a fridge full of food and a closet full of clothes, a really nice used SUV that I love, play dates with friends, FaceTime with family...I could go on but I won't because that would be the opposite of what I want to convey. Every single gift in my life is given to me by the father of lights and it's only by his grace that I have anything because I don't deserve any of it.

Thank you Lord for opening my eyes today. Help me to see how you see and to always have a thankful content heart, giving you praise. Thank you for your never ending grace that covers my life and for loving me in spite of my sinful, wandering heart. Thank you for choosing me to die on the cross for when I have done nothing to deserve it. I love you! 

And just to add a little bit of preciousness to end this post, here is my little sweet as pie Grayson Patrick complete with a soapy beard. :)

 

Teething & Hey Girl

So we are in the middle of a lovely new stage of babyhood that I just love. NOT.

Teething is bad news bears.

My usually happy, mostly content baby has been a pitiful, sad, drooly, gassy, fussy, whiny little tiny one. Grayson is in the process of cutting his first tooth and instead of it being one of his bottom teeth like normal, he is in the 10% of babies that cut one of their top teeth first. Our pediatrician said that usually the top are harder on them and because it is his first and he's never experienced pain like that before it's even worse. Then to compound on his poor little baby gum pain, his little tummy has been through the ringer. I'm still not sure if its the infant ibuprofen the dr. said to give him or something else, but my poor little angel has had some of the worse gas pains. :( The past several nights he has woken up crying in pain and tooting so much. :( That might be a little TMI (and sorry future Grayson that your mommy felt the need to share this on her blog ;)) but it has been SO sad. I am pretty sure it was the medicine so I think we will stick with Tylenol from here on out because I read that sometimes ibuprofen can be hard on their tummies. Praise The Lord that yesterday finally after some very hard days and nights, little Gray slept good and we actually were able to get some smiles and laughs! Yesterday we went medicine free and tried to stick with cold things in his mouth. He's still not fully himself yet but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although I kind of want to cry when I think about the fact that he will be getting teeth until he's 3 years old.  Here's a text I sent my husband while he conveniently had a meeting in downtown Atlanta and didn't get home until after bedtime the day that Grayson started getting his tooth.  He texted me a picture of the Westin with the awesome restaurant at the top overlooking downtown that I have always wanted to go to where his meeting was next to. 

Moving on to something totally random, I have been loving the Ryan Gosling Hey Girl pictures. I know that this probably has been a trend for a long time, but I am just now really paying attention to them and they crack me up. These are some of my favs:

(Is it really sad that my favorites center around the theme of staying in pjs/yoga pants all day?!?)

And even though this is not Ryan, it will make you laugh if you grew up in church. :)

Happy Monday and here's to a hopefully teething free week! :)

Seven Months!

Now let's pretend that today is May 4th. :) (I'm not as behind on this one thankfully! :))

Seven months.  

Closer to a year old than birth.

Cue tears from this mama.

Honestly, as sad as I am that my baby is getting older, I adore the changes happening.  He can do more and is so much more engaging and fun.  

He is wearing mostly size 6-9 months and still wearing size 3 diaper.  He can still wear some of his 3-6 month things, but mostly we have moved on to 9 months (and 6-12 months sizes depending on the brand).  This month we officially started solids and Gray has tried a lot more foods.  I have been mostly making his food with my baby bullet and it's pretty fun. We've done apples (which he is obsessed with), pears (he also loves), sweet potatoes (hit or miss- sometimes he likes and sometimes he doesn't), oatmeal (likes with mommy's milk and fruit mixed in), zucchini (he tolerates), peas (not a fan), green beans (not a fan), squash (hit or miss), prunes (likes), and peaches (likes).  He eats oatmeal with fruit for breakfast and has a fruit/veggie combo for dinner. As you can see, he's not a huge fan of vegetables but I'm just going to keep working on it and hopefully he won't be too picky.  He loves most every fruit he tries, though.  I have found a brand of baby food called Peter Rabbit Organics that he LOVES and his favorite kind is Spinach Apple Peas (crazy, but he downs this like nobody's business.)

 

 Praise the Lord above, my sweet little angel started sleeping 12 hours at the beginning of his 6th month.  With more solids in his tummy, he finally enjoys a full night of sleep as does his mommy. :)  He still nurses 5 times a day because I don't think he's quite ready to drop to 4 just yet.  I have dropped his last nap of the day.  In the previous month, he would sometimes take a 45 minute catnap at the end of the day, but as time goes on he just doesn't want to take it.  Some days he will wake up earlier in the morning (like 6:30 AM), not take as long of a first nap, and will be up from his second nap by 1:15- 1:30 and that is a LONG time to try and make it until 7 for bed.  But if I try to lay him down for a nap, the little one just isn't feeling it.  Our schedule is mostly this (although some days are not quite this predictable :)):

6:30 - 7AM - Wake Up & Nurse

8:00- 8:30AM - Nap

10:00 AM- Wake Up

10:30 AM- Nurse

11:00 AM - Breakfast Time :)

12:00 PM - Nap

2:00 PM - Wake Up & Nurse

4:30 PM- Nurse

5:30 PM - Dinner Time :)
6:15: Bath time, PJ's, snuggles & bible story time with daddy 

6:45 - Nurse & In Bed at 7 PM 

Grayson is starting to show signs that he's getting ready to start crawling which freaks me out a smidge.  I think he's still a ways off but he's started rocking and loves to get up on his little legs. He hasn't figured out the arms yet but man oh man once he does I'm pretty sure my life will never be the same.  He LOVES to move.  Even when he's sitting playing with his toys, he is rocking back and forth.  When he's on your lap, he's pulling up and jumping.  When I'm trying to burp him, he is practically climbing up me.  It's getting harder to keep him still during monthly picture time.  I love this picture where he just looks like a little troublemaker. ;)

I love to watch him when he's playing with his toys.  I will put his toy basket in the middle of the floor and he will dig and pull out the toys one at a time and immediately put everything in his little mouth.  He sees it, picks it up, and puts it in his mouth.  It's amazing to watch his little brain at work.  He has a toy that has six different shapes that can come out and when he's playing with it his mission in life is to get every single one of those shapes out.  He does it in record time now.  He loves to roll and roll on the floor and loves it when Lucy lays next to him.  They are becoming best buds these days and when he wakes up from his nap we go downstairs and look for her.  A lot of times he will grin when he sees her walk by.  Poor Lucy girl, she gets beat up on when buddy is close by.  He pulls her ears, her hair, hits her nose, and she takes it all.  If she's had enough she'll just get up and walk away but I am so thankful she's sweet with him.  I'm pretty sure our little man will have NO fear of dogs because his best furry buddy is 80 pounds. :)  Grayson is still a social little butterfly.  He likes it when people pay attention to him- even strangers.  The other day we were in Target and he saw this lady looking at items on a shelf.  He started babbling and was looking at her and started getting louder.  Once she looked at him he gave her the biggest grin.  It was almost like he was saying "thank you for finally paying attention to me!" ;)....he's such a little ham and I love his outgoing people person personality.  I wonder where he gets that from? ;)

 

 Likes:

 Playing with Lucy

Daddy- this is pretty constant 

Eating fruits

When mommy sings and dances :) 

Sofie the giraffe 

waking up from naps- he's so happy (mostly :))

Dislikes:

Vegetables....but we're working on it

 Not being able to hold his spoon while eating

My little lovie,

 Thank you for being YOU!  I adore you for who you are and who the Lord made you to be.  My very favorite part of the day is at the end of the day after bath time.  Daddy will sit in mommy's chair in your room, scoop you up, and read you a bible story out of your Jesus Storybook Bible.  Mommy sits and watches as daddy tells you about Jesus.  I am so thankful for your daddy.  He may not always show it and he can be a stubborn little booger, but your daddy has one of the softest and kindest hearts I know.  I know he loves you and I SO much and I know it is his desire to provide for our family.  I hope you get the best of both your daddy and I and not our bad traits (although I am sure there will be some mixed in :)).  My prayer for you every day is that you will come to know the Lord and seek after him with your whole heart.  I pray that you know that he is the ONLY one who can satisfy your heart's desires.  I pray that you would know that He is the center of our lives and our home and you would know all about grace because your daddy and I would display that on a daily basis.  You are such a treasure and SO loved by our Heavenly Father.  I love you, my sweet angel.

Love,

Mommy (and daddy too :))

6 Months- Grayson's First Half Birthday :)

Let's just pretend that today's April 4th for this post's sake. ;)

 Weight:  17 lbs 2 oz. (50%)

Height:  27" (50%)

Our sweet little buddy bear is 6 months old!!  He's such a little love bug and it's so fun watching him grow and do more fun things every day.  This past month was full of several firsts for our little man.  

We slowly started introducing solids this month and Grayson tried rice cereal, bananas, and avocados.  Here's a video of the very first time he tried rice cereal.  His little tongue wasn't quite sure what to do but eventually got the hang of it.  His little face was pretty priceless when I gave him avocados- he wasn't a fan at all.  I couldn't stop laughing because it was HILarious.  

Grayson is wearing mostly size 3-6 months clothes.  He is wearing size 3 diapers.  Our buddy finally was swaddle free when sleeping this month.  I was getting a little nervous like we would have to swaddle him forever (and Matt even joked that his college room mate would have to put him in his swaddle :)) but every time I tried he just wasn't ready.  He started getting his arms out every single time he went down for a nap or for bedtime, but was not happy with them out so I kept putting them back in.  It got a little ridiculous and most mornings his arms would be out so we just went for it.  I started with one arm out and pretty soon we went to both arms out.  It was a fairly seamless transition and I was so thankful for that.  He still wore his little sleep sack for a while after he was arms free but not for long.  It was so cute because when I would put him down on his back, I started noticing that every time he would just roll on over to his tummy, get comfortable, and fall asleep.  He also started rolling around quite a bit in his crib and was hitting his little head on the crib slats so we decided to put the bumpers up.  He LOVES sleeping on his tummy though and he is sleeping much better. 

Little man still can't quite make it a full 12 hours (thankfully because I'm writing this from the future ;) he does soon :)) and I stopped doing the dream feed a while ago because it was interfering with his sleep, but he usually will sleep from 7 PM - 4 AM, go right back to sleep and then gets up at 7 AM.  I'm glad to be over the sleeping issues hump we had last month and honestly I think it was due to not starting solids sooner.  I think his little tummy wanted more and he would wake up hungry in the middle of the night.  This month was MUCH better because we tried solids, but next month we plan on going all in with solids. :)

 Sweet little angel was still working on his crunches, rolling around a little more, and getting SO very close to sitting up on his own.  He perfected rolling from back to belly but unless he was in his crib forgot he could roll from his belly to his back for a little while. :)  His 6 month checkup was on the 5th and Dr. Khan, our sweet pediatrician, said he would be sitting up very soon on his own.  Literally, we came home from that appointment, he took a nap, woke up, and he sat up and hasn't looked back since.  It was pretty amazing and takes playtime to a whole new level.  Also something I don't want to forget is that when he got his shots, it was the first time he didn't cry.  Not only did he not cry, but he smiled at his nurse right after she gave him the shots.  He is just such a happy and sweet little tiny.

We bought Gray a jumper/excersaucer and he LOVES it.  Jumping is his favorite thing to do and he is as happy as a little clam in that thing....until he's over jumping and then he lets us know he wants out.  It's usually when I'm right in the middle of making dinner. :)  He started saying "ma" this month and I kept trying to get him to say it again but it was really random and never "mama"....I know I will melt when I hear that for the first time.  

Likes: 
His jumperoo 
Loves to be tickled
Still obsessed with his daddy- he comes home and gets the best smiles
Our Elmo toy (when Elmo laughs, G gets so very excited) and Baby Einstein toy that lights up and plays music
 
Dislikes:
  Having his little nose wiped 
Being sleepy but not wanting to take a nap ;)

Grayson,
You are such a little love.  Mommy is so thankful that I get to stay at home with you during the day and that I don't have to miss a single thing that you do.  You truly fill your daddy and I's lives with joy.  Sometimes after you go to bed we will talk about you and something cute you did that day and your daddy or I will say, "Oh, I just want to go pick him up"...but we don't. :)  I can tell you are going to be an active little muffin but for now I am enjoying the days that you still can fall asleep on me.  Oh, every time you do, I just want to freeze time and remember you that way forever.  Your sweet little freshly bathed, pajama clad self who smells amazing and breathing slow little breaths.  Your long eyelashes and your sweet little hand resting on my heart.  Oh, Grayson Patrick, you are my heart.  I love you so much it aches.
Love, 
Mommy and Daddy