Today is Saturday and we are supposed to rest together as a family, but we keep scheduling things for us to do apart, not so much on purpose but more out of ignorance in the truest sense of the word. I'm coming to the conclusion that if we want to spend even one full day as a family we'll need to deliberately avoid doing one single thing on Saturdays (Yeah I'm not buying it either). Well sucking it up and moving right along...

My niece was born yesterday at 12:03pm, she is gorgeous with a full head of brown hair that has highlights already :)

We ran down to central MD to visit her and parents in the hospital for a short visit after Sonny got off of work. It was a rough, long, medicated (which of course means totally pain-free right? NOT), labor and a very hard 2-3 hours of pushing for my sister, which ended in a very large episiotomy unfortunately . I feel for her and really wish she had read all the books I sent her-signed up for birth classes-done at least the exercises we talked about(!), BUT I have no room to speak, we did the same thing and went completely blind into our first daughter's birth in our local hospital, didn't even know where L&D was. Of course our first delivery turned out to be a medical emergency due to pre-eclampsia and then a NICU stay for baby for breathing difficulties (of course nothing to do with all the pain meds and BP meds they had me on...). Thanks be to God that little Alice had no such problems and is wonderfully and fearfully made and doing great, all 10# of her :)

Finding snippets of time to read my Bible now, which feels good, but like I'm not doing it all the way. I continue to pray for time and energy to complete tasks fully and for the Glory of the Lord, otherwise I'd just as soon leave them honestly and lay on the couch all day long--very true brutal honesty right there.

Mary can turn over and then spin and move a little while on her belly, it's like watching a snail move but she gets somewhere for sure. She decided that the belly position is not something to immediately scream to get rid of and can hold her head up all the way for very long periods.

Lucy has decided that mary is her personal beating post doll and I cannot even take my eyes off of them together while in the same room, and most definetly CANNOT leave them alone together for even a minute anymore. It's frustrating and she is working me to find my weaknesses like the raptors rammed the fence in JP, it's work like nothing I have ever experienced b/c A) I don't want to raise a brat so I must make her submit to me, B) I don't want to hurt her or break her spirit, and C) I'm still feeling out what motivates her to do right b/c it seems to change by the minute sometimes. Most times speaking to her on her level (physical not mental) and explaining in simple detail what I don't want her to do and then following through with a consequence IMMEDIATELY does the trick, other times I must use the 'rod', which is a light weight cheapy cooking spoon (which now Mary has decided it's her fav chewing toy). It's work spanking in love without being angry, especially since if I have to cool down I've completely lost the immediacy of the training and therefore spanking is useless, spanking a 2 yo 10 minutes after the fact is spanking with out understanding in my opinion. I think I've only had to do it about 3 times since she turned 2 1/2, but man she works me mentally every single minute now, it's exhausting. I love her, but now I have to battle feelings that she is getting on my nerves a lot, this is not a good thing for a mama to feel towards her children, they can sense it, they get hurt by it, I should know, that's how I felt my entire childhood, like a burden, in the way, a problem to be dealt with and then sent to watch TV. I refuse to make my children feel that way; when we had our first I said our life will be different, and I am not going to take this for granted, period.