Truth Hurts

While Lizzo IS my hero, we are not talking about her today.

Mays has been lying quite a bit lately. Up until today, I had not been able to get him to tell the truth. He has been doing a lot of blaming it on everyone else, when clearly it was him.

Today I caught him doing something minor, but wanted to tackle the greater issue of lying.

He was in our room, and I walked in to get something else, and noticed him toss something under our bed:

“What was that, Mays”

“Nothing”

I reach under and find a tube of glow stick bracelets, top off, and a part of the label ripped off. “Who did this?” I asked.

“It was Tallet. I saw him do it?”

“Alright then, let me go ask him”

I humour Mays and ask, of course he denies it. We all know it was Mays.

I get Mays to come sit down on the ground in front of me, and go into my spiel of why lying is so harmful. I remind him I already know the truth, and encourage him to tell me.

He offers up many other culprits. Tallet again. Dad. The dog. Finally resorting to saying that he doesn’t know.

It’s just before lunch time, and Mays is hungry. I tell him we will sit on the floor together until I hear him say the truth, again reminding him I already know what that is.

He is upset, and wants to know if I want him to die from skipping a meal. I reassure him that is not true and he won’t die from skipping one meal.

Finally he blurts out “It was me”

He leaps into my arms and begins sobbing uncontrollably.

At that moment I realized that for him, telling the truth was a physically painful thing. He could barely get himself to do it.

Isn’t that how we all are? Sometimes telling the truth is the hardest thing. Accepting blame doesn’t feel great. But it’s also freeing.

I held him while he cried, and repeated to him over and over how proud I was of him for telling the truth, how I know it was hard, and how being truthful is always the right way to go.

Several hours later, he was caught pulling my Post-It sticky tabs out of the dispenser. His knee jerk reaction was to blame it on Tallet. When I asked a second time he instantly admitted it was him and gave me a big hug and exclaimed “That was easy! I told the truth”.  You could hear the freedom in his voice. No longer carrying the burden of needing to pass off the blame.

This is also a reminder for me, to be gentler in my responses to their mishaps and misbehaviour. It is my job to lead them into becoming kind and honest people. Overreacting to minor offences is not getting us there any quicker!

The In-Between

I am constantly planning out blog posts in my head, trying to think of something “good” to re-enter the blogosphere with. But yet, when I sit down to write, my mind totally blanks out.

How many years have I been trying to start this back up!?! Rather than trying to focus on being perfect, I am just going to be real. I am going to be me. I have so many thoughts rolling in my head all the time, and in the past I have found it so therapeutic to be writing it out in a blog.

Over the last few years so much has changed in my life, so much has changed in me as a person. Having a business has been so much harder and more involved than I originally planned for. My theology has been majorly overhauled, and I am still in the process of rebuilding with a new view on everything. Growth has been slow for me as I only have so much space inside my head.

Nevermind growing a family! Here I sit 24 weeks pregnant with our third baby. THIRD!! Years ago when I first started blogging and sharing our journey I could not have dreamed of being this fortunate.

I almost feel like I am in the in-between. Not quite infertile but also not at all fertile. How can it be that?

This pregnancy has been one of mixed feelings for me. I spent a year dealing with some health issues that kept us from trying to transfer one of our embryos. Finally the time came, and it worked on the first try! I had not prepared for that, but I had fully prepared for a failure. With Mays it took us 4 attempts until I was pregnant with him. It felt too easy.

After Mays, we had 3 embryos remaining. Now we still have 2. It’s a wild thought that we might have 2 more babies after this one.

I have friends and family still dealing with infertility and loss. It’s humbling to me that I am fortunate to have 3 babies, while others only have 1, or none, or have experienced a great loss. My heart is so heavy for them.

It took until our gender reveal for me to realize that I am allowed to be happy about this pregnancy. It is something we prayed, wished and hoped for. It something my body has worked hard for, and I worked hard to be as healthy as I could be before we could do a FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer).

It is ok for me to be happy in my season of joy, and it is ok for others to be sad in their season of sorrow. Just because I share my happiness does not mean I have forgotten what I feels like to travel through darkness.

Every once and a while, the feelings emerge. Like when someone talks about having “3 kids under 3” I can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy for something I was never able to have. Or when someone is able to conceive on their first try. Or naturally at all for that matter.

One major thing I have been learning in my life is that happiness is a choice. It is not something you can find by pursuing this or that. It is about your outlook on life. The world is not against you. Bad things happen. Bad days happen. We travel through dark seasons of life. But we are ever so fortunate that we get to choose happiness despite our life situation. What a sad thing that would be if our happiness was dependant on what happened in our day to day life.

 

This Is Me!

If you are fairly new here, you might not know a whole lot about me. I will attempt to open a window into my soul!

I am a wife – been married for almost 13 years to a man that I love with my whole heart, but he also drives me crazy! We fight hard and we love hard.

I am a mother – we struggled with infertility when trying to conceive both of our boys. We are so grateful for our miracles, but it doesn’t change that day to day parenting is HARD! Kids are so much fun and so character building at the same time.

I am a believer – my faith has changed A LOT in the last couple years, so I plan to share quite a bit about what that means to me.

I am an entrepreneur – I am passionate about what I do, but it is one of the most challenging things I have ever done. Personal development has never been more important!

I am an animal lover – We have our own little mini farm here, and it’s a constant fight in our house to not get any more animals!

I am working towards a healthier life – I am a Beachbody coach, which has given me the extra incentive I have needed to workout consistently. I am not perfect, and I still majorly struggle with nutrition. I LOVE FOOD!  I am planning to share lots about that journey here as well!

That is me! I am sure there are many more facets that will reveal themselves over time. Enjoy!

Try This Again?

Wow. It’s been two years since I made this blog and it has been totally dead! But I have SO MANY things to post about, my mind can hardly hold them in anymore! It was so therapeutic for me to type everything out, and not everyone wants to listen to me drone on in Insta-Stories.

So LETS DO THIS!

I will blog about family, faith, fitness, work (I wish I could find an f-word for that too) and beyond!

Welcome To A New Beginning

Hi! Welcome here!

I have wanted to get back into blogging for quite some time, but I never did pull the trigger. But now, here I am, ready to go.

I was originally going to keep writing on my old blog, but I have changed so much since it first started, I wanted a fresh start. Plus I wanted to give WordPress a try.

To sum up my name choice, my husband thought he was marrying the perfect Mennonite wife. It’s pretty clear to see, what he got was anything but. With time, you will see why.

So come along on a journey with me.