Dearest girls.

My dearest girls,
I am going to get frustrated sometimes. I will never be the perfect mother.  Sometimes I will be less than mediocre.  I will huff and puff after the forth time of going up the stairs to cover you up or pick up your paci from the floor.  I will take a deep breath in the middle of a tantrum, yours, and walk away for a minute.  I will snap at you in frustration and grumble at your disobedience.  I will sigh and occassionally roll my eyes when you throw a tantrum because you don't want to get dressed or have your diaper changed.  I will accidentally grab your arm too tight as you pull away while I am trying to talk reason to you.  I will sometimes cry on the way home because you don't want to tell me about your day.  I will feel like I need a mommy time out and go upstairs for a bathroom break that lasts more than 10 minutes as soon as we get home and your daddy takes over.

However, I will love on you and tuck you in after I've had my moment on the way up the stairs.  I will pick up your paci and laugh while giving it back to you.  I will take a breath in the middle of a tantrum and walk away for a minute.  I will kneel down to eye level and tell you in a calm voice why taking something from your sister is not okay even if you think "she was finished with it".  I will give you options after you decide you don't want to wear the original outfit you picked out.  I will tickle you and ask you where your body parts are while I try to get your squirmy butt dressed.  I will loosen my grip, get down to eye level and apologize for squeezing too hard, then take your hand and suggest we try it again.  I will ask you several times on the way home how your day was knowing that you might have been in the middle of a thought the other times I asked.  I will sometimes take a mommy time out because I want to come back down ready and refreshed and ready to play with you.

I love you girls so very much.  I am going to make mistakes but I promise I will try to get my head back on straight quickly and remedy those mistakes.  You are both blessings to me and my life and I cannot imagine my life with out you.  Parenting is a constant learning curve.  Marriage and being a mommy is the only thing that has ever gotten hard that I have not quit on.  You two have made me better. I thank you for that.

Forever and Always,

Mommy

 

Our Christmas.

Our Christmas was full of Baby Jesus, family, fun, and of course, breakfast with the princesses.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! 

Love,

The Reid family

Wednesday with Words!

Getting ready to watch Lion King for the first time.  Kyra Mae got to listen to it. Teagan lasted 10 minutes.  Guess that's what we get when we don't let our kiddos watch TV...lol

*Also linking up with Carrie with Children*

Sisters.

Teagan loves Kyra.  This is something we have seen over and over again. They are beyond adorable in the mornings together.  Sometimes Teagan gets a little too loving but Kyra's face lights up every single time she sees Teagan or hears her voice.  It often brings tears to my eyes.  It always brings a smile to my face.

The scale.

I've had a struggle with weight most of my teenage and adult life.  I've never been classified as overweight medically.  I've really technically never been overweight, although there have been significant times in my life where even at my smallest I felt as if I weighed 8,000 pounds.  In my struggles with my weight I swore to Josh that when Teagan got old enough to get on the scale we would no longer have a scale.  We've reached that point.  It makes me anxious to my core.
This morning after I weighed myself Teagan started "Teagan do it! Teagan do it!".  I let her stand on the scale, because at this point she doesn't really know what it does.  She just knows that when she stands on it numbers pop up.  After her numbers popped up she looked at me with her inquisitive toddler face and I told her the scale said she was super healthy!  She smiled, got off and then wandered off to our bedroom. 
 I think the time has come to retire the scale.  Honestly, I think it is going to be the equivalent of what I felt when we went skydiving.  Terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.  Maybe liberating is more the word.  I will not live with my ankle tied to that scale ever again.  Neither will Teagan and Kyra.  They will grow up surrounded with positive thoughts and with a focus on healthy bodies.  I will grow up surrounded with positive thoughts and a focus on a healthy body.  
So, the scale is gone. Goodbye, scale.

Santa picture FAIL.

I knew it would be one of those pictures where I had at least one of two of my girls screaming and crying.  Traumatized for possibly life by sitting on Santa's lap for a picture.  They didn't even get to see Santa.  We tried though, boy did we try!
Josh was working on the Friday before Christmas and so my mom came to help out with the girls.  We were going to surprise everybody and have the girls picture taken with Santa in the dresses Grandma (Josh's mom) made them for Christmas.  We got to the mall and found Santa.  The line was crazy, of course, so we went to eat first thinking if we came back it would be a little better.  We came back and there were two lines.  One line that would definitely see Santa and the other line who might get to see Santa before lunch.  Guess which line we were in? That would be correct, the one that MIGHT get to see Santa.  We were assured that it would probably happen since we were the first ones in the second line.  They toyed with us a few times and finally we thought we were getting through.  They opened the rope and let us go through only to be blocked by yet another of those blue velvet barricades.  They had twenty-five minutes to get twelve people through before they let us on the other side of that rope.  The sweet but bad news-bearing old man told us "Santa goes to lunch at one o'clock and won't be back until two.  Since you're the first in line you'll get to see Santa as soon as he gets back".  I just looked at him and smiled.  The minutes ticked by and my mom and I slowly realized we weren't going to make it.  Standing there another hour with a restless toddler and an almost two month old who was sure to get hungry in the next thirty minutes.  My heart sank but a decision was made.  Next year we are giving Teagan and Kyra the "day off" from daycare, I'm taking the day off and we are going with my mom to have the girls pictures made with Santa on a random Tuesday at 9:30 in the morning.  See if we have to wait in line then...