Where there is LOVE......

there is discipline.  Where there is discipline, there are boundaries, and where there are boundary lines, my child has made it her mission to put her whole self across them.

Let me tell you, it has been so bad lately that I have had moments where I have clearly felt like an EPIC parenting failure.  Grace and I have always known that Jancsi and Lily have the sibling rivalry and relationship thing in the bag.  They may come from different mothers, but there are times you would never, EVER know.  After about 3 lovely days of fun, farm and playtime, we have now entered into full sibling mode where even being in the same vicinity of one another causes fits of screaming and naughtiness.  Its been real special.

This dynamic aside, Lily has been just plain awful.  Awful, rotten and just the naughtiest most defiant little sinful creature that I have ever encountered.

 In the span of 48 hours, she has slapped my face, kicked me, screamed numerous times at me, dumped her food, thrown her food, taken toys from Jancsi and told me "NO!" to my face more times than I can count.  I have literally exhausted my book of discipline, hence the failure comment.  Bob and my discipline choices usually turn Lily back into a good kid with little to no fuss?  What in the world?  I have found myself thinking, "Okay, I think I need a class or a book or something because I don't know what else to do."  I mean really, we don't spare the rod, but the rod is whittling away with use.  Oh faithful followers, its bad!

In all of this I have found myself in a place of anger and great sorrow.  I hate to always have to be "on" with this discipline.  I want my fun little girl back to snuggle, cuddle and play with.  I was about ready to cry my own self to sleep last night when she finally gave me a glimmer of hope.  She laid down beside me, put her arm around my neck and said simply, "Wuv you Mommy."  Oh Praise Jesus, my discipline is speaking love into her little life.

Being a parent, no, I mean REALLY being an "on all the time, consistent" parent is the hardest job I have ever had.  Speaking love through discipline is not fun, point in fact, it sucks, but the past few days have shown me how incredibly important it is.  Lily has crossed every boundary several times, she has discovered naughtiness I never knew she had in her and railed against any limitations put on her independent spirit, but she knows she is loved, by ME.

And recently I have had to LOVE her hard!

I LOVE these Bellies

I simply love having my running buddy back, even if it is just for a 8 days.  Texas and Colorado just aren't close enough.  It's even sweeter that we are pregnant together.  We always talked about what would it be like to be pregnant together and it is simply a wonderful God given experience.  Especially because we are both having little ladies, or perhaps future running buddies?

We have both tried our darndest to keep our running shoes in motion during this pregnancy and have used each other as the extra motivation and inspiration to keep going.  Sure some of it has been good old healthy competition, but I know that for me it has given me something to focus on other than the never ending yucky feeling.  There are some days that we will each post a run on facebook and realize that we were running at about the same time.  Gives a whole new meaning to the term "distance running."

Well after the awful Thanksgiving bug, I simply could not wait to get out to Texas and run with Grace in the Ft. Worth Cowtown 5k.  At 37 weeks she is still going strong, and at 25 weeks I had gone 3 days without vomiting so 3 miles seemed like the perfect distance.  Of course, it did require an hour and 40 minute car ride to get to the start, and we really underestimated how big the race actually was, but after stressful traffic, finding parking, loosing Sebron and, oh yeah, doing all of this with 4 children in tow, we made it to the start with 15 minutes to spare.  Whew!

Grace and I found a great system for pushing all of our charges.  With two securely on our bodies we put the other two in the double jogger and then pushed behind our respective toddlers.  Boy we must have looked a sight.  Too bad we couldn't get any "in motion" pictures.  In an attempt to not run over anyone with our wide load, we decided to hang at the back of the very big 5k pack.  Wrong choice.  Here we are "runners" and the 5k crowd is a different group, especially the back of the 5k crowd.  5k's are like social jaunts. Some run, but most are new runners, so the etiquette is lost on them, and the back of the pack is where the "walkers/strollers/morning jaunters hang out."  Speed or any kind of gumption is nill, everyone is talking to their friends without thought to anything else, and most of the others have their headphones in and are oblivious to the outside world.  I am waiting for the Ft. Worth review to come out and have the headlines read, "Pregnant women disrupt 5k run with their incessant, 'ON YOUR LEFT.'"  It was our mantra the whole time.

We managed to cross the finish line after being able to run the entire way.  We waded through the line, got some food, had the kids eat it all and then got back in our car to head back to Saint Jo!  I adore this family, and LOVE these bellies.

Glad we got to make more running memories together!