hearty happy

I was a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding this weekend. It was the first time I walked down an aisle since my own wedding. It made me think of my wedding day- how I thought I was so happy. And I think I was happy; I mean, it was my wedding day. But I was even happier this weekend.

I was giddy-happy on my wedding day. Now, three and a half years later, I'm soul-happy. Like, rich, deep, soul, hearty happy. I've had three and half years of life lived with a hubbins. And there are times when I want to smack him on the forehead so hard, but it makes all those times when I can't stop kissing his face and hugging him so hard even sweeter.

Can you see the difference?

I can. I can feel it, too, of course. This is why it drives me to bonkerstown when people say to enjoy the honeymoon phase while you still can. "It's all downhill from here." No, really a man in a bar told us that on our honeymoon. 

If, by "enjoy" they mean that your spouse will live up to all of your expectations and you'll never disappoint one another and they'll always brush their teeth before they kiss you and you'll eat your meals by candelight and you're both healthy, then yeah....that honeymoon ends pretty quickly. 

But that's not my definition of marriage, and it's not my definition of enjoyment. 

If, by "enjoy" to mean the joy you get when you see your husband holding your son for the first time even though you're twenty pounds heavier than your wedding day, or the way you burst into laughter after having a really big fight, or the way you pray together so desperately, or the way you get intimately knitted together by trials and tragedies and salmonella and rashes and newborns and dogs throwing up on you, then that enJOYment is the one that lasts "as long as you both shall live," and that's the happiness that I'm talking about. 

I get joy from keeping my vows even when I don't feel like it, or even when I wonder if they were written all wrong. HAPPINESS in marriage, to me,  is keeping your vows and watching the fruit and joy that comes from it when you're faithful to each other and faithful to forgive and love and fight and stick the heck together. 

What is happiness in marriage to you? 

xo, 

B

egg salad brain

Y'all know my brain on a Friday. Scrambled eggs brain, spaghetti brain, egg salad brain, even. So, I'm here to post without any promises that it will be coherent for relevant. But it's what on my mind this morning, nonetheless.

1) This book is goo-oo-ood! The way the author threads words together is downright delicious. If you like Hemingway (I'm not going to pretend that I'm a huge fan. I wish he used more periods and less chapter-long paragraphs, but I do love his wackiness and the way he can't help himself from describing absolutely everything that his characters drink...), then you'll like this unique (fictional) perspective on him, too.

2) Coffee drinkers wake up most mornings thinking about coffee, am I right? Holla back. But I wake up on Spring and Summer mornings thinking of iced coffee. I told the barista at Whole Foods that I like just enough half and half to make my iced coffee the color of Bruno Mars. Anyone? Anyone?

3) It's my first Mother's Day this Sunday! Well, second, I guess. But first with a baby outside to take care of. I'm so giddy about it! I'm glad we celebrate us. We deserve to be celebrated. Can I admit that? I....yeah....I can.

4) I'm doing Arbonne's 7-day cleanse next week to help support my kidneys and get rid of the toxins. We're working on eating "clean" here at Bakertown. I'll let you know how it goes! I've been told there are no stimulants, so hopefully we can avoid the potty talk, although, y'all know I love poop humor.

5) I am ashamed to admit that Demi Lovatos "Heart Attack" has been on repeat this morning. But Y'ALL! She's got such a killer voice! N. says "Yeah, but it's so autotuned....bleh bleh." What do you think?

xo and happy Friday!

B

dear Simon

Bubbins,

I'm sitting at the dining room table, eating a tomato sandwich on GF bread. You and I eat our first lunch around now, then another around 1pm or 2pm. I wish I could tell you what your favorite foods are, but the truth is that you'll eat anything...in copious amounts. You are, after all, a Baker.

You're playing in your pack 'n play. That is to say, you've stood up and are chewing on the guardrail. You're saying "Dum, dum, dum, " which means "yum, yum, yum," because you can see that I'm eating food.

You change so fast. Your daddy and I can hardly keep up. We both left for a few days, and when we came back your were pulling up on furniture, acting like you're ready to walk any day. That's not fair!

Daddy and I spend a lot of time watching you. We love that anything you are doing at any given moment is the absolute most important thing you'll do that day. Anything you're "saying" is intentional and animated. You like to smile and talk to anyone. Really, anyone.

You're pretty much happy all the time, until you get sleepy. Then you get downright fussy. Daddy says "He's got on his fussy pants!"

So far, you've kept your blue eyes and red hair. Golly. I hope you keep them both. I never imagined you'd look like you do! It's fun to discover new things about the way God made you. He is creative. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Now, you're trying to eat the paper towels out of the trash can, and you're saying "Uh Oh" (which sounds like "Uh-mm" the way you say it.) Life with a mobile baby sure is an adventure.

Love you, baby.

Mom

Arbonne Love and Another Giveaway!

I flew in yesterday morning at 7:05am from Arbonne's annual Global Training Conference in Vegas.


Is it just me or do you think that red eye flights were created by someone who hated humans? I passed out with my mouth open and left drool stains on my couch promptly at 8pm last night.

Nevertheless, I'm absolutely stinking high on Arbonne love today. I've always believed in the integrity of these products and been blown away by the quality of the company but, maaaaaaan what's got me inspired today is type of people who are at the top of this business. The highest-earning woman started Arbonne because she couldn't pay her phonebill, and today she's able to GIVE more money away each month than she MADE in a year twenty years ago. She said,

"I want Arbonne to be the biggest network marketing company, so we can give the most back."

I want to be able to be that type of giver. I want to be able to see my "success" in this business by how much I can GIVE and not how much I can earn.

So, in the spirit of giving, I'm doing another giveaway!

The way to be entered into this giveaway is simple:

You just have to sign up as a preferred client!

If you're like me, then you don't buy a darn thing until it goes on sale. This sister does NOT buy full price, and I don't expect you to, either. For that reason, I always tell my clients to sign up as preferred clients. It's $20 for 20% off of everyyyythiiiing for an entire year, plus some pretty outstanding offers on your first purchases.

Want to know more? Want to win some Arbonne love? Email me at brettbaker29@gmail.com

This giveaway will go until tomorrow at 6pm EST, and the winner will get this beauty ($85 value):

the Hamptons Classic Palette, Arbonne.com

that terribly faint and healthy line

Simon's two bottom toofers came in a few weeks ago.

I was all happy happy joy joy, proud mama showing everyone in the family when they first popped on through. Then they grew in a little more, and I noticed that they were a dark, dark yellow on the front.

At first I thought it was food, and I tried wiping it away. Then I thought it was plaque, and I tried brushing them. Nope. Still dark yellow. I called our pediatrician, who talks me down off a ledge on the weekly. He's always laid back. Even when Simon had diarrhea for nine days straight (I apologize, son, if you read this later in life....) he said,

"He'll be fine. It just takes a little while to get through their systems."

And I was like, FINE?! I had to take out a loan for all of the OxyClean I bought!

But when I told him about Simon's teeth, he said,

"Oh, that's not normal. That's not good. Take him into a dentist."

No one told me until later, but my ped, peds dentist and my dentist were all concerned that he had a birth abnormality that means he never developed enamel, that his body wouldn't know how, and all of his teeth would grow in without enamel and would eventually all have to be pulled and replaced with veneers.

I had done my research, so I knew that was an option. And it kept me up at night weeping, thinking about how hard it would be for a little boy to have yellow teeth, to be embarrassed to smile, and to have to undergo multiple dental surgeries his whole life long. I knew it was only one option of the multiple things that could be wrong, but that was the worst case scenario and I just downright couldn't get past it.

I cried into N.'s shoulder until I had hiccups. That hard, can't-catch-your-breath cry. I knew that Simon would have his fair share of uniqueness: his webbed toes, his height, his red hair, his fair skin,  that fact that he dwarfs all of his same-age friends, but I had planned on them being moderate, reasonable, get-picked-on-in-middle-school-then-be-proud-of-it things.

I hadn't planned on this.


A few weeks have passed and Simon's top teeth have come in with plenty of thick, white enamel.

It's a mystery, kind of, as to why his first teeth were missing it. It could be that I was sick around the time of his enamel development and it threw off the ecosystem, but I'm not sure if I'm convinced about that, either.

I wonder if it was God, giving me my very first opportunity to learn a valuable parenting lesson:

I can't fix everything for Simon. 

Ouch. I can't. And you know what? Even if I could, I shouldn't.

It's mine and N's job to raise a good-hearted, respectable, upstanding, independent and and prayerful man. A man who can one day serve God, his community and his family. And by golly, he's not going to be able to learn those things if his entire life is pristine.

So, I've got to learn that terribly faint and healthy line where we love Simon HARD but we don't cripple him with the weight of our overprotection. How do I learn this? I've found that the only way is to pray for wisdom.

How about you, mamas and daddies? Isn't it hard? What have you learned?

xo,

B