The Sling Diaries Volume VI Better Together ::celebration::

messes and roses

This will most likely be the last time that I will be documenting as a mother of one, and a family of three, God-willing.  As I stand here typing, I am also doing my exercises to hopefully bring on labor soon.

Much of the communication between my loves and I lies in the words of a flower.  

~I needed a head shot, but since I have never been one to comply with societal or business standards, I chose to make something that defined something about my heart and whose I am.

~I used to cringe at the thought of messes, the compulsive part of me eats pizza with a fork and a knife.  Then Ari Love taught me something life changing, that true beauty lies in all of the seasons of life, and especially in the messy ones because that is where most of our growth is done. 

~I have found that a beautiful rose infused bath can completely change your outlook on how you view the mess that got you there in the first place.  If we were to play a game of "he loves me, or he loves me not," I tell her that she will never need to worry because every single petal that will ever come off that rose will be one of the never ending love that her daddy and I will always have for her.

~We bought another bed that we added on to the side of our king size bed so that Ari Love can have her own space while still in the same room with us, but she still prefers to be cuddled up right next to me and my baby belly.

~I have a secret, when I feel good, she feels good.  After breakfast most mornings, I try to put on a little make up and fix both of our hair.  My "real mom" reality is not yoga pants and t-shirts, or "messy hair don't care" because it's just not me and I do care, and that's ok.  

~Rose tea brings so many memories close to my heart, I am a believer in that if you eat and drink beautiful things, it will change the way you feel on the inside. 

~Saturdays are our most favorite days because the spontaneity of them always turns into moments in the day to cherish forever.  We dip our feet in the healing ocean and soak our skin in the rejuvenating power of the sun.  At 40 weeks pregnant and still wearing our Love, it makes me feel strong, my husband tells me how proud he is to walk by my side, and I always have a free hand for him to hold tight.

~I used to think that having a natural birth was the greatest feat of strength that I had ever accomplished, that is until I nursed while pregnant.  The difference for me was birthing naturally was more of a sprint, while nursing while pregnant is a marathon.  Do they make stickers for my car for that? haha  It has taught me the power of taking things one day at a time.  I'll be honest and say that I didn't think I would make it until now but we have and it brings tears to my eyes to think that we are still nursing strong.  Brent and I both really wanted Ari Love to nurse until 2 and beyond, and there were nights when he would look at me so apologetically, and my response to him would be, "you do it!" hahah  I couldn't have made it without his support and belief in my strength and so here it is documented forever and ever, 40 weeks and nursing our beautiful 17 month old and it is a time that I will hold on to for as long as I can.

~We only have 4 coffee mugs, but there is incredible power and love in simplicity.  Every morning when I wake up, I find that my darling husband intentionally left me the same mug that he drank his coffee in right next to the coffee pot.  Sharing this little gesture of love with him leaves me feeling like it's a Saturday morning, when we are enjoying our coffee together while watching the sunrise. 

~Emulating one of my favorite things about being her mamma.  There are so many times when I feel like a failure, but on this particular day, the tears didn't stop from flowing because I felt like somewhere along the line, I must have done something right.

~I paint her toes during naptime, because the look of complete joy and gratitude in her face when she wakes up trumps anything else that I should be doing while she sleeps.

"For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn't understand growth, it would look like complete destruction."   

time is love

With our due month quickly approaching, and my energy levels slowly dwindling, it has really forced me to slow down and really think about how much our life is about to change again, so soon and so beautifully.  The truth is, I feel amazing.  There is something extremely special about sharing such a miraculous time with a little girl who is really starting to understand that there is a baby in mama's belly.  My belly gets hugged and kissed and rubbed and kicked...not on purpose, but goodness, these bellies can sure withstand some toddler abuse I've come to know!  I know a big part of it is already knowing how amazing it is to be a parent, and questioning how our hearts could possibly expand enough to love another little human being as much as we love our first little Love.  But you know, that's what makes our heart the strongest muscle in our body.

If you ever wonder what we do throughout our days, well I shall tell you that it's quite simple, we spend time together.  Our pastor mentioned this on his sermon last week that time is love, and that really stuck with me and I have been meditating on it all week.  Some days, guilt tries to creep in telling me that I'm not doing a good enough job buying Ari Love the best toys, or that she is missing out for not having her own room, and maybe that our home isn't big enough or nice enough, or that when I'm too tired to do much we spend too much time watching sesame street.  But you know what, nothing compares to the way she sleeps between her daddy and I with one hand on my belly and one foot on her daddy, softly singing as we all drift off to sleep.  I wouldn't trade waking up to the scent of her delicious head under my nose, or her waking me up by playing with my eyelashes and proudly exclaiming "hi mama!"  One of the most comforting and biggest lessons that I have learned from our church and from living this minimalistic lifestyle is that God just wants to spend time with us..and so do our children.  

Many days, we don't even leave our little nook, but we dress up anyway and pretend that we are princesses.  I let her play with my wedding ring that her wonderful daddy gifted to me and I tell her the stories in detail of how we met and fell in love.  We play with recycled boxes and highlighters and write all over each other then take a 2 hour bath before our afternoon nap.  Actually, bath time at all hours of the day has been our go to activity here lately and Ari loves it.  We pretend that we are mermaids at the spa haha We spend time paying deep attention to the smallest of details of the roses that her daddy surprised us with and stare in awe at each perfectly formed petal.  Some days we sit on the ground and eat hummus and guacamole while singing the abc's and then take another bath.  I don't know any of the shows that people are watching these days because we don't have television, but I will tell you that I have laughed and cried more while watching sesame street than I ever have watching television, especially the episode with Jason Mraz singing, that one is our very favorite.  I really hope that she will grow up knowing how much she has taught me about the most important things in life, and I will do my best in teaching her what little things that I have learned along the way.

humbled by grace

 

A few days ago, I was sleep deprived, exhausted, and extremely pregnant and lost my patience with our sweet daughter Ari Love. When I saw the look in her face from my reaction, my entire being prompted me to hug her and sign while telling her how sorry I am.

Her response was so beautiful.

She looked back lovingly at me and signed thank you. Thank you for saying that you're sorry mama, I love you, are the words that she conveyed to me.  With tears in my eyes, I became so humbled by the grace that she so quickly showed me.  Oh how my life was changed by that seemingly small, but incredibly significant moment.

Lately, I have been meditating on how truly imperfect I really am.  I try not to dwell on my daily failures, but I do want to consciously be aware of them for the future, because as Maya Angelou says "when you know better, you do better."

I have made and still make mistakes, and I have hurt people in my life and until I became a bit older and wiser did I truly comprehend how thankful I am for the second chances that have been given to me. I am thankful for the power of I'm sorry and for myself to have grown and matured enough to push my sinful pride aside and ask for forgiveness. I am thankful for my friends that have looked past my selfishness and let me back into their lives to share in each others joys and successes. For my incredible husband who always stands my side and tells me, I will always forgive you.  For our daughter who continually teaches me more about the power of love and grace than I have ever learned in my entire life.  Never have I experienced anything more humbling than asking for forgiveness from our own child.

I'm not sure why the phrase "childish ways" or other phrases with that same connotation even exist because most times, she exudes more maturity and grace than I do.  Honestly, I want to be more like her, because her childlike faith is a mirror image of who God is and such a beautiful example of His character.
There have been so many times when I honestly did not feel like I deserved forgiveness, but it was given to me anyway, because someone else chose to love me more.  I will never, ever take that for granted.

I say I love you too much

*I am very humbled and honored to have the Huffington Post publish this piece, you can find it here.  Please spread the love by sharing this post or anything that speaks to your heart with your friends and family as my purpose is to spread love any way that I know how*

When my family moved back to the United States when I was about 8 years old, one of the biggest culture shocks to me was how much Americans said the phrase “I love you.”  It came when parents dropped their kids off to school, or as the concluding phrase to a phone conversation, or just because, during a casual shopping trip to the mall.  In my traditional and somewhat conservative Arabic family, you didn’t really say “I love you.”  Honestly, it was hard enough wishing my parents or brothers a happy birthday, let alone actually telling them that I loved them.  I remember one day after spending the afternoon with a friend whose mother always told her she loved her for no apparent reason at all, I asked my father why he never said that to me.  His reaction of course was one that I had already anticipated.  He said that he didn’t need to tell me that he loves me because he shows me love every single day by having food in the refrigerator to keep me full, giving me money to buy things that I need, and making sure that I received a proper education, among many other things.  He also added that if he said it to me all the time, it would lose meaning and value.

I agree that there was certainly no shortage of all of the ways that love was shown to me throughout my childhood and adolescence.  My father gave up everything to bring us to America to give us an opportunity for a better life, and if that’s not an ultimate act of love then I don’t know what is.  But why was there always that longing, tugging at my heart strings…

I spent those years of my adolescence locked in my room, angry and hopeful, reading about what love looked like, and felt like.  Love felt cold sometimes, like when I kept my teddy bears close to me to make sure they stayed warm.  It felt like my heart swimming in my chest when Anne finally professed and reciprocated her love to Gilbert on Anne of Green Gables.  It looked like a puppet, as if there was a string somewhere under Mr. Rochester’s left rib, tying him tightly to little plain Jane Eyre. I’ll never forget my best friend from college, whose parents still held hands under the table as we ate our supper at our favorite Mexican restaurant.  This couldn’t just be something that you read about, right?  Most people told me that I would live my life greatly disappointed, and for a long time, I was.

When I saw him, the gates to Heaven opened.  I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and felt love all at the very same time.  Our serendipitous encounter that summer day was and still is an incredibly spiritual experience for the both of us, and one that has had the greatest impact on our faith.  In that instant, my entire life flashed before my eyes.  If I sit here and write out to you all the details of that day, those months, these years, you might not believe me because I truly know that it is not of this earthly realm.  But please believe me when I tell you that life is much too short not to tell the people that you love the most, “I love you.”  I tell him every day, every night, and every time I think it.  I tell him in public, and in private.  When I rub his ears and push his hair out of his eyes, and when he holds my hand under the dinner table.  I tell him when he’s having a good day, or when I’m having a difficult day.  I told him over and over when those pink lines on the pregnancy test read positive.  Love is in our daughter’s name and even simply saying her name when she wakes up from a nap makes my heart flutter. When he lays on the floor with her speaking baby language, I tell them both how much I love them, and adore them.  Goodness she looks so much like him, I constantly find myself staring at them with tears in my eyes, living this and experiencing this is so much more extraordinary than reading about it in a book can ever be, but everything to hope for.  We are not perfect, and if we have ever felt frustrated at one another, nothing is more powerful than “I’m sorry, I love you.”  As much as we love taking risks, we hold true to never going to bed angry because the possibility of never waking up is much too great of a risk to take.  Forgiveness and love, these are the things that make up the core of our entire existence.  God Himself not only showed us that He loves us, but also tells us multiple times.  He tells us that He loves us.  Those words have never ever lost value to me, no matter how many times I say them, because I mean them with all of my being and everything that I am.  So while some may think that I say I love you too much, I say that you can never say it enough.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.   
1 Corinthians 13:13

*This post is also featured on The Love More Shop, committed to spreading love and giving back to parents in a simple way*