My biggest challenge as a mother

Discipline is really hard for me. I always knew that when I had a child that I wanted to spank my children but when my daughter got to around one year old, I realized that I just cannot spank her.  The first reason I needed to discipline her was for hitting and that was prolly why I cannot spank her. Why would I hit her for hitting?? Does that make sense? "Anissa stop hitting me, come here so I can hit you." Come on now! So ever since I came into conflict with this I have been against spanking.  Also she doesnt always understand yet why she is in trouble (or I am not always sure if she knows why we are upset with her) and so I hate to make my baby be in pain and think that we just want to spank her for no reason.  It breaks my heart.  Also I have learned that it hurts her feelings more to sit in time out for 2 minutes than to be spanked for 2 seconds.  Time out is actually more of a consequence.  I dont know if it is just my husband but he seems to not know his strength and I feel that he sometimes spanks too hard and I dont want to cross the line of abuse.  It seems to be a thin line. 
Anyway the hardest thing that I am dealing with in this disciplining issue is yelling.  I have a super hard time not raising my voice at her. It seems that nothing works for her. Nothing gets her attention. I can say stop or no or put her in time out or spank her and just laughs at it all now a days. It is just second nature to me to yell and I dont want to be that mom. I am not sure how to break the habit.  My greatest challenge as a mother is my voice.  It seems that the way we try to avoid most is the way we end up being the most.  Why is that?

The mystery of poop

Poop.  It is the funniest word.  It is the grossest thing.  Before you have children you never really have to deal with poop.  You just flush it and never think twice about poop.  But once you have children it all changes.  The first few months with your newborn you still find changing diapers and poop disgusting. But as the months go by, the more diapers you change and the older your child gets, the less disgusting poop becomes.  I now have a 20 month old baby and she is starting to dig in her diapers and take out her poo and so poop is becoming more common in our home.  Just the other day she was tapping my arm and I turned around only to see that she was wiping something all over my arm to try to get it off her hand.  And of course, what was it?  That is right, poo!  It is hilarious to me how comfortable we have become with poop. 
Yesterday Mandrae had the day off and so we were having family time out on the trampoline. Mandrae seized the opportunity to check Anissa's diaper for poo and have a poo fight on the trampoline.  This would never be okay for a couple without children but once you have children, everything goes. 

Update on my Health Issues

If you are unaware of my health issues, I will explain.  I have been suffering from many different random weird symptoms for the last 5 years.  They include blacking out, migraines, numb arms, hands, feet, and legs, back pain, dizziness, blurred vision, loss of vision, mini strokes, falling over and extreme fatigue.  They all happen randomly and not for any reason at all.  I noticed it around 4 years ago when I blacked out and wrecked our car in the parking lot at my job and almost totaled the car.  So I had an MRI done and they found white spots in my brain and said that I had some mini strokes and around 2 white spots which were inconclusive. My dr thought I might have MS (multiple sclerosis) I went a neurologist who told me to do some exercises and thought I had a hole in my heart and I thought he was crazy and never went back to him and just prayed to God to heal me. The symptoms seem to get worse each year so after I had my first baby Anissa my pain and symptoms got really bad and I sought out doctors. I had another MRI done and the 2 spots have now turned into 5 to 7 spots. I was sent to a neurologist who thought I had MS and couldnt diagnose while I was pregnant with my son, so I had to wait until I delivered to test for it.  After I had him I had a spinal tap (3 weeks ago) and the results came back negative and so she doesnt think that I have MS anymore.  The spinal tap was extremely painful to recover from and I still have pain from it. My symtpoms really point  to MS and the white spots seem to result in MS and you can still have a negative spinal tap and have MS and so she isnt sure but doesnt think I do and so will send me to a MS specialist but I guess it takes a while to get in.  In the mean time she sent me to a heart specialist last week to rule out any heart issues since I am blacking out and so I went to the heart specialist and felt like I was wasting my time because I never imaged that there was anything wrong with my heart at all.  When I got there they did an EKG on my heart that took like 5 minutes.  The dr came in and sat me down and asked me if I wanted my husband to come in there and I then got kinda  nervous. He said that I am too young to be at the heart dr and that my EKG was abnormal and so there is a problem but not sure what it is. He is thinking that I might have a hole in my heart and so if I would have just listened to the dr 4 years ago I might have saved a lot of time and suffering but anyway......I have a TTE test scheduled for October 11th.   This test is where I swallow a scope and it goes down my esophogus to the back of my heart and views my heart. It only lasts around 30 minutes but I guess it makes your throat hurt and you cant eat for a few days.  (but that is ok because I have 20 lbs to lose from having my last baby!!!)  The worst part is that I dont have any family close and no one to watch the kids and Mandrae cant get off work at all because he is starting a new job the day before and will be in training and not allowed to miss work and so I will be at the hopital all alone. Not even sure if they will allow me to be alone but I dont really have a choice. I am still trying to find someone to pick me up from the hospital.  It is a really big struggle to not have family close and I am having a rough time making close friends here in Fort Worth. It is hard to find people with the same morals, values and interests.  I miss my sister A LOT!! Anyway I am really nervous for the procedure and cant imagine that they will find anything but we will see.  The crazy thing is that this will not explain my symptoms and so if there is a hole in my heart, there is still something else wrong with me bc I have too many symptoms explaining something else.  I will be okay though because God is in control. The worst part is not knowing what is going on or what is wrong. I just want to find out what it is and how to treat it.  I want to feel better again.  My neurologist thinks I have a migraine disorder and gave me some migraine pills but they are making my migraines so so much worse and so I think she is wrong.  She is the worst dr I have ever had too.  She doesnt listen to me at all when I come in and all her office cares about is money and so I dont think I will have her much longer but neurologists are hard to come by in this area.  Anyway that is all I know for now and after I get the results from this next test I will let you all know. Keep praying and I know that this is all in God's timing and in his plan and so I will stay strong and be just fine.

I'm Back

Hey guys, I am back.  I now have a new addition and a new outlook on life. My life is even crazier than before!  Every day it seems that something new happens.  I am struggling with my health and searching for answers to my many symptoms and struggles through life but I am relying on God's strength to get me through it all.  I know that God does not give us anything that we cannot handle and everything I am going through will soon be a strong witnessing tool for me and so I have to choose to go through it with joy.  Anyway in this blog I hope to share my many joys of parenthood, my revelations in Christ, my struggles in life and health and my life long lessons that I learn along the way.  Hope you enjoy and hope there are people that can relate and that follow. Thanks for reading. Love you all.