Happy Birthday Mommy

Me at 4 months

Today is my birthday. I've learned, sadly not mastered yet, but learned a whole bunch of important things in the last twenty nine years... here's 10 of them.

1. How to walk, talk, and use the potty all by myself. I've found these things to be extremely important.

2. Please and Thank you will get you a long way in this world. No one likes a rude ingrate.

3. Your parents may have grown up in the dark ages, but the basics haven't changed much since then, so they probably do know what you are going through. And thirty years down the road your kids will think you grew up in the dark ages.

4. Be careful what you say, it tends to come back at you. Could be tomorrow, could be 10 years later... ie. "I can't believe that mom would let her kid do that!" I now have a little boy of my own doing that same thing.

5. My mom recently taught me this one and I'm still struggling with it... Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Life's too short to hold grudges. Maybe I'll actually learn to apply this better someday.

6. It's said all the time, but marry your best friend. And your mother's advice on love and relationships may sound kind of unromantic and maybe cynical, but they are probably right.

7. Keep Heavenly Father as close to you as you can. A lot of the time, he's the only one who can get you through it.

8. Housework can wait. Babies grow up way to fast. I love the poem,

"Cleaning and scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow

For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs, Dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

9. Get all the sleep you can.

10. Friends are worth more than gold. Especially the kind that can finish your sentences and read your mind! Never let those kind go.