meditations of a blueberry

My inspiration. I have boys. But that doesn't mean I don't need to worry about them having a healthy body image. I need to be a good role model for them. I need to show them that a woman does not need to be a size 6 in order to be beautiful. To do that, I can't be obsessed about my weight. I can't let them see me worrying about the extra bulges under my clothes or that I can't fit into those pre-wedding jeans. I can't let them hear me complain about the jiggly belly or stretch marks that pregnancy has left me with. I need to embrace my body so that they can one day embrace their wife's postpartum body. I need to remember that this jiggly belly produced two beautiful boys, and that one of them was over 10 pounds. I need to remember that though my breasts aren't as perky as they once were, they are making enough milk for a 19 pound three month old, and a two year old, with enough "left over" to donate to another baby! Over the 27 months I hav...

Thankful. It's a word that we often throw around without really thinking about what it means. We say "Thank you" and are annoyed when someone else doesn't observe this societal nicety. We teach our children to say "thank you" but do we teach them what it means? Do they truly understand what it means to be thankful for something? Do we understand? I find myself thinking tonight about thankfulness. It's only right, being Thanksgiving weekend. Tonight, my house is quiet. The baby is sleeping and mrblueberry took E to the hockey game. And so, I am alone in my thoughts about thankfulness. It seems to happen every year around this time . What am I truly thankful for this year? I'm thankful for the roof over my head, the furnace I can turn on, food in my fridge, and the lights that light my home. I'm thankful for ability to stay home with my boys, to not have to return to work. It's hard, but we make it work, and I am thankful that we are able to...

I have never been so grateful for my vision as I am today. This past week has been a less-than-fun one. In fact, it was down-right scary. Have you ever had someone tell you that you could lose a body part or the ability to use a body part, and actually mean it? I did this week. Let me tell you, it is not nice to hear. Last weekend, I woke up feeling like I had something stuck in my eye. No amount of rinsing with saline or breast milk (which is incredibly soothing, by the way) helped to get it out. I made the wise decision to not put my contacts in and wore my glasses. By the evening, my eye felt even worse. I went to bed hoping that all I needed was sleep and whatever was in my eye would work its way out. I was skeptical though since I had had something similar happen only a month ago. When I woke up in the morning, it was definitely not better. My eye was incredibly light sensitive. Even with all of the lights off, I was in a lot of pain. I decided that I needed to go to the doctor,...