Baby Laughs

I remember with my first baby at only a few days old she full out giggled aloud in her sleep. It caught me so off guard, I mean her eyes weren't even able to focus enough to really see yet! But somehow she had enough memories in her dreams to let out the sweetest sounding laughter you could ever imagine. My heart just melted. How can you deny that they were fresh from heaven where we existed previously to this our mortal realm.

My boy has laughed almost every night in his sleep so far, and it's been an absolute treasure and comfort to know he's dreaming of a time and place not long ago.



Heaven's slice is a baby fresh from heaven.

The Cure

As everyone (probably) knows, I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. As such, I am as most saints are, a sinner, a repeated offender of disobeying what is good and right, yielding to my own weaknesses. I go through repenting process after repenting process. Why then?Why try? Why stay? Why even be if I'm just going to keep on suffering or causing others to suffer; why do any of it if I keep on messing up? ... Because I know the cure for my mistakes, and also the reality of the eternity after this, as well as the pre mortal before.

Jesus Christ, is our brother, our family. He loved us perfectly and eternally. He lives, conquering death and beckoning us to come follow Him. Why, why would he descend from his thrown divine to rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine? as yours? Love, unconditional perfect love. A love we could never understand, but that we must try to. Why did he do this? Because he wants us to return to Him, to our Heavenly Father, to our family; he wants us to have joy. Not the splashes of joy we experience from time to time here on the earth, but the everlasting permanent joy that is in the eternities. He is the cure. The cure for everything. 

Prayer is something I we take for granted a lot more than I we don't. It is a power and a peace freely given to us to utilize here in our imperfect existence to call upon our God, our maker, our most royal family to make us whole. We all can use this precious sacred gift whenever and whenever we could possibly be. And with a sincere heart and real intensity of our spirits we will find the answers, we will find our cure. It may not happen in this life, but if we continue trying, progressing, and learning to honestly seek His will in this our mortal existence, our cure will be there for us in the eternity of the hereafter.

I'm sure there are many who wonder why people, especially mormons, express or share their faith so often. To answer this simply, I pose a question -  If you knew the whereabouts of the anecdote to an illness that effected everyone including those you love, wouldn't you feel it was your duty to share the location of it to others?

Everything out there in the world that is there for consumption has some sort of promise to be the cure, but my deeply rooted beliefs take me otherwise to a place that no tangible materialistic intervention could ever compete with. There is but one cure, and it is a cure for everything.

Heaven's slice is seeking our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Marriage Elephant

I feel like all marriages have some sort of elephant in the room no one wants to talk about: debt, resentment, infidelity, rejection... but if there's enough love and maturity in your marriage the elephant is literally just a gigantic pile of laundry.

Photo unavailable for comment. 

(as if I'd show you a photo of our mountain mess of clean clothes lol)

Heaven's slice is slurpees!

Cutting People Slack

Before I had my own kidlets I remember feeling like an outcast from other mothers. I or they would strike up a conversation and it would very quickly go to how many kids you had and once I'd say none, the conversation would end. I was quickly dropped to them in conversation because I wasn't a mother like them. Apparently I wasn't good enough or interesting enough to get to know because I was childless...

Then after I had my first child and now with my second, I completely understand. After you have a child, quoting Smashmouth's wise words, "your head gets smart, but your brain gets dumb." Your brain changes immensely after having a child, your wiring for taking care of your child and constantly asking "where's my baby, how's my baby?!" (see 'Mommy Brain') overrides everything else, up to and especially your adult speaking skills. My brain has to work so very very hard to retain information others have given me and spit out a sentence not only properly but appropriately. Holy cow it's weird how hard it is to have conversations; to start them, to continue them, to finish them, it's all just very exhausting to figure out how it once worked. You have to start at square one it seems with developing your social skills. When someone does also have children though it is easier to converse, simply because your brain and life is already deep in the thick of everything about your kids, so vocalizing becomes a lot easier. I'm intimidated now by others who don't have kids because they can speak with such ease, genuine concern, and tactfulness. I don't have those skills even close as strong anymore. To remember enough about a person to strike up a conversation and ask about certain things in their life that they've already made mention to me previously, takes a lot of digging deep into my mind to find. Meanwhile if I am succeeding in really listening to someone and conversing with them, guaranteed my children are being completely neglected because I am no multitasker when it domes to human interactions. Hopefully they haven't ran away in the time it took me to partake of a simple weather conversation with a stranger passing by at the park.

I'm not saying all mothers, especially in baby phases, are handicapped in their social awkwardness, but I (with great hope) can't be the only one who has a hard time. I've said things that don't make sense and came off rude I'm sure. I will just put out a blanketed apology, as I will butcher it if I say it in person, to anyone that has ever felt like they weren't interesting enough because they didn't have a child, that is simply not the case. I'm coming out of my brain mushiness more and more after having my second kidlet, but it truly has taken a lot of effort to get my social skills up to par. One thing you must always remember is you are awesome even to the wordless parent, I mean "hey now, you're a rockstar!"

So my hope is for someone reading this who has felt as I did before I had children to please cut those mothers slack; I so wish I did. Those poor exhausted awesome happily content wonderful parents that I mistook as rude were actually just more focused on the raising of their babies and saving brain energy to better parent. It was never that I wasn't good enough.

Furthermore it is an ever evolving lesson to myself that generally speaking people don't mean to be mean, and if they are coming off as such, there's probably reason enough to give them the needed benefit of the doubt.



Heaven's slice is cutting people slack.

5 Questions For Your Marriage

Recently I read the talk given last general conference titled "We'll Ascend Together" by Linda K. Burton, and it had some key points I really wanted to share - In this talk she posed 5 questions that can test how often we intentionally speak kind words to each other:

 "

1. 1. 
   When was the last time I sincerely praised my companion, either alone or in the presence of our children?

1. 2. 
   When was the last time I thanked, expressed love for, or earnestly pleaded in faith for him or her in prayer?

1. 3. 
   When was the last time I stopped myself from saying something I knew could be hurtful?

1. 4. 
   When was the last time I apologized and humbly asked for forgiveness—without adding the words “but if only you had” or “but if only you hadn’t”?

1. 5. 
   When was the last time I chose to be happy rather than demanding to be “right”?

Now, if any of these questions lead you to squirm or feel a tinge of guilt, remember that Elder David A. Bednar has taught that “guilt is to our spirit what pain is to our body—a warning of danger and a protection from additional damage.”

"

(To read or view the whole talk click here or the title at the top of the page)



Heaven's slice is continually working on a healthy happy marriage.