Questions?????

Okay, so lately I have been pondering. . . . my cousin Michelle would be so proud! Here are the questions that I have been mulling over recently. If any of you have any answers, please LET ME KNOW!!

1- What is it about being pregnant that makes you love your baby so much? I mean think about it, for the first little while (and for some women, the whole time) you feel gross and sick and nausious. Then you get to feel pretty good, just frumpy and tired. And you finish it off with feeling like a whale, retaining water, not sleeping because the ponch is so huge, peeing all the time and eating 5x the food that you normally do. To finish it off you either get to endure the worst pain that you have ever felt in your life or, if you are lucky like me, you end it off with major surgery that takes 6 weeks to recover from. Yet, you are excited, full of love and anxious to meet your little baby, and when it is all over it was worth it!

2 - Why do you love that little baby so much when it is born? I mean, think about it, it doesn't do anything except cry, eat, sleep and poop for the first couple of months. . . and yet, all you do is brag about it and even though you don't sleep at night, you love that little baby more than anything in this world!

3 - Why is it often the mothers who work full time and leave their kids with others who are the most competitive? I have run into this situation alot! I have a really hard time with mothers who compare their children to others and try to start competing with them. I love my children whether they are the smartest kid in the class, or the dumbest! They are still my child!

4 - Why is it that as women we feel as though we have to do it all? For some reason, our culture has started telling women that we not only have to have a family and have children, but we also have to be extremely successful at our careers. This really bothers me. I mean, what about the women who don't want, or can't have their own families? Are they considered failures? And what about the women who choose to have a family and not work? Are they the scum of society because they live off of their husband's income? Sometimes I feel as though I am looked at like that because I am young, I have a bunch of children (I was married to their father before I started having them too. . . .which apparently is rare) and I stay at home. You should see the looks I get when I have all of my babies with me! And then people actually make comments when they find out how old I am.

5 - Is money really the root of all evil? This is something that I have wondered my entire life. When I was young, my parents had NO MONEY!! My dad was in school, and even for quite awhile after he graduated they didn't have any money. But they sacrificed and took some calculated risks and it ended up paying off. I am quite proud of my parents for where they are now, and I look to them as an example. However, I do know quite a few people in my church who look at my parents and others like them and think that my parents think that they are better than them. In fact, my parents don't even really think about it at all. In fact, if there was anyone who I would think of as extremely generous and giving with their money, it would be my parents. I have a really hard time when people label other people who have money. It actually has destroyed a couple of my friendships.

6 - Is the old saying "It takes a village to raise a child" really true? I mean in this day and age do we have villages that are worthy of helping us raise our children, or should that responsibility fall more upon us as parents? I love that my children go to a wonderful school where they are not only taught another language, but they are taught about the cultures that go along with that language. However, there are quite a few things that I do not agree with, so I make sure that I teach my children those lessons at home. And I love that we have the religion and the faith that we do have, but I think that it is better that my children learn most of what we believe in from Otto and I rather than relying solely on the church to teach it to them.

Maybe my thoughts are a bit skewed. . . I don't know. I would, however, like to know what your thoughts are on some of these questions! Let me know what you think!!!