It's a Boy!

Franklin Jerome Wright

January 23, 2013

9:10 AM

7 lbs 7 oz

20 inches

Birth Story to come.

Daddy, Grandma and Nana all holding Franklin

Meeting Big sister and Big brother

Above: Sick big kids cuddling with Grandma

Below: Franklin, no bigger than a baby doll!

Visit from Aunt Kati and cousins Nathan, Brelee and Emali

Bye Grandma! Thanks for being here!

 Franklin Jerome meets Papa Douglas Franklin

My babies, giving Mommy a break.

Even the dog wanted in on this nap. :)

Still here... still pregnant

2012 was quite the challenge for me and my little family, but we made it through!

There were some really neat things that happened, and some really frustrating things that happened, some sad, and some very happy (SEVERAL weddings!) so I would say that 2012 ended in the black...ish. :) Trying to be positive!

2013 is starting off much better than 2012 did (I think) and these are the things I am looking forward to so far:

The birth of our 3rd child! (Don't know gender - keeping it a surprise since we have one of each!)
My first younger sibling getting married! (Yay Ammon and Cambrai!)
Pike Family Reunion in July
Rebekah starts Kindergarten!

Additionally, we officially have two Bachelors degrees in the house, and Daryn is looking into getting a second Bachelors. I asked him to hold off starting classes until after the baby arrives, as this pregnancy has taken a toll on me.

I'm truly amazed at HOW different every pregnancy can be. While I've always heard that every pregnancy is different, I usually subscribed to the general idea that boy pregnancies go similarly and girl pregnancies go similarly - I'd heard enough women say essentially that. But each of mine have been quite unique - and there are certainly a number of reasons for that.

With Rebekah I threw-up nearly every day, right after breakfast, and felt nauseous if I didn't eat every 2 hours. But it was very easily managed, and just became part of my routine. "uh-oh, feeling sick! Must be 2 hours since I ate? Yep." *eat a granola bar, or applesauce or string cheese and go on my way* Also, I was a full time student, walking all over a large university campus and keeping crazy hours to keep up with my homework and still spend time with my full time student husband. I still feel like Rebekah's pregnancy was SO PERFECT. I was sick enough to know that my body's hormones were working correctly, but not sick enough that it kept me from doing anything I wanted to do, except maybe enjoy chocolate and a few other foods.

Josiah's pregnancy was just crazy. I was working full time as a high school math teacher and staying up to ridiculous hours trying to keep up with grading and lesson planning etc and still spend time with my daughter (who I felt I was neglecting - working mommy guilt SUCKS) and my husband who was unemployed. Many times I enlisted him to come to my office at school and do the grading that I'd usually pass off to a TA - if I'd had one. You know, the "mark it if it differs from the answer key" stuff. Anyway, I felt nauseous all the time, but eating didn't help me feel better, and I rarely vomited. In fact, there were many days I WISH I could have just puked and been done with the feeling. There was a lot more stress that pregnancy than with Rebekah's - being a first year teacher is no joke. Other than the nausea, though, most of my problems were work related, not pregnancy related. (Though, needing sleep did make getting work done more difficult. Thank goodness for my loving husband and his help!)

This little baby has taken a road far different from his or her older siblings. For starters, I'm a SAHM, and so my duties are quite different than they ever were for my past 2 pregnancies. Add that to the fact that I was barely getting used to being a SAHM to 2 children when I got pregnant and it's not a very pretty picture. Daryn has always been the cook in our home, and taking over that responsibility has been tremendously difficult for me. For some people, that's easy, but I'd much rather be writing lesson plans - and honestly, I don't enjoy writing lesson plans. Also, this pregnancy I haven't thrown up much at all - less than Rebekah's, but more than Josiah's - and my nausea is more like Josiah's in that eating doesn't help it and I can't just puke to get it over with, but different because it's not nearly as ever-present as it was with Josiah's. Physically, I've noticed more aches and pains, but I am more physical now than I was during Josiah's pregnancy, and possibly even Rebekah's (even though I walked all over campus, I didn't push 100 lbs of children and stroller while I did it, but this last year I went walking with the kids in a double stroller quite a bit)! In fact, one night my hip slipped out from under me and while I did not dislocate it, I felt as if that's what happened. It was from my ligaments being much looser - a side effect of multiple pregnancies. It took me nearly a month to recover from that, so I haven't been walking in the last couple months, but it was fun while it lasted. Despite all that, the biggest challenge this pregnancy has been mentally and emotionally. It's not something I'm interested in going into detail on here, but suffice it to say that I've only struggled emotionally that badly once before in my life, and it was at a time where I did not have anyone to care for except myself, so trying to work through emotional difficulties while still performing all my wifely and motherly duties was quite challenging, and there was a good portion of the time I failed. I am so thankful for loving friends and family - my husband and parents especially - who have helped me through all this craziness! I'm quite ready for it to end (though, the third trimester things improved a bit) even if I'm not actually ready for a baby to arrive!

Frankly, I'm terrified of having 3 children at home. It was probably the final nail in the coffin that was my thoughts of homeschooling Rebekah. I struggle to teach her things now, and usually give her one-on-one time only when Josiah is napping (if I am not also napping), so to try and coordinate the naps of 2 little ones and then get everything done that I'd want to do every day for Rebekah - it simply wouldn't be fair to her. She is such a bright girl, and I feel she will greatly enjoy going to school and meeting new friends. But even with Rebekah going to Kindergarten, I have 6 months of 3 children 4 and under to survive. I'll let you know how that goes.

We have several things to finish before I have this baby, so I'm hoping I can manage to knock them off the list this next week. Daryn is building bunk beds for the kids, and that will require a reorganization of their bedroom. I still need to pack up my Christmas things, and I'd like to deep clean a few more areas of the house before baby arrives. I had a baby shower just over a week ago and got a great head start on diapers and wipes, as well as a few other things that didn't survive my other children (yay new digital thermometer!) and I'm grateful to all who participated in that event. I love just seeing all my friends and family and having time to talk with them - it always makes me wish I was closer to everyone up in Phoenix, but I am also grateful for the few, close friends I have here in Tucson, and missing my Phoenix friends and family makes me even happier to have at least a few people down here whom I can rely on. I'm happy that Daryn finally feels like he's found some close friends, too - though it makes his willingness to move wane!

Eventually, we'd like to get a bigger place, but the benefit of having such a low rent and such a great landlord is keeping us put for now. (Hence the bunk beds.) The children are small enough that we'll endure here as long as we can, in hopes of diminishing our debt quite a bit further before picking up the largest debt we'll ever have - a mortgage. (That better be our largest debt!) I don't think our tax return will be as big as it was last year, so we probably won't be able to get rid of another debt fully this year, but I plan to take a bite out of it!

At church, Daryn is working with the 12-16 year old boys, and I teach the 18 month- 3 year old children. Both these assignments have come with some interesting challenges, but I feel that things are going well. I'll take a little bit of time off when I have the baby, but will resume rotation teaching with a few other women that have the same assignment as me. Josiah is in my classroom, and he is only okay with being left with ONE other woman, so I hope he does okay when I stop coming to class every Sunday! It will be quite the adjustment. Probably as difficult as getting him to stop coming to our bed will be, once the new baby is here and in "his" spot - I didn't have that problem with Rebekah and Josiah because they are a year further apart!

Another adjustment - every January, the program for the children at church changes. They graduate from one class and move on to the next. Rebekah was sick last week and missed this change. Sometimes they move the teachers up with the class, and sometimes they don't, so I made sure to have a talk with her this morning about how she might have a new teacher, and how that's okay etc. We talked about other teachers she's had in the past, and how she can still see them at church and say "hi" but it's fun to learn from a new person. So we get to church, and I see her name on a door of her new class, and she had the same teachers! I was relieved and left her at the door to her new class with Daryn and went in to the nursery to set up for my kids, but just a minute later Daryn brings Rebekah in to me and she is SOBBING with tears streaming down her cheeks!

What was wrong?

Her classroom was different.

Yeah, that's right.

She was upset because she was going to a different ROOM in the building.

It didn't take too long to calm her down and remind her how happy she should be that she still gets her beloved Brother and Sister Morse (the young newlyweds who've taught her class the last several months) and all her friends are in her class, too. But Wow. Daryn says it's my fault - she's my daughter. He's absolutely right. I'm just SO glad that we at least talked about changing teachers - can you imagine how much harder that would have been if she had a new room, AND a new teacher? Oh man. Poor girl. I'm gonna need to talk up Kindergarten ALLLL summer. And then some!



I always feel bad for writing so much when I actually DO write - and I hardly even covered what's been going on these last few months. But it is what it is. If you don't know me well enough to know that this is how I roll, well, I don't know why you're here then.

You'll probably hear from me next when I have pictures of the baby to post. I have quite a few other picture uploads to take care of, but it's definitely not much of a priority right now.

All in good time. Hope your families are doing well! Happy New Year.

Trials and Tribulations

This is basically why I haven't posted in the last month. I've been SUPER preoccupied trying to put out fires


Replaced all 4 tires on Fusion
Josiah's diet - NO dairy. Not even cooked into other foods. This is crazy:

http://www.godairyfree.org/dairy-free-grocery-shopping-guide/dairy-ingredient-list-2

Labor day weekend in Phoenix
Transmission broke on the Expedition
Back Windshield on Fusion had a rock thrown through it and had to be replaced
Plumbing Strike 1
Plumbing Strike 2 - Woodbadge, Trip to Phoenix, serpentine belt replaced on expedition

October
Colds for me Josiah and Bekah
grill cracked on expedition from random object flying over fence while we're driving
Skunk in the backyard
Back screen door broken from Rebekah literally running into it
bedroom door locking Josiah by himself - and me without a skeleton key
General Conference
Broken computerS (yeah, that's plural)
My birthday - new calling (can't say until I'm sustained next week)
Rebekah's burned her butt by sitting on a slide in the middle of the day
Plumbing Strike 3
Woodbadge part 2, trip to Phoenix, fix breaks on Fusion



I want to write about a lot of this in more detail, and may or may not get to that, but I do want to say that there were some good things in all of that - like General Conference and my birthday! Also, I made some great progress with Daryn's family history and that is always super exciting. Ooo I even discovered a transcription error in the Washinton State Digital Archive and pointed it out to them, and they thanked me for pointing it out and fixed it. Now anyone else looking for those documents will find what they need much faster. :) It made me feel significant, which is something I've actually struggled with lately, so Yay! :)

Annnnnnd that's what's happening at the Wright house these days! Also, ballet and Gymnastics are over again. We're broke so no more classes like that for a while. I'm also not putting her back in Preschool for a few reasons I'll address another time. Hopefully I will get a handle on life and carve out some time to work with her in some workbooks etc to improve her writing abilities.

August

August was *quite* a busy month! Here are some highlights a summary:

The month started with Rebekah's last ballet class of the summer. A class that started with 12 girls only had 5 at the end, but I think it's partly because some of the 5 year olds had started school. One of the moms brought cupcakes to share with everyone. After that, I took the kids to Chick'fil'a. Those lines were CRAZY! But it was a wonderful experience. Everyone was very kind and helpful - I didn't bring the stroller in because I knew it would be crowded, but it was so crowded that I couldn't set Josiah down even for a second. So I put him in a high chair and pushed him around, instead. The people in line behind me were happy to hold my place when I had to help Rebekah to the bathroom and to and from the play area. I ran into several friends, including Tom - a co-worker from my year teaching high school. It was great to see him. I thought it was very interesting that the whole time I was there everyone was so cheerful. Even when they had to start asking people to show receipts so they could fill orders because the computers erased orders that weren't filled quickly enough, no one complained. There were tables with purses sitting unattended, no fear of theft. We were crammed together like sardines, but I did not hear an unkind word the hours I was there. It was pretty awesome. I was happy to have the cupcakes from ballet, because it kept the kids occupied and happy while we waited for our food for over an hour. :)

We went to Phoenix the first weekend of August. My MIL was out of town for a trip to Alaska, so I stayed with my dad at my brother's house (my brother's family was also out of town). It was really nice to have some one-on-one time with my dad, both for me and for my kids! We went to 2 birthday parties for Rebekah's friends and had a blast, and came home that Sunday, to give Daryn Saturday night to work on his final paper for a class he's been working on. We managed to leave just before my mom came into town with my siblings, as they were moving in and getting ready to start school that week. Also, Micaela turned 17! And she's a senior this year! :D Exciting times!

Since Daryn has Friday's off, I've made it a goal to start doing family activities on Friday morning. Aug 10 we went to the zoo, and it was super fun. :) We even got to see the elephants in their swimming hole! I had soccer that night. Saturday Daryn was out and about helping a family in the ward move out, then attending a pool party for the scouts. I went to a Stampin' Up party and visited with some friends WITHOUT children in tow. I really needed that!

Rebekah started preschool Monday Aug 13. It's a 2 hour a day, 2x a week program at the community center near our house. A parent has to stay at the center, but in another room during preschool mainly because it used to be a drop-off program, but commercial day-cares saw it as a threat and tried to shut it down, so asking a parent to stay was their work-around to keep the program (it's free) open. They do it on a raffle system and only take 28 kids - 14 for MW and 14 for T/R. I invited my friend Lindy to bring her son Alex to the preschool and she did, so I have a friend to chat with while I chase Josiah around and keep him out of trouble for 2 hours on Mon and Wed. That Tuesday I went to the zoo with my sister Kati and her 3 youngest. We had a great time - Rebekah LOVES to see her cousins, and while in the past she mostly played with Nate, she and Brelee have become much closer lately- especially after Brelee came and stayed with us over Bekah's birthday!

Wednesday the 15th I had an appointment with my midwife. She was a little concerned that I hadn't gained any weight, but Daryn pointed out that I started soccer right around the time of my previous appointment, and so that probably made a difference.

Family Friday the 17th we went to the splash pad and had a great time. Daryn was happy that even *I* got wet. :) Usually we're there as a family for Bekah's birthday, and I'm entertaining guests etc, so I don't go in (that, and I'm just a stick in the mud :P). But we were playing together as a FAMILY, and we had fun. :) I like our Family Fridays!

The rest of that weekend we did a LOT of work, because we didn't have other plans. We didn't accomplish nearly as much as I wanted, but we got a good amount done and it helped me feel better about the state of our house. It's amazing how quickly things pile up! (I'm still tired pretty much all the time....so getting house work done is very inconsistent.)

Aug 20th my friends started our walking routine again. It was soooo humid that I was thinking I'd wait longer to keep going, but it got better a week later. Tues the 21st I went to the splash pad with my kids and my neighbor Joyce and her daughter to meet a play group from my old ward. It was nice to seem some old friends, but unfortunately Bekah's ballet started up and it conflicts with the play group so we won't be seeing them anytime soon. (BTW, I thought it was funny that 2 weeks in a row I did a family activity with Daryn and then that next Tuesday I went to the same activity with someone else.)

Ammon came down from Utah for a week to see friends and family in AZ before the school year started for him. Poor guy's van broke down on the way, but it didn't keep him from borrowing a car to visit friends and family in Tucson! So we had a nice dinner with him at Kati's house on Wed the 22nd. Apparently he has a girlfriend now. I look forward to hearing more about her, and maybe meeting her sometime! It's 'bout time he started dating. :P (Ammon, if you're reading this, sorry if everyone gives you flack about this. You just had so many girls fawning over you in high school I was surprised you never really dated anyone back then. You're just such a stud!)

The next day I drove to Phoenix to see Brittany who was only in town for one day between leaving Utah and going to NAU. I love my siblings, and I'm glad I got to see most of them this last month! Now if only I could arrange some time to see Amy.... but Idaho is just so far! :(

I sent Daryn to the doctor to get a physical, we got Pebbles in to her vet and we went to an Elder's Quorum party that Friday (and I drove home from Phoenix!) and then left the party early to go to my last soccer game of the season. I felt bad that we had to leave the party because 1) it was at the home of some members who own a custom built house that is just plain incredible and very fun to visit - even for the littlest children. and 2) we were really enjoying our time with people from church in a social setting, which doesn't happen very often (seeing them in the social setting, not the enjoyment part).

In fact, because it doesn't happen often, Lindy and I plotted to make it happen that Saturday morning, before we ever heard about the EQ party. We invited several new couples who had moved into our ward as well as some more established couples with children in primary to a park for fruit and donuts. It was pretty fun, but still a little too hot to be a 'wild' success. We plan on doing another activity soon, though, because we did enjoy getting to know people a bit better.

August 27th found us at the 3 week of preschool, 2nd week of walking in the mornings, and first week of fall ballet and gymnastics! It's funny, actually, because Tuesday is ballet and I thought it was at 9 but it was at 10, so we were there WAY early. Fortunately, the building has a TV with cable so Bekah was very entertained and Josiah took a bit of a nap for me. That afternoon, Lindy 'borrowed' my children because her boys really wanted to play with Bekah, and her youngest, Alexander, has been asking to bring a baby home. So, she figured that since he still counts Josiah as a baby, she'd give me the afternoon off. It was awesome! I got a lot of chores done that had been left undone for a while, including mopping my floors and switching out my skinny clothes for my maternity clothes. Thanks Lindy!

Wednesday the 29th, Rebekah went on her very first field trip! We went to Peter Piper Pizza for a tour that ended with the kids making their own mini-pizza. The kids had a blast. :) Rebekah even found 2 tokens on the ground, so she shared one with Alex and they played a little game and earned a couple tickets before we left.

Thursday the 30th was gymnastics. Rebekah has a different teacher than over the summer. I hope they'll be patient with her creativity of getting stuck in icky-sticky glue 1/2 way across the floor sometimes... or that she realizes that's not the appropriate time to make-believe.

Friday morning we took off for Phoenix, and had lunch with Jen and her family. Her kids are very close in age to mine, so everyone had a fun time, even the dads. :) (I think!) Then we loaned the expedition to my dad so he could have a car with air conditioning on his trip to Utah to get things out of his storage unit, and visited my mom at my brother's house until we went to dinner - Cheesecake Factory with our friend Lyn! :D We REALLY enjoyed catching up with her, and I even got to enjoy some of the conversation because my MIL watched Bekah (who didn't want to come with us) so I only had one baby to care for at the restaurant.

Saturday we went to the temple. We were supposed to meet with my friend Kara, but she didn't show. We did meet with the Romney's and go to lunch with them after. My mom babysat the kids for us. Daryn went home with the Romneys and had a fun bachelor weekend, as far as I can tell. I stayed in Phoenix to wait for my dad to bring back our expedition. I bounced between my MIL's house and my brother's house, and we had fun visiting with family.

The sad/crazy part is that Monday afternoon my dad called to say that our car died near Page, AZ and he needed a tow. :( THAT was not fun news. I stayed in town until Tuesday when my mom drove me home (after driving up there to get my dad and the trailer he'd been towing, b/c the tow truck charged extra to tow it and it's not money any of us had to spend). We stopped at my sister's house in Marana to give her some of the maternity clothes she loaned me that I wasn't going to wear (oh, don't worry, I still have plenty! Kati is so nice to share with me!) and let the kids play for a bit.

Since then I've been trying to clean up my house. It's a never ending cycle! But, I decided it had been too long since I wrote in my 'journal' and unloaded pictures from my camera. Sorry they're not on here, but at least with this text I can match pictures to events when I go to make scrap books.

I don't know exactly what's gonna happen next.... we'll see how much it costs to fix the expedition (my FIL is using his AAA miles to get it towed to Phoenix to a guy he really trusts with his cars). It's going to make budgeting even more challenging, but we'll figure it out! I know that we'll have what we need, because we're doing our best to obey our Heavenly Father, and He blesses those who keep His commandments.

Also, I managed to do all this today because my awesome friend Linday has "borrowed" my children again for the afternoon. She gave Bekah a ride to preschool and then picked Josiah up after at about 12:45. Now my husband's home from work (holiday week he works four 8 hour shifts instead of four 10s because HR won't give him 10 hours of holiday pay or let him use 2 hours of vacation on top of 8 of holiday pay and just work three 10 hour days) and I need to think up what we'll have for dinner! Yay for catching up on things! (I'm also working on sorting Josiah's wardrobe to move him into 18 month clothes. Busy busy!)

Brelee and Birthdays

The last week of July, Daryn asked for Wednesday off because Rebekah was supposed to have her last ballet and gymnastics classes, and that's the class the parents get to come in with the kids and watch them perform. Well, he decided to ask for that Thursday off, too, and turn it into a nice little vacation.

Because ballet was cancelled one week, though, there was a make-up class the first week of Aug, so Daryn didn't get to sit in for ballet. After ballet, we took the kids to the mall (not the one we usually go to) and had a nice picnic lunch that we had packed supplemented with a big Jamba Juice (yum!). After that was gymnastics, which was super cute. And that night, my sister brought over her daughter Brelee, and she stayed with us until Saturday night!

Thursday Daryn played D&D with some friends, and Friday I babysat a friend's daughter, so I had 3 little girls for part of the day. That night we went to soccer and it was cute when Brelee saw her brother with another family (my sister sent the kids to different houses while she drove up to Utah and back for my brother-in-laws bike race). Poor Brelee was SO sad at the end of the game when we had to leave Nathan. She told me she wanted to go to the other family's house. I reassured her that her mom was coming back the next day and she'd see all her brothers then. We also cheered her up with some ice cream, in honor of Bekah's birthday.

Saturday was Bekah's actual birthday. We made French Toast for breakfast, and took the girls to the mall to play. Bekah wanted a big cookie from Mrs. Fields so we got her one that she and Brelee could share. It was only a 5 in diameter cookie but it had tons of frosting and the girls loved it. :)

I feel bad I didn't take more pictures of the girls playing together. For the most part they cycled from the My Little Ponies to the dress ups to playing in the sandbox and back around. We had a great time and Rebekah was VERY sad when she woke up Sunday and Brelee had gone home. We love having my sister and her family so close by - cousins are awesome!

Just Life

(Written Aug 16th)

The afternoon/evening of Bekah's party, Daryn went to Ft. Huachuca to have one last great visit with our friend Merrick, since he's moving to New York. We're going to miss him and Priscilla visiting! We know we'll see them in November for their Vow Renewal, but after that, who knows? Good thing they have plenty of friends in AZ to entice them back during vacation time. (I hope!)

July 15th I taught Sunbeams. I enjoy teaching them. Sometimes I get frustrated with Bekah being so clingy but for the most part their sweet spirits are just awesome to be with, and I can really feel the Spirit when I teach them the simple, beautiful truths we share with such young hearts. It probably helps that I'm pregnant, but I cry pretty much every time I bear them my testimony, even though it's about 3 sentences long.

Monday after swim I dropped the kids off with my friend Michelle - Josiah decided recently that he really likes her, so he doesn't cry and scream for her - and I went to get a sonogram to double check my due date. We are officially due January 29. I'd share the sono pictures, but I haven't scanned them into the computer. On my way home I dropped by to meet the newest Stratton, and that was nice. I love little babies! So cute!

Tuesday was swim, and grocery shopping and a trip to the mall play area with Michelle and her daughter Heather. Wednesday was swim, ballet, a visit with the Strattons for the girls to play together, then gymnastics. Thursday was that crazy rough day I wrote about in my last post. Daryn was invited to go out with friends that night, but he cancelled to stay home with me. He is such a great guy, and knows when I need him! (Most of the time. :P He's not a mind reader!) Later that night, though, he went to Ft Huachuca to help our friends pack up their moving truck. Apparently a few too many people bailed on helping them pack and they weren't going to get it done in a timely manner. Daryn is such a great friend. :D He re-packed some of the truck so it would all fit better, and they even had room left over at the end. Then he headed back home and slept a good deal of the morning before getting his Friday going.

Friday was tough because Daryn went camping with the Scouts and I had an 8:40pm game on the other side of town. Michelle was great to babysit my kids again, but Josiah took a late nap so he was definitely giving everyone trouble. Even though I was bummed, it turned out for the best when we were rained out after 15-20 minutes of playing our game, so I could go and pick up my babies and my friends could get some sleep!

July 22 we went to Binghampton Ward to see the Strattons bless their son, Guage. (Not to be confused with Gage, my friend Tiffany's son!) Then we invited everyone to our place for delicious food and good company. That week we also fed the missionaries, and then we had a fun second half of the week, which deserves it's own post because it has video and photos. :D

Painful

This is my third draft of this post. The first one has screen-caps of the entire conversation taking place on 3 different people's walls as well as in PMs between me and another person. I originally wrote it that way because I wanted you, my readers, to have all the facts and not just hear my take on the situation. But, I want to focus on the incident, not the people involved, and while I DID blot out all names and replace them with a color attributed to each person, I thought that the dissection was a bit much and did not focus on the point I was trying to make. It focused more on how hurt I was. But I want to use this more to make a point. (Which I will explain at the end.)

This week, I was called a bigoted, know-it-all Mormon who lives to cause Facebook drama and a poor thing that needs more attention at home. I cried for hours, mostly because this came from a person I had wanted to be friends with and had greatly respected. Then I couldn't keep from crying in front of my precious daughter, who wanted nothing more than to help Mommy be happy, and it was this stark contrast of her sweet innocence against these cruel words that made me cry even more for the world to which she will eventually be exposed.

I was called this because I dared to defend the religious rights of a man who believes in the sanctity of marriage, and uses money from his profitable business to support programs that provide marriage counseling and oppose homosexual marriages.

IN THE SAME POST, I defended the right of all people to protest that with which they disagree. If you don't like where a business man puts his money, I say good for you for not giving business to that man/company. Way to stick to your principles.

I respect your right to believe differently than I do. I don't believe anyone should feel ashamed of what they believe in. I respect those who stand up for their beliefs in a civilized way, even when those beliefs are contrary to mine.*

(*I'm sure we could debate what is considered civilized, but that's not the point right now.)

In fact, if I choose to express the fact that I disagree, it's because I think highly of you and believe that you will take my opinion in stride, and hopefully civilly discuss with me our differing viewpoints. I don't just go around saying that I disagree to anyone - that would be ridiculous and cause a lot of anger and arguments.

I don't like arguments. I like to debate, to discuss. It is through the civil, calm presentation of facts and evidence that we can work together to understand each other's views (btw, we can understand without agreeing) and find a compromise that benefits the greater good of our society. Without proper debate of the issues, we may overlook important information that might actually change how we feel or act.

If I were a bigot, I would not be interested in listening to the other side. And I would have probably used some offensive names, or said I was happy with the poor treatment of people..... but I did none of this.

Now, for the issue of being a know-it-all............... I have been called this before, but not really since Jr High. Most people, when they take the time to get to know me, realize that I simply love knowledge and freely impart what I know not to be a show-off, but because correct information provides for appropriate debate. You can't discuss an issue properly unless you have your facts straight. In fact, I am very reluctant to discuss a topic until I feel that I have at least a basic understanding of the issue, and even then I will admit if I have not researched it thoroughly. Topics I feel VERY comfortable discussing? Pregnancy, Natural birth, Education, and Freedom of Religion. That last one is very much because my religion is often bashed - sometimes on all sides! (But, that's a different topic.) I honestly mean well when I share information.

The rest of the statement is clearly a personal attack that was completely uncalled for. I am continually amazed that people think this kind of talk is ever appropriate. It says a lot about the society we live in that we can smear someone's name so easily, just because they chose to say something we disagree with.

Please recognize that the point of me talking about this is not to shame the person who called me these things. I've kept this completely anonymous because I want to talk about the INCIDENT, NOT to talk about the person. Overall, I know she can be a very good person with good intentions -like I said at the beginning, I had wanted to be her friend and I respected her. Clearly I hit a sore spot and somehow provoked her anger. In any case, I hope that you, those who read my blog, will take it this incident to heart and recognize your own sore spots and try to respond with a DEBATE, not an ARGUMENT, and respond with FACTS, not ATTACKS. This is particularly pertinent with the Presidential Election coming. I have plenty of friends on both sides of the issues being discussed this year. Please share your ideas with others! Please encourage friendly, civilized debate about important issues. Use appropriate sources, share correct information. Don't go calling names and getting angry that someone disagrees with you.