I'm way stronger than her. Why should she get to eat pizza?

I promised friends that this wouldn't be a mommy blog (seriously though, it might 'cause mommy blogs are hot right now and make BANK)... but this thought I had yesterday really made me scrunch into the "ehew, someone has a dirty diaper" face, Jimmy Fallon style. I thought this while at the zoo, watching my 2 year old spit out the piece of pizza I shoveled into her mouth. It was just the night before that I romantically sighed to my husband that all I wanted was... a hot, greasy, disgusting, super-cheesy pizza. I want the kind of pizza where you where you slyly unbutton the top of your pants just looking at it, and then you start to wonder if your jaw will cramp up due to all of its inedible mozzarella, or if your face is going to break out afterwards like an adolescent teenager.

I can't remember the last time I had a pizza like that, because I've been suffering with something called Gastritis. And no, little brothers, it's not some sort of fancy way of saying "fart-itis." It's simply inflammation of the stomach. It causes indigestion, and mostly, a whole lotta burnin' pain and heartburn. Thus, I am relegated to mushy, already-been-chewed type of nursing home food. Definitely not pizza.

Why am I experiencing this, you ask? It's hard to say. I don't really know. And every time I ask my doctors that question, the first thing they ask me is: "are you stressed?" To which I reply: "No. With the exception of the demands from tiny little dictators who won't let me sit for more than 2 minutes at a time." But even that's pretty manageable for me: I have a lot of help - thanks family! *waves*

My Gastrointestinal Internist (GI doctor) tells me to "relax" at every visit. I don't know what his wife is like, but I feel like the word "relax" is in a rule book some where, under "Things to Never Ever, Under Any Circumstances, Say to a Woman." I want to send him and his wife that book, after I jump up and throat chop him and his wire-y combover.

Gah. He didn't deserve that... he means well. And his prodding, personally and endoscopically, helped me figure out that no, I'm not stressed, exactly... I'm anxious.

I'm anxious about my health. I'm anxious every time my stomach twinges that I'm going to get the stomach flu (I got it way more than the average bear last year). I'm anxious about my life and my kids life. I am anxious that I'm not enough as a person, wife, mother, daughter, woman, citizen, etc. I am anxious every time we fly, that we are going to crash and die some horribly painful death and leave our kids without parents.

I realize I'm stronger than those thoughts. They are just thoughts. They are nothing. Being anxious about them doesn't help them. It certainly doesn't make them any better. In fact, it makes them worse. Worry doesn't add a day to your life... it doesn't add A. Damn. Thing. It just keeps you from eating pizza.

I taped a verse to my car dash before heading to the zoo. It said:

 “I have made you, and I will carry you. I will sustain you, and I will rescue you.” (Isaiah 46:4)

And I thought, I literally do all of that for my kids. I made them, I carry them. I sustain them. If I dropped them off in the wilderness without me, they'd barely make it a day. (That said, if I was with them, we might make it like, maaaybe two days). And, I rescue them All. The. Time.

Last week, I rescued Charlotte (the pizza-spitting two year old mentioned above) from a head first dive into a wicker hamper. I rescued Sidda's finger from being slammed between a cedar trunk and its lid. I rescued Charlotte from choking on a whole thing of String Cheese she somehow fit into her tiny baby mouth. I even rescue their dumb dolls from behind the bunkbeds. We've all seen that video going around Facebook about the Dads saving the day, right? You get the idea.

Kids don't worry about what will happen when they dive into a hamper after God-knows-what. They just dive. They don't worry about heavy objects falling on them or about losing things that are precious to them maybe forever. They just act. Things just happen. And then they deal... usually with crying and hysterics, but sometimes with asking for help. Sometimes with trying to figure it out themselves. Remembering this helps me feel better about my anxieties.

And, so I thought (as I watched Charlotte reach for Doritos instead) that if I do All. That. Stuff. for my kids...  I definitely deserve some pizza.