My time as a military spouse has taught me a lot about empowerment and perseverance, but it has also taught me about humility.

Last Friday, I bought my 3 year old her very own two wheel bike. She has been riding her sisters tricycle with no issues, but she really wanted a bike of her own (a ‘Cars 2′ bike at that). Since bicycles (even tiny ones) do not come put together, at nap time, I set out, with a wrench, making her bike – a bike.

2 things.

1. I bought her bike from the Navy Exchange and I should have known that it would come with directions for a completely different bike.

2. I realized, as I finished this task, that my husband had never got the chance to put either of the girls first bikes together.

I immediately felt bad. I never gave him a chance.

I am so used to putting toys together, fixing sinks and doing it all because he is away, that I forget, when he is home, that he is actually here and able to do those things. That, he WANTS to do those things.

When he got home from work, I apologized. He didn’t really mind, it was more my humility about the fact that I had done a job normally left for dad’s.

That was totally unrelated to the actual point of this post, but I thought I should just throw it out there that sometimes, I’m empowered to be able to do everything while my husband is gone and sometimes that just doesn’t stop when he’s home.

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Listable Life with Moments that Define Life

I missed last week. Boo. However, I’m present for this weeks link-up and hopefully this will make up for last weeks slip up (there are a lot of ‘ups’ in that sentence and even more ‘guts’ in this List).

5 Things I Wish I Had The Guts To Do

1. Reupholster a chair.

Even though we have already purchased new furniture and are just playing the waiting game until it arrives, I have a wing-backed chair that my mom gave us that I would love to reupholster. It has a small tear on one of the arms, that fortunately can be covered by the arm cover but, could definitely use a reupholstering. I just don’t have the guts to take the old upholstery off and sew new stuff on (it would look beautiful with a damask upholstery). Maybe, after the new furniture gets here and it’s not such a vital piece in my living room, I will take it on as a new project.

2. Jumping out of a perfectly good plane.

I don’t think of myself as a ‘chicken’. Actually, for the most part, I think I’m pretty tough. However, I don’t know if I will ever have the guts to just jump out of a plane that is 12,500-14,000 ft above solid ground (or even above water). I know people who have gone skydiving and really loved it, but…meh, it might not be for me. This also includes, jumping off of a bridge and base jumping.

3. Eat weird things.

This is pretty literal. I don’t have the guts to eat cockroach, snake, grasshopper, Rocky Mountain oysters or earthworms. My 3 year old has eaten a worm…yuck.

I think what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to eat guts.

I have to stop here and say, I pondered and pondered what else I feel like I don’t have the guts to do, but there wasn’t anything. I would sword fight, given the opportunity. Most things that I use to not think I could do, I have now done. 

Things I use to think I did not have the guts to do:

1. Move far away from my family.

I’m from Maine, after getting married, I moved to San Diego, California. It was scary and it was a long ways from the things I was use to, but I learned to adapt. Now, I really love moving and seeing new places.

2. Stand up for myself.

As silly as this sounds, I really really dislike confrontation. After becoming a parent, I realized that not only do I need to stand up for myself, but I need to stand up for myself. Now I have the guts to say not only say, “I don’t want to be treated that way”, but I also have the guts to say, “This is not an okay way to treat my child.” I am more vocal than I use to be.

3. Failing.

Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Not only does that apply to pretty much everything you try, but I think it truly applies to parenting.

I have good kids, but to be honest, figuring out discipline has been one of my hardest obstacles as a parent. I have utterly failed on the discipline front countless times. My kids have gotten away with things that they shouldn’t have. When I told my oldest daughters counselor that her and I were having a bit of a ‘power struggle’, she recommended 1, 2, 3 Magic. It has really worked (like magic…haha). From every failure, I learned something. We now praise more and discipline less.

Applying it to life, it’s the same. Relationships don’t always workout, sometimes they fail, but that’s not a bad thing. A failure can lead you to your next success.

I think I have more guts now, to jump in and try something I’m not sure I will succeed at, because I have the guts to fail…and then try again.

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I’m sure there is more. There always is. I’ll think of it three days from now and say, “Why didn’t I write that?!”

Have a great day everyone!