Children, Housework, and Marriage

Kids really do say the darnest things. I'm in the kitchen this afternoon and Cali lifts up my shirt and tells me I have a big tummy. Thanks is my response. Then she asks, "Rosa, how many babies are in your tummy?" Just to clarify things with everyone, there are no babies in my tummy. I had to explain this to Cali and tell her that before I make her any cousins I first need to find a guy and get married. I also reassured her that I would let her know when I do have a baby in my tummy.

So I've been kidnapped by Lisa and Daniel and I think I might finally make it back on Thursday. I've been having fun playing with the kids and helping Lisa with her projects and cooking and cleaning. Today I worked on sewing some pj pants for Cali and we baked cookies. My domestic future just seems to be getting brighter and brighter. I don't know why but the word domestic just rubs me the wrong way. Makes me think of a 50's housewife who looks perfect all the time and always has her house and kids in order. Life is disordered and nobody is expected to be perfect.

It is really weird though because I used to be totally turned off by the idea of marriage and being expected to pop out babies asap. Especially when I was at BYU and I would see this young girl having kids while they are still in school. One day I was sitting in class and just wondering what the possibilty was of some young girl's water breaking on the exact chair that I am sitting in. Chills go down my spine just thinking about it. And just hearing about all these girls my age getting married makes me sick. I just feel that there are a good number of KIDS my age are just not ready for marriage and need to grow up. I will admit that the amount it does now is a whole lot less than it used to be. I've actually warmed up to the idea quite a bit.

What weirds me out is the fact that I'm getting to the point that I can imagine myself getting married and having a family of my own. I remember those lessons in young womens on marriage and thinking who really cares, I'll get married someday but that's a long ways off. Now it's probably only a couple years off and I'm beginning to think that I'm ok with that. But unlike my friend John thinks, I will not be married by the time he gets off his mission.

I am firmly under the belief that people need to go into marriage knowing who they are and who they are marrying. Marriage is complicated and confusing enough that you need to try to be as truthful as possible because how disappointed would you be to think you're marrying one person and finding out they are completely different than what you believed them to be. It's really just in your best interest to be honest with yourself and others. Which brings me to another point, I don't believe in short courtships either. I can't imagine planning on spending eternity with someone I've only know for a couple weeks. I like to idea of knowing someone for at least a year before getting married because I know having just friendships it takes a while to get to know who people really are.

I think I have learned a few lessons from examples in my life to have some sort of idea what to expect and what I want:

• Things won't turn out the way I plan.
• It takes alot of time and effort from both people to make it work.
• There will definately be hard times, but when things get hard don't throw the towel in too quickly because most problems can be worked through.
• You married your spouse because you love them and they make you happy. Marriage is not meant to make you miserable, and no one deserves to be miserable.
• Work hard to make sure you never fall out of love.
• Know who you're marrying before hand.
• Communicate.

I've never been married so I guess you can't really consider me a good source for advice, but I hope that I have learned something in my short 20 years on this earth. But I have decided that I need to live my life more before I seriously start thinking about getting married because I need to have stories to tell besides just being able to talk about my kids because those are to only people I interact with. I really need to just hang out with people my own age when I get back to Georgetown, whenever that might be.