11.27.2016 -- A New One. Perfection.

A little more than three weeks ago, we became a family of 6. It's pretty strange, to be honest. I never really thought that I would be a person to have 4 children, let alone have them a little later in life. This, I guess, is how "other people's lives" suddenly become understandable.

There have been a lot of things in my life that have been completely unexpected. Not that having four children happened overnight or happened without my consent. But I never made plans for it as a kid. Its funny to me to think how much time I spent daydreaming as a kid - about what my life would be like as an adult. I used to go on long walks alone at night, and I spent the whole time thinking that out there, somewhere, probably, was a boy that one day would be my husband. What a waste of time! There is no way to know what our future holds!

As (one of my aunts) wisely pointed out once, "for people who plan, frustration comes when their plans don't work out. For people who don't plan, frustration comes when they're working their way through." I shouldn't even attribute that to her. When she said it, it was understandable, eloquent, and made perfect sense. I mangled it. (But sometimes, I choose to settle for what I can do - and that falls SO short of perfection!)

On that note: Thanksgiving has come and gone! Some people seem to be able to produce a perfect dinner party! Perfect food, perfect decor, perfect table settings, perfect clothes and hair... Everything. I'm appreciative of that level of execution, but I find that I lack the patience to produce flawless things. I'm not interested in that degree of quality control. 

We were invited to Thanksgiving dinner at my sister-in-law's house. It was really nice. She is pretty close to perfection herself. Meanwhile, at our house, while some people have Christmas fully up and going, our kids are still reading Halloween books and singing Halloween songs! (We have some Christmas songs in the mix, too.)

 

A few days before Charlie was born, I came to the realization that if we were going to have 3 kids in our family, I had to come to terms with the fact that much in our lives would be imperfect. (Understate things much?) Sometimes I forget this important bit of wisdom (usually after I have spent maybe a little too much energy cleaning the house). With 4 children, it's a little different. Mostly because the three oldest are capable of so much. The house is a lot more manageable now, so the focus is more on behavior. Now, I try to remember that perfection is a little much to ask from any of us. 

12.05.2016 -- Personal Maternal, Coming of Age

In a few days, Gabe will be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We have a new baby at home and for that reason, I am still in what I call hermit-mode. I haven't invited many people. A friend of mine thinks maybe it's due to post-partum depression. It could be that that is true.

When it comes to discussing religion, I tend to become introspective and quiet. Maybe this quietness about Gabe's baptism is an outgrowth of that tendency of mine.

I am a faithful member of the LDS church. I'm a Latter-Day Saint. I am a Mormon. I know it, I live it and I love it. I am acutely aware that the world is full of people who don't share my beliefs. Maybe Gabe won't when he is older. I don't want to make decisions for him; he needs to make his own. But I will do my best to teach him everything I can, and to guide him toward a life of happiness and fulfillment.

***

A few days ago, Charlie asked me to make pancakes for breakfast. I agreed and went to The Joy of Cooking for a recipe. Charlie asked if he could find it. (The Joy of Cooking is an enormous book, and Charlie isn't quite a reader yet.) I agreed and let Charlie apply himself to the task, fully expecting to help him find it in a few minutes after he expressed his frustration. Of course, since I'm taking the time to type this out, you suspect that he found the recipe. Well, he did! In a book of more than 1,100 pages,  five-year-old Charlie was confident he would find a recipe I've never used before--and he did! It's a reminder to me that children often have more "going on" than we credit them.

05.10.2015 -- Mother, Mother!

It's mother's day.
I got spoiled.

Lots of love and lots of presents. My daughter alone made me five handmade gifts! Beautiful things that I now get to find a place to show off. My husband got me a new laptop. (Sigh, gush, swoon.) Our other laptop (a most generous and unexpected gift from a favorite person of mine) died a sad death when it was dropped to our tile floor. Such a tragedy. Charlie got me pretzels and a monster church out of paper. (It's as cool as it sounds.) Gabe made me a jar of goodies with gum and gummy bears and money and pictures of some of the people I love and a very cool art piece made of paper.

Breakfast in bed.
Snuggles.
Hugs and kisses.
Happiness.

Being a mother is pretty amazing. Pages and pages and pages have been written about being a mother. Truth be told, there could be a lot more written if mothers weren't so busy doing their mom thing. I'm not going to change the world by writing more about it, but it's Mother's Day, so I'll indulge myself.

What I love about being a mother:

The beautiful people. Seriously. My kids are the most beautiful people in the world. They have the best hearts, the best minds, the best little bodies, the best smiles... Ever. Of course, all moms should feel this way about their children. It's the way things work. It's how we survive. I do not believe they're perfect, but I try to love them like they are, and I hope they'll return the favor.

The partnership. I love being able to look over at Brian when one of our kids does something awesome to share a smile. It's a mutual admiration society.

The education. Think back to all of the teachers who have talked about what education means. Now... recall (please) the part where they explain that the word educate or closely related to educere, which means to bring out or lead out. Being  mother has certainly done that for me. I feel like I have an insight into men that I never could have gotten without having a son (sons, in my case). Having these beautiful people around is motivation for me to do all things good. And to do all things well.

The insight. Marriage is one doorway into a whole new place, and parenthood is another. For me, being a mother more than doubled what I could see of the world. Figuratively speaking. It was like putting on 3D glasses in a 3D movie that I hadn't even realized could be more than 2 dimensional.
Get me? Good.

Relative to my Utah peers, I came a little late to the motherhood game.
I'm so glad I came!

12.06.2014 -- Supposition and Surprise

Life is full of surprises. (No, really.) 

This summer, we discovered that cheerleading as a sport fits Lucy well. It’s a natural, more social, step from gymnastics and tumbling. Maybe you are like me several years ago. You already know what you think about cheerleading, even though you haven't spent much time around cheerleaders. You went to school with cheerleaders. You saw what they brought to basketball games and football games.

Please read and complete the following phrases:

White people are:

Black people are:

Asians are:

Polynesians are:
Vegetarians are:

Football players are:

Ballet dancers are:

Computer programmers are:

Cheerleaders are:

Let me tell you what cheerleaders are. Cheerleaders are dedicated, tough-as-nails (get kicked in the face much?), hard-working, funny, and smart. Cheerleaders spend hours and hours building skills and fine-tuning group routines that are physically and mentally demanding. 

Some cheerleaders are *amazing* tumblers. Some have to work harder to get their skills. Some cheerleaders look like they might model on the side. Some have more unconventional looks. Some cheerleaders are dressed to impress most of the time. To some, fashion isn’t even an afterthought. 

Cheerleading is a team sport. Nothing quite fosters team building than literally lifting, supporting and catching your teammates when they fly or fall (or flail). It’s as much a team sport as soccer. I love soccer. I love watching kids run after the ball and pour their own energy into a collective effort. I love games in weather and how kids and spectators are reminded that people don’t shrivel up when we are out in the rain or even snow.

When soccer was Lucy's main sport, I felt fine mentioning it. Lucy has soccer practice... Lucy has a soccer game. Because of my own prejudice, I am still wary of talking about her involvement with cheerleading. How sad. The sport of cheerleading is great, it's just different.

One thing that separates cheerleading from sports like soccer is the preparation time. Depending on the coach, soccer can be as much as 100% competition. Soccer athletes could still play games (compete) without practices, but, like gymnastics or dance, cheer(leading) has a very different profile. Competition time comes in closer to 1%, with practice at 99%. Like most other team sports, if a teammate is missing, it can make a truly effective practice nearly impossible. 

Did I miss national coming out day? I'm

coming out, world. I am proud mother to a cheerleader, an athlete who loves her time in the gym and her team.

I love watching my daughter at cheer practice. I love seeing her and her team all giving 100% to be in the right place at the right time, to put those hours and hours of training to work in getting their jumps high and right, to contributing their own hard-won tumbling pass to the routine, to (literally) supporting their teammates or trusting their peers not to let them fall. I see these kids practicing and I see kids (yes, her team is all girls) who are learning about the value of consistency, dedication, and preparation. They are learning that they (literally) have the power to send themselves or their teammates flying into the air, and to bring them down safely. I see girls who, despite not being built the same, are confident in their own skins because they can do amazing things with their bodies. 

I love cheer.

The other night, Lucy and I learned how to do her team's competition hairstyle and make-up. I feel like a dance mom/gymnastic mom hybrid!

10.28.2014 -- Middle Child Blues

Parents have lots of problems built in, yet we make more for ourselves all the time. For example, I started our first in gymnastics classes when she was 3, and encouraged her to take as many classes as she liked. Now that (only) two other children are in the mix, and Lucy is even busier, 3 or 4 classes a week turns into 9 or ...17!

I never did the math, even though I reminded myself from time to time that the exponential activity explosion would happen one day. Probably the bigger "problem" here is me trying to equalize my parenting and time allotment from child to child. A noble idea, but impossible and maddening.

If I were wise, I would just accept that the oldest will have advantages that the others won't, and that the youngers will have advantages the oldest didn't. It seems so simple!

Take Gabe's Kindergarten experience. His is very different from Lucy's, although they are both enrolled in the same school and we live in the same house.

Gabe is in a Chinese immersion program.
The only program available to Lucy was the... English immersion program.

Gabe's school day is much longer than Lucy's Kindergarten school day.
Gabe eats lunch at school. Lucy never did.

I took Lucy to school every day.
Gabe often gets to walk or ride his scooter to school with Lucy.

This is the tip of the iceberg.

So...what does that have to do with...anything?

Well:

The other day, I got an email from Gabe's Chinese teacher requesting help from parents in her morning class. She explained that the afternoon class was getting along fine, but that the morning class was falling behind due to "behavior problems."

When Lucy was in Kindergarten, I got into her classroom regularly enough. Not all the time (I did have Gabe to care for, after all), but I was able to squeeze it in. Before yesterday, I hadn't spent any time at all in Gabe's class.

When I read that email, I decided that I needed to find a way to help in Gabe's class. Imagine how much stronger that resolve became when Gabe's teacher approached me one afternoon - when I picked him up after school - to ask me to come to class to help Gabe pay attention better.

I guess it never occurred to me that Gabe would have any difficulty in school. In retrospect, I think I should've been more aware. When Gabe is faced with something that is new to him, it's pretty normal for him to get frustrated to the point of withdrawal. I've tried to teach him to tie his shoes at least 20 times. It feels like fifty. He won't sit through it. Its like the instruction hits the "special kind of torture" receptors in his brain. His Chinese teacher explained that Gabe often just goes into his own little world and plays by himself while the teacher instructs the class.

So, I made arrangements and spent 3 hours yesterday with Gabe in his Chinese class. It was fun. It was eye-opening. It was exhausting!

It has been a long time since I've learned much that was truly novel. Until yesterday, I had forgotten how exhausting it is to be immersed in a foreign language. I remember being absolutely wiped out when I was immersed in other languages in France and in Africa. Those three hours of helping the teacher and reminding kids to stay on task and not talk while the teacher was talking was a great reminder of what Gabe is doing every day in school.

I made arrangements to spend a couple of days each week in Gabe's class. I had a hard time getting to that decision - chalk it up to mom guilt - but I found someone to babysit Charlie who I feel will add a lot to his world. I am so relieved to have time scheduled for me to focus just on Gabe!

10.26.2014 - The Rainbow Bridge

Zoey has gone to meet her maker.                                                   (Euphemisms fascinate me.)

I just realized that this means I'll need to update the blog description, so I might as well write something about it, too.

We (our family of five) took Zoey in to the vet for euthanasia a few weeks ago. It was hard. She had fallen a few times - her legs just gave out under her while she was standing there - so I made a few calls and scheduled the appointment we had been dreading for years. The vet, Joe Liljenquist, is a friend of Brian's so we may have gotten extra special treatment, but I doubt it. All of the staff were great. They even sent us flowers!

All of us, except Charlie, shed tears by the time we'd left Zoey, still warm but unmoving, there in the vet's office. Charlie seemed to think it was no big deal: Zoey was going to be an angel dog and to live with Grandpa Dave in heaven. This seemed alright with him.

Having not owned a dog before, I didn't really know what to expect. In retrospect, I think I could've made an educated guess. When I was a kid, my mom made a difficult decision to remove a pet cat from our home. I loved that cat a lot. A LOT. I cried hard when I found out. I could've guessed that I would react similarly to Zoey being gone.

One of my cousins saw an online post of mine about losing Zoey and responded with the text of "The Rainbow Bridge," which I hadn't seen before. What a lovely thought, that Rainbow Bridge where our four-legged companions wait for us... I hope it's true!

When I read "The Diggingest Dog" to Charlie, he often requests that I change the story so the dog, Duke, is Zoey. Whenever Zoey is subbed in for Duke, Charlie asks that I also substitute Charlie in for Sammy Brown. This is how I know that Zoey still plays a part in Charlie's story. We have enough pictures that I think Charlie will always have "memories" of Zoey, but I don't know whether they'll come from him or the pictures.

Brian and I got Zoey for our one year anniversary. She enchanted us with her impossibly blue eyes and velvet coat. She destroyed lots and lots of things we were attached to. She taught us what it was like to leave a crying "baby" in a safe place to learn how to self-soothe.

Fifteen years leaves a lot of room for memories: I have so many of Zoey. There were so many things I got to experience because of her. I came to know new places, new people, and new things about myself. I wanted to put "the sweetest thing" under her name on the memorial plaque we ordered from the pet cremation place, but Brian won me over when he reasoned that we should leave it at her name.

I'm not what some people call "a bucket-list person," but if I were, if I had to do it over again, if I could somehow benefit from my own life experience and advice... I would put "own an awesome dog for 15 years" on that list. (That's a lot of ifs, I know.)

10.25.2014 - Stress Writing

It has been a long time. What's that song? ....It's been a long, long time coming, Lucille?

Never mind.

Kenny Rogers is underrated... that gravelly voice...  the songwriting... I almost never listen to his music, but when I do, it gets me every time. Hey: did you know that at least several educated people believe that listening to music is super good for you? See?

If you follow those last couple of links, you will find links to studies/articles on how music reduces cortisol. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, is great if you need to engage in fight or flight, but chronic stress (high levels of cortisol) makes many people's health goals harder to attain. It's a big deal.

Stress is on my mind, because I'm human and I'm an American! Kidding aside, though. Stress is a risk for everyone, as far as I can tell. Lately, I've been accepting stress in the forms of having our house on the market (uncertainty about the future), worrying about our kids (there's always something), and getting things checked off my Responsible Adult To-Do List (RATDL). 

Sometimes, I successfully flip stresses on their backs by breathing deeply, listening to music, chewing gun, exercising, writing, and letting go and letting God. It doesn't happen as often as I would like. (This is where I wanted to insert a gif of a turtle or a beetle stuck on its back, all of its legs wiggling uselessly in the air.) 

Internet: please make an gif of a turtle stuck on its back. 

Thank you. 

I did find this, however:

Huh. Before 10:45 p.m. on October 25, 2014, I was unaware that "Let Go (and let God)" is actually a song. I would really like to include a link here on the origin and history of "let go and let God," the phrase, not the song, but I can't find anything on the interwebs after my exhaustive 6 minute search. Here's a music video, though.

The above song by Dewayne Woods doesn't really do it for me, but at least now I know! (I love to know, by the way.) My amazing husband gives me a hard time, sometimes, for "being on my phone too much," but what I think he fails to understand is how often I am just using that phone to find the answer to a random question I have, or read up on something I'm curious about. I rationalize that this shouldn't count against me as "phone time," because I could be doing this with other resources, the phone is just faster and more convenient. Same with using my phone to communicate with friends. I feel so much better now that the world has access to my personal excuses on this publicly accessible blog! (wink)

Update on the kids:

I went to a gym sleepover with Lucy last night. We stayed up until 4:00 a.m. Many wise people collected their children before it got too late. They are undoubtedly much better rested than our family today, but it felt good to support Lucy and to get to know more people involved with her gym better. Three separate people decided to share their (unsolicited) opinion about Lucy. They love her. These things are good for a parent to hear.

Gabe has a new obsession passion: Skateboarding. Today, he spent a good amount of time lamenting his lack of skateboard instruction. He just feels that his dad has failed to adequately teach him how to skateboard. He IS five. That's a lot of wasted years! I'm going to have to work that parental shortcoming into his therapy budget. Gabe loves time with friends. It fills his cup. Love him.

One of Charlie's new things is his way of saying prayers: He has ditched the old format and in favor of his own. His prayers sound like Power Rangers adventures. They are different every time, so he has that going for him... Charlie loves preschool and loves the air of authority he commands by walking around with his fists on his hips. He's gotten very good at telling all of us what we ought to do at any given time.

Brian is busy with... well, mostly the same stuff, but not the same... (I don't REALLY know.)  ...Since nature abhors a vacuum, I will just say: Brian has been spending a lot of time thinking about how amazing I am and how lucky we are to have each other. He has been losing sleep trying to figure out how best to memorialize our love. He thought of buying a constellation, or having one formed with satellites. He thought of doing a sort of "Mt. Rushmore West" with our faces immortalized in stone - forever locked in a passionate kiss. Of course, I told him that was really too much, and that he could just rub my shoulders next time we are sitting next to each other.