Monthly Archives: August 2009

Microposts

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

Here are a few thoughts I’ve wanted to write about recently, but I don’t have the energy to develop them into “real” posts, so enjoy my extraordinary brevity.

  1. Tonight I was getting ready to go to dinner with a lovely blog friend, and Grant was understandably curious since I put on make up and all.  I explained where, who, what, when, etc. and he seemed satisfied.  He paused from dusting my dresser (yes, I make my children do jobs while I get ready for a night on the town) and said, “You’d better hurry.  I wish you a good time.”  I laughed. What six-year-old says, “I wish you a good time”?  Such a silly boy.
  2. Even though I spent most of today being more detached and lazy than I should be, I spent a little one-on-one time with each of my kids doing some cuddling/wrestling/tickling, and I watched their mouths really close while we talked and played.  I love their smiles.  The cute little teeth and smile shapes.  I felt a deep connection with each of them and wondered if I knew their smiles in heaven before any of us were born.
  3. I know it’s sexist, but I’ve always kind of considered self-mastery to be more of a man’s problem.  Women are more disciplined it seems.  Well, I’ve been realizing lately that’s baloney.  Maybe men have a harder time not doing things they shouldn’t, but it’s sure been hard for me lately to do the stuff I know I should.  I joked with my friend tonight that we moms just don’t have the energy to do all the stuff we believe in and know we should.  Anyway, I concede that self-mastery is a universal problem.
  4. Matt just played a country song for me (not my favorite genre) and told me that he wants to turn it into a heavy metal song and it will be his anthem to me.  I looked skeptical, and he said it’s called “She’s Got It All.”  “Oh, that’s nice,” I said, “but I’m not sure I want my anthem to be a heavy metal song.”  He said he’s got all the guitar solos and riffs and stuff worked out in his mind; he just doesn’t know how to play it.  What a shame.  It’s our tenth anniversary this weekend, and I think he’s right– I do “got it all.”  Still love that guy.  I thank my lucky stars often that I got that choice right.  I think I might do a “How I met Matt” series on my blog to celebrate. It’s quite a fun story. Would anybody actually care to read it?
  5. For family home evening last night, the boys taught the lesson and we all did a role-play of David and Goliath.  Matt was the Goliath defeated by the brave and faithful Grant/David.  He hit him smack dab in the forehead with a little bouncy ball and it cracked us all up.  I guess Natalie even paid attention, but unfortunately she spent the rest of the night saying (in her mean Daddy/Goliath voice) “Come and fight me!”  Not exactly the lesson we were going for, but I’m glad she was listening.
  6. Last week, the kids were on my black list after that hard trip I took with them to Nauvoo.  Matt helped me out by teaching our family home evening lesson on “the body of Christ” and how we have to work together as a family so we can be strong and happy.  We got out the whiteboard and they each took turns drawing a member of our family, and then we made lists of ways to have strong, happy families and what makes sad, broken families (obviously all in preschool vocabulary).  Check it out:DSCF0067

And here’s a close-up of the family portrait:

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This is me right here.  The tarantula or spider monkey that Natalie drew.  It’s good to see what a prominent place I hold in the family.

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7.  I sent out a lot of emails with Protecting Innocence Project assignments and I’ve heard back from several of you, but can the rest of you (who said you wanted to participate) hit reply and let me know if you’re going to be able to do your assignment?  No offense will be taken if you don’t want to/can’t do it, but it helps me to know what parts I still need to work on.  To those of you who are waiting on a response back from me on your initial research/work, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.  Thank you, thank you.

So much for brevity.  Good night.

The Vacation Diaries: Love and Hate

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

We just did our third camping trip of the summer– this one was five days long, which is the longest we’ve ever attempted.  I’ve complained before about how much work camping is.  I spent two hours at the store at midnight the night before our trip trying to buy all the ingredients I needed to cook camp meals for five days.  Then I try to shove them all into a cooler and bins that aren’t too heavy to carry.  I give the kids packing lists and let them pack their own bags; luckily, the margin of error has so far not caused any major disasters.  Planning for weather, possible outings and activities, how to keep them quiet during camp “quiet hours,” and stocking the car for the road trip portion is no small task.  Five days, five people. Bruises, body odor, and mosquito bites galore.  This much laundry:

DSCF0065But what’s not to love about this?

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and this?

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and this?

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and this?

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and especially this?

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So for all its hard work and exhaustion, I believe camping is here to stay among our family traditions.  I could sleep for three days straight, but the kids want to start planning our final trip.

“Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.”

General Conference Book Club Week 18: Brother Neider

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01_04_neideWith all due respect, it’s not that often that there is a speaker in General Conference that I’ve never heard of before in my life, much less seen.  This however was the case with Brother Michael A. Neider, counselor in the outgoing Young Men’s Presidency.  That explains it.  Having no Young Men in my immediate radar, I hadn’t paid much attention to that organization or its current presidency.  But, I think it’s safe to say that if asked by a prophet of God to deliver a message at General Conference, there’s something important that the Lord wants you to say.  And by default, something important that the Lord wants me to hear.   So even though his talk is called “Revealed Quorum Principles,” another topic not immediately in my current frame of reference, I’m going to read this talk with an open mind and heart.  I’ll probably transfer the principles to my responsibilities among my immediate and extended family, but that’s just me. 🙂

So for week 18 of GCBC (click here if you have no idea what we’re doing here at this little book club),  I give you this talk:  “Revealed Quorum Principles” by Brother Michael. A. Neider.

on the road

Posted in Uncategorized by

Lame post on a blackberry. Sorry.

I sent out emails with PIP assignments. If you did not get one and think you should have, let me know.

In the meantime, I will be away from the virtual world for several days, so be patient with me if I am slow to respond. I am so excited about your help with this project.
Yay.

My vacation to the dark corners of my soul

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

Matt went out of town for a job interview.  On a whim, to compensate for my anticipated loneliness at home, I decided to meet up with my brother and his family from Tennessee in Nauvoo, Illinois.  I have traveled by myself with the children before, but it has always been to a parents’ home, where there were lots of helping hands.  I figured I could handle it.

I was wrong about myself.

My post title might be a little over-dramatic, but it didn’t take me very long into the trip to realize that I don’t have the fortitude for such journeys.  I can’t figure out what made it difficult for me.  I do things alone with my children all the time.  My husband works full time and goes to law school at night.  Practically everywhere I go is by myself with children in tow.  But something about this trip kicked my trash.

Believe it or not, the seven-hourish car trip was not too bad, thanks to a stockpile of snacks, toys, coloring books, and the modern wonder of DVD players.  We arrived at the little cabin on the banks of the Mississippi River that, by providence, I had randomly discovered online.  The sunset view in the evening gives a (false) sense of peace and quiet in our little family cabin:

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My kids were out of control.  Was it because of all the time in the car?  Was it vacation excitement?  Was it the fact that dad was a thousand miles away?  I don’t know, but I’m quite sure that I was useless.  Imagine a cabin with three children, ages 6,5, and 2, totally unsupervised.  Try to get a good picture in your mind of the energy, chaos and noise.  Now add a frazzled mom in the picture running back and forth barking things like, “Stop screaming,” “Hands to yourself,” “I said put on your pajamas,” and “Get in bed now.”  Repeat four thousand times.  Here’s the weird thing: that mom was invisible.  No one listened.  No one responded.  The anarchy continued unphased by commands of the might-need-to-be-institutionalized-soon mother.  I even spanked.  I don’t spank.  I don’t think anyone was harmed by my whimpy whacks, and certainly no one was deterred by them.  I had feelings of rage and despair that I think might rival much more intense and life-threatening activities than readying children for bed.  I finally “succeeded” and they were in bed, but I was left simmering in my own dark feelings.  I hated that I couldn’t control them, and hated more that I couldn’t control myself.

This scenario repeated itself several times throughout the trip.  I’m sure my children were just being “normal,” but I felt like they were just so disobedient when I would ask them to stop something over and over and over again.  And then this yucky feeling of failure and anger and disappointment in myself would become heavy.  There were lovely moments in the trip, too.  Natalie and her cousin dressed as pioneers, and could they be any cuter?

DSCF0036We had studied the Doctrine and Covenants in preparation for our trip, and the boys were excited to visit Carthage Jail, the location of the prophet Joseph Smith’s martyrdom.  Can you sense the affection they felt for Joseph and his brother Hyrum as they clamored to this statue when we arrived?

DSCF0026And Natalie returned again and again to this statue of Jesus Christ.

DSCF0042We have a tradition of a donut-picnic at the temple whenever we travel:

DSCF0045And there’s no denying that the cousins loved each other’s company.DSCF0044So in all fairness, I have to say it was a good trip, and I think my children will have good memories, and perhaps even some key testimony-building moments, but for me… well, for me, I saw the ugly side of myself– the impatient, not long-suffering, and definitely not joyful and carefree side of myself.  And the I’m-a-fool-if-I-ever-think-I-can-do-this-alone side of myself.  I felt like such a dork when I would visit these historical sites and think of the sacrifices the early Saints made and the trials that they would endure as they tried to live their faith while faced with real problems.  My issues seemed so stupid by comparison.  So the trip was one of those refiner’s fire, soul-shaping adventures for me.  The kind that hurt a little, but you know something better can and should become of you.  (And the kind that makes you think that just maybe you should put your kids in time out for a month when you get home.)

Perhaps the most poignant moment for me was when I got lost on my way to church.  I was trying to get directions over the phone, but the kids were being loud and silly in the car, and my phone lost signal.  In a moment of peaked frustration, I turned around and yelled, “EVERYBODY QUIET!!!”  I am not a screamer.  But I screamed.  My children all froze in place and looked at me with wide eyes.  We silently continued toward the church.  Natalie said quietly, “Mommy, you scared me.”  I was so upset (again, mostly with myself), and the thought occurred to me that perhaps today, more than any other time that I could recall, I really needed the Sacrament.  I was acutely aware of my weaknesses, and boy, did I need grace.  I needed the power of repentance, the assurance of forgiveness, and most of all, a new start.

One of my favorite statues I saw at the visitors center in Nauvoo was this depiction of the Savior walking on the stormy sea:

DSCF0043When I think of those waters as my stormy feelings– the darkness, the chaos, the difficult-to-harness anger, I know that the Savior is the one who must calm the elements.  I need him.  Again, the lesson of my “vacation” hit home– I cannot do this alone.

We’re back home, and we survived.  Next week I’ll probably think it was a fun trip.  It was great to see my brother and his family.  My testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and the restored gospel was strengthened.  In the meantime, Matt is helping me remind our children why they should listen better, and we’ll work on that as a family.  Because another vacation like that one, and I might lose my mind.