Author Archives: S.D. Sorensen

FIVE things I love about Clark.

Posted in Uncategorized by

Clark celebrated his fifth birthday this week.

This WAS Clark:

P8230002

PC090010

P1020001

P1110016

PICT0067

PICT0047

PICT0240

PICT0134

And here he is NOW in all his five-year-old glory:

DSCF0014

DSCF0021

DSCF0022

I think he’s adorable.  Here are the five things I most love about my little guy:

  1. Mischievous smile.  He has the cutest grin, with little gapped, square teeth all lining up in a glorious expression of innocent happiness.  He always looks like he might be up to trouble, and he probably is.  The best way I can explain Clark’s toddlerhood is Curious George. Curious George's Faces2cmp
  2. His joy.  We’ve always joked that Clark is bi-polar, because when he’s mad, boy is he mad (see crying in banner photo above), but when he’s happy, he’s delightful.  He has a giggling, bouncing enthusiasm that is contagious.
  3. His positive attitude.  I will always remember the day that was one of my most trying as a mother.  Clark began and ended the day with misbehavior, and stayed busy in between.  I swear he spent half of it in time out, and I was seriously ready to revoke my own motherhood license.  Late in the day, he was reading a book on a chair in the living room while I was doing dishes in the kitchen.  I heard him sigh deeply and say, “What a great day.”  I learned much in that moment about why we’re supposed to become “as a little child.”
  4. His generosity.  He will always share.  This week, he got two Webkinz in the mail as a present from my parents.  He opened them up and danced around and cheered for a minute.  He handed one to Grant and said, “Here Grant.  You can have this one.”  This is typical of Clark.
  5. His gratitude.  He voices sincere appreciation for even the simplest things.  “Thanks, Mom for letting us eat our snack on the deck!”  If you look closely at that train birthday cake, (who am I kidding? You don’t even have to look closely) it is an amateur job by all counts.  He asked for a train; I did my best.  When Matt came home from work, Clark said, “Dad! Dad! Come see my cake.  It’s A-MAZ-ING!”  Heh.

Can I add that as I type this, I can hear Clark in the bathroom doing his business and singing out loud, “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord…”?  Priceless.  Happy Birthday, Clark.  I love you.

Diagnostics.

Posted in Divinity by

kidneyEarly this morning I took Natalie to the Children’s Hospital for a kindney ultrasound.  She was pretty nervous because of all the invasive testing she had done a couple weeks ago when they were diagnosing her UTI.  I assured her that nothing would go in her nose or throat or poke her fingers.  She settled down and did a great job.  Everything was normal.

It was pretty fascinating watching the ultrasound.  Did you know your kidneys are all the way up under your rib cage toward the back?  I seriously always pictured them much further down in the “loins” region.  Anyway, I thought it was such a cool concept that we can take a close look inside ourselves, and and an expert can tell us if all is well or if there’s something that’s cause for concern.  (btw, This graphic is just pulled from an Orlando Clinic I found on Google Images.)

Anyway, I thought to myself on the way home that personal prayer is kind of like our own spiritual diagnostics.  We can look carefully inside ourselves and take inventory of what’s going well and what’s not and then take it all before our Heavenly Father and let him diagnose us, counsel us, and ultimately heal us.  The concept is actually quite cool, even more miraculous than the fact we can see our own guts on a computer screen.  I thought how much I probably put my spiritual health in jeopardy by failing to do daily diagnostics with the Lord.  It made me want to be better at it … again.  (Do you think I’ll really get it someday?)  When I do remember to say my “formal” personal prayers (not the frequent God conversations I have in my heart throughout the day), it’s very robotic and not nearly as penitent as it should be.  At the end of each day, if I took the time to think about it, there are probably many blips or irregularities on my spiritual ultrasound.  I need to discuss those with my Heavenly Father every day and clean that stuff up.  I bet that would make each morning a whole new birth, in a sense.  A fresh, clean start.  Literally.

And isn’t it interesting that something so scientific and medical could give me insight so spiritual and personal?

Here’s my sweet Natalie hugging the teddy bear they gave her after her little procedure.  If I can get my spirit half as bright as hers, I’ll be in good shape, I tell ya.

DSCF0025

Post script: I have to say I was genuinely surprised by the “controversy” that popped up in yesterday’s comment thread.  Let’s not argue about if one way of fighting pornography is better than another way; we’re all on the SAME TEAM for heaven’s sake.  The purpose of the post was simply to say:  I have a new project I feel inspired to do.  Would anyone like to help me out? Thank you to all of you who make efforts inside and outside of your homes to protect your children from what President Hinckley accurately called a “pernicious evil.”  To those of you who offered up some help,  I will contact you soon with some direction.  (And thank you so much.)   I’d be happy to add on any other team members along the way.  I firmly believe that if we can all do some part, in our own best way, to fight pornography or any form of inappropriate media, we will make a difference.

I need your help with a war. Honestly.

Posted in Protecting Innocence Project by

I don’t know if you ever get an idea in your head that will not go away.  I have learned that this is one of the ways that God talks to me:  repetitive, unceasing thoughts to act.  Let me break it down for you.

What?:  Ever since I watched the Super Bowl (what was that? like 7 months ago?), I have wanted to do something to influence what kind of programming is acceptable for children.  My rage was ignited by Victoria’s Secret ads (soft porn!) and a 3-D half-time ad that included some kind of bed-crawling vixen.  I was infuriated that it was a daytime program with many obviously young and adolescent viewers, especially boys.  Since then I have been constantly aware of (and annoyed by) the onslaught of inappropriate advertisements and programming that are too easily accessible to— and even targeted at— children.

Why?:  If you remember from my post about Sister Julie Beck’s recent Women’s Conference talk, she challenged us women to “Fight!” against pornography.  When we do nothing more than shake our heads at it, we can’t change anything.  Together, though, I think we can make a difference.

How?:  So my idea that was born back in January and has been fueled by promptings and reminders over the past several months is a website that would give moms all the tools they need to file formal complaints when children are exposed to inappropriate media– A place where they can point and click and submit their complaints as well as find templates of letters they can use and customize to voice their concerns.  I have called it the “Protecting Innocence Project” and it is currently being hosted (in all it’s super-rough-draft glory) here.

You?:  It occurred to me that my friends and readers could be a great resource to me in getting this whole thing up and running.  Here are some things I need:

  1. Addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses from all the major networks that could be used to file a formal complaint about programming and advertising.  (This is harder to find than it should be.)
  2. Someone who is knowledgeable enough to help me create “complaint” forms that moms could fill out online, and then they would be automatically sent to the target emails (networks, FCC, etc.)
  3. A collection of other sites, resources, and programs that are related to the fight against pornography and inappropriate media.  I’d like to create a reference list that helps people find this stuff more easily.
  4. Once the site is up and running, I’d love for people to help publicize it among friends, blogs, communities, even newspapers and local news where feasible.  Please don’t send anyone there yet because it’s just bare-bones minimum so far.
  5. Things like buttons and banners would be helpful (the online version, I mean).  I don’t really know how to create stuff like that other than turning an existing graphic into a hot link.

Anyway, this is just a plea to those of you who frequent this blog and find yourself sympathetic to this cause.  If you think you could help out with any of the aforementioned needs, let me know in the comments what you’re interested in/willing to help out with.  I’ll get back to you with a specific assignment (something as simple as researching out contact information for NBC).

Care to join me in this battle ladies?  I think we can do ourselves and our children proud.

us-army-female-soldiers

Recent lessons in self-awareness

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

So you may have noticed I wasn’t a stellar blogger last week, but boy howdy, was I busy. Try to imagine that your friend who is a medical doctor asks you to “substitute” for him at work the day he’s supposed to perform surgery. That’s what it’s like when you get called as a counselor in the Stake YW presidency one month before Girls Camp (and the new president will be out of town for the month). So last week I spent two and a half days at Girl’s Camp and I learned a few more things about myself.

wall_tents_porches

  • Girls obsess about boys as much as I obsess about sleep.  (Oh, the part I learned about myself is that I’m annoyed by that… the boy part, definitely not the sleep part.)
  • When I went to Girls Camp as a youth, we loved singing all kinds of silly songs over and over again wherever we went.  This trend is apparently still in force, but now as an old and incredibly wise adult, I realize that many of those songs are really kind of inappropriate.  Heck, some of them are even anthems of boy-mongering.  Again, annoyed.  (Are you noticing a trend?)  My friend Shantel and I tried to come up with some counter-culture camp songs ourselves like “Boys are stupid until you’re twenty.  (and while marching…) Stand for Truth and Righteousness!”  Not a big hit.  Can’t imagine why.
  • I had to teach a fireside at camp and even though I thought I had prepared with many weeks of pondering, when I sat down to put my notes together a mere hour or so before the presentation, I had some severe writer’s block.  Just a little testimonial:  Prayer works.
  • When girls go to Girls Camp and decide to sleep as little as possible, they get to go home and recover.  When women go to Girls Camp and are victims of as little sleep as possible, they get to go home and immediately pick up their regular duties on overtime.  The trend continues:  Annoying.
  • I thought the girls might be annoying.  I was wrong.  I loved them, and I looked forward to spending more time with them.
  • Glitter lip gloss does not look good on grown women.

Today I had to return the large speaker system podium that we borrowed for camp to the church building.  When I arrived and got out of the car, I realized I needed to go to the bathroom.  I bent over and heaved up the podium to carry it in the building, and –um– apparently something about that bending, lifting and heaving stretched the limits of my bladder control.  I went home a little damper than I arrived, which is simply God’s way of reminding me that I’m not nearly as young or cool as I think I am.

So, learned any fun lessons about yourself lately?

General Conference Book Club Week 15: Elder Andersen

Posted in General Conference Book Club by

04_02_anderAfter the death of Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, Elder Neil L. Andersen was called as the newest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at the most recent General Conference.  This week we will study the first talk he gave as a newly-sustained apostle, prophet, seer and revelator, “Come Unto Him.”

>>Click here to read “Come Unto Him” by Elder Neil L. Andersen<<

In my opinion, this is one of the most important lessons we can learn, and I constantly need this reminder.  We need our Savior, and He is ready and willing to help us.  His love is incomprehensible and his power to save is without end.  I know He lives and I am so grateful to know of His love and care for me.

In this video, Elder Andersen affirms that this knowledge is a process and reassures us that we know enough to claim the blessings our Savior has to offer us.

If this is your first visit to the General Conference Book Club, click here to learn more about it. You’re welcome to join us at any point along the way, and we’d love to welcome back many of you that we haven’t heard from in a while.