More random anecdotes

I wish I were better about journaling all the cute and funny little things my kids say.  Hearing what comes out of their little mouths is probably one of the best things about being a parent.  I know that what delights a child's parent isn't as entertaining to others, but since I don't have anywhere else to journal these things, my blog will be the place for it.

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As we sat in church a few weeks ago, Lauren sat on my lap.  She was leaning with her side up against me thoughtfully playing with a mole that I have on the inside of my left arm.  I've been self-conscious about that ugly little mole ever since I was in second grade when I wore a sleeveless shirt to school and some girls mercilessly teased me about it.  

After a few minutes, she looked up at me with those big beautiful blue eyes of her and said, "Mom, I really love this."

"What do you love?" I asked, thinking she was going to say something profound by the look in her eyes.

"Your mole.  It's just so big, and juicy... and fat," she said as she lay her head against my chest, sighing with all the admiration a four year old could muster.

I guess one person's curse is another person's envy.

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About a week ago I was cutting Luke's hair in my bathroom.  He was staring at his reflection in the mirror when suddenly his eyes filled up with big crocodile tears and he said, "Mom, I wish I were normal."

"Normal?  What are you talking about, sweetheart?"

"It's my eyes and my eyelashes," he said.  "I'm so sick and tired of people always telling me how big and beautiful they are!  I just wish they were small like everyone else's and that people would leave me alone."

I was shocked!  His eyes are mesmerizing and startling- his most stunning feature.  Ever since he was a tiny baby, people would stop us everywhere we went to oooh and aaah over his eyes.  I realize as his mother I'm biased, but I think I can safely say that that boy is absolutely gorgeous.  But apparently he sees those "ojotes" (as the Mexican women call them) as a freakish mutation.

I tried to explain to him that when people commented on his eyes, that they were trying to be kind and pay him a compliment.

"I don't care,"  he said.  "I just wish people would stop telling me how handsome I am!"

Again, another person's curse is another person's envy.

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A few weeks ago on a Saturday morning as we were doing household chores and laundry, we heard a loud thump, thump, thump coming from the stairs, followed by Lauren's howling and crying.

We ran to see what was the matter, only to find out that she after we had sent her upstairs to put her clothes away, she then tried to ride the laundry basket down the stairs like a sled.  It didn't quite work out as she had planned as the laundry basket turned head over end with her in it, throwing her out.  In the process she sustained a small buckle fracture in her left wrist.  

After many tears, a visit to Quick Care, the orthopedic doctor's office, x-rays, a splint, and a hefty medical bill, she has since thankfully recovered.

This morning as I set the laundry baskets out to do laundry, I saw her heading upstairs, dragging the  empty laundry basket behind her.

"Where are you going with that?"  I asked.

"Well, my arm is feeling all better, so I thought I'd try riding the laundry basket down the stairs again," she said.

Are you kidding me?!?

After a stern lecture, she agreed to not try her little stunt again, but tried to slip past me several times with the laundry basket towards the stairs.

That little woman!!!  Who would have thought that my biggest daredevil would be my sweet little girl?  She is going to be the death of me!

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For this next little anecdote, I am completely to blame and I take full responsibility.  My three youngest were born delightfully chubby and squishy.  I've squeezed and squished them all until they've reached an age when their baby fat has sadly melted off and they give me a heart-to-heart telling me that I need to knock if off.  But until then, I squish away.

Calista is my last squisher left, but to my dismay my annoying habits are starting to peeve her too.  She'll hold out her little hands and furrow her eyesbrows and say,"No, no, no more squishing me!"

For the most part I've backed off, but in a gesture of retaliation, her and Lauren have taken up squishing me now that I'm the one with the excess squishiness.  Lauren will often come up behind me and grab two large handfuls of bum cheeks and say, "Squishy, squishy, Mommy!" and then run away giggling.

When Calista is sitting on my lap, she'll reach out and squish the closest, squishiest things her little hands can grab.  And wouldn't you know it, there are two of them... right on my chest, right at grab-level.

It serves me right, I guess.

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Several months ago, Calista was extremely irritated with me for some reason, although I can't remember why.  She huffed and puffed and yelled something at me before stomping out the door.  But that wasn't enough, apparently, and she came back into my room several times to let me have a piece of her mind. And I couldn't understand a word she was saying.  Somewhere in the middle of all of her frustration, she had gotten a bad case of the hiccups.  Everytime she came into my room to shake her little finger at me, I had to try harder and harder not to laugh.  It sounded like I was getting chewed out by a cute little rubber ducky... with a lisp.

These lines

I apologize ahead of time if my posting this makes anyone lose their lunch.  As a nurse I realize that a lot of things that don't even phase me completely nauseate and gross other people out.

A friend of mine recently created a photography challenge blog.  One of the challenges we were given was to photograph texture.  As I was thinking about what to submit as my entry, I happened to look down and see the stretch marks on my belly- deep, wide, and discolored- so I decided to photograph a woman's most prized battle scars.

I wasn't blessed with a beautiful pregnant belly like so many women seem to be.  Mine is covered with stretch marks and an unbecoming layer of peach fuzz.  When I'm not pregnant, it reminds me of a shriveled balloon that has been blown up and then deflated one too many times. But I love these lines and the beautiful little people in my life that they represent.

I love the scar from my appendectomy that I underwent when I was 24 weeks pregnant with Camden.  I remember the prayers and priesthood blessings that preceded what was one of the most spiritual experiences of my life, where I witnessed first-hand the Lord's hand guiding my life, and the life of my unborn child.  Because of my expanding belly during the time the surgical wound was healing, the 4 inch long pencil-thin line became a 1/2 inch wide line of stretched skin.

I love the extra wide stretch marks that grace the side of my belly that came when I was pregnant with Luke.  The thin stretch marks I got from my pregnancy with Camden tripled in width.  I couldn't understand why I felt like I was carrying a bowling ball on my pelvis during most of my pregnancy, but when he was born, he was almost three pounds heavier than Camden had been.  He was such a chubby little chunk of love and I felt a close connection to him from the very beginning.

I don't know if this is my last pregnancy.  Part of me really hopes it is, and the other part just isn't sure yet.  If you had asked me three years ago, I would have knocked you upside the head and told you to not even mention pregnancy to me again!  I was so done!  I once had a theory that anyone who had six or more kids had to have a few loose screws upstairs.  And if they didn't, then they would by the time they were done raising their kids.  And here I am, on the brink of reaching that "loose screws" threshold.  But my heart was slowly changed and I know there is another little person waiting to be a part of our family.  The thought of having another child doesn't terrify me like it did before, but the thought of never feeling the kicks and nudges makes me sadder than I ever thought it would.

My submission to the photography challenge for a self-portrait, taken at 34 weeks.

I had planned on taking pregnancy pictures throughout my entire pregnancy to document the growth of my belly, but I've let the time slip by, taking only two pictures.  I took this one at 27 weeks in my living room on a cold and rainy day.

Never enough

The other day I was talking to my sister on the phone and she mentioned that she was getting her 2013 family year book ready to be published.  Are you kidding me?!?  Here we are, only mid-way through March, and she was already putting the finishing touches on organizing and publishing all the pictures she had taken last year.  I was impressed and disappointed at the same time.  Impressed at her ability to stay so caught up and disappointed in myself.  I am years and years behind on compiling our family pictures into something my children can look through and enjoy.  I take pictures by the thousands, but aside from a handful that are enlarged and printed, there they sit on my hard drive.

After hanging up the phone with her, I walked past the living room and realized our leather couches were in desperate need of a good cleaning and conditioning treatment.  I made myself a note, and went into the office to see a stack of papers that had been needing filing for quite some time.  I started shuffling through the papers and came across a note that our pediatrician had given me several months ago with the title of a book he wanted me to read regarding children and sleep, which I have never gotten around to.  The note reminded me that I needed to follow up on what has been a losing battle with one of my children's intestinal issues. As the day went on, I kept coming across things, one after another, that I realized I had fallen behind on or was completely neglecting.

I felt that all too familiar feeling of anxiety mounting in the back of my mind- that anxiety a mother feels when she feels like she isn't doing enough.  But how could I possibly not be doing enough?  I scrupulously organize my day with to-do lists and calendars, run errands, clean house, kiss owies, chase after kids, and go to bed every night completely exhausted.  How is it possible that that still isn't enough?

I started thinking of all the areas that I felt I was falling behind.   I should be exercising everyday, but that has been hit or miss, with more miss than hit lately.  Chicken nuggets and Ramen Noodles grace our dinner table far more often than they should (hence my child's intestinal issues, I'm sure).  I've allowed most of my friendships, with the exception of a few, to dwindle away, consumed by the busyness of my life.  I don't call my mother nearly as often as I should.  I only read with my children a few times a week instead of every day.  The pile of clothes that needs mended hasn't been touched in months.  And the list goes on and on.

And yet I feel like I'm killing myself everyday trying to do enough- to be enough.  Will I ever feel like I'm doing all that I should- being all that I should?  But then I realized, I've never met a mother who feels like she is- that isn't plagued with at least some feelings of guilt and inadequacy.  Maybe they're out there, but I've never met one.

I recently read an article that statistically concluded what the ideal number of children to have was.    And wouldn't you know it, I've exceeded the recommended number... three times over.  A mother's love, they said, can be multiplied endlessly to accommodate feelings of affection for her offspring, no matter how many she chooses to have.  Her time, however, is a finite resource. The pie can only mathematically be split so many ways.  And who can argue with math?  I know I sure can't because I suck at math.  But even when I only had this "ideal number" of children, I remember still feeling like I was always grasping at straws.  I remember telling my husband that I felt like I was president of the Deficient Spouses Club with just two kids, while mothers with four and five kids seemed to be rocking the heck out of carpooling and meal planning.

But my feelings of inadequacy and failure to successfully wear all the hats that are mounted on my head aren't unique feelings.  I think every mother, in one or many ways, feels like she is failing.  Epically so.  And yet those resilient little creatures that we call children have a way of adapting and loving us despite all our short-comings and unfinished to-do lists.

This morning my son was getting ready for a class field-trip.  Before heading out the door, I pulled him aside and slipped him a dollar, telling him it was to buy himself a candy bar when he was on his field trip.  He quietly handed it back and told me he wanted me to keep it because he knew that finances were tight with the expenses of building our house.

Later on, as I dropped the kids off at school, my other son paused before opening the car door and turned back and said, "Thanks, Mom.  I love you."

Then I watched my daughters play together this morning, hugging and giggling as they played with their ponies and dolls.

Somewhere in the midst of all the things I should be doing better, apparently things are turning out alright.  Actually much, much better than alright.

I don't think God designed life in a way that we could do everything we should.  He knew that there would be some things that we would have to let fall by the wayside- and really good things.  That's part of the test.  I think sometimes that the good things in life are like a buffet table, where we have to wander up and down the line, with plates in hand, deciding what it is that we're going to pile on.  But once the plate is full, it's full.  Adding more food to that plate doesn't increase it's capacity, it just makes some of the other food spill off.  Spillage is expected, but what's important is the quality of what we leave on the plate.

Today I decided to start tackling my pictures, and while Calista was napping, worked on organizing and getting them ready to put into a book.  This is going to take a while since I have let myself fall so far behind.  I'm starting to cross one item off a list of what seems like thousands. And when I'm caught up on my photo books, I'm sure there will still be a million things I feel like I'm not doing right or enough of.  But it's a start and I'll keep trying.

Going through and organizing files upon files of pictures brought a lump to my throat as I realized how fast time flies.
I was struck by how much my babies have grown up and how much our life has changed in the past three years.
But most importantly, I realize how happy my life is with these little nymphs.

Boundaries

Disclaimer:  these are just some jumbled thoughts I've had over the past few days.  Please forgive...

The last few weeks have been pretty tough for me.  This pregnancy has been by far the toughest yet with unrelenting insomnia during the first trimester and now sciatic nerve pain.  I had to hold back the tears yesterday as I told a friend that I didn't know how I could handle 9 and a half more weeks of this.  If I've learned one thing, it's that I would be a terrible chronic pain patient.  I've thought often of my sweet uncle, who passed away earlier this month, who lived for over 40 years with intense chronic  and debilitating pain.  I wish I could ask him what kept him going and smiling all those years.

Although yesterday was an especially difficult day, I have to say that what Heavenly Father did not give me in physical ability with this pregnancy, He made up for it in giving me a happier me during this pregnancy.  The pregnancy hormones, which usually make me teary, irritable, and impatient, haven't affected me nearly as much this time.  I've felt more at peace and happier to be with my little ones than I ever can remember.  After a day of self-pity, today I woke up feeling much better.  I guess we all need to sit on our pity pot every now and then before we realize that our lot isn't all that bad.  Or at least I do.

But then this morning I had to follow through on some boundaries I had set for someone who I've been helping out for the past 7 months.  It felt miserable, and as I drove away, I felt sick to my stomach.  I had told him countless times that if he couldn't follow through on his end, that the arrangement wouldn't work. Today I finally had the gumption to follow through on my begging and pleas and left him standing at his front door, watching me as I drove away.   I wanted to cry.

Why are boundaries often hardest on the person putting them in place than the person who is on the receiving end?  You'd think it would be the other way around.  It sucks.

As I tried to make myself feel better about what I had just done, I found myself doing what I often do.  I started feeling a mounting frustration towards not just this one person, but towards all the self-entitled people who I felt expected so much from me in my life.  Apparently I  had found my perch back up on my pity pot.  Once the flood gates were opened, it was hard to shut off the torrent of frustration and self-pity.

In desperate need of some validation, I texted my husband and asked him to tell me I did the right thing by following through in such a harsh way.  As I put down the phone, I shuffled around the kitchen putting breakfast dishes away and felt the all too familiar nerve pain flare up.  "Not again," I thought bitterly.  "It's going to be another sucky day of pain."

Just as I had the thought, another thought came to mind, this time reprimanding me.  "You want to hold that sweet little baby in your arms, and yet you want to cuss what it takes to get her here.  You want something for nothing, just like all those people you were just thinking about."

I thought of each of my children and knew that I would endure a lifetime of pain for any of them if it meant that they could be a part of my life.  I know the way I feel for this little one will be no different.  After she is born, I'll think what a small price to pay a little insomnia and nerve pain was to get her here.  I'll think that I would have endured a lifetime of limping and of calculating every movement to avoid the shooting pain if it meant I could hold her in my arms.

Boundaries, although painful and  uncomfortable, are an essential part of life.  And I need to remember to set some boundaries on myself, particularly in my head.  I came across a blog post recently that talked about how each of us are living someone else's dream.  Everytime I go for a jog, I'm living the dream that someone who has been paralyzed could only wish for.  When I hold my husband in bed each night, I'm living the dream that a widow could only long for.  Even as a pregnant mother battling sciatica, I'm going through something that a woman struggling with infertility would give anything to endure if it meant she could hold a child in her arms at the end of it.

I am living not only someone else's dream, but mine as well.  My life is full and my cup runneth over.

I love the story behind this picture.  The other day I did an impromptu photo shoot with my girls.  Lauren had picked up my camera and caught the perfect expression on Calista's face as I was adjusting her hair in between shots.  Yes, my cup runneth over.

The 9 year old male mind

Almost every day Camden pulls me aside to show me his latest Lego creations.  That little man's mind blows me away.  He includes escape hatches, turbo engines, hidden dart throwers, and a million other little gadgets that only he would think of, all with an unbelievable attention to precision and detail.

And then I had a long laugh the other night about a little boy's lack of attention to things that don't matter in his little 9 year old mind.

While shopping for a white, collared shirt for Dennis, I realized I had forgotten to double check his shirt size before leaving the house.  I called Camden and asked him to pull down one of his dad's shirts and check the size for me.  I told him to look just below the collar for the label that had the brand name of the shirt, with the shirt's size right next to it.  I told him to look for a number somewhere close to 17/30something, since I couldn't remember his exact sleeve length.

"I don't see anything, Mom.  There's nothing there."

"Really?  Are you sure?  It should be there, right below the collar, in black and white numbers right next to the label."

He insisted there were no numbers, not even a label, and proceeded to check the entire shirt for numbers of any kind that might help me.  He found the shirt's item number, tiny little numbers on the bottom corner tag.  The shirt was made in China and was 100% cotton, he told me.  He even read the washing instructions off to me... in Spanish.

I was completely confused.  I told him not to worry about it and that I would check myself when I got home.

When I got home, I had a long laugh when I saw the white shirt that he had hung so neatly and carefully back on the hanger.

So how does a little boy build things like this...

....while missing this?  I don't know if I'll ever understand the male mind.

The randomness of being a parent

Sometimes when I call Dennis at work or text him a picture of the happenings of the day, I think to myself how delightfully random the little adventures a parent has with a houseful of little ones.  I think the unexpected randomoness of childhood does good for the grown-up soul since we're often so pre-conditioned to being ruled by the scheduling and the predictability of life.  Although some of their little "adventures" make me feel like I'm half way to the looney bin, I appreciate that these little things are what make my life so sweet and full.

On a cold, dreary winter day, the kids decided to entertain themselves by toilet-papering my bed.
I figured it was cheap (although environmentally unsound) entertainment.

You give two little girls some blue eye shadow and a bag of chips, and 10 very quiet minutes later, they emerge victorious.

One day we had so much crying for no apparent reason that I had to give up on being frustrated and just start to laugh and take pictures.  Which of course only made the crying worse.  But I figured if I didn't laugh about it, I'd be crying soon too.  

The boys after scouring their room for Wacky Wednesday costumes.  I especially loved the clothes pins on the socks.

Waiting for her bear, the second love her life, to come out of the dryer.  The first love of her life being her dad.

And who can blame her?  What's more attractive to a woman than seeing her husband read princess books to their daughter while she's potty training? Nothing, I tell you. 

What's cuter than a pair of chubby little baby legs?
....A pair of chubby little baby legs in tights, pink cowgirl boots, and a tutu- that's what.

...As well as chubby baby legs and chubby baby bum in undies.
Being a little knock-kneed only increases her squeezability, exponentially so.

Dennis texted me this picture and admitted that when he first saw her he panicked, thinking she might be hurt or unconscious, but soon realized she had just found the quietest, comfiest place in the house for a mid-afternoon nap.

Luke teaching his sister the fine art of applying glitter eye shadow.

Ending the Mommy Wars

I've been reading quite a bit lately on a subject that seems to light a fire of fury under most women's britches.  Fewer things ignite a woman's defensiveness faster or more fiercely than this- the Mommy Wars- the snarky, depreciating criticims that mothers throw at each other for either being a stay-at-home or working mom. After a blog post I wrote that drew both criticism and positive feedback, I wondered why my words had made so many people, particularly women, so defensive.  Afterall, I had meant only to write my own story.  That's all any of us can truthfully do.  It's when we try to write other people's stories for them that we find ourselves trudging in a muck of hypocrisy and judgment.

As I sat at my computer the other day reading several heated blog posts and articles about moms and their worth, or lack of it, when they stay at home to raise children- or on the flip side, when they leave the home to join the work force, I quickly lost track of the time and realized that I had spent far too much time reading articles that in the grand scheme of things don't make a difference in my decision to stay at home or my views on motherhood.  After noticing the time, to feel more productive, I answered some emails I had been needing to get to, followed by doing some online banking, and then finally checking Facebook.  ...But then there were those handful of pictures I needed to edit since my client was waiting for a preview.  Before I knew it, 3 hours of my life had been sucked into the cyber world vortex.  In the meantime I had completely tuned out my children and I realized that for all I knew, one of them might have toilet papered the house or walked half way to Boise and I wouldn't know it.

I'd like to say this was an isolated event but unfortunately I can't.  The realization came several months ago when I realized that I had something of an addiction to the internet.  I had began to impulsively find reasons to get online to check the weather, the news, blogs, my bank account, Facebook- anything that would provide a window of escape to what sometimes feels like a house arrest sentence with a houseful of crazy little mini-me's as inmates.  The addition of a smart phone to my life only served as an enabler to my habit.

After making the horrifying self-realization, I began working on weaning myself by putting strict guidelines on my computer time.  Before getting online, I make a mental to-do list of things I want to accomplish online along with an allotted timeframe to do it.  I uninstalled several time-sucking apps from my phone and was determined to regain control of my mind and time.  My 3 hour stint the other day had been a lapse in my self-imposed recovery process and I felt ashamed of myself.

For the most part I'm a stay-at-home mom, with the exception of the once a week that I go into work at my nursing job.

Or am I?

By all intent, I proudly and unapologetically claim that I am a stay-at-home mom and the primary nurterer of my children, but do I spend my time working as hard on the homefront as my husband does when he goes to the office each day?  He has chosen his full-time career and I have chosen mine- this beautiful, wonderful, frustrating life of a stay-at-home mom.  How I love these little munchkins that God has entrusted me with.

And while this life of domestic self-employment has been my wonderful lot in life, I realize there are so many amazing mothers who walk down different paths of motherhood.  Sometimes they choose their path and other times their paths are chosen for them by the circumstances of life.  Regardless of their intent, I believe some of God's most amazing mothers bring home a paycheck.

A dear friend of mine, who is an incredible mother, confided in me that she feels like she is a better mother when she is working outside the home.  God's mission in life for her lies not only with her own children, but also outside the home doing the work of healing the scarred hearts and minds of troubled children as she uses the gifts God gave her to do so.

And then there are the working mothers who weep every day before going to work at the thought of leaving their sweet babies to be cared for by another.  I was one of those during the first few years of our marriage when my oldest was a baby.  All the tears in the world couldn't change the fact that if we wanted to have food on the table while my husband finished his Master's degree, then the sacrifice had to be made and I needed to work full time.

And then we've all met those stay-at-home mothers, those blessed mothers who's every thought and action is dedicated to the rearing of their children and the edification of their home.  Their house might be far from immaculate and their figures rounded and soft, but to me they are radiant.  I find that these angelic women rarely have perfectly behaved children, because God knew they could handle much, much more.  I yearn to be more like them.

Perhaps the reason there is such a backlash towards stay-at-home moms is that we've all met the mothers who view their stay-at-home lot in life with bitterness and resentment, feeling it has robbed them of a fuller life.  Others use their time at home to read all the latest novels, to spend day after day out with girlfriends, or to keep the cyber world updated on the color of their ear wax.  Or as it is in my case, the mothers who spend far too much time perusing the web.  The children are neglected all under the not-so-attentive eye of their SAHM.  And suddenly all noble intentions and titles go sailing out the window.  I believe that a mother working outside the home is far better than an absent mother inside the home.

But the spectrum of what a mother looks like, either inside or outside the home, is broad. Not all mothers fit the mold of altruism or the mold of self-interest.  But regardless of where my fellow mothers lay on the spectrum, it shouldn't matter to me.  At least not as far as they're concerned.   It very much matters where I am though.   I've learned that motherhood is inherently a sanctifying furnace of sorts.  It magnifies every flaw and purges every notion of "I've got it all together" out of us.

It's this paradox that I think makes the debate null and impossible to judge on either side. One thing that cannot be contested or disputed is that regardless of whether we work inside the home or somewhere in the corporate world, we share the sacred name of "Mother," which for me has been unequivocally the greatest joy in life.  How we bear that badge of honor differs from woman to woman, but in the end, we are all united under the same common bond.  Let's just leave it at that as we try to put aside our differences and encourage eachother in what we all agree is one of the most difficult but rewarding things we will ever do in life.