For Love of the Game

Today marks the beginning of football season--"opening day" if you will. Now, to many of you out there, today is nothing more than an average Thursday wherein you've spent the majority of the day wondering when I was going to post on my blog. For my little family, however, today has been a long time coming. Over eight months long time coming. That's longer than I was pregnant with Kevin, and my little brother's words, I was pregnant "forever" with her. He had a point.

Anyway, football games in the middle of the week don't start until people have time to get off work, get some football food, and settle down onto a couch. There are some of us out there that don't pay for cable and regret it when the end of August comes around and we have no access to sports. For us, that couch is located wherever you can talk somebody into letting you take over their TV for a couple of hours, because unfortunately, getting off work in Salt Lake City at 5:00 doesn't give you time to drive up to the top of Utah to watch the game at your parent's house, so you have to swallow your pride, break your mothers heart by telling her you aren't going to make the drive, and try hard not to let her know you are probably going to end up watching the game at your mother-in-law's house and that you'll spend the majority of the two hours praying your mother-in-law doesn't pay attention if all of the sudden you have turned in the absolute Aggie football fanatic who sometimes doesn't say nice words during a ball game--what's worse, you pray she doesn't pay attention when her son turns into the crazed Aggie fanatic you converted him to be, turning him totally against her alma mater and all things cougar to the point where he is now more of a byu-hater than you are.

The point of that last paragraph?

It takes a long time for 6:00 pm on a Thursday to happen.

Things like cleaning bathrooms and kitchens and dusting just can't happen when you are waiting for a big game to start. Reading a book might distract you, but even then, sometimes that old stand-by fails. So what's a girl without cable to do?

The only thing left in this situation. She unplugs the Wii, plugs in the DVD player, and pulls out every football movie in her possession. Which one to watch first? Logically, she starts where all the great athletes start: with pee-wee football.

Let me interupt my rambling for a minute to tell you a little something about my daughter.

She loves football.

Last year, she went to all but two games with us. She even went to one in November. I felt like a horrible mother, but we didn't have a babysitter last minute and I just could not miss that game. So I bundled her up in multiple, multiple layers, and my mom and aunt brought multiple layers, and do you know what?

She sat like this the whole time, happy happy happy.



Perhaps it was the fact that we told my mother she was going to be a grandma during a time out of the USU v. Auburn football game (we were ahead at that point). Perhaps it was because Kevin heard "the Scotsman" so many times in utero she'll probably learn to sing it before she learns to talk. Perhaps it is because her dad's favorite thing about his in-laws is that he watches sports more often with the women than the men. Perhaps it was because Aggie football is just in her blood...

Perhaps it is just because, last football season, she was a baby who enjoyed sitting cozily on various laps, sucking on M&M packages, and watching people.

That was my theory. There was no way she could actually love football, right? That doesn't just happen. Even baby boys don't just take to football that young. So I told myself to wait and see what this season brings.

This was my thought as I put in the Little Giants DVD. I settled Kevin next to me on the couch with a sippy cup, fully expecting her to get down off the couch within two or three minutes. After all, the longest the girl has ever gone watching television (at least in the last six months) is about the 90-second length of the PBS Arthur opening theme song.

How long did she watch today before getting off the couch?

40 minutes.

When did she go down for her nap?

When the movie had ended. 

What has she awakened in her mother?

Hope.

She might really, legitimately, love football.

My Acquaintance with Anne

I woke up this morning knowing exactly what I was going to write about. Then a friend sent me this article and I decided I would like to shift my focus to include some thoughts from that article along with what I was going to write about anyway. And somehow, right now, all I want to write about is the fact that my feet are not going to survive Kevin's childhood. She loves to drop things on my feet and tickle them and pinch them and anything she can do to torture them. She is now grounded from wearing shoes in the apartment because most of the time she ends up stepping on my toes or over my feet and considering she is a solid <at least 25lbs> child--it HURTS! This is a big deal because she loves her shoes dearly and wants to wear them all the time and I want her to be happy..but (excuse the pun) I am putting my foot down---because if I don't put it down, I may not have any feet left to stand on at her wedding reception. 

Now that my rant is over, let me get back to what I originally wanted to write about today, and that is this girl:



Do you know her?

Um, because if you don't, you should.

Now, I know many of you know Anne of Megan Follows via the PBS movies (beautiful, wonderful, blessed films that I adore), but that is not exactly the Anne that I am talking about.

The Anne I am talking about is the Anne of L.M. Montgomery's imagination--the one that graces the pages of eight different books in her very own series, the same said series that has had me distracted and otherwise annoyed my husband all week because every day he comes home from work and I have a different-colored Anne book in my hand and the house is messier than he left it that morning.

Sometimes, fiction can drift into reality for me and I just get a little lost. It's been one of those weeks.

I have wanted these books to be part of my personal library since the first time I read them, in the guest bedroom of my Aunt Luci's home the summer I turned 15 and nannied for her two girls for three weeks. I have read the series probably two or three times since then, and each time I have a new favorite book. It seems Anne has grown up with me--or rather, I have grown up with her. The last time I read them I was stuck at home for the summer in between college years and I fell in love with Gilbert with Anne. I wanted to reread the parts with him in them over and over again--and I did. But somehow by the time I got to the fifth and sixth and seventh books my interest petered out. Anne married? It took all the fun out of her romance with Gilbert. It ended the magic, surely. I stopped reading.

My parents gave me the entire series for my birthday at the end of July. This was my face; yes, I was that excited (but not as excited as I was when I saw my Molly and Emily dolls, as I often have to remind my husband).

It took a few weeks for life to settle down and for me to pick up the books again. This time, I breezed through the first four books, enjoying the stories, underlining brilliant passages here and there, like on page 276 of Anne of Avonlea when Anne realizes that "Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down. Perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways....perhaps, perhaps...love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath."  Oh, if there were ever a quote to describe the way love crept into my life, well, this would be it!

So, you see, Anne and I are kindred spirits.

*Spoiler Alert*

This time, having realized that romance doesn't end with marriage but rather begins with it, my heart thrilled as I read book five, Anne's House of Dreams. Anne and Gilbert are finally married, and those first few years of their marriage (newlywed years behind me also) reminded me of my own in ways. I cried with Anne when her first baby was born and died unexpectedly. I know the pain of a birth that wasn't quite what you expected--and perhaps, without the benefit of a century of medicinal advances, my "wee white lady" would have ended up in a grave just as Anne's baby did. And as Anne faces the adventure of finding a home to raise her children in (note: we are getting a house! I hope! soon!) and my heart stirred as the chapters spoke of the mantle of motherhood settling on Anne's shoulders. I wear it now, too.

But the scene that screamed at me, the one that I hadn't realized a woman at the beginning of the 1900s could have experienced, came at the end of book six, Anne of Ingleside, where Anne, a college graduate, is a mother of six with an overworked, tired husband. On their 15th wedding anniversary (I loved realizing that Anne and Gilbert were married in September, just like me and my sweetheart), they are invited to dinner where Gilbert's old college flame Christine is also in attendance (funny enough, my husband's high school flame has a similar name).

Prior to the dinner, Anne worries that Gilbert will see Christine and regret that he married her instead (as if such a thing would EVER cross Gilbert's mind! Silly, silly Anne). At the dinner, however, Anne is faced with a situation that mothers today struggle with more than ever: why waste such an education on being a stay-at-home mom? (Funny enough, the article sent to me this morning talked about this exact topic!)

Let me quote a bit of text for you for a moment...

"They tell me you have seven children," said Christine, speaking to Anne but looking at Gilbert. 

"Only six living," said Anne, wincing. Even yet she could never think of little white Joyce without pain.

"What a family!" said Christine.

Suddenly it seemed a disgraceful and absurd thing to have a large family.

"You, I think, have none," said Anne.

"I never cared for children, you know." Christine shrugged her remarkably fine shoulders but her voice was a little hard. "I'm afraid I'm not the maternal type. I really never thought that it was a woman's sole mission to bring children into an already overcrowded world." 

and a few paragraphs later...as Christine is despairing that a common acquaintance could really be happy married to a poor minister and living in a downtrodden fishing village...

"Do you know what she said?" Christine threw out her beringed hands expressively. 

"Perhaps what I would say of Glen St. Mary," said Anne. "That it was the only place in the world to live in."

"Fancy you being contented there," smiled Christine. "Do you really never feel that you want a broader life?  You used to be quite ambitious, if I remember right. Didn't you write some rather clever little things when you were at Redmond [College]? A bit fantastic and whimsical of course, but still....and you've quite given it up?"

"Not altogether...but I'm writing living epistles now," said Anne, thinking of Jem and Co.

Oh, oh, oh! Isn't this exactly what I would say? Isn't this exactly how I would feel--do feel? The education I received is NOT wasted! Those four and a half years, those stories written in various computer labs across campus, a few publications with my byline, those writing classes, those literature classes, those interactions with classmates and the community, those professors that looked at me and said, "she has potential!" All of that, what is it for?

It is for her.

And moments like this.

Have I given it up?

Not altogether! No way!

I'm writing living epistles now, thought Marinda, thinking of Kevin and Co.

Five Years and Forever

There is a common misconception out there about LDS missionary service.
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This "Mormon Myth" says that missionaries give two years (for men) or eighteen months (for women) to serve the Lord.

False.

Missionaries, when they serve the way the Lord intended, serve for much, much longer.

I'm not talking about six-week extensions here.

I'm talking about the kind of dedication that takes those 18-24 months and multiplies them into daily service for the rest of that young Elder or Sister's life and onto eternity.

I'm talking about forever.

Five years ago today I "officially" began my mission. I put on the skirt, the little black nametag, hugged my parents goodbye, walked through those MTC doors and never looked back.

In reality, though, my mission began the minute I gained a testimony of the gospel. It began with my mother teaching me Primary songs and my dad teaching me the Plan of Salvation in Family Home Evening. It began when I learned how to forgive those who wronged me. It began when I learned how to serve those around me. It began when I accepted my first calling in the Beehive class and gave my first talk in Sacrament Meeting.

It began when I decided I would be a disciple of Christ.

I haven't been a perfect missionary since then. Throughout the majority of most days I feel like I am failing. But it is in those moments when I come to know my Savior better--because where I lack, He steps in and makes up the difference.

My mission in Texas ended three years and two and a half months ago, but those people, that place, and most importantly that gospel has stayed with me every single day since then.

I think of my mission when I look at my mission plaque hanging on my bedroom wall. I think of my mission when I walk out our front door past my Texas welcome sign. I think of my mission when I see my nametag, framed with my husband's, sitting on our bookcase. I think of my mission when I look at the pictures of the Temple in my home and I remember how the Temple became not only my personal goal, but the goal of so many who I taught. I think of my mission when I pull barbecue sauce out of the refrigerator. I think of my mission when I muster up courage to say hi to somebody I've never talked to before. I think of my mission when I accept opportunities to serve, however small or large they may be. I think of my mission when I back up our car and there is no companion waving to me through the rear-view mirror. I think of my mission when I play certain CDs to fill up the silence of our days. I think of my mission when I walk into our closet and see some of those faded shirts and shoes and skirts that I just can't bring myself to part with, no matter how worn out they are. I think of my mission when I see my husband's handwriting and remember the letters and testimonies we shared while we were both serving.

Most of all, I think of my mission when I look at my daughter--because my mission president's wife taught me that I am a mother who knows and someday, this precious daughter of mine will be a woman who knows. My whole mission was the best MTC for motherhood I could have ever imagined (or survived).

Today I remember. Today I give thanks. Today I throw a few more "please blesses" into my vocabulary and a few more "bless her hearts" into my thinking and a few more "have a blessed day"s into my interactions with others.

Today, I am only five years into this mission that I hope lasts forever.

A Mom of Just One

I should be in the shower right now. I should be making the bed, doing the dishes, or folding that last load of laundry that I finally got through yesterday (laundry day this week was Monday, people). Instead, I am taking advantage of my daughter sleeping in by doing my morning routine of thoroughly checking out my email, pinterest, facebook, and blogger dashboard before I start into the meat of my day.

This morning I read this article written by a mom of five to mothers of one and two children. She had some good things to say. They rang with me.  A lot.

I have only one child at the moment, with no immediate plans to add another anytime soon. Sometimes--okay, all the time--I look at the moms around me who have two, three, four, five, and sometimes six children and I think that since I only have one, I should be able to be doing more. If they can handle it all with multiple children, shouldn't I be able to have a handle on life since I only have one?

I should be able to spend more time cleaning our house--after all, I stay home all day, so why isn't our home pristine and put-together all the time? 

I should be able to make more dinners in a week, but inevitably there is always that one night (not our planned date night out) where Scott comes home, I am a wreck, and all it takes is one look and he rushes his girls out the door to find dinner elsewhere. 

I should be able to stay on top of the laundry--there are only three of us, after all. But I just can't. I've tried lots of different methods: a dedicated laundry day, doing one load a day, doing loads whenever they are needed. It doesn't really matter how much I get done, there is always a pile of unfolded clean laundry next to a pile of my husband's dirty work clothes and my daughter's spilled-on, spotted playclothes. 

I should be able to provide my daughter with planned, meaningful learning activities. You know that picture on Pinterest with the toddler and the muffin tin filled with whip cream dyed different colors? That one gets me every time, because I know my daughter would LOVE to get her hands on some edible colored painting goodness, but that still isn't enough motivation for me to deal with the inevitable mess afterward. So instead we read two or three books a day, I sing her all the preschool songs I can remember when I do remember, and I count things out loud. I told myself, "When she is 18 months old, I will start having learning time with her every day." I had a whole plan in my head, themed weeks studying shapes and colors and letters. And then I realized, we are only a month away from that, and all the moms I've seen that do weeks like that on their mommy blogs just seem to good to be true and make me feel like I am a horrible mother because our days aren't perfectly coordinated and planned. As mentioned in the article referenced above, I am one of those "wing it" mothers because my child has fought the injustice of a set, rigid schedule since she was in the womb (not kidding). 

I learned a long time ago that just because I'm a stay-at-home Mom doesn't mean I will be able to keep up with everything, regardless of what I feel I should be able to accomplish. Because there are days like yesterday, when I have a list and a plan of how to get everything clean and organized and at some point my daughter reminds me that she has to fit in that plan somewhere, and taking time to cuddle and laugh and read stories and have arguments over whether or not she should take a nap all take time too. 

Sometimes, as we play together in the afternoons, I remind myself that someday she won't be my only child. The thought is bittersweet--I know that the best present I could ever give my daughter is a sibling (whether she thinks so at first or not). I love my siblings and my life would feel empty without even one of them. I can't imagine it.  But I also know that once those siblings do come along, her life--and our precious one-on-one time together--will change. I won't always be able to drop whatever I am doing just to sit down and read a book with her when she brings me one. I won't always be the first person she wants to play with when she wakes up. I won't always be her best friend. Someday, I hope, she will look to her siblings to be her playmates and her best friends. 

But for now, there is me. There are empty cupboards, overflowing hampers, spotted bathroom mirrors and unstructured days and all the precious moments that come along with being a first-time mom. I don't want to miss those moments. I don't want to miss this time when we are a family of "just" three waiting for something more. I want to stop apologizing to myself and others for the fact that I'm just not ready to have another baby yet.

I am a Mother of Just One. 

I love it.

Rinda's Reads: A Patriotic Pick for July

I read lots of books in July. As it is my birthday month, I felt it was my right to spend a little more time perusing pages and a little less time doing laundry (I am paying for that now). Instead of giving you a breakdown of every book I read in July, here is a list with grades and ratings. If you want to know more about a particular title, let me know.

The Year We Were Famous by Carole Estby Dagg  (A-, PG)

Whisper Hollow by Carol Warburton(C, PG)

Bound by Sally Gunning (F, R--as in after one chapter, I had no desire to read anymore so I put it down)

Marianne’s Christmas Wish by Carla Kelly (B, borderline PG-13)

Miss Grimsley’s Oxford Career by Carla Kelly (B-, PG)

The Morning Gift by Eva Ibbotson (A-, PG-13)

Brave Emily by Valerie Tripp (A, G)

But this is the book I really, REALLY want to recommend!

Here is Where by Andrew Carroll

I came across an article about this book in a SkyMagazine on the plane ride home from D.C. I was so intrigued, I requested a copy from the library. It took a month or two to get to me, and it took me a few more weeks to pick it up, but once I did, I was hooked. I kept it a week overdue (somebody else had requested it and so I couldn't renew it) and had to turn it back in and I was only halfway through. I hope someday to buy it.

I know by now you are saying "stop rambling Rinda and tell us what it is about!" This is a brilliant piece of creative nonfiction. Andrew Carroll spent years collecting stories about little-known and mostly-forgotten pieces of America's past. For example, did you know that a graduate student CHOPPED down a 5,000 year-old tree in Nevada? Abraham Lincoln's son was saved from a train accident by the brother of his father's would-be assassin? Just after the end of the Civil War a ship carring POWs home sank and killed more people than would die on the Titanic? A woman was the first person to climb to the top of Pike's Peak in a day and age when no one thought a man could do it? A ByU graduate once hijacked a plane, demanded a $500,000 ransom, jumped out of the plane over Provo and then joined his own manhunt? 

Seriously, though, for history-lovers like me, this book is a gold mine. I think I learned/remembered more reading half of it than I remembered in all of my AP History course. So, basically, you should read it, and I should buy it (or at least request it from the library again so I can finish reading it!)

And Kevin's pick of the month is a personal childhood favorite of mine:

A is for Annabelle by Tasha Tudor

Originally published in 1954, this beautifully illustrated alphabet book delights little girls (and their moms and grandmas everywhere) with pictures of Annabelle and all of her doll accessories. I am so glad that I have a copy of my own now! 

The Happiest I've Ever Been

On Monday night, we stopped by my Aunt's house to visit for a minute (our last-ditch effort at a FHE, as other things went down that day that I will probably write about soon). As Kevin chased my cousin's little boy across Aunt Claudia's front lawn, we stood and visited for a long while. The air outside was perfect: fresh, not too hot, not too cold, and blowing gently. Kevin found their lush green lawn so soft that she kept falling and face-planting in it on purpose.

Somewhere in all of this relaxing chatting, Aunt Claudia mentioned something that caught me off-guard. I'm not sure why. We were talking about how I get to stay home with Kevin, and how grateful I am to be able to do that, when Aunt Claudia mentioned that my mom had told her this was the happiest she'd ever seen me.

Now, if your mom says something like that, it is probably true.

So I thought about it for a minute, and I realized, it is true!

I have never been so happy.

Oh sure, we have our hard days and our rough patches (we feel like we have been in a war against teething for almost a year straight now), those times when I want to pull my hair out and the times when I wonder how anybody can handle more than one child because the one I have takes me to my limit at least once or twice a week (sometimes once or twice a day). But then there are also those beautiful, little moments, like when she brings me her blanket and finds her binky and just wants to cuddle for a minute before she takes a nap, or how she will climb on to my lap so I can read her a story, or how sometimes she'll come running at me out of the blue just because she needs to give me a kiss right that second. 

Yes, I think. This is the happiest I've ever been. 

Before we got engaged (it may have even been the Sunday I gave my "homecoming" talk after finishing my mission, I'm not sure), Scott and I went on a Sunday walk through some neighborhoods by my parents home. The air was much the same as it was at Aunt Claudia's the other night, only the fragrance was of fresh-cut hay and alfalfa. I asked Scott about his goals and dreams. At the forefront was the fact that he wanted to make sure his wife was able to stay home with the kids and didn't have to work outside the home unless she wanted to. It is so important to him to make it possible for his kids to have a full-time mom. We have been blessed to be able to make this a quick reality. It is our goal for me to be able to be home all the time, to not have to work to support us, even though at times it makes things like getting into a home or going on ritzy vacations or wearing up-to-date and stylish clothing much more difficult. 

Some women out there probably don't think being at home with their kids all day sounds very appealing--I know, I can understand that. Some women want to work, need to work--it keeps them sane. It is, after all, what they went to school for. I know many of these women. I respect them and admire them for the way they work so hard to balance a career and being a parent to their child(ren). I kind of thought I would be a woman like that, who goes crazy "only" being at home all day, which brings me to blessing number two: I am more than content to "just" be at home "all day." I am not prone to cabin fever. I don't mind not leaving the house until the evening or sometimes not at all during the day. Perhaps that is why Heavenly Father blessed me with a daughter who lives for go,go,going (in fact, she learned to say "go" last week--and "no" which is a whole different story!). She loves to be outside, to explore new places, to see people. And I am okay with that, because at least once a day, her stir-craziness is what ensures that I get cleaned up for the day and venture outside. 

Yup, me being at home makes me happy--and it makes my family happy too. 

I have never had a job I absolutely loved. Even with the jobs I didn't mind--like being an EFY counselor and a writing tutor and running youth conferences at USU--there were always days that I woke up and just didn't want to do it. I never felt 100% passionate about what I was doing--90% or 95% maybe, but the jobs never felt 100% right. 

This job, being Kevin's Mommy, it feels 110% right. 

You were right, Mom.

This really is the happiest I've ever been.