Not My Own

 She's been complaining all week that she didn't have preschool.

Naturally, I thought that she'd be excited to go this morning. 

We picked out a cute outfit for her to wear, the same one her sister wore to school on her fourth birthday. Probably my favorite of all the size 5 clothes in her closet. I let her play on the tablet while I curled her hair. We practiced her smile. 

And as soon as our neighbor's car pulled into the driveway to take her to school, she curled up like a potato bug in a child's hand. 

This child, my youngest, is the most cleverly manipulative of all my children. Just yesterday, I told her I needed to go talk to Dad before we could play baby dolls. After about five minutes of sitting in his office, we heard a boom crash above us and then little footsteps descending the stairs. She burst into the room, handing her dad a package of crackers so he could have a snack. How sweet, you might be tempted to think (and her Dad certainly thought so), but I could see the working gears grinding in her head. Bring Dad snacks. If he's eating, he can't talk. If he can't talk, Mom can come play baby dolls with me. 

Meet my Sophie, blog world. You don't really know her, because life got admittedly 1000 times crazier after she was born. She is no stranger to social media. She has quite a following on my instagram account. My mom always reports to me that "so-and-so said she loves your Sophie Stories." Chronicles of Sophie, my mom calls them. 

Coping mechanism, I call them.

Last fall, we signed her up for soccer. She showed the most promise of all our children, naturally dribbling a ball across the backyard during our family scrimmages.  Boisterous and bubbly, we thought for sure she'd be the one to get in there and be aggressive and confident. 

No, instead she stubbornly sat on the sidelines and threw funny fits and I decided that instead of getting frustrated at her not playing, we should just roll with it, and I started recording her antics in my instagram stories. Thus Sideline Sophie was born. 

Yesterday I was looking for a blog post I wrote years and years ago, and I chuckled when I came across one titled "The End of the Threenage Year(s)." Curious, I clicked on it, and immediately felt guilty because I used to be so much better at recording my thoughts and feelings. Blogging was the coping mechanism that allowed me to survive Kevin's early childhood. As I read, my guilt morphed because I had such a hard time remembering Kevin as I described her in that blog post. She turned nine two weeks ago. She's now a confident third-grader who finishes her library books within two days and loves to play card games, roll her eyes at her dad, and tackle new art projects. 

What if I forget what Sophie is like that this age? I wondered as I formed a bow with the yellow ties on her dress. I've been so terrible at journaling or blogging. What if I forget how she says funny things constantly? How she joins Scott and I for lunch daily and when I tried to excuse her behavior toward him the other day, she said, "Nope, Dad, I was making fun of you." And then, ten minutes later, "Dad, I'm still making fun of you!" Or how she goes grocery shopping while the big kids are at school and thanks me for "Mommy and Sophie Time" as if she never gets enough of it? Which, clearly, must be true because she inevitably crawls into my bed every night. And in the morning, when she's just waking up and her arms start to snake around my neck and I ask her why she's in my bed, did she have a bad dream? She whispers, "No, I just needed you."

I love being needed, but I am exhausted. I don't sleep because I need that hour of reading time to myself in bed after Scott starts snoring. It's the only peace I have, knowing they are all asleep and I can breathe and be me.

I picked my little potato-bug preschooler off the ground and cradled her as I walked out the door to put her in my friend's car. "You can't stay home with me, sweetheart, I have to go to the dentist this morning." 

Buckling her in was a tag team effort. I told myself she'd stop crying as they pulled out. After all, her best friend cried all the way to ballet when we carpooled for that on Tuesday and then she was just fine. I went inside, fixed myself a cup of Nestle hot chocolate with just a hint of Stephen's Raspberry Chocolate flavoring. I sat down and folded my arms, out of habit, and I started saying a prayer in my mind, out of habit. I thought of my crying daughter and my prayer changed into a pleading with my Heavenly Father to please help her be brave and take care of her. 

I went to the dentist. I got home and there was a message on my phone from her preschool teacher. "Hi. CALL ME." 

I did. Picture day was not going well. "She only says she'll do it if her Mom is here." 

It's the first time I've ever had a teacher call me for any of my children, asking me to come. I've gotten calls for Kevin about clumsy playground accidents, but they usually ended with, "She's fine now, I just wanted you to know." I've never had a teacher complain about Sly. Ever. (This is probably the most surprising thing about my life, as Sly these days is a whole other blog post I'm not sure I'm ready to write). 

So I put on shoes and a jacket for the second time this morning, and Scott emerged from his office to come get a snack. "I guess Sophie doesn't want me to be a writer," I told him, trying not to be frustrated that my writing time was being further interrupted this morning (going to the dentist is bad enough). I'd promised myself long ago that once my children were in school, I would use that time to write. When we registered Sophie for preschool last spring, I was ecstatic thinking that time was almost here. For four hours every week in September, I wrote. For four hours the first two weeks of October, I wrote. And then life happened. I spent that time helping chauffer my parents to my dad's melanoma surgeries and appointments in Salt Lake City. I was happy to help. Then, when it seemed like that hurdle was conquered, Sophie's school went into a soft closure for two weeks. That began a three month journey of two weeks in school and then two weeks out of school for Covid closures. In between all that was Thanksgiving break and Christmas break and pretty soon, I was scheduling Relief Society meetings and  dentist appointments and doctor appointments and errands while Sophie was at school because it was just easier.  I told myself I'd get back to writing, that I would become like those lady authors I started following on bookstagram, that I could do it too, even though I don't now how any of them manage to publish books with smaller children than mine at home. Don't compare yourself, I constantly lecture my psyche. You do you. Now is not the time.

I drove to the school, thinking about what part of my manuscript I would have been writing had Sophie not needed me. Self-conciously, I tried to manuver my mini-van through the waves of teenagers leaving campus. I know what I look like to them, I thought, glad a mask covered up most of my make-up-less, uneven countenance. A middle-aged soccer mom in unfashionable clothing, waaaaaayyy out of her element. 

Still, my daughter needed me, so I parked the van and started walking to the school. My phone buzzed. A text from Sophie's teacher.

"We got her to take a picture! It turned out so cute! She's fine now!"

After confirming that she did not need me after all, I told Teacher Sue I would let her be and to tell her that I'm proud of her for being brave.

Climbing back into the van, I removed my mask and took a deep breath. If I hurry, I can still have 45 minutes of writing time before I have to come back to pick her up. Then I let out a groan and welcomed the familiar complaint: my time is not my own.

Immediately, a picture came to mind of a man sleeping in a boat. Weary and sorrowful, He was seeking time to himself to sleep and grieve the loss of his cousin. But the winds and the waves and his companions on ship would not leave him alone. 

His time was not his own, either. 

He got up from a needed rest. He calmed the winds and the waves and the storm and the sailors. 

And my heart.

I've always believed there is a season in life for every thing I want to accomplish. Sometimes those seasons overlap, like when I get to take a break from normal life to travel someplace different and new. I pointed out to Scott yesterday that this year marks 10 years since I graduated from college, and next year will be 10 years since I've had a real, paying job. I don't regret leaving the workforce. I don't regret choosing to stay home with my children. But the absence of regrets does not always equal the absence of restlessness and the desire to be and do more. 

"I'm just too tired," I told Scott as I bemoaned the fact that I wanted to go help our neighbor get her house ready to sell but I didn't even have enough energy to take care of all that my house needed. 

On Sunday, a friend of mine shared a story in a sacrament meeting talk about Henry B. Eyring and his father. Hal was having a hard time with a physics problem, and his father was trying to help him but realized his son was stuck. Brother Eyring was surprised that his son didn't think about physics all the time like he did. This led to him telling his son to figure out what it was that he thought about when he didn't have to be thinking about it, and then choose a career in that field. 

For the past several days, I have tried to pinpoint what I think about when I don't have to be thinking about it. Mostly, it's sleep I crave. Then I think about my to do list. Then, my children. Then, what book I want to be reading. Occasionally, I think about what I want to be writing. But I'd be lying if I said I thought about writing all the time. 

I feel like in the last nine years of motherhood and ten years of marriage, my identity is constantly being put in the Lost and Found bin of my brain. Who am I and what am I doing? I have no idea. What do I want from life? So much, but ask me later because I'd rather take this moment for me.

Back to Sophie, because I have two minutes until I need to go and pick her up for realsies this time. 

I do not regret giving up my writing time to go to her school and not enter. If she needs me, I will be there. But I am equally grateful that she is discovering that sometimes she does not need me. 

Right now, my time is not always my own. That's okay. I've always wanted to be serving God instead of myself, and raising a family is what He has asked of me. And I won't regret feeling weary or tired or taking a nap, because even the Greatest of All did the same. And I will try not to grumble the next time an REM cycle is interrupted by fuzzy, fine blonde hairs in my face and a little body settling into mine, breathing deep sighs because she has found relief.  

It is a wonderful thing to be needed. It is even better to be wanted. 

And, life will not always be this way.

In six years, life will look different, and it will be a different daughter whose threenage years are a fuzzy memory instead of a stark reality. 

Hopefully by then she is sleeping through the night in her own bed. So I will take my 45 stolen-back minutes and I will record my feelings and I will get back to basics because maybe, just maybe, that is where I will find myself again.

I Write so She Knows

Ahh, Thursday. We meet again.

I have lots of things on my mind today, mostly frustrating thoughts. Perhaps this is a bad practice, but I find that it takes a lot more effort to write about the negative things in my life, so I usually avoid recording them unless I have learned a particular lesson from that challenge/trial/mistake. I already wrote a whole intro to this post and it detailed just three of the things driving me nuts today...and after I read over it, it seemed so petty so I decided to delete it, start over, and get to the meat of the post today.

I thought I would share a quote I found last night while putting together a book for Scott's grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary (shh, its a surprise, but I don't think they'll somehow find this blog in the next two days). You know how sometimes you hear things, like maybe praise or a compliment, or when you are reading a parenting article and you think, "I am doing something right!"

That is how I felt when I read this little piece of advice from President Hinckley:

"To you women of today, who are old or young, may I suggest that you write, that you keep journals, that you express your thoughts on paper. Writing is a great discipline. It is a tremendous education effort. It will assist you in various ways, and you will bless the lives of many--now and in the years to come, as you put on paper some of your experiences and some of your musings."

I often hear remarks from friends and family about how much I blog (note, most of these remarks are positive, but occasionally my brother asks me if I can just do a cliff notes version). I know it might not seem like much to write a post once a week on this blog, but I try and keep our family blog current and sometimes it becomes over-detailed with experiences and pictures. I rarely know reactions to that blog. Maybe sometimes it makes people jealous or sad or angry because we seem to be getting blessings others aren't receiving. Maybe sometimes that blog makes me look like a mom who has it all together (which, for sure, I am not). Maybe sometimes it talks about how much time we get to spend with Kevin's grandparents when I have friends and family members that aren't as close in proximity and don't get the same opportunities.Maybe it shows us as a happy family with no problems.

We are a happy family, yes.

But we certainly have our fair share of problems!

I just wanted to get that out there.

I don't keep a blog to find out others reactions to it. I don't even do that for this blog! The reason I keep our family blog is that it is the easiest way for me to keep a journal of our day-to-day happenings. When I was in junior high and high school, I kept a pretty decent journal, and someday our children will find it funny when they read about their parents sixteen-year-old selves meeting. And because I loved reading my Dad's missionary journal, I made a goal to write in my journal every day of my mission. By the end of my mission I had five journals all filled up, plus mini-journals of each day in my planner (and somewhere in the middle of those journals are two pages detailing that inappropriate intermission kiss and its aftermath!). Sadly, once I got home, I failed miserably at keeping that up. I was in love and I was too busy planning and daydreaming and I got out of the habit.

And then, two and a half years ago, I had a job opportunity and one of the interview questions asked if I had a blog, so I created one. And slowly, as life began to pick up for us, I developed a habit of writing about my family. It was easy, actually, because I had been writing about my family since I was in the eighth grade. My family had just taken a different shape. I don't often get things down on paper, but I do get them down on screen. I don't think President Hinckley would mind my interpretation.

I love what he says about it being a "tremendous education effort." I've talked about education on this blog before. You all know it is important to me. Writing is one of the ways I've found to keep my mind going. I think when President Hinckley talks about it being an educational effort, he doesn't necessarily mean that it is an academic one. You see, writing, for me, has always been a tremendous effort toward educating myself about the world around me and who I am. You come to know yourself better when you write--because sometimes things end up in your paragraphs that you hadn't realized before. Sometimes it helps you see another's point of view better. Sometimes it helps you recognize the Lord's hand in your life when it seems He just wasn't listening. He is listening. He's always listening. And He's reading your journals, be they online or in paper, too. I kind of love the idea of Heavenly Father and Jesus following my blog. I think it would make them happy. At least I hope so!

This time in our lives is so precious to me, as a wife but especially as a mother. Kevin and I will never have this much one-on-one time again.

And you know what devastates me? Chances are she won't remember any of it.

She won't remember that we play with her farm together every day and that I taught her how to make Cinderella fly off the second floor by sliding the hay bail across. She won't remember that sometimes I sit by her in her bedroom while she plays alone just because she likes to have me near.  She won't remember that some days she begs for string cheese and I let her eat two instead of just one. She won't understand that from the very beginning she has had an amazing relationship with all four of her grandparents--she will come to understand that they have always and will always love her dearly, but she won't remember wagon rides with Grandpa Fowler and eating an extra helping of Grandma Fowler's treats and watching football with Grandma and how Papa literally drops everything when she is around just to play with her. She won't remember that Uncle Ben loves the way she pants to get something she wants and Uncle Flan never gets mad at her when she wakes him up in the morning and Auntie Liz taught her how to put her face in the water. She won't remember that she got to spend lots of time with her cousins on the Fowler side and her aunts and uncles were always willing to give her an extra love. She won't remember that every day when her daddy comes home she gets so excited to hear the key turn in the lock, she starts running in whatever direction she is facing and then she giggles and waits while her dad comes in, kisses me, and then chases her.

She won't remember what our days are like.
I'm afraid I won't either.
So I write it down.

I write it down and take pictures and put it on our family blog. I don't care that others can see it too--that was a lesson I learned on my mission, to let people, especially my family and close friends, share in my experiences. But even if nobody read it, I would still write it. Why? Because I want her to know that she is absolutely loved and always will be. I want her to know she did funny things that made us laugh. I want her to know that when she was 17 months old she started dancing because one day her dad wanted to show her mom Sara Barreilles' new music video "Brave" and when she saw the people dancing on the TV, she started moving her hands and feet too.

I keep a journal, a blog, because if I ever have to leave her early, if I don't get to be there for the rest of her growing up, I want her to know I love her. I want her to know, and I say it time and time again, that she is THE best job I've ever had and I wouldn't trade that for fame or wealth or travel or anything, anything else.

I write because I want her to know.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Last year, I gave myself a most amazing present for my 25th birthday: a blog. I think it is a tradition I am going to keep--giving myself something life-enriching every year. I have been so blessed by this blog--and although that sounds strange to say, it really has been one of my saving graces. I love having a time and a place to write down my thoughts and feelings and anecdotes. I love how sharing them has brought me joy returned in the form of comments from family members and friends. I think starting this blog was probably the best decision I made as a 25-year-old (I don't know what that says for this past year, since I started the blog two days after my birthday). Anyway, this year I wanted to come up with something that will bless my life even more. This year I want to give myself a better relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior, Jesus Christ. This year I am going to have more meaningful scripture study and prayer. If you want to know more, ask me about it! I will share gladly!

Anywho, since this is an "anniversary post" and since our Thursday is BOOKED this week, I thought I would do a different kind of post and refer you back to posts you may have missed this past year. If you want to see my "Most Popular Posts" check out the gadget on the right side of the blog, which links you to the ten most popular posts according to my readers. Today, however, I want to point you back to something you may have missed for some reason or another. These are ten of my favorite posts for the past year (I excluded the "Popular Posts" because most of you have read them!).  I don't think I posted any of these links (with the exception of "Family") to facebook. so those of you who come from facebook are in for some treasures. I hope you find something you enjoy!

1. A Champion
2. Terminology: A Post in Three Parts
3. An Ode to Joy
4. Trick or Treat or ...something else entirely?
5. Catching Up to Her
6. A Real-Life Fairy Tale
7. A Little More Like Her
8. Family
9. In Her Shoes
10. Square One

 Thanks for loving me, reading my writing, and not judging my thoughts-- and for giving me something to do every Thursday.

Happy Birthday Thursday Blog!

And now, here is a picture of me on my birthday, which was also this week:

 

 Kevin gave me a coloring book (as pictured). We love to color together, so this was a perfect present from her (that and we've pretty much destroyed the Princess coloring book that was one of two that we own).  Unfortunately, she had been grounded from coloring for two days as a result of a poor choice she made introducing purple crayon to our kitchen floor.  Guess we will try out the coloring book today, when her punishment is up.

Grounded at 16 months? This girl continues to astound us with her quick "progress" and development!

Role Play: My Journey as a Writer

Of all the classes I took in college, my writing courses were some of my absolute favorites. I always felt like they stretched me and helped me grow not only as a writer, but as a person. In almost every writing class I took, at some point our professor would give us fifteen minutes of "freewrite" time and the same prompt: write about ten roles that define you.

At the beginning of my college career, I wrote down things like "friend, roommate, daughter, sister, reader, employee, writer, student." By the time I reached my last writing class, my main roles had shifted and now I added roles like "wife, return missionary, diabetic" to the top of the list. A year after I took my last writing class I added the role that defines my life now: "mom."

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I didn't let the role of mom rule my list. Last weekend I spent the entire weekend being "Scott's wife" and "Scott's best friend." It was glorious. We laughed together all day long, every day. I had great expectations about that trip bringing us closer--and as we left Denver, I thought that maybe I'd set my expectations too high. By the time we returned home, I realized that trip had accomplished more than what I wanted it to. Not only was I more motivated to be a better wife to my husband, I realized how much I loved (and missed) "the magic of ordinary days" as Kevin's mom. While we loved spending time together, it was clear that while the two of us could be a complete couple together, we could not be a complete family, not now anyway, without our daughter.

There are many roles in my life that have had to fall away lately so that I can be successful as "mom" and "wife" and sometimes "sister/daughter." I don't get to be as much of a friend as I wish I could be. I am no longer anyone's employee, and being a wife replaced the unique role of roommate a long time ago. As much as I loved my role as a student, I accepted that I needed to save graduate school for a time much later in my life, both for economic and personal reasons. This doesn't make me less of a learner--I still have that desire, and it still peeks through every time I look over a friend's resume, cover letter, or research paper. I make time for reading, but I don't have the energy to pick up books that are really going to make me think (not very often, anyway). But of all the roles I miss, "writer" is the one that has been the hardest to let go, and yet the most necessary to put on the shelf for a while.

Let me explain.

When I write, I can get wrapped up in a project and forget that I exist in a world that consists of more than just me, my experiences, my words, and my imagination. Can you imagine how a toddler could destroy a home if her mother/caretaker leaves reality for a couple of hours? Naptime just isn't long enough or safe enough some days.

Writing is a highly personal experience for me; I rarely share things until I feel they are "good enough" and even then, it is usually only my husband that gets to read them, because his opinion of me never changes. Occasionally, after something is really polished, I pass it along to my mom. That is why this blog has required me to be so brave; in a one-to-two hour naptime, I write down something, anything, and then when I hear her waking up, I have to push the "Publish" button and set my words free for the world to see, typos and all. Sometimes things come out sounding different than what I really mean. Sometimes my posts contradict themselves. Sometimes all I can see are the holes and the flaws in what I've written. Sometimes I don't have the right words to express what I am thinking, and sometimes I know the things I am really thinking would cause my readers to take offense, so I keep them to myself. I feel like that is limiting my writing, but I do it anyway, because I like to be a keeper of peace. My favorite writing professor told us that to write something that really matters to us, it will usually be a subject that will make us want to throw up just by thinking about it. I write about those kinds of things sometimes; rarely do they make it to my little blogging sphere.

The kind of writing I ultimately want to do involves hours of research and self-searching, sometimes traveling and sometimes adventuring. It involves planning, experiencing, outlining, drafting, revising, and courage.  I imagine it would take me years to get something ready for a publisher. I'm still not sure I have that in me.

I studied two genres of writing in college: creative nonfiction (think memoir) and fiction. I always thought fiction would be my niche, but I only actually got to take one fiction class. I did awesome in it. The first story I wrote was somewhat of a bust (it was a novel trying to be a short story and so it just didn't work), but it still won first place in the campus-wide writing contest sponsored by USU's newspaper. It wasn't ready for publication, but I turned it in anyway. Now I wish I hadn't. It needed more work, and had I spent time with it, I could have turned it into something much better. My second story, on the other hand, was a quiet piece about an elderly construction worker widower mourning the loss of his wife and his daughter who had inherited his "fix it" tendencies and spent too much of her time trying to "fix" her father. I wrote it for my grandparents. At the time, my Grandma Burningham had been a widow for over five years and every time I saw her she told me she wanted to die. She taught me the kind of pain that can happen when you are separated from your soul mate. My grandpa on the other side had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and those grandparents knew separation was coming. I saw my parents trying to take care of their parents through the fresh eyes of someone who had only been married for less than a year. And from that, and three hours in the computer lab in the basement of the English building, came a nearly-perfect short story that earned me an unquestionable A from one of my hardest professors, no final project required, it was that good. That story, on the other hand, won only second place in the official campus-sponsored writing contest. I knew why. Ryan Keeper's story had sex and immorality and swearing and all that "real world drama" that seems to so impress writing professors who spend most of their time teaching LDS kids from Utah who don't touch alcohol or drugs and have little-to-no experience with the emotional consequences of one-night stands. I knew the judges appreciated my story, but I also knew that if I really wanted to get noticed, quickly, on a more-than-just-a-university-undergrad writing sphere, I would need to write about the things Ryan wrote about, and writing about those things just didn't interest me.

In the semester after taking my fiction class, I ended up in an advanced creative non-fiction writing class again. I'd taken the same class from the same professor three years before, but I felt that a mission and terminal diagnosis (I will have diabetes until I die) and marriage later, I would have a completely different experience in the exact same class. When I took the class the first time, my mother read my end-of-semester-product essay and told me that even though my writing took me to great and new places, it always ended up leading me back home. I never forgot that comment, because that was when I realized that when I wanted to write about things that really mattered, I had to write about things that were real to me, whether they were personal essays or fiction.

So when I took the class a second time and we were required to write a braided essay (meaning weaving two or three different subjects/strands together into one cohesive whole), I decided to write about three things that were very important to me. First, for my travel strand, I decided to focus on my great-great-grandfather Dennis and his life, which was adventurous and tragic all at the same time. My husband and mother accompanied me on a trip to Montana in the middle of a February snowstorm just to do research. The three of us will never regret that trip, ever. The second strand had to be a personal strand, sharing some of our story. I decided to write about my diabetes diagnosis, which included my life as a missionary and falling in love. The third strand was related, researched, and was the thing that made me want to throw up. I wrote about the risks of diabetic pregnancy and my desires and fears of becoming a mother. I worked on that essay for hours. It ended up being over 50 pages and still wasn't finished when I was done, but I was in a much better place personally. As I go back and read it now, I see the foreshadowing: the scenes with my Aunt Betty, talking about her father Dennis as the Montana snow fell outside her apartment window; she passed away a few months later. The mentions of my grandfather's cancer diagnosis and fight and his teasing; I wanted to have a baby before he passed away, but we didn't make it that far. I got pregnant a few short weeks after he was buried. I did all that research about diabetic pregnancies; I knew everything that could go wrong. I think it helped prepare me for the thing that did unexpectedly go wrong, leading to Kevin's premature birth and the month we spent in the hospital with her.

And now, two years later, I want to write about my life as it is now: the experiences of becoming a mother and the struggles of our marriage, the things I've given up and the things I've gained. The blessings of waking up to my daughter kicking her feet against the crib slats, of gagging as I clean out the stale milk from old sippy cups, of tickle fights and laughter and watching her copy my every move. I want to write about following my husband to the Salt Lake Valley and learning to lean on my in-laws where I used to lean on my parents for the day-to-day things we need help with. I want to write about watching my dad become a grandpa, finding his true calling in life and the way she strokes his mustache and cuddles up with him and how he calls just to say he misses her and can we please come back soon. I want to write about how different my marriage is now from where we started three years ago, about the things that we are working toward: a house, grad school for him, more children, a career job, feeling settled. I want to write about how thinking about having a second child terrifies me and fills me with desire at the same time.

I want to write about the things that matter, the things that take me home.

My aunts gave me a sign for our wedding that I keep above the door, next to my Texan welcome sign, our key/mail holder, and our family calendar, where I can see it all day, every day. It says, "Home is where your story begins."

It reminds me that even though I have put my writing career on the backburner so that I can cut up pears and make peanut butter sandwiches and do laundry and  wash dishes and change diapers and play with blocks and read the same board book fifteen times in a week, I am spending each day doing research, gaining experience. I am doing more than it appears I am doing, I am filling more than one role.

I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a sister, a daughter, a friend. I am a return missionary. I am a diabetic. I am a homemaker.  I am a reader.

And, on Thursdays, I am a writer.

Thanks for reading.

My thoughts on five children, donuts, and graduation

Since I wrote about what was really weighing on my mind and heart yesterday, I have spent the majority of today wondering what I should write about next. Around 1:30pm I told myself I just didn't need to worry about writing. Around 1:35 pm I realized that excuse was never going to fly with my personal conscience and I needed to come up with something.

So I did what any woman does when she is stuck in a bind.

I asked my best friend for help.

He told me he wasn't sure what I should blog about and I would think of something. He said, "I look forward to discovering what it is and reading your blog post."

I responded by saying, "I'm not going to blog today. I have nothing to write about and you are no help. Love you."

To which he said, "Ouch. I could give you some suggestions, but they wouldn’t be worthy of a blog post."

And I said I would take them anyway.

ScottyDawg delivers, every time. These are his writing prompts for today, which turned out better than he thought they would be.

You could blog about your feelings of me being done with my bachelors, or you could blog about donuts (I told you they wouldn’t be that good), or you can blog about your experience with 5 kids this week.

 

Here goes. I am going to address them in reverse order.

 

A Mother of Five

Once upon a time, a palm reader at Lagoon read my hand and told me I was going to have five children. Since that time (more than ten years ago), I have just planned on having five children. But over the past four years, there have been a few kinks thrown into that plan. My diabetes and other health problems, for one. Two, after one scary pregnancy and delivery, I am really doubting my body can physically and emotionally handle doing that five times over. Three, dollar signs--adding up--probably we couldn't afford that--our insurance covers birth control for free--TMI, okay, I'm done.

 

Then, on Tuesday, I volunteered to help watch my three nieces and their little brother (only a month younger than Kevin) while their parents were on vacation. Five kids under the age of seven. One already exhausted Mommy. One two-bedroom apartment. Six hours.

 

I survived, but only with lots of help. Scott came home for lunch. He immediately picked up our nephew, which set Kevin off screaming. She was not about to let any other baby have her Daddy. Funny, she never cared when I held the little guy, only when Scott held him. I thought her jealous rage adorable. He just started worrying and wondering what she was going to do (far into the future) when there is another baby around in our house full-time. After he left to go back to work, I carried the two babies and the three other girls lugged a picnic blanket across the street and we went to the park. It was cold and windy and those babies are mobile so we only lasted about 20 minutes. My arms got quite the workout (these Fowler babies are solid chunks of baby goodness). After returning from the park, I was in the midst of pouring chocolate milk into three little cups when my mother-in-law called to check on us. The three-year-old had just spilled her cup all over our coffee table and carpet when Grandma asked if I wanted her to come over and help.

 

Normally, I would have said no. I am stubborn. I can do things by myself.

 

This time, I said yes without hesitating.

 

And by the time she got here, the spill was cleaned up, my baby was asleep, the other baby had finally decided he wanted to eat, the toddler was watching a Barbie movie, the first-grader was reading her chapter book, and the five-year-old was listening to me read her a story. I felt quite accomplished. Things were back under control.

 

And after Grandma helped us get through the last two hours, I realized that maybe we needed to rethink our family planning. The kids were awesome for me--really, so well-behaved--but I was tuckered out and it took me a while to recover. And I thought, "three's good. I'll be fine if we only have three."

 

But there is a reason that children come one (or in some cases two) at a time, so you can break into mothering slowly, adding just a little (that feels like a lot) at a time. So, perhaps I will be able to handle five children on my own after all. Someday.

 

That day is not today.

 

Donuts

I really like fried things. Like practically an addiction. But yesterday I walked by donuts at the grocery store and I didn't buy any. The saltwater taffy was a different story. And when I got to the frozen foods section and saw that box of Creamies on sale, well, I got homesick for Cache Valley and bought the biggest box I could find.

 

Anyway, I don't have much to say about donuts per se, but I do have something to say about healthiness.

 

Scott and I have been rocking the exercising this week, even if we haven't mastered the eating well part of healthy living yet. He's been doing much better than me, but still, we've done more exercising in the past week than we probably did in the whole month before that. And we are proud of that fact, but we didn't put it on Facebook. You probably won't ever get a weight loss report, a picture of our super healthy dinner (because they don't exist), or an update on our marathon training on Facebook from us ever.

You can thank me for that.

(But I can't guarantee I won't blog about it.)

Graduation
How do I feel about Scott finishing his Bachelor's degree this week?

FREAKING WONDERFUL.
excuse my French.

School is hard. Putting a spouse through school has been even harder for me. Why? I miss homework (sometimes). I get jealous of his homework sometimes, but I don't ever do it for him (occasionally I help edit and revise a paper and that makes me homesick too). I miss learning new stuff and having things to work on. I miss the feeling of accomplishment after turning in a big paper or project (I don't miss the anxiety in the days leading up to when the paper is due). I don't think Scott shares these same feelings exactly. He loves to learn and he loves figuring out new things. But he is not a big fan of homework, tests, or especially writing papers.

The past three weeks have been pretty harsh. He's had one assignment on top of another, and we've had a lot of family events going on, so he's had to get even better at managing his time (he already rocks at that, seeing as how he has worked full-time and gone to school full-time simultaneously over the past four years). And now that we see that light at the end of the tunnel and I've pulled the stiches out of the makeshift hem his grandma put on my oversized graduation gown from last year so that he can wear it, we are breathing a sigh of relief and trying to forget that he has to start studying to take the GMAT in a few weeks. We are going to give ourselves a week to ignore the fact that we have two long years of graduate school ahead of us.

In the meantime, we are going to practice walking.

Scott is going to walk and receive his diploma that he so deserves and enjoy the fact that he is one step closer to being done with school forever.

I am going to walk and get some exercise and keep improving myself and learn how to learn outside of a classroom.

And Kevin is going to work on taking more than one step at a time without holding onto our hands.

Truth be told, though, we don't mind that she is still holding on.

Have a very happy Thursday, friends!

A Reminder

I love the feeling of being safe inside when a storm rages on outside. Even though we live on the second of three floors, the wind howls and the rain echos through our vents. Earlier this week we had a storm that I barely noticed--baby girl and I were safe inside with no plans of going out. She slept soundly in her room as I emailed back and forth with my husband while he was at work. It was a quiet, peaceful moment, when all of the sudden I heard what I can only describe as a radio/satellite/white noise/static alien noise coming from our laundry closet, where the furnace and some vents are.

Momentarily, I was terrified. And then I thought, "whoa! cool!" I didn't know sounds like that actually happened outside of tornado movies.

I'm no scientist and definitely no meteorologist, so I'm not sure how those sounds became trapped in the storm and somehow found their way into my living room. I picture the sound bytes getting caught up in a wind gust, swirled around, and suspended for a brief second in the air--long enough for me to hear--and then being swept off again.

Yesterday I was standing in the shower, trying to wash the tiredness out of my muscles as the day started, fighting the storms raging in my head, and another sound byte came into my mind and hovered there for a moment. It was the voice of my best friend Kim, who once gave me the best advice I ever needed.

"Rinda, you don't do failure."

Most days, I feel like I am failing. There is always something I'm not quite up-to-par on. Either I'm behind on the laundry, or the laundry is caught up but the floors aren't vacuumed. If the floors happen to be clean, chances are the bookshelves aren't dusted. And if there is no dust in sight, you can probably bet that dinner most likely isn't nutritious or ready by the time Scott gets home. And if dinner is ready, I'm probably not feeling up to eating it because I've overdone it for the day. If you want to see toddler tornados at their best, folks, come on over!

But you know what? I don't consider mounds of dirty laundry, unvacuumed floors, or mac-n-cheese dinners failure (unless it is the Hy-Top brand, which is mac-n-cheese failure at its finest. Yuck).

I consider them life.

In our church, our leaders have asked us to set aside Monday night for time together as a family. We do things that strengthen our relationships with each other and with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.  After a weekend of being spiritually renewed, uplifted, and motivated, Scott and I thought it would be a good time to sit down and revamp our goals for the year. We knew some of them had changed, but to be honest, neither of us had thought much about the goals we set for 2013 since about February. We read through our goals as a family. One had changed and two needed redefining. Scott read through his personal goals and said they were still the same, with an addition to apply for the MBA program. Kevin had also made progress on her goals to 1. Grow some teeth (she now has six), 2. Learn to walk (she can get around furniture by herself and is so close to taking off on her own) and 3. Learn 18 words (she still only knows "Daddy" but sometimes I think I hear her saying other things like "all done!" "MOOOM!" and "Papa"). They are both well on their way to 100% goal achievement this year.

And myself? So far the only goal I've even come close to is "learn a new skill" but somehow I don't think watching my mother-in-law make bread one time exactly cuts it. I haven't started writing that braided essay I was so jazzed about, and I don't think doing yoga two times in the past three months equals training for a 5k.  So I threw those goals out the window too.

Does this make me a failure?

How often do you set a goal that is the wrong one? I think these goals were the wrong ones for me. I don't think abandoning them makes me a quitter. I think it makes me wise...or at least that is what I would like it to mean. After all, "if you fail to plan, you plan to fail." I did the planning part. I just failed at making the right plans.

Have you ever gone back and read one of your old journal entries? Facebook posts? Blog posts? Does that person, maybe even the girl you were last week, seem different to you? Sometimes I read things I have written and I feel like some other person must have written that--surely not me. But that is the thing about being humans--we are constantly changing. And the girl I was last week, and the girl I was yesterday, and the woman I am today--they are not the same person. And that is on purpose.

Over the past few weeks, Scott and I have often watched Kevin playing, or listened to her babble, or admired her fast mobility and subsequently mourned the loss of our baby girl. Because she is so not a baby anymore. And though we miss that baby, and probably always will, we adore our little toddler. We enjoy getting to know her as she gets to know herself. And little by little each day as her hair grows longer and her teeth get bigger and her muscles get stronger, she becomes someone new.

I don't want myself to stay the same any more than I want Kevin to stay the same. I want to learn and grow as much as I want to see her learning and growing. Isn't that what life is all about? Becoming someone new, someone different, someone stronger each day?

The girl that set those goals in January knew what she wanted for this year. The girl that reset her goals in April knew that this year has not gone, nor will it continue to go as she'd planned. But that is okay. Because it will probably go better than planned. It usually does, when you put God in charge.

For example:

I can change a diaper while my daughter rolls and flails. That is a new and necessary skill I have needed this year.

I have written more in the past few months than I ever did last year. And what's more, I am writing in such a way that has led to reconnecting friendships long dormant. In my own little way, I am writing things that make a difference. That is better than any braided essay I ever wrote in school and only let my mom and husband read.

And I might not be training for a 5K (let's face it. I hate running. I always have. I always will). But occasionally I do yoga. And I take lots of walks with my family. And I've made plans to start walking with a friend. And I am making healthier choices, because I hope to be training for something more important than a 5K in the future, and it will take work to get there.

So thanks once again, Kim, for the reminder.

I don't do failure.

When real life reads like fiction...and when it doesn't

I have this little sister.

She is beautiful.

Not kidding.

She is the most photogenic person I have ever met: dark, thick, luscious brown hair, stunningly shaped eyes, defined features, short enough to wear high heels and not be six feet tall, and a personality that puts all of her outward beauty to shame because it is so LOUD and EXCITING.

And her life reads like fiction.

You'd have to know to her to believe it.

Don't just take my word for it; catch a glimpse at her resume:

- Ran a fever of 106 when she was a baby (perhaps that started it all)
- Got bitten by a bald eagle when she was four
- Ran over a baby duck on her way to work one summer
- Got attacked by a swallow while weeding my mom's flower beds (the bird gave her the biggest shiner we'd ever seen)
- Got her tonsils out when she was twelve. Went to the doctor last month and found out they had grown back (the odds of that happening are one in a million).
- Had a nightmare about spiders while she was in college. Ended up sleepwalking and hitting her head so hard that she needed stitches. While a couple of her roommates ran her to the emergency room, the others woke up to blood trailing from her room to the front door. They were a little freaked out by the bloody handprints on the wall. I would be too.
- Had a legit brain tumor (don't worry, it wasn't cancerous. We named him Winston). Has also had her gall bladder removed. That is as far as I will delve into her medical history for you. Said legit brain tumor is also growing back. She's good at growing things back, apparently.
- Got into a fight with her car door one very frosty morning. The car door won and gave her a concussion and a fractured face (with a good shiner, but not as good as the one the bird gave her).

Note: most of these things have happened within the last two years. And this is just a sampling. Wouldn't want to ruin that bestseller she is sure to write someday.

So, a few days ago, when I received a text with a picture of her wrist in a brace and a message that said "I guess no more water polo for Liz =( thanks to my teammate for breaking my knuckle and sprang my wrist and middle finger..."

Scott and I just laughed and said, "oh Liz."

Other common responses are "poor Liz" and "man, your life sucks." We are very supportive siblings.

Also, compared to her, we lead very boring lives. Okay, so maybe my older brother doesn't. He goes to law school and lives on the East Coast and played college football. And maybe my little brother is just getting started in life and is so witty that his life will be awesome just because he was born that way (which is undoubtedly why my parents stopped at him).

So I guess that leaves me as the boring sibling. What adventures have I had? Let's see...one broken bone. Right arm, age 3, "I falled off the couch." One genetically mutated pinky (which has led to my over-anxious habit of worrying about Kevin's pinkies whenever they are bent while the other four fingers are straight). Bone spurs on my feet that mean I can't wear high heels ever again unless I want to get foot surgery. Occasional sleep talking, during which I usually teach gospel lessons to teenagers. Diabetes, hypothyroidism  giving birth eight weeks early (my medical history, while much shorter, is infinitely boring in comparison).

I went skinny dipping once.

(You're supposed to be impressed by that.)

So what am I getting at with this week's blog post?

Truthfully, I don't really know. That's why I write. To figure out stuff I can't figure out in my head, so I have to let my fingers do the talking. Because when your fingers do the talking, sometimes you are forced into looking at truths you only wanted to ignore before.

So, let's start here: I am jealous of my little sister. She would probably be shocked to hear it, but it's been no secret to me my whole life. She's the exciting one. She was expected to make mistakes while I tried as hard as I could to be perfect and failed miserably. She always got the cool presents at Christmas. My parents would buy her books because she refused to read them. I, on the other hand, never got new books because I read them too fast (apparently too fast to really enjoy them), so a trip to the library every other week would suffice. She got to eat way more chocolate chips than me because she always needed more help with her homework, which meant that my mom played the betting game more with her than with me. She likes to exercise. I hate it. She will spend money on frivolous things (like jewelry, purses, shoes, and clothes). I can't justify it and feel too guilty, so I don't. I would like to have a closet that looks as awesome as hers, but I don't. I hate how I look in a swimsuit, which means I would never have her bravery to become a lifeguard, or try out for the swim team, let alone practice with a university water polo team (I watched the Olympics; that sport is brutally nasty!)

She was the first child in our family to buy her own car. Ever since I had to endure the embarrassment of driving the family minivan to high school, I have always wanted to buy myself a car. For a multitude of reasons, I never managed it. Neither did my older brother. We both came into vehicles by virtue of marriage. I never really got to feel independent from my parents, because I came by "financial freedom" (note the sarcastic quotations) by virtue of changing my last name. My husband helped me finish paying for school, and now he works to support us while I stay home with Kevin. And while I love what I do, and my husband is so awesome about taking care of my every need and whim (like the seven seasons of Boy Meets World that we bought last weekend with some Christmas money)...I sometimes miss the feeling of being able to earn and spend my own money.

So this week's post is not about being content (which I usually am). It's about me being jealous of my little sister's broken middle finger, which means she can't flip the bird to anyone who ticks her off. I don't think I've ever flipped anyone off in my life, but that is beside the point. 

Why?

Because her life reads like good fiction, which means it would read like unbelievable, excellent non-fiction.

Mine does not.

But that's okay.

I can write about Liz's life for her....because she has a broken knuckle and a sprained wrist and can't type anything at the moment.

I guess that means I lucked out.

Mmm....November...

I'll be honest.

I've never liked November.

Until now.

When I was younger, I thought November was such a dreary month. I couldn't for the life of me figure out why Louisa May Alcott would have her most-loved heroine Jo March born in November. Now, I think there is a certain something romantical about it. Good things in my life have happened in November, like birthdays of some of my favorite people, my first baptisms in the mission field, my first date, and the real return of basketball season (Go Aggies!).

Today, I am happy. I am excited about life, even with all of its uncertainties. Probably this comes from just getting off the phone with one of my dearest friends--I've been waiting to have that "tell him to go to this jeweler, not that one" conversation with her for a long while now. Nothing like a pending engagement/wedding to get a girl excited about life.

Also, I spent an hour and a half writing this morning. NaNoWriMo is underway! And I'm only 300 words behind already!. I also want to completely rewrite everything I spent this morning writing...but, hey, the goal for me is not exactly 50,000 words or a finished rough draft by the end of the month. It's to spend time each day writing and getting back into the habit. If I can reach 30,000 words I will be ecstatic! And no, nobody gets to read any of it until at least December (this means you Scotty!)

Here's all the preview you get:

For Kevin, my real-life fairy tale

And for her father, who listens to the things I’m not saying

I might not be the type of person who can handle a working career in addition to being a mom, but I want my daughter growing up seeing me being passionate about my interests and hobbies. I've already seen this in her as she's shown more and more interest in books lately (especially the ones I'm reading!). I want her to know that she can be anything she wants to be. I chose to be her mom first and everything else second. That doesn't mean that those "secondary" things can't be important too though!

We have so much to look forward to this month. NaNoWriMo is just the beginning. There is also our new family history class, creating our annual Thankful Chart, Stake Conference, my nephew's baby blessing, finding out if our newest addition to the Fowler family is a boy/girl (Kevin and I are really hoping for a girl cousin!), more football and basketball games, Thanksgiving Break, Kevin learning to crawl/scoot (she's getting oh so close!) and spending time with family and friends. Maybe a few life surprises along the way--you never know!

I Did and I Didn't

No, I didn't post last week.

I attribute that to my non-sleeping daughter, a busy week, and a Thursday migrane.
Also, I went on a date to the Temple with my husband that night, which was slightly more important than this blog (gasp!).

So, I apologize.

BUT....

I have big news.

I am taking on a challenge.

And I am super excited about it.

And it is going to get me writing again.

You, see, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short).

And...I signed up today!

Which means, starting Thursday, I am going to be doing a whole lot of writing. (Keep your fingers crossed that Kevin will start taking really good naps...and that my husband will still be fed, because sometimes when I get into a writing mood, I can't come out of it). The sponsors of the event compare this to running a marathon--instead it's writing a marathon.

What is NaNoWriMo? Here is a breakdown:

1. Aspiring authors set a goal to write an entire novel during the month of November.
2. The novel should be at least 50,000 words (that breaks down to an average of 1667 words a day and roughly a 175 page manuscript by the end of the month).
3. Writers are encouraged to forgo editing and ignore grammatical mistakes. The goal is to have a completed rough draft by the end of the month.

I'm a little nervous, but mostly just excited. I have two days to figure out which of the five or six stories in my head I'm going to write. Fantasy? Historical fiction? The story of one of my ancestors? Plain old fiction?

Who knows.

But I think that will be part of the adventure.

Start with a story. A setting. A character. A sentence.

And see where I end up by the end of November.

I'll keep you updated :)

Writing Prompts

So, I know I promised something good this week. And I've put a lot of effort into finding a good idea, really, I have.

I got nuthin.

Yesterday I decided to google "writing prompts" and see if I could find some inspiration. I found lots of writing prompts for amateur fiction writers (of which I am one, when I'm in the mood). But nothing that seemed to drum up a memory which I could base a blog post around. So I googled "nonfiction writing prompts."

And I found this list: 101 Nonfiction Writing Prompts.

I'll give you the first ten with my first reactions:

• 1What's the fastest way to complete a (task) with (name of software)? The fastest way to complete the dishes is to guilt your husband into doing them.
• 2What are the advantages of using (tech product 1) over (tech product 2)?The advantages of using disposable diapers over cloth diapers are numerous, and begin with less poopy laundry.
• 3How do you find blogs that you can guest post on?Why would you want to guest blog? Get your own dang blog.
• 4What kinds of things stress children out?What kinds of things stress my child out? When I don't feed her fast enough, when her father sneezes, when she is too tired to sleep, and when I put the remotes and cell phones just out of her reach. Poor thing.
• 5How can you other people to submit articles to your blog?How is this question proper English?
• 6As a beginning blogger, what's the best way to ensure long term success?Don't erase your blog. Post on it. Done and done.
• 7How can you make your blog stand out in a crowded niche?I  would suggest NOT buying into the cooking blog, sewing blog, crafty blog, I'm-the-best-Mormon-Mommy-Ever blog. Basically, if you are trying to get on pinterest, you're in too crowded of a niche. Get out of it. Don't try to compete. Chances are you are trying to prove something to an audience that just wants to know a cheaper way to run a house and probably has already called their mom and their mom had no answers so now they've turned to google, and when google had no answers, they turned to pinterest.
• 8What does it take to become a top blog in your niche?Going off my above answer, obviously, to become a top blog, you need to create your own niche.
• 9How do you introduce the vegan lifestyle to a child?You say, "if you don't learn how to eat meat and things with milk, eggs, and cheese, your taste buds will die and you will have to eat like chronically ill people or vegans. It doesn't taste very good, but these are very brave people to do it, and we respect them, and we eat their meat and dessert."
• 10What are some good bedtime habits for parent and child to adopt?Bahahahahahahaha. Yeah right.

And I came to one conclusion: if any bloggers actually used any of these prompts, we would all be so bored out of our minds that we'd stop reading before we began.

So here are a few writing prompts I came up with today:

1. Say your friend Taylor Swift, who doesn't have any real relationship experience of her own, came to you to ask about your relationships for a song idea. What might she write about? Which stations would play it? And who would cry? Pre-teens, teens, grandmas? (Note: I asked Scott this question and he wrote me a beautiful song that started with "he was short and shy" and ended with "love letters.").

2. What side effects do you experience from anesthesia? What side effects do you wish you had? (Note: got my ingrown toe nail fixed today and was a little weirded out by my numb toe...TMI, sorry)

3. What if you could put your face on any cartoon character's body? Who would you choose to be and why? (Note: I got to do this today at the North Logan Pumpkin Walk!)

4. What if your child actually went to bed at the same time each night? What would you do with all that extra time? What if she actually STAYED asleep? (Note: ahhh, the possibilities.)

5. What if people stopped lying about their babies being so-called "perfect-sleepers"? (Note: Mommas everywhere would feel a lot less overwhelmed!)

6. What if you could pick professions for your siblings? Your children? Your best friends?

7. What if you had nightmares about pinterest? Like, as in, you were surrounded by crafts and projects you felt compelled to start but could never finish--sometimes never even get started? (Note: if you have an answer to this, please let me know. I've been having pinterest nightmares for two weeks, yet I can't seem to stay away...and somewhere in the dreams about cute things I have to make for my daughter, I hear her crying and then start reading sleep-training articles and can't differentiate between her actually crying and dreaming. Awful.)

8. What would you lose if your hopes and dreams were instantly granted? For example, no couple ever had to wait for a baby or a career or a house or a job? (Note: Because sometimes the best lessons we learn in life come from the waiting. I hate this, but I know it is true!)


Okay, I think that is enough to think about before bed tonight. I will continue to post writing prompts as I think about them.

I suggest you don't buy the book mentioned at the link above. Instead, spend 15 minutes with a child. You'll come up with more than 101 (or 1,699, as the book promises) things to write about!

Seriously, though...pinterest nightmares are the worst.

Also, I don't care that this blog has only 150ish page views. I'm not trying to get on pinterest, or earn money from sponsors, or end up on Studio 5 on KSL. I'm trying to be me. 

I almost forgot.

Today is Thursday.

This week has flown by.

It wasn't supposed to.

It was supposed to be agonizingly slow.

Instead, here it is Thursday, and I have very little to show for the week. Here is what I have been up to:

1. Stressing over family pictures. I desperately want our family to look "cute." But since I haven't had an updated wardrobe since before my mission (with the exception of new maternity clothes last winter that I only got to wear for about two and a half months thanks to my premie), I'm a little concerned about what to wear. Of course, buying things for Kevin is no problem (feeling guilty about spending money, however, is a problem, for me at least). Finding something I like enough for me and then talking myself into spending money on clothes for me is torture. But, two orders to oldnavy.com later, I think all we have left to find is an undershirt for me. And maybe a new shirt for Scotty. But he's okay wearing what he has. Because I think he looks hott in anything! Lucky he isn't as picky as I am.

2. Working on my not-a-surprise Christmas present for Scotty: his mission scrapbook. Shutterfly is the best website ever and I am addicted. This is my third book project in about three months. I have loved going through his mission pictures and pulling out the box of letters he sent me while he was on his mission and then while I finished mine. I was reminded this week of the amazing missionary I married. And, miraculously, new notes have shown up here and there reminding me that the here and now is just as beautiful as those not-so-much-love letters we wrote back when we merely wondered whether or not the other person like, like-liked us.  I think my favorite was an addition to my Tuesday To Do List: "make out with Scotty." (It's one of the few things that did get crossed off that day).

3. Being relieved. This week could have been a super-life changing week for my little sister. I don't feel like I can share more than that out of respect to her, but I am so grateful, for her sake, that things didn't turn out the way they could have. Sometimes life stinks. Sometimes Heavenly Father gives us these wake-up calls that remind us to be grateful for what we have, even when what we have may not seem all that great at the time.

4. Playing with Kevin. We've read lots of stories, dirtied lots of bibs, and sang lots of songs. Oh, and we've been sleep training. After a week of sleeping in three-hour shifts, we were amazed that she's managed to sleep more than nine hours two nights in a row! We're hoping and praying this becomes her new normal.  She turned seven months old yesterday and is mastering the art of sitting on her own this week. Thanks, baby, for the reminder that time never slows down!

5. Filling time. Scott has had to go into work early (six am) almost every day this week and has had lots of homework assignments and studying to do. So I haven't seen him very much. At least not as much as I'm used to. You'd be amazed at how much time we manage to find to be together, even though he works full time and goes to school full time. Today he played hooky from his first two classes. Said he just needed time with his girls. We had a lovely afternoon! I can't tell you how much we are looking forward to retirement--that is, if there is such a thing as retirement by the time we reach 65.

Here's to hoping!

Tune in next week for something brilliant. Promise :)

Back to My Roots

I turned 25 this week. There's nothing like a quarter century mark to prompt one to look back on the past few years and in consequence look forward too. I've been thinking a lot about my last five years--and all the images that come with that.

My junior year of college. That summer I worked as a youth camp facilitator. The MTC and how I couldn't wait to get to Texas. Those first several months in Texas and I waded through homesickness, illness, loneliness, and the sincere joys of sharing the gospel. That devastating phone call that said I was going home earlier than expected. Not knowing if I would go back and finish. Falling in love. Not wanting to go back and finish. An innocent, although inappropriate, kiss and a few days later getting on the plane anyway. Eleven bittersweet months--my adorable companions, the people I taught, the land I never wanted to leave, and the man I couldn't wait to come home to. Taking off my nametag, exhausted, nervous, and relieved. A hello hug. Two brief trips back to Texas with loved ones. A summer romance that was a long time coming. A ring--bigger and sparklier than I could have ever imagined--on my finger. Whirlwind nine-week engagement. A perfect, beautiful, sunny, warm day dressed in white with my love at my side. Back to school. Back to work.  A new job. A belated California honeymoon. Burying two of my favorite people during the same week. A jump into the unknown, followed by a positive test, a long embrace, a deep breath and whispers about how we were terrified and unbelievably excited. Muddling through those last twelve credits with hourly trips to almost every bathroom on campus. Turning in my last final, knowing I had accomplished my goal twice over. Working, waiting, preparing. Fatigue. A check-up that turned into my first ambulance ride and 50 hours of labor later, the most precious and beautiful little baby girl in my arms. Three weeks in the NICU. Weeks that defined her life, my life, and his life. A passed weight test. A carseat with an actual baby in it. Tears all the way home. Learning to be a family of three. A graduation ceremony. Days filled with diapers, smiles, stories, and love.

I am living my dream.

The thing I miss most about being a missionary is those Thursday afternoons in some library in some town in Texas, spending an hour recording how my life went for the last week: what I'd learned, where I'd been, who I'd been with. And I realized this week that I really miss writing that record.

So I am going back to my roots and I am reintroducing myself to preparation day. I never knew exactly who saw my letters--I know the email reached my mom, who sent it out to a list of people I loved, who may or may not have passed it on in turn. And since our family blog is so private it's basically under cyber lock and key, I've decided it is time I started another blog and got back to my weekly writing hour.

Welcome back to Thursday morning.