10 years

My 28th birthday is at the end of July, which means it's 10 years since I graduated from high school.  That birthday, coupled with watching my youngest sister finish high school and prepare to start college, has made me think a lot about the last ten years and what I was doing during those last ten birthdays.

When I turned 18, I was kind of an anxiety mess.  I don't exactly remember the details, but I know I was in a doctor's office during the middle of IB exams and public-speaking finals (which were simultaneous).   I remember this as a really crazy time, plus I had the obligatory high-school boyfriend that I didn't want to leave.  I started at BYU a few weeks after my birthday, going out early for Late Summer Honors (a program I loved and would highly recommend).  I met two of my three best college friends there (the third I'd met the summer before at Summer Scholars) and decided that I really and truly loved BYU (goodbye, high school boyfriend). 

My nineteenth birthday found me working in my dad's office back home--I'd stayed out for spring term and come home for summer.  My freshman year had been amazing and wonderful in every way.  I came home that summer feeling like I needed to prepare for marriage (isn't that what the parents of every nineteen-year-old girl want to hear?)  I spent my free time reading things like Boyd K. Packer's The Holy Temple and talking to my mom in endless detail about the guys I'd dated.  Six weeks after my nineteenth birthday, and two weeks into the semester, I went on my first date with Neil.  He asked me to marry him four weeks later.

The summer that I turned twenty, Neil and I were working together as custodians (he also had another "real" job working as an engineer at my uncle's company).  I know a lot of people dread custodial work, but we really loved this summer--we had taken the jobs on purpose so we could spend more time together, since we were both really busy with summer classes, and it was actually really fun having those 4 hours just laughing together and mopping floors and emptying trashcans.  (Plus we were lucky enough to be working at the BYU bindery, which was really cool, so mostly we were sweeping up paper scraps and checking out whatever interesting book had been printed that day.) Weird, I know, but we liked it.  We also did some fun things like going camping in Moab and Yellowstone--this was a really fun summer.

My twenty-first birthday was not quite as much fun.  Neil was working about 60 hours a week in Salt Lake and I was working three jobs myself.  We made a lot of money that summer, but everything else is pretty much a blur--both of us were constantly exhausted.  We didn't do any fun road trips, but we spent a lot of time just driving up Provo Canyon and talking.  I had just finished my undergrad at BYU after three years and was getting ready to start grad school that fall, and I was pregnant with Abigail. 

The summer of my twenty-second birthday was one of the hardest of my life.  Neil had accepted an internship with Whirlpool, and we were living in this tiny little town that had two things: Lake Michigan beaches and Whirlpool's international headquarters.  Nothing else, not even a grocery store.  I was terrified to go anywhere with this new baby (plus we only had one car, and Neil took it to work).  I spent most of the summer lying on the couch reading Agatha Christie mysteries, eating chocolate chips, and crying.  I was SO glad to go back to grad school and teaching in the fall, and I was panicked about what I would do when I actually graduated the next year. 

When I turned twenty-three, I had just finished my master's and Neil had finished his undergrad degree, and we moved across country so that he could start grad school.  With the previous summer in mind, I pretty much bent over backwards working to make friends.  One of those friends suggested we start going to work out together three mornings a week, and I lost ten pounds and realized that I really loved exercising.  I also learned to can jam and fruit this summer, bought a bike, and started being more self-sufficient and adventurous.  I started teaching at the university just a few weeks after my birthday. 

The summer I turned twenty-four, I was teaching summer classes and waiting for Juliet's birth.  We planted our first garden this summer, and I fell in love with digging around out there in the dirt and watching tiny seeds turn into actual food.  I decided I wanted to start running again--something I hadn't done with any degree of regularity since seventh grade--and began after Juliet was born.

My sister Ruth got married a few weeks before my twenty-fifth birthday. We made the trek out to Utah for the first time since we finished at BYU, and camped through Rocky Mountain National Park and Yellowstone.  The trip was definitely the highlight of our summer.  This is about the time that I really started to feel more secure in my role as mother--I could relax and enjoy what I was doing. 

When I turned twenty-six, it was with a new little baby Isaac in my arms.  Our lives had fallen into a pretty predictable pattern by now--garden and can all summer, teach and work all winter.  I told the university I was done teaching because I needed to be spending more time home with the children, then agreed to try teaching online as a compromise.  I also quit doing instructional design from home and started taking yoga classes.

Just before my twenty-seventh birthday, we took the kiddos on an eight-day camping spree across the eastern US.  A few days after my birthday, I started training for my second half-marathon.  I think this is the year that I finally started to feel okay about my need to pursue other interests aside from my family--I was able to let the guilt go (feeling bad about my eagerness to get out of the house occasionally) and focus on the good things that I was learning and doing, and come back to my "real job" refreshed and happy to be mothering.

And now I'm just a few weeks away from twenty-eight.  Getting closer to thirty, and looking back over the last decade.  On Facebook I can see that my friends are all living out the various incarnations of their high school dreams--some have finished med school, others are waiting tables in NYC while they wait for their big break.  Over the last decade I've acquired one husband, two college degrees, four children, a pile of battered running shoes, seven years of university teaching, a better relationship with my parents and sisters (one of the things I am most grateful for), and I've finally figured out how to bake a decent loaf of bread.  And I think, generally speaking, I am a much nicer person than I was ten years ago.

My life is very different than the life I imagined for myself when I was eighteen.  Thank heavens!

Abigail's FHE lesson

We had a really fun Family Home Evening lesson tonight.  Abigail taught it about Lehi's dream.  I helped her plan it last night, and as soon as Juliet had taken her last bite of dinner, Abigail was racing around ready to go with FHE (I think it's the fastest that Abigail has ever eaten quinoa chili, which is saying something because she hates kidney beans). 

We had set up an "iron rod" made of yarn, tied from the door across the foyer and living room to the fireplace.  A huge sheet of gauzy fabric was hanging from the light fixture in the foyer to represent the mists of darkness, and Neil was waiting in the kitchen window to represent people in the great and spacious building.

Abigail read aloud from Nephi 8 and Jules and Isaac followed her instructions (they got all tangled up in the "mists of darkness," which was cute. 

We had some distress when Neil was "in the attitude of mocking" our little iron rod-holders.  He took out a couple of dollar bills and offered the kids money if they would leave the iron rod and come into the kitchen--Juliet took the bait and went running towards the cash, and Abigail was like, "JULES!  YOU LEFT THE IRON ROD!  YOU CAN'T HAVE THE TREATS!" and then Juliet burst into tears and had to be guided back.  

But finally we all made it to the Tree of Life, represented by our fake ficus with cookies tied to it.  Then while the kiddos ate their cookies we talked about the symbolism of the iron rod as the word of God guiding us towards the love of God, as represented by the fruit of the tree of life.  It was a fun lesson, and Abigail had a great time teaching us all! (I also realized that I need to make our regular FHE lessons more like this one, because I am excellent at creating not-so-interesting lessons.)

Speaking of Juliet, she acquired the best shiner yet in our family a few days ago (she fell down on the patio and ripped up her face).  This is a picture on the first day; it's since gone really dark and generally sort of scary-looking.  Everyone who's seen her does a double take.  Sweet little face on one side, rough and tumble scrapper on the other. 

And here are my two darling boys.  Isaac has become very protective of Luke in terms of ensuring that Luke ALWAYS has his blanket (apparently Isaac figures Luke must love it as much as Isaac loves his own blanket).  We're still working on the always-being-soft thing, but it's fun to watch Isaac become more gentle towards and interested in Luke. 

talking back

blurry, but all the nicely-focused ones where everyone was sitting quietly seemed inappropriate for the post

Human nature being what it is, I suppose I should stop being surprised by total stranger's comments on our family and children.  I always love it when someone stops to tell me that they're well-behaved, or adorable, (and nobody has ever said "Wow, your kids are sure throwing impressive tantrums" although there are times when it would be entirely warranted).

But the ones that I have trouble coming up with a response for are the times like the librarian saying, "Are these all your children?  Did you have them all on purpose?  Why?" (note:  we only had three kids at this point) or yesterday when we were walking into a grocery store and an older man said, "Don't you know what causes them [the children]?"  I was pretty taken aback and said something along the lines of, "They're blessings and we're grateful for all of them," and he said, "Oh...well...I guess they are." 

I grew up in a family of five girls, no boys, and I vividly remember people commenting to my parents, "Oh, you must be so sad to have no boys, " or when my mother was pregnant, "Still trying for that boy, eh?"  As a child I remember thinking that this was really rude, but it never actually bothered me because my parents made such a point out of telling us how lucky they felt to have five girls (plus my dad taught us to shoot and set up our own tents and start fires, so I didn't feel like he felt bereaved). 

I don't really know why I felt like this was blog-worthy, but it's been sort of bothering me ever since yesterday.  I feel like there's some really great comeback out there to comments like this--I'm just too *tired to think of it!  (On the other hand, I was so grateful for the friend who told me after church today that they always love sitting behind us because it brings back so many good memories of when their children were young, which was really sweet considering our kids were not so reverent today and I probably would have been sitting there thinking, boy, am I glad we're past that stage!)

So what do you do when someone says something like this?  What's that snappy comeback I'm looking for that reassures my listening children that I am so glad they're in our family?  Please give me some good ideas!  :-)

*so on the note of being tired, I am dreaming almost every night that I'm running.  It is so not restful!  Last night I dreamed that I had to run a half-marathon before I could sleep, and I was worrying about how I would nurse Luke during the race and thinking that I was going to twist my ankle because it was already 10:30 pm and I could barely see the trail.  The night before that I dreamed that I was running a full marathon in a huge warehouse (the bindery at BYU, where I worked one summer)--around and around--while someone was hitting me in the head with a crescent wrench, and I couldn't just leave because four people had thrown lariats around me and were keeping me there.  After I'd run forever, I finally asked how much further I had to go and they said I'd only covered 0.62 miles.

6 weeks

bullet list

I feel like I have so many disparate blog posts running around in my head, but I don't actually have time to upload all the pictures and whatnot, so...whatever.  Here is a five-minute post of what I'm thinking about right now.

• Last week I picked lettuce leaves from my garden that were as big as my face.  We've had tons of rain (flooding our lawn completely and all the kids ran out and got soaked) and it's been good for the longevity of the lettuce.  Hurray!
• I'm trying to break Isaac of his pacifier.  And I need to break Luke of only wanting to sleep in my arms at night (he'll sleep in his swing for one nap during the day, but that's it).  Please, baby, sleep in your own bed!  And take a pacifier while you're at it.  
• I've taken the kids to the library every week for the last three or four weeks.  I love the library.  The kids are moderately contained, I can feed Luke while we read some new books, and we go home with new books to keep everyone further occupied (although today I had to carry out boneless Isaac who didn't want to leave; that was awesome).
• Last night I went to the grocery store with just Julesie.  I really enjoy running errands with just one kid--we always have a good time.  We splurged a little and bought a fruit that we could not identify just to try it (yellow and prickly-skinned), brown eggs because I always think they are so beautiful (I need to find someone around here who's selling free-range eggs; anybody know of a good source?), masses of grapes, and some flowers.  I really love flowers and I can't wait until my gladiolus start blooming!
• Speaking of eggs, I love poached eggs.  My mom loaned me her special little poaching pan, which is great because I'm not very good at poaching them neatly without it, and Isaac and I are kind of addicted to poached eggs on toast.
• Yesterday I worked out my training schedule for the next 13 weeks (prepping for a 10K).  I want to build up my weekly mileage and get faster, and I am so excited to have something new to work towards!  I also need to get some new shoes, since I've put 600 miles on these babies, but today I broke the 9-minute-per-mile barrier (still doing my standard 4 miles) and I was so excited!!
• And now I have to go because the girls are bickering and I need a shower post-run.  The end. 

father's day weekend

We've been lucky enough to have lots of family in town this weekend:  Neil's parents, his brother Caleb & wife Juli plus their five kiddos, and his sister Tara and her husband Dave with their daughter Lena.  My parents & Rosalind joined us on Sunday for Luke's blessing.  It was really neat to have both of our dads here for Father's Day!

It was a busy weekend--we packed it pretty full with a trip to the zoo & playground, playing in the campus fountains, and tons of backyard sprinkler & wading pool fun.  (And lots of yummy food.)  One thing I really enjoyed about this weekend was getting to know my nieces and nephews all over again--they change so fast but they are such neat kids!  I have lots of pictures, but I won't post them all here, just one more that I was really excited to get--all four of my children with both sets of grandparents (my parents are on the right and Neil's on the left).

5 weeks

Calling all baby-cheek lovers--we've got your own personal Mecca right here.

nearly wordless wednesday

Lately I've been drinking green smoothies every day.  Isaac is a fan ("moah smoofie!").  I haven't really experimented with recipes because I like the first one I tried so much.

Fill blender to top with spinach, add 1 c. orange juice (or pineapple, but you must have the citrus to cancel out the spinach flavor), blend until spinach is totally liquified.  Add 1 very ripe banana and 3-4 strawberries, blend, then add a generous handful of blueberries (I use frozen).  Blend until everything is totally liquified and you don't have any fruit chunks.

**I tried this with romaine and looseleaf lettuce a couple of times and I couldn't get rid of the bitter taste--I'd definitely stick with spinach. And I don't have a fancy Vitamix or Blendtec blender, just a regular KitchenAid, and it works just fine to pulverize the spinach so there aren't any leaf chunks.

some honest thoughts about running

image

Last night when I was running I was thinking about how much I've really grown to love this whole business of lacing up my (overpriced but worth it) running shoes and hitting the trails.  I ran a little bit of track in middle school but it wasn't until after Juliet was born that I really tried to start running, just two minutes at a time.  She was such a difficult baby (Jules, I love you, but it's true) that I felt like I was going to go crazy if I stayed in the house one more minute, so I would very very slowly run around the sidewalk looping our block.  I was so slow and running was not fun, but I felt a real release of stress and anxiety and worry with every thud of my shoe against the pavement.

Yesterday I felt pretty wretched--not enough sleep, lots of distressed children, and not patient me.  I finally lost control when Neil asked me (for what felt like the millionth time) what features I wanted in a new minivan, and I just didn't care, and finally started yelling that I didn't care when he said I must have some opinion.  Then I apologized and started crying and finally went to go put on my running shoes and sniffled, "I'll feel better after I run, right?"  So I went out and ran four miles as fast as I could, and realized after a couple miles that I'm now to the point where I'm running for the sheer joy of running (as long as it's not too hot).  I felt like my mind was exploding with ideas and goals and plans and solutions during my whole run, and I was able to work out all my frustration with myself and think things through--and then I just quit thinking and just sort of sank into the rhythm of the run, and the beauty of the setting sun and the wind through the trees and the grasses and the little cottontail rabbits hopping along next to the trail. 

I think running always becomes so much more important to me after I have a new baby, because I am literally running away from my problems, so to speak.  There's just something about muscling through a difficult run or a challenging hill that makes me feel like I can go back and attack everything else with that same energy and determination (plus the endorphins help a lot).  And it is the only time in my entire day where I am doing something entirely for me that nobody can interrupt--nobody is touching me, nobody is asking for anything, and nobody is talking to me.  That sounds horribly selfish, I know, but it's true.  (And it's easier to push yourself another mile when going home early means going back to the fussy baby.)  When I run I feel totally unfettered from all my other responsibilities, and I can return home energized and refreshed and excited to see my family again.  It's so renewing. 

I don't think I'll ever be an amazing runner, because I just don't have the time to commit hours and hours every day, but I am so grateful for the fact that I can run as much as I do.  Running always makes me so grateful for the gift of a physical body, and makes me realize how marvelous it really is.  And I don't think this post has conveyed in the slightest how much running means to me (because I'm too sleep-deprived for words to come very easily), but I just have been thinking a lot lately about how much I truly love to run. 

Luke @ 1 month

Luke's 1-month stats:  12 lbs, 11 oz and 23 inches long.  Big kid--he's added more than four pounds to his weight in the last month.  My right bicep is getting noticeably more developed than my left.

(And to explain why his feet are free in the picture, he still LOVES to be swaddled...but it's so hot that he gets heat rash from being swaddled, even with the A/C and a fan.) 

i don't know where my camera is

We had such a nice weekend.  Unfortunately I have no idea where the camera is, so no pictures, but it was lovely nonetheless. 

Neil and I went on a date Friday night, and we bought ourselves some goodies at the grocery store and cooked an elaborate little dinner for ourselves after the children were in bed.  It was so nice to be able to linger at our own candle-lit table and chat.  On Saturday morning Abigail and I got up early and went to the library book sale and the farmers' market together; it seems like it's so rare that we get to spend that one-one-one time together these days and it was a little jewel of a morning.  When we came home we did yard work and planted flowers and generally wore ourselves out, and Neil and I practically fell into bed at the end of the day.  Yesterday we had our first 9 am church in several years (hip hip hurray!!) which meant that everyone got long naps in the afternoon, we had time to cook a delicious dinner and go on a walk together, and then Neil and I played board games for hours after the kiddos were in bed (then Luke was up all night and the nice weekend was over).

Luke is getting enormous these days--he was one month old yesterday, and I'll be interested to see how much he weighs when we go in for his checkup tomorrow.  He's already pushing the limits of his 3-6 month clothes, and he's now wearing Isaac's diapers (another reason why I LOVE cloth diapers--I only need one size!!). 

books, books, books

Last week I went around our house with a laundry basket and filled it up with some age-appropriate books for Abigail, then reorganized our bookcases to give her a couple of shelves replete with fun Abigail books.  As I was doing this, I just felt so excited about watching her launch out into the wonderful world of books.  So many fantastic books!  So many wonderful characters!  I love reading so much, and I was honestly getting a little choked up thinking about how excited I am for her to discover all of these stories and characters and worlds.  It has been so neat to watch her just explode into this passionate little reader.  She told me today, "There is one world, and so many stories in it." 

So anyway, today was the first time I've ventured out with myself with all four of the kiddos.  We went to the health food store and the library, and it was so great!  Luke slept the whole time (which is why it went well) and it was so nice to be out with the kiddos stocking up on pumpkin seeds and fairy tales.  And teaching Abigail about how to use the library catalog, and how to find your books, and watching her get just as excited as I was to see that there's a library sale this weekend...she and I are dissimilar in many ways, but we definitely bond over our books.  :-)  I've been reading scriptures with her in the evenings lately (we trade off reading verses) and it's one of the nicest parts of my day. 

And speaking of books, Jules and Isaac each have a stack and are waiting, so I'm off!

logic puzzles

When I was in elementary and middle school, I went out with a handful of other kids for enrichment classes once a week.  We did all the usual stuff like build toothpick bridges (although there were some pretty cool things like studying architecture and taking a trip to Fallingwater, and presenting our energy-saving projects at the National Energy Education Day--we spent way too much time picking up sticky aluminum cans for recycling), but mostly what I remember is that we did about a billion logic puzzles.  It seems like we were ALWAYS doing logic puzzles and braintwisters, everything from "Sam the truck driver drives from New York to California but never enters the men's restroom:  explain" (Sam is short for Samantha) and those ones where you have the X's and O's grid (anybody remember what those are called?) that you would use for something like Snape's potions obstacle-protecting-the-Sorcerer's-Stone in the first Harry Potter book.

Anyway, today I was thinking how much naptime resembles a logic puzzle that I cannot figure out.  Case in point:

Abigail will stay in her room to read books if supervised OR if Rachael is running, and Juliet will stay in the library looking at books if supervised OR if Rachael is running, and Isaac will nap in his room unsupervised as long as Abigail and Juliet are quiet.  Luke will only nap if Rachael is running on the treadmill (he seems to find the noise soothing) OR if he is held in Rachael's arms while lying down on her bed, but Rachael cannot run on the treadmill because it is broken, and if she lies down to hold Luke so he will sleep, Abigail and Juliet get up to all sorts of hijinks and wake Isaac up, OR one of them will interrupt the other's quiet time and the interrupted child will run into Rachael's room, banging the doors and waking up Luke.  And Juliet will only nap on days dictated by the stars but will be cranky all the other days.  Also, Rachael needs a nap because she is not sleeping at night, has Isaac's cold, and is slowly losing her mind as evidenced by the lack of any ability to communicate in complete sentences. 

If you come up with a viable solution, I will bake you a pie.  If you can solve my other problem ("if one child begins to scream, two more will begin screaming because they apparently feel injured by the attention given to First Screaming Child; likelihood of screaming commencement is 100% at crucial meal-prep times; screaming volume increases in proportion to the number of can-be-burnt components in the meal"), make that two pies. 

(Also, if you can make me stop trying to analyze all of this and figure out how I can Solve This Problem and just accept the crazy that is my life right now, that's worth a pie.)

And now I have to end this post because Isaac just brought me the lid of the kitchen trash can.  Figures. 

catching up

My parents and sister Rosalind came for a visit this past weekend.  It was so lovely to have them here and to enjoy their company--the children had been counting down the days!

 

As is always the case when our family gets together, we went crazy in the kitchen.  I love cooking for and with an appreciative audience!  :-)  For dinner the night they arrived we had roasted garlic soup with baguettes, rosemary rolls, fresh salad from the garden, and a cheese board (Brie, of course, plus a very aromatic blue cheese, and two delectable goudas (sheep & cow).  Then the next morning Neil baked a couple of coffee cakes and sliced cantaloupe for breakfast, we went out to our favorite Indian place for lunch, and for dinner we made pizzas and then I made strawberry pie (Neil got me the food processor I've been dreaming of for the last year for Mother's Day, and I finally can make praise-worthy pie crusts with its help) while Neil and Rosalind made mint ice cream.  And then for breakfast the next day I made muesli, and we set up a make-your-own panini bar for lunch--and then went for broke making latkes.  Mmm.  Food.  (for dinner that night after my parents left I think the kids had animal crackers, peas, and popsicles, and Neil and I planned what we're going to cook for his family in a couple weeks.)

Speaking of popsicles--it is HOT.  I ran 4.6 miles of hills outside this morning and felt like I was on the verge of heat exhaustion (seriously, I came home and just laid on the floor under the ceiling fan panting).  We're hitting 94 here and it is barely June!!  Aaaahhh!  My poor lettuces are going to desert me any day now.

three weeks

Luke is three weeks old today!  I simultaneously can't believe he's only three weeks and that he's already three weeks old.  I've been soaking up his new babyness and reveling in the snuggly little bundle of baby bunched up in my neck.  Love it.  The poor little man has already gotten sick (all four of our kids have fevers, coughs, and congested noses right now, which is every bit as fun as it sounds), so we have been having l-o-t-s of snuggling.  Mostly at night.  But sad as it is to hear his little wheezing breaths, last night I just sat there for an hour in the middle of the night patting his back and thinking about how wonderful it was to have this warm little weight resting on my chest, his fingers tangled in my hair, and his little mouth quivering in his sleep.  Babies are wonderful (I still love my other three very cranky and miserable children, but boy, was I excited to leave the house yesterday).

(and thanks to our stop at the pediatrician this week for his fever, we know that he now weighs 10 lbs 12 oz!  way to grow, baby!)