Living with Luke

The photo quality leaves something to be desired, but I don't think I've ever taken a set of photos that more perfectly capture a child's personality.  This kid rocks.

ps--no, Mom, Juliet is not watching TV...just listening to audio books on my laptop.  

Beauty

When I was twelve or thirteen, I would wake up early at sleepovers, go put my makeup on, and then go back to sleep.  I couldn't even abide the thought of anyone, even my best friends, seeing me without makeup.  Throughout high school and college I continued to be obsessed with my appearance, as anyone who knew me then can attest (I don't remember ever wearing jeans in college except for one cowboy and Indian-themed dance, which I had to go to because I was in charge, and I borrowed a pair of jeans from my roommate).  I did leg-lifts and crunches obsessively in my room, experimented endlessly with makeup, and spent far too much time and money trying to improve my appearance.  Despite this, I never felt beautiful enough.  (Looking back at this time, I think I had some real underlying issues with body image and appearance, so my experience may not necessarily speak to yours.)

I've been thinking about this a lot lately--about beauty, about body image, about how we see ourselves and how we worry about how others see us.

Today I was sitting on the kitchen floor after lunch with Luke in my lap.  I tickled his tummy with my face and he wound both his hands in my hair and yanked vigorously as he chortled with joy.  I didn't care because my hair was the slept-in updo left over from church yesterday (and by "updo" I mean "the bun I put my hair in because I didn't bother to actually do it").  I thought about what a quiet blessing it is to be able to let him do this and not worry about it.

I don't know if it's having children or if it's another decade of years lived, but I am happier with the way I look now than I ever was as a teenager.  Many of the things I used to hate about myself no longer bother me (running a lot really makes me grateful that I do not have the well-endowed chest that I always longed for!), or I've simply stopped seeing them as the focus of my worry and angst.  And things that would have horrified my teenage self (all that loose skin from 4 pregnancies, anyone?) I now shrug off (hey, at least I don't have stretch marks!) These days, I am overflowing with gratitude for having a healthy body that can do all the things it needs to do--bear children, run for hours on end, spend an entire day actively fulfilling my responsibilities and have the energy to do it all over again the next day.  I have come to see my body less as something to beat into submission than as a wonderful gift that allows me to do so many things.  And to be honest, I think it is running that has done this for me.  I know a lot of people think runners are crazy, but for me, this is why I love to run.  It's something amazing that my body and my mind are doing together, and instead of being enemies, we're suddenly on the same team.

I hope I can pass this on to my girls.  I hope I can teach them how wonderful it is to have a body that can do so many amazing things, and how you can do things you never thought possible by training your body to do them.  And how miraculous and wonderful it is that we can be here on Earth; that we can have a body, and that we can learn and grow and progress and come to love ourselves.

Castle

 On Christmas morning our children woke up to one of those giant cardboard castles sitting by the tree.  They spent almost the entire day playing with it and coloring on it (then my sisters and I spent a lot of time coloring it at night when they were asleep...).

I'm actually surprised the castle is still standing after a month, but Luke has recently discovered it and decided it is AWESOME.  This morning after breakfast he crawled in there as fast as his fat little haunches could take him, quickly joined by Jules and Isaac (who proceeded to dress him up).

a bunch of pictures of my three youngest

 You would think that I would have more free time to blog--I haven't run in a week (aagh!  Can you believe it?  That's less time than I waited to start running after giving birth!  But the physical therapist I saw today said that I can start again in a day or two) and grading is not too bad right now.  But...no blogging nonetheless.

So here are some pictures of the three youngest--none of Abigail, because the two or three times that I pulled out my camera over the last few weeks were all while she was at school.  I meant to take some snapshots of her tonight, but then I remembered that Neil took my camera to his lab, and he went back to work tonight after dinner, so...no Abigail.  But she is still here and still loved.  :-)

I took this photo of Juliet the morning after she'd spent almost the whole night throwing up every forty-five minutes.  It was a loooong night (and a longer week!) but she was so patient and I thought she still looked beautiful the next morning.

You may have seen my Facebook post about Isaac telling me he needed a porcupine, and then the next day (after I had apparently failed to take steps to provide him with aforesaid porcupine) he took matters into his own hands and applied half a tub of Vaseline to his hair to spike it into points.  After I washed his hair (about five times) we compromised on blow-drying his hair straight up so that he looked like a porcupine.  Cue happiness.

 Luke being cute.  Even if food is falling out of his mouth he's still cute (did I mention that he's cut another 4 teeth?)

 And more Jooj--who totally poses...

 Juliet and I decorated for Valentine's Day last week, after Abigail reminded me repeatedly that it was time to do so.  I don't have many holiday-appropriate decorations, so I ran around my house grabbing red things.  Then I started laughing when I saw this picture, because nothing says Valentine's Day like The Dangerous Book for Boys, The Origin of Species, and The Divine Comedy.  Oh well.

Isaac and Juliet dressed up as (respectively) "Hewwy Podduh" and "Sudren Belle."  Jules and Abigail went to a Fancy Nancy party at the library last Saturday (ooh la la!  It was very posh).

Date night, and our turn to babysit.  Babysitting co-op = best thing ever.  (Twelve kids is surprisingly
manageable.)

I took this photo on Saturday when Isaac came in from playing in the snow.  Doesn't he look like some darling tiny little Alpine guide?

And last but not least, Lukesly, who is joining Isaac in his porcupine-headed ways.  They are such a fun little crew.  Things are good these days.  A lot of the things that have been stressing me to bits over the last couple of weeks have started to clear up and resolve, and life is good.

still here, sort of

So I was totally planning to update tonight, but...I'm going to go snuggle up with Neil and watch The Sound of Music instead (because I found out tonight when I was yodeling that goatherd song that he has never seen the movie all the way through, and I love that movie!!  And if you've never read the book The Story of the Von Trapp Family Singers, I highly recommend it.  So delightful--I read it to pieces when I was a teenager and the copy I bought myself as an adult is battered as well).

Anyway, I have a ton of pictures, as always, but because I am running from the computer (which works again!  Hallelujah and a big giant hurray for Neil!) I will leave you with this shot of Isaac, who kept kissing me while I was washing the dishes tonight.  I love that little man and his cherry-red lips.

more upbeat

So here's something more positive than my griping about the treadmill--one of my good friends from grad school is getting ready to release his novel entitled Vodnik, set in Slovakia (cool fact:  his wife is from Slovakia).  I don't usually blog about things like this, but in this case I am because
1) Bryce is one of my favorite people when I look back on grad school (especially because he, Rachel, and I spent some very long plane rides together and you just sort of like people after you spend a zillion hours in the airport to/from conferences--at one point we even made up dopey nicknames for the three of us) and
2) I wish I was doing this sort of thing, and Bryce is, so I am happy to promote his novel.  Plus it sounds really cool (and Brandon Sanderson likes it!  And I love Brandon Sanderson's books).

Go here to find out more about the novel itself and the contest Bryce is running for an ARC.

Luke is 8 months

 Poor Luke.  The only way he gets an 8-month post is by his mother frantically taking pictures when he is tired and wants to nap, and then frantically typing while he yells indignantly in his bed.  (In my defense, he should be sleeping for another hour and I'm hoping he goes back to sleep...)

In any case, Lukey is 8 months old now!  He can crawl, he can get into a sitting position from crawling and back again, he's starting to think about pulling himself up on things (he crawls over to something and reaches up with his arms and then changes his mind), he can feed himself all kinds of things like crackers and bread and eggs and beans and peas and quesadillas--basically anything he can pick up--and he's starting to babble "mamama" and "dadada" when he is grumpy and wants someone to hold him.  And he's starting to get attached to certain toys or objects and objects LOUDLY when they are taken away.  He loves loves loves his fringed blanket and rubs his face against it when he's tired and crawls over to happily bite it when he's happy.  And he makes the cutest little baby trills and gurgles when he is in a good mood (actually he's switching to those right now which means he won't go back to sleep, so...my free time is up.)

Generally he's a sunshiny happy little baby.  And we are working--still working--oh how we are working--on sleep schedules.  He's doing WAY better at night but naps are still not where I'd like them to be!

I love this picture set.  You can see his progression from "Mommy put me down and I am tired of crawling around" to "hey, Mommy is holding me again and flying me in the air and I'm happy!"

RAGE AT THE MACHINE

Remember how I said I used to love my treadmill?  Remember how if you emailed me I said you should buy one from Smooth Fitness?  Remember how it caught on fire?

Don't waste your money.

I talked with the customer service manager today, after spending most of the day trying to get in touch with SOMEONE.  Worst hold music EVER.  And she told me the following:

1) My treadmill is not designed for running (nobody told me this when I bought it, nor does it explain this in the accompany warranty information).

2) I am an "avid user" because I use my treadmill more than 1 hour a week, which is what it's engineered for.  I said, "If I buy a treadmill, I'm going to use it."  She said, "We don't know our customer's intentions." !!!!!

3) She offered to give me a $20 discount on the $370 part I need to fix it.  When I laughed at that, she got angry, and then offered to sell me a new deck and belt for $200 (note: the deck is covered by a lifetime warranty so why should I pay for it?) because my old ones would probably just kill the motor again.  Note:  there is no sign of wear on either.  Then when I refused this, she offered to take $100 off the price of a new treadmill, because, you know, THAT HELPS SO MUCH when we're talking a couple thousand bucks for a new treadmill when mine is "really old" at the age of four years ("frankly," she said, "I'm surprised yours was still running this long.")  Then when I turned that down, she offered me 12 months of financing.  I know she was trying to be helpful, but...she wasn't.  At all.

4) the fact that my treadmill caught on fire, melted the capacitors, blew two resistors, all the fuses, and an unidentifiable something else which is why I am calling them in the first place--and then threw me off--and the emergency stop key didn't work?--she totally ignored and avoided that.

I AM SO MAD.  SO MAD.  SO VERY VERY MAD.  I am spamming the internet with my anger.  I loved my treadmill while it worked, but really, is it unreasonable to expect that if I spend $1000 I can run on something for more than 1 hour a week for a couple of years?  Seriously?

If you feel so inclined, check out Smooth Fitness on Facebook and you can leave a comment on my rant there.  I fully intend to use all the resources at my disposal, my dear friends, if you would like to be a disposable resource (wait, that didn't sound quite right...)

And the mournful sad question that I have been trying to avoid thinking about...what do I do now?  You all know how much I depend on running.  I am so desolated and disheartened and miserable thinking about this, because I really don't want to spend the $$ for a new treadmill, especially since who knows how long it would last.  I mean, a gym membership at the university for the last four years would have cost me less than $400 instead of the $1000 for the treadmill.  And yes, I know I can run outside, but it's January, my friends, and there isn't much daylight when there's another adult around to watch my chickies.

I went for a run tonight and pretty much tried to run my guts out for 6.22 miles of hills because I was so upset and it didn't work.  I still came home sad and shaking and angry.

this post is just for Elise and Sarah

A few weeks back a little box arrived in the mail with four delightful gnome hats inside knitted by my dear friend Jen.  Are these not the cutest little hats ever?  (And don't you love Juliet's expression?  She calls it "my cute face.")

Perennial excuse, but real life is just crowding out my blog.  I actually had to put "blog" on my to-do list today (thanks for the Facebook nudge, Elise & Sarah!).  Along with everything else, potty-training Isaac is eating a fair amount of time, and I'm teaching 2 classes this semester, and I'm starting to build my endurance base for marathon training.  And I have children and a house and a husband who all need love and attention.  My daydreams these days (when I have time for them!) all revolve around having an hour to myself with nothing to do but plan out my life and really figure out what's most important to me.  What? New Year's Resolutions? What?  I hope I have time to sit down and figure those out from the bajillion ideas rocketing around my head. Some time.  Maybe that will be my goal--find time to make more goals.  Right now I am mostly just trying to get more sleep at night and get up earlier so that I can be more on top of things.  So far so good.

In any case, quick quick updates.

Abigail--I am so, so proud of my girl these days.  She has just had this night and day behavior change (I am really hoping it's tied to a new growth phase and not just because she hasn't been in school over the winter break, because that makes me worry about school).  She came to me one day a couple of weeks ago and confessed some things that had been bothering her, and since then she's come up with quite a few more.  Everything is so small that it would seem trivial in the "real world" (like she took a piece of candy from the car stash when we were on vacation without asking me first) but it is so meaningful to her--and I won't write any more here about it because she is quite sensitive about it.  We've spent quite a bit of time working through everything and resolving it and making apologies and restitution.  It has been hard and scary for her, and I am so proud of her for not only telling me about these things and wanting to make them right, but following through on it--it's scary to have to go up to someone outside your family with something like that!  She has been so brave, and it is so neat to see the development of her conscience.  Along with this she's also become much more aware of herself as an example to her sister and brothers, and she has become much more responsible lately.  I am SO PROUD OF HER!  I can't say this enough.

On a similar note, Juliet has really been stepping up.  She still has crazy four-year-old days (as does Abigail), but she has been telling me lately, "I need to learn to do ____ so I can do it when I am a mommy" and then she proceeds to do whatever it is.  Case in point:  yesterday while I was nursing Luke, Isaac went to the bathroom in his little potty, and she cleaned it out, gave him potty treats, and then got him a regular snack when he said he was hungry.  I came out when I finished with Luke and she was so nonchalant about it all!  And today when I was sweeping the floor she ran and got her little broom and said, "Mommy, you need to let me practice this kind of thing."  I honestly don't know what I would do without Juliet & Abigail's helpfulness--they feed Luke his dinner while I'm cooking, they fold laundry, pick up toys, entertain Isaac when he's going crazy--they are still normal little children and not 100% angelic, but they are just great these days (we have a bunch of new behavior systems too, so maybe that's part of it.  And I completely reorganized half of my kitchen so that they can access all of their dishes, which has made a big difference in their independence and ability to do things like set the table and empty the dishwasher).

Isaac is potty-training, and he is two, and he thinks that he can exist on air alone.  He is still my sweet cuddly boy (he sat on my lap today for an hour without moving while I was visiting-teaching) but he is definitely moving into the independence of being two and a half.  He talks nonstop and he is obsessed--absolutely obsessed--with everything dinosaurs.  He is so infuriating and delightful at the same time.  Which means--he is two!  (Have I said that enough?)

And Luke--my sweet fat grumpy mama's boy Luke--is sitting on my lap informing me that he is hungry, and will i please do something about it, and he's going to have his own little post tomorrow, so you'll have to read about him then.  Plus Jooj is waiting for me to read to her, and I have a to-do list a mile long, so that's all you get today!  Although I do feel bad about how much this blog has gone downhill in the last couple of years--I think we're drawing ever nearer to its eventual demise.

Arches

 

On our drive to Missouri, we realized we were only twenty minutes or so from Arches National Park.  We debated for a bit and then veered south and took our four munchkins on the three-mile roundtrip hike to Delicate Arch. It ended up being one of our top three favorite things that we did on our vacation--it was fabulous.  And I couldn't stop being amazed that we were hiking in the warm desert in our shirtsleeves when just two days earlier we'd been skiing in the mountains!  The wonders of a warm Utah winter, I suppose.
 
   

Jules was our power hiker this time—she was almost always out in front running like a little mountain goat over the slickrock.  Everyone else was motivated by Skittles (a genius idea I stole from Kayli, who hikes the Alps with her kids every weekend).

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Nine year anniversary

We had a really lovely three-part anniversary this year that combined some of our very favorite things--fancy food, skiing at Solitude (oh, Solitude, I love you!), and going to the temple.

For our anniversary, we decided to use the gift certificate to the Tree Room at Sundance that my brother-in-law Jordan had given us for Christmas.  It was the loveliest night.  We were able to get a reservation the actual night of our anniversary, so I think this is the first time—ever—that we have actually made it out to dinner on our anniversary.

Now excuse me if I gush a bit (note: at one point during the meal Neil asked me to talk about something other that the food and I completely ignored him).  First of all, the atmosphere was incredible:  a snapping and fragrant wood fire, soft music, tables spaced generously apart, and instead of hard uncomfortable chairs, and plush leather couch-type seating that was perfect for relaxing and feeling utterly unhurried.  There seemed to be a veritable army of soft-footed waiters who perfectly orchestrated the removal and setting of each course—at one point I think I counted four at our table alone (and then I stopped counting).  Each course was perfectly timed; the only meal with which I can compare it is a four-hour feast in a tiny little hotel on the French side of the Channel (I ate an entire bucket of moules marinière).

So here is what we ate:  first the chef’s amuse-bouche of pureed pear with goat cheese and fried parsnip.  Then we had kalamata olives with olive oil and fresh thyme, paired with a roll whose top crust was covered with nuts and seeds, and broke open to reveal a delicate interior studded with white grapes.  After that we had a goat cheese tart that combined a perfectly flaky crust with a mild and savory goat cheese that had just the right amount of bite, topped with baby watercress and a lemon vinaigrette.  And then…oh, and then…I had roasted duck breast with butternut squash risotto and crunchy caramelized Brussels sprouts, and Neil had the moistest, most tender and succulent steak I have ever tasted, paired with buttermilk mashed potatoes and perfectly cooked spinach.  It was so amazing that I ate every bite of the duck fat--I don't think I have eaten animal flesh without cutting off the fat since I was about eight.  (And no, they didn't exactly have vegetarian options, and I regretted it not one whit.) To finish we shared a fig and almond tart with a scoop of goat cheese ice cream (yes, I know it sounds weird, but it was amazing).  When they brought our bill—with truffles—the waiter informed us that our dessert was on the house and wished us a happy anniversary.

Anniversary part II—we went skiing for the first time since we graduated from BYU in 2006.  I can happily say that it is indeed like riding a bicycle (although we didn’t ski any black diamonds because it was super icy and rocky—the base was only 29 inches!!!  I was so glad we had decided to rent rather than bringing our own skis with us, because I lost count of how many rocks I heard those skis grind over.  Utah has only had .1 inch of snow in December, and it was in the forties most of the time we were there).  We had a fabulous day and it was wonderful and perfect, and my blisters were just as impressive as Neil’s moguls. 

Here is an interesting tidbit for you--my sweet and endlessly patient husband is the one who taught me to ski when we were first married (we used to chaperone ski bus trips, so we got in for free), and he is not only one of the most amazing skiers I've ever seen, but he is an even better teacher.  I love him a hundred times more whenever I think about how he pulled me up over and over and never once berated me for falling down and making stupid mistakes (and once sliding all the way down a double-black diamond run on my backside after I got too scared).  Skiing is our "thing" now, and I am SO grateful we were able to go, because when we are skiing I remember all those good times where he was so patient and so loving and where I tried my hardest to be good at something that I knew was important to him (and fortunately I've progressed to the point where I can ski exciting things).  It's one of the things that was really crucial in setting the tone for the early years of our marriage.
 

Anyway, because Neil is a million times better than I am, he carried the camera the whole time, so there are literally 100 pictures and about 10 videos of me skiing, but I will spare you those. 


And anniversary part III—we did sealings together in the temple where we were sealed nine years ago.  I was so grateful for the chance to look across the altar at my dear husband and listen to the sealer’s words and remember the covenants we made with each other and the Lord nine years ago.