Maybe it will wear out...

I know that we talk a lot, as women, about how we wear many hats. Mine include mom (of course), wife, cook, maid, sanitation worker (and how!), shopper, accountant, safety inspector, historian, and others. I know that this list is only going to grow as my boys get older. But there is one other hat that I seem to be wearing a lot more these days - referee. My boys are starting to fight more and more. Well, they only fight about one thing - who gets what. Jordan is playing with cars, Evan wants those cars. Evan has a snack, Jordan wants that snack. One has the ride-on bus so the other wants it (even though there is another ride-on toy right next to them!) I'm holding one, so the other needs to be held. Then the pushing starts and Evan, who has become quite the screamer, screams and then my little mimicker Jordan starts to scream because Evan is screaming, and soon we have full on chaos...many, many times a day. It is times like these that bring to my mind the conference talk by Elder Ballard that reminded young mothers that joy in motherhood comes in moments. Not these ones though...

So, I try my best to separate them, make them share, practice taking turns, and the like. Sometimes I decide they need to learn to work it out for themselves, which becomes a game of chicken to see who will cave first - will they stop first or will I just intervene to stop the screaming. In the end, I try to remember that they are two little boys who are excited about life and want to experience what the other is doing too. But, I hope that, like a real hat, the more I wear it the sooner it will wear out. Maybe they will learn how to solve these problems from me showing them so many times. Or maybe I will just have to throw it out when it wears out and they will figure it out on their own. I don't know. But for now, I will keep putting it on with all the others when needed.

All the better to see you with.

I wear glasses. Have ever since seventh grade. The timing has never worked out for me to get contacts and now they are way too expensive. But that's okay. I don't mind. In fact, I'm pretty sure the rest of the world cares a whole lot more than I do.

Okay, here's what I mean. I have noticed throughout the years that glasses aren't popular. In fact, they are way more often than not equated with geeky, nerdy, unpopular, awkward people. If you ever see a movie where a girl is transformed through a make-over, glasses will inevitably be taken off. The other day I was watching a show that I enjoy, What Not to Wear. They were doing a woman's makeup and gave her contacts while inferring that she couldn't really be pretty with glasses on. I couldn't believe it. Here is yet another message to girls and women alike that they aren't good enough. If you have glasses, you will not be pretty. Then I saw another such show that told the woman that she looked older with glasses and they took them away. And, when I was in college, I actually had a boyfriend tell me that if we got married I couldn't wear my glasses that day. Really?

Fortunately I married a man who thinks I look good with or without glasses and doesn't care, and who let me where them on our wedding day, even for the pictures!

This is who I am, I wear glasses. And it is okay.



Someday when I am rich and famous, I will make a movie. In this movie the heroine will be beautiful, funny, talented, intelligent, loved by all, and she will wear glasses...the whole time!

Another one of those...

I got tagged to write 25 things about myself on Facebook. So, I'm using it here too. Here we go...

1. I love finding bargains. I can’t stop. Really, I can’t. I don’t buy any clothes for the boys that cost more than $3 new.
2. Related to above, I am trying to start up an online store to sell the bargain clothes I find for kids…be watching for it soon!
3. I took violin lessons in first grade. But, the lunch lady taught them and she scared me. So when my mom dropped me off, I stayed outside. The lessons didn’t last too long. (That’s okay, I always wanted to play the flute anyway!)
4. I am auditioning for a production tomorrow. I don’t know if I will make it, but I am going to try because I love playing my flute and miss it a lot.
5. I was the president of BYU College Republicans when I was at school and lived politics. I’m easing back into it now after a break for my own sanity.
6. I have had both my kids c-section. Jordan was an emergency c-section and when I was pregnant with Evan they said, “once a c-section, always a c-section.” On the plus side, I don’t change dirty diapers for the first two weeks!7. I live in Maine for four years when I was a teenager and still long to get back. If we have money some day (you know, after the house, and student loans, and missions, and everything else) to buy a vacation house, it will be in Maine (yes, in Cape Elizabeth!) If not, I will settle for frequent stays in hotels.
8. I have a possibly unhealthy love of chocolate chip and peanut butter chip Quaker granola bars. I have at least one a day.
9. I love France and anything French. I used to daydream about being there. I still can’t wait for an extended visit. I got to go for a day to Paris when I was in Brussels for a business trip. So, one day we’ll go.
10. I hate cleaning floors…with a passion. Fortunately Mike doesn’t mind doing them.
11. I love cooking in my crock pot. Ten minutes in the morning and dinner is done!
12. Mike thought it would be funny to teach Jordan that he is a boy, Mike is a boy, Evan is a boy and Mama is a monkey. So now if you ask Jordan what Mama is, he will tell you I am a monkey.
13. I have a hard time resisting tv shows that have to do with super powers. Can’t resist. That is why I had to watch Smallville last night even though I didn’t care about it.
14. I like…brace yourself…Celine Dion. I actually listen to her in French. I had a friend that introduced me to it and I have liked her ever since.
15. I did debate in high school. My greatest triumph was when we beat a nationally ranked team and they gave us their third place trophy after because they were so mad.
16. I like to talk. A lot.
17. I am really stubborn about some things. One of the biggest is resisting things that are popular. That is why I just read the Work and the Glory books a couple years ago and I am always a little behind on fads.
18. I love watching people dance. Stink at it myself though.
19. I hope to move back to Utah soon. My husband’s family is there and my parents moved there last year! I still get giddy inside when I think about my parents living in Utah. I love it there.
20. I really hope I have a girl someday. I would be happy with even just one. I need a daughter to be girly with. I do love my boys though!
21. I can’t make decisions these days. I think that the boys suck out so much of my resources these days that the first region to go was the one that makes simple decisions. Anyway, that’s what Mike is for!
22. I honestly can predict about 90% of the time what is going to happen in a movie, tv show or book.
23. I can listen to two conversations at the same time.
24. I talk to my mom multiple times a day. Yeah, we’re close.
25. I want to write a book some day and I already know what it is about and how I want to organize it. Now, I just have to work on the writing ability part…

My child, the person

I've been thinking a lot about our society lately. More specifically, I've been thinking about the worth of people in it. It seems to me that a person's worth is very conditional, subjective, and performance based.

Example. I'm sure you all have heard about the football coach being charged with one of his player's death. The young man died from the heat, after being taken to the hospital with a temperature of 107 degrees. Apparently the coach denied him water and pushed him to keep practicing until he collapsed, along with another player who survived. In watching various news networks coverage and discussion about this incident I heard a few of the following:

• Players should be pushed. How was the coach to know that the kid wasn't just being weak and not wanting to practice?! He did nothing wrong.
• Athletes are liked fine-tuned machines that you have to keep maintainenced and lubed. You have to make sure atheletes have what they need to perform their best.

And Mike heard on sports radio the hosts discussing how lazy and weak kids are these days because they used to always be running around outside with no problems.

I have to say that if I trusted my child to the care of a coach or anyone, I would hope that they saw him as a person, not just as an athlete who should be pushed until breaking so that they can make their team look good or not as a machine to be tuned. I'm not saying that we should do everything for our kids or give them everything they want, but I think we can fairly say that this is a time when maybe a person's worth could be more than what it was, worth a drink and a break.

In more and more of what I see of business, sports, and the like, the world tends to base one's worth on what is accomplished, scored, performed, or earned instead of viewing their inherent worth just by existing. Maybe if more of the world was viewed that way, there would be a little more charity - helping when needed, giving the benefit of the doubt, forgiving, thinking the best of one another, being kind, understanding - and therefore more happiness and less stress. I really hope I can remember to look at people that way, especially my children.

Canning

So, this whole thought process I am about to write about started as this: they are gathering canning orders in our ward. As part of this, they need a few people to go help put the order together if they can. Unfortunately it is on a weekday and because I have my little boys, I can't go (I can still order though...)
I've thought a lot about how there are a lot of those good things in life that we should try to do. Meals to make, rides to give, canning to do, and the like. I would love to work in the temple, even just in the laundry or cafeteria or something. When each request for compassionate service is announced, there is another.
I used to feel like I should be able to do all these things, two toddlers and all. In fact, I thought there was something wrong with me because I felt like I couldn't. But I can't. That's all there is to it. My boys are demanding and busy. I have no family in town to lean on for help and Mike is gone day and night a lot of the time. I can try to do some, but I can't do it all, or even a lot of it. That's just how it is. At least for now.
I know that I have already blogged about similar feelings before, but I really feel strongly about this now. There is a season for all things. As I thought about canning, I knew that some day I will go, when my kids are all at school for the day. I will sign up for all meals I can afford to bring to people and any other opportunity I get that I can do. But not now.
When we lived in Oregon, soon after Jordan was born, I was beginning to have these feelings of failure for not jumping at everything any more. Then we had a stake conference meeting broadcast from Salt Lake City. One of the Relief Society Presidency members (it might have even been Sister Parkin, president at the time) spoke to us about doing the will of Heavenly Father. She said that we should always be living our life in doing His will and what He would have us do. She mentioned service and good works and all those other good things we have to do. But she then mentioned that raising our children is also how we spend our time doing His will. We should, of course, try to help others any chance we get, magnify our callings and such, but that our focus as mothers, particularly of young children, was to teach, guide, and raise them. I felt such a burden lifted from my shoulders.
So, I keep trying to remind myself that the fact that my children take all my time, energy, resources, sanity, and patience, is okay. That is what I should be doing. And when they are a little older, I will go help at the cannery.

I have a family here on Earth

Just as a warning before I begin, this may be another one of those cheesy posts, but I am going to do it anyway!

I have two thoughts running through my mind right now. The first is about our lesson in Relief Society today. We discussed the return of Elijah to bestow the sealing keys to Joseph Smith and what that means to us. I know that this is a very common topic in our church to discuss, but it hit me how wonderful that knowledge is. When I married Mike in the temple, I married him for here on Earth (time) and forever after (and all eternity), which in turn sealed our beautiful boys to us forever. What an extraordinary knowledge.

As we sang the closing song, "Families Can Be Together Forever," I noticed the chorister was crying, and I am pretty sure I heard more sniffles around the room. I thought about how, more than probably any other topic (other than the atonement of Jesus Christ), I see more people get emotional when talking about families. I think it is because one of the main purposes of our lives here is to form eternal families. We are created for this and so it is inherent in us to find joy in the thought of living with those we love forever, even after they have passed away. I remember distinctly, soon after Jordan was born, understanding so much clearer why we would refer to the Plan of Salvation as the Plan of Happiness - I felt so much joy knowing that that little baby was mine forever.

The next idea I have been thinking about a lot lately is creating a home. As I listened to the lesson today, I thought about how this ties in perfectly - we need to create a place where our families will be safe from the world and the influences therein.

I remember soon before I got married being completely excited when I realized that I could make my home whatever I wanted it to be. I had been living with roommates for about seven years before that, and though I didn't have problems with most of them, I still had to compromise on our living space. But in my family I could make it whatever I wanted. I could choose what came in and what influences would surround my family while they were at home (at least for the most part). If we didn't want certain tv shows, games, music, language, etc in our home, then we could make it that way. Wow! I was so excited. Mike and I thoroughly discussed many of these ideas before we got married because I wanted to make sure we were on the same page, that's how important it was to me. Now, I know that I still have the tv on more than I want to, get frustrated more than I care, and other imperfections, but I love that I can try to make a place for my family, to protect them, to teach them the gospel and how to recognize the Holy Ghost, to help them stay worthy, and to try to make them happy to be part of our eternal family.

Beautiful Sight

I just have to write about my family's beautiful eyes. I can't get over them. They all have such *pretty* blue eyes (I know I'm not supposed to use pretty for boys, but hey, I call it like I see it!) Tonight I was playing around with my camera trying to learn what everything does. When I tried the close-up mode, I was struck again with how much I love those eyes. So, I took some pictures. I am no professional, so I know someone else could have done them more justice, but here they are.

Evan:



Jordan:



And they get it from:



One of the first things I noticed about Mike were his eyes. I hoped our boys would get his eyes. So here is a big thank you to genetics!