Learning from the past part two

It's the not so distant past but when I look around me, it seems like a lifetime ago.

We had our home movies converted to DVD and so are revisiting the olden days.  I love watching videos of my children.  I see my babies on the screen and I want to pick them up.  It all comes back to me.  I completely understand their toddler babble because I used to speak that language.  I remember the sippy cups.  I remember the soft onesies.  I remember the bald fragrant heads and the tender toddler curls.

I remember being exhausted.  I remember being lonely.  I remember being poor.

But when I see video of our children rolling around the floor, wrestling with their dad in our sparsely furnished apartment, I see that you don't need plenty of sleep or nice furniture to be deliriously happy.

You just need love.

And love we had.  

Learning from the past part one

I hesitate to bring this up because my siblings all seem to have very healthy self esteem as it is, but lately I can't get them out of my head.

I think it's because we've been watching family movies.  We've been watching the ones from when I was little.  I see Enoch, when he was probably two years old,  putting his horses in Olivia's new doll high chair on Christmas morning.  He looks like an impish and charming troublemaker.  Olivia's infuriated.  She flings the horses at Enoch.  She upends the high chair.  She throws her head back and screams.

And I think, There It Is.  My childhood with those two.  Enoch is still charming.  Olivia is still fiercely defending what matters to her. 

There is also old footage of Tabor.  He looks ridiculously happy as a baby, kicking his legs and grinning for the camera like any little boy would who had three adoring older sisters and an older brother who's so thrilled to have a brother he keeps handing him stick horses.  Ammon was serious and pensive as a baby.  He studied the mobile above his crib, probably figuring out how it was built.

Ammon--in the history of the world, has there ever been a cuter little brother?

The video of me is cringe worthy. From the time I was a third grader on, I ducked my head and covered my face and ran out of the room whenever the camera was on.  I was such a shy and weird kid.

I am still that shy and weird kid I guess, I just do a better job hiding it.  (Hopefully?) 

My siblings show up in our more recent family movies too.  Back when we lived in Connecticut we took a trip to Nevada when Tabor left for his mission.  We took some video on the trip.

Marianne:   is pictured with her toddler girls.  She looks the same:  slender, wearing flip flops, exuding relaxed confidence.  (Her toddlers, who are currently 16 and almost 14, look quite different now.)  I don't know what it is about Marianne that puts me at ease.  Even seeing video of her does the trick.  She told me yesterday on the phone that she was given a new church calling:  ward missionary.  That's in addition to being a primary teacher, Webelos leader, merit badge counselor and who knows what else.  Oh, and bishop's wife.  (If you're not a Mormon, you should understand that is A LOT).  She also has six kids and homeschools 4 of them.  When I was homeschooling three children I was always busy...really busy.  Like Adam would come home and find me crying busy.   I don't know how she does it.  Or how she is so happy and confident and calm. 

Olivia:   is in the video, holding court with her nieces and nephew.  They are all dressed up with items from her personal dress up box.  Olivia is maybe the only person I know who had a personal dress up box when she was single and in her twenties.  She was ordering food in a pretend restaurant from Clarissa who was three at the time.  Clarissa offered her cheese sandwiches.  Olivia deliberated and said, just because she's Olivia, "Well, I am trying to cut down on my cholesterol..."  Clarissa just looked at her, confused.  Finally Olivia relented to the cheese sandwiches (which were invisible and pretend so I'm guessing low in cholesterol) and declared them delicious.  That is Olivia, so engaging and imaginative and completely selling the pretend play that she had a circle of toddlers around her, fascinated.  She had all the time in the world for them.  And they knew it.  

There's Enoch:  handsome and self assured, wrapping his arms around his fiance, Jennifer, to pose for a picture. That was the first time I met Jennifer.  My sisters had met her before and told me she was juuuuuust right.  She was.  We loved her immediately, never knowing then how much that love would grow as she became very thoroughly our sister.

Ammon: is there, a gangly teenager.  He gently held his nieces and nephew and talked to them softly.  He made witty comments.  He will always be the coolest person I know.

There's Tabor: taking a last horseback ride with our dad before he left.  I know them both enough to know what that meant.  I see Tabor's clean shaven face, so young and intact (before he broke it in a run in with a mule...long story).  I see the naked fear visible in his eyes the day we took him to the Missionary Training Center. 

I was glad my children were watching the movie with me.  See, I want to tell them.  See that tall upright kid?  That's what I want you to be (except it's OK if you're not that tall).



Besides my parents, my brothers and sisters are the people I most want to be like in the world.  They are confident and brave.  They are courageous risk takers and pools of strength and stability.  They are talented and good and kind.  They are funny.  They are tall.

I wish I were more like them.  (Tall too.)



When I see them as little kids, as teenagers and young adults, I remember where we've all been.  I'm glad to be part of their ranks.  I'm somehow more because I'm their sister.  They love me (and they know better than anyone what a shy and weird kid I am).

Things I know

1- When you come across a random t-shirt belonging to one of your sons, it is safer to just assume it's dirty and wash it than smell it to check.

(I think permanent damage could arise from such an olfactory assault.)

2- The machinations that occur amongst seventh grade girls when they are allowed to pick their own seats in science are astounding.  It was quite complicated and I received a play by play over the course of two days.

3- Sunshine has more of an impact on my mood than chocolate or enough sleep or anything else I can think of.

4- When a mother has five sons, she has "worked a day in her life."

5- There are restorative powers in Sundays.  Church was renewing. A long afternoon with my family and then taking a walk in an arboretum with Adam and Geri and Mark reminded me how happy and lovely my life is.   There are opportunities all around me to enjoy.  I just need to recognize them.

May I suggest

You would think this suggestion was mostly for people that live around here.

But I would like to suggest that there may be some people (for example) that live in Nevada or Utah (for example) that would like to see their oldest nephew (for example).

I know.  I know.  Just a suggestion. 

Between

It's been hard to know how to dress lately.  We had 35 years (give or take) of cold rainy days.  I know how to dress for that.  Then we had a few days of brilliant sunshine.  I had to rethink things.  Then yesterday, I changed twice because cold and rainy returned and I was resisting the change.

Today is sunny again. 

I've had a similar problem at night.  I took the wonderfully heavy quilt off our bed my mom made us for our wedding because it was too warm.  But then I was too cold.  I wore more clothes to bed--fuzzy socks, long underwear, sweatshirt.  Then I woke up too warm. 

We had a landscaper over the other evening.  We discussed options for the hill in our yard that has been puzzling us since we moved in.  I like and dislike both ideas we talked about.  I can't decide.

My biggest concern lately has been balancing the needs of the rest of my family with the musical that Braeden is involved in.  They rely on parental involvement to make it a success and I'm...a parent.  Also, I really like a lot of the other parents and their kids (and Braeden) and I want to help.

But I have two other children.  And I'm also quite enamored with them, not to mention their charming dad.  It's hard to strike the right balance.

To mirror my indecision in other parts of my life, I had a few disjointed things I wanted to blog about.  Before going to bed last night, I asked Adam what I should blog about.

He said, "The usage of shall and will in modern and older English."  He went on to describe the differences and give examples of each.  Since it was right before bed, my cognizant thought was not at its peak, so I am unable to replicate that idea here.

I would like to say that I made a decision for breakfast.  I had peanut butter toast.  I was successful.  I was decisive.

It's a start.

Note to self

Yesterday morning Adam asked me if I had a day to look forward to...or not.

I said, "Not."

I was tired.  I didn't get enough sleep.  I had a disjointed day planned of errands and driving kids around.  But I regret my response to Adam's question.

It's even haunted me a little.

My gratitude had packed its bags and left the building.  And that makes me feel ashamed.  I have a healthy body that does more or less what I ask of it.  I have a car that drives us where we need to go and money to fill it with gas.  I have a home.  I have people who love me.

And I had a day full of things to look forward to.

1) I spend my days with Mark.  One of the goals of his life is to make me laugh.  During science when we were talking about the earth simultaneously revolving and rotating, Mark said, "It must get dizzy."  Then he gave me his sideways look that indicates oncoming attempts at humor, "That's why there are earthquakes.  The earth got dizzy."  Then he laughed because he thinks he's hilarious.

How lucky is it to spend time with someone who's constantly trying to entertain me?

He also has a very rich imagination that sometimes defies explanation.  For example, why is his angry bird wearing swim goggles and guarding the upstairs?  Why is there a clipboard underneath the chair listing every person in the family, carefully written in black sharpie?

Only Mark knows.

Every day I have Mark to look forward to.

2) Emma is reading Pride and Prejudice (my favorite book) and loving it.  It delights me beyond reason to discuss favorite parts with her.  I love it when she comes home from school. 

Every day I have Emma to look forward to.

3)  I live in the land of the free.  America is not perfect, but it is pretty great.  Our days stretch before us with opportunities.

4) Speaking of opportunities, it disrupts my day and keeps me dependent on my calendar to keep it all straight but I am glad that my children have opportunities to take piano lessons, to swim, to be in a musical.  They thrive doing things they love.

I look forward to their smiles.

5) The abysmal Seattle weather has been glorious and not abysmal at all.  I could have been looking forward to sunshine and smelling fragrant blossoms and climbing into a warm sun toasted car (I love that.)

6) I could have looked forward to walking with my friends.  We do more than propel ourselves around our neighborhood.  We laugh a lot.  We compare notes on the ups and downs of motherhood.  We give each other advice and listen and did I mention laugh?

I also, if I'd known, could have looked forward to two unexpected things that happened.  I read something powerful that changed the way I look at things and Adam and I had a good discussion with our two favorite teenagers about something that matters a lot.

I wish I could have a do over.  Ask me again, Adam.  "Do I have a day to look forward to?"  My answer, every day, should be yes.

Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma Geri's

Q: What's the best way, maybe the only way, to get a teenager to carry around a pastel basket?

A: The promise of candy.

Speaking of candy,  I told Mark with the tell-tale chocolate smeared mouth and a trail of candy wrappers in his wake that he was to have no.  More. Candy.  He said, "I ate five pieces of candy but don't worry.  It's all gone.  You can just imagine how much candy I ate yesterday."

 

Yes, I can imagine.