Grateful Friday

I'm grateful I'm not having a stroke.  I smelled something spicy, as in autumnal spicy, and no one else did.  I would say, "Where is that smell coming from?" and Emma would tell me I was probably having a stroke.

Yesterday I found a broken scented plug-in wallflower in the corner of the laundry room (that I think Miss Emma had knocked over because she had been the last one doing laundry).

So.  I'm not having a stroke.  There's that.

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I'm grateful for my mom.  Whenever I talk to her and tell her all the things, she says, "I know."

And here's the thing.  She 100% does.  Because she had a son diagnosed with type 1 diabetes too.

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I'm grateful that every single day Braeden and Emma ask me, "What can I do today to help you?"

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I'm grateful for Anna.  Last night Adam and I took Braeden and Anna shopping for a suit for the groom.  Anna and I went to the bathroom together (she pointed out that in Harry Potter, only bad things happen when a girl goes to the bathroom alone...safety in numbers).  While I was drying my hands and she was washing hers, I said something about hoping I hadn't been too negative over dinner earlier.  She hugged me right then and there, wet hands and all.  She said, "I love you all so much!"

The feeling is so mutual.

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I'm grateful for a new day to try again.  My to do list is getting longer rather than shorter despite all my efforts.  New things get added faster than I can keep up.  Adam said awhile ago, "You don't have to be Nostradamus to interpret our dreams."  I dreamt last night that there was a big spider in my bed and I couldn't kill it.  I kept trying and trying and it kept running around.

But today's a new day.  I'm going to get things done.  (And besides Braeden would be happy I couldn't kill the spider.  He's one of those people that coaxes bugs outside rather than squash them.)

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Last weekend, I was in my office and heard rapid footsteps running up from the basement.  Then I heard Mark walk through the main floor, singing.  I almost cried because I realized how long it had been since I had heard that.

Mark gained 15 pounds in one week.  It's probably mostly water but he is looking so much healthier!

Mark and I were at Costco a few days ago and an older lady who was really tiny approached us.  "Can I use your muscles?" she asked.

"Sure," Mark said.

She had him lift something heavy off the shelf and onto the bottom of her cart.  He did it easily and I feel like my boy is back.

A post that's not about diabetes

Yesterday I had a little meeting with the current art teacher who is going to be teaching kindergarten in the fall.  She showed me all the things in my future classroom and it made me 75% excited and 25% intimidated because I have A LOT TO DO.  Still.  It gave me a little jolt of delight to think, this is it.  This will be my classroom!

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I made cupcakes for my wonderful niece Desi because yesterday was her birthday.  I wore my new baking shirt.

I had Mark take a picture so I could send it to our BYU kids who watched the Great British Baking Show with us.  I've never not taken a derpy picture, but I sent it anyway.

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About the cupcakes, I thought I had a chocolate cake mix and instead I had a brownie mix.  Mark offered to go to the store for me which I appreciated. Then he was in a fender bender.  When it rains it pours, you know.  As Tevye said in Fiddler on the Roof, "I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can't You choose someone else?"

It was Mark's fault so that will be an exciting little addition to our car insurance, but I am very grateful no one was hurt.  Cars can be fixed.  Mark called and I asked if he was all right, then I asked if he needed me to come.  He said, "Yes."

Braeden asked me, "Do you want me to come?"

I said, "Yes."

We all need each other.

And we have each other.  That is a blessing!

Lioness at the gate? Check.

My mom keeps telling me I am a lioness at the gate.  As in, "Mark is lucky to have you as his lioness at the gate."

Side note:  do lionesses cry? In the hospital, our doctor told me they are tears of strength and tears of courage.  I am going with that!

Yesterday Mark went to school.  The plan was two class periods, take the last finals, then he got his yearbook. In unrelated but frustrating news, Adam had a flat tire and I was taking the tire to be repaired.  Therefore Adam had taken the van to work and I was Mark's ride.

Mark called to ask me to come and pick him up.  He sounded down.  I may be a lioness but I'm a squeamish lioness who feels scared when her cub may or may not have low blood sugar.

"What's wrong?!?" I asked.

He explained that he had a $60 fine and so couldn't get the wristband he needed to get the yearbook.  He said, "I don't even know how to get a wristband anyway."  He was just ready to call it a loss and forget about the whole thing.

I wasn't.

I said, "I'll be right there."  I checked online and the fine was because he hadn't turned in a textbook.  Braeden found the book and I headed to the school with it.

Mark was totally discouraged and droopy shouldered.  It was just one more thing that was hassling him.

I skipped all the lines everywhere and went straight to the front office.  I know enough to know if you have those ladies on your side, you are halfway there.  They said if I went to return the textbook, I'd get a wristband and then to come straight back to them.

We found out where to return the textbook.  No wristbands.  The lady said, "It got to be too much so we had to stop giving them out here."

She handed us a red slip of paper instead, which indicated we were cleared.  So back to the office.  I was stopped in the doorway to the office by a rather formidable woman.  I told her my business and she pointed to the enormous line, of about 150 people, all holding red slips.

I pointed in the direction of the receptionists.  "They said to come back here."

"They are only office receptionists," she said dismissively.  "They don't really know."

Wow.  Shots fired.

I must have had a look of desperation when I eyed that long line.  She said, "We've been trying to get these fines resolved for weeks."

So that's when I pulled out my big gun, my ace in the hole.

"My son was in the hospital last week," I said.  "That's why he wasn't able to turn in his book."

Her demeanor completely changed and she grasped Mark's shoulder and said, "I'm so glad you're back with us."  She had me stand in the doorway of the financial office until they could give us a wristband.  It took about 30 seconds.

We walked to where the yearbooks were.  "Hey, at least these lines aren't long anymore," Mark said.

Even though he was stopped by a few friends on our way out of the school and greeted with cheerful smiles and high fives, Mark mostly just gave the head nod boys his age have perfected.  He didn't get one person to sign his yearbook.  He was over it.

But I got my boy his yearbook.  In the eternal scheme of things, one yearbook from one year of high school is nothing.  But if I can lift any of the burden on that kid's suddenly too narrow shoulders, I'll do it.  I'll be the lioness.

Because for this boy, anything.

Circles

I love Memorial Day.  I know it is designed to be a day to honor soldiers that died in battle and I do honor and appreciate them.

I also like my family's take on the holiday.  We go to cemeteries.  Plural.  Because our family tree is rooted in the Salt Lake Valley, specifically in Murray/West Jordan/Sandy/Crescent.

I love how connected I feel.  I love seeing the names in stone, the names of a few people I knew but mostly I knew of.  They're where I came from.  They the builders of the nation.

That circle tightens a little as we inevitably meet up with some of my mom's cousins at the different cemeteries.  At the Sandy Cemetery, my mom's cousin was there with some family and they were clearing off the grass and cleaning the headstones neighboring where my great grandparents and great-great grandparents are buried.

He said, "I got tired of looking at them."

Olivia was impressed with what great neighbors they were.

We were all there honoring the same ancestors and that feels nice.

There are my grandma's (who is 92!) descendants who were there.  It's just a small portion of the family but it makes me happy all the same.

In a tighter circle, I see some of my aunts and uncles.  We hug and catch up a little and joke about little things.  I see some cousins.  We hug and catch up, compare notes on our children's ages, find out "where are you living now?"

I love the tighter circle of seeing my siblings and their kids.

Here Marianne and I are chatting with Morgan.   That's Ammon in the background.

Sisters that stand together (in the same pose) stay together.

I needed the long hugs my sisters gave me.  And the ones from my parents.  There's my dad in the picture above.

Here's my mom with some of the older cousins:

Carolina, Desi, my mom, Emma, Braeden, Liberty, Mark, Lili and Hyrum in the front.

I loved the way the cousins enjoyed each other.  These big ones stood around and talked and laughed and younger ones took off on a series of adventures.

Eventually we headed back home.  My tightest circle.  I loved hearing the kids delight in each other's company.  I looked over at Adam and appreciated him.  He happily spends the day visiting the graves of people he's never met.

That's quality.

I'm sorry Ida Amanda

My mom told me that her great-grandmother had type 1 diabetes.  At the time, they called it dropsy.

The next time I talked to my mom, I had the presence of mind to ask which great-grandmother.  It was Ida Amanda Atwood who was married to Frederick Delmer Jaynes.  From her, diabetes DNA made its way to her son Homer Warren Jaynes who in turn passed the DNA to his son Homer Warren Jaynes, Jr.  That's my mom's dad and those genes were passed to me, then Mark.

The reason I feel like I owe Ida Amanda an apology is that before this, I never felt any sort of connection to her.  In my own narrative of family history, she was just the first wife.

I should explain.

Ida Amanda died in 1909 when my great-grandpa, Homer Warren Jaynes, Sr. was only eleven years old.  He, in turn, died in 1959 and my grandpa, Homer Warren Jaynes, Jr. died in 1974, when I was only one year old.

So I have no personal experience with any of them that I can remember and no reference for who Ida Amanda was.

Who I did know was Arvella, my great-grandma.  She was the wife of one of the Homers and mother to the other.  She had a sparkling personality and brown eyes. When I was little, she would ask me, "How are my brown eyes?" and when we would say good-bye, she'd say, "Take care of my brown eyes."  I understood from a very young age that she was where I came from.  She was where I got my brown eyes.

I love this picture, taken in 1953
My grandpa and grandma are standing in the back row on the left
That's my great-grandpa and great-grandma sitting on the couch, amidst their grandchildren.
My mom is seated on the floor, far right.  What a cutie.

When Arvella was three years old, her dad Eric Nelson died.

Eric Mattson Nelson

Nine years later, Eric's widow (and Arvella's mother) Sarah, married the widower Frederick Delmer Jaynes (husband of the late Ida Amanda).

Sarah Jane Dowding

Eventually Arvella ended up marrying her step-brother Homer Warren Jaynes, Sr.

Arvella was the one I knew.  She was my Grandma with the Brown Eyes.  She was the one who told me stories.  She, of course, didn't know Ida Amanda.  Ida Amanda never figured much into the stories  Great-Grandma would tell me as a little girl.  She told me about her mother, about the miraculous ways her young widowed mother was blessed in providing for her three little daughters.  She told me about her father.  She told me about her husband and her son.

I'd like to think she thought about Ida Amanda fondly though, the mother of her husband.  I'd like to think Homer Warren, Sr. had stories of his mother to tell too.

I've just never really considered the link between Ida Amanda and me until now.

This is her, pictured alongside her husband Frederick:

This is the house where they lived in Crescent, Utah:

I think my great-grandfather is the one with the bow tie next to his dad.

Now, since I passed on something from Ida Amanda to Mark Edward, I finally recognize that I came from her too.

She was the mother of eight children before epidurals or sippy cups or disposable diapers.  I'm sure she worked hard.  I'm sure she didn't want to die and leave her young family behind.  Her youngest was three years old when Ida Amanda died.

This Memorial Day, I honor my great great grandmother.

Grateful Friday

We are home from the hospital and we can get everything back into balance around here.

There's a lot to be grateful for, modern medicine for one thing.  Wow.  So grateful.  I'm also grateful for...

kindness:

Yesterday and the day before, in the predawn while I was driving back to the hospital, I swung through the McDonald's drive thru for Diet Coke.  You know, like you do.  Both days the same teen-age/young adult guys with nose rings and scruffy grooming were working at the drive-thru windows.  They were just kind to me.  They looked me in the eyes, they smiled, they wished me a good day.  They had no idea that I was stressed/overwhelmed/on my way to the pediatric ICU.  They were just kind.  It was a good reminder to me that I don't know what other people are dealing with.  Maybe (probably) I looked a little harried but maybe they were just being nice to the lady at the drive thru window who was getting her Diet Coke.  I appreciated it.

humor:

Mark has decided lately he wanted to be in the military and be a pilot.  In the hospital, multiple people told Mark in encouraging ways that his diabetes won't stop him from being anything he wants to be or doing anything he wants to do.  "What do you want to do?"  they'd ask.

He'd say, "I was thinking of being a pilot."

They'd say, "Oh, well, you can't do that...or be in the military."

On the drive home from the hospital, Mark and I were talking about it and he said, "I'm basically Mulan."

I laughed so hard I almost choked on my Chick-fil-a.  (What can I say? Mark's been the only one eating real food.  It's been drive-thru cuisine around here for the rest of us--although I did eat a ziplock bag full of grapes for breakfast on the way to the hospital. )

empathy:

I had a realization within the past few years about empathy.  Christ knows how we feel because He "descended below all things."  One way that we can be like Him is to have trials and gain empathy for other people.  There is literally no other way to have empathy unless you go through stuff.

We met our endocrinologist.  He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes while serving a mission in Germany in 1977.  He was a beacon of light and understanding and so encouraging.

Also, Enoch and Jennifer and Boston came to visit us yesterday when we were home from the hospital.  Enoch coincidentally had a diabetic doctor appointment in SLC and they made the trip further out of their way to visit us.  It really meant a lot to me.

We told them all the things and Enoch showed us his insulin pump and answered our questions and spoke reassuring words to us.  He told Mark, "You can either just take care of it and have a good attitude or you can feel sorry for yourself and not take care of yourself and be miserable."

It's clear which route Enoch has taken and I'm grateful for his example of optimism and capability.  And his empathy.

Hospitalized

Late Tuesday afternoon we spoke with an endocrinologist's office and they recommended we take Mark to the ER, based on his test results and how he was feeling.

So we did.

He was admitted to the hospital and yep, I still hate hospitals.  (Except for that part about them saving my family members' lives occasionally.)  Mark was in ketoacidosis so he needed a steady stream of insulin all night.  They told us the next day would be full of education.

Adam and I had spent the previous night crying/worried/not sleeping so we were both pretty exhausted.  Braeden was in Provo with Anna and stopped by to see Mark.  He suggested he stay in the hospital with Mark and Adam and I go back home and get some rest.  It felt like a smart plan but also I didn't want to leave him.

But I was exhausted and knew I needed to be alert the next day.

I cried in the elevator; I felt like I was deserting the army.  Adam assured me that we were doing the right thing, even though it felt like it went against all our parenting instincts.  And I think he was right.

We got some sleep and Braeden managed the helm.  I came back to the hospital early and Adam (who was attending to work stuff) and Emma joined later.  Braeden went home to sleep.  Emma was put in charge of the notebook and pen and took copious notes.

The dietician we met with was very chatty.  Emma labeled that section Diet/Anecdotes.  I knew Emma was who we needed for note taking.

Everyone has been extremely nice to us.  From our supportive families to people from work to friends to Mark's school teachers, everyone is making us feel loved.

Mark's drama teacher, the incomparable Mrs. Rhodes, stopped by with her daughter (who is Mark's age) to visit.  It put a big smile on his face.  There is no way of describing how wonderful it is to have people love your children.  Priceless.

Two of Mark's friends visited.  They made him laugh and Mark showed them the fine features of the TV (how he can order food--important stuff) and the binder listing all the movies he can watch.  He showed them his "goal for the day" that was written on the white board.  The goal was REST.  They talked about finals (which Mark is missing some of today).  About finals, one of his friends said, "I just feel like giving up."

"It's what I did," Mark said.  "Well, my pancreas did."

Last night, after his friends left, Mark and Emma and Braeden and Anna got comfortable and watched a movie together.  In the darkened room, I sat in the corner with my laptop, working on my curriculum plan for next year.  I looked over at them and heard their chatter while they watched (because that's how siblings watch movies, with commentary) and it felt downright cozy in this hospital room.

Home is wherever your people are.

Emma insisted on staying with Mark last night.  My gratitude for my big kids and their willingness and resolute desire to serve their brother is real.

And Mark is a champ.  He is typically stoic and even keeled.  He is good at the math it takes to calculate his insulin and good at operating the TV--which would be completely beyond me.

I love that kid so much it hurts.

Diagnosis

Sunday night, I dreamt I was being called by the military for a mission.  I needed to report at a certain time and I needed to take special equipment--including these specific gloves--because I was going to be disabling bombs.

I was scrambling to get ready.  I was packing up everything and the reality of what I was going to be doing was sinking in.  I didn't know how to disable bombs.  Was I going to die?  Emma was coming with me and she already had her gloves but I couldn't find any.  I was going to go to the store and get some and Emma also needed me to return a basketball standard to her friends the Swensons.  Did I have time for that?!?

She had already (helpfully) loaded it in a pick-up truck for me.

I was looking at my email on my phone to try to figure out what time we needed to report for duty and my phone kept playing videos my siblings had taken of their kids singing or doing cute things and I couldn't make it stop and check my email.

In all that stress, I woke up.  I remembered at once all the things I needed to do and all the things I felt anxious about.  Then I remembered I didn't have to go disable bombs and I felt a rush of relief.

There were enough things in my real life to stress about.

Over the weekend, we finally confronted the fact that Mark had lost a lot of weight.  It seemed like he was a lot skinnier and he was eating enough for a small army so that should have been a red flag, but also he's a growing teenage boy so I wasn't too surprised he was eating so much.

On Saturday Adam happened to put an arm around Mark's shoulders.  He felt the complete absence of muscle mass.  That night, Mark wanted me to look at something on his back.  He took off his shirt, revealing protruding shoulder blades and ribs and all the bumps on his back from his spine.

He had lost a lot of weight!

Sunday he weighed himself and he was 150 pounds.  He remembered in late March, when he'd had a sinus infection and they'd weighed him at the doctor's office, he had weighed 160 pounds.

So I woke up worried on Monday and I made him a doctor's appointment.  At the doctor's office he weighed 149 pounds and they told us that in August he had been 196 pounds.

It turned out he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.  Since Enoch has diabetes I was sort of familiar with the symptoms and I knew that it was definitely in our genetic makeup.  So I wasn't completely shocked by the diagnosis, but I was sort of wrecked too.

We're still in the very early stages of figuring it all out and we are overwhelmed, but also encouraged.  There is a wealth of technology and information we have access to.  We have brains in our head and feet in our shoes.  We can figure it out.

Monday Stella called, after Braeden let her know.  Mark and I were both in the car when she called. "Mark," she said, "I'm on your team.  You have Mom and Dad and Brother and Sister, but you have me too."

And Stella on your team is no small thing.  She said if we ever have a medical question and need information in plain English, we can call her.  She also told Mark she wants him up to 160 when she comes for Braeden's wedding.  We'll try!

We've talked to my parents and Adam's mom and they all had good advice and encouragement.  I have the love and support of my siblings--with Enoch basically saying it was no big deal.  Included in   siblings I mean Jennifer.  If you ever need Adam and Emma and Braeden have all said to me in the past two days that they would do anything for Mark.  "Anything," they all emphasized.  And I believe them.

Yesterday I told Marianne I felt overwhelmed.  She said, "You can DO this!  You had ancestors who gave birth while they were crossing the plains!"

And she's right.

We got diabetes from some of those ancestors, but they were tough.  Their blood is in my veins.

(Also, I don't have to go on a military mission to disable bombs.  There's that.)

Here's a picture of Mark last October followed by one Braeden took yesterday:

Braeden had taken him to Rancheritos for lunch.  Mark only ate one burrito though.  "That's a change," Braeden said.  Poor kid has been starving.  No wonder he's been eating so much.

Family Saturday

Ever since Mark turned 16, I have been wanting us all to go to the temple together to do baptisms.  We finally made it happen!  On Saturday, we met Anna at the Provo City Center Temple.  (Mt. Timpanogos Temple is closed for a few weeks.)

Braeden baptized Anna, then he baptized Mark.  Mark baptized Braeden, then he baptized Emma, then me.

Then, Adam and Braeden confirmed us.

We were being baptized and confirmed on behalf of our family members who have died.  There isn't going to be any proxy temple work for anyone closely related to me. These were distantly related family members from my mom's side of the family who lived in England during the 1800s.  (And researching people in England during the 1800s is what I love to do!)

Despite the distance, these are my people.  While Braeden was baptizing he mispronounced one of the names and my ears immediately picked up on it.  Because I know them.  I know how they're all related to each other and to me.  I found them and I feel linked to them.

Also being in the baptistry with all of my people felt wonderful.  I felt this overflowing love for Adam, Braeden, Anna, Emma and Mark.  It's possible it overflowed out my eyes a few times.

I'm here to tell you temple and family history work is a good use of time.

We had a late lunch at the Rocky Mountain Drive-In.  You may remember our pizza challenge we did several years ago.  We have embarked on a new challenge and we are taking it very seriously.  I've decided to call it the BBC, as in Big Burger Challenge.  We are on a quest to find the best cheeseburger in Utah County.  We're not going to make it to every burger place around, but we're going to try.  We have our criteria and a rating system.  So far we've gone to two places.  I need Adam to create infographics like he did for the pizza challenge.

Because this is a big deal.

Grateful Friday

I'm grateful about:

Everyone was busy last night and Adam and I got a bonus middle of the week Thursday evening date.       It was short lived because I had book club, but it was nice to have dinner together and talk.

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While I was waiting for Adam to get home, Enoch called.  Like always, it's good to talk to him.  We fill each other in on all the things and also he makes me laugh.

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I have had good meetings about my new job.  I feel supported and encouraged by the administration and enthusiastic about the new school year (and the old one hasn't even ended).  I also feel a bit overwhelmed but that feels like a normal response.  Of course it's overwhelming, but it's doable.

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I am also enthusiastic about summer.  Between the wedding and my new classroom, I'm going to plan my little fingers to the bone but it will all be fun stuff to plan.  I'm looking forward to reading more and regaining a handle on housework (which slipped a little with me working).

I'm looking forward to a slower pace and a flexible schedule.

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I have one more week of school.

Let's do this!

After a long day

Yesterday when I got home I sunk into a chair feeling like a damp rag.  Some days are like that.  There was one too many negotiation with hostile terrorists under the age of ten.  Sometimes they don't want to do their work and that's all there is to it.

Emma sat across from me and asked me about my day.  Mark was (naturally) in the kitchen preparing a snack.  I told them a particularly student was naughty.  Mark said, "We've already established that."

Yep.

Even when they're naughty though, I usually have enough clarity to recognize there is some hole in their lives that is making them act that way.  It's why I keep trying.

Then I told them about a really weird conversation I had with another aide.  The aide said, "This is probably foreign in your world, but..."

That comment made me feel every bit as defeated as the recalcitrant students.

What did she mean, "your world?"  Aren't we in the same world?  There was a small group of us talking and I was the only one she designated as living in a different world.  It made no sense to me and also made me feel other and that is not a good feeling.

Emma offered a suggestion, "Maybe she's an alien?"

"She was referring to you as an earthling," Mark added.

It's possible.

Then I told Emma about a different aide who I associate with less.  She is always super nice and friendly to me and has been from the start of the school year.  I told Emma, "She came up to me and hugged me and congratulated me on my new job.  I don't know why she is always so nice to me."

Emma offered a suggestion, "Maybe she's just really nice."

So here's what I know.  It's good to have Emma and Mark to chat with after a hard day and some people are just really nice.  Those are the kind of people that smooth over the others.

Wonder of wonders

I got some good news yesterday.  I have a job!  I mean, I already had a job, but I got a legit TEACHING job!

I am excited.

I will be teaching at the same school (which I'm thrilled about) and I will be the humanities specialty teacher.  It's a brand new position so there's a lot I need to learn and discover.  There will be some training and a million questions to direct at the powers that be but hopefully I will figure it out.

I would have been happy to get a job in a typical classroom--and I still may do that someday--but this also feels about perfect.  It is part-time which is ideal with Mark still at home and teaching humanities is kind of the role I was born to play.  Emma told me she's a humanities major because of me and my love of that kind of stuff.  I will be teaching drama, art and music which are subjects I love.

I am so excited!

I love drama and art and music.  And teaching.  And the school.  And the students there.  And the teachers.

(Also I need Emma to teach me everything she knows really fast before she goes to Paris.  It is a case of the student eclipsing the teacher with that one.)

Comeuppance

I've talked to a few mothers and had really similar conversations.  "How was your Mother's Day?"

slight pause

"It was...OK."

Sometimes it feels like the mother's job is to make everyone feel good about their efforts on Mother's Day even though they aren't always 100% what the mother wanted or requested when she was asked.

Why does the mother need an extra job on Mother's Day?!?

I was talking to Olivia about it and she said, "Maybe that is how Heavenly Father feels about our feeble offerings."

It stopped me in my tracks a little.  How often is my service about me and what I want to do/feel comfortable doing and less about what Heavenly Father really wants me to do?  Like a good mother He makes me feel appreciated when I do a subpar job, but I wonder sometimes if He's thinking, "OK, those handouts are nice, but what I really wanted was for you to prepare a great lesson." Or, "I'm glad you connected with the sisters you minister to that you're already friends with.  Great.  But how about that one who won't answer your texts and hasn't been to church in months?"

I could do better.

Mother's Day

I am looking forward to a nice day with my family.  I've already had two sons wish me happy Mother's Day.  Emma is excited to give me the gift she has for me.  Mark wondered, "What time are gifts?" and Braeden already gifted me with a fragrant and lovely lily plant.

I feel loved.

Today I want to honor mothers.  Particularly my mother.  She is amazing and every single person who knows her knows that.  She is a champion of good causes, iron tough and determined.  I love her faith and optimism and dogged desire to serve and better the lives of her children and grandchildren.  She denies every attempt I make at self doubt.  A while ago (I can't even remember the show), I saw some mother on TV say to her son, "No one who spent nine months inside of me is good, they're great."

I think my mom feels that way.  It's comforting and sustaining to have someone with so much grit believe whole heartedly in you.

I also want to honor Geri.  She is a pillar of strength to her family.  For as long as I have known her, her home has been a place of beauty and refuge.  She works hard and plays hard and loves her children and grandchildren in a selfless and accepting way.  I'm grateful to be part of her family.

I'm also thinking about my sisters who are in the mothering trenches with me.  Since our kids are around the same ages, it feels like we're shoulder to shoulder, working toward the same goal.

I honor mothers without children.  Some of the teachers at the school where I work are unmarried and don't have children.  But they are mothers.  There are stashes of snacks for hungry kids, there are hugs and high fives and encouragement and tough love administered in high doses.  There is forgiveness and let's try again and you can do it delivered on the daily.

I honor mothers whose children break their hearts.  There is nothing easy about mothering.  It's hard physical work and hard mental work and hard emotional work.  Hyperbole on Mother's Day feels a little uncomfortable when what you're really trying to do is survive.

Last night Adam and I were grocery shopping and the store was filled with fathers and kids.  They were filling carts with things they needed to show the moms they loved them.

It all matters.

The homemade cards, the clumsily wrapped presents, the messes that will happen in kitchens as kids try their hand at cooking for their mothers.

It matters.  These people know what my heartbeat sounds like on the inside.

Grateful Friday

Yesterday:

I took my stop sign to recess.  Which I take to traffic duty, not recess duty.  "Mrs. Davis?  Why do you have a stop sign?"

After school, I couldn't find my phone anywhere.  I kept asking Mark, "Have you seen my phone?  Have you seen my phone?"

Later, I found it and stuck it in my back pocket so I wouldn't lose it again.  Mark walked by while I was switching the laundry.  "Hey, Mom," he said, "I found your phone.  It's in your pocket."

Also, last night, within the span of about ten minutes, Mark, Emma and I all had a come apart.  There are no other words to describe it.  Emma and I have come aparts often.  Mark, not so much.  But we were all just recovered from crying when Braeden bounced in, his cheerful ebullient self.  He looked at me sideways then threw his arms around me and held me tight, lifting me onto my toes.  He wasn't letting go.  He said, "Can I do anything for you Mom?"

I said a muffled, "You could let go of me," into his chest.  So he did.

We ate a brisk dinner because I was heading off to Relief Society which I didn't really want to go to.  (See above.)

I've been released from the committee, so I could just breeze in at the start.  But I didn't really want to.  I didn't feel social or even very friendly.

I sat between my friends Marie Louise and Shannon.  We talked and laughed and it was nice.  Then we divided into teams for Cupcake Wars.  I was with Melva, who is a fellow aide I have lunch with every day and Heather, one of my favorite laurels ever and her mother Julia.  Melva said something about the lunch I had the other day and Julia looked confused and I said, "We have lunch together."

She said, "Where?"

I said, "At work."

She said, "Where?!?"

Like we were some kind of comedy team, Melva said, "At lunch."

Julia said,  "Where?  And you'd better not say at a table."

So we told her where we work.  We teased each other and dubbed our team The Spice Girls (because our "special ingredient" was candied ginger).  I was scolded by Melva when I wrote the team name for not "using nice handwriting."  I told her that was my nice handwriting and she looked disappointed and said, "Hmph".

We debated the amount of ginger we should add and couldn't taste the coconut at all which was another of our ingredients.  Heather classed up our tray with paper flowers she fashioned and then Melva and I each tipped over cupcakes at different times from the levels Heather was trying to achieve on the tray.

Even though we laughed a whole lot, we didn't win.

I left feeling lighter when I walked out of the door and like those wacky ladies are my favorites.

I had a day that was at times eye rolling (stop sign at recess and where's that phone?!?) and also discouraging (my come apart), but then I spent an hour or so with women who understand it all.  They have gone through all the hard things and emerged on the other side. Marie Louise, Shannon, Melva, Julia, Heather--I'm aware of some of their sorrows but probably not aware of most of them.  They still smile.  They make me laugh.  They convey empathy and tease me enough to make me feel like I belong. We need each other.  That is all.

Winning

Yesterday I had an excruciating job interview (that's the word I was looking for Marianne!).  Every job interview is an excruciating one.  And humbling.

My mom, both sisters, and Adam all called to find out how it went (Adam is on a business trip).  When I got home, my kids gathered to hear all about it.  They tripped over themselves with encouraging words.

So whatever happens (and I honestly have no idea--I'm long on enthusiasm and short on job experience), having such a support system buoying me up feels like I'm a lucky girl.  (Also, he didn't know about the interview, but Enoch called.  He was super supportive too and over the course of the conversation, I was the bearer of the sad news that elementary kids don't have P.E. everyday.  Homeschooled kids, am I right?)

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Braeden and Anna flew into Salt Lake City last night, getting to the airport at midnight.  I am in no way equipped to drive to SLC at midnight.  Adam, as mentioned is out of town.  Emma is the real MVP.  She has her dad's night owl genes.  Letting your kids grow up sometimes pay dividends (like when you can go to sleep).

In another bout of grown girl awesomeness, with a little help from Mark, she made dinner last night.

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Adam told me he's coming home a day earlier than expected.

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Emma and I went shopping last night.  Such a simple thing, but how I love being able to do mundane things with my big kids.  I miss them.

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Mark's doppelgänger at school is a delight in my life.  He wrote a rollicking tale of a pizza box who ate people and they lived inside the box's stomach, living on (you guessed it) pizza that "regenerated."

He thought of everything.

Then a "heroic hero" came along and tricked the pizza box into swallowing a "harmless explosion" that freed all the people.  Only the pizza box didn't survive.

He asked me yesterday if I'll still come and get him when he's in 4th grade.  It's a complicated answer because I'm hoping to be a teacher, but I would dearly love to still work with that guy on writing.

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I slept until 6:20 this morning which is some sort of miracle.  I've been waking up dismayingly early. It may have been aided by benadryl.

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Little things add up.

(Also I'm reading a really good book.)

The highs and lows

When Braeden was a few weeks old, I took him to a doctor's appointment.  I've been a hot mess many times in my life but that period of time was one of the worst.  I was completely overwhelmed and had postpartum depression and felt anxious about every aspect of everything.

At the doctor's office, the kind nurse unwrapped Braeden from his careful layers.  She must have sensed my complete deer in the headlights demeanor.  She said, "I can tell he is very well cared for.  You are a great mom."

It felt like I was drowning and someone had cast a lifeline to me.  I cherished her compliment and felt like maybe I could do this.  Maybe.

It's probably the last time I felt good about someone telling me I was a great mom.

Braeden and Anna stayed with Rebecca Justesen in Virginia Beach.  She's the same lady who stayed overnight with Braeden in the hospital while he was serving a mission and makes the short list of people to whom I am the most indebted in life.  She is obviously 1) an extremely kind lady and 2) very fond of Braeden.

Those two things are reasons why she sent me this text:

I felt grateful for her kindness but it also made me cringe.  Even though her hyperbole came from a place of gracious love, it really isn't true.

When our kids do something great, I usually credit it to Heavenly Father blessing me with great kids.  They came that way.  When they make bad choices, I feel like a failed mother.  I know I can't take the blame if I don't take the credit.  Since I don't feel like I should take the credit, I shouldn't take the blame. (But that is hard sometimes.)

Motherhood is a wild ride.  I've never felt so much joy or anguish.  I've lost more sleep as they get older than I ever did when they were infants.  I love these three with a fierceness that I never imagined and often my mama bear instinct to protect them is aimed at them.

I honestly can't imagine people  who have ten children.  Three have me maxed out.

Also, the most difficult parts of motherhood are the ones that have taught me the most.  When I am confronted with a child that is floundering in one way or another, I feel all the normal mix of disappointment and regret and frustration but I also feel a whole lot of love toward the child.

I can picture our Heavenly Father feeling the same way.  I picture Him shaking His head and wishing I made better choices so I could be happier.  But I picture Him loving me all the same.  I picture Him wanting me to reach for the help He has already planned on me needing.

So, I'm not the best mom ever.  I'm a mom who is struggling along.  I'm a mom who is trying.  I'm a mom who loves her kids.  I'm a mom like everyone else.  I'm also a mom who is very grateful for people that love my children so much, they think I deserve some sort of extra credit.

There are good people in this good world.

(And I'm so grateful I get to be mother to three of them.)

Everyday magic

Yesterday there was a swarm of yellow butterflies around the blossoming tree in our front yard.  A swarm.  And then a gust of wind came along and they were gone.

Sometimes things don't last long enough to take a picture.

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Also yesterday, since I wasn't working, Emma was my buddy.  We cleaned the pantry and went to Costco and she was my sidekick like she was a toddler but I 100% guarantee it was harder when she was a toddler.  We also did some weeding and she mowed the lawn.  She's working on getting a summer job to supplement her theater job but in the meantime, I will relish the time.

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My dear friend Marie Louise came over and we worked on family history together, like we do.  I consider her family to be my family and she showed me some pictures from Family Search of some of them and she found that one of "our" family members was killed during a bombing raid in World War II and she had a picture of a memorial to him and others in the town that were killed at the same time.

These are more than just names on a screen.  I am fully intending to 1) go to Berkshire someday which I'm increasingly familiar with and 2) meet all these people in heaven.  Even though they all have the same names and marry people that have the same names as their parents which confuses me regularly, I have infinite fondness for all of them.

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Desi came over for dinner last night.  We got to catch up on her Hawaiian adventures and just bask in the sunshine she takes with her wherever she goes.  Nieces were a very good invention.

Sunshine in my soul today

We had a weekend of beautiful sunshine and blustery wind and some dark clouds and driving rain.

So the weekend weather pretty much reflects real life.

One thing I took away from Women's Conference is that life is hard.  I listened to remarkable men and women tell their stories and I could see that through their life experiences and through the choices they had made to turn to the Savior in their need, they changed.  They survived and felt peace and joy and became...remarkable.

I went about stealing pictures this morning to post:

From Hannah's instagram I grabbed this.  My aunt Olivia and cousin Hannah.  Two of the best women I know.

This is from Olivia's blog.  And Hannah gave us a hint to be more photogenic after we took the picture.  I don't know if it would have helped me or not....

I loved spending time with them all.  Emma had already left before we took that picture.  It meant a lot to me to be there with her.

Braeden and Anna have been in Virginia and having a great time.  It makes me happy to think about them there, even though I miss both of them.

Anna's mom, Amy, texted me this picture:

That's Anna's cute brother Owen.

Braeden texted me these pictures from Monticello:

I just gave him a short haircut before they left but the curls are winning.

He texted me this one this morning as they crossed the border into his mission.  They're spending some time there, going to a dinner party orchestrated by Stella.

Look at the joy on that boy's face.

You can't be uncheered by that.

Grateful Friday

OK Marianne.  I hear you.

And I woke up early so I decided I had time for a quick blog post.

I have so much to be grateful for and I'd love to get it down in this record of sorts.

Women's Conference has been just what I needed.  One day down and another to go and I woke up happy with the realization that I'm going back.

I loved being with Emma.  The older the better is my relationship with that girl.  We had lunch together and told each other about the separate classes we had attended and I loved her insights.  I loved being with my aunt Olivia and cousin Hannah.  We didn't spend a lot of time together during the day but after the last session I went back with them to their dorm and Olivia and Hannah sat on one bed and I sat on the other and we talked.  My sister Olivia came in and asked if we were going to dinner or should she take a nap.  I said, "We can go to dinner.  I'm just getting some free therapy here."

Because sitting there talking to those good women felt that way.

I loved being with Olivia and her mini me, Lili.  I spent most of the day with them.  There is such a comfortable ease with sisters (and sisters' daughters).  There's nothing like it.  We talked together and walked together and shopped together and laughed together and cried together and sewed "courage capes" together which was one of the service projects you could do while you watched.

We finally went to dinner and Adam joined us (he was my ride because Emma left early to go to work).  That only made everything better.

My joy was full.

More than all of that, I loved feeling the Spirit and hearing words of truth that spoke to my soul.  I felt comforted and empowered and like I had a new perspective on everything.  I'm grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It means the world to me.

XOXOXO

I'm off to Women's Conference today and tomorrow.  Sadly Marianne and my mom won't be there but Olivia and Lili will which is consolation.  Also, Emma is going which I love.

See you back here next week.

Music night

Monday night Adam decided to have a music night.  When our kids were younger, we'd regularly have music nights.  Everyone got to pick a song and Adam would play them on the computer and set the computer to make a visual display of the music.  I think there's probably a name for that but I don't know it.

We would listen to the music and guess who picked what.

Last night everyone just sent their songs from their phones to the Sonos speaker.  Times have changed.

It made me so happy to have these three there, listening to music.

Mark was apparently really feeling the music

Soon the kids moved to the floor.  That's how they used to listen on music nights back in the day (except they didn't used to wave their arms...I don't know).

I moved over to the couch with Adam and we had several rounds of song picks.

It was one of those times when you look around and feel happy and blessed.  Everyone kind of landed into a zen state.

There's a lot to love about this world.  The cherry on top was a glorious sunset.