Grateful Friday

The other day I drove past The Purple Turtle and I thought, it was about this time last year that Braeden had his surgery.  The Purple Turtle always reminds me of sitting in the parking lot there talking to Rebecca Justesen on the phone while she was at the hospital with Braeden.  I looked back on my blog, which is in every way my journal and personal history.  Yep, about a year ago.

Rereading that post brought back all the memories of anxiety but mostly made me really really grateful.  I'm grateful Braeden got to serve and finish his mission.  I'm grateful for the amazingly kind people who took care of him.  I'm grateful for the bizarre experience of him coming home, twice.  It was great to see him and I think upped the empathy around here for missionaries that return home early.  I'm grateful he healed from all his ailments.

I'm grateful this year is here instead of last year.

I've learned things about adversity in the past few years.  I wouldn't want to relive that time or wish it on anyone but I'm so grateful for all the times that rotten things have turned me and the people I love to the Lord for comfort and peace and lifelines.

Without troubles, the Atonement of Jesus Christ would be a theory.  It would be something we learn about and that sounds good.  When we are in the midst of things that feel out of our control and out of our scope for help and healing, that is when we test the theory.  That is when we fall to our knees and just plead for help.

That is when the help comes.  It may not magically repair everything, but we are given the strength to go just a little further.  We can keep trying.  We feel buoyed in unmistakeable but hard to explain ways.

I am grateful.

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Here's one more thing to be grateful for:  Mark's backpack was found!  We prayed it would be and it was!  Hurray!

Rats

As further proof that I can't keep bad things from happening to my kids, Mark's backpack was stolen yesterday.

He left it somewhere, thinking it would be fine and it...wasn't.  Someone took it.

The backpack itself was nothing fancy and not a big deal.  What was inside it was a bigger deal.  Aaaaaall his schoolwork.  He has/had an enormous binder with assignments and papers from every class.  The kid who stole the backpack was probably hoping for electronics or cash or something inside and only got school work and probably just threw it away.

(We searched all the dumpsters outside the school.  No luck.)

I had the thought that this is a learning experience for Mark.  He will learn that he has to pay attention to where he leaves his stuff.  He has to be more careful.

I hate these kinds of learning experiences though.  I hate the learning experiences where our children learn the world is less safe than they thought.

Braeden and Emma and Mark started the world with wide-eyed wonder, ready to trust anything and everyone and every time something like this happens, they learn to trust less.  We all do.  It makes me sad.

Here's what doesn't make me sad.  Mark emailed his teachers last night to tell them what had happened because he's going to need some mercy extended as he tries to reconstruct all the notes and assignments he has lost.  Mrs. Braithwaite, his history of civilization teacher and now one of my favorite people in the world, answered him (Mark's email comes to me too, so that's how I know):

Mark, I am so so sorry!!!!!!!!!! Don’t worry about the assignments for my class! I know that you were caught up with everything so tomorrow we will just go copy someone else’s papers so you can have all the notes/assignments. It’s too bad there are stupid people in this world. But seriously don’t worry about anything for my class, we’ll get everything tomorrow!

It's hard to despair too much about the world when there are such kind and compassionate teachers.

Mark breaks things

I could catalog a long list of things belonging to Adam and me that Mark has broken.  Furniture, car doors, and lots (and lots) of decorative things.  I can now add the microwave to the list.

His destructive tendencies are just part of the Mark package.  Also, this is what I see when I see Mark so I can't manage to stay mad at him for longer than 20 seconds.

A few nights ago he was using the microwave and through some extra oomph that he gave the door (Mark = extra oomph), it broke.  It won't latch properly and so the microwave won't work.

Mark was apologetic and wanted to try to fix it.  He is good at fixing things, which is nice considering how he breaks things.  He wondered if we could get a new latch or just a new door.  He's ready and willing to do whatever he can to make it right.

I told him I didn't think buying microwave parts was a thing.  I don't know.

Adam and I talked about it and decided that since Mark is the main one that uses the microwave (with the 2-3 extra meals he has every day), maybe we'd just wait awhile to replace it.  We don't want Mark to think that he can throw the microwave door around and we'll just buy a new one for him to mistreat.  We want him to feel the consequences for awhile.

Then last night when I was making dinner I needed the microwave to heat up some frozen vegetables.

So we find ourselves riding that razor sharp line of making kids feel consequences and not wanting to feel them ourselves.  We may get a new one sooner than we thought....

I won't be writing a parenting book any time soon.

A collection of gladness

Mark told me that he thinks he loves me more than most boys his age love their mothers.

There's a reason that kid is sort of spoiled rotten.

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I love tutoring my dear students.  I love dreaming and scheming about ways to help them and then sitting on the floor in front of my book case of chapter books and picking books to tempt them.

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Emma has a concert tonight and I love Emma's concerts.  Watching her face while she sings fills my soul.

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This is Us is destroying me.  How can I love a show that makes me cry ugly tears every time I watch it?  I don't know.  But I do love it.

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Sunday afternoon Adam was napping and Emma was sick so she hadn't come over and Mark had disappeared in the basement.  Braeden and I lay on the couch, heads on opposite ends (it's a big couch) and talked.  Those are the kind of moments I treasure as a mother.  Those are the kinds of things you can't put a price on.

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Also on Sunday we watched a few family videos at Braeden's request.  Adam and I talked later about how fortunate we have been.  What a happy life we've had.

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I read a great article in the January Ensign Helping Children Choose.  A really hard part of parenting for me is that line where you give them autonomy.  You can ask my kids; I'm not great at it.  I turn the reins over to them then I give a million suggestions.  I told Braeden that he had to buy his own clothes from now on and then I bought him a bunch of new clothes.  I realized the other day that everyone I talk to about college/adult children and their independence has a slightly different strategy.  Everyone I talk to handles the finances and decisions and self sufficiency a little differently.

And everyone's kids are turning out more or less OK.

One of the great blessings of motherhood is the resilience of children as I struggle along, over thinking and dripping self doubt and half-baked ideas.  The kids are OK, despite me.  They're OK.

A lot of sports for a drama mama

Friday Mark and I went to Provo High School to watch Adam referee.  I'm not exactly a supportive wife when it comes to watching Adam referee.  Or maybe I'm too supportive.  I get mad when people yell at him.

He doesn't.

He can separate people yelling at Adam and people yelling at the referee.

I can't.

Anyway.

Mark and I went to watch.  Provo was playing Timpanogos.  Mark immediately decided he was rooting for Timpanogos, so I decided I was on Provo's side.  I reasoned that I used to live right by the school (which is next to BYU).

It is fun to go to a basketball game with Mark.  (It's fun to do a lot of stuff with Mark.)  We weren't super interested in the game but made lots of side comments.

For example, one of the cheerleaders' (who were tiny girls with enormous white bows on their heads) favorite chants was, "We are Pro-vo."

Mark thought that was helpful for people that are color blind.  Just keep everyone on the same page.

At one point the Timpanogos coach was unhappy and summoned Adam over to the bench.  Because Adam is completely unflappable and doesn't get sucked into any angst players or coaches have, he just kind of said nah, I'm good to the coach and kept refereeing.  It cracked me up.  I had been giving Braeden and Emma a running narration of our happenings, like you do, so I texted them about it.  They were slightly more confrontational than Adam:

This is why Adam is a referee and the rest of us aren't.

(That and we don't know all the rules.)

After the game we ate dinner (5 Star BBQ, Mark got ribs so all was right with the world) then went to the BYU men's volleyball game.  It was fun and lively even though BYU lost.

Mark bought a cougar tail (an enormous maple bar) and a little girl in front of him was definitely giving him the stink eye the entire time.  I guess she wanted some too.

Saturday we went to the BYU women's basketball game.  It was also a lot of fun but BYU lost that game too.

I got to see Stephanie, chat just a tiny bit and give her a hug so it was time well spent.

We didn't watch the Super Bowl.  I think I had met my quota for sporting events.

Grateful Friday

Yesterday as I was changing the calendar to February, I changed my chalkboard too.

February + Valentine's Day made me start thinking about Adam.

While I was mopping the kitchen floor, I was pondering (mopping = good time for pondering) just what it is about Adam.  Whenever he's taken a personality test, he lands right in the middle.  He's hard to define.

Is he defined by his wit?

He makes me laugh everyday.  Granted, it isn't hard to make me laugh.  Just yesterday Mark said, "It's so easy to make you laugh.  If there was a class on making people laugh, you would be the mid-term for the first quarter."

Still.  Even though I'm easily amused, Adam is funny.

Is he defined by his smarts?

He's super smart.  He's expanded my awareness of more things than I can count.  He challenges us to think about other sides of issues.  He always has.

Is he defined by his dad-ness?

Awhile ago Emma told him he was being Extra when he made one of his Dad Jokes.  He is thoroughly a dad and it makes me love him more and more.  He's always been a very hands on dad.  (Last weekend we watched a family video of Braeden's first Christmas and Adam's parents were on the floor with the babies the whole time and I was reminded of where Adam comes from.  I have his good parents to thank not only for him but for illustrating hands on involvement to him.)  He is the one that patiently made our boys try again when they were being surly about some chore.  He is the one that can occasionally talk Emma into something.  He is the one who helped with church talks and scout stuff.  He's still the one Braeden wants to look over his papers.  (As we all know Adam = excellent writer.)

Is he defined by his strength in adversity?

I've seen Adam knocked flat but he intentionally works to not be bitter, to be steady, to not let whatever has happened define him or distract from his role as husband and father.  There have been times when we both were knocked flat and he was still the strong one.  Always.

Is he defined by his spontaneity?

One night we had finished a British cooking show (which is one of the best TV genres in the world) and they had made a lemon meringue pie.  Mark said he had never had a lemon meringue pie.  "What?!?" Adam said.  "Get in the car, we're going to Kneaders."

It was late on a school night and Mark and I were both in our pajamas but we got in the car and he drove to Kneaders which was still open, but barely.  Mark and I stayed in the car, listening to a podcast about succession in U.S. presidents because that is the kind of stuff Adam listens to and Adam went in for the pie.  They didn't have any but he came back with a little key lime pie and a small lemon cake.  He handed us forks and told us to eat them on the way home, splitting each dessert.

(If you know the roads in Pleasant Grove, you know it takes a certain level of bravery to eat while driving.)

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I ran out of floor to mop before I came up with the answer of just what it is about Adam.   Whatever the answer, I'm grateful every day that he's mine.

Transcript

three of the best people I know

Emma:  Mark looks the most like Mom; Braeden looks like Dad.

Me:  And you look like your aunts.

Emma:  And Mark is the best looking. (She gave me a high five--since he looks the most like me.)

Braeden:  Wait.  Are you saying Mark is the best looking?  Because I legit thought he was the ugly brother.

This picture is from last September--were they fighting about who was the handsome one?

The next day Mark and I were laughing about the conversation and Mark said in a voice like he was narrating:  Everything changed for Braeden that day.  He realized his life up to that point had been a lie.