Happy Mothers Day

I know that here, on this very blog, sometimes.... I gush.

I gush about my kids the most probably.

And then there are the days that I gush about my husband.

The other day at Justin's graduation party at school a friend of his asked me for our blog address and I was almost embarrassed to give it to her because I know (I know!) that I gush here all the time.

 

 

But, I guess, it's my blog and I can gush if I want to. And so, today, it is my Mother's turn.

 

Get ready, Mom.

 

Although I've always felt loved and accepted in my family, for the last 10 or 15 years or so I've never really felt like I've "fit in". My family has a big ranch with horses and cattle, they farm some of the acreage and have dogs and chickens. They wear cowboy boots. They hunt and ride and brand.

 

And that's just not me. In high school I dreamed of moving to New York City. I talked of being a lawyer. I'm uncomfortable on a horse. I spend too much money on my clothes and somehow it seems like whenever I'm at my parents house we end up tromping through the desert and I'm always wearing the wrong shoes.

 

I love my family dearly, and I love their lifestyle. A trip to their house is akin to Disneyland for my children and they talk of nothing but "riding horses with Uncle Luke" and "the chickens hiding in their house" for weeks after every visit. I love that my children will be exposed to that lifestyle, but it's a lifestyle that's just never been "me". My Dad and my brother put up with my lack of skills here with good humor, but I watch my sister connect with them on long horseback rides and see the ease with which she handles the all things "country" and I envy her. I wish that I could do that. When it comes to these things, I'm on the outside.

 

But then, there is my Mother.

 

With her I always feel at home. My Mom knows me. She knows who I am. She knows me from when I was little and she knows me now, as an adult. She really knows me. She accepts me and never expects me to be anything but exactly what I want to be. Although sometimes she doesn't understand how I dress or live, or why I enjoy spending hours decorating a three layer cake, she knows that that's who I am.

 

This weekend we went down to visit since Beth was blessing her baby. And multiple times while we were there I was surprised and touched by my Mother's insightfulness and kindness. She included Justin in our celebratory party and made a big deal about him graduating from ISU. She even went to the trouble of finding black and orange cake toppers for the cake that she made. We received two very generous graduations presents from she and my Dad. She casually told Justin "you'll love Portland, you and Becky love the city". She gave me a thoughtful Mother's Day gift with a small book in it that I read when I got home today that had me in tears. When she teared up twice as we left her house today I realized that she is going to have a hard time seeing us move so far away. But she's never said anything about that, she's always been positive and supportive in our decisions.

 

As I was sitting on my couch today when we got home, looking through the book that she gave me the biggest thing that just kept going through my mind was,

 

"my Mom knows who I am"

 

and that means so much to me. More than I could ever express to her.

 

Thank you Mom, for taking the time and making the effort to know me. For listening to me talk about myself and my problems for hours on end. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for loving my husband and my children. Thank you for being the best Grandma in the world. Thank you for the countless small thoughtful things that you do. Thank you for forgiving me when I'm in a hurry and leave your house too fast, or when I forget to do something that you've asked me to. Thank you for supporting me and always being positive.

 

When it comes to being generous, kind, selfless, and thoughful you will always be a step ahead of me, but that just means that I have a great example to live up to.

 

You're truly the most wonderful woman that I know.

 

I love you.

 

Happy Mother's Day.

onward

Summer has been driving me crazy.


It's never been my favorite season (I'm just not built for this heat!) but this year has been the worst.

Despite my previous fears, we came to love Audrey's school. And she loved it more than we did. She thrived, made friends, and was full of new discoveries every day when I picked her up. She blossomed with the structure of it. And now the long, slow days that are too hot to go to the park leave her anxious and rowdy, bored and grouchy.

Justin and I are pretty grouchy ourselves. It's no secret that we're not really happy with our present situation here, but it's bearable as long as we're moving forward. Since we started this process over a year ago there's never really been any down-time. Now with Justin's first semester off it's surprisingly frustrating for both of us to feel as if we're just spinning our wheels for three months when there's so much to be done. Justin's working at the university and getting a lot of good experience but we kind of want to just get on with things already.

Last Sunday after church and dinner we packed up the kids and drove into the hills above Pocatello. It was good to get out of the blasted heat and we rolled down the windows of the car to feel the breeze and smell the sagebrush and pine tree smell. The views were beautiful. We snapped some pictures. We saw some wild turkeys. We talked about the future. It's so easy right now to get caught up in the small details of daily living. The tenants, and the broken air conditioners, the 3 credit classes and the ugly carpet in the living room. When I look at things like that, caught down in the thick of things where I can't see the whole picture it is slow and tedious and depressing. Driving up to the mountains that day was a reminder to look at the big picture. That all those small tiresome tedious details that drive me crazy on a daily basis are just a part of our bigger goal. That when we get done it will all be worth it.

And then, on the way back down Audrey exclaimed, "Mom! Look at that tree, it's turning yellow!" And sure enough, it was. We spotted a few more before we made it to the bottom- small trees with a few yellow and red leaves mixed into the branches of bright green. It got us excited. Apparently, even when it doesn't feel like it, time does indeed march on. And so here we go.

On to fall. On to school and learning, progressing. On to graduation, and then on to grad school. On to the next thing.

I usually clean vacant apartments after the kids are asleep in bed. While I clean I listen to music. I don't have a stereo or fancy speakers- just my phone, but in the empty apartment the sound echos off the bare walls and it's just loud enough. Tonight it was just me and Carol King. (and a pretty big spider that I had to kill all by myself.)

A few weeks ago we traveled down to Delta, Utah to attend a family reunion on my Mom's side. A lot of the reunion was devoted to remembering my Grandpa Fred, my Mom's father, who passed away 11 years ago. His death was unexpected and hard on the family and my Grandma wanted to make sure that his 57 grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew about his life. I'm one of the older grandchildren so I remember a lot about him. There was a lot of talk about his work ethic and I already knew that he was a hard worker. My Mom had told me that there was never a time she could remember when he didn't have at least three jobs. I could see proof of it when we visited. He was a farmer and I remember him always dressed in his blue work shirt and black engineer boots. I remember him coming in late from the farm. He also owned his own trucking company and among other trips made a haul down to California at least once a week. I remember the white index card taped to the wall next to the door to the garage with his list of things to pack and do before he left each week. At the reunion they passed out t-shirts that have a picture of a big 18 wheeler truck on them with the words "Fred's Fleet" emblazonned at the top.

My Mom helped my Grandpa with all those hard jobs. She was awake at 4 am to go farm before she went to school. She learned to drive an 18 wheeler and made many many trips with him down to California. When she went to Rick's College far away from her family in Rexburg, Idaho she didn't have a car. She took a full load of classes during the day and walked everywhere she went, then after dinner she would walk the 2 miles down a hill to the restaurant where she worked as a dish washer. She would wash dishes through the night into the early morning and then make the long dark walk back up the hill to her apartment where she would get the few hours of sleep that she could before getting up to do it all again the next day.

The other day a particularly harried tenent was in my living room with complaints and then out of the blue asked, "how do you do it?" He knows that Justin goes to school full time and works at the museum, as well as helping me with the apartments and mowing the lawns. He listed how I have two kids and take care of all the paperwork involved here and clean apartments. He asked again,  "Are you just super organized or something?" I told him I wasn't really sure what the secret was and then shocked him more when I mentioned our church responsibilities on top of everything else.

His question surprised me at the time but it's true, we've never been so busy, I've never worked so hard in my life. Kids, housework, scheduling, driving, cooking, paperwork, conference calls, maintenance issues, showing apartments, and dealing with tenant problems during the day then cleaning apartments late into the night.

But I'm proud. I'm realizing how life really is- there are no free rides, no short cuts. There is only hard work and integrity and working, really working for your goals. I now have stories to tell my children about cleaning toilets and showers late at night while my babies were sleeping to put my young husband through school so that we could all have a better life. I really am discovering that 'I can do hard things.'

Every night, as I put on my old jeans and moccassins and pull my "Fred's Fleet" t-shirt over my head to go clean I'm hopeful that I'm setting the same example for Audrey and David that my Mom set for me and that her Father set for her.

cravings

Right now I am craving brownies.

However, I have recently lost 52 pounds (that number is embarrassingly high) by NOT eating things like brownies, so I will have a slice of sprouted wheat toast with peanut butter and sliced banana on top. 180 calories. 

But maybe tomorrow I will convince Justin to take me to Great Harvest to get one of their to-die-for brownies that I will buy intending to only eat a few bites and end up eating most of the whole thing right there in the store. And I'll watch Audrey put butter on her own thick crumbly slice of cinnaburst (her favorite) and I'll feed bites of chewy chocolate into Davy's waiting mouth. Or maybe not. I shouldn't. Is it weird that I daydream about carbs?

Today I noticed that Davy's two front teeth are coming in a little crooked. And I think that's adorable. I just know it will only enhance his already charming, messy, crazy, happy little boy persona.

I dedicate my time these days to soaking up the last of his babyhood. I can feel it slipping away. And I want to remember what it sounds like when he runs down the hall with only one sock on: muffled step, slap, muffled step, slap. I want to remember how serious he gets when I hand him his little cup of cheerios and how he runs to the dishwasher to get a spoon out to stir and eat them. I need to capture in my mind the image of the cheesy, squinty eyed grin that he gives me as he lifts his chubby arms to be picked up from the floor, and the way he runs to the corner next to the bookshelf when he gets in trouble. Even last night I scooped him up out of bed while he was still asleep and his little head tipped back and his hands came up to his body in little fists and I thought "I have to remember this."

But I know that it's futile. The blogging and the thousands of pictures help, but no matter how furiously I document, and how many daily facts and stories I dutifully inscribe in his baby book it will never be the same as it is now. I'll look back and be shocked at how little he was, amazed that the grown up boy that I look at daily could ever have been so chubby and squishy.

I know because of Audrey. I missed out on the first three months of her life and then the rest of her tiny time flew by. Although I did cherish every moment with her (infertility will do that to you) I wasn't able to comprehend how quickly she would turn into this beautiful, lithe, smart, inquisitive, girl. And yet, even though she is so big to me now- opening her own car door and buckling her own seat belt, asking questions that make me pause before I answer them, making her own toast- I know that I'll experience the same phenomenon in just a few years again: "How could she be so young?" "Remember when Audrey was only 4 and asked about her birthday every single day?" These will be the questions that I'll ask myself.

Is this the ultimate paradox of motherhood then? Trying to stop the constant sway of time all the while helping to move it along? Wanting to stop them in their tracks, to keep them just the way they are while encouraging them to grow and teaching them new skills? It's bittersweet, for sure. And it keeps me constantly anxious and perplexed.

I think we'll go for that brownie.

Weekend Observations

-warm out of the oven biscuits with sausage gravy on a chilly, rainy morning is oh so good

-Audrey is so yummy in the morning when she's all sleepy and warm and her hair is all messy. I heard someone once describe matted baby hair as cotton candy and it is- just blonde spun sugar.

-moving out of town to the suburbs has brought with it a great view of the mountains. Love it.

-Justin's days off are best left unplanned. We have more fun that way.

-We love BYU. After learning even a little bit about their program and the honorable young men playing football there I don't know how anyone wouldn't love them.

-Christmas is coming so quickly and I'm totally ready. Bring it on. Can't wait to put up a tree for Audrey to mess up.

-Our cats seem to be liking it outside. Martha prowls on top of the backyard fence and Chester even caught a mouse. Chester! Our lazy whiny Chester is a dangerous hunter. Who knew.

-I want to see the new Indiana Jones but have heard it wasn't that great. Thank you redbox.

-Audrey is amazing and learning new things so quickly. During dinner we discovered that all this dancing and twirling and half yelling/singing thing she's been doing lately is the Backyardigans song. Yeah, she loves them.

-I need a haircut.

-Is it normal to have this much fun with your baby? Cause I'm having A LOT of fun. How did I get such a wonderful family?

Trivial Thursday Observations

Just got the new Pottery Barn magazine. (don't roll your eyes, my camera is broken so instead of pictures of my goregous baby you get a picture of a gorgeous dining room.)



-I love pottery barn. I can't afford most of the things in the catalog, but they're so pretty to look at.

-I am so excited to see all the fall colors and especially the 2-3 pages of Halloween decorations in the very back.

-The rooms that really seem to catch my attention and make me feel at home are the ones that you can see backdrops of mountains and trees out the windows. Like you could literally walk oustide into a forest or a garden. The city-scape ones? Not so much. Apparently, despite what my sister says, I'm just a little more rural than I thought.

Isn't this dining room great? Someday mine will look like that.

Sunday Observations

-As we passed the church that is less than a block away from our house and drove the three miles to our building we commented once again that it feels like we've moved to Utah. Who knew that South Boise was actually North Utah? Pulling into the parking lot of our church and noticing all the BYU stickers and license plate covers only confirmed this thought. Justin is in heaven.

-Despite the fact that we don't know anyone yet, this ward feels like home. There are a lot of older people and families and everything seems to be just a little more laid back. Also, when they passed the sacrament Justin leaned over to me and whispered "sweet, we're back to the plastic sacrament cups!" Yeah, it's a Wendell thing.

-I'm ready for Audrey to go to nursery. I know that in three months when she's old enough I'll be nervous about leaving her to go to my meetings but she's so anxious to get down and play after sitting through Sacrament meeting that I know she'll love it in there where she can run around and play with toys. This thought occured to me as I was taking her out of Relief Society after she started jabbering SO LOUDLY in the middle of the lesson and threw crackers all over the poor lady that was sitting next to me.

-Audrey is so stinkin' cute. This picture is of her in just her onesie and pigtails after we took off her church dress. She keeps going to the den and getting this one particular book and carrying it around the house. Way funny.

-I love our new house

-Nothing beats sitting on the couch next to my husband with my baby snuggled in my lap watching a funny movie like 'Night at the Museum' on a lazy Sunday afternoon