23 Days

Dallin's Schedule:

Portland, Oregon
Boston, Massachusetts
Portland, Maine
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vanderhoof, British Columbia
Campbell River, British Columbia
Portland, Oregon

Total Distance: 8,396 Miles
via Airplane, Car & Ferry

Sariah's Schedule:

Seminary
Soccer Practice
Soccer Games
Swimming Lessons
Violin Lessons
Piano Lessons
Pre-School
High School
Middle School
Elementary School
Kindergarten
Church
Store
& More

Total Distance: 396 miles
via Car, Foot, Bus & Bike

It's hard to know who will be more tired on October 4th.

Looking forward to October 5th. 

House Rules

If you get dressed by yourself then you get to choose your own outfit. 
Even if it's a school day.

NIGHT ONE

I thought that nothing could be worse than cleaning up the hot dogs that look identical coming up to going down.

NIGHT TWO

It turns out, though, that cleaning up digestible foods is significantly worse than cleaning up indestructible ones. 

vig·il /ˈvijəl/

noun

1. 

a period of keeping awake during the time usually spent asleep, especially to keep watch or pray

 

 

there's something about a nighttime vigil with a sick child

when you can relax into it.

something sweet about the silence

something inviting about the comforting

something lovely about it.

 

unless you're worried

or scared

or hopeless.

then it's something completely different. 

 

Darn It!

Sometimes several years can go by and it feels that life is much the same as it has been.

But other times,

Naomi looks like a woman and smiles confidently as she leaves for high school.

Marko runs off to his kindergarten line because he already knows where it is.

And the game of pretending that Lucy is still a baby gets a bit ridiculous as she tells me that "Technically if a peregrine falcon didn't have wings it wouldn't be a bird." 

Darn those other times, when I realize that this stage is slipping away. 

Driven

I know people who are driven,
almost by impulse,
to compose music
or write beautiful prose,
or sketch,
or create poetry.

I'm sad to admit
that I just want to talk,

...so I  blog.

I didn't know last night...

...that it was their last day as little guys
sharing a pink and blue room
with a rocking chair.
I didn't know
when I tucked them in
that today they'd move on
to big bunk beds
and separate rooms.

Darn Craigslist
for having a great deal
on bunk beds that matched
Chas's bedroom set.

Lucy's Heartfelt Wish Revealed

"Ohhh!  I wish I could've been born on MY birthday!"

(After she discovered that Marko was born on his birthday.)

Conversations with Lucy during the Sacrament

"The Wise Men brought Jesus presents.  Would you like to give Jesus a gift?"

Yes

"What present would you like to give Jesus?"

A hotel to be born in.

"The present Jesus really wants from us is for us to be kind.  Would you like to give that present to Jesus?"

But he couldn't open it.

Before & After

Before:

 

After:

 

Stay tuned (for 3 years) to see the real AFTER pictures. 

Good Luck, Beautiful Kid!

First Day of School 2013

 

 

 

A Highlight of My Summer:

Merinda and I spoke at Girls Camp.

A Highlight of My Life:

Merinda and I met at Girls Camp.

 

Second Cousins

Standing in line at the water slide
One second cousin says to the other second cousin,
"In our family we play this game called Beaver."
"We play that game too!!"
"We Beaver red hair, horses, clothes on a line, and motorcycles."
"We used to Beaver those, but now we Beaver..."

Three days ago, they probably wouldn't have recognized each other on the street.
But, yet they are cousins.  Related through a Grandmother neither of them remembers.
And mysteriously linked by an old fashioned travel game that spanned 4 generations.

Thank heaven for traditions!
And family reunions.
And long drives from Iowa or Washington that unify us to our second cousins.

 

Brooksish

as in Spanish, Swedish, Finnish... 

After a while, you develop your own dialect.  At the Tower of Babel languages divided families from each other.  In our case, our dialect, in a strange way, unifies us. 

Famine--The tendency of all 13 boxes of tissues around the house to run empty at approximately the same time.

Binge--Mom's current fad of cooking cuisine. That is, all Mexican food for a month, sushi every week for six months, fondue twice a week for the summer. 

Concoction--Attempting to hide vegetables or fruit in a smoothie drink or muffin mix.  Concoctions' rate of success is 50%.

"Probably watered down"--The polite thing to say when something tastes awful.

"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard"--"That's what I just said," or "That was my idea first."

"It's probably a tumeh (tumor)." -- "It's hypochondria."

The Abyss--The roaming location that swallows things like putty knives, nail clippers, thermometers, and other essentials. 

Mt. Everest--The ridiculously high, didn't-we-have-a-warranty? middle of our king size bed that is at least 8 inches higher in elevation than the sides of the bed.

I Went to the Dentist Today

It turns out that flossing is still all the rage.

Too bad.

Not when I water the daisies

or the hydrangeas
or the the day lillies.

Not when I water the zucchini
or the carrots
or the pumpkins.

But when I water the roses,
I miss my grandmother.
She said roses like water.

And a lot of other wise things that stick with me.

The Price of Being a Therapist

9 O'Clock PM. 

Front Yard.

Chaos inside.

It's good to go to therapy. And it's good to be a therapist. 

It's probably therapeutic for the neighbors too.

American Medical Association Recommendations

I went to the Doctor today for an annual (read--first time ever) physical.

Apparently the annual Pap Smears that I've been avoiding are now recommended only once every five years.  I've been right on schedule then.

Also, those monthly "breast self-exams" with the little laminated charts in the shower that seem like such a waste of time, are, in fact, actually a waste of time.

I told her I was ahead of my time.

Next week I have a dentist appointment.  I bet he's going to tell me that flossing is a thing of the past. 

Getting my kids to clean the house

leaves me feeling like not a very nice person.

Dysfunction

For the record,

I did a Zumba Class today.

And a Core-something-or-other Class that was awful and painful and humiliating.

Then I came home.

Then I remembered the Boston Cream donuts in the cupboard that I'd hidden from my kids and myself.

Then I debated whether to eat the donuts after I just worked out for an hour and probably didn't burn off the calories of one donut.

Then I paused in my debate to take a picture of the donuts so that I could blog about my dysfunction.

Then I ate them both and chugged water from my exercise water bottle.

Dysfunction at work. 

Also for the record,  they were delicious.

dys·func·tion noun  \(ˌ)dis-ˈfəŋ(k)-shən\


1: impaired functioning

2: unhealthy behavior

A piece of my heart

fell off and got digested by my stomach tonight.

I took Eliza to Middle School Orientation.  My sweet, shorter-than-everyone, younger-than-some-4th- graders, best-friends-with-a-first-grader, happy Eliza. 

She was excited and nervous.  She jumped out of the car, held my hand and skipped as we walked into the school.  She held my hand through the heavy metal doors that led us into the school that smells remarkably like my middle school of 23 years ago. She held my hand as we waited in the crunched line of nervous children and supportive parents. 

I saw at once that we were in a different world than the one she occupies at home that is full of Barbies and fairy houses with our 7-year-old neighbor, Avengers shows with Chas, and cuddling with Dad.  I saw teeny-boppers dressed in their favorite "cool" outfit.  I saw kids navigating the complex road of who to say "Hi" to and how.

And then I knew that I had to tell her.  I leaned down and whispered, "Eliza,  sweetheart, I love you, and I love to hold your hand, and I know you're nervous, but 6th Graders don't really hold their moms' hands.  I'll still hold it if you want to..."

And she let go.  And a piece of my heart fell off to have said it.  Good luck, Eliza the Brave. 

 

The Cost of Therapy

I hear that therapy costs between $90 and $180/hour. 

Last week my far-away friend re-capped her therapy learnings for me.  It cost me several puddles in our new patches of grass seed while I let Marko and Lucy take turns watering them.

Most Mondays my walking buddy is a portable therapist.  It always costs sore calves. She walks too fast, but her insights are great.

Today, my phone therapy with my adored cousin cost me 9 (count them, NINE) Fruit-by-the-Foots, four episodes of Mighty Machines and Dinosaur Train, and one small sink area flood.

To those people who say that therapy is worth every penny, I whole heartedly agree!

Apologies

In the last year I've found myself in three conversations apologizing for members of my church as a whole.  Two of these conversations were in the last week. 

It's an awkward place for me to be.  I worry that an apology for behavior seems like an apology for belief.  And I'm confused about why there can be screwballs of all colors and creeds, but not mine.  And at the same time, I'm so sad that our church has the image or is portraying the messages I heard.

They talked about exclusion.  Exclusion from sleepover parties, cheerleading teams, neighborhoods, and heaven.  They talked about persistent invitations that made them angry.  That seemed like the opposite problem to exclusion, but I didn't think to point that out.  And they talked about control.  Parents choosing careers and spouses and all sorts of weird stuff I don't see.  They accused me of being blinded and brainwashed and laid-back about my religion.  I'm not sure which accusation hurt worse.

I'm not sure why I feel the need to apologize for all of us.  I think I'm ashamed.  It's possible that they misinterpreted their experiences.  But it's also possible that in the time-consuming responsibilities of the church, people in the neighborhood were left out.  It's possible that in our efforts to share our happiness, we convey pressure.  And it's probable that my religion, like all other groups in the world, has nut cases too.  Please don't let them define us.

Even though, I've heard how nice, how friendly, how family-centered we are far more times than I've heard the reverse, it still hurts.  I think it shatters my expectations of us as a people.  I feel like, considering all we know about the loving, merciful, parental nature of God; considering the number of hours we spend in classes that teach us how to apply Christ's principles to our lives; considering our very sincere desires to follow Jesus's example, we ought to be the kindest, most helpful, most inclusive people anyone ever encounters.  I know that I'm not, but that doesn't prevent me from expecting that "we" would be.

When I was a teenager, an old man with a hunched back and a warm smile told me not to forget that, "The Church is true, in spite of a few."  Ain't that the truth? 

A Glass Half Full

Joy comes only drops at a time, I've decided.

I've spent a lot of time looking for the faucet, and haven't found it yet.

Now I'm on a quest for a glass to hold my drops in.  I wouldn't want to lose any of them.  I need every single one.

Mother's Day II

Two Highlights from Mother's Day:

1.  The fingerprint on my iPhone lens that made all the photos look timeless and dreamy. 

It's my life--the dreaminess and the fingerprints.

 

2.  Eliza's card:  "My mum...is as special as Dogs to me."
 

Mother's Day

This post hit it bang on, I thought:

http://www.kathylynnharris.com/dear-moms-of-adopted-children/


And it led me to this one, which was pretty close to the mark:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lea-grover/dear-less-than-perfect-mom_b_3184445.html


My walking friend tells me that her mother hated Mother's Day every year for the last 40-some years.  My friend, on the other hand, spends every Mother's Day reflecting on her progress as a mother throughout the year.  Both strategies intimidate me a bit.

My cousin tells me that in England they call it Mothering Day.  It has a nice ring to it, she says.  I agree.

Mothering the verb, not the noun:  I spent the day mothering the people who live here.  Or mothering the adjective:  I have chosen a mothering life.  Either one, just not the noun.  The noun opens itself up to descriptive words that are so daunting: Good Mother, Bad Mother, Helicopter Mother, Strict Mother, Yelled-at-us-all-day-long Mother. 

I'm mothering my way through mortality.  (Did anyone else notice that it almost sounds like "muddling my way through?"  Well, I'm doing that too.)

Happy Mothering Day to all of us!

The Sweet

We waved good-bye to the boys and all their camping gear at 5:30.

The rest of us left for our girls' night out at 5:34.

30 minutes of traffic jam didn't bother us.  We were talking about crushes and first dates and kisses.

Ears pierced in the right spot this time.

Time for Build-A-Bear browsing, Bubble Tea, and Bath & Body Works.

Got sucked into buying a nail stamping kit from one of those mall center kiosks.

Wandered around looking for the highly recommended Sushi place at 8:30 at night. 

Finally found it and got stuffed for $28 of awesome sushi.  It was 50% off night.  Who knew?  

And Lucy wasn't too miserable and noisy even though bedtime was hours ago.

The conversations on the way home were insightful and intimate.

Sometimes life offers a very small sweet piece of bliss.  This was one of them. 


"...if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet--" 
(D&C 29:39)

I thought...

I thought that if I helped my kids as much as possible, they would become helpful kids.
It turns out, that it makes them helpless to tie their own shoes, put in their own pony-tails, or get their own drink of water.

I thought that if I discussed decisions with my children, that we would come to unifying consensuses. 
It's left me with arguments on every topic from every child every day.

I thought that if I ignored whining and tantrums that it would eliminate them.  That's what everybody tells you will happen.  They're wrong. 
It just makes the whining pervasive, the crying louder, and the tantrums more intense.

I thought that if we had very little screen time in our home that it would help our kids find useful, enlightening, creative, active things to do. 
It actually creates screen-starved children that will glue themselves to any baby show that Lucy might be watching or play solitaire on a one-inch screen with shoddy graphics late at night in their bedroom.

I thought that introducing children to a variety of foods would lead to a broad and accepting palette. 
It's actually led to so many determined preferences that making a meal is like navigating a mine field. 

I think I'm having second thoughts about it all.

Out of Balance

As a child, I loved to get the see-saw stuck perfectly balanced in the middle.  I loved how a heavier person could scoot up and a lighter person could scoot back to achieve balance.

In my adulthood, I still love it at the playground.  I would love it even more in my life. 

Balance in my life is more like a mathematical average than a teeter-totter stabilized in mid-air.  Chas's third grade math reminded me recently that there are four ways to look at average.  I'll refresh your memory:

MEAN--In a data set, the sum of all the data points, divided by the number of data points.

MODE--The number (or numbers) that occurs most frequently in a set of data.

MEDIAN--The middle number in a data set when the data are put in order.

RANGE--The difference between the largest and the smallest numbers in a data set.

I achieve balance in my life by overloading our lives with activities and then retreating to nearly zero in the hopes that when you add them together and divide by the number of years, we will have achieved the all elusive balance. 

If 10 is insanity and 0 is the number for hermits, I'm trying to hit a mean of 5.  Last Fall there were 6 soccer practices, 4 church activities, 3 music lessons, 1 gymnastics class, and 8 swimming lessons, plus school every week.  To average this out, I plan to do nothing until they leave home. 

The MEAN of our lives is 7.5.

The MODE of our lives is tidying the disaster created by the mean.

The MEDIAN is food.  No matter what order you put the data in, the median is always people hungry or people disliking the food in front of them or both. 

The RANGE is 18 hours, not including the outlying data points of 2 am bad sleepers in our bed. 

I sense that the balance is off a bit again.  I yearn for that see-saw suspended in the air.  I'm just not sure if I need to scoot forward or back. 

In the mean time, I guess I'll enjoy going up and down.  It can be pretty fun as long as the weight at the bottom doesn't bail and you're left with a sore tush. 

"Remember, too much of anything in life can throw us off-balance. At the same time, too little of the important things can do the same thing."  (Elder Russell M. Ballard)

why I don't share the gospel

it's not because I don't believe it's true.  I do.

it's not because I'm not sure.  I am.

it's not because I don't think it would bless every life.  it would.


it's because it teaches so many things that I fail at.
it's because I'd rather share the gospel when I've got those things sorted out. 
and that hasn't happened yet.

it's sort-of like not wanting to give you a present I haven't had time to wrap.
or not wanting you to arrive before I've finished cleaning the house.

I feel that when I hand you the gospel, all you'll see is the package I wrap it in with my life, and you'll miss the perfect gift that is inside.


why don't you let someone else give it to you instead?  mormon.org.