getting cool and staying warm

Today it finally feels like Fall--hooray! The temperature hasn't been above 60 degrees all day and we are wearing long pants and long sleeves and it's marvelous! 

Logan made everyone hot chocolate before I got up and then I made pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. Joe has been out of town a lot and I haven't been feeling well (sinus and respiratory infection) and the house has kind of gotten out of control. I am starting to feel better, finally, so I had my crazy moment and started cleaning the house like a madwoman. I am kind of ready to pack up everything I can and get rid of everything I don't love--but for now I am just trying to tidy up. It just so happens that this weather puts me in the mood to clean, so that's convenient. 

Speaking of packing, I was searching for some family fun today and a friend who lives in our future neighborhood sent me a message that there was a fall festival going on in our neighborhood. Since we are basically residents, we decided to go. 

First we drove by our house.

Yay! Progress!!

On to the festival. 

There was a petting zoo. Ammon and Grant didn't kill any animals, but there was some squeezing, chirping alarms, and a few droppings. Not poop droppings. Animal droppings. 

Logan rode his own horse but had already gotten off when they (the people in charge) realized all four kids were mine. They told Logan to get on with Grant and then pulled them all together (sort of) so I could get a picture. I have to admit, this made me giddy happy because it felt like they cared about us--and we've never met! Good business tactic because I picked up a brochure and will definitely check them out. 

We ate complimentary popcorn and cotton candy while we waited in line for a train ride. 

Train ride! Squish! 

While we were there, I checked out one of the neighborhood clubhouses. There is a weight room, classroom (for things like yoga and even a sewing class!) and a playroom for kids. Then we walked to our builder's model home so that the kids could see what our house will kind of sort of look like. We drove around our neighborhood to check out all the pools and walking trails.

Overall, the day has confirmed that we made a good choice. It is not easy for me to make decisions, and this is one that I have gone back and forth about even after we made it because it isn't the farm property/home I had been dreaming about, and we are not a single bit closer to Joe's work. In fact, a few minutes the opposite. 

But I loved the neighborhood event today, and my friend says they have them often. A high school is being built less than a mile from our home, and I am excited that the kids will be able to ride their bikes to and from school and all of their activities. Our home is going to be big and beautiful, and we are going to fill it with beautiful children and beautiful memories.

This feeling I feel? Content. 

number three

If there is one child I have felt consistently sorry for, it is Grant. A while back (maybe before you knew me) I wrote this blog about being/having the third child.

We are all different from each other, of course, and Grant is unique from each of my other children. I wonder how much of that is how my parenting has changed by child 3, and how much of it is simply Grant. For example, he knew his letters later than my other kids (well, except Ammon, of course), but learned how to read more quickly. In first grade, Logan was my perfectionist (he still is), taking hours to finish his homework and erasing every letter that didn't match his expectation. Madison procrastinated everything (and still does). Grant, on the other hand, is extremely proficient with time. His motivation is to HAVE FUN when the work is done. He sloppily races through his homework and reading and chores in order to play outside or to get on the computer. He generally does it all without complaint. 

The first few days of school I noticed that he was making a lot of silly errors on his papers that were sent home. I discovered he simply wasn't reading the directions! He was in too much of a hurry to get done. We have really been working on taking the time to read the directions, and he is doing much better.

On Monday he came home with a 4 page homework packet. I asked him to work on it in the van while we took Logan to tae kwon do. He finished it in 5 minutes. He got one question wrong and left one question incomplete. I wasn't worried about it because I thought we had plenty of time.

This morning I wanted to go over his spelling words with him before his pre-spelling test (see, the other kids we would be going over the words all week, but Grant gets a rush-through on Thursday morning), but I couldn't find his homework packet. I got onto him about being responsible and told him he needed to ask his teacher for a new packet. He complained that he already did his homework and didn't want to do it again. We are working on being more assertive (when I ask him to turn in his fixed papers he says his teacher won't let him talk), so being the interfering mom, I emailed his teacher, explained the situation, and asked her if he could have a new homework packet. She wrote back and said he turned it in on Tuesday. HAH! No wonder we couldn't find it. He got a 100% on his test without going over the words, too. I guess I'm liking this third child less-stress thing. Not only is it easier on me, but Grant actually seems to be excelling with this type of lax-parenting. 

My final thought about Grant for the evening: he is full of surprises. Last week I caught him drinking out of the honey bottle. Drinking honey!! And tonight I found him eating chopped green onions by the handful. When I explained they were for our dinner tonight he asked me if I would save some for him to take for lunch tomorrow.

39 unplanned freezer meals

Someone left the deep freezer door open.

I'm telling myself it doesn't matter who did it because it doesn't change a thing. But it did make me think about how somehow it seems like it might make us (me) feel better to have someone to blame; someone to take the angry feelings out on.

Ain't nobody got time for that!

Instead I took my angry feelings out by cooking the thawed (but still cool) food that was in the freezer.

All the ice cream, frozen veggies, and random odds and foods got thrown into a giant, heavy-duty, black garbage bag.

The turkey was given away (I just couldn't do force myself to make it).

And I cooked up about:

25 pounds of ground beef
4 roasts
lots of chicken
10 pork chops
8 steaks

I also made about 8 batches of jam and pureed fruit for several more future batches (ran out of pectin).

Ok, it doesn't sound like that much when I write it out, but for an unwanted evening (and next day) of cooking, cleaning, and disinfecting--it feels like A LOT.

Logan made everyone PB&J sandwiches for dinner (that they ate upstairs while they watched Gilligan's Island. I think they were scared to come down.) I called my mom and dad about every 30 minutes to ask their opinion about what I should do. (With 5 kids, they've done this a few times themselves.) The entire time I was telling myself that I should be more like Grandma Goss and focus on the good--the opportunity before me.

1. My freezer is clean. Clean I tell you!!
2. My children are A-Mazing. They saw my distress (and were probably a little bit scared), so they cleaned and vacuumed the house. Logan and Grant helped to carry everything into the kitchen, and then Logan cleaned out the fridge so that there was room to stick the food I wasn't cooking at the moment. He also wiped down the freezer--all that melted ice cream and other nasty fluids that had pooled at the bottom.
3. Seriously, if I hadn't gone out there when I did, everything would have been lost.
4. If we had lost every thing, it would have stunk. Big time. But financially, we could have absorbed the loss without needing to really stress about it.
5. I know how to preserve food, and I have the equipment to do so.
6.  I now have 39 cooked, or at least easy-to-make meals, including: lots of cooked ground beef, BBQ pulled pork, sweet and sour pork, teriyaki chicken. Also, many jars of marinated pork loin roasts, beef stew meat, and chicken with broth.

I left a few pounds of beef in fridge for Joe to make some of his delicious hamburger patties. I have some chicken thighs cooking in the crockpot and some dishes piled up in the sink. Other than that, we're just about done. The floors were disinfected last night--thanks to Joe, who was hoping to spend the evening finishing up some of his work but came home to help.

I'm tired.

fraud

I have a new song stuck in my head... "I am a fraud. A big, fat fraud."

I felt this way when the crazy nurses let me bring a six pound baby Logan home from the hospital.

I felt this way when Logan started kindergarten.

And I feel this way now that Logan and Madison are entering their tween years. 

During the day I pretend I am a mother of small children. When 4:00 p.m. rolls around I am a mother of children who need to wear deodorant. Children who don't need me to help with their homework anymore--well, I don't have to sit down with them, anyway. Children who are figuring out how to navigate through their school-issued computers and the Internet...maybe better than I can. Children who can be so incredibly helpful and kind one minute, and angry and door-slamming the next. 

So I'm going to keep on playing house. Sure--I've got this! No problem!  I'll keep feeding them and taking them places. I'll listen to them talk, and then I'll pretend to have valuable advice. One of these days I might actually know what I'm doing. 

Lucky Ammon. 

oh what a night!

The school the kids have been attending for the last 3 years was closed in June, which meant the kids had to go to a new school. We were really hoping that their move to a new school would coincide with our move to the new house, but it was not to be. So instead we applied to the new STEM school (science, technology, engineering, and math). All three of them got in, which is great. The only problem is the 40 minute bus ride, which I can't really complain too much about because my bus ride was an hour long (to and from school) when I lived in Pennsylvania, and I guess I survived ok.

I often find myself wondering how my parents kept their sanity with all five of us in school with homework and way too many extra curricular activities. Both parents worked full-time jobs, had big callings at church, and still managed to make whole-wheat homemade bread from scratch each week. I'm struggling to keep up with the 3 I have in school, with homework and reading every night and activities like scouts, activity days, tae kwon do, and piano lessons. But I'm trying not to have too big of a pity party because holy moly I know it's going to get worse! I do have to remind myself that my parents were both teachers and they got home around the same time that we got home from school, so there were TWO of them to get dinner on the table and everyone to their responsibilities, and I am trying to do it all alone, as Joe doesn't get home until 7:00 p.m. most nights. 

Anyway. So Mondays are crazy because the kids get off of the bus at 4:09 and Logan has tae kwon do at 4:30. So as soon as they walk in the door it's a mad rush to get everyone to use the bathroom (because some of my children refuse to go at school, which I also can't complain too much about because I did the same thing), get a snack, send Logan to do a 30 second clothing change, and to holler at everyone to get into the van. Ammon went down for his nap kind of late this afternoon, so he was still asleep when the kids got home. Logan woke him up and told him to get into the van.

Finally, at 4:26, we are on our way to tae kwon do. We manage somehow to miraculously make all of the lights, there is little traffic, and we are only 1 minute late. I drop Logan off and take the kids to the park. When we get out of the van I notice that Ammon has ONE flip flop. Awesome. Well, I'm not going home, so I gather my confidence and tell him to go play. Grant and I find a shady picnic table and alternate homework pages with 5 minutes at a time to climb or swing.

I notice my phone buzzing but don't recognize the phone number. I answer anyway. It's Logan's teacher. My heart kind of flip flops, because why is his teacher calling me after school? I mean, I love my kids and I think they are wonderful, really GOOD kids, but I also see them in their worst moments--name calling, karate chop your sibling, angry moments--and I think to myself, "He used tae kwon do on someone who was bothering him. Great." But instead she clears her throat and says, "I just wanted you to know that I am so, so blessed to have Logan in my class."

And I laugh a little bit, because it's not really what I was expecting to hear, but it is what I needed to hear. So I tell her thank you, that hearing how great my kid is makes my job so much more worth it. I didn't even think to ask her how he's doing, or what prompted her to call, it just didn't cross my mind. But that's ok; I'm just glad that she did.

45 minutes later and I load everyone back into the van, pick up Logan, run into Aldi to grab a bag of salad for dinner, and hurry home. Logan carries the groceries into the house (that kid really is great) and he takes the trash out while I stick the roast that has been marinating in the fridge into the oven.

Then I head upstairs to start a bath for Ammon. Somehow he managed, with his bare feet, to step in knee deep mud while we were at the park. I wash his hair and let him play for 20 minutes while I sit on my bed with Grant and listen to him read me a story about goats.

Madison and Logan finish their homework and then take their showers. There is a knock on the door, and I send the neighborhood kids away. No time to play tonight, unfortunately. I get the salad made, the table set, pull the roast and sweet potatoes out of the oven. Ammon may or may not be running around the house naked. 

Dad calls me as he is pulling into the driveway at 7:00 to tell me that there is someone knocking on the door. I let him take care of the salesman while I holler for everyone to get to the table. We eat dinner. Finally.

Everyone helps to clean up, and at 7:40 it is time for Family Home Evening. I read them D&C 109:8. A house of order. We gather in a circle and there is a volley of 6 loads of clothes that I washed today being thrown to their owners, and finally the clothes are folded and put away. Then there is a rush to pick up the play room floor that is littered with legos, cars, Star Wars characters, and lots of other random stuff.

Time to take a breath. It's clean. Well, cleaner. Another human circle is made as we say family prayer, and then everyone runs down the stairs to eat the chocolate cupcakes that Ammon and I made. Well, everyone but Ammon, because he didn't eat his supper.

Now they are all in bed, almost an hour past their bedtime. But their homework is done, they have been fed, they have clean clothes--that are put away!--and we weren't yelling at each other the entire night, so I guess I could call it a success.  

And I will do it all over again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. And I love it because it's the choice that we made, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. It's just another day in paradise. 

music analogy

I finished my class and I stopped writing. For some reason when you are writing everyday there is always something to write about. But the longer you go without writing, the harder it gets to come up with something to write about. I suppose it's like that with all of our talents--the longer we go without using them, the harder it is to use them.

For example, I haven't really played the piano for months. Oh sure, I'll play the organ for church, or I'll sit down to help my kids with their songs, but I haven't had the desire to sit down and pull out my music and play song after song after song, so I just haven't played. The last few nights (weeks?) Madison has asked me if I would play the piano at 8:00--the time that they are in bed and supposed to be sleeping. She says she likes falling asleep to classical music. So tonight I sat down and played for about an hour. My fingers were a little clumsier than usual, stumbling too fast over notes they used to have memorized. I should start playing again. I should start writing again.

I hired someone else to teach Logan, Madison, and Grant piano lessons. I just wasn't being consistent enough. Not to mention it's just a lot frustrating to teach your own children. So I drop them off once a week for lessons, and then I hustle them during the week to practice. I still need to sit down with Grant. I still have to remind Logan and Madison to count, or I tell them that something doesn't sound right, that they need to check the notes.

They almost always say something like, "Mom, I'm playing it right." "No, you're actually not." "Mom, I AM! This is what the music says."

Those are the moments that I want to bang my head on the piano and shout, "I have been playing the piano for almost 30 years, so LISTEN to me!! That is the wrong note! You need to hold that longer. SLOW DOWN!"

Actually, this happened just the other day. But I didn't shout; I whispered. "Madison." She just kept telling me why I was wrong. I whispered, "Madison. Madison. Shut your mouth and listen." And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, "What kind of a mother tells you to shut your mouth? I can't believe you just said that!" And I whispered back, "I need you to close your mouth so you can hear what I am trying to tell you."

And while I was playing the piano this evening, I had this thought. Sometimes we try to go too fast, play the wrong notes, insist that we know what our life-music is supposed to sound like. But our Heavenly Father--he knows. He knows. 

getting to a place where no on can hurt you

When the economy crashed and Joe lost his job in Cleveland, we said to ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to depend on a single person for our paycheck? We created a business. It took over a year before we could even pay ourselves. It took two years to feel financially safe again. Owning a business is hard, but so worth it to know that your job is secure as long as you do your part.

We left a home we loved in Cleveland, Ohio and moved to a nasty fluorescent rental house in Garland, Texas. At the end of the 18 month contract, our landlord sent us a 30 day notice. They were moving back in. 

So we scrambled, with a 2 month old baby, and we moved to another Dallas suburb an hour away. We told our new landlord we wanted to stay here for 3 years; we were hoping to buy a home by then. That was 2011. In April 2014 we signed up to build a home. We asked our landlord if we could extend our time until it was finished. He agreed. "Stay as long as you need," he said.

Yesterday he told us that he needed to move back in. 30 days. Deja vu.  

We are trying to negotiate, to make it worth his while to let us stay a few extra months. Anything to not have to move twice.

I guess we'll do whatever we have to do, and whatever happens, happens.

But here we are again, asking ourselves: what can we do so that we never, ever, have to worry about where we are going to live?

We're going to wait for our home to be built, and we're going to move into it. And then we will get that house paid off as quickly as possible. Because I'm tired of this. I'm tired of other people dictating what we're going to do, and where we're going to live, and how we're going to spend our stress. So just like we took control of our income, we are going to take control of our home. I feel myself hardening, reaching out to create this box of safety, working to get to a place where no one can hurt my family. 

this was supposed to be fun

Now that school has started and we're getting back into the school schedule, we will be using most Saturday mornings to catch up on chores. Today Madison cleaned the kids' bathroom; Grant cleaned the living room and vacuumed the stairs; Logan cleaned the half-bath and swept the kitchen floor, and then he, Ammon, and I made bread and cinnamon rolls. We froze the cinnamon rolls and will eat them for breakfast during the week. The bread came out of the oven just in time for lunch, so we ate PB&J on warm homemade, whole wheat bread with homemade strawberry jam. Life felt serene.

It's still a balmy 100 degrees outside in Dallas, TX, so I let them watch a movie in the afternoon and then encouraged the kids to soak each other with water guns in the backyard. Joe and I went out for dinner, and when we got back we thought it would be a fun family treat to pick out some ice cream--at Kroger--because I'm cheap and we can buy two cartons of ice cream (for selection, not because we're going to scarf down a gallon of ice cream in one evening) for a third of the price of taking everyone to an ice cream parlor.

Grant stomped out the door, telling me, "I hate going to the store." 

Logan grabbed a cart and started racing down the aisles, using it as a scooter; I grimaced and called out for him to SLOW DOWN!

We decided that the boys would choose one and the girls (and Ammon) would choose one.  In my mind that meant there would be some give and take until there was an agreement and everyone was content. But in reality:  

Logan ran over Grant's foot with the cart; Grant started crying. Ammon started opening and shutting (slamming) every freezer door. I picked him up (still wet from the water gun war), and he fought to get back down. Madison started whining that Ammon's choice always trumped hers, and Logan complained that he didn't want one with nuts. 

It was talking much too long, we were causing a scene. People could see the crazy! I threatened to take kids to wait in the car, and then I looked at Joe and not-quite-whispered, "This was supposed to be fun."

Please tell me that this is normal. Also, that it gets better, and that someday doing things together as a family will bring smiles and happy laughter instead of people complaining and poking each other and crying. Please? 

It did seem to get better once everyone was actually eating their ice cream (we chose Blue Bell's Krazy Kookie Dough and Rocky Brownie Roadslide--or something like that), and for now, the children are bathed and nestled under their covers, asleep. Silent. 

take two

The kids are back in school, which means that Ammon wants me to play with him. I guess it's kind of funny how you can remember and forget a schedule over the few months of summer. I remember the glorious quiet time after lunch. I remember the 7 hours straight of not having to break up fights. I forget how the mornings are extra-long now that I'm up and dressed and breakfast is over by 7:00 a.m. I forget how in the back of my mind I am always wondering what my kids are doing and learning while they are away from me.

So what did we do to stay busy on this the second day of school? We visited the pet store. It smells not great in there, though I'm not sure if it's the animals or the wood chips. We saw $900 dollar birds and $2 fish and a tarantula and some cool lizards and snakes. We also saw rats and mice, and I have to admit that I find them...disgusting. Why would you pay money for a rodent?! I would rather have a tarantula or a snake.

Anyway, so I started thinking about how the last few days I have been...anxious. AKA grouchy. All this quiet time has given me time to think about how I could have done things differently. That's not a bad thing. It's a learning experience. So if could I rewrite two, let's call them events, from the last two days, this is how they would have happened.

Event 1.

I walk down the stairs and call out to everyone that it's time to get into the car. We have been invited to someone's home for dinner. I smell the brownies cooking , so I open the oven and pull them out. They are--well done. Instead of panicking and talking loudly at everyone in loud-talking distance, I laugh at the predicament we are in: burnt brownies and a place to be. I brainstorm for three seconds and decide that it will be ok to 1. be a few minutes late and 2. mix up a new batch of brownies and 3. cook them at our friend's home. Plan B goes just fine, and we laugh about it later.

Event 2.

The grass needs to be mowed. Desperately. Like, it hasn't been mowed in (too long to admit), but I'm unwilling to mow it myself (mainly because it's over 100 degrees outside and I'm a baby), so I solve the problem by waiting patiently for my very busy husband to mow it. After family home evening, I offer to get the kids ready and in bed while he mows the grass. Dear husband (hereafter referred to as D.H.) helps our 10 year old practice mowing in a straight line. I hurry to the backyard to pick up crunchy socks and sand buckets that have been abandoned in the grass, and right as I finish, realize that that the mower has stopped. It is 8:30, and it is dark, that must be why. I come in and thank D.H. for mowing the front yard without asking about the backyard, because I know that he can see the long grass, and also that he knows that I would like shorter grass.


So what I've learned from these events is that if I had time to think about how to respond, I'd be amazing. Also, I need to work on laughter and gratitude.

not yet titled

SO close to being done with this class, which is a good thing, because my teaching certificate renewal is due by August 31. Yikes. I just have my final portfolio left, and I have everything ready to submit except this last essay (if you can call it an essay). It's the one that I've struggled the most with writing, and I'm still working on titles for each individual fragment. Now that I've actually got 10 of them (some of them better than others, I know... it's harder than you'd think to come up with that many!), I think the best thing would be for me to come back to it in a few days. They are all supposed to be tied to a common theme--can you tell what that is?

       

Commemoration

It is the last day of school, and even though it is 100 degrees outside, we celebrate. There is a park, a playground, loud music, and pizza. The children outnumber the mothers, fifty to ten, and while the mothers huddle with their babies in the shade, the older children are rejoicing in their summer freedoms with rivers of sweat sliding down their cheeks as they chase, climb, slide. A white truck drives slowly down the pavement, and two men emerge from its doors. We can hear their deep voices as they empty trashcans, and we watch as one of them walks towards the large stone bathroom. Suddenly, we hear a sound, a whoosh, and we look in that direction. There are squeals of pleasure. The sprinklers are on! Two long, glorious strips of cold, misty water; an unexpected delight. The children race to the water. They are dancing and singing and making merry. Some of the mothers, four of us, walk quickly to the water. We leave our sandals on the sidewalk and carefully poke our toes into the cool shower. It is not enough. A look passes between us and we unite, standing taller, more confident, as we grab each other’s hands, spread out across the field, and race through the sprinklers.

Revelation

Elaine was childless. She was also my Sunday school teacher. The first week I was in her class I couldn’t help but stare at her small, bony frame. She had short, curly hair, large-knuckled, arthritic fingers, and a gravely, gruff voice. I didn’t know what to expect from the eccentric-looking woman, but learned over the years that I did not need to be afraid. I listened and learned about this gray-haired figure who roller bladed and took swimming lessons at the Y. I laughed out loud when I gave her my wedding announcement and, after looking at our engagement picture, she whispered to me that she had heard a rumor that Mexicans made good lovers. I still have the white porcelain bowl that she gave me, and the gray fleece jumper that she sent to my first-born son.

Education

I sit cross-legged on the carpeted floor, slowly combing through my daughter’s long, wet hair. I pause for a moment as I ask her to tell me about her day. She begins the conversation with third-grade gossip: There is an athletic boy named Connor, and the girls at school like him. She whispers, “You can tell if a girl likes a boy when she starts wearing nice clothes to school every day.” She speculates over who would make a good match, and her conversation soon turns to the topic of popularity. The popular girls, she explains, share universal qualities: they are athletic, smart, and everyone wants to be their friend. I put my plastic comb down, an indication that her hair is now tangle-free, and my daughter unfolds her legs to stand. As she struts across the playroom floor, she concludes, “You can tell if a girl is popular by the way that she walks.”

Anticipation

I rush through dinner and hurriedly rinse the dishes. I abandon the children as I skip up the stairs. They rejoice in their mommy-free freedom by watching Netflix or playing wii, and I rejoice in mine by shutting my bedroom door. I yank off the child-stained shirt I am wearing, and replace it with one that is clean, dressier. I reach my hand to the top shelf of my closet and run my fingers over the folds of pants and deftly pluck out my favorite pair of Miss Me jeans. I wash my face and pull a brush through tangled hair. Mascara, a little bit of blush, earrings, a spritz of the perfume my husband presented me for Valentine’s Day. I step up onto the bathtub ledge in order to see more of my reflection in bathroom sink mirror. Turn to the side. That will do. I take a two-step leap into the closet, hesitate as I look at my selection of mom-shoes, and grab a pair of sandals, not flip-flops. I hear my husband’s car pull into the driveway, and seconds later, the front door opens. A glance at the clock—7:45. Time for girls’ night.

Problem Solving

There was a woman in Cleveland, Ohio named Sarah. Her husband, a brain surgeon in training, worked long hours at the hospital. They had one child and one car and no money, so Sarah spent most of her hours in the quiet of her home. Tired of the monotony, Sarah decided to start a group, which she called Tea and Topics. She began calling friends, acquaintances, and invited them to come into her home to drink tea and to converse. They would sit around her yellow-walled living room and talk about organic foods, the price of parenting, confidence, and anything whatsoever that was lingering in their thoughts. Over the years, they would share their pasts and learn about friendship and how to be a friend. Now many of the women have moved away, but they share this knowledge with others. 

Windows

I brought my newborn home from the hospital on a Friday afternoon. Two days later, Sunday, I sat on down to do my five year old daughter’s hair and saw a tiny creature scamper across her scalp. I rushed through the home, stripping sheets from the beds, dumping clothes from the dresser drawers, and scouring every surface. I pushed my mother-in-law out the door, sent my children to school and my husband to work. When they were gone, I locked the doors and pulled the curtains tight over the windows. I refused to answer the ringing phone. For two days, or three, I did this, and spent my hours washing, folding, vacuuming, feeding baby, not sleeping. On Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, there was a knock on my door. Four women stood there, bags of food in their hands. They led me to the kitchen table and fed me lunch, salad and a meat and cheese wrap. Then they escorted me to the sofa, handed me my baby, and commanded me to rest. And I did, hesitatingly at first, while they scrubbed my bathrooms and disinfected my kitchen. They folded my clothes and vacuumed my carpets and mopped my travertine tiles. They opened my curtains and let in the light.

Respect

The disagreement started in the kitchen at dusk. Mother, holding the wooden recipe box in both hands, raised her voice, and I raised mine back.  Our feet danced slowly from the wooden floor planks through the narrow doorway and into the blue-carpeted living room. The sounds flowed through our mouths, clashing with one another, the words long since forgotten. With a flash in memory, I see my mother throw the recipe box onto the floor; I watch the index cards scatter across the room—an oxymoron in action for that patient woman. There is a suspension of time as I look at her in awe, and she looks at me with confusion. Then, my mother smiles. A laugh tumbles from her lips as she says, “That was silly. Will you help me clean this up, please?”

Unexpected

It was my first outing in public since the miscarriage. A playground date with mom friends. I sat on the rubber ground, my lanky arms circled around my long legs, away from the other women. I was motionless, unable to engage in the conversations around me, knowing that my attempt to form words would sound more like sobs. There is a general movement, a flurry, as a friend rushes up to us, pushing her baby stroller, announcing excitedly that she is pregnant. There is the foggy sound of congratulations going on around me as I look away, straining, silent. Two women, the ones that I have told, quietly surround me, one on the left and one on the right, as they put their arms around me, and together we cry.

Summit

We arrived there early, and it was cold. I helped my sister wrap her two-month-old baby onto the front of her body. We walked to the gate that guards the mountain and raised our heads, looking, it seemed, straight up. We eyed each other, nodded. Rene with her baby, and me with the baby supply backpack. A few young men, daredevils without shirts, were walking towards the gate, and we asked them to take our picture. In it, we are still smiling, with sweatshirts still on and hair pulled neatly into ponytails. We began our hike quickly, but quickly slow down. We made it past the first switchback, and then the second, before Rene stopped, begged me to go on without her. I hesitated, urged her on, offered to carry the baby. Finally, I went without her, all the time hearing the sounds of the daredevils in front of me. I slowly made my way, counting each turn, willing my burning legs to continue. I reached the top, stopped to take a drink of water and to snap a picture on my phone. No reception there—I could not call my sister. After a few deep breaths, I started down the mountain, watching my shoes and counting each step. I was halfway back when I heard movement ahead. I looked up to see a lady in blue, a baby wrapped to her chest. Rene! We rested on a large rock for a few minutes, and then stood up, determined to climb to the top together.

    

       

Observation

She cannot find the bathroom in the middle of the night, and when Mom hears the quiet shuffling, she leads Grandma to the door and waits. The minutes pass, and finally Mom asks if everything is ok. Grandma does not know how to flush the toilet. Later, I will find Grandma crying. Of the few things that she can remember, she remembers independence, and she grieves its loss. My mother helps Grandma get dressed, and then gently braids the white hair of the woman who raised her. 

making something ordinary into something extraordinary

We just returned from our 5th annual summer trek up to Pennsylvania. We had three weeks of eating outside every day, hiking, four wheeling, gun shooting, canoeing, swimming, catching up with relatives, and lots of exploring. We visited Niagara Falls, saw the church history sites in Palmyra, New York, and watched the Palmyra Pagaent. We visited Cleveland friends and saw historic Kirtland. Joe, Logan, my dad, and my brother Brent hiked 45 miles of the Appalacian Trail, and the rest of us drove down to Washington D.C. to meet them when they finished. We ended our trip with two full days in Washington D.C. and the realization that we could have spent many more days there. 

It has been a wonderful summer. 

We're happy to be back home, of course. We are almost caught up on laundry, the fridge has been restocked, and play dates have been scheduled on the calendar. The countdown to the first day of school has begun. (Insert sad face here.) I am already missing the cooler weather we enjoyed back east, and yesterday was a long day of hiding inside with the air conditioning and trying to convince the kids that there were better things to do than play wii and watch Netflix. Joe didn't get home until later, and after fighting off a few temper tantrums, I fed the kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner and sent them to bed with a book before it was dark outside.

I woke up today with the desire to start over and to make this ordinary, hot Texas day into something more. More enjoyable, more productive, more memorable. We usually go to the pool on Wednesday mornings, so I skipped my shower (huge sacrifice) so that I could actually get in the water and play with my kids. Like--do flips and handstands and dance underwater play instead of the carefully wading and avoiding water in my face thing that I usually do. 

I pumped up all the bike tires, and told the kids we were riding to our friend's neighborhood pool--about 1 mile away. There was a little reluctance (yes I know it's hot, no flip flops, yes helmets, you can make it), but I couldn't help feeling a little lump of satisfaction as I herded my not so little family along: boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. Logan, Madi, Grant, Me, Ammon. Bike, bike, scooter, bike, bike trailer. 

We encouraged each other, called out directions, and stayed together just fine. 

We returned home hungry and thirsty, so we hauled out the griddle and the kids made some quesadillas and gobbled up three dry pints of blueberries. 

Ammon and I read Superman's First Flight, and he's taking a nap. The others are content and quietly reading.

And now I'm going to go enjoy a long, hot shower.

words

My last assignment was to write a short essay on my theory about good writing--particularly good essays. I actually have a lot of theories, but I guess having to narrow it down to 3 double spaced pages is good because it made me narrow my thoughts down to one basic, but big, element of good writing. I am sharing it because.... because the question I ask myself most often (in relation to this blog) is why I feel compelled to share my stories with you. I think this is why. 

A Curious and Wonderful Thing: Words

Words surround me in the form of a thousand books stacked and shoved into the shelves of almost every room in our home. Words envelop me in the form of little voices constantly and consistently begging me for food and entertainment. It didn't take long for those same little people to realize that written words brought them power; as soon as they connected sounds to letters, they began to litter my life with letters to express their disappointments and dreams. One that I saved, dated on New Year's Day, 2013, was written with a black sharpie on practice writing paper, the kind with a red dotted line down the middle of two blue lines. There is a rudimentary drawing of a stocky man, and the words:

Dear Mom,

Thanks for being a good Mom.

Thanks for making us food to eat.

Thanks for changing Amen's poopy diapers....

(P.S. Ammon needs a diaper change)

Words evoke emotion: the above letter resulted in laughter, motherly joy, and pride for my charming children. Words provoke action: I immediately preserved the letter in the form of a digital memory and then proceeded to change my one-year old son’s soiled diaper. Words are powerful: they allow us to express our thoughts, desires, and deepest feelings. 

Like Moses, I am slow of speech, and, like some of my children, I prefer to communicate through the written word. Writing allows me to explore my thoughts and gives me adequate opportunity to know what it is  that I wish to say and a better likelihood of saying it well. Montaigne, the father of the essay, derived the essay form from the French word essai, or “to attempt.” What are we attempting? To understand our thoughts and desires, to put order to our ideas, and to communicate our stories with others. Phillip Lapote explains that in an essay “the track of a person’s thoughts struggling to achieve some understanding of a problem is the plot” (The Fourth Genre, 385).

In his short essay, “Northeast Direct,” Dagoberto Gilb’s thoughts are indeed the plot as he boards the train and sits down behind a man who is reading a novel that he (Gilb) authored. As we take this journey with Gilb, we hear his thoughts and feel, with him, the struggle as he contemplates what the stranger thinks about his book; should he introduce himself or stay anonymous? Finally, Gilb remains silent as they each go their separate ways.

Why do our thoughts matter, and why do we share them? Brett Lott quotes the Reverend Francis Kilvert in his essay, "Toward a Definition of Creative Nonfiction," when he says, "Life appears to me such a curious and wonderful thing that it almost seems a pity that even such a humble and uneventful life as mine should pass away altogether without some record such as this" (392). It is then, perhaps, the mundane and ordinary specks of our lives that we should write about and discuss. We have most likely never had Gilb’s experience of riding on the subway and observing a stranger reading our written words, but perhaps all of us have had a similar dilemma: do we say something or stay excruciatingly voiceless? Gilb’s words allow us to feel his predicament, the fear of rejection, the suspense of the unknown. As Gilb permits us to enter his thoughts, we connect with him and with his narrative until finally, his story becomes our own.

This, then, is the goal: to make my story matter, to communicate on a deeper level of understanding with my audience, and the way to do that is to “write about (myself) in relation to the subject at hand. …Without you and who you are, a piece of writing that tells what happened is simply nonfiction: a police report. But when I begin to incorporate the sad and glorious fact that the way I see it shapes and forms what it is to be seen, I end up with creative nonfiction” (Lott, 393). 

I recently wrote an essay about my great-grandfather, a migrant worker during the Great Depression. My earlier drafts were simply a linear retelling of his story, which was interesting to me, but less relatable to others. As I began to add in my own personal story—my feelings as a wife and mother, my husband’s job loss, a job search, the subsequent move across the country from Ohio to Texas, and a painful miscarriage—our stories began to merge until my great-grandfather’s story became my narrative. My hope, of course, is that as readers have access to my thoughts and reflections that they will feel a connection, and that they will discover their own story as they read mine.  

Writing is powerful. It immortalizes our thought process, our memories. Our stories may not always be unique, but they are always personal. Writing our stories may even, often in fact, makes us feel vulnerable, which is why we hesitate but at the same time feel compelled to share our words. For as I write I discover, and I as I become part of the writing and share it with you, we begin to understand one another on a deeper level, and we come to realization that we are not alone.