A Bit of the Scoop Around Here

After a day of rain (that might have been a serious snow storm had it just been a few degrees cooler), we woke this morning to a clear enough day that I immediately noticed all the new snow on Ben Lomond’s peak. But, within a half hour or so, Ben Lomond had disappeared. A thick fog fell onto our town. (“It’s clouds that fell from the sky.” That’s what I tell the kids.)

We rarely get a good, heavy fog around here, and there is something mysterious and mystical about one that I love. As I drove the boys to school (Penny had gone early for choir), we kept pointing out all the things . . . that we couldn’t point out, I guess. We could no longer see the usual stop sign (and empty field across from it) when we turned south out of our cul-de-sac. The round-about closer to the school was completely missing. And houses were mere mirages – ghostly buildings to the sides of us. I told the boys about the time in Kindergarten when I’d set out to school (I must have had afternoon Kindergarten, as there were no older siblings walking with me) in a thick fog. I made it to the end of our street and turned to head up to the school, but . . . it wasn’t there. I pressed bravely on – staring forward into the mist, faithfully believing that in just a few more steps, surely it would appear. But with each step – and still no sign of the usually-looming school -- my bravery grew less and my pace more hesitant until, all at once, terror seized me and, with no more space for logic in my five-year-old mind, I turned and fled back home to my mom.

Anyway. This morning. Fog. Yes. But there have been all sorts of other things going on around here!

After hours spent assembling his application portfolio, Abe was selected as the Math Sterling Scholar from his large high school. He also completed his Eagle Project (none too soon – as he turns 18 in a matter of weeks) and has begun requesting letters of recommendation, etc. for upcoming college application deadlines. He is already so inundated with homework and studying from all of his AP classes, that both Mike and I really were feeling that something was going to have to give. And we told him as much. (You don’t have to do an eagle project. You don’t need to apply for sterling scholar.) But somehow he continued to plow his way through.

There was an interview as part of the Sterling Scholar application process. In it, the applicants were given 30 minutes and a complex math problem to solve. Abe was the only one of the students to solve it. However, he re-created the problem for Daisy later – and she too blithely solved it in the given time-frame. Speaking of Daisy, she recently got herself hired for her dream job: an elementary school janitor. Haha. Oh all right. Not her dream job. And, at present, she is only technically hired as a substitute, but it should actually be pretty ideal. It’s all high schoolers (besides the head janitor), both she and Abe have friends doing it, it’s incredibly close to home (she’ll be wandering the halls of her old elementary stomping grounds), it pays quite a bit more than minimum wage, and there are no weekends or late nights -- just filling in from 3:30 to 6:30 for those who request her to cover their shifts. (And it will please Mike [who feels a teenager, no matter how busy, ought to begin earning a little income].)

Bravo for my darling little janitor! (She does also teach group piano lessons with her piano teacher on Mondays, so she can call herself a piano instructor if she prefers. :))

(Oh! And that above picture of Abe with a trophy. He was on the Academic Olympiad team that his school sent off to a competition at Utah State a few weeks ago. Unfortunately his school didn’t place. But, out of the several hundred students there, he got an individual 3rd place trophy on the Language Arts test.)

Penny and I have been working on her 6th grade science fair project. I admit, we, perhaps, did an overly simple project. I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything requiring . . . much of anything. But . . . it’s the holidays! And . . . I have a lot of kids. So. Shrug. Oh! But you really should all be so lucky as to come to her upcoming choir Christmas performance. Never, in the history of elementary schools, has anyone created a more entertaining and magnificent choir! Truly! I am in awe of the women who, in only a few early mornings a week with the kids, manage to put it together and pull it off. It has become so well attended that you now have to reserve tickets and they’ve had to add shows! Rumor has it that people from other states come to watch so they can try to do something as miraculous with there own school choirs. It is just fun, and dazzling, and entertaining and one of my favorite things to attend in December!

Goldie has been enjoying another NAL (National Academic League) season. She also tried out for the school play and will officially be “Munchkin Number Two” and “a member of the munchkin trio” (along with several other small rolls) in The Wizard of Oz! She also plans on running track. NAL will wind up soon. But then the play will start . . . and run right into track season . . . at the exact same time as we have our new baby. It’s all wonderful stuff. But it also means she misses the bus that usually brings her home after school, and I can’t wait ‘til next year: when she can participate to her heart’s content in all the extra-curricular activities she loves . . . at a school that is in close walking distance rather than . . . somewhat far driving distance. :)

And the younger kids? They have been full of their usual shenanigans. (Including this lovely, black eye Anders managed to procure at recess one day. [And I wish I could say, “But you should have seen the other guy!” Only . . . the “other guy” was a step on the playground.])

As for me. Well. I’ve been a bit emotional this pregnancy. Though, in truth, I can’t safely blame it on pregnancy. There is so much happiness and joy in this big family and my life situation. I have an impossibly unfair amount of blessings in my life. (I could [and perhaps SHOULD] list large and small things for hours. [Though Mike and his constant goodness to me is certainly at the very top of that list.]) But also . . . this path I’ve taken, at least at this stage, is utterly and exhaustingly hard. It truly is. I cannot properly express how overwhelming things are. For my nearly three years with six kids, I felt . . . so on top of life. It was full and busy, but I could do it! And quite well! I was rather proud of myself and how suited I seemed to be to the big family life. But the transition from six to nine has taken me a million million miles from that stage of competency and confidence. And I cry, rant, and fail miserably at something nearly every day. BUT! I shared this quote from Elder Richard G. Scott with the YW I was teaching last Sunday (though I added all the bolding and underlining and the like):

I have learned a truth that has been repeated so frequently in my life that I have come to know it as an absolute law. . . . When we obey the commandments of the Lord and serve His children unselfishly, the natural consequence is power from God -- power to do more than we can do by ourselves. Our insights, our talents, our abilities are expanded because we receive strength and power from the Lord.

It goes hand-in-hand with these recent words from our prophet Russell M. Nelson: “I promise you that as you consistently give the Lord a generous portion of your time, He will multiply the remainder.” 

As I encouraged them to put the things of God before the other demands of their full lives, I was able to bear such a strong testimony to them of this principle because, of necessity, I have come to know it is true. It is how I survive from day to day. I live by this “absolute law”. I depend on it fiercely. I do the things He has asked me to do – and then I plead with Him to make possible the necessary things that I see absolutely no way of fitting in or doing. And somehow . . . the way does open up. Insights come. More time is somehow found (or I manage better than I should on far less sleep than I should). Or more is accomplished in a short span of time than should have been possible. My incredibly weak efforts – often given in tears and with strugglings -- are magnified. And I suppose that is one of the important lessons God has for me to learn in guiding me into a life that is full of a thousand more daily demands than I can ever possibly meet and a thousand more worries and problems than I can ever possibly solve. I have learned to rely on him in a way I never needed or thought to before. Like the children of Israel wandering through the wilderness, I absolutely depend on manna from heaven . . . every single day. And the fact that I usually only get a day at a time . . . keeps me relying on him all the more. I am grateful that He somehow managed to create a life for me where the full and beautiful things I have . . . are all intermingled with the intensity and difficulty necessary to have humbled me to the reliance on and trust in him . . . that, I imagine, are exactly what I came to morality to learn.