If I was making a list

of the things a good dad might do, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to me to think of this. But, when I saw it, I realized right away that it certainly should have occurred to me:

That’s a good dad.

“Your favorite part was watching me.”

The other day Jesse was snuggled up on my bed with my “special blanky” and his monkey. He’d just finished his first half hour of swimming lessons and we were discussing it a bit.

“What was your favorite part?” I asked.

"My favorite part was jumping off the diving board!” He told me. Then a pause and: “And your favorite part was watching me.”

Sometimes little comments like that make me both so grateful that my kids are here, with me, safe and sound and loved; and simultaneously overwhelmingly sad for any kid who isn’t somewhere he is totally loved and wanted. It just seems like every single kid deserves to live in a world where he can go about his little life with absolute certainty that there is someone in his universe who could enjoy nothing more than simply watching him.

And probably also . . . every kid deserves a dad who finds his old welding mask so his kids can all stare at the sun during a solar eclipse.

My Poetry

Sometimes I find myself wanting to write poetry again. I say “again”, but that is silly. My small teenage attempts were amateur and somewhat immature and not really ever truly poetry. And, to be honest, poetry sometimes kind of makes me uncomfortable. It is complicated and often vague and difficult to grasp. I sometimes feel about it the same way I feel about the game of Chess – that it is simply too much mental work to play it well, or, in the case of poetry, understand it well. And, sometimes, I even associate it with a whole way of thinking and viewing the world that is too artsy, too foreign, and too unlike sensible get-work-done me. Still, now and then, reading a bit makes me feel like something is pushing hard against the insides of my chest and welling up behind my eyes – even when I don’t understand it fully. Even then, I sometimes still feel it. And I sometimes think poetry is . . . absolutely beautiful.

I recently read these small lines from an Emily Dickinson poem:

“When suddenly across the June
A wind with fingers goes.”

That sense of something beautiful – something true that was captured in surprising words and metaphors – struck me. I couldn’t even put into words what it meant, but it felt like time coming and snatching up and taking away spring and innocence. Or like the sudden realization that things are different than they were.

Mike’s grandma passed away this weekend. Maybe that is why those words burned themselves onto me a little more strongly than they otherwise might have. I kept thinking of her life: of having met and married her Frank, raised her seven children – sending them all to college, etc. even though they were small town farming folk. I thought of her having lost a baby. I thought of the innumerable large family gatherings, of the mission she served with her husband, and of what it might have been like to see her husband lose most of his eyesight and leave this life without her.

It made me think of how all my little struggles and trials will actually truly pass by. I will have done and learned whatever I might with and from them. I will have raised my children, and become a grandma, and fulfilled my church callings, met and influenced (and been influenced by) ever new people, and gained new insights and talents and knowledge. And, eventually, I will be done. I will have lived my life out, and, I am certain that looking back it will have seemed so short – like those Dickinson lines. Like a sudden wind has raked past this stage and carried me to old age and death, and what continues from there.

These thoughts made me want to write a poem. Made me want to think of words that felt magical and like a piece of my soul was saved on paper in small letters. As I was out running one morning my mind kept thinking of Mike and I living our lives together. I kept struggling and trying and finally coming up with several different starts that all went something like this:

I know now
that we will grow old.
Time will plow steady and deep
through us
Leaving furrows outside and in.

And then I thought that was maybe too wordy and that poetry is hard for me because every word seems like it needs to count. And I wondered if I should say:

I know now
that we will grow old.
Time will plow its steady and deep furrows
through us. Outside and in.

I kept rearranging those words and how to say them in my mind, and I had no more to add at all – try as I might. Every sentence threatened to sound silly or trite or like something we’ve all heard before. How does one come up with similes and metaphors and words all their own? I hoped my plowing was uniquely my idea, but wasn’t sure it was. I felt that something could be done with the ideas of planting and harvesting and the furrows outside being signs of physical aging and that more could be said about what the furrows inside would be – experiences, knowledge, trials, heartache, losses and gains, etc. But it was beyond me to do it, and the more I tried the more I was certain it wasn’t working or that I was slipping back onto overused expressions.

Still, there is something in the trying that feels like it stretches me and like some small thing is trying to grow inside of me and get strong enough to push its way outside – reaching beyond my own self.

As I worked on my few paltry lines, I thought about the things we’ve come up with to express ourselves – music and song, poetry, novels, art, etc. I wondered for a minute what things we haven’t been able to come up with yet. Does that sound completely crazy? I wondered if there were even more perfect and beautiful and refined ways of telling things than we have yet created with our limited human capacities.

Once, when I was only in middle school, I had a strange dream/experience. I had fallen asleep on my parents’ bed. I was not really dreaming exactly. I wasn’t seeing anything, but I was hearing something: I was hearing the most beautiful soul wrenching music in all of the world. I don’t remember how it sounded. I only know that when I think of it, I get that same feeling I talked about earlier – like something big is pressing on the insides of me. Only, I began to wake up, and, as I did, the music started to deteriorate a little and change quality a little – bit by bit – until, at last, my eyes were open and I realized that all I was hearing was the wind blowing loud and strong outside my parents’ bedroom windows. I stayed still for a long while – listening to that wind – willing it to turn back into the music. It didn’t of course, but something about that experience has always stayed tucked inside me – has always made me wonder what incredible things we may have heard before coming here, or may yet have to hear when we leave this place. It makes me excited and makes me hope that, eventually, I won’t be limited in what I want to convey and express by the abilities I still lack or even by words and means and tools we currently have to work with. Until then, I will keep plunking along here and there trying to get down the things I can.

I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always.

As long as I’m living

My baby you’ll be.

I am so glad we get to keep this baby that we got from the “hodispool”. Jesse often talks about how much he loves the hodispool  where we got our baby and how great it is that we get to keep our baby and not give him back to the hodispool and mostly . . . how great that bed at the hodispool was with the buttons that made the head and foot of the bed raise and lower, and, wouldn’t it be wonderful if I went back to the hodispool soon so he could visit me and push those buttons on one of those beds again?

And, what on earth is going on between these two boys anyway?

Especially the faces Jesse is getting out of Anders in those last two pictures! It is kind of wonderful. Also, when I think of the next few years of little boys together, . . . kind of terrifying.

And, speaking of babies: remember when it used to be that you could manage to grab and pick up about anything when using your whole paw-like hand, but when given some small Cheerio-type item, an item that required more the use of thumb and index finger to grasp, it became very VERY difficult? Remember how you would try so hard, but keep kind of missing it and accidentally getting it into the middle of your palm where it would sit – in your tiny clenched fist – as you contemplated how to get it from inside that fist to the inside of your mouth? So, you’d just hope for the best and put your whole fist by your mouth and open your little fingers, but then, more often than not, the Cheerio would slip out and land in your lap – or maybe on your highchair tray -- where you would then start the whole process over again? Those were hard times – times when figuring out the old pincer grasp was so complicated. Life is much easier now. . . . And also . . . much harder.

Who Needs TV?

After all, it’s raining. And what better to do than watch the rain from one window:

And another:

At one point Jesse must have wandered away from “the show” because I heard Penny call, “Jesse! You just missed a lightning!”

And Jesse grumble back, “Aww. I’m always busy when its lightning!”

And lest they seem too perfect watching their little rainstorms and the like, I will add that, at one point during all of this rain watching, one of them managed to shatter an entire glass bowl full of Cheerios all over the floor.

I don’t necessarily love gray drizzle, but I do quite love a good hard rain storm like this.

Jesse, Abe, Penny, . . . Chicken

The other day, Jesse walked in from outside with his hand absolutely covered in mud and dirt.

“Jesse!” I exclaimed, “Why were you playing in the dirt again?”

“I wasn’t” he unconcernedly assured me.

“What’s that on your hand?” I asked.

“Oh that?” he said, looking calmly at his filthy hand. “That’s just nothing.”

And with that he wandered back outside.

Sigh.

Also, Saturday Mike came home from dropping Abe off at baseball practice carrying a small personal size cooler in his hands. You know the type: you can carry them like oversized lunch boxes and push a little button on the lid to slide it back. He’d apparently stopped by a garage sale and found it there. “I thought Jesse might like to mess around with this” he told me.

I shrugged and nodded my head that yes, maybe he would, and the cooler was left on the kitchen table.

A few minutes later Jesse came in from the back yard. He immediately zeroed in on the cooler and exclaimed, “Mom! What’s THAT?”

“Oh, it’s just a little cooler,” I said, “Would you like to play with it?”

Jesse spent the next few minutes figuring how to open it and taking out the small Tupperware-like containers inside before closing the lid and carrying it off  with a parting, “Mom, can I play with this . . . forever?”

When I returned from my run an hour later he was still hauling around his little cooler only he had gained some extra information about its contents from Mike and was telling me how he could put a little drink in one container and ice in another and bread in another and how then, if he had those things, and found it necessary, he could “take a little break” and eat them so his “tummy wouldn’t be hungry”.

Can you see why it is that Mike is left in charge of so much of the birthday and Christmas shopping around here? He’s good. He deserved far more than my shrug and nod.

Also, there is Abe. Here he is hiding in a closet with Jesse.

I thought it deserved mentioning that a big to-do was made over him at school last week for being the only kid in the ENTIRE world to read eight billion Newbery books this year. Actually, it was the only kid in his school . . . and it was 25 Newberry books. Still. The librarian has her special little shelf of Newberys and she encourages the kids with all her might to fill out an entire Bingo sheet of 25 squares with finished Newbery books. Abe faithfully read the Bingo sheet full – acting as if it was no big thing, having me sign each finished square, mentioning now and then how many Newbery books were actually not very enjoyable to read (judging from what I read on the back covers I kind of agreed – those Newberys seem to love to be about serious and glum things). There was a moment of panic when the end was nearing – two days left and two books to read – when we thought one book wasn’t a Newbery, but, in the end, all went well and his sheet was finished. It was only when he came home afterwards that I realized what a fine accomplishment and how very pleased the librarian, principal, teacher, and school at large was. An announcement was made over the school intercom (letting all the students know that Abe had bested each and every one of them), and the principal came to his class to make a little presentation and to offer him his certificate and ultra super giant candy bar. Two years ago Abe won a bike at school for all his reading. It was a drawing, but the number of times your name was put in the box correlated directly with time read, so I have no doubt Abe’s name was in there quite a few times. That kid likes to read. . . . Or maybe it is just that we keep trying to insist he keep with his younger siblings bed time . . . which is probably too early for him . . . which might give him nothing to do but read. Hmm. Well, poor fella or not, I sure love that boy.

Lastly, there is Penny. Last Sunday I was a bit surprised to look outside and see her rounding up our not-quite-fully-grown chickens and playing, what seemed to be, a game of “gather chickens and put them all in a big bucket”. I wasn’t so much surprised by the game as I was surprised by her ability to catch and bravely hold our chickens. I have maybe hinted at this before, but I am terrified of holding our chickens . . . and our guinea pig . . . and pretty much any animal.

Anyway, she must have gotten more and more bold because not long afterwards I heard Mike calling off of the back deck, “Penny! You can’t throw the chickens!”

Yes, something might, perhaps, need to be done about her grand chickening adventures. Fun as the “put the chickens in a bucket” game sounds, I am not positive the chickens themselves are loving this attention so much.

Here are some recent moments I have caught of Penny with the chickens.

Penny climbing up a ladder to take a chicken down the slide:

Penny swinging with a chicken:

Penny holding a chicken:

Penny singing to a chicken?

Penny putting a chicken on her baby brother’s back:

Penny putting a chicken on her baby brother’s head:

Penny putting a chicken on her own head:

And a few more . . . because its Mother’s Day and I can do what I want (even if it means putting into one post what should have been in three separate ones):

And, my favorite:

Umm. The end? I guess.

Summer and Kids–Two Great Things

Oh my goodness! I know I am always writing things like this – and I know that everyone already knows the crazy truth that time goes by ridiculously fast, but, as I said . . . my goodness! It was really truly just a tiny minute ago that I was sadly thinking about summer time winding down, about kids going back to school, about our care-free days gone for another nine months. And, it was only another second beyond that when that same summer had been just about to start: it was last May and feeling nothing like it because it was cold and wet. I was sneaking off for a week with Mike to AZ while Ashley tended here, and planning out what I would accomplish over the upcoming summer months to get ready for my end-of-summer baby Anders.

Yet, here we are again – back to that point: at the beginning of a season that I was only yesterday sad to see ending. . . . And, it makes me feel very happy (though realization of the quick passage of time does always makes me feel a bit of a panic over things I might not be snatching up and moments that might be zipping along too speedily to capture as forever memories).

It was the happenings of this past week that have made me realize summer is already nearly here: Mike giving me the best ever Mother’s Day gift of new soil for my front clay flower beds (along with the hard labor of digging up said clay), me pulling weeds and planting, the kids bringing home papers with the dates of end-of-year school festivities, and Penny’s play times with potato bugs.

Here Penny is with “Sweetie”. Sweetie entertained Penny for a long while this morning as I threw piles of dead clippings and weeds into garbage cans to finish off my early spring yard work.

We do get a nice routine and a healthy schedule going strong when the older kids are in school, but I look forward to having them home with me for the next few months. There is a little more chaos involved in most days, and there are quite a few more messes to keep on top of, but it is turning out, more and more, to be a fact that I actually really like having a small army for a family. Look at all of them (minus one). They are . . . hmm . . . I don’t know . . . just good and what life feels like it should somehow be all about. I am excited to have my world revolving more constantly around them (and around whatever we want it to be about as opposed to things needing done) for the next few months.

And, speaking of kids and liking them. There are some pretty great things to be said about kids. One thing I love is how they forgive and forget quickly and rarely hold grudges or harsh judgments for long. Take this messy little fella:

I don’t mind about him being a messy and trouble making little fella because he says things like this to me: “Mom, you’re my little buddy.”

But, that has nothing to do with forgiving and forgetting quickly. Yesterday, Jesse was forlornly crying about something Penny had or had not done and insisting that she was not just “bad” or even the “baddest”, but the “BADDIEST GIRL!” To hear him you would think no love could or would ever exist between them. Nevertheless, ten minutes more time found him sitting in my master bathroom on a big box of baby diapers – swinging his little feet, eating fruit snacks, and telling me, “Mom, Penny’s the best girl I ever seen”. True that, as adults, such constantly shifting views of others might be considered borderline bi-polar, but I love that no grudge or anger ever lasts long with little folks.

I am very excited about spending my upcoming summer with a certain six of these “little folks”.

Clay and Talents

“But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand".” – Isaiah 64:8

I’ve always loved that scripture. I’ve always wanted to be humble and trusting enough to be the clay – to allow the Lord to mold and shape me, to give me the experiences I need to have, to become the finished product I want to be – the finished product I surely wanted to become when I waited anxiously to come to this earth.

But, I have to admit, being clay is painful, and scary, and being pushed and changed and molded is so uncomfortable.

I had to almost chuckle because about two weeks ago I had posted about how life with Anders felt calm and normal now. I had been feeling very much like I was on top of this little life of mine again. That very evening, circumstances changed making my life far more complicated and overwhelming. I feel sheepish to say much about it because it is the sort of thing that, trial though it is for me, it completely would be no big deal to many. But I have cried and struggled and felt such a sympathy and understanding of old Jonah who tried to leave his life – everything and everyone he knew – and simply run away to a completely new country just to avoid doing what the Lord had asked him to do; to avoid something that seemed hard and scary and overwhelming. I am such a wimp. But I absolutely know the Lord has been aware of me. It has been almost ridiculous the sheer number of things I have picked up and read that have spoken so specifically to my current circumstances. I have been reminded that even when he lets us struggle, he never leaves us comfortless. I have already grown and felt myself pulled and stretched, and beyond that, I have no doubt that before very long, the very things that are so overwhelming right now, will seem to be no big deal. Partly because I know myself: I know that one of my weaknesses down here is to be very scared, very worried, and very overwhelmed at the start of pretty much any new thing. But, before long, it becomes normal and fine and I have confidence in my ability to handle it, and gratitude to the Lord for giving me the ability to handle it so well. And partly because, at one of my very lowest crying and praying moments this week, I was reminded of these words that the Lord spoke to the people of Alma in the Book of Mormon when they were being persecuted:

“I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs . . . .

“And now, it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.” (Mosiah 24:14-15)

But, it is a strange thing this life. I recall a time when I was very small. I had stubbed my toe and it was stinging and hurting quite badly. At the time, I remember thinking, “And this surely isn’t the last time I will be hurt! I have a long life ahead of me, and there is absolutely no way I will make it through with out any more injuries.” That was a pretty frightening thought for a little girl as I tried to contemplate all the pain I might ever feel and how I would handle it. I am afraid I am still a little bit of that girl. I have learned a lot. I do, with all of my heart, trust my Heavenly Father, and, in honesty, I know that I don’t want to be let out of any experience that I need to have in this life to progress eternally, and, I know that I will be given the specific strength I need to meet each new thing, but there are moments when I am just feeling the pain from having “stubbed my toe” – or something much more painful – and I feel awfully frightened of all the inevitable difficult experiences there are yet to have in this life.

BUT! On a more positive note, already the chaos of the last two weeks is settling. Today, I have felt free to relax a little and do some of the things I simply enjoy doing. My Mike has been gone during this past two weeks of stress, and I am anxiously and excitedly looking at the clock and waiting for his arrival late tonight, and picturing how happy it will be to run out to the driveway to throw my arms around him and know he is here and mine.

And, my kids are cute and fun. Today Goldie came home and tossed her schoolwork on the table. A small paper on talents immediately caught my eye. In her nicest penmanship it read:

“It is nice to have talents. I will write about two talents that I have. First there’s fence climbing. I’m good even if it’s wet. and it’s fun. And I can see my neighbor’s yard.”

Oh I loved that. This very day I read an Albert Einstein quote that I had read before but forgotten. It said:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.”

That, along with Goldie’s awesome paper describing “fence climbing” as one of her best talents, made me so happy and reminded me how silly we are as humans – always going about comparing our weaknesses to others strengths and not even stopping to realize how amazing we are at things like climbing fences.

Someone Can Sit Up! With out Falling Over! . . .

Sort of . . .

Also, Daisy Doodles turned 10. (Though, in truth, she is still nine in this picture. She wanted me to hurry and take one last picture of what she looked like at age nine on the night before her birthday).

But, she had officially been 10 for several hours by this point:

Also, I didn’t realize how often I try to stall when my kids are wanting something. I have only become aware of it recently because I hear these things from Jesse many times each day:

“What does ‘later’ mean?”
”What does ‘in a second’ mean?”
”What does ‘soon’ mean?”

One more thing. This morning I put a few sticky notes on the cupboard with the older kids names on them and reminders of stuff we needed to do for/with them today . Later, I walked by the cupboard and noticed, in Penny’s large scrawl, a new sticky note next to the others that simply said, “PENNY”. For some reason it seemed so cute and sweet. It felt like “Don’t forget me, Mom. I may not need any books renewed at the library or have any math games we are supposed to do. There is nothing we need to pass off for Scouts or double-check on my homework, but I’d like to be up here on a little sticky note to. I’d like you to pause and think what you ought to be doing with Penny!”

There that’s all for now.

Pretending to Catch Up

I will tell you all how it is that I stay so caught up on my blog: I don’t worry about staying caught up. I remember long ago being so stressed trying to keep up on my journals because I had this holiday and that event and this experience all needing recorded and all behind on. Well, with my journal and my blog I don’t worry about staying caught up anymore. If a birthday is missed or an event forgotten so be it. I just write something from where I am at. Anyway, that’s the secret. It’s not necessarily a good secret. Maybe it’s kind of a bad secret (because someday my kids will be like, “Hey! Why is my birthday only mentioned at ages 2, 7, 8, and 13?” and I will shrug sadly and shake my head with no real answer to give except for what I have given above), but it is the secret all the same.

In the end, I reason, that I do record quite a few important things, and certainly don’t neglect anything major such as a birth or a blessing or a move, and while many things are missed, in the end, I think that I write much more because I never have that “Oh no, I have so much to catch up on” feeling that makes me not want to record things at all.

The reason I was thinking of this is because there has been a lot going on the past week or so what with the kids home for Spring Break, and Easter and the like. And for a minute today I thought, “How do I get all that down?” Then I remembered, “Whew. I don’t get it all down. Instead I just ramble a few things I happen to feel like rambling right now!”

I feel a little sheepish having said all that. Like some of you are shaking your heads at the error of my ways – thinking, “Who would opt to just chuck all the memories the kids might want recorded of Easter in favor of a few mutterings of insignificance?”. Still. There it is. And here is what I want to record today:

1. There are a few blogs I follow of mothers who are very crafty and creative and wonderful at letting their children learn and explore the world in fantastic ways. I follow those blogs because, who knows, maybe once in awhile I might see something that catches my eye and opt to do it with my kids. But, truthfully, I am not an extremely crafty and creative mother. I’m a good mother. I do enjoyable things with my kids. We play Uno and Rummikub and make sugar cookies; but, they are left often to their own little devices when it comes to creating. It is only now and then that I think to spearhead something such as gathering sticks, leaves, and the like to make little bird nests; or painting colored milk on bread to toast; or buying supplies to do shrinky-dinks. We have done those things, but I tell you, these pretty awesome mothers whose blogs I follow do things like that (and much MUCH messier and more clever) DAILY. And, I don’t.

SO, when I do have some little fun thing that is easy and that my kids do every now and then, I figure I ought to share it with the world . . . so you other simple folk like me can have a nice simple idea to do as well. And here one of those things are:

Years ago I bought some “fabric markers” at Michael’s craft store for some needful purpose. Now, somehow, those fabric markers have become the means by which old t-shirts (generally Abe’s outgrown Hanes undershirts) become their homemade “jammie shirts”. The markers draw perfectly on fabric (as their name suggests they might) and my kids quite enjoy both making and wearing their little homemade pajama tops.

2. I took a few of these, others Abe took of Anders and me, but they just made me happy. I love this little fella so so much. Life just feels so normal again and it makes me unbelievably happy that once all the craziness and dust and newness of having a new person in my life settled, we were left with . . . well . . . the new person still there . . . only not seeming so new – seeming very much a part of what is normal and happy and belonging to our daily existence. Oh I love him so much!

(Examining Abe’s hand for a brief minute before trying to eat it)

3. I like these two pictures of Goldie. The first was taken at her grandparents’ house one evening. I have wished ever since that I’d made more spring-time effort to find and take pictures of my kids among the “popcorn popping” on the apricot trees before it was all popped and gone. The second was one we took on one of the Spring Break hair experiment days. I am not very adept at doing hair, and things are usually fairly rushed before school so there is not much time to practice, so, over the break we experimented a little more with my limited abilities. Goldie herself dreamed up the turned-under-braid style.

4. Penny recently attended Kindergarten Round-up. I love that it is called that. We will have four kids attending elementary school this fall! Here our nearly five year old is:

There you have it. My little unorthodox way of staying “caught up”.