October’s End

October certainly just comes to a sudden halt, doesn’t it! One day it’s fall and pumpkins and Halloween. The next day . . . it’s Christmas.

Haha. No. Not really. It’s certainly not Christmas here yet. (Though I did listen to this song today . . . a few times. It’s Cristmassy, but not . . . a traditional Christmas song . . . so it felt OK. And it’s so pretty. But don’t tell Goldie! She is not one to allow nonsense like sneaking in early Christmas music.)

But the change from fall and Halloween to . . . not fall and Halloween did feel rather abrupt this year! Last weekend our trees were still mostly covered in fall leaves. And the weather was fairly warm. And half of my kids still had no idea what costume they’d wear. But today I woke up to used costumes – all piled up and ready to be returned to the basement, cold rain, and only a few clinging leaves!

October finished. Just like that! (The calendar even changed to November!)

I really do love the month of October. Everything fall and harvesty just feels wholesome and makes me happy. (Well, minus the creepy costumes and gore. But those don’t actually factor in to our October around here.) Leaves, cooler weather, school routines having become . . . well, routine, pumpkins and cornstalks, our fall-scented candle occasionally burning, eager kids digging through our costume boxes, the anticipation of the whole holiday season ahead.

In the midst of it I often almost begin to think I could choose it as my favorite month. (After all Christmas has all that pesky shopping for one million kids to take care of. . . .)

But then I remember Christmas music! And the whole focus on Christ’s birth, and childhood memories of my grandma’s on Christmas Eve and of sleeping in my older sister Amy’s room in the new Christmas nightgowns my mom had sewn – listening to Amy tell stories about Santa sightings, and the magic my mom somehow wove into snow and Christmas books, and twinkly lights everywhere, and my kids so excited, . . . and Christmas music! (Ha! I know. I said that. But Christmas music is so tied up with everything I mentioned; with every nostalgic and good thing in my life and every good thing that Christ has given me that . . . I can pretty much sum up all the magic of December with: “Christmas music”. A million memories and emotions and smells and sights tied with so many songs!).

But this is and was a happy month. I’m noticing more and more the things that have become tradition for my kids. There are a million things that I don’t do . . . that others do so expertly that occasionally I fret for a moment I am robbing my kids. But I really have begun to see the things that they expect and look forward to each year – the things that have become ours. (Even small things like Abe lighting all the pumpkins on the porch and all the candles in the house for me on Halloween, or the older girls taking the little ones trick-or-treating around our cul-de-sac before going off to their own parties, or eating stew on Halloween.) I keep seeing these things – the ones that have become repeated and significant to my kids – and they make me feel like I am managing to create a magical childhood in my own way for them – just like my parents did for me.

All the traditions are tied, at this stage, with a lot of work and a fair amount of stress for me. I long to perfectly create these holidays for my kids with no one demanding to be held and with mess never the end result. (I can’t even tell you how long it took to clean up everything from pumpkin carving . . . and how hard that felt to me with it landing when five little people desperately needed help getting to bed and Mike was away). But mixed in with the challenge of pulling it off, the perfect moments all do exist. I recognize them. And I love them!

(And one last October-ending note: Abe’s mountain-biking team just had their team pics taken. They made a big to-do over the outgoing seniors – presenting them with a cool poster with all their pictures on it, etc. We will miss it!)

Pieces

11-year-old Penny shares a room with 4-year-old Summer. I will sometimes peek in to see if Summer is sleeping (often long before Penny has come to bed) and notice that she only has one little blanket on her. But later, when Penny has headed to bed, and I check on them again, Summer will always be bundled snuggly in all her covers. I love picturing Penny going in and, before climbing in her own bed, motherly making sure her sleeping-younger sister is tucked in warm enough for the night. It’s so dear it makes me want to cry.

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The other day I went to tuck Jesse and Anders in in their bunkbeds. Anders was already sound asleep, but Jesse was awake. As I walked towards their bed, my foot kicked a gigantic copy of War and Peace.

“Why is War and Peace on the floor in here?” I asked Jesse.

“Oh,” he shrugged. “Anders was reading it.”

Anders is six.

I have a feeling it wasn’t quite what he was after as he gathered some bedtime reading. Hahaha.

(Note – added later: Anders is seven. Several days after writing this post, he mentioned that he was seven. And neither Daisy nor myself believed him for several minutes. But, we did in fact celebrate his seventh birthday earlier this month. I didn’t forget the birthday – or the presents, or the celebration. But . . . I did forget that he actually turned SEVEN! [Maybe he’s perfectly ready for War and Peace after all!])

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Summer and Mette. Doing a little painting.

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My little Hansie. I can’t tell you how dear that boy is to me! I just adore him so so much. I love how his hair stands straight up (and how Mike won’t cut it because the thought makes him too sad). I love how he says, “fuffalo” instead of buffalo (which comes up more often than you’d think -- as we often drive past a house with a giant statue of a buffalo [all painted in flowers] standing in their front yard.) I love how when he says “Penny”, it sounds like “Bunny”. I love how he often despairs, “Mean!” when anyone has not allowed anything to go his way. (The girls brought in their pumpkins off of the front porch today and didn’t immediately fork them over to him. “Mean. Pumpkin.” he explained sorrowfully to me. Yesterday he wanted me to let him hold an entire frosting-covered piece of cake rather than feed it to him as I insisted. “Mean. Mom.” he bemoaned to Daisy.) But most of all right now, I think I love that when I take him up to bed at night, no matter how wiggly he is, the minute I start to pray over him, he snuggles quietly into me with his head on my shoulder. It makes me never want to stop praying because I just love hugging that little fuzz-head so much.

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Daisy loves to make banana bread. (And, of course, I love her loving to make it.) But this love, complicated by a house filled with hungry siblings, has caused Daisy to, very often in the past, hide bananas away when we buy them so they don’t end up eaten before she finds a chance to bake. Alas, she often forgets she’s hidden them . . . until, inevitably, weeks later, I cry out something like, “Why are there a bunch of completely black, old bananas hiding above the cupboards?”

So when Mike brought home a bunch of bananas the other day and Daisy requested, “Can I hide some of those?”, she quickly added, “In plain sight?” And so she did. They currently sit on the counter above the sink with a note stuck to them reading, “Do not eat!”

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Here are the three people left behind when everyone else goes to school.

Also, . . . them pictured in the cart at IFA buying chicken feed. Again.

ALSO also . . . them with the daughter of one of my childhood friends – who happened to be dressed as Elsa from Frozen when they stopped by recently. The girls were in complete, magical, awe.

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Mette has taken to referring to me primarily as “mother”. Not “mom”. Only “mother”. I don’t know where this comes from. I can only imagine, perhaps, it stemmed from the fact that, when I put her to bed at night, she often requests we sing, “Mother tell me the Story”. (A sweet, little song with a child verse and a mother verse. She sings the child verse all on her own and then waits for me to sing my part.) Alternately, it could be because the kids recently watched Tangled. And any of you who have watched it can immediately begin singing . . . “Mother knows best.” (Though I’d prefer she think of me as the mom singing in the primary children’s hymn rather than as Mother Gothel!)

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For years our maples were too short to see over the top of our house. But this year . . . there they are! Every time I turn onto our street I feel so happy looking at those red leaves poking up behind our house! Sadly the last few leaves are barely clinging to the trees now. But I keep thinking how if we ever move and build a house, I will have to plan trees based on fall leaf color. My parents’ backyard was mostly full of yellows. Ours is mostly full of reds and oranges. One should certainly consider having every fall color in the trees they plant!

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Penny loves writing. Her nightstand is completely filled with notebooks and folders and rogue papers. Mostly there are only beginnings. Sometimes only titles. But they are everywhere. And for all ages. She even makes comic books. She makes me laugh often with her ideas. She recently started a comic book titled, Star Wars: Jedi Elementary. Book 1. Does the Force Really Awaken?

And the other day, after asking Abe what it means to “throw shade” (dis, trash, or put down – as in, “Awe man, why you gotta be throwin’ shade!”), she titled a new book, Bobby Jordan Throws Some Shade. I laughed out loud so hard when I read the title. Clever, funny girl.

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Abe looking handsome. He needed a headshot for something the other day so we quickly took these in the backyard.

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One of my favorite things is to go on a little family walk on Sunday evenings. Always in whatever is being worn by that point – pajamas, church dresses, etc. Sadly, what with the colder weather coming, the shortened hours of daylight, and the clock change accompanying fall about to hit, I fear those walks are likely nearly at an end for the year. But we managed a little one last night. (Though it was completely dark by the end. The shots of the leaf fight that erupted when we came into a small clearing blanketed with thick leaves, and the shot of all the kids at the park, were nearly impossible to get! And I lightened them a good deal afterwards in order to post them at all.) (Also, in the playground pic, all nine kids plus Mike are there. It took me a minute to find them. It’s Goldie who is tricky. A dark little shadow of a person behind Mette and Penny. [All five girls are in the same section – with Goldie at the very back.] Abe is a little tricky too – demonstrating some sort of hanging trick behind Anders.)

For A Wise Purpose

And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.

I’ve read those words a million times. And anyone very familiar with scripture and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints likely recognizes those words as the ones written by the Nephite prophet Mormon who, as he abridged the records to compile The Book of Mormon, felt compelled, for reasons he didn’t understand, to include a group of small writings he’d originally missed.

He didn’t know why he was doing it. He didn’t know what it meant. Or when he might know. Or why he felt so strongly that it mattered.

And it wasn’t until several thousand years after he had died that the purpose became clear.

I love that scripture. I love the reminder that God is aware of our decisions and mistakes and circumstances long before they are even a possibility in any mortal eyes. I love that nothing catches him by surprise, and that He prepares ways for everything to work towards his purposes for us.

But I’ve still mostly thought of Mormon, Joseph, Martin, and the lost 116 pages whenever I’ve read it.

Only, . . . when I read it the other day, the words seemed to light up and rise out of the page. I read them. And re-read them. And highlighted them. And underlined them. And saved a screenshot on my phone of them.

Because suddenly, they were mine. In relation to so many things, but mostly, in relation to having this tenth baby. There are so many things I have wondered. I have had so many questions. I have prayed so much to understand the meaning of the unmistakable impression to bring this child here despite all my prior certainties that my family was finally complete.

I have had some small answers. And I have clutched those tightly to my heart. But mostly, I have simply known that I made this choice as Mormon did: “for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me.”

I made it despite a mountain of fears and worries and despite all my own logic because I felt utterly impressed that God had showed me a glimpse of something eternal about myself and my core as a creator and because I couldn’t deny that somehow, miraculously, He had actually truly spoken to me. (I am always shocked that such a thing can occur. And that it ever really does! It’s miraculous. And impossible. And yet . . . there it is! Happening!)

“And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.”

And this is what I feel sure of: That bringing this baby here -- at this time; to my family -- has to do with things not just here and now, but things I can’t possibly comprehend yet, but that the Lord sees clearly that involve generations far into the future. That it has to do with things that will be of significance millennia after this small moment of having simply followed an impression.

And, while none of that erases the practical day-to-day difficulty that this will mean: the continuing lack of sleep, the dealing with babies throwing up in the night, toddlers melting in tantrums, juggling the new phases and needs of children stretching towards adulthood (and juggling it with babies in tow), mess that can never be kept on top of, and tears because sometimes it is utterly exhausting and there is so much to do, and so many people I might let down, and because my view is so often so confined to the muddledness of ordinary moments; it is still a powerful truth. And knowing it anchors me.

And, to end, a few words that I recorded earlier about what I’ve been currently experiencing with this pregnancy:

Three days ago I began having those quiet little moments late at night (when all the house is hushed and I am very very still) of eyes widening over the certainty of having just felt unmistakable small kicks coming from inside me. They’re far too gentle for anyone else to feel yet. Just this tiny little message from baby: “I am really here. I am really coming.” Followed by an inward, awed acknowledgment from me. It makes the reality of this soul’s existence feel like a magnificent, binding secret that, for the shortest space of eternity, belongs to just the two of us.