Summer and Three Weeks til Abe Leaves

We are now in the thick of summer. It seems like it only just began, but somehow Abe has already been to Moab biking with two of his best friends for his senior trip. We've had a quick "check on the cabin" trip to Bear Lake. Daisy has spent a few days at our cabin with her friends. Abe has attended our stake's missionary training camp that he was asked (months before he'd started his own actual mission paper work) to help head up. Our local parade and fireworks are this very weekend. And the three oldest girls are, as we speak, off at girls' camp. (Penny's first time away from home without either of her parents. She was a little anxious. I've been praying she won't feel homesick, and I'm so glad she has her older sisters with her.)

(Here are a few of Abe's texted pictures from Moab as well as a bunch from our quick Bear Lake trip.)

(Starling has just begun loving to entertain herself by batting and grabbing at her little mobile. When we realized we had nothing for her to bat at up at our cabin, Abe jimmy-rigged her this little mobile out of tape, a kitchen stool, and a few random cabin toys. :))

As I typed this, a friend who is off at camp with my girls just texted me these!

And, of course there has been a lot of routine, run-of-the-mill, ordinary time. Most of my days are overwhelmingly filled with just . . . feeding Starling and getting little people ready and taking care of the demands of our home, etc. In fact, I honestly don't know if life has ever been so completely unrelenting in the demands it's placed on me. And I feel it. But, in the middle of all of those demands, and even when no grand adventures are afoot, it's comforting to see that there are still just . . . kids living out their daily existences in a fairly happy manner!

Here we tried to jazz up a fairly uneventful day with pop-its. There are never enough. Next time I will just need to throw thrift to the wind with my pop-it purchasing. :)

And here this little angel is. Only days away from three whole months!

And the girls. Of their own accord. Off on a hike together. (Goodness seeing them just . . . being friends and choosing to do daily bits of life together makes me so happy! It reminds me of growing up with my own sisters. What a blessing it is -- them having each other!)

And . . . a few other ordinary things from around here:

Summer asked me the other day if she could have one of the Kit Kats we had in the cupboard. Not wanting to incite a riot, I told her she could get one if she could be sneaky. She looked at me sadly and said, "I'm not very good at being sneaky." (Admittedly, it's dreadfully hard to be sneaky when it comes to treats around here. The kids seem to have an acute "someone is eating a treat without me" sense.)

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Mette recently asked me for something and then informed me I better give it to her quickly because, she told me, "I just can't wait very long." That sentence was, perhaps, one of the truest things she has ever said about herself.

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Daisy was recently teaching Anders how to play Clue. When she explained that someone got murdered and we had to discover who had done it, Anders asked, "Murdered? What does murdered mean?"

"It means they got killed," Daisy stated.

"So we have to figure out who got murmured or we have to figure out who murmured? Anders questioned.

Daisy laughed that it was Laman and Lemuel who murmured while I chimed in that it was everyone in our family before correcting Anders on the word.

Then Anders said, "But it's sad that someone got murdered."

And Daisy comfortingly suggested, "Well, OK. Maybe they didn't get murdered. Maybe they just got attacked."

Anders leapt on that alternative. "Oh! I know! Let's say they got an uppercut!"

"OK," Daisy laughed -- shaking her head. "So we have to figure out who got the uppercut and what weapon they used to give them an uppercut."

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Anyway, enough of all of that. All the while that I am typing I feel like there is an elephant in the room. An elephant in this blog post? An elephant in my thoughts? It's there all right. And it seems to me that I can't talk about anything at all without it feeling a bit crowded by this other THING.

Abe leaving.

Three weeks from today.

That phrase: "Three weeks" is so familiar to me. Only . . . it has always and always been in relation to a child COMING. Never before has it been three weeks 'til a child leaves.

And I feel like I am ten again. I'm on the Colossus roller-coaster at Lagoon -- chugging up that steep incline before the inevitable hurtling down the steep other side to zip around slanting corners and zoom through those huge upside-down loops. 

I know all the hills and loops are technically the scary parts, but that hill at the start . . . just edging closer and closer to the real ride ahead . . . that was always the scariest part for me.

Abe ironing all his new white shirts, us going through the temple with him, he and Mike watching a late-night movie together, etc. etc. All of these things -- the readying things, the routine things, and the lasts -- feel just like I'm on that upward hill on the Colossus again.

Misc.

I went to Penny's 6th grade graduation a few weeks ago. And weren't we both happy when they announced the winner of the "Citizenship Award" -- a cash prize recognizing only one boy and one girl in the entire 6th grade for overall excellence in example, respect, etc. -- as my Penny! Bravo Penny girl!

Speaking of awards. Jesse's teacher gave each kid in her class a little certificate on the last day. She told them she spent hours trying to think of what was the exact right award for each of them. Jesse received the "Kindness Counts" award. There is nothing that matters to me more. Thank you for being kind my Jesse.! (Pictured here with his 3rd place trophy in Pentominoes from the Math-Science Olympiad.)

In other news. We'd taken a seat out of our van recently for some reason or another. We were about to go somewhere as a family so I suggested we just take two cars instead of the van. Only then I realized that we CAN'T FIT IN TWO CARS. It just made me chuckle it seemed so preposterous. We'd have to take three regular cars to get our whole family somewhere. 

Also, the other day Anders came into my room and said, "Mom, on a scale of 1-100, how handsome am I?" 

When I responded, "100" without a moment's hesitation, he opened his eyes in wide, joyous surprise and pressed the matter further (because certainly there must be some upper limit on his handsomeness). 

"How handsome am I on a scale of 1-never ending?" 

I replied, "never-ending" without batting an eye. His own eyes got even wider -- along with his smile and an exclamation of, "Wo!" And away he went with all his handsomeness. 

We are all becoming a bunch of four-eyes around here. It's ridiculous. Everyone could see fine one minute . . . and everyone was blind the next. Abe went in for his pre-mission physical and discovered his previously grand eye-sight was now fairly poor. Then Penny went in for her junior high shots and discovered the same thing. And Daisy had been complaining of not seeing things, so she went in at the same time as Penny . . . and also needed glasses. Before we knew it, we had three kids in glasses. And we currently have two more complaining of not being able to see the hymn numbers up behind the pulpit at church, etc. Goodness. 

What else. I don't know. This was all rather haphazard. We are on our second week of summer break. And it was a bigger end-of-school year than most what with Abe graduating, Penny finishing elementary, and Goldie finishing junior high (she'll get her learner's permit next month!!! what? she is just far too puny to not be pulled over every moment it seems to me!). Anywho . . . a few misc. pictures. 

My Magnum Opus

I snapped a few photos of the kids just inside our sliding glass door in May. I've done this same silly little thing for the past three years in a row -- a little profile picture (or this year -- front facing) of each kid that I then post alongside one small detail about them. Of course now I feel that I can't possibly do the same thing next May since Abe will be missing. It seems too sad. (Although . . . I suppose one could argue that I posted them just fine the two years before this one . . . with Starling missing. Ha. But it's a little different when you don't know they're missing!)

Abraham Michael. Age 18. Barely recognizable without a pencil behind his right ear. 

Daisy Sharon. Age 17. No one knows for certain how many times she's read Pride and Prejudice, but her current reading is being done out loud. With her younger sisters. 

Goldie Emma. Age 14. Would take popcorn or Pringles over brownies or ice cream any day of the week.

Penny Pearl. Age 11. Tasked with the job of feeding our chickens every morning. Doesn't really love it. 

(Note. She turned 12 shortly after posting this in May.)

Jesse Frank. Age 10. Keeps an old, giant, Costco diaper box full of broken parts and pieces from various computers, radios, printers, etc. that I am not allowed to throw away. Someday they will become a grand robot.

Anders Allred. Age 7. Occasionally nonchalantly mentions how many girls at school are in love with him. And we believe it.

Summer Maren. Age 4. Draws pictures to deliver to the neighbors all the live long day in secret hope that they will give her treats.

Mette Mary. Age 3. Currently insists I sing "Sleep My Child" to her every night before bed. (Often demanding I twice repeat the line "hill and dale in slumber sleeping" because she likes the word "slumber".)

Hans Hansen. Age 2. Fell in love with his sister's Elsa doll. Confiscated it for his very own. And ruined her hair. (Which had no adverse effect on his devotion.)

Starling Eliza. Age 7.5 weeks. Often she opens and shuts her mouth and moves her lips and cannot figure how one speaks. And then, magically, she does. And every time I think of that line from The Grinch: "He heard a small sound like the coo of  a dove".

(Note. Starling is now 10.5 weeks.)

And, just for kicks, I took one of myself this year. I would have added Mike too . . . had he been even slightly keen on the idea.

Nancy Allison. Age 42. Well shucks. I don't know. She birthed ten kids. That's somethin'.

And it is something, isn't it!? They are the main reason I was sent to earth in the place and time that I was. My mission. They -- these individual humans -- are the main things that I am aware of actually being tied to premortal promises that I made. In no other matter have I had heaven's direction so clearly. People think it's insane. They wonder about the logic. But what does any of that matter? What does anything matter for any of us really more than accomplishing what we came here to do? There are many roles God has given me. And many I hope He yet will. (And there are, sadly, many opportunities He has extended that I have failed to take advantage of.) But these kids? Bringing them here and helping each of them prepare to accomplish whatever they came here to do. That, it turns out, is the main thing I came here hoping to do. And because it truly is difficult and uncommon, I praise God all the more for somehow showing me this path that I had forgotten and that I many times tried to bow out of before I had finished my work. Ah. I sound like that little Charlotte spider again, don't I? Well, and what if I do? We both had the same great work -- the same "magnum opus" as she called it. Let life be complicated. Let it be overwhelming and inconvenient and sometimes grueling but for heaven's sake don't don't let it be all lived out without my claiming the joy associated with accomplishing the main work I came here to do. (Even if I, at times, do it rather poorly. Haha.)