Nine. In Groups of Three.

Every now and then someone will mention something about a family with a number of children similar to the number we have and, forgetting our own family size, I’ll find myself aghast – wondering how anyone could possibly manage such a big family.

Recently, during a Sunday school lesson at church, the instructor was making some point about service. He pointed to me and said, “Now, I’m guessing you have the most children of anyone in the room. Let’s say it’s a Monday morning and you wake up feeling sick. And you have nine kids you have to get up and going and off to school . . .” I don’t recall the point (well, ok, I do, recall the point [and it ended with a nice tribute to Abe’s helpful nature], but it’s beside the point here), but, as he said that, I thought, “Well good heavens. That’s a silly scenario. Completely unrealistic. Surely it would simply be an impossible task – sick or well!” (Never mind that I do in fact get nine kids up, and going, and off where they need to be each day – with minimal trouble.)

But other times it honestly just does not seem that I actually have enough kids to account for such a preposterous sounding number. Most often around here it truly doesn’t feel like there are eleven of us. It doesn’t seem wild or chaotic (though perhaps a bit louder than most are accustomed to); and when I took these pictures the other day of “the big kids”, “the little kids” and “the babies” . . . it hardly seemed a remarkable number of children at all.

See what I mean? Three measly groups of three? Surely that’s nothing to write home about.

(Although, as evidenced by this blog, I do rather think they are something to write home about.)

Hansie (with a year under his belt)

The littlest Hansie-boy turned one this month.

I’ve noticed that many friends and family members – when called upon to actually use his name – suddenly get a little quieter and a little . . . mumblier. Haha. I don’t blame them. His name is pronounced differently in every country after all. And my main hesitancy – all those years of having babies and Mike wanting to name one Hans – was that nobody would know how to say it. And I was right. Nobody does. And no one can blame them. How should they know if we favor the German pronunciation, or the Norwegian, or the Swedish? So, I shall simply say here – for the benefit of any loved ones reading: we prefer the Danish pronunciation. He shares his name with many Scandinavian ancestors. Not all are Danish. But the Hans he was most particularly named after (Hans Hansen) was. So Danish it is. Which means -- just say his name as if you wished to rhyme with a shortened version of my own name (Nanc), or with “dance”, or even with “ants” or “pants” – and you’ll have it! You’ll be able to say it confidently and with nary a bit of hesitant mumbling.

Anyway. Dear dear boy. It’s impossible of course that he is one. Everyone knows that. (And just as impossible that by the time Summer was his age she was a big sister! He’s a baby for crying out loud!) But even more startling to me is that this little group of three is moving – in one united lump -- away from all babies to . . . all toddlers (though we certainly won’t claim them wholly out of babyhood before Hans starts walking and talking).

I don’t know how nicknames ever come about. But to me, if he isn’t “Hansie-boy” he is typically “squirrel”.

He loves Mike. When the rest of us hold him, rather than keep his right arm on our shoulder, he grabs ahold of our ear (or cheek or chin) for support. But with Mike he can just clutch firmly and reassuringly to his beard. I think he could spend his every moment – quite contentedly – perched in Mike’s left arm, holding his beard, watching him and alternating between tiny bursts of laughter and pursed lips (as if he’s trying to maintain a properly sophisticated air and realizes he has been laughing too much to pull it off). The poor boy never gets enough of it though. It seems he spends his entire life having to be torn from that spot so Mike can leave to work or so Hans can be put to bed. And he cries nearly every time Mike hands him back to me.

If any toy – no matter what its intended use – can be made to spin on our coffee table, that toy is his favorite.

And a thousand times a day he says – ending on a much higher/questioning pitch – “Huh??” – as if everything any of us do or say around here is slightly preposterous.

He is a delightful little fellow and while, most often, he is squirmy and wiggly, every once in awhile, when I take him up to bed, he lets me simply hug him – his little cheek pressed to my lips. I kiss him and whisper to him and pray over him and feel that little life has to offer is any better.

Some Hope . . . About Hope

Experiences of recent years – and the associated questions and fears – have given me the opportunity to learn a great deal about hope. It’s a funny, contradictory thing to find oneself wishing certain hard things had never occurred while simultaneously abhorring the very thought of going back to what one was before – to the version of oneself that, while perhaps more blithe and carefree, had not yet obtained the deeper assurances and insights afforded by those difficulties. “. . . whereas I was blind, now I see.”  I wonder now at how I existed without the conviction and light that, having been woken by some greater light, has begun to stretch out from my spirit and weave itself through the frail mortal parts of my soul – shoring them up and allowing them to stand more solidly.

I don’t mean to suggest that my understanding is any great or extraordinary thing. I mean, in many ways it is of course. To me and for me it is. Still, I recognize – even more now -- that I know comparatively little. Having removed the blindfold (that I hadn’t known I was wearing) has shown me not only . . . well . . . the beautiful landscape it has shown me, but it’s also made me aware that surely there are deeper insights beyond that hill, greater certainties through that forest, and more perfect comprehension across that ocean.

What I do know is that our Savior sees every trial ahead of us – and that He has already prepared a way through them; and that even things where loved ones make poor choices or people harm us, He will somehow turn for our best. I’ve learned further that we don’t have to fear those trials because, even in the midst of them, He is always there to help us through and to lighten seemingly impossible burdens. We may have moments of despair or of feeling forsaken, but hope and peace always come back if we reach for them.

So, that is the nutshell version of what I have come to know. And I do trust Him completely. I believe His promises are sure and that He means it – because He knows – when he tells us (over and over and over) to fear none of the things that come upon us. I believe He has the power to eventually turn them all for our good. And that nothing is exempt.

But I’ve been pondering on a further aspect of this of late because, while I believe all of those good things about Him, I often find myself still cradling fear . . . because I doubt me. I doubt my abilities to hear the promptings of The Spirit and follow his guidance to get through my trials properly – to help loved ones involved, do my part, and accomplish what I need to on my end to claim His promises of peace and joy. Certainly there is no doubt that I am imperfect. Undoubtedly I do fail to hear and act often. But I have been feeling that, perhaps, those feelings are not correct. That they are deceptions of Satan and simply another form of not truly trusting Christ (disguised as lack of trust in self).

I’m not excusing myself. I’m certainly not suggesting we can lazily do nothing on our part. I’m speaking to those of us who desire nothing more than to work hard and follow His light, His will, and His guidance – and who try to do it – but fall short or get discouraged or tired and don’t always try hard enough.

Although my own perpetual self-criticisms make it difficult to convince myself, I keep having this growing thought that He does not want me holding to this excuse to still feel fear so often. Rather He wants me to remember that His power and ability to push me to the humility I might need to get down certain paths, or to work through me despite my weaknesses . . . is infinite – it isn’t dependent only on how perfectly I do every single thing He tells me to do (though that certainly makes it easier and lets me grow and accomplish more faster). But He knows I’ll mess up some. His ability to turn everything for my good is more dependent, I am beginning to suspect, on my desires and willingness and simply on my true reliance on Him. He always always honors our trust in Him. I know that. I’ve learned it so many times. But trust doesn’t mean trusting that He is all powerful . . . but we are too weak to be guided and benefit from His power. It means trusting that his tremendous power is more than enough to compensate for our weaknesses in responding and acting. It’s trusting that He can direct circumstances to help us to the correct realizations, choices, and paths when we are stubborn or blind and need to be humbled to get there. It’s being sure that His promises to us – the peace he’s whispered to our hearts – He can and will accomplish through us – mortal, weak us.

Trusting that although He is amazing, His promises and the hope he holds out to us might fail because we are weak on our end isn’t truly trusting at all. Of course we are weak on our end. That was one of the premises of coming here – we would be weak. We wouldn’t respond always perfectly. None of us would have chosen this plan if the hope Christ offered only applied to those who would come here and be perfect at all times. True trust is letting Him bring us all hope even knowing we are weak; even when our problems seem too hard and too complex to ever be resolved or figured out.

I once had an experience where I knew hard things were ahead . . . and that the difficulty would last indefinitely; and I could not see how I would possibly be able to manage years of steps and decisions to lead to a solution. It was so overwhelming it threatened to suffocate me. After lots of praying and pondering, I felt a certainty come over me that while I couldn’t possibly see how to get from here to there, the Lord could. He could clearly see every single step, and every helpful involvement from outside of myself, and every necessary experience. I am realizing now that all those steps He could see took into account the backward steps and side steps and paused steps where I would surely be weak or make mistakes.

I felt that theme emerge for me as I listened to our church’s General Conference last October.

In talking about the Savior Elder Vincent Haleck said, "In spite of our weaknesses and failings, and because of them, He continues to offer His hands, which were pierced for our sakes. He will lift us up if we are willing . . . and allow Him to fill our ‘want’.”

President Uchtdorf said, “Often, when we look at ourselves, we see only our limitations and deficiencies. We might think we have to be ‘more’ of something for God to use us. . . . Blessings will come not so much because of your abilities but because of your choices. And the God of the Universe will work within and through you, magnifying your humble efforts for His purposes.”

He also talked about some of the early saints such as Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and Thomas B. Marsh and the significant contributions they made to the Restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ. He said, “. . . they were not perfect, but how encouraging it is to know that God was able to use them anyway. . . . How encouraging it is to know, though we are imperfect, if our hearts are turned to God, He will be generous and kind and use us for His purposes.”

I have felt since continually reminded (because I forget . . . constantly and revert back to my old way of fearful thinking) to rely on His grace in wading through the complicated struggles ahead of me and to simply trust Him; and not with conditional trust based on how perfect I am, but with complete trust that He not only can, but WILL guide me through -- despite my weaknesses. As Elder Holland said, “Our only hope for true perfection is in receiving it as a gift from heaven – we can’t ‘earn’ it. Thus the grace of Christ offers us not only salvation from sorrow and sin and death but also from our own persistent self-criticism.”

Again, I don’t in any way mean to suggest an idle “all is well in zion” mentality. Between my desires and my anxieties I don’t think I could adopt that attitude. But I do feel that I need to let His promises to make all things work for our good and his repeated admonitions to “fear not” fill me with a more perfect hope – despite my imperfect efforts.

D&C 100:12
Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold and lo, I am with you even unto the end.

D&C 78:18
. . . be of good cheer, for I will lead you along . . .

And, of course, there was Christmas . . .

I don’t really recall having seven kids. Or eight kids. There were six. And I was pretty on top of things. And then . . . there were nine. And if some hollow existed in that transition that might have allowed for adjusting or for shifting and carving out new spaces to fit in the things I’d kept up on with the addition of each kid up until six . . . well . . . I leapt over it too quickly to notice or take advantage.

Partly I joke of course. And partly I exaggerate. I often feel pleased and grateful and proud with how smoothly things run around here. And I recognize how blessed I am to be able to “run and not be weary” – to be able to work hard and see what tasks need done. I manage a lot quite well. But I am someone who, particularly since introducing children into my life, thrives on order and simplicity and organization. Those things give me satisfaction and such a sense of calm and relief. My mind and soul feel more orderly when things are in their place and nothing simply has to wait (potentially for years). The fact that I can’t have order and cleanliness in the degree I long for at the moment very often bears down on me and sets me to crying. I keep trying to learn or see because I feel like the Lord is teaching me something here – that I am not simply failing (as I often feel) rather, somehow, it is actually good for my growth and development to experience this and to not be able to set life as tidily around me as I long to. (When I get most agitated I feel Him comfort me with thoughts of “Do what you can and leave the rest to Me.” and oddly it does comfort me – which makes me chuckle a little as I don’t think He plans to come clean out my garage, organize my kitchen cupboards, or talk my kids into getting rid of the 8 billion stuffed animals they cling to.)

But, the point of all of that was actually to say: despite the imperfect order I am currently able to bring to my life and home, and the stress it causes me, . . . could I ever, in all of eternity wish for anything more or anything better than my kitchen, as it often is, and as it was on Christmas Eve?

There is happiness. And maybe that’s part of what I’m to learn through this – to see past life’s imperfections and uncontrolled (that I should very much like to control) to the significant and important and good and happy and beautiful. To see the things that cause me anxiety not as a failing, but as a sacrifice . . . for something immeasurably better.

Anyway, more of Christmas. My big family party/talent show/etc. was on the 23rd this year. I love this blurry little angel Mette picture my sister caught:

And a few more. It’s difficult to get my camera out at big family gatherings as I am forever losing children if I don’t keep tabs on them.

Christmas morning itself only came about through our usual haphazard buying and ordering, hiding in the closet, pulling out, sorting into piles for various children (inevitably with some piles too big and some too small), more last minute shopping, and then wrapping at night or shooing kids out of my room and wrapping in the day (and this year – hiding presents in cereal boxes, etc. and having my girls help wrap without knowing what they were wrapping or who it was for). But I’ve done this enough years now that I’ve begun to relax a little – realizing that it always works out, that my methods are fine being different from others, and that . . . no matter how unsure I am about it all coming together . . . Christmas morning always turns out pure excitement and magic.

Anders has been pleading for one of these “shark sleeping bags” for a year or two now.

The only unwrapped things were this little doll house and this blue horse/hoppity hop. It was cute because, without even knowing who each item was intended for, the little girls each ran – squealing excitedly – to the gift meant for them.

Poor Hans. We had to pull a highchair over to trap him in during the morning festivities. There were just too many toys he could break, parts he could lose in the growing piles wrapping paper, and stocking treats he could toss into his mouth – foil wrappers and all – to choke on. Next year will be more fun dearest Hansie-boy.

I still like for Abe to get something to “play” with – near-man though he is. So while he mostly got things like stuff for “tubeless tires” for his bike, he also got a fun sphero r2d2. (He also got the Superfight card game – which gave us some good laughing arguments over the break. There are several ways to play it, but the general idea involves getting to choose a characters as well as various superpowers from among the cards you draw – then getting to choose one of your cards to give to someone else [some of which are delightfully unhelpful] and then putting up an argument as to why you could beat the dealer – who then picks a winner, etc.)

And Daisy was very happy with her ukulele. She’s never played anything with strings, but is figuring it out quickly and because one really doesn’t play a ukulele and not sing, it was very happy to hear her singing and strumming all Christmas break long.

Also, there has quite honestly never ever been a more fitting gift for anyone than this gift that I found for our Goldie. Even in the middle of July she is shivering and wrapping herself in blankets and begging us to turn the AC off.

And then we did something utterly ridiculous and completely preposterous. We had the kids open one final present (the big one leaning – unlabeled – on the wall nearest the tree) to discover a kneeboard. And with a lot of, “A kneeboard? What would we use a kneeboard for? Why would we . . . ?” we sent them to the driveway where the answer was waiting.

It will add such fun to our summer time Bear Lake beach excursions! I must admit, somewhat surprisingly to my own self, that I love wave runners. I don’t know why. I don’t love sitting on a boat much. But I love controlling something small over the water myself and taking my kids out for turns, and letting the older ones take each other for turns. I think we will get a lot of happy memories out of it.

Anyway. Merry Christmas 2017!

New Year’s Misadventures

Amidst all the birthdaying and anniversary . . . ing was the great New Year’s Eve Calamity of 2017/2018. (I debated here. Calamity? Misadventure? Catastrophe? Disaster? All of those things). On the night between my birthday and our anniversary Penny and Goldie fell ill. (Penny wasn’t finished with it all until she’d thrown up ten times over several hours.) But, we were planning on leaving for Bear Lake on our anniversary, so I encouragingly told myself that it was nothing contagious – they’d most-likely gotten food poisoning from the Chinese food we’d had on my birthday. After all, we hadn’t been anywhere since Christmas. How could we have contracted some illness? No. No. We couldn’t have.

My theory checked out all right until Mette threw up several times DURING the car ride to our cabin. (Which thing no one should ever have to endure – particularly after the last baby wipe has been used up.) Still . . . it’s a curvy canyon and she has been prone to car-sickness before. Surely that was an unhappy fluke and we would have no further troubles.

So we hopefully watched movies and ate treats and Mike and the oldest four even went skiing (our refusal to acknowledge anything worse seeming sufficient to keep anything worse at bay). Until New Year’s Eve – when one after another my family was felled. We gave up on games, or fun, or any type of New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day celebration as first Anders, then Abe, and then Jesse, and then Daisy were hit. As we climbed from bed and cleaned up messes and soothed . . . over and over and over again, Mike and I kept anxiously asking one another how we felt. At some point Mike told me he didn’t think he was going to make it. And he didn’t.

Goodness it was quite the affair! Last night we watched part of a documentary on the 1918 flu pandemic. It was unthinkably awful. How our country survived it along with WWI is beyond my comprehension. But having undergone our own mini-pandemic, I was ultra sensitive to the realities of what some families underwent. Why, if that had been us this weekend, we would have come out of it with only myself, Hans and Summer remaining of our family of 11! It filled me with equal parts terror and gratitude.

But, there were happy things from the cabin as well. Playing Pictionary, me not getting sick, Mike reading to the kids, the skiing, Abe meeting up with friends from the ward who were also up skiing another night, the girls tending while Mike took me to eat for our anniversary at one of the three or four restaurants that were open in Garden City on the holiday weekend, and Mette, upon hearing Summer ask for a Tootsie Roll, insisting, “I want a Tootsie . . . and to roll it!” (She has also been known in the past to ask for: Nes. . . . Quick!)

So we will not proclaim the advent of 2018 a total failure. . . . Though certainly a partial one.