The Husbandless in Her Affliction

I have often heard people say that moms should leave town every now and again so their husbands and children learn to appreciate them more and value everything they do. I think there may be some truth to that, but I am also convinced--at least in my own case--that this is a street that runs two ways.

Last week, Jeremy went to Washington, D.C. for a few days to present a paper at a conference. The kids and I had a pleasant time at home, but I learned at least two very important things:

1. I do not have a dish fairy. For a long time I was sure a magical dish fairy lived in my house. On many days, the fairy actually did the dishes. On the days I did the dishes and left all of the dripping wet handwashing dishes on the counter, I was sure the fairy was the one who dried the dishes and put them away. I was wrong. As it turns out, it was Jeremy. Who knew?

2. Jeremy is very handy to have around in the mornings. I had my suspicions about this already, since I can count on basically one hand the number of times I've had to get up when my kids get up in the morning (this seems only fair, since Jeremy is already awake, right? And I'm still up by 7:00. That's still early. And yes, our kids get up insanely early, which I define as any time before 7:00). But this was very clear to me on the Friday morning he was gone. I teach a once-a-week class at the college on Friday mornings. I am in my office at 8:00 for my office hour then teach from 9:00 to 11:30. This semester, a series of friends have watched Jonathan and Clara for me, and evidently, the fact that the kids are clothed, fed, and ready to go to friends' homes by 7:45 is not the miracle I thought it was. As it turns out, again, it was Jeremy.

So we missed Jeremy while he was gone, and we're glad to have him back. I just really love that guy. Really, how could I not love a man who took a series of touristy self-portraits in Washington just because he knew I would love them? That's off the hook, Jer. Thanks.

Happy Easter

On Easter Sunday, we spent a quiet day together as a family. We had sunshine for the first time in more than a week, which I felt was a true blessing on such a special, sacred day. We watched the rest of General Conference, took a beautiful spring walk, read stories, sang songs, then ate an Easter dinner that was much too ambitious and robust for a family of four. We did our best.



One my favorite parts of the day was doing a little lesson about Jesus' final week, his crucifixion, and his resurrection, with Clara and Jonathan. I used the ideas found on this site to make "real" Easter eggs, where each plastic egg contained a token of Christ's final week--a piece of unleavened bread to represent the Last Supper, a picture of Christ praying in the Garden, a few pieces of silver to represent Judas' betrayal, etc. The final egg is empty, representing the empty tomb and the resurrection of the Savior. Clara loved the activity--she had us do it twice!--and Jeremy and I cherished having a quiet opportunity to teach our children about their Savior.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter.

Easter Saturday

We, along with our Australian brothers and sisters, really enjoy the secondary holiday of Easter Saturday. (I must admit here, though, that I don't know anything about the "official" Easter Saturday, other than that my calendar says it's a holiday observed in Australia.) For us, Easter Saturday is the day the Easter Bunny visits and we eat too much candy.

To prepare for our Easter Saturday celebration, we dyed eggs as a family on Friday night. This was a first for us, since Clara has in the past been allergic to eggs. No longer, my friends. They both had a great time with the egg dying process, and once again had tinted hands for a couple of days.


The only thing Jonathan objected to was that we at one point had the audacity to take his egg from him and put it in a jar of dye. He was most displeased, as you can see (and do you also see how tightly he clings to his magic crayon?).


The only thing Jeremy objected to was that we were dying eggs. He kept saying, "You know the box says 5 and up, right? Did you see the box?" Oh, so little holiday zest in that one. Really, though, he was his typically great and patient sport about the whole thing, and we ended up with six colored eggs, only two of which were cracked--one from Clara accidentally dropping one and one from Jonathan banging his repeatedly on the kitchen table. Classic.


Both Jonathan and Clara were thrilled the next morning to retrieve their Easter baskets and to find the eggs which the silly Easter Bunny (or, as Clara calls her, the Easter Rabbit) had hidden all over the front room. Jonathan proved especially adept at hunting for eggs with a mouth full of jelly beans and only the slightest stream of colored drool. And thanks to our good friends, the Easter Rabbit also visited later that day and left more treat filled eggs in our front yawn. An Easter Saturday miracle, Mate!




As an Easter Saturday bonus, we watched General Conference. Look how sweetly my little angels sat and listened! They sat at that very table playing Conference Bingo all the way through the opening hymn.


Then they thought of sundry other ways to entertain themselves:



They are truly exceptional children.

Camp In-n-Out

Several weeks ago some brave friends of ours decided to defy the whims of Mother Nature by going camping. Their gamble paid off: for a Friday night in March in the North Country, the weather was extremely pleasant and mild.

We are not brave, so we decided just to drive down for Friday afternoon and evening to spend time with them before returning home to our own beds (and lengthy hot showers all around!). In some ways I wish we would've stayed, since they "camped" in one of the state park cabins--fully heated and quite cozy. But I didn't regret anything once my head hit my own pillow that night.

Now that we're back into "second winter," as I've dubbed it (Jeremy kept telling me we'd beaten Old Man Winter, but I think he might have been wrong), I can look back at these pictures and get excited for the real camping season. Maybe we'll even stay overnight next time. Wait for it.

(A few disclaimers on the following pictures: 1)Don't judge Bug by his pink coat. Clara didn't want to wear it, and Jonathan's was in the car; 2)You'll notice but one picture of Clara. This is probably because she didn't really stop moving the whole time we were there. Trust us: she looked cute, was a mess, and had a fantastic time.)

Respite on a Sunday Afternoon

A few Sundays ago, Jonathan woke up from his nap in a most unhappy state. Jeremy went in to console him, and when about 20 minutes had passed in silence I went in to check things out. This is what I found:


Sweet, no? Although in studying the picture I'm forced to pose a question: is Jeremy the only man on earth who gets "comfortable" after church by changing his pants but keeping his tie? He's a uniqe fellow. I like him.

Cloudy Day

Every once in a while, in a fit of insanity disguised as active mothering, I decide to bust out the fingerpaints. Clara loves to do any kind of painting, and Jonathan seems to have a vested interest in testing the validity of "non-toxic" claims on all art supplies.

For our most recent project, I cut up some sponges and told them they were painting clouds. Both of them started out with very delicate dabs, but by the end their papers were basically just saturated blue blobs. And for Jonathan's final stroke of artistic experimentation, he dipped a stubby finger into a big pile of paint and licked it clean. I overreacted ("Oh! That's disgusting! Stop!"), then he promptly stuck his tongue out for me to wipe off. I cleaned him up (which is surprisingly difficult with even allegedly "washable" paints; my kids' hands are regularly tinted), then walked into where Jeremy was working, fretting, "So when they say 'non-toxic' they mean that, right? Don't you think? He's okay, right?" If you know Jeremy, it may not surprise you to learn that he thought I was crazy. He may have even rolled his eyes--just a little, of course. Whatevs.

The things we suffer for our art.

(Un)Creative Mothering

I have long suspected that my powers of creativity are mediocre at best. This is probably why my favorite genre of writing (like writing I can actually do myself) is The Essay. My attempts to write fiction are always laughable, I think, even though I have been known to swoon over the beloved novels I read (although I almost never cry, as you may know, on account of my heart of stone).

Recently, my lack of creativity has been brought to light in a different way: as a mother. I tend to be pretty matter-of-fact and literal, so when Clara asks me a question, I answer it with The Truth. For example:

Clara: Mom, do you think dinosaurs ate mountains?

Me: No, they didn't. Mountains are made of dirt and rocks, and dinosaurs ate plants and meat, not dirt and rocks.

Clara: Mountains are not made of dirt and rocks!! Dinosaurs did eat them!!

Me: No, they really didn't. I don't think they could digest dirt and rocks.

Clara: They COULD digest them!!!

At about this point I realized how lame I was sounding, arguing with a three-year-old about dino digestion.

Another example:

Clara: What are clouds made of?

Me: Clouds are made of water. Tiny drops of water rise up into the sky and make clouds. When the water gets heavy, it rains. Fog is the same, but it's a cloud on the ground.

Clara: Clouds are not made of water! Fog is not a cloud!

She eventually came around on this one, due to my expert logic and to a book we read at the library. But still. I am a mother who has a serious lack of ability to be imaginative and to encourage imaginative play in my children. I do like to pretend, and we do a lot of pretending in my house, but it tends to be less on the dragon-slaying side and more on the pretend-to-be-an-animal side. ("Dragons aren't real." "Dragons are real!!")

Thoughts? I know several excellent mothers who seem extremely gifted at letting their children wonder about the world without feeling compelled to draw a diagram of the water cycle to prove life's "realities." I have seen mothers who are able to get their kids to do the undesirable things in life (like taking a bath) by telling them that they're superheroes who need to save a princess from an underwater cavern full of jewels. So clever! Our bath play is primarily limited to pouring water out of cups, although in my defense (or perhaps in Clara's favor) the kids do spend a lot of time digging up elasmosaurus fossils in the bathtub. They actually do a lot of fossil hunting at home, and a lot of flesh-tearing of weaker dinosaurs. Perhaps I should be worried about that...

So what do you think? Is there some sort of ideal line for children between fantasy and reality? Does it matter whether Clara thinks dinosaurs ate mountains? Am I damaging her potential for creative play?

Dancing Queen

Clara's dance recital was Monday night. She took a six-week tap and ballet class through the city, and I'm pretty sure the only thing she learned was that she gets extremely annoyed if we ask her to do an arabesque. Oh well. She had fun!



I think if you asked Clara, she would say the best part of the recital (and, quite possibly, the class as a whole) was that she got to go to Coldstone after her performance. She could not believe her good fortune. She was extremely surprised to learn that there are restaurants on God's green earth that serve nothing but ice cream. Wonders never cease for that child. That's probably why we love her so much.


Nice work, Clara-B. Now show me an arabesque.

18

This baby is now 18 months old. I feel like a walking cliche, because probably five times a day I look at him and say, "Where did the time go?" Seriously, though: where did it go?? His life seems to be flying by at breakneck speed, and I already miss the days of snuggling a lumpy Jonathan in my arms.

Nevertheless, this toddler Jonathan has his charms. He's still fun to snuggle, even if he wiggles a bit more than he used to. And he's something of a tiny tot, so he's still fun to tote around. He loves being near Clara and doing what she does (something she only inconsistently welcomes). He loves eating blueberries and prunes (which is good, since they're a bit of a necessity, if you know what I mean). He loves stuffed animals and playing outside. And he absolutely loves his shadow. He's fascinated by it! He just discovered it last week, and ever since then he's constantly on the lookout for it. He can't quite say "shadow," so he calls it "hoe," and he likes to say "Hi, hoe," and "Night-night, hoe." We have changed the shadow's diaper, we have chased the shadow, we have put the shadow to bed, we have fed the shadow. He loves that thing.

Jonathan can be trouble sometimes, mainly because he is so good at climbing on stuff. I often come around the corner to find him standing on top of the table or on Clara's bed or on the toilet, or wherever else he can manage to climb. Sometimes I think he is determined to maim or kill himself, but he just likes to conquer obstacles in his path. So far he still has all of his teeth and has not broken a thing. We'll keep him.

Another Anniversary

On February 24th we marked another Sam-Day: the sixth anniversary since our first baby, Sam, was born. I have been surprised by how peaceful I've felt about this anniversary this year. Last year was incredibly difficult for me for some reason, perhaps because five years seemed like such a milestone, and for whatever reason I found myself obsessing about all of the "firsts" five-year-olds enjoy.

This year has been different. I can't say we haven't had our share of stresses over the past month or two, but when I thought about Sam I felt almost nothing but peace. Clara is old enough to start realizing that Sam was a real person, and that he's a real part of our family. I don't think any three-year-old can really conceptualize death and eternity, but she feels very certain that Sam lives with Jesus and is her brother. She has remarked several times over the last month that she's excited for when Sam can come down from the clouds with Jesus and do fun things with her. She talks about the jokes she'll tell him and that he will laugh at all of them. He sounds like an ideal older brother, other than that in her mind he is the tiny newborn she's seen in the pictures. But I'm glad she can start understanding him. I hope that she can come to know him, in some small way, if only in the way that we know him: that he is a pure, special spirit who is a constant source of inspiration and motivation to live our lives the way we know we should.

Sometimes, when I think too much or too hard about Sam, I can't help but cry or feel sad. He is our first baby, and we had so, so little time with him. As I explained to Jeremy, sometimes I think about it like if we took all of Clara's life or all of Jonathan's life and erased it back to the day they were born. How much we would miss! How little we would know about how them and how they have enriched our lives! How we would miss their laugther and their warmth! Knowing each of my subsequent children as well as I do, sometimes my mother heart aches for Sam and wishes I could have him and know him as well.

But, in spite of my earthly longing, I know that God has a plan for our family, and part of that plan was for Sam to be with us for three short hours. We were meant to have him, to hold him, to love him for those moments, and then to say goodbye. We were meant not to forget him, but to look towards him and to recognize the promise of eternity he holds. Sometimes I do wish I could trade the lessons I've learned through him and just have him snuggled on my lap instead--frustrations and all--but since I cannot make that trade I'm grateful for what he taught us. He taught us, through what I cannot deny were often painful, wrenching lessons, that God is our Father, that he loves us, and that he wants us to return to live with him. He taught us that faith is real, that prayer is real, and that despite anything else we learn in our lives that there is something greater than ourselves--something untouchable by the rational mind. I'm grateful to know that I do not know everything, that I do not understand everything, but that I can have faith--and that matters a great deal.

Eight years later...

Jeremy and I celebrated our eighth anniversary in February. As is our yearly tradition, we went all out and went to lunch. (Some people take awesome trips for their anniversaries; we go out to lunch. Every year. In times like these, you know...)

We went to Beverly's restaurant, which is a delectable 5-star restaurant at the Coeur d'Alene Resort with a great view of the lake. The food is always fantastic, and our anniversary was no exception. Jeremy had some kind of halibut (the man loves him some halibut) and I had the trout cupcake. Trout? Cupcake? Yes. It was amazing. A fillet of red trout shaped like a cupcake then filled with scallops and lobster and drizzled with an outrageously rich beurre nante sauce. And if that doesn't sound good enough, the cupcake was nestled in a bed of spinach and extremely buttery mashed potatoes. Oh, how I loved that cupcake.


I also love Jeremy and am glad, especially in times like these, that we are together. And although I joke about our yearly lunch date, I really do treasure those lunches. I remember every single one: where we were, what we ate, what we talked about. If life is comprised primarily of moments, then I have at least eight special moments with my very best friend. Thanks, Jeremy.

Also, how could I not love any meal that ends with a huge cloud of cotton candy in which a little scoop of homemade ice cream is nestled? My only complaint was the little "Happy Anniversary" chocolate: it was both hokey and disgusting. Other than that, Beverly's was too good to us...


Until next year...

My Funny Valentines

I've realized recently that kids make holidays much more fun. Clara is old enough to really get into the holiday hoopla, and since it takes so little to thrill her we end up getting lots of credit for very little work!

We began the day with pink pancakes. They started out as heart-shaped pancakes, then Jeremy told me they looked more like amorphous blobs than hearts, so we switched to circles (well, he just took matters into his own hands and started cooking circles, which was just as well).

For lunch we had heart-shaped sandwiches and heart-shaped jello jigglers (you may have seen the pudding-jello jiggler recipe in the February Friend magazine, if you get it). I duly noted that half the battle in any great holiday celebration is just walking around cutting food out of appropriately shaped cookie cutters. Genius.

For dinner, we went all out and had steak. Yes, Rachel and Jeremy bought and ate actual beef. Miracles do happen. We broiled it, and we spent most of the time in fear that our oven was going to catch on fire. Jeremy even busted out the fire extinguisher, read the instructions, then told me that if the oven did indeed catch fire that he would be sure to keep the kids safe but that I was otherwise more or less on my own. He is pretty clutch in a crisis. In the end, though, nothing caught on fire and the steak was decent. Maybe we'll make it a tradition and eat red meat every Valentine's Day.