May They Always Climb In Bed With Me

Each morning, I wake before the kids do or around the same time.  The two older ones prepare for early morning seminary as well as cross country and school.  They leave by 6:15am.  Around that time the next child, Issac, wakes up.  He preps for middle school cross country which starts before school at 7am.  He is out the door by 6:45 and that is around the time the last little guy, Kody wakes up.  Prior to this year and all of them being in middle or high school, I woke up with everyone, made hot breakfasts, helped prep them for school, and walked them to their bus stops.  This year everything has changed.

Instead they don't want to eat a big breakfast before running - toast all around, maybe cereal.  They are so tired from their ever growing teenage bodies they don't want to talk, and my son Issac informed me if I was walking to the bus stop, he would walk at a different time than me using a different route.  (Sigh)

So instead now I stay in bed.  I study my scriptures, I write in my journal, I have really sincere, lengthy prayers.  But the best part of this all is that the new routine provides a parade of bedtime partners and cuddles.  Wyatt is typically the first one in.  He does everything quickly and efficiently.  He can get ready in half the time his sister does.  So he comes and snuggles with me.  He tells me the highlights of the day and what he is most excited for.  He clings closest to my side throughout our cuddles and asks me questions about what I will be doing during the day. He then leaves to finish up and Isabella comes in.  She usually shares her stress and/or anxiety with me.  She asks for advice, she rests her head on my stomach or chest and I stroke her hair and reassure her that all will be well in her life.  As they leave Issac takes his cue and wanders in.  He has usually done all the lunch packing, prepping, except clothes.  So still half dressed or in PJ's he climbs into my bed and catches the last twenty minutes of sleep before he has to quickly put on running clothes and leave.  He leaves me in a hurry but always with two kisses.  The first one rushed, and then because this is the only time I get to see his sweet, tender side, I ask him for a second one, so I can appreciate his last moments of boyhood; for now he still obliges me.  Travis takes him to cross country and in bounds, Kody.  He is totally prepped for school - hair done, cologne on, sometimes even sneakers and backpack on.  I always remind him he has at least another thirty minutes.  I coerce him into taking off the shoes and backpack before he climbs into bed.  He snuggles close smelling of spicy, yummy man at age 11, but still in the body of an 8 year old, tells me how excited he is to see his friends, to go to a certain class, to get to school.  Before long he bounds right back out with an "I love you, Mom".  He leaves for the bus stop as early as we will let him out the door.

And my parade is over, my house is empty, but my heart is full.  These kids may not be perfect, my parenting most certainly isn't, but we're creating our own kind of heaven on Earth with these traditions.  Out with the old, in with the new, always adapting and changing and growing - TOGETHER!

I Swear

I'm around, we're doing stuff.  But life is so busy.  Not bad, just busy.  So I am taking pictures, creating mental posts, and then real life kicks my butt, my bed is my siren call for any free moment, and I am months behind.  But someday soon...I'll catch up!

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

I've read articles that correlate people's ability to perceive body language and emotional atmosphere better to children of alcoholics.  Basically the thinking is that due to volatile nature of things, they become more attuned to cues that other people miss.  Well I happen to believe the same is true of people who grew up in physically abusive households.  And I should probably research it, but my main evidence is my siblings and myself.  For a lot of my life, I could feel people's emotions even without seeing their face though.  And I would guess that most people can tell you a time in their life when they could feel an emotion palpably in their life.  It has it's own weight and texture and feeling that is very physical, but me I can feel these emotional regularly.  I wouldn't go so far as daily, but for sure weekly and I think if I tried to tune into it could probably have it happen more frequently.  But the unwelcome weight of others feelings and thoughts and emotions can sometimes be a burden and especially if you are more sensitive to the negative emotions than the positive ones.  It's hard to know what to do as a young child to see an adult and know instinctually that they struggle with a very real and severe case of depression.  And it's even harder to know how you would even go about explaining that to someone who wants evidence of why you believe what you do.

In the most general sense of this word you have a very empathetic person.  This is often revered and desired.  And to be sure, everyone in my family is very empathetic.  Now how we handle that empathy seems to me to be the great dividing line of my family.  Recently I read the book Beartown.  Holy terrifying and good read, but I'll save that topic for another day.  A truly remarkable author can help the reader to feel the emotions, to understand the characters, and to feel a part of the story and Fredrik Backman is for sure a master at that.  But what he can do for the normal reader is a sensory overload for a reader like myself.  I may have cried, felt physically ill, and worried and stressed over these fictional characters.  And as I pondered why I read books like this, that affect me so physically, I finally drew my own conclusions - likely fallible and flawed.  But here they are...I read because to know someone's story to feel all the emotions, to truly understand humanity, is an amazing and wonderful gift.  It is a gift that through reading I can pick up and put down as necessary, but store the info for a later time when I will need it. 

And I have learned that managing this gift is a challenge.  A challenge that in some ways I have felt more equipped to deal with than others in my family.  In a family of empaths sometimes the burden of your own intense emotions coupled with the crippling intensity of other's emotions can be overwhelming.  So it is no surprise to me, that half of my family is on some type of medication to help stabilize mood and anxiety and depression.  And some have sought self medicating as their own way of dealing.  And then I look inward and wonder why I haven't felt like I needed that.  Sometimes I wonder if my empathy is only a drop in the bucket compared to what my siblings can feel.  Sometimes I wonder if it is a result of deeper faith in a Supreme God, who though I don't understand, I trust implicitly and just shy of totally.  I suspect my siblings wouldn't like that conclusion.  I wonder if it has to do with the sheer amount of energy I output in a given day.  My ability to work and stay busy is often marveled at.  So do I use all that emotional energy and channel it in to work.  Or do I use work as a way to compartmentalize all that emotion.  I can't say for sure yet. 

What I do know and realize though, is that this same faith in God, reminds me that he needs us all to be different, to have different strengths and weaknesses.  He needs people who experience the same thing to perceive it differently and internalize it uniquely so that he has a million different people to bless one another and reach out to one another and to minister to one another in a way no one else can.  He needs each one of us, because he has created a perfect plan where we need one another and he sends us to answer the call.  So even though I don't begin to understand all He does, I know implicitly He understands it all.  And so I will try to totally be faithful in carrying out his plan to use my own unique circumstances to help and serve others in a way that he has created me uniquely to do.

Kid Rewards

• Cheap movie
• Ice Cream date
• Valero run
• Dollar store
• Go to lunch
• Arcade
• Feed the ducks
• Fishing
• Museum
• Saturday morning breakfast
• Batting cages
• Picnic
• Minigolf
• Photo scavenger hunt
• Act of kindness for someone else
• Buy and fly a kite
• Play at the park
• Alamo
• Caves
• Guadalupe River
• Hiking - Boerne City Park, Cibilo, Friedrich Wilderness Park, Joshua Springs Park
• River
• Six Flags
• Cards
• Board games
• Dog Park
• Lost Maples

Vacation Stations - California, Oregon, & Washington

Day 1 [July 7] drive to Phoenix [14 hr] 10pm
Day 2 Kristy, play poolside
Day 3 drive to San Diego [6 hr] get in 5pm
Day 4 san diego
Day 5 Christie[2 hrs] 8am
[  ] Disney 10-6pm $400
Day 6 drive to LA [2 hr]
[  ] Downtown tour
[  ] Griffith observatory
[  ] Hollywood hike
[  ] walk of fame 
Day 6 drive to San Fran [7 hrs] Friday July 13
[  ] Big Sur
Day 7 San Francisco
[  ] Golden gate bridge bike
[  ] Trolley
Day 8 San Francisco [July 15]
[  ] Fisherman's Wharf/Alcatraz - $200
[  ] Redwood National Forest - $10? [6 hr]
Day 9 Medford [5 hr]
[  ] See Redwood park 8am- 11am
[  ] 5 hr to Crater lake - $25 4pm visitors center, video, drive around lake, pinnacles
[  ] Bend [2 hr] 7-9pm hotel
Day 10
[  ] Drive 3 hours 8-11
[  ] Multnomah Falls 2 hr 11-1
[  ] Tillamook 2 hr 1-3
[  ] Rockaway 2 hr 3-5
[  ] Portland 1 hr 5-6 dinner
[  ] Drive to BM 3 hr 7-10
Day 11 Mt Rainier $30 - July 18
Day 12 Seattle - gum wall, pike place, haunted coke machine July 19
Day 13 B&M chill day July 20th
Day 14 drive to new Plymouth Id 6 hr [July 21] 8-4pm Lymans
Day 15 drive to Crocketts 6 hr travis airport 22th
Day 16-17 Crocketts
Day 18 drive Albuquerque July 25
Day 19 drive to Texas July 26

Gas - 600
Hotels - 500
Food - 650
Activities - 800
Total - $1800

Look to the Scriptures

Study everything Jesus said and did as recorded in the Old Testament.

Study His laws as recorded in the New Testament.

Study His doctrine as recorded in the Book of Mormon.

Study His words and recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants.

Crazy News Stories

Each day, I do a quick check of the news.  Lately, I keep reading the weirdest stories.  You can't make this stuff up.  So I'm going to keep a month long crazy news blip log:

• Rude French waiter files complaint against employer in Canada after being fired citing "discrimination against my culture" his culture being rude???
• In Florida, a woman marries a 100 year old tree in hopes of saving it from being cut down
• Target is settling out of court against a suit accusing them of racial discrimination.  The long and the short is that Target does a background check and rejects applicants for employment with a criminal history.  Because black and Hispanic applicants have more criminal history they are being racially discriminated. 
• GQ put the Bible on a list of books you don't have to read saying, "Repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish"
• The EPA is proposing a new rule that would prevent the EPA from using scientific studies where the underlying data is not available to the public. That's because in many of those studies, researchers had confidentiality agreements with their subjects. Meaning the underlying data is not available to the public.  People are in an uproar.  Seems logical to me.
• "Cry closet" - An actual place at the University of Utah's library for students to release their stress. What happens in the cry closet, stays in the cry closet.  It was a provocative art exhibit that got people all in an uproar.  Do I think colleges should have cry closets, probably not, but do I think if they do, people should get real angry on the internet.  Probably not!
• Threatening to fine people who cheer at their kids graduation in South Carolina
• Live animals at prom, namely a tiger, sparked outrage.  How this is any different than a zoo, I have no idea. 
• "Woman discovers her dog that never barks or eats dog food is actually a fox" What???
• In an effort to more fully teach a culture of consent, we are supposed to ask a baby if it is okay before we change it's diaper.

Seriously, can't make this stuff up.  People are more outrageous than ever.  Even more public outcry is at an all time high.  What's this all mean?  The world has gone mad!