Seriously...

Let me tell you about blessings. I have lots of them. I know this. I like to think that when I pray I express my gratitude for all of these blessings. Occasionally I have heard people in testimony meeting or randomly tell how they prayed for hours thanking Heavenly Father for all of their blessings specificially, Enos like for sure. I have never quite understood this, because in all of my gratitude prayers the record when purposely trying to name each thing is like twenty minutes of just naming stuff.

Well this week I thought of something I have never mentioned, but will mention from now on. It is my voice. I had a sore throat a couple days ago. It went away pretty quickly, but have had laryngitis since. I don't know how you spell that. I can't talk. Really the more air I push out for volume turns to a higher pitch squeek. Plus it just hurts. And now two full days of it has me just annoyed. I can't talk to my kids unless I am like a foot away from them. No calling them to the table or to come in. When my husband calls on the phone during the day he can never hear me, and we give up unless it is super important.

So maybe I am just blind to how many blessings I truly have. Because I have been taking this for granted for 26 years. Who knew. I guess it is covered in the general good health thank you, but from now on I may just mention it specifically as well.

In My Old Age

So I know that I am not old in terms of actual years, but I feel like these past four months or so have taught me so much. I am learning tons of life lessons most people have to wait years to learn. Who knew living with my mother would be so informative. I get to see her regrets and learn from her mistakes as well as my own.

This morning I was talking with the neighbor at the bus stop waiting for the bus. We were talking about the new house, the yard sale next door, how she biked 15 miles yesterday. She is totally a rad girl. I was telling her how I am my heaviest ever. Seriously we can laugh about the "My Gut is Growing", but it is not funny anymore as I tip the scales towards obese. Kind as she is she offers up the adage of you just had a baby. I tell her how I used to go to the gym, currently don't but am still indulging in the caloric filled food I love. She let me know of a cool walk that was two miles to take the kids on (Rockville Rd).

I get the kids breakfast, get them dressed, and wonder if I should really take the walk or let them watch cartoons, while I get some work done (our normal morning routine now days). When I put it like that it seems a no brainer. So I clod them with shoes and socks and off we go. We start walking and Wyatt harrasses me for cutting through the field, which is our neighbor's property. Grandma says not to go past the trees and he is listening to her because she is in charge of this yard.

Honestly, side note here: Wyatt has become the funniest little boy ever. In the past two weeks he has come into his own. He is so sweet and he doesn't try to be funny, but everything he says is so funny. And he smiles this slightly embarrased smile when I laugh at him, like he is just so flattered.

Back to story. So we start our walk and the boys are so slow and picking up every rock along the road and I think this is doing nothing for me in terms of exercise. But I fight the urge to push them ahead thinking that they'll never want to take a walk again if they have to jog to keep up.

And so we wander aimlessly more or less down the road and path we set out on, but with a different goal. Because as I watch the boys I realize this is way more fun than an aerobic walk. We found some deer a man is keeping fenced along with an ostrich. We saw birds and squirrels. We wandered along a stream. And on our way back walking up the same field we originally trespassed on, Wyatt starts chasing butterflies. Issac follows of course.

They are zigzagging across this field trying to keep track of them. They don't realize at first that there are tons and they are losing track of the original and taking off after others until much later. I stand there with the baby strapped to me in the Snugli, back sort of aching because my 7 month soon to be 8 month old Kody is no baby anymore. And I know that right now this is the most important thing I could be doing. The bills can wait, the change of address cards, the flowerbeds, etc...

They might not remember this moment twenty years from now. I would be surprised if I did. But I will remember next time I want to push the kids into my routine how fun doing their routine was. And that just might be enough to let me indulge in doing it their way again. Kids are only young once. I see that my mom misses small children and I am sure that day exists for me too, regardless of how much time I spend with them now, but wouldn't it truly be sad if I didn't because I was too busy for all the fun moments.

So that lesson is one I feel mighty blessed to have been retaught today. The others are:

Sometimes I don't have to have control over everything.

It's okay if we don't have assigned seating at the dinner table.

It's great to let the kids pray when they want to pray instead of a preset order. Even if occasionally it means more than one prayer or tears.

Talking with my kids now may make or break if they want to talk to me later.

A clean house isn't worth anything if no one is enjoying it. (I still want to be clean, let's not be too crazy.)

And last: Yard sales are a cheap source for cute and clean clothes. Or at least in the instance of my neighbor here.

Earth Day and Scare Tactics

So yesterday was Earth Day. Not a holiday I would typically think much about, but great educational tool. And so it was that Bella went to school, learned all about it, and came home excited to share her newfound knowlegde. She started with nice facts about recycling and not littering. Things that we already teach our kids to do. As the day progressed though she pulled out more and more information that they had talked about in school.

At lunch she chastised me about throwing a piece of uneatten bread in the yard. Seriously like a bite of wheat bread leftover from Issac. She told me how the whole world is being used as a garbage can and soon there will be so much garbage we won't be able to breathe because it will be above our heads. A little strange, but hey I get the basic concept.

Then later in the day she got a little more excited with Travis about cutting trees down. How he is bad and that he is killing the Earth. That we need trees to breathe and we shoudn't cut them. He tried to explain that sometimes it's okay, like if the tree is dead. He also went into it being okay to develop land, something questionable by the major public, but since it is how our family makes its living who am I to complain, but he can fight his own battles.

Lastly the day ended with us getting in the car to go to Home Depot and Wal-Mart. Wyatt is bawling hysterically. I ask him what is wrong and he needs Dad. Travis gets in the car and asks him what is up and he through his sobs tells us, that we are all going to die. That the world is one big garbage can, that trees won't keep making us air, and soon we will all die if we don't stop. Having heard this stuff earlier I turn to Bella and say "what did you tell him?" She says, "The truth. I told him all the stuff my teacher told me. Mom it's true. My teacher is right, and I believe her."

She continued to expound upon what her teacher told her after I continued to prod. Now I was fully interested in the details they discussed. It was somewhat horrifying to me to hear all the scare tactics that had been used on five and six year old kids. It was total doom and gloom. Emphasizing how bad things are. They barely covered solutions. Just all the contributors to the problem. Bella also used this oppurtunity to tell me how I couldn't pack her lunch in brown bags.

As you can imagine I allayed Wyatt's fears. He said, "I believe Mom over your teacher Bella." Travis being ever supportive said, "That is probably wise, Wyatt." Bella was still stalwart about her teacher being right. I feel like I care about the environment. By no means am I an activist, but I recylcle, I don't litter, I am not cutting down any rain forests, I am currently using energy friendly lights to save on our natural resources. So why do we celebrate Earth Day, by scaring our kids half to death. Did you guys with school age kids have any similar experiences?

Or is Bella's teacher a flaming libreal, crazy lady. She seemed nice in our parent/teacher conference. Maybe that's her cover. Sarcasm, sarcasm. It is weird though. Warning: The world is coming to an end.

Friday Thru Monday Review and Size Does Matter

So Friday started with the dropoff of a backhoe at our house. Travis worked on a project over the weekend. More about that later, another post perhaps. Also we had a sleepover with one of our nieces. That night after all the kids were in bed asleep I found Travis watching tv in the living room eatting ice cream out of a bowl, but with the ice cream scoop as his spoon. I died laughing, but am not terribly surprised.

Saturday our day was focused around the project. Sunday was good and we attended Jason Moss's homecoming.

Monday got a little more interesting. Bella planned and gave family home evening, which isn't a first, but this time she was so good. So adult like and even answered Wyatt's questions all on her own. Issac came down from his nap ecstatic because he finally had "mastered" a paddle ball toy. Except instead of moving his arm to paddle it, he holds it totally stiff and bounces his entire body to get it going. Hilarious.

Wyatt at dinnertime let me know that "Dinner is so good, I could growl." At which point he did so sending us all off on another fit of laughter. But all this happened after I had one of my bigger moments of mother guilt earlier in the day with Wyatt. He had been being naughty and hitting the other kids. I sent him up to his room. I was on the phone with the insurance company and doing other random things. At a pause I went to check on the kids and found Wyatt missing. I realized he was still up in his room and I had forgot about him leaving him up there for 45 minutes instead of 4. When he came down, there were one or two tears in his eyes and he said "Mom, I thought you were going to leave me up there till I died." I felt terrible. I then explained to him what had happened and he forgave me so easily, which only added to my guilt. He is such a good boy.

Spoiler Alert: Then Monday night brought "The Bachelor". I was so excited, the previews and promos showed one of the girls' mothers hitting on the Bachelor and rubbing his nipple. Truly this would be one of televisions greatest moments. As promised it was. But in a compelling twist, it wasn't Amanda's real mother. She had hired actors to play her parents and be absolutely insane as a joke. It was quite funny, and enough to spare her from last night's elimination.

As an end to our evening I was getting Travis's cereal bowl and spoon and lunch ready for today. And since the Friday night ice cream scoop thing was so ridiculous I decided that with his cereal bowl he needed a ladle instead of a spoon. When he finally noticed, he was laughing pretty hard himself.

All this is dumb I know, but I just love my family and our little moments. And last but not least, this morning Wyatt was going potty after waking up and while getting dressed for the day. Issac was waiting diaperless at the bathroom door for his turn on the potty. Wyatt looked up at me and said, "My thing is bigger than Issac's thing. His is smaller than mine. My thing is bigger, but Dad's is bigger than both of ours, mine and Issac's." So riddle me this, why does a 4 yr. old boy recognize this and already place emphasis on this. Is this a genetic boy trait? Anyway...as you can imagine I tried my hardest to keep a straight face so as not to let on that he had hit a hot topic among adults. My kids kill me; they are so funny.

My Boy and His Balls

Issac is a maniac. Seriously...I love the boy, but he is just so different than Wyatt and Dakota who are so similar in nature - mellow and laid back. Issac is obsessive, and his current obsession is balls. It has lasted for at least three months now, so I figured it was worth noting.

The boy wakes up every morning, picks out a shirt with a ball on it. He is not particular, it can be a basketball, football, soccer ball, baseball, whatever. Once dressed in it he starts his morning search for his ball of choice for the day. Once he has found the ball it is his constant companion even once he is back tucked in his bed for the night.

And heaven forbid the same ball should be his companion two days in a row, no it has to be a new one. And heaven forbid I should actually run out of shirts with balls on them. And he has to wear something else. He will actually get his dirty clothes out of the laundry just to have a ball shirt.

One particular day I wanted him to wear one of those one piece snap outfits. He decided that would be fine, but since it had a bike picture on it instead of a ball, he just put a ball shirt over top. That's my boy.

Anyway...I don't know what this will mean for his future. I get the impression that he will like sports. Everything about his nature tends to lean towards athleticism and he is quite coordinated at two. He throws and kicks like a champ with aim and everything. Now if we could just get him to catch consistently, he may be the next star athlete. Who knows, but it amuses me.

Hands

Ambyr says she loves little feet. She takes amazing pictures of them. And I almost can get behind it, but not quite. For me it is all in the hands. The little ones, big ones, soft ones, callosed ones. And what my kids don't know is that every night after they are asleep when I am finally shutting down the house, lights, and locking doors for me to go to bed, I stop in each of their rooms to hold their hands.

The soft light provided by the night lights give the appropriate hushed atmosphere. My quiet and unmoving children give a gentle lullaby with their heavy, sleepy breathing. And I watch for a moment knowing that they won't be young forever, and that they won't stay still for an even shorter time. And that is when I pick up each hand, examine how it is so small, but growing with each day and month. I see the scrapes from the days playing, I see the leftover dessert on Issac's hands, and other clues to the little lives they lead. I get so hypnotized by their hands. They are so soft and warm. I treasure this moment with them. It is only made better by the fact that once I get in bed, it is the hand of the greatest love of my life whose I fall asleep holding. To all the hands in the world, big, small, callosed, soft, I love to look at you.

Creepy Crawly Things Cont.

Travis claims it looked more like this. I don't care they are all gross, but he says this one is closer and explains his reaction better, because it is scarier.