Easter

A post in which my girls are too sick to be allowed into church nursery, leading to a morning at the Provo LDS Temple. Also pictures of our fun neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt, in which I see yet again the amazing results that people with a little creativity and a lot of desire to accept and include everyone can create a beautiful moment and memory

Mother's Day

We've got a house full of sickies. What a great way to spend Mother's Day: I got hit Friday with the flu, Dustin followed suit Saturday, and the girls have been developing coughs in addition to Rosie's ear infection... *pasted smile*

It was actually, surprisingly, a wonderful day. We were up early at church because Dustin was asked to speak about the importance of families. The talk was beautiful, and his eloquence in describing the purpose and blessings of having a family spread a happy sheen over the rest of our day. And I got to thinking about my past few Mother's Days....

My first Mother's Day, barely 6-months married, wasn't all that eventful. I think Dustin did buy me flowers, but mostly because during our first year of marriage I read a lot into not getting presents and other such showy signs of affection (poor guy). It was the first Mother's Day that I could have conceivably (pun intended) been expecting a child, and I remember wondering that weekend if I ever would someday be a mom, if--although I'd grown up expecting to become one--I could really fill that role or if I'd even be able to have kids. Lots of thinking, worrying, wondering about the future...

My next Mother's Day found me HUGE! I was 40-weeks-and-1-day pregnant with our first little girl and officially "overdue"--I'd been expecting (again, love the puns) to be a Mom this Mother's Day for, oh, eight months by this point and was EXTREMELY disappointed that I was still not a MOM, especially when Dustin gave me the flowers that he'd bought thinking I would be one by this point (pregnant lady reasoning..I guess technically I still "qualified" as a Mom, a fact my husband pointed out to me multiple times that day). I'd tried EVERYTHING that weekend--jumping, walking, yoga, castor oil (whoops), and every other wives-tale you've heard of--yeah, I'm pretty sure we went through them all, and still no labor-and-delivery signs popping up to greet me. Waited all day for it to happen--I think I ended up staying up until midnight just to make sure she really wasn't going to come on Mother's Day and make me a mom for this year's celebration (My baby decided to wait until I was a week overdue and then came at 41 weeks, hours before I would have been scheduled to be induced).

Mother's Day #3--I had an almost 1 year old and realized that Mother's Day, when your baby knows about four words and is easily distracted by movement, sugar, and wide open spaces, is still mostly for celebrating your mom and mom-in-law who live less than 30 minutes away from you. Still got my nice bunch of flowers from the local grocery store's bargain-bouquet rack :)

Last year, I was once again 39-and-counting weeks pregnant, and wondering if I'd be spending this Mother's Day in the hospital (nope). We'd just moved days before into our new home (yeah, moving 39-weeks pregnant is not all that fun, especially with an almost-2 year old "helping") and we were recovering.....and prepping. Two May babies, 2-years-minus-3-days apart.

This year, my almost-3 and almost-1 year old daughters didn't make any crafts for me. They didn't get up and make me breakfast (we are all sick and have church at 9:00, so we were lucky to get up and there as it was). I don't think either of them wished me a Happy Mother's Day (husband still came through with the flowers though). And yet all day I've been so incredibly grateful for them, for this experience, this transformation that motherhood is. Some people are born patient, some people quickly learn to be kind, some women innately know how to be fun and loving to children. Instead, Rosie and Sara have me, and every day, through their patience, the three of us learn what it means to be part of a family, to be nice to each other all day long (is Dad home yet?), to speak with patience and love and consideration, to stop pulling hair and throwing blocks and spilling food and spanking and rolling eyes, to revel in each and every moment we have together each day. I like the me that is emerging. Motherhood hasn't forced me to "lose" myself, but every week as I look back I do see the sharp bits weathering down and, hopefully, the hidden motherly tendencies polished up, and the fierce and consuming love and pride I have for my kids really tempers my temper and my soul into something that might be worth having around in this life and the eternities.

Moab

  In March we took another family vacation--Arches National Park. We were in Moab for a race (just the five-miler--no half marathon this year!) and took a day off work to make it a long and highly anticipated weekend.

  It became our first parental experience with vomit in the car. (no graphic photos included)  Sometimes I am so clueless as a mom. We got up early to head down to Moab with our first stop being Provo bakery. What fun parents, right? Rosie was super excited to see the donuts and chose a heavily sprinkled specimen--and then in the course of ten minutes only managed to consume three sprinkles. For anyone who has seen the manifestation of Rosie's inherited sweet-tooth, this should have been a red flag. But no, we drove off (and happily consumed her donut for her). Halfway there she starts crying and telling me she has to go potty and that her stomach hurts and then the moment comes and my mom-stincts finally kick in and I start shouting "Where is a bag, where is a bag, DUSTIN WHY DON'T WE HAVE A BAG IN OUR CAR?!?!?!?!!" And up it comes before I find anything and out comes my lightning-fast mom hand and the damage is done. Luckily she'd felt too sick to have much in her stomach so the mess was mostly isolated to her clothes and car seat. I'll leave the rest up to your imagination except for commenting that the girl is tough and managed to have her only other vomit-related moment while in a national park visitor's center bathroom. What a rock star.

Even sick, Rosie tackled the rocks like a champ.

I can't believe how quickly my kids are growing up. Sara was walking as a 9-month-old so every moment we spent out of the car she wanted to be on the ground and modeling her cute baby-waddle without our helping hands. Needless to say, our hiking was pretty slow.

Arches National Park is breathtaking, and even when our feet got tired, we were all loving the view.

And we got to meet up with some of our best friends and enjoy the parks together...well, honestly, we spent most of our time together in the hotel room. Their 3 year old managed to get sick on their way over from Colorado, so our sickies and babies preferred games and chatting and eating yummies in the hotel.

But it was a fun trip and one we hope to do again soon! Moab is stunning and lifelong friends are hard to come by.

Disneyland!

Well, it's been a while since we've traveled anywhere notable enough to deem mentioning here, but our friends make sure we spend a sufficient amount of time outside of our hometown each year. We made a goal together to meet up at the happiest place on earth with some of our dear high school/college friends, and we did it! 

So epic. And the girls loved it! (Um, we did too. For the record, if you go to Disneyland with young kids, always go with another young family! That way, between a combination of Fast Passes and Kid-Swap Passes you and your spouse get to go on all the cool rides together while the other couple watches all the kids and then you switch, allowing maximum amount of enjoyable-ness for each couple in the parks).

Rosie was so excited, all the time--dancing in the street, begging to go on the "Mickey wheel" one more time, and watching the parades in fascination. Sara just watched...everything. She is more subdued than her older sister, but her eyes were constantly looking at everything around her, and everyone in line seemed drawn to our cute little chubster (a fact she liked very much).

We even had a dress up day and wandered the park with a mini Cinderella and larger-than-life Tinkerbell.

 Rosie's favorite rides were Dumbo's flying elephants and, classic, the spinning teacups--definitely a big hit with all of us, since the line was short and fast moving--we rode it three time in thirty minutes and many more times besides.

By the end, Rosie was exhausted, and Sara wanted to stay forever.

We are already planning a return trip--anyone want to come along?

Contacts and Perspectives

Dear World,

  This week I took a big step--I got old. At least, I told my optometrist I felt old and he, a 67+ yr old, laughed at my 27 yr. old vanity.

I got contacts.

  Not really a big deal, right? Definitely not a sign of decrepitude. But, still, I've always prided myself on my 20/20 or 20/15 or whatever vision--we've got to have achievements of some kind, right?

  But that's over, now. I have these contact lenses that I wear probably 70% of the time. When I first put them in (after about 19 tries to get it into my left eye--sheesh!) and drove away from the doctor, I was happily surprised by the clarity of budding springtime leaves scores of yards away and individual pine trees on the mountainside--it wasn't a "I was blind, but now I see" moment, but more similar to those Claritin allergy medicine commercials where a cloudy film is peeled off the world and everything is just more brilliant and visible. Not a life-saver, but definitely a life-sweetener.

  Contacts. They take what is already there, enhance your already-existing abilities, and create a sharper picture that allows you to better understand and enjoy the world around you. They do take maintenance and care, and sometimes only for slight vision improvement, but it is better, and sometimes that little bit makes all the difference.

It changes your perspective on the world. On the life you are living.

  We each have "contacts" moments in our lives. Things that change our perspective. Things that sharpen the view and give more vibrancy, clarity, or comprehension to us. Things that don't necessarily change reality, but enhance our grasp of reality.

You don't always need and eye-opener; sometimes just an eye-sharpener will do.

  This isn't the best post to include this on, but thinking about life perspectives and such--as I did for this post--originated in thoughts regarding a dear friend of mine who's had plenty of opportunity to gain a truer perspective and who's put in the effort and maintenance a clearer view demands. She inspires me to tune up the way I approach life--to be more like her.

  Bonsai, next month, will have battled breast (and then bone, and then brain, and then spine) cancer for two years. Her toddler and baby have now sprouted into one precocious five year-old and one tenacious three year-old. When she was given the "less-than six months" diagnosis, she and her husband moved their kids from their Indiana home back to Utah to spend time with family--and I was blessed enough to live nearby. I've been able to have some wonderful moments with her and to pray in gratitude as those short six months grew into almost nine months of relative health and mobility.

 Now doctors are telling her that her window is closer to four weeks.

  There have be so many blessings. There have been so many moments to be grateful for. So many memories made. There have also been so many hard times. So many challenges. So many "lasts" and unknowns. And during it all I've had the opportunity to see how Bonsai has taken this monsoon and found a perspective of clarity. She's taken moments to teach me what it means to be a family forever, to continue being a mom even if she isn't picking up her future teenage kids' dirty laundry. She's clarified what it means to have an eternal marriage, to parent together even when your spouse is on the other side of the veil of mortality that separates this world and the next. She's taught me to love in the moment and to have patience with those around you and yourself.

  It's times like this when I'd love to be a writer that can say something profound, that can really share something beautiful and striking through words, something that actually coveys what I feel about another human being. To write something that gives tribute to another beautiful soul. But hopefully you each have experiences to draw on that illuminate the clarity I've gained through this friendship that will last though eternity, either here though a miracle or spanning the boundaries that heaven draws.

  Thanks, Bonsai. I look forward to more fun and memories in the weeks and months to come, and also the deeper memories and experiences to be made in the following decades and eons.

A new hobby-job

I've never been a writer. Not really.

I mean, I've written a lot. That's unavoidable with a bachelor's degree in History and a master's degree in English. Lots of words from my brain have made it into black-and-white and been read by others. And I guess I have this blog, and a journal, and lots of emails, so yes, I do write. But I'm not a writer.

Now writing is my job.

It's not as dramatic as I've made it sound (like most things in my life). I've taken on a 4-8 hour a week commitment to concoct creative, short passages about any topic under the Humanities sun, accompanied by half a dozen intellectually challenging questions with explanations--I write the verbal reasoning (now known as the Critical Analysis and Reasoning) section of an MCAT practice test.

I really like having a creative outlet that pushes me. And it keeps me searching for new information--I've learned about national holidays, animation computer programs, MoMA art exhibits (like the Rain Room by rAndom [sic] International), and Toni Morrison, to name a few. And I figure the job fits me well, seeing as how standardized tests are something I am reasonably good at.

But creativity--it is stretching my figurative muscles right now. Do any of you know of cool and happening things regarding (but not limited to) Architecture, Art, Dance, Ethics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Popular Culture, Religion, Theater, or Studies of Diverse Cultures? Or better yet, places to read where I will run across such things? My Facebook feed isn't quite at this level yet :)

It feels good to use my hard-earned academic degrees to accomplish something--and I still get to be at home with my two darling girls. Life does't get much better than that.

So, higher-brow sources to learn about cool new things? Any leads? I'm seeking Muses to guide me as I fit into this new cap in my collection: Lauran, the writer.

Can't Buy Me Love

February, the month of love, just ended last night. And, although my thoughts right now are not as philosophical as my musings from last Valentine's Day season, I have been thinking about love--and the parts of it I can buy. Here are just two of the many examples:

Music: Dustin and I found one another through music--singing, attending, playing, talking about, participating in, breathing music. It's been a large part of our lives pretty much since we were born. I want my two girls to also discover the breath-taking experiences that music gives...the ones you can't buy.
But, you can buy a piano.
It might be half a century old. It might be out of tune. It might have only cost a few hundreds instead of a few thousands, but it is a piano and our family is already doing our darnedest to break it in (or wear it out). That, and a neon green recorder (or "hoon" as it is known around our house) from the dollar store are instruments in making priceless music.

Outings: Family has grown more and more important to me as each year shows me how precious it really is. You can't put a price on the love I've found in marriage and mothering, but you can help it grow by spelling family as T-I-M-E and love as F-U-N. Our outings are usually pretty affordable (we are big fans of Free Zoo Day and splitting fast-food fries & shakes three ways) but the resulting memories and relationships are cherished beyond an auction-able amount. Hubby took the girls out for a daddy-daughters date this week and Rosie can't stop telling me about the crystals she saw in the university's science building and how yummy the crunchy cone was from McDonald's (after they took the paper off).

It doesn't take much--a little money properly placed can take love a long way.