You win some, you loose some

Yesterday at my kids' school they had a day where you dress as what you want to be when you grow up.
We have talked much about what they want to be and the list is so long, I could get my laundry done faster than I could name everything on their lists.

 

Hailey settled on this:

A photographer. But she dug deeper and specified it. A photographer for National Geographic.

Jonas.

Well Jonas had a field trip and so he left for school dressed like this:

Things looked well. An accountant? A businessman? A police detective even?


But he came home dressed as what he aims to be:

 A bum.

I was so proud at least one of my children knows how to set their sights high.

That we might have joy

Tuesday it snowed where I am. Like, a bunch. Like, so much that I didn't want to go anywhere. So I didn't.
The house got cleaned.
The dished were washed.
Laundry got done. (not finished, done. I'm not a magician.)
There was a plan for dinner (so what if half of it came from a box?).
Porter was asleep.
Jonas and Hailey were at school.
And Caleb was quietly playing DS.
So I sat down to do some mending.


Serious.
With like, a needle and thread.

I sewed buttons back onto a few shirts
and I whipped up a little number for Hailey.

As I was sewing in my quiet little corner of the universe,
I realized I was oozing
domesticity.
And no, I don't think that's a word.
I felt like a pioneer.
Minus the gigantic skirts constantly posing a tripping threat.
Minus the sister wives.
Plus electricity and heat.
Plus a cell phone handy (you never know when you are going to get a text from a friend that promises to regale for me tales of psychotic in-laws.)
Plus my ipod quietly shuffling through my library of songs.
And then it hit me.
I feel so at home with my place in life right now.
Peace.
Glad to be a mom. A wife. A homemaker.
Is life perfect?
Uhhhh, no.
Do I have to make sacrifices to live the way I do?
Uhhhh, ya.
Would I like to change some things?
Yes, please.
But when you add up all the good, it's hard to make molehills into mountains.
Then I realized maybe that is what all those trail blazing, long suffering pioneer women must have worked so hard to feel. That is what they walked all their miles for. What they buried their children and their husbands for.
Peace.
Amazing what enlightenment you can receive from a little needle and thread.

And no, that pile of ironing was never even touched.
And I reserve the right to further complain about my life at any given moment on this blog.

P.S. I have gone back and forth on whether or not to post this post, worried that people will misunderstand the meaning. So, to clarify, I am not suggesting my way of life equals your peace. Instead, I am suggesting that peace can be found in your life if you are seeking it. So don't start that hate mail! I decided to post this mainly because I want my kids to know, when they are grown and I am gone and have nothing of me but these words to read, that being their mom and being their dad's wife made me happy, gave me peace, and filled my life with joy.


So here's to hoping you feel the same about your fabulous lives!

Oh what do you do in the wintertime?

I've been spoiled.
The snow melted. I hoped (even though I know better) that it was gone for good.
We were happy.
Playing outside again happy.
Then today, it snowed.
Is snowing.
Hard and fast.
This is what we do when it's snowing outside.
We wear short sleeves or shorts or

 just diapers.

And stay inside and pretend it's lovely outside.

That we are rolling in the grass.

And that we are happy as can be.

And while we are pretending we are as happy as can be, we wrestle. We get our hair all messy and we stand on each other.

And then winter doesn't seem so bad.

What do you do?

Sometimes

Sometimes I sleep deeply.
Sometimes I sleep so deeply that I don't hear their footsteps thundering up the stairs
Sometimes I sleep so deeply that I don't hear my children's little feet patting into my room.


Sometimes I just open my eyes to find them staring down at me in creepy silence.
And then sometimes I think my kids are evil.
For just a second.

What? Just me?

boring thoughts this morning...

Why AsianSingles keep emailing me, telling me that people want to meet me. I don't want to meet them.

Why people post articles on FaceBook about their weird child care ideas like they are fact instead of opinion.

When I can take a little trip to St. George. I need some red rock and sun!

Or maybe Hawaii? How much does it cost to get myself to Hawaii? Oh, and my husband too? (Alicia??)

If the book I am reading is worth any more effort. I just want to move on to the next one!

If I enjoyed watching Steven Tyler on American Idol last night. He has grown into one creepy old man, hasn't he?

If anyone reading this right now is remotely interested. [not likely]

When my blogging mojo will come and join me again.

My apologies.

A plea to my husband

Dear Husband,
Please don't leave for work early. This morning as you were backing out of the driveway and I watched from the library window,  I knew I was in trouble.
You see, your baby likes you. No, loves you. And by love, I mean bordering on fatal attraction love.
And when you aren't here to say goodbye to him in the morning,
he can't recover.
You see the other day I realized just how much Porter loves you.
I got the realization when you walked in the door and he screamed "DA-DAAAAA!" and ran as fast as his undersized legs would take him.
Yes, this is the everyday greeting you are accustomed to but what i noticed was the look on his face, in his eyes.
I can only describe it as a the look A heroine addict would give his dealer.
Porter already spends half his day asking where daddy went, so if he doesn't lay his eyes on you in the morning he doesn't get his fix and we all pay the price.
Don't get me wrong, I know he loves me too, but I am keenly aware that I run a very very distant second.
I am like microwave popcorn.
And you are the movie theater popcorn. Fresh. With butter.

You see?
So my point is, its going to be a long day for us here at the homestead. So if you could just make a beeline for home, you would make one mom and one child very very happy.

With love,
your wife.

our morning discussion

Hailey: I can't wait until summer.
Me: The last day of school I am totally going to stand in the front yard and sing and dance for all the kids walking by just to embarrass you.
Hailey: No you won't cause those kids will go home and tell their moms and then they will think you are weird.
Me: They already know that. Plus they know that embarrassing your kids is their job. It's my job for sure.
Hailey: You don't have a job.
Me: Yes I do.
Jonas: What is it?
Me: World's most Extraordinary Mother.
Silence.
Jonas [shaking his head in sad disappointment] : Your jokes are so old, we can't even laugh at them anymore.

go, web, go!

I used to have a son named Caleb. Caleb used to play cars with his baby brother and watch strawberry shortcake with his big sister.

Last week, I lost him.

In his place, I have Peter Parker and I have Spiderman.
Peter Parker has been bitten by a spider and now he is also Spiderman. Now Peter and Spiderman live here with me and can be found, around every corner, shooting webs at me.

Peter Parker sometimes needs to be called Spiderman, but never, ever Caleb. All day long I hear more about our new addition:
Spiderman doesn't have to eat his dinner.
Spiderman doesn't have to wash his hands.
Spiderman doesn't have brothers or a mom.
Spiderman doesn't have to go to bed.

What Spiderman forgets is that:
Peter Parker is strong because he eats his dinner.
Peter Parker is healthy because he washes his hands.
Peter Parker loves the family he has.
and Peter Parker gets his rest by going to bed.

Its a tough break having to be two people.

Saving this one for my files

Jonas will probably hate me, but I have to do this.
Plus I figure he is ten years old. I only have about 3 more years of him liking me anyway, so why bother right?

He wrote a paper for school. An essay about his winter break. My job was to proof read it. Normally proof reading his papers are not an enjoyable task because reading his handwriting is like trying to read Hebrew. But this paper was so enjoyable to me, that I zipped through it, bad handwriting and all.
I laughed.
I read it again.
I read it to Brian.
He laughed.
We woke Jonas up and congratulated him on his awesome work.
Then we laughed some more.
I sent it in an email to my parents.
And now I am posting it for your enjoyment:


Immediately when my Christmas break started, I went over to Parker D’s. I came home, went to bed, had some funky dreams, woke up, and it was Saturday.  We had our grandparents over and we celebrated my sister’s birthday (even though it was the very next day). And that was pretty much it. On my sister’s birthday she had a special breakfast, lunch and dinner. She also got presents and a birthday cake. That was it for that day.
Monday was my sister’s birthday party. That was when I discovered for myself that girls can be more crazy than boys. You see they were pretending they were Santa Claus and that they had Sleighs. They started flying around stealing little children and taking them back to their workshop to torture them in some horrendous way. What could be stranger than that? And that was just part of it. Then they stampeded down the stairs, acting like tornados, sucking things in and throwing them out. They tore almost everything in the house apart. I was glad when they left.
Well, the next two days were so boring I didn’t even bother writing about them. Just thinking of going through them again makes me want to kill myself just so I can be alone, snug in my coffin with the maggots tickling my spine from the inside. But that is not the point.
So lets just skip to Christmas Eve eve. On that particular day. I had a sleep over planned with my best friend Braden,who lives in Saratoga Springs, that I have known practically my entire life. When I got there, we played Super Smash Bros Brawl, then Zelda, then Guitar Hero. We watched Lord of the Rings, and realized Gollum is a pretty funny character. We went to bed, I had creepy dreams and Braden had dreams that there were ten of himself chasing after him, and then we woke up. We ate breakfast and told jokes that I shouldn’t repeat at school. I went home on Christmas Eve, and our family cleaned the house together. We got some Christmas pajamas and went to my grandparent’s house. We had dinner by candlelight and played games and opened presents that couldn’t wait until Christmas. Then we came home and went to bed.
On Christmas Eve, our family always sleeps in the same room. That night I woke up not once, not twice, not thrice, but seven times and finally got up at 6:30. We all went downstairs to see what we got. I asked for another DS lite because I broke my other one. But I actually got a DSi XL. I almost screamed like a girl but I didn’t cause it would ruin my reputation. I figured out how to work it and ate an awesome breakfast which I think should be put this way: Eating Heaven. I opened presents and gave presents. My last present was from my dad. I opened it and it was just a chord. That got me excited. Then he handed me another present; it was an amplifier. I couldn’t speak. Then from behind the tree, he pulled out a long, flat looking gift. I almost choked. It was an Electric guitar! It was a perfect, shiny black color. I went and plugged it in in the corner and felt a lot like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movie from the night before. It was mine, all mine! My precious! So I had an awesome Christmas.
In the days after I saw Gulliver’s Travels and Harry Potter (I highly recommend both of them). I also went shooting with my dad and uncles. I shot some cool guns. On our way back, we crashed and my dad went to the hospital. Then the doctors came in and told us that I’m joking.


The End.

Seriously, I love it. A writer in the making, I tell you. Not only can I say I knew him when but will be able to say, I pushed that kid out of me! And he was 9lbs 9 ounces so it wasn't even easy!