An Apple a Day...

Last week Jake decided he wanted to make some more applesauce to replenish our dwindling supply of home-bottled goodness.So he called Cameron's grandma, and the next morning he and I were scaling step stools and ladders to retrieve several boxes full of apples from her tree. We took them home and went right to work. Jake worked along side me, and Abby and Grace played together peacefully all day carrying dolls around, nibbling on apples, or occasionally using apples as bowling balls. At day's end, the top of one of the remaining boxes of apples looked like this.

Were they checking to see if the grass was greener (or the taste sweeter) one apple over? Or perhaps each one was so good they wanted to sample them all? I hope they enjoyed them. At any rate, if an apple a day keeps the doctor away, my kids are going to be healthy for a long time.

Sacred Ground

The mother's heart is the child's schoolroom.—Henry Ward Beecher

It was a quiet evening at our house. Cameron was at school, so no one was clamoring for him to wrestle them or read to them or push them on the swings. Abby had gone out to play and Grace was puttering quietly around the house. Jake told me that a neighbor boy is his best friend.

“What do you like about him?” I asked with a smile.

Jake explained that he wasn’t mean like the other neighbor boys. I pried to find out what made the other boys mean, but wasn’t supplied with any concrete information. So I decided to supply a little information myself.

“When people are mean, it’s usually because they hurt inside,” I said. “Those boys don’t have a dad living at their house, and I think it makes them sad.”

He was listening, so I kept on going. “Their mom has to go to work in the middle of the night, and she doesn’t get home till lunchtime. So no one can help them get ready for school in the morning. No one is there to make their breakfast or pack their lunches or drive them to school if they’re late. And she’s always tired from working all night, so when they get home from school she needs to be napping. It’s really hard.”

He listened and seemed receptive as we talked, and the opportunity to open his young eyes to life's complexities felt sacred. 

Motherhood is often hard, prayerful, soul-stretching work. But amidst all the striving-for-self-mastery and struggling-to-be-patient moments, we are offered the opportunity to help carve the character and mold the soul of a precious child. 

We teach them their worth through our smiles, laughter, and love. We open their eyes through our curiosity and questions. We stretch their souls to receive others as we stretch our souls to receive them. 

Yes, motherhood is sacred ground.

Thank You

Last week we attended a family dinner for Cameron's grandpa's 90th birthday. It would be hard to describe in a blog post how much Grandpa has meant to me through the years. He lost his eyesight to macular degeneration almost 20 years ago, but he still plays the organ, performs regularly for Toastmasters, works at the temple, and gets around just fine with his seeing-eye dog, Hudson. When I lost my eye I looked to him more than once for perspective and encouragement as I grieved my own loss of sight and found peace in my new normal. He still inspires me to believe that if I one day have less sight than I do now, life will still be OK.

Grandpa, Grandma, and Hudson

After his birthday dinner everyone sat around the table asking him to retell favorite stories from his life. This time I found the most comfort from the time when he was six years old, got in a neighborhood fight, knocked a kid unconscious with a 2x4, and ended up in juvenile court. Ahh, I thought, if someone as wonderful as Grandpa had such a rough start, there's hope even for my kids (who thankfully haven't knocked anyone unconscious or gone to juvenile court).

Then I thought about how much everyone in our family adores Grandpa and loves his stories and needs to  hear about his life and be uplifted by his example. I thought about how much we all need each other in life--the stories, encouragement, and experiences people share can lift us and lighten our paths. We need each other.

And then I thought about how much I have needed and appreciated through the years the readers of this blog. Each one of your lives has touched mine in some way, and I am grateful for the richness of people's experiences and examples that I can learn from. Thank you.

Sweeter

Sometimes I wonder if one of my kids will feel a need to write their memoirs of what it was like being raised by a mother with only one eye. Some days I step on them, stumble over them, or just don’t realize they’re there on my blind side. When they play doctor, they usually pretend one of them has cancer. My kids have watched as I have taken my prosthetic eye out to show to neighborhood boys or kids at church who are interested. Other times I have worn an eye patch, and people in public have commented or asked questions. My kids have listened quietly or added their own thoughts—like the time four-year-old Jake followed a curious girl around the library explaining that I had lost my eye to cancer but I was just grateful to be alive, and he was grateful, too. Tender and sweet.

Then recently I went to my ocularist to have my prosthetic eye cleaned, and my kids came with me. Apparently watching my eye be removed and later put back in was an experience that necessitated some emotional sorting. On our drive home Abby said, “Mommy, I keep both of my eye balls in my eye spots.”

“Yes, dear, you do.”

What are my experiences like for my children? I don’t know. But I hope that along the way I can teach them to be compassionate and accepting of those who seem different. I hope I can teach them that life is precious and can change in an instant. I hope I can show them that I may only have one eye, but I am grateful to my core that I am alive to laugh with them, play with them, and love them. In that way, life with one eye is sweeter than life with two ever was.

Priceless

Several weeks ago we bought a manual push mower off the local classifieds. Later that day, we were more than a little amused to hear Jake telling his friends that we had bought it just for him just because he wanted it. (We're glad he thinks we're such philanthropists.) The upside of Jake's feeling of ownership of the lawn mower is that he wants to mow all the time. Awesome.

Used lawnmower: $30

Son begging to mow the lawn: priceless

Seasons

Last week Cameron and I drove through a gorgeous canyon on our way to and from a wedding. We oohed and aahed over nature’s parade of vibrant fall leaves, and our conversation steered to seasons. 

I am so grateful God gave us four beautiful seasons. I love the sparkling white beauty of snowy winter landscape, the joy of spring blossoms, a nice, hot day to splash with the kids in a pool, and the breathtaking beauty of fall. Each season presents habits, traditions, and holidays I enjoy. Of course, there are disadvantages to each season, too. By Thanksgiving the fall leaves will be on the ground and I will be tired of the cooler temperatures.

Life has seasons, too. When I was single I tried to enjoy the freedom and experiences I had, but sometimes I just felt lonely. Now in my season of life I love playing with, reading to, or snuggling with my kids. Some days I wonder how many years it’s been since I got as much sleep as I would like or since our house has been as clean as I would like or how many more years it will be till I have as much time with Cameron as I would like. But I know in a few decades when my house is quiet and clean I will miss the happy chaos of my current season of life. The trick, of course, is to enjoy what you have when you have it. Sometimes that is no small task.

Last week we returned from the wedding to a messy house full of cute, noisy kids who occasionally wake me up at night but whose smiles and laughter light up my life.

I couldn’t have been happier. 

Just Me and My Dust Bunnies

I was having one of those days recently. You know the kind. My girls were both sick with glassy eyes, runny noses, and chest coughs. Their sleep patterns betrayed their symptoms, and my house displayed the results. My vacuum was out of the closet, plugged in, and ready to go. Yet my front room still looked like this.

Not exactly company ready. So as I sat trying to rock Grace back to sleep after she coughed herself awake mid-nap, the lines of this poem started floating through my head.

Queen of Clean 

by Rachel Sullivan

That woman’s bathroom counters are always sparkling white,

I hear she stays up extra late to scrub them every night.

Her sink and tub both gleam so bright you have to look away;

If you don’t you’ll have to live with damaged retinas one day.

You may look for your reflection but it doesn’t really matter

If you use the chrome or mirror—one is rounder, one is flatter.

Her kitchen, halls, and main rooms are all the sterile same.

I’m pretty sure a hospital room accommodates more stains.

In the evenings and the weekends, she doesn’t take a rest,

She labors to ensure her yard and garden look the best.

Her grass is always greenest, her weeds wither ‘neath her stare.

Her bushes and her trees are pruned and fertilized with care.

If you find that this description precisely sums up you,

I’m sure that you enjoy your house and yard and garden, too.

If you want to stop and visit and share tips on how to mop,

I’ll need a little notice so I can vacuum, dust, and shop.

I’ll pick up air refresheners, replace my smelly rags.

I might even see fit to buy some name-brand garbage bags.

By the time you make it to my door, my surfaces will shine.

My closets will be stuffed quite full with toys all left behind.

My smile will gleam, you’ll think my house is always so serene.

You’ll wonder way deep down if I should be the Queen of Clean.

I’ll heave a sigh and shut the door as you head down my walk.

You’ll never know my secret ‘cause my dust bunnies don’t talk.

Despite the views expressed in this poem, I actually do value a clean house. Most days I find cleanliness and motherhood to be completely incompatible. But that's a discussion for another day.  

The Noah Principle

This post really began last spring when my sweet husband practically had to push me out the door of our van so I could attend a day of the BYU Women's Conference. (He sends me every year, but this year Grace was sick, and I wasn't sure how it would all work. So he drove down to Provo and tended three kids for the day and brought Grace to me once between classes to nurse. Yes, I married He-Man.) There I listened to a young mother tearfully exclaim, "If you don't know about Scripture Scouts, you should." I was a little skeptical. But she was so sincere. My curiosity overcame me, and I checked out all five Scripture Scouts CD sets (Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Articles of Faith, and Proclamation on the Family) from the library. We listened to them all the way to and from Disneyland this summer, and we came home a van full of fully converted Scripture Scouts. Seriously. If you don't know about Scripture Scouts, you should.

But on to the point of this post. Recently we were listening to the Noah segment of the Old Testament Scripture Scouts in the car. I thought about Noah's poor family trapped on that ark for months on end with all those noisy, smelly animals. They must have been stir crazy and tired of each other and their trying circumstances. Suddenly I wondered if any of them ever thought that, in the short run at least, they had made the harder choice. Yes, they got to live, but they paid a pretty heavy price for their lives in the first bit after the flood. Their choice was better in the long run but must have been at least occasionally miserable in the beginning.

And then I thought about how life is sometimes like that. Why in the world would I choose to have kids when I could shower every day, enjoy a career, and feel like an intelligent human being? Why would I have three kids spaced fairly close together and hope to one day have more? What in the world possessed me to try to move on with life and have another baby after my cancer? Why do I try so stinkin' hard to choose non-punitive, respectful parenting methods? Why would I encourage my husband to follow his dreams and go back to school for an MBA? In the short run, all of these choices have made my life harder.

Each of us has a different life with different scenarios and attendant choices. But the principle remains the same: choices that are the best eternally are often harder in the beginning. Just ask Noah.

Buffalo Crossing

Me: "Abby, why did you break Jake's Legos apart?"
Abby: "Because I'm a buffalo."

Oh yes, of course, how did I not see that?