Pondering

This morning I was able to read in the Book of Mormon for a few minutes. Most of the time when I read I like to just open up and start somewhere, like pointing my finger on a page with my eyes closed. Enos was the reading of choice by that method this time. It's been a while since I have read his account of his people...and what an amazing experience he had! While reading I had the thought, or reminder rather, that the prophets are incredible men of God. All of them, past and present, have special gifts that help them magnify their calling as the leader of our church. While the people themselves- yes even the prophet- are not perfect, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is perfect. It is now and it always has been, even in the days of Moses, Noah, and Adam. I was reminded how important it is for me as a parent to teach my children to be as much like our Savior as they can. That means I need to do better at leading them by my example. I need to yell and be impatient significantly less. I need to be quick to love. I need to be more patient and understanding with all of our children, especially the two youngest who don't have the capability to express themselves verbally in a way I can understand most of the time. I know Brady and I struggle frequently with this and so much more as we raise our children. We can both do sooooo much better to exemplify the teachings of the prophets. I have realized that although we have our struggles, any step in the right direction is far better than doing nothing at all. So today I am striving to do better, to be kinder, more loving, less irritated, less stressed. I think step-by-step progress is what keeps us on the right path.

I'm cute and everyone knows it

This picture makes me giggle every single time I see it.

She crawled outside to get the piece of bread her brother left on the patio.

Sleep training round two

Warning: this is a lengthy, boring journal entry.
Ayla is now 11 months old. She still doesn't sleep through the night. When I weaned her from nursing at nine months, she slept for 8 hours straight every night for a week......and that was it. She wakes up one or two times a night because only heaven knows why. Back in December I tried sleep training her....it lasted for two stinking months of no progress and a grouchy mom because I seriously got 5 hours or less sleep each night until I finally gave up. She'd cry for two hours straight every night, or wake up every hour and cry for 20 minutes. Seriously, it was bad.

Last night was the first night of our second time trying the cry-it-out method...because I have no idea how else to get her to sleep on her own. At 1:40am she started crying, to which I rolled over so I wasn't facing her and tried to go back to sleep. At 2 am she was wailing. By the sound of it she thought she hadn't eaten for a week. I had a serious conversation in my head with myself about what to do. Brady was at work like normal, so he wasn't any help. My only solution was go sleep on the couch with earplugs and shut and latch my door so Gideon wouldn't come in and bother her, since he often is woken up in the night by her screaming from clear across the house. I remember looking at the clock and seeing 2:44 am and she was still crying for a minute then would stop for a minute, then start again. I have no idea when she finally stopped because I finally fell asleep. She's so loud I can hear her through the closed door and my earplugs, so it's no wonder Gideon wakes up even though he has a fan on to help block out the noise. I heard her start screaming again at 5:44am, and again ignored her. I decided then that I wouldn't get her up for the day until 7am. Sure enough, Gideon woke up at 6am and came to find me on the couch. Our house was so light already by then that he didn't go back to sleep in his room. I put him back in bed, but at 6:30 I heard him screaming for delight in the boys room...he was on the top bunk having a blast. I put him back in bed again, and at 6:45 he was in the boys room waking them up again. Then at 7am Ayla was awake for the day. She was fine and totally happy to see me.

She survived the night just fine, and I did too...barely. My hips hurt so bad today from sleeping on the couch. But that's the only way I can think of to get her to sleep through the night by herself. I can't move her into Gideon's room until she does because he is such a light sleeper. I can't move Gideon into the boys room and her into a room by herself until she sleeps all night because their rooms are right across the hall from each other and she'll still wake up Gideon with her crying. And I can't have Brady and I sleeping on the couch so she can cry, so she has to figure this out by Monday night so Brady and I can sleep in peace when he's home for his weekend. Otherwise I'll be starting this all over again every single Thursday night. You all envy me, I know you do.

Any way I try to do this it sucks. In my dream house I'll have sound proof bedrooms, and an upstairs to contain the noise. Of course I'll have lots of other things like carpet in my living room, a huge laundry room with a utility sink, a walk-in pantry, wood floors so I don't have to deal with dirty/stained grout, a storage room just for all the clothes I have to store for the boys to save money, and maybe even a three car garage so one can be just for the bikes and outside toys we have.

Reading Ayla's mind

Minding my own business crawling into the exersaucer, and suddenly I notice....ooooo, Mommy's holding something....I need it.

Here I come, Mommy!

Haha! That black wristband thing hanging from the camera will be mine!

Cake pops

I made some treats for my friend's baby shower today. She's having twin boys so the theme was Dr. Seuss because of Thing One and Thing Two. I googled Lorax tree cake pops because I knew I had seen a picture out in blogland somewhere. And what do you know? Pintrest came to the rescue...again. So the picture on the left is from the tutorial on bakerella.com. The picture on the right is how mine turned out. Awesome huh? The report from my friends at the baby shower was they were cute and tasted really good, unlike some cake pops they had previously. Yes, they did taste good, I admit the baking part isn't rocket science.....but the decorating part is a WHOLE other ballgame. My chocolate was in no way moldable with a toothpick like the tutorial said it would be. I finally just gave up trying to make them cute and slapped them all together. It was almost 1am before I was finished and went to bed last night....and I didn't even finish them, I just gave up with like 8 left to do....so I have 8 undecorated cake pops in my freezer. I might just eat them myself because the cake part was delicious. Through this experience I realized making cute baked goods is not my talent. I would rather sew a quilt with my eyes closed than make any more cake pops. A loaf of bread or muffins, even a bundt cake are easy enough to do because they don't have to look cute...they just taste good. I consider this an apology to all of my children for future cake wrecked birthday cakes and school treats. But I couldn't resist poking a little fun at myself with this comparison. Enjoy the fun with me!

Baseball

Zenock's tball team, the River Dogs. He's on the front row in black pants. His coach is the same one he had for soccer last fall, so he was really excited to know people on his team already.

Ammon's coach-pitch baseball team, the Timber Rattlers. Ammon is in the front row, second kid from the left. This is his last year for coach-pitch.

 

Both my baseball boys! They have seven games scheduled this season, and the first two were cancelled due to cruddy weather. So this Monday is their first game....finally after almost seven weeks of practicing.

Invisible Mother

I came across this story today....the first part is so accurate for my life right now. I am looking forward to watching General Conference today for inspiration on how to start seeing my cathedral being built rather than feeling invisible.

Invisible Mother

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I'm on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I'm thinking, 'Can't you see I'm on the phone?'

Obviously not; no one can see if I'm on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I'm invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this??

Some days I'm not a pair of hands; I'm not even a human being. I'm a clock to ask, 'What time is it?' I'm a satellite guide to answer, 'What number is the Disney Channel?' I'm a car to order, 'Right around 5:30, please.'

Some days I'm a crystal ball; 'Where's my other sock?, Where's my phone?, What's for dinner?'

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history, music and literature -but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She's going, she's going, she's gone!

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England . She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well. It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, 'I brought you this.' It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe . I wasn't exactly sure why she'd given it to me until I read her inscription: 'With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.'

In the days ahead I would read - no, devour - the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work:

1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals - we have no record of their names.

 

2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished.

3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit.

4) The passion of their building was fuelled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man,

'Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof. No one will ever see it'

And the workman replied, 'Because God sees.'

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, 'I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does. No act of kindness you've done, no sequin you've sewn on, no cupcake you've baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can't see right now what it will become.

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on. The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don't want my son to tell the friend he's bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, 'My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.' That would mean I'd built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he'd say, 'You're gonna love it there...'

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we're doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

Wrong kid

Um, I win the bad mother award today. I yelled at Zenock to stop playing and come eat lunch. He yells from the bathroom that he's indisposed. It's Ayla who is making playing noises in her brother's room. Oops!