Today

I got up and helped the kids off to school with a good start to the day

pleasant, steady

Our neighbor is in a crisis and I listen to her 

mourn with her mourning

Off to the store for art supplies for the class 

and cupcakes

for friends

a birthday

and a loss

Lunch served

Supper made

Afterschool snack ready

I tidy and prep for class

welcome the kids and teach, guide, explain, encourage

save smiles for my boys

I take a deep breath and hug them long enough for it to soak in

then quick bites and Cub shirts

bedtime round one with stories and cuddles

bedtime round two with a listening heart

Laundry and lunches

The day is done

Tired but not drained

I am happy for all the chances

 to do some tiny thing for someone

I gave and was willing

and this is good.

Love It While I'm In It

Today

Oh today

Today was one of those days.

A day where you got to shower and wash your hair with out feeling like you were swimming upstream to do it. 

A a day in which you got to eat breakfast peacefully.

A calm feeling day. 

Today was a day to skype with your traveling sister and feel happy with all four kids crowding your body. 

It was a day to go to play in the water without gathering a million supplies, just a couple of  towels and a handful of granola bars and off we go!

Today was a day to love my children

for my heart to drink them all in and love how they are in this moment

today.

For my boy to be big enough to stay home by himself and me to be happy for him.

A day for my heart to swell as one helped the other climb up the tall side of something at the park.  

Their muscly little bodies mirroring each other,

 one reaching up and one reaching down

hands clasped as they pulled each other up.

A day to sit with my baby in the leaf dappled sunshine as he smiled and kicked completely happy to do just what he always wants, 

to be by me 

be with me

and for me to be with him. 

A day to listen and marvel at the interesting things they say, 

to glimpse how they think, what they imagine.

To glow with each new word practiced and learned.

Today was a day to drive through the fields and watch the haying, harvesting

see the horses and cows with their babies.

to paint all the colors of the grass in my mind.

A day to love as I do every time that I see it, the big sky with it's sun and storms and towers of clouds all happening at once, a different view in every direction.

Today was a day in which, when I lay down with the two smalls for a story and watched them with their heads on the same pillow and they asked me

why are you crying

I could say that my heart was so full of love that it burst

and the extra spilled out of my eyes.

Today was a day that was good.

(Then he said, " Well, pft, why are you sad about loving us???" I explained that they were happy tears but like, clearly, Mom that doesn't make any sense.)

Our Game

All day long you love me and love me.

You call me 'my sweet sweet' and 'my sweet Mommy'

You slip your arms around my leg or back or neck,

whichever you can reach.

You snuggle your head into me and rock or wriggle.

You lift your face up to mine

perfect small child skin, rosy cheeks, pink shaped lips, your hair swooping back. 

You hug me and compliment me, tell me I'm beautiful.

Out of the blue over and over again.

We play a game, because there is more than being beautiful.

I tell you you are beautiful. 

You are smart, loving, kind.

You are creative, you are strong, you are generous.

You are capable, helpful and brave.

You tell me I am all those things too.

You are goofy

You are fun

You are interesting.

All day long you love me and love me.

How blessed I am in love.



The best advice I ever heard:

When it gets too hard, 

When you feel like you can't do it any longer, 

Then you know it's almost over,

You've already made it.

Thanks Mom

A Few Good Things

Just so I don't forget.

The sweetest bird is twittering outside my window, it has been for days.

The grass is greening and the sun is sunny.

One sweet friend brought me really yummy muffins last week.

  

Another decided to feed me and had us over for dinner, 

she is also wonderful at distracting the repetitive thought loops that keep playing in my mind and is so encouraging. 

The hardworking ladies that are with me in primary who make sure everything is taken care of. 

All the positive people I connect with.

(facebook friends, Holla!)

I really like my bedroom, 

(for the first time ever.)

My  Mom is going to stay with me for five days.

My torpedo belly feels pretty good. 

Tulips.

The beautiful, new to us, vehicle we were so lucky to get just in time to fit our bigering family. 

This man I get to be with who is still beyond what I imagined.

I feel so so grateful and so so blessed. 

I am going to start waxing sappy if I keep going so I'll quit while I'm ahead.

I just wanted to be able to remember this in the dark of winter so I can always feel all the goodness that is all around me. 

Glowing Hearts

The other night while saying bedtime prayers with the boys we prayed for our country in this new year.  We prayed for our leaders that they would be helped in their important responsibilities.

We prayed for all the people that they would have what they need,  feel love and be kind to each other.

We thanked Heavenly Father for this this great, wonderful nation, that I think, is the best place to live in the world.  

We have a stable government who I think tries to take care of it's people (what a huge blessing this is!), we have a stable economy, we are relatively unharmed by major natural disasters, in our province it's usually sunny (!) and we don't have to deal with dangerous bugs (bonus).  

We are free to pursue the education and jobs we want, marry whom we want, raise our families in the way we want and create the kind of life we want to have.

  

We have a tradition in our congregation at church where a couple of Sundays a year the general meeting (before we divide up for Sunday school classes) is all music.  

Members tell everyone why they like a particular hymn and then we all sing a verse or two.  These are the best meetings, an hour of all the most moving, stirring and fun songs in our hymnbook!  

This morning someone chose to sing O Canada and America the Beautiful.  

I could barely sing as my heart swelled with gratitude and love for our wonderful country (partly pregnancy hormones I'm sure, but I feel this way usually anyway) 

I love this country! 

I wish good things for all the people in it.

O beautiful for spacious skies, 
For amber waves of grain, 
For purple mountain majesties 
Above the fruited plain! 
America! America! 
God shed his grace on thee 
And crown thy good with brotherhood 
From sea to shining sea! 

( I know, I know, it's old!)

Mary

I love being pregnant at Christmas.  

Maybe because I feel things more with a little baby growing inside me.

I think about Mary a lot.

How she experienced all that she did.

All that traveling at the end.

Giving birth in a barn.

It makes the whole thing feel more special, more holy.

When I am pregnant, I feel a connection to her.

Not because I am anything like her but the connection all pregnant women have,

we know what the other is feeling, physically, partly emotionally too.

We know what is coming for each other.

Every woman who is growing a baby is so special and at Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior, being pregnant really helps me to think of him, because babies are so much on my mind already.

It also very much makes me think of Mary, celebrate and revere her.  

For doing what she did.

For being the woman to bear our Lord and bring him into this world.

For being willing.

And for doing it under the least desirable of circumstances.

What a true woman.  

I love these thoughts, I am glad that my circumstances help me to truly feel love during this time

Because that is why He came.

From the Mouths of Babes

Have been feeling so bad.  All kinds of awful thoughts in my head about how I don't like my life (but I really do), being a mom, thinking how bad I am at it, wishing I was doing something else (but I don't even know what), how much I do wrong and thinking how I don't even deserve the children I have and how I probably shouldn't have any more and subject them to me and how maybe (dare I say this aloud?) I made a 

huge mistake

that there's no way to fix. 

Trying to figure it out, wanting to be more grateful for all of the goodness and what I have and just wanting to get over myself and be better at everything I'm hating about myself. 

 Begging Heavenly Father to help me, please.

Because I'm trying really hard to 'fulfill my calling' but I don't like it and it doesn't make me happy though I've always been told it should.  I'm sitting there with all these words big and loud and sneakily whispering in my head asking Heavenly Father for help.

Big E (at whom I'd just yelled) looks straight at me and says, 

"Mommy, I love you.  

You are my very best Mother."

With his clear brown eyes and his beautiful face gazing at me there was my answer.  All my bad thoughts washed away in one wave.  Big E is my own miracle and the answer to my torment. With those words spoken right then I have reassurance that is more than just the warming of my heart from the words of my sweet son.

I am doing what I am supposed to do.  

Even though it's not what I dreamed of doing while I was growing up.  It's not what I wished and hoped to do    (though it's pretty much where my imagination of reality ended since it's all I was taught to picture for my future.)  I am doing what I am supposed to be doing and for being obedient Heavenly Father will help me figure it out and help me find the way to be happy while doing it. 

This is my weapon for when these dark thoughts come creeping in again.  I will remember that I have this to fight them off with.  From the perfect lips of my son came God's answer to my prayer and I'll take that answer in all it's possible meanings.  

I still have a lot to figure out, and now I feel like that is possible. 

P.S.  This is not a cry for pats on the back and affirmations that I am a good mother.  

Has anyone ever felt remotely like this?  I'd love to know how you reconciled it.  

Giving Thanks

The gospel of Jesus Christ

My husband 

The two children I do have
Siblings, parents, in-laws, nephews and nieces
Trees, grass and sky
The lovely warm weather
This computer
Wonderful Books
Knowing that I'm not alone in the universe and feeling that I count
Prayer and inspiration
Being able to pay our bills
Having good food to eat
Our home
Friends
People I look up to
The desire to be something better
Painting
Music
Holidays and trips
The ability to learn
Hot running water
Getting to know new people

and candy

I hope you have lots to be thankful for too.

Here's a link to some great thoughts on gratitude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGnfq5ua2VY