I've had some thoughts on mothering lately. As some of you know, I'm a mother. You may also know that I am not always cheerful, my house is almost never clean, the laundry is certainly never finished, I feed my kids frozen pizza once a week, and my excuse for all this is not that I'm really talented at crafting or quilting or anything for that matter. I just never get it all done. Even my blog is not what I want it to be (and it's my escape).
That's okay, right? My kids are what matters most. But then, even in that regard, I feel like I'm a failure sometimes (muchtimes). So, kids who's mothers are tooooo good grow up to be weaklings, right? :)
Okay, now that I got that off my chest, thoughts:
Last week some friends and I were at the park with our kids for our weekly playgroup. A group of 4th graders (about 3 or 4 classes worth) came to the park for a picnic and some recess while they were having a field trip. This, of course, resulted in a hundred 10-year-olds running like wild animals around the playground where all our preschoolers are used to being in charge. The fun thing was that a couple of the girls in our ward were there. These girls are babysitters in training, and take it seriously. They LOVE babies and single out the little ones at every church function (including church). These girls are so sweet and nurturing--and I noticed that day--a little more mature than their cohorts.
As Sydney and Kirsten took over the care and watch of my kids and ran around introducing them to their friends, I got the chance to sit back and observe a little. And for the next hour or so, this is what I saw:
Remember the little Woolly Willy (was that it?) thing? little magnet shavings and a magnet stylus. As you drag the stylus around, you see the shavings clump around it, follow it around, until it gets too crowded, then some drop off, others join. Okay-- 4th grade girls + babies. No exaggeration.
I noticed that many of the boys noticed the little ones just enough to leap a little higher or dodge them most of the time. That was the extent. One boy from our ward, Obadiah (who reminds me of a little Spencer), saw me and smiled as he ran like the wind around the swingset and off to some other place. I thought it was sweet :)
And when it was time for the grade-schoolers to leave, the girls said their good-byes. And then again. And then ran back again for final hugs and chit chat with the little ones. Their little seedling nurturers were so fulfilled, you could just see it.
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Okay, more thoughts. I told Spencer that for Mother's Day weekend, I wanted to finally plant my garden. It was a gorgeous weekend. It was the weekend of the fathers/sons campout. It was a rare weekend where no prior engagements were made. PERFECT for gardening, I thought. PERFECT for CAMPING, Spencer thought. But he put those plans aside immediately when he realized how excited I was to garden (an understanding for which feelings he lacks entirely). Instead, he played with the kids and ran errands with them all day while I did my entire garden!
(There it is, little baby garden. I hope it turns into a grown up one. I was given the advice to cover it with weed cloth since it gets 40 million weeds every time you turn around. Do you think it's going to work?)
It was the moment after I had dumped 2 bags of compost/fertilizer and some peat moss over it and was half-way through turning all the soil and mixing it together that I had a grand feeling. I was HOT. Parched. My arms were starting to ache. I was getting sunburnt. I was worried about getting it all done in time. And my heart was soaring. I was feeling on top of the world.
And my thoughts turned to my parents. Have you seen their yard? It is Eden, friends. I ought to have wedding pictures back there, but somebody invited the rain. Lame.
Anyway, their yard. And guess who totally resodded that yard? Laid the sprinkling system? Put in rock walls? Laid the rock stairway? Framed the barn (okay, it's a shed)? Painted it? Me!
Well, actually, them. But we all helped. And we all spent years in their "school of hard workers". Accomplishment. Sweat, dirt, trial and error, improvement, WORK. We worked together in the yard and garden most weekends, I think. I remember finding out about a joke that my friends had behind my back about my parents having kids as slaves because we had to work more than anybody else.
And now that I'm a parent, I imagine that most of those times, the "help" we were providing wasn't as valuable as I thought it was, when you consider ill-followed instructions, whining, arguing, sibling fighting, and probably a lot of Disney songs sung out of tune. Maybe my parents thought to themselves, as I'm already finding myself doing, thinking they would rather let us off the hook and do it on their own. But they didn't. Ever :)
And now I love and value work. And I really enjoyed that moment to myself when all those memories came back to me, and I was filled with gratitude for all those fulfilling times when I could have been off sitting around with my friends trying to come up with something "to do". Gosh, I hope as a mom I have the strength to do that for my kids.
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I mentioned that Spencer gave me all the gardening time I desired. Here are some other ways he and the girls made Mother's Day Special:
-I woke up to sweet smells from the kitchen. What was it? Oreo-jelly bean-m&m waffles (whole wheat, of course!) topped with marshmellow cream, peanut butter, caramel sauce, and whipped cream. Oh, hello, Heaven.
-At church, the primary sang two songs, including one of my all time favorites (and a given for Mother's Day) "Mother I Love You" (you may have heard my more saucy version? No? Oh, that's too bad. I used to try to butter my mom up so she would let me stay out late or go to that concert, stuff like that.) Anyway, she told me the week before that she was going to sing so loud that I would cry. Happy tears, of course. What she actually did was similar to her dance recital where she was stiff as a board. She just stared right at Luke, the boy next to her, the entire time. As in, you could see her profile only, and her nose was practically resting on Luke's cheek. Luke tried to stay focused but felt a little awkward. Points for your efforts, Luke.
Layla was theeee most excited member of the congregation for this musical number and showed it enthusiastically, by clapping continuously for about a minute straight while hootin' and hollerin' (screaming "whoooooo! yeah!!") It was hilarious, and I didn't even try to quiet her down. It was MY day, after all.
-At church, Spencer sang "Love At Home" a cappella with seven other men in the ward, all of whom have wonderful voices, including one of the guys from "Inside Out" (BYU A cappella). It was absolutely beautiful and I was so proud of him for doing that for me. He doesn't always get recognized as having the best singing voice, but his mom and I always love to hear him belting it out. Layla hollered "daddy!" a lot, but apparently the novelty had worn as she didn't scream and cheer like before.
-At church the kids were perfect angels! Campbell only tried to escape about 40 times. Layla bit each sister. There were goldfish everywhere. Brother Williams, sitting closest to us on the bench, got kicked repeatedly. Oh, and Layla chucked her shoe, which bounced off of Brother Smith's forehead and somehow landed three rows back in a teenage boy's hands! The kids were so crazy, Spencer and I didn't even notice. Reports trickled in after the meeting ended.
-After church, Spencer made dinner, completely on his own. Well, with lots of help from Cadence. They cooked it out in the fire pit. He made a rub from scratch and made some seriously good pork loin with "hobo Joes" (tinfoil veggies). It was surprisingly smashingly good!
-We just got a new laptop which has a camera in it, so we videoskyped with our moms for the first time. The kids got all weird and "skyper" (clever little word my mom invented to describe their behavior). They were like, roaring like lions and getting all up in the laptop's grill, shreiking with excitement. You know, the usual. Campbell was like an alarm--every 60 seconds she would say "Happy Mother's Day!".
Zavian was visiting my parents and so he told us all about the cars he likes--something about the red Corvette, Herbie, and a Mustang. We got to see Aunt Mikee before she runs off to Alaska for the summer. We "met" my foster sister Amber for the first time (looking so cute and pregnant!), and we mostly just shared our chaos.
On the Clive line, we got to see John's adorable smile and tell him "Happy Mother's Day" a bunch of times, see Mamaw sporting the necklace Cadence made to her, and ask Gramps if he is still "at the airport (Campbell is still sure he's there waiting for us). We screamed and roared a little less, which was nice. Mamaw is so good at asking the right questions to the girls and getting them talking. We loved getting to video chat!
-By the time we were done skyping, it was way past bedtime. Layla had already gone down, and the big girls were just beside themselves with emotions they couldn't understand. The both hung all over me and cried through the entire prayer. They both needed me to carry them up to bed.
So I did. It was my day, and I wanted to. So there. They were not happy with the arrangement, somehow.
Cadence has work ethic in her blood. She looooves to work. And she loooves to boss people around. At least she's not a lazy tyrant.
What words can I use to caption this picture? LOVE it.
Andrea recently facebooked about letting your children dress themselves and how wonderful it is. Yep.
-I don't think Spencer got a single thing done on his own to-do list this weekend. He literally spent his entire weekend doing whatever I wanted to do, or serving me in some way. I feel special.
