I Don't Get It?

The contents of Benjamin's sock drawer.

A Little Lesson:
In my next life I will raise my children in a hot and tropical country where the concept of socks is foreign and strange.

Is It Over?

I haven't decided if he is my fourth and I have become particularly lackadaisical in terms of parenting or he just came from heaven that way but Sundays have become an exhausting adventure for all parties involved. It begins with Sacrament meeting where Benjamin does one of four things....escapes the pew and runs down the aisle waving and saying hi to all the other members, screams because he doesn't like to sit on my lap, talks and says loudly "mmmmm yummmmmmm" with every piece of high fructose cereal popped into this mouth or convinces Grandpa to take him to the primary room where he can play on the chairs. Okay, I know he's just little, give him time, he'll get the hang of it. When I take him out to allow the rest of the ward to enjoy the meeting of course Clara follows and now I have two scalliwags that I am making sit in a cold classroom not having fun in the foyer. When Sacrament is over we head over to nursery where he's decided this is going to be mommy-and-me time with the toys or else the tears start flowing. The room is about 8 feet by 9 feet, there are 8-10 kids, 4 nursery leaders and a whole bunch of parents who are trying to sneak out every time their kids are looking comfortable, me being one of them. I fail every time...more tears. In this picture he has just gotten into his church clothes and is pretty excited that we're heading to church, for him it is a place where mommy feeds him sugar snacks to keep quiet - what could be better than that!

A Little Lesson:
People say time flies when you're having fun...church feels about nine hours long. All I can say is thank goodness I have a strong testimony!

Getting Better

Feeling swamped always reminds me of the "Good Better Best" talk that was given a few conferences ago that helped change the minds and attitudes of millions of members. We have spent so many years learning to "choose the right when a choice is placed before you." Choosing between right and wrong is not always easy but the decision of which one is right is usually pretty clear. Don't yell at your kids, don't tell a lie, don't shop on Sunday, don't spread gossip, don't take drugs are all pretty standard answers to situations people face everyday. Much harder is looking at your to do list...

The Stake Talent Show
Helping Jordan paper mache his social's project
Tackle the toys in the basement
Plant my seedlings for my garden
Organizing Sing Peace Around the World
Stay deeply connected to my almost teenage son (not always easy)
Getting Benjamin some new shoes
Journal/Blogg
Help a friend write an opera score for her school
Help Emily find her overdue library book
Help Clara read and count
Get Benjamin to eat more vegetables
My health (symptoms still lingering)
Find time to visit and catch up with my husband every night
Help Emily with everything because she sprained her arm (haven't blogged that one yet)
Visiting teaching
Laundry, vacuuming, scrubbing and decluttering

and making sure that the most important things are getting accomplished. I know my list looks as heavy and as big as most of my friends with kids. It's not the size of the list but we decide to do from minute to minute that makes the difference. After looking at my list I think I'll just lay on the couch and put a movie on for my kids!

A Little Lesson:
Recently we decided to do the "Never Miss" scripture study program that has meant we wake everyone up 45 minutes earlier than usual so that we never miss a single morning. In the past if dad had an early meeting or there was an event at school, or a project deadline was needing to be met we would let morning scriptures be fit in somewhere else that day. Which usually meant it didn't happen. This new method has been working out great but the early morning time I am usually getting my life on track for the day has been squashed by 45 minutes. This may sound small but it feels monumental for some reason. I know in the long run it is a better/best decision. I am willing to fall behind in almost anything if it means getting my family to study the scriptures together.

There are lots of scriptures that help us maneuver through right and wrong on this earth, much less are the scriptures that help us navigate good, better, best. Which leaves us with the daily task of leaning heavily on prayer and begging the Lord for guidance and clarity.

One More Piece

Clara: Mom, does the boy weather man on tv or the girl weatherman on tv make the weather?

A Little Lesson:
I used the think the little boys and the little girls in my violin group class were the ones playing all the violin parts on the classical records my mom used to play. It's funny how the brain is gathering data a million pieces a day and sometimes it just needs a place to put it all. I marvel at the mind of a child. I try to remind myself constantly to never let life get too busy so that I don't miss the workings of my children's minds.

My turn My turn!

A little while back it was Emily's turn to 'bring her pet to school" day. She decided out of her choices of Lucy the dog, Ben the cat, John the cat and Mocha the fish...Ben was her best bet. The animals in our house play a more "in the wings" kind of role. Nobody is really really into them, they are just nice to have around when you have nothing else to play with. Surprisingly even Benjamin could really take it or leave it. He sees the cats, sometimes he points, or says hello, but really he always finds something more exciting to play with - until his big sister brings the cat to school...

Emily tried to explain to her class the unique and special characteristics of her special pet but she was being attacked by her little brother who decided at that very moment that Ben the cat was his special pet too and he wanted in on the action. Benjamin became so determined even the teacher got out her camera to snap a few shots of the persistent one year old.

As Emily takes the cat around the class for each of her friends to have a little pat, you might think Benjamin had given up and was sitting quietly on my lap as I took this picture. Not so much. That look Emily is giving me with her eyes is saying "Mom, take out that hysterically screaming child before he completely humiliates me in front of my friends!!!"

A Little Lesson:
I don't dream about diamonds or rubies or Mexican vacations or shopping sprees or trips to the spa. About once a week I have this dream...it goes something like this... wouldn't it be nice to have a nanny/maid who watches the children when I go to the school for field trips or special days with the big kids, makes the meals when I am busy on the phone or computer, folds the laundry I forgot about in the dryer, picks up the kids from school when I want to keep napping on the couch and grocery shops in the evening when I just want to go to bed a little early. These days, with the cost of one of those nanny/maids I might as well be dreamin of diamonds and rubies!

Spring Break 2009

This is the outfit I've seen Clara wear most of the holiday.

This year's spring break has been a stay close to home, lounging around, making forts, drop- in hockey at the community center, staying up late, watching movies and sleeping-in kind of holiday...thanks to the mom of the house spending more than her share of hours in the horizontal on the couch. Speaking of being sick, my results came in last night from the lab and it was in fact the nasty streptococcal bacteria that decided to land on my epiglottis and surrounding areas. Not that that means anything, just thought I would make a note it for the great grand kids.

A Little Lesson:
Some moments during this nasty illness waves of guilt would wash over me as I thought to myself "it's spring break, we need to get out and do something fun!!!" And then out of the blue my dear friend Niki would call and take all my kids to a movie. The wave would return a few days later "I need to get these kids out of this house..." and then the phone would ring and Niki would say she's on her way to take my kids to the church to play ball. Niki you are a super super dooper friend and I love ya! She was an answer to a prayer I didn't even think to pray about. I prayed I would get better. I prayed my family would not get sick. I prayed for relief from the painful symptoms. I am so grateful when the answers to our prayers get supersized with out even asking.

Say That Again?

Colleen called to see how my snufalufagus was doing. Emily asks me through out the day how my epilogical is doing and yesterday Niki brought me a Wendy's frosty for my epiglossius. Thank you all for your notes and comments and phone calls and well wishes for that little flap of skin that went a little A-wall at the beginning of the week. I am on the mend and doing better. I feel like it's taken a big chunk out of my energy reserves, but I can finally swallow without grimacing.

A Little Lesson:
I am not sure if it was lack of sleep, lack of nutrition, lack of hand washing, or lack of sanity that brought me to that scary place I was at 3am Tuesday morning when my epiglottis decided to become enraged. I do know that sickness of any kind is always a good time to do a little personal inventory of how life is really going down. Too fast? Too slow? Not enough of this? Too much of that? I'm of the belief that most illness is a gentle or not so gentle wake-up call. Believe me, as I lay in the fetal position on our comfortable couch moaning for the pain killers to kick in, I did some good old fashion soul searching. It was a good thing.

Gratefully Warned!

At the chick reunion, while traveling through the quaint town of Langley, a few minutes away from our rented house on Whidbey Island, I was pulled over by an officer who announces I was driving 35 miles per hour in a 25 mile an hour zone. I sat there with beads of sweat running down my forehead, pleeeeeeease, I thought, don't let him give me a ticket. Turns out he had never stopped a Canadian before. I showed him my licence and registration and he seemed confused by the funny looking documents. He went back to his car and we waited and waited and waited. Enough time for me to even snap a little picture for the blog. When he finally returned to the car, I explained how we were from Canada and we were trying to find a place to eat before everything closed and how sorry we were for driving so fast in their beautiful little town, we just didn't know what to do. (Side note, if I were driving 25 miles an hour, Colleen my passenger, could of run faster along side the car in her flip flops!) I almost explained when you are from a country of Eskimos and igloos it's difficult to adapt to the American way, but I know us Canadians are working hard to abandon that stereotype, so I left that one off of my monologue. The happy ending to my tale...no ticket, just a warning.

A Little Lesson:
I am now three for three. In the past fifteen years I have received three nasty expensive speeding tickets and talked myself out of three nasty expensive speeding tickets. I am all about the warnings. They leave you feeling grateful you dodged the big punishment and humbly committed about changing your ways and doing better. Like I said, I love a good warning. I like to think I would of been one of those people that joined Noah on the arc before the flood came, or left Jerusalem when Lehi warned the people to repent. I think that is essentially what we do as latter-day saints when we gather twice a year to hear from the leaders of the church. We listen to the quiet and gentle warnings that are woven carefully through each sermon to help us avoid impending danger or disaster. For the record, I spent the rest of the weekend driving slow...very slow.

Detour

I spent most of Monday lounging around with the kids starting to feel a little strain in my throat. By evening I had nasty pain screaming from the back of my tongue down to the bottom of my neck. In the middle of the night my throat felt so swollen it had become difficult to breath and Craig took me in to emergency. A few years ago I had epiglottis, which is the swelling of the flap of skin at the back of your throat. It felt like it was back. After an X-ray showed my epiglottis to be enlarged I was put on IV antibiotics and and ENT came to do a scope to make sure I was heading in the right direction. Epiglottitus can actually be fatal because it closes off your throat and you end up suffocating! Just a little drama to add to my day. I am on some heavy-duty antibiotics and I should improve quickly. I wasn't planning on this little detour, but here we are. Once I was let out of the hospital to recover at home Emily and Clara stepped up immediately to be little nursemaids from heaven. They bring me little cups of water with straws and fuss over my blankets being just right and rub my feet and ask me every few minutes..."mom do you need anything?". Bless my little girls!

A Little Lesson:
My throat hurts too much to really appreciate any lessons at this point. I have to sit upright when I take these strong antibiotics which is why I am on the computer instead of laying on the couch. I am grateful for modern medicine, and Craig who has flexibility at work, and my mom who came and took Benjamin, and the invention of the straw, and Tylenol 3's that take the pain away. Finding gratitude, if nothing else, is always a lesson I can count on being there each day.

A Little Undeserved

Didn't you just go away a week ago? Yes I did. My trip to New Orleans and the Chick Reunion happened to fall right smack next to each other this year. The chick reunion is the weekend where a group of girls I was close with during my YSA years escapes every year for a little retreat in an old refurbished farm house on a lake and we talk endlessly day and night about our adventures as mothers, wives, sisters, aunties, daughters, career women, and so on and so on. We eat like kings, sleep far too little, laugh until our sides hurt and share the things inside of us we are itching to share with a group loving sisters in the gospel who don't judge, criticize or find fault in our experiences but rather support, buoy up and and encourage us in our journey.

A Little Lesson:
This little retreat felt pretty undeserved as it was only a few days ago that I stepped off the plane coming home from my trip to New Orleans. I am deeply grateful for Craig, who seven months ago said to me, as we committed to these two getaways in the same few weeks, "Don't worry, I'll make it work." And that he did. With the help of my mom and sister, he held down the fort yet again, for my sake. I don't casually recognize the sacrifice he makes on my behalf to step into my shoes for four days so that I can step out of them. He is a superstar as I far as I am concerned. Darling, my cup runneth over, thank you.

A Little Project on the Side

I haven't had a chance to put together my pictures from New Orleans because my early morning "me" time has been consumed with getting this little project I launched at the AMS Montessori conference off the ground. I wrote a little song about peace that I am giving to Montessori schools all over the world (it turns out they are practically in every country) so they can sing it as a school on September 21st, 2009 when the world celebrates the United Nation's International Peace Day (and our family celebrates daddy's birthday of course.) The song will begin being sung by Montessori children in New Zealand and finish 24hours later being sung by children in the Hawaiian Islands. So essentially the song will go all the way around the world. The UN was thrilled to receive our project and as of two days ago, we are on their 2009 event calendar. So far we have 300 schools unofficially signed up at the conference which works out to be about 17, 000 kids. I started a blog when I got home from New Orleans so that teachers around the world could get on board and start getting excited.

http://singpeacearoundtheworld.blogspot.com

I also wrote a little commercial with some music using the instruments I purchased in New Orleans (kalimba, sheepskin drum).

If you know of any teachers (Montessori or not) who you think might want to include their class in this celebration let me know!

A Little Lesson:
Children collect pennies for peace, sign petitions for peace, skip rope for peace, dance for peace, sew for peace and yes, sing for peace. Although I understand singing for peace on an ordinary Monday in September wont change the lives of the millions of people who live in war torn countries. I do believe that we must continue to teach our children to have hope. And maybe, just maybe there will be a child who will sing in some country somewhere on this ordinary day and grow up to make an extraordinary difference in the world. The same way a little girl named Rosa Parks or a little boy named Martin King who must have believed that there was a better way for the black people to be treated. And so we continue to sew, skip, dance, sing, drum, write, collect and run with our children for peace so that perhaps the next generation will figure it out and get it right.

A Little Walk and a Little Talk

As Craig is still trying to pass his 2mm by 3mm stone back at the homestead, I left Benjamin home napping and took my Clara out for a walk in the snow and sunshine.

"I love when trees look like lions and tigers and pitas and monkeys" says Clara.
"What honey?" I responded.
"See that one looks like a monkey, and that one looks like a lion and that one looks like a pita"
"As in pita and hummus?" I say confused.
"What are you talking about mom, as in pita, it's bigger than a tiger and more scary!"
"Do you mean cheetah?"
"Whoops, yah cheetah"
"You must be hungry"
"I think so"

A Little Lesson:
There is nothing cuter than the brain workings of my five year old. And don't worry to all who might be wondering, Craig is doing fine. It's just one of those nasty things that sometimes takes longer than you think!

Just a Lesson

A Little Lesson:
What does going to church, praying, reading the scriptures and serving others really offer us as people going along in our daily lives? It is the ability to have that deep tar tread that lives just outside the white line on a highway road. You're driving along not really paying attention and you hit that tar tread and your wheels make lots of noise and you realize quickly you are off track and need to steer back straight again. Without it, you hit a side rail, spin out of control and have to call a tow truck, or worse... When we stop the daily grind and pray or read scriptures or listen to a prepared talk, we can hear really hear whether or not our tires are riding on that loud tar tread and we are steering in the wrong direction. It allows us to make a correction quickly before we end up in a ditch we had no intentions of being in. The spirit is in fact a very still and very small voice. I am deeply grateful for gentle corrections that help me avoid tragic collisions. At first the correction may even seem annoying and bothersome, like the noise the tires makes when we hit the tread, but when followed, the feeling of being back on track is one of comfort and gratitude. Like any planned road trip, I am anxiously trying to get to my destination and I am feeling deeply grateful for a long strip of tar tread that follows beside of me as I putter along.

The Mustard Seed

We learn in the scriptures that if man has faith the size of a mustard seed he will have the ability to move large mountains. I have always believed this. Yesterday I learned when man has a kidney stone the size of a mustard seed traveling through his pipes he has the ability to fall hopelessly to the floor, cry out in agony and wish he could return to his origins in the pre-existence. My poor Craig spent the day in the hospital under the haze of a morphine drip that was supposed to bring the agony into a respectable location. After four doses, he was able to see straight again and make coherent sentences. Later on in the day, when the nurse announced that it was time to go home, to where he would continue to pass the stone in the comfort of our home, his face went white and it looked like they were going to have to call security before he would let go of his IV pole filled with narcotic. The nurse assured him that the cat scan showed the stone had gone through the most difficult part of the journey and all that was left was a little scenic tour to end off the trip. He reluctantly believed her and we headed for home after what felt like a very long day.

A Little Lesson:
I have experienced childbirth three times without drugs, a kidney stone while 8 months pregnant, a blocked gal stone while 6 months pregnant, a c-section and a few broken bones back in my club volleyball days. Physical pain is one of the dreaded experiences we endure on earth that teaches us two perspectives we can in no other way truly appreciate. One, we appreciate what a gift good health is when our bodies aren't working the way they should. When our back hurts, or tummy aches, or head throbs we long for the good health we experienced before the pain began. Two, we taste a minute fraction of what it must of been like for the Savior of the world to hang on the cross on our behalf. In my thirty seven years of living and watching others live, I am not sure which is worse physical or emotional pain. I am convinced though, that they both serve as a way for us to commune more deeply with God and increase our faith as we find new and better paths in which to travel on.

Ouch!

My sweet Jordan grew again, he is now a strapping five feet four inches. That is all nice and dandy but so did his feet. This means a new pair of soccer cleats, a new pair of church shoes, a new pair of running shoes and a new pair of kick around the house and school shoes. Ouch! He grows and my wallet shrinks. Good thing you are such a nice boy my dear or we'd have to give you away. I once heard it takes 100, 000 dollars to raise a child from zero to eighteen. The last time I counted we had four children, I think I'd better start returning our pop bottles.

A Little Lesson:
I remember when I was a little girl, and my mom went to this special place just before school started to pick up our school supplies. That's how they did it back then. We would get a little clear plastic bag with pencils, rulers, notebooks etc. all depending on what grade we were in. I remember asking her how much each bag cost. I remember her saying it cost ten dollars for both Shauna and I. I remember at that exact moment, I thought to myself, I will probably only be able to afford to have one child. Ten dollars was A LOT of money after all back then. It didn't even occur to me that we had to buy our children shoes, piano lessons and braces. But I knew one day I would be buying school supplies for my kids and I had better only have one if I was going to get by. It's funny how a moment in our life is secured firmly into the foundations of our memories, never to disappear. I could even tell you where I was sitting in the car when I asked the question and what colour pants I was wearing that day.

Home Sweet Home

This is the Marriott we stayed in several weeks after the flood and houses under 14-18 feet of water.

Ahhhh, walking into our squeaky clean home (thank you darling), kids almost asleep on the couch running to hug and their mom and receive their anxiously awaited gifts...it was a beautiful evening coming home from New Orleans after four days away from the people I love the most. The trip was nothing but spectacular. The conference was a tremendous success as I had the opportunity to speak to over three hundred people about the music I write and program I developed that brings music into the Montessori classroom. Colleen, my CD and book selling diva used her charm and wit to handle the droves of people that would run to the merchandise table after each session. She was a master of the sell. There were so many highlights. Renting a car and driving to Baton Rouge where we did a session in the temple there, driving through the poorest of poor neighbourhoods that were decimated in the Katrina Hurricane, enjoying the Cajun food and jazz and the friendly people and the French Quarters oh, it went on an on. My favourite part of travelling with Colleen is the talent she has for the foreign accent. When we were in New York, her ability to talk like a New York city cop was uncanny. For the past four days her New Orleans drawl was more than my sides could manage. She is probably one of the funniest people walking the earth today. After a few days we will put our pictures together and make a little show. I'll warn you, neither of us like our pictures taken so you might think it wasn't even us that was there!

A Little Lesson:
Three months after the devastating hurricane hit, the people of New Orleans were allowed back to their homes. There was no home sweet home experience for them. They came back to dirty, destroyed homes filled with all of the their belongings gone or ruined. Things simply floated away. Spending a few days in a community that has experienced such a tragedy on such a grand scale brings a reverence to all who come to witness for themselves what happened. So many of them were not bitter or angry but rather grateful and unified as a community as they put the broken pieces of their lives back together one by one. It was inspiring to me over and over again.