Wearing your Heart Outside your Body

Are there ever times that you're so filled with emotion, both good and bad that you know if someone even tries to hug you you're going to explode.

It is that conflict I have when I realize that my kids are growing up too fast and that while I'm so proud of them so happy for where they are in their lives I'm so sad because that means that I won't see them every day. That I won't be tripping over Legos on the way to the bath tub or finding syrup exploded on the floor of the pantry or be texting them late at night to tell them to turn down their music. I'm going to miss the phone calls saying they need a ride or asking me to drop something off that they forgot. I will be so sad when I'm no longer the one they turn to when they have a problem that needs to be fixed. I'll miss the 12 a.m. talks on the couch with the girls about their day and whatever drama unfolded at school that day. I will miss having their friends tell me that I am so fun to hang out with and that they'd rather be here than anywhere else. I'll miss having Zach share his latest music find with me and helping him type his papers because he has so much to do that he still needs his mom. I'm going to miss Jacob waking me up to tell me that I can sleep in because he already made his lunch. I will miss Bailey spinning in circles in the kitchen because she is so happy that standing still is just not an option. I will miss Kaitlyn raising her eye brows at me with that "really" look and then falling over laughing because despite the fact that I'm a dork I'm really funny. 

Kaitlyn texted me this morning, it read, “Mom, I know you're busy. I forgot something I need for science. It is ok if you can't bring it but if you could class is at 10:20”. At first I sighed and looked out the window at the pouring rain and thought of the long hill I'd have to walk up to get to her school babying my perpetually broken foot. I thought of my hair I had just finally managed to smooth into submission. I thought of the warm blanket I was just about to wrap around me while I caught up on some emails. But then, I realized that what she was really saying was “mom, you are the one person I can always count on to be there for me regardless of I need. Thank you for loving me unconditionally. Thank you for putting my needs above your own.”So I did what any mother would do. I threw on a sandal and a boot and limped my way up the school sidewalk with my plastic bag covering her project and returned home wet, cold and with hair the size of Bozo the Clown. 

 There is a fine line between loving your children and smothering them. I'm realizing this especially as Zach, now a senior in high school, needs things. Am I bailing him out? Is this something he must take responsibility for, is there a lesson he needs to learn from this? I hate asking these questions because it means that I'm raising potential grown ups and truth be told, they're not that far from the mark. But when he comes to me and says, “mom, I had to tell work I can't come in this week, I'm so far behind and graduation is just more important” I can't help but see the little toddler sitting next to me on the floor with his little pop up piano and sunglasses singing, “Everybody wants to color on mom's homework” to the tune of “Everybody Wants to Be a Cat”. When Kaitlyn needs help because the combination of babysitting, homework, personal progress and dishes is just a bit much I can't help but see her as the tiny little girl whom I rocked for hours on end and held a breathing mask to her tiny little face so she could get the air she needed for months on end. When Bailey gives me that look that says, “I can do this...no one is going to bring me down” I can't help but see Bailey as the little girl who fell in the cement while running to school and is panicked because she isn't allowed to take a ride from anyone and even though it is my best friend standing there telling her to get in the car she is standing her ground and saying, “are you on my list? Do you know the password?”. This morning my sweet baby Jacob and I were talking about the big emergency drill they'd be having in Utah today and I asked him if he knew what to do in case of an earthquake at school. He proceeded to tell me what to do in every emergency, and much to my dismay, he told me what to do in the case of a school shooter. He told me that he is hide in their designated spot and not make a sound and then he added, “and then I pray that mom is going to be ok through this'. So there you have it, this parenting thing we've signed on for is hard. It is this constant balancing act of holding on and letting go. Its the process of learning how to wear your heart on the outside of your body and keep it from being crushed....I think I need a Dr Pepper.

A Hero to the Story

I just finished reading the book Nineteen Minutes. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that I can identify with each of the characters in the story. From the girl who is with her high school boyfriend simply because without him she doesn't know who she is, to the mom of the shooter...there is a bit of each one of them in each one of us. As I read about the bullying and the torment that went on in the life of the main character my heart ached as I remembered my Junior High days. I was in no way the “popular” girl but I wasn't a target...I simply existed. I remember vividly the outcasts, the kids whose hair stuck up in the back, who wore the same clothes to school each day, who always had food stuck in the brackets of their braces. I remember most especially the poor girl who had physically matured much quicker than the rest of us, no doubt in part to her diet of fast food and potato chips. She had glasses that looked like the bottom of the Coke bottles I drank from at lunch and a chest that double dribbled when she walked. Her shirts were always two sizes too big and stretched in an asymmetrical way that made the left side of her body always look off balance with the right. She wore sweat pants that typically had the remnants of her free lunch splattered across the thigh. There were so many things about this girl that screamed “loser” in my fourteen year old mind but despite all of that she always smiled. No matter what kind of day she was having she had a timid little wave and a smile that should have been on the cover of a magazine. I'd usually grace her with the upward nod of my head and then turn to make sure no one noticed. I don't remember ever being opening mean to her, in fact, she probably counted me among her friends. Perhaps that is the saddest part of this story, that me, a girl who would try her hardest to round the corner before she caught up to me was indeed considered her friend. I remember vividly a day in PE in which we had to run the mile. I could do it in my sleep but that wouldn't have fit with the image I was trying to project so I stayed back with some of the girls who didn't dare mess up their hair by breaking a sweat. As we flirted with the ninth graders running the stairs I watched as she misjudged a step. Her top heavy frame was no match for gravity and she flew through the air. She bounced not once but several times and she skidded to a stop at the feet of some of the more popular boys. Her glasses flew threw the air and landed feet away from crumpled body. I remember the laughter that erupted from the kids that had watched and the smattering of giggles as word spread of her horrific spill. I remember thinking to myself, “help her” and I remember being frozen with fear that someone might notice that I was her friend and therefore make me one of their targets. Over the years the story has changed as I retell it in my head. I no longer remember that actual ending to the tale. I don't remember if I reached my hand out to her and helped her up despite the ridicule and the glares. I may have laughed with them and snickered as she tried to recover. I may have simply turned away and pretended that I didn't see. I must have tried so hard to forget for fear I may have been counted amongst the bullies. The one thing that I remember is that she was back the next day with her smile and her glasses that were now crooked on the bridge of her nose and that regardless of the laughter she made her way up the steps one more time in an attempt to run that drill and for that reason and that reason alone there is a hero to the story....her.

Remembering

Sweat beat down my brow and my heart pounded.  I felt as though my entire soul had been shattered.  Someone had somehow reached into my chest cavity and managed to rip my very soul from my body and twist it as you would a wet towel until the very fabric of my being had been destroyed.    He was just there, my tiny little boy with the bright blue eyes and the golden blond hair.  His little cherubic smile had just graced me as he ran by the kitchen table and headed toward his room. But in an instant he was gone.  The baby I had pleaded for and had spent numerous nights praying for was no where to be seen.  I screamed for the kids to help, my cry piercing the twilight hour of our quiet street.  We ran to the river bank and searched madly for a sign of my little angel.  It seemed like only yesterday we held our breath as we welcomed him into the world and now here we were 16 months later fighting our way through the overgrown backyard in a fight against time to find him.  Time stood still as I bent to find a little blue blanket, the blanket he cuddled with at nap time, the one with the little zebra embroidered delicately on the corner.  He would take his fingers and stroke the silky binding of the blanket as he rubbed his little neck when he was ready for bed.   I shook as I moved the blanket, fearing the worst but pleading with the Lord for strength.  There he was.  His hair was matted with mud and his tiny little frame still only 15 pound the same weight he was when he was four months old.  I cuddled his little body to my chest and tried with all of my might to breathe the life back into him but his chest was motionless.  His little heart had stopped beating and despite the frantic efforts of rescue workers, he was gone. 

I sat up with a start.  It had been one of those dreams from which you’re afraid to awake for fear that it could be real.  I looked to the side of my bed and frantically started making my way through the pristine darkness to the crib of my youngest child.  I grabbed his little blue blanket and reached into his bed to pull the warm body of my Jacob to me.  I trembled as I held him, his warm breath on my neck as I sobbed.  Tears streamed down my face and my heart was filled with a combination of shear panic and relief.  Relief that it had been a dream, panic in case it had been more than just a dream. 

I spent the next day trying to rationalize the dream away.  Jacob was four months old and already he was fifteen pounds.  There was no way that he would be walking in the next little while and so I was sure that by the time he would be able to run past me in the hall he would be much bigger.  We didn’t live by a river.  Our backyard was an acre of sagebrush and in this desert the chances of finding water was rare.  Over the next few months I tried to push the dream out of my mind as we dealt with the real threat of losing our little boy.

He had started losing weight.  His reflux had gone from being a nusaisance be being an urgent problem.  We had been to doctor after doctor.  He would eat bananas and three days later they would shoot from his nose. Bile would ooze from his mouth with the slightest movement.   Whenever he was laid in his crib for a nap he would vomit, covering his little body in the fluids that were meant to have given him nuriousment.  His little arms were covered in scars from the numerous attempts at establishing a pic line.  His little eyes were swollen and his chest raised dramatically with every breath he took. He was withering away and all we could do was watch.  He was down to twelve pounds at eight months old.  He was so busy clinging to life that he was unable to reach his milestones that his brother and sisters met without trouble.  I held his little body close to me as I rocked him in the rickety wooden chair in the corner of a dark pediatric hospital room.  I was exhausted, months of this routine had worn me down.  My other children needed me, my husband needed me and I needed to remember who I even was.   We had transferred our baby from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City in the hopes that they could find an answer. It was hear that despite the fact that the every test and every procedure had been done that we had to face the reality that it was all in the hands of the Lord.  He had proven to the doctors that with a highly restricted diet he was able to gain an insignificant amount of weight but because there was nothing else to be done we were discharged.  We were thrilled to have him home but life was anything but normal.  There were strict guidelines that had to be met.  Around the clock feedings and medications administered at all hours.  Within months however our little boy began to grow. 

Life had settled down enough to look at moving.  We had wanted to buy a home in St. George and my husband planned to commute to Las Vegas daily, just so our children could grow up in a community that we could feel safe in. Jacob was doing well.  The vomiting stopped as mysteriously as it had started.  At sixteen months he was back up to fifteen pounds and was walking circles around us.  We started looking at houses.  My husband fell in love instantly with a home that was in need of a lot of love.  It had a huge lot and the river ran quietly at the rear of the two acres.  There was a horse stable, a pool, an outdoor office and a large play structure. As we stood on the porch of the home a chill ran up my spine and I dismissed it as the wind that suddenly started to flow.  I didn’t like the house, there were two many stairs and the bedrooms seemed dingy.  I wanted the smaller, newer home on the hill.  We went back and forth, each of us listing off the highlights of the house that we wanted.  It wasn’t until our oldest looked at me and said, “Mom, do you remember that dream you had about Jacob and the river?” that we decided not to take any chances and bought the home I had wanted.   Months passed.  We settled into a routine.  G.C. was driving everyday and I was running the kids to practices and games.  The weather was dramatic.  Dark skies streaked across the red mountains casting a purple hue to the majestic mountains surrounding our beautiful city.  On our little hill we didn’t think much of the much needed moisture but after weeks of steady rains we noticed the rivers start to rise.  Before long the rivers had swollen their banks and Southern Utah saw flooding like it had never seen before.  Homes were swept into the rivers and hopes and dreams were washed away with the memories of our neighbors.   We drove one day to the property that my husband had wanted months earlier.  It was gone.  The house was still standing but the back two acres had been eaten away by the monsterous flood.  My heart was still for a moment and I had to will it to continue its beat as I thought of my dream.  At the time I had the dream about the river Jacob was developing without issue.  I had no reason to believe that he would be stunted in his growth. We had rationalized the dream as impossible in part because of the size and age discrepancy.  It became obvious to me that the choices we had made could easily have resulted in a different outcome.  The Spirit had led us away from the home with the river.  My testimony was strengthened as I held my little boy in my arms and once again felt the warmth of his tiny breath upon my neck.  I took a deep breath and savored the smell of baby powder and graham crackers on his little body.  I thanked my Father in Heaven for the gift of revelation and the Holy Ghost. 

Facebook Updates

I'm just too far behind to keep up so I just copied and pasted a few of the highlights from Facebook.  Hopefully I'll have time to add to the better ones.

I'm grateful that when I checked on my sweet sick baby after he went to bed that he has a Book of Mormon, hymn book and a story book about Nephi in bed with him. How blessed I am to have him as a daily reminder of what's important.

 

The high school was in lock down today. I handled it fairly well. I am grateful for the assortment of official cell phone numbers I have and that Zach heeded my advice "not to do anything stupid" and that Bailey was off campus. 

There was a report of a couple of men with guns in the apartment complex by the school so it was put in lock down. The school sent out messages just stating it was a lock down. My friend whom I was with had a text from her daughter saying, "there is a man with a gun we are hiding in the closet" so of course we freaked out and took off for the school. I knew we couldn't get in but I wanted to be closer if my kids needed me. Fortunately I have lots of cell phone numbers of people who know things and was told it was nothing. Nothing makes your heart stop like that kind of a phone call!

Bailey told Jacob he was being annoying and he just smiled and said, "my specialty"

Jacobs ears are red (he does that when he's hot) and he said, "oh mom...its a bacteria..a special kind of bacteria that only I can see...its treated with candy"

 

Kaitlyn must not weigh enough to make the automatic doors at Smiths open...Too bad she wasn't looking to notice HA HA HA HA

While practicing for his spelling test Jacob said, "I know how to spell it I just don't which letters to use " :)

A Bailey quote ," I can't sing the high notes so I just make them up"...that explains it.

In an attempt to make it on time to Jacobs last soccer game Zach rode his bike to the rec center, ran over glass and had both tires explode on him. He ditched the bike on the side of the road and ran the rest of the way. That is dedication!

Things you DON'T want to hear from Zach when you come home..."I taught Jacob how to put out a fire".

‎"If you see a paper with a bunch of scribbling lines all over that I need it...its my homework"....Jacob.

Dear neighbors, I'm sorry I forgot to close my blinds before playing Just Dance...it wont happen again

Zach was "reassigned" from his TA position at school for reenacting the final scene from King Kong with paper airplanes....sigh

The principal nicknamed Kaitlyn "Miller the Killer". Every time he calls her that she stands at least two inches taller.

Jacob just suggested I need "Life Alert"....grrr

Today is the last day of summer but don't worry...I plan on hanging around.

It has come to my attention that people don't know my husband. It was a topic of conversation tonight....so...if you have had a conversation with him let me know..I'm beginning to wonder if I just imagine he is here :)

Getting ready to go play some church ball. Hopefully someone brings a first aid kit and a defibrilator

Somebody just had a little melt down because all the "good" cereal was gone....I then realized I'm the only one home.

Perhaps making homemade helicopters using rope, carabiners, hockey sticks and blankets ISN'T the best idea.

Kaitlyn just brought me my bar cookie and said, "small and delicate like my mommy"...I think she was trying to get more for herself! :)

 

Now that Jacob can clip his own toe nails I am afraid I"m useless.

Zach to big tattooed dude on trax......(head nod)....so youve been in prison too.? The guy had been fyi but gave zach all the reasonx to stay clean :)

Pretty sure its the last place I'd expect to find Zach but he's at the Willie Nelson Concert.

Toothpaste and neosporin are not interchangeable

Learned the hard way why people put their pants on one leg at a time...that's going to leave a mark.

Nylons after an all You can eat lunch? Not a good idea...I think My left eyeball Just popped out

Jacob: Hey mom, for some reason the bathroom smells like rotten eggs...maybe I shouldn't eat eggs in the morning and maybe I should brush my teeth downstairs....later in the morning I said, "what do you need to remember today" (meaning lunch box) and he said, "never trust a fart"..sigh.

Favorite Jacob quote from the first day, "kids aren't happy they're serving 1% milk, they like 2% but they all make me throw up 100%

As I dropped Jacob off he said, "Mom, you only have a 12 pack of Dr Pepper left...are you going to be ok?" :)

The server at olive garden just asked if its ok for Kaitlyn to have a big cup...ha ha

Zach about a former school, "The kept saying 'be a leader' and the minute I get a group of followers they called it a gang" Ha HA

Jacob discovered the doorbell ringtone on a phone and keeps do

Took Jacob to Herriman Beach tonight and he was so excited to see they had installed "boobies" to help keep him safe :)

orbell ditching Kaitlyns room. He's so proud

Bailey hasn't stopped talking in 12 hours. I turned on the radio in the car only to have her turn it off and say, "I enjoy the silence" ;)

Teaching Bailey to sew is somewhat like living in an I Love Lucy episode. Funny if you're watching on tv....not so funny in real life.

 

You should check yourself before you blame other people" Jacob Miller..so true.

When is the community garden NOT pretty..... when your keys are somewhere in the weeds!!!!

Watched Soul Surfer with the kids and right at the dramatic moment that the girl loses her arm Jacob says, "oh no...how will she text?!" :)

Playing a game with Jacob and he says "ah ha I see a flea in your plan" he he pesky fleas :)

I never tire of watching my husband fall in a lake.I guess the answer to the question on whether or not I can fix the broken cord would be a big fat NO! The fire shot a good 2 feet but the shock was by far worse.

 

Good thing I bought Jacob new scissors...apparently his "first grade scissors" are too "old fashioned" for second grade.

Reason NOT to recycle containers....I just put quinoa on my ice cream instead of peanuts :(

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am His Daughter

Bailey and Kaitlyn just had their Young Women in Excellence Program and I was so proud of both of them.  Kaitlyn was asked to speak on Good Works and she received her first value award for Knowledge.  She met with one of my friends who is a photographer who gave her some great tips. Bailey won her Honor Bee.  She completed her Personal Progress as a Beehive so she had to do 40 hours of service and read the Book of Mormon again in order to complete it. This is one of their favorite songs so I put it together with some of their pictures for the year.

Never a Dull Moment

Zach who has been spending part of his day as an assistant in the office.  Today he was asked to transfer classes after reenacting the final scene from King Kong while standing on the table...sigh.