The eternal condition

Today is the first day of preschool for my youngest. I am emotionally divided between excitement and guilt. The excitement is pretty easy to account for. I love to see my kids grow, venture out and explore, achieve milestones. I also admit to a great deal of pleasure at the prospect of a few hours a week to myself. On the other hand, this is my baby. The youngest. I have some trepidation about how well she will handle things, and it's hard to put my baby into the hands of others (stay-at-home-mom syndrome?) Mostly, though (and here's where the guilt comes in), I worry that my excitement is misplaced, and that soon I will realize that childhood has disappeared and I can never get it back. You know all the conventional wisdom about how much you will miss the little hand prints on the walls and being woken in the night to give hugs after a bad dream. What if it's true, and I should even now be filled with sorrow and regret? In essence, I feel guilty now because I might feel guilty later. Crazy. The thing is, all these emotions don't change the fact that I think this is the best thing for my little one, and so I'm going forward with it anyway. So wish us luck. First day of school!! (Sigh.)

Vacation photos - finally!

Here are a few photos from our group family vacation to Redwood National Park in northern coastal California. After an eternal drive (18 hours - whew!) we made it to our campground and then headed out to see the ocean, and the big trees. The weather was damp and chilly with little sun for the weekend we were there, but everyone had plenty of fun.



The beach was fun, even on the grey day. My kids had never seen the ocean, and they were sufficiently impressed.

We made fun of the ubiquitous tsunami warning signs.


In the big, BIG trees.At the local zoo.
At the campground, excuse me, kampground. The mini golf was a big hit, and it kept the kids occupied for great lengths of time while the adults cooked, cleaned, etc.



Lastly, no camping trip is complete without a bevy of songs sung around a roaring campfire.
All in all, in spite of the long drive to and from, and an unfortunate trip to the instacare for a scalp laceration, it was a fun and very enjoyable trip. We are looking forward to our next family group vacation 2 years hence.

Epiphany

I remember the day distinctly. I was 18, living away from home for the first time. A group of young singles from my ward in San Diego had gone to L.A. for a temple trip and we were staying at Michael Ericson's parents' house. As we all drifted in for breakfast from various couches and floors around the house, a discussion erupted comparing the virtues of butter versus cream cheese as the fat of choice on bagels. Most advocated for cream cheese, while an ardent few championed butter at the most delightful choice. I mostly just listened, as my frugal Utah upbringing occasioned very few bagels, not enough to really have an opinion. (I leaned toward cream cheese, though. To me, it seemed more exotic.) And then it happened. A moment to change a life. Someone (I don't even remember who) said, "Why not have both? They're really good that way."

What? Did I hear right? Both? An idea, a concept that was foreign to me, yet just waiting to be discovered. The aforementioned frugal Utah upbringing had taught me that I had to choose. Cream cheese or butter, chocolate or vanilla, ice water or punch, soup or salad, paper or plastic. Life is about choices, but in that moment I learned that as an adult, I didn't have to choose between. I could have both. Or neither, if I so desired. I was in control. The choice was up to me. And you know what? To this day I like to have butter AND cream cheese on my bagels. (And sometimes strawberry jam.)

Hanging Out

I always wanted a hammock in my yard. It seems like such a nice thing, to be able to lay in the hammock, slowly swinging while reading a fluffy novel and listening to the laughter of my children at play. (Now that I am more experienced at life, I recognize that I would in actuality be tuning out the sound of children squabbling while swinging and reading away, but this realization diminishes the dream only a little.) This dream was so strong that when my sister, who served her mission in Paraguay, asked me what I wanted her to bring home to me, I told her to bring me a hammock. Not a stiff, K-Mart affair on a metal stand, but a colorful, hand-woven item just begging to be slung between 2 trees in the yard. And she came through, bringing me a blue and white hammock with "Paraguay" woven into the fringe. It's a pretty thing. I was very grateful and pleased. Next, I just needed 2 trees. She returned from her mission when JR was 3, so I've had the hammock in my possession, in an Argentinian grocery bag, for about 8 years now. We moved into our current home about 3 years ago, and I finally had my 2 trees. The only thing lacking then was gumption, which I finally found today. Fairly simple set-up, and a quick trial, and guess what? It's all I hoped it would be. It's comfortable, relaxing, and authentic. I love it! The kids love it, too. If you are ever in need of a place to rest, to read out of doors in the dappled sunlight while slowly swaying in the breeze (children's laughter NOT guaranteed), please feel free to come on over and borrow my little piece of heaven.

What was I talking about?

Over the last few weeks, I've come to the realization that I'm losing my mind. Truly. As I've dealt with long summer vacation, getting the kids back to school, planning preschool for Sarah, and generally being very busy and scheduled, it has become apparent that I do not have the mental capacity that I used to, and it's scary. Now, I'm not losing my mind in the going mad, talking to myself and answering back sort of way. The TV does not transmit secret messages from the CIA, and there is no one out to get me. I think the one reality I have to deal with is plenty. And I'm not even referring to the swiss-cheese memory that shows up after the hormonal onslaught that is child-bearing (although I really do hate that.) No, the losing my mind that I'm referring to, the one I'm in the midst of is more of a "can't be relied on to remember a damn thing" kind of losing my mind.
I have always accepted that there is a certain amount of information that the human brain "loses" in a given day. I accept that. Very few of us humans can remember all the little details of the incredibly busy life that goes on around of. We cannot know as events occur which little pieces of information will be important later, so we use our experience to cull out what we judge to be the most important, and we discard the rest. Sometime our brains are wrong, and we forget something important. It happens to everybody. I really do accept that, and am the first to say don't be too hard on yourself. But this level of forgetting is a level at which I have never found myself before. It's very frustrating to me. I've always been one who could rely on her mental abilities to achieve pretty much anything I wanted. In my college days I could manage an hours-long, complicated stage production with relatively little trouble. But now, I can't remember something from one minute to the next.
Last Friday, for example, Elizabeth's Activity Day leader called to remind me that Liz had an activity that afternoon. 3 hours later, I sat in the family room and played board games with the girls and did not remember the activity until after dinner. Liz cried. I felt terrible.
The Primary leaders are writing the Primary program for sacrament meeting and wanted some responses from the children. We parents were gives a question to ask each child and requested to return the responses by the 15th. Did I remember? No. But even worse, when the counselor called to remind me last Sunday, I told her I'd get it to her that afternoon. Great day to do it, Sunday. I forgot until Tuesday.
And phone messages. Don't even get me started. If you tell me something to pass along to Russ or one of the children, you'd better hand me a paper and pencil at the same time, because I won't remember for at least a week, if then. There are post-it notepads all over the house for me to write notes to myself and others. After the note is written, I then have to find a prominent place to stick it. Bathroom mirror usually works the best.
I have used my iCalendar in the past, but really just in a casual way. I like to make lists to help me organize my thoughts. I've never really relied on either the calendar or the lists to get things done. I think writing the event down used to be enough to cement it in my mind. I like to feel organized, to be organized on paper, but then be free to follow or not follow my plans. I guess this is all about to change. I guess I will need to actually enter things into my calendar and then actually LOOK AT IT. Every day.
So I will apologize in advance to anybody that I will make an appointment with. Visiting teachers and teachees, doctors and dentists, playgroup moms and exercise partners. Please forgive me. I apologize to my fellow preschool-in-the-round moms, because I WILL forget to drop Sarah off, and worse yet, to pick her up - at least once. Again, please forgive me. It's nothing personal. I'm just too distracted ... looking for my mind.

Watch this space...

So the background I formerly had was discontinued by the provider and I had to find another. This background is called "Calm Breezes." It doesn't look like it should be called "Calm Breezes" but I liked the look. I really liked the name, too. I haven't blogged in a month, what with having 5 kids home from school, building a wall around one of our properties, planning and executing a several thousand mile vacation to California, and generally being a mom.

But...

....all that is about to change. The winds of change are blowing, or should I say the "Calm Breezes" of change are blowing. School starts in less than a week, and I will have my life back. My organized, orderly life (which, although not the epitome of organization by any means, is far more organized than my summer life, which is the epitome of undisciplined.) Hallelujah!! And as I said on facebook a couple of days ago, if this joy, this giddiness, makes me a bad mom, so be it. I look forward to seeing you all again, to having time to put thoughts into words, and just to generally sharing whatever I feel like sharing. And to school being back in session. (Did I mention the kids are going back to school? Yes? Well, good.)