Ambath

Yesterday was ROUGH. Well, it was fine but I spent all day doing boring chores and churning through my 10 mile long to-do list, without any personal recharge time. And I was snarled and snapped at by big scary dogs on my run. I garnered some much-needed sympathy when I posted this on Facebook:

Another run in Grandview, another dozen dog chases. Two of them circled me, snapping and lunging. A guy jumped out of his truck and chased those two off while I hyperventilated on the side of the street and Amber kept asking "wat appen, Mommy? You hurt?" from her seat in the stroller. 

The afternoon was capped off with a 30+ minute Amber rodeo while we waited at piano lessons. For some reason that nearly always sucks me dry and does me in. When we got home from piano around 5pm, I told Jeff I needed half an hour completely alone. The blessed man corralled the kids in the basement while I stomped upstairs and locked my bedroom door for good measure and for sweet silence. I recovered enough to endure till bedtime, and prayed/resolved to make the next day better.

After a good night sleep and some praying and such, I started thinking about what made my day rough yesterday. I realized that all of the things that drove me crazy yesterday were also things that I am grateful for. I am so grateful to be a mom and have three kids who need me and want me around ALL the time. I am grateful to be fit and healthy enough to enjoy 4 mile runs any time I want to. I am grateful for music and that we managed funds to pay for piano lessons. I am grateful for my house and our clothes (even if they are both in a constant state of disarray and always needing a wash/fold/pick-up). I am thankful that we always have enough to eat (even if the crock pot doesn't finish cooking it in time for dinner). I am thankful for my computer. I am thankful for my church that gives me so many different kinds of opportunities to serve others, through visiting teaching, helping the missionaries, serving in the young women organization, and more. I have such a GOOD LIFE with so many wonderful blessings that I felt pretty lame about being so lame about it all yesterday. But nobody should be expected to function normally right after experiencing sheer terror and a gushing adrenaline first thing in the morning.

Today I purposefully did things that I wanted to do and meant to do yesterday but did not have time for, and squeezed in the dread laundry train around my activities of choice, rather than the other way around. I skipped running because I needed a day to reboot mentally after yesterday's dog almost-attack. Instead, I took Amber out and let her romp in the soccer field. She loved it and her joy was contagious.  I realized that I haven't taken any official Two Year Old pictures of Amber, so I was hoping to get something to fill that slot. I attempted to take pictures of Amber while she played, but my photography skills are what they've always been: patchy. 

Enter: Adobe Lightroom, my fancy-schmancy birthday present of complex joy. I spent a long time fiddling around in Lightroom today, and after a few attempts, I managed to buff up some pictures nicely. It was satisfying--now my inability to work with camera settings is secondary. Adobe Lightroom's Auto Tone button basically fixes all of my shutter speed and aperture clumsiness! All I have to do is click that magic Auto Tone button and at least 80% of my pictures turn pretty! It was so exciting because I couldn't fid the auto button for the longest time, hahaha.

So, eleven days late, here are Amber's official Two Year Old pictures. She is always in motion and feeling her emotions with every ounce of her little body, making her a tricky photo-subject. But I think I got a few keepers. Or 36.

she was copying my awkward squat while I tried to take pictures of her, although I'm not nearly that flexible, haha

Cute little stumble-run

Now on to the Ambath:

I couldn't resist posting at least one of these.

The bath is Amber's happy place.

Those towel-dried curls! 

Amber really is TWO. I'm getting used to it, especially since she' talking so much more now. I love that little voice and that sweet face!

Sunshine through the fog

Yesterday I drove the 45 minutes to Winco to do some major Thanksgiving grocery shopping. Jeff was home with the kids, so I had the van to myself. It was a foggy morning--that thick gray fog that clogs our valley periodically throughout the cold months. To brighten the dark day, I turned on Handel's Messiah, disc one, and listened to the entire disc straight through--half on the way to the store, and half on the way home. It was the best way to make my own sunshine and get through that thick foggy drive. I felt the spirit very strongly as I always do when I listen to those familiar scriptures about the Savior sung and woven into Handel's beautiful complex music. 

I have read the scriptures and listened to the entire performance of the Messiah lots of times in my 30 years of life, so nothing about listening to it this time was new. But it hit my heart powerfully all the same! As I drove, I marveled at how the spirit testifies of Jesus Christ every time I listen to this same music, no matter how many times I listen to it. As I listened and thought about it, the spirit taught me two lessons.

Lesson #1: Every now and then during my drive with the music on, my thoughts would stray to the upcoming round of tiring errands, my to-do list, what to make for dinner, etc. Inevitably, when my thoughts were elsewhere, a particularly beautiful part of the music would recapture my attention. Whether we choose to listen to it or not, the Holy Ghost is always there in the background, like the beautiful music that was playing on my drive. When we PAY ATTENTION, we hear, see, and feel GOODNESS and promptings. When we lose focus or get distracted, the music doesn't fade; just our ability to take it in, understand it, appreciate it, and FEEL it.

Lesson #2: As I listened to the music, I sheepishly realized that even though I was feeling that strong warm testimony of the TRUTH, I still didn't really understand those confusing scripture verses, even after all of the times I've pondered them, studied them, and listened to them. I have never been good with Isaiah or with the apostle Paul and all that confusing symbolism and language in between. I always assumed that one day it would make more sense. Well, that hasn't happened yet!

While I was wondering why I still did not understand those scriptures, I realized something that became more profound to me the more I thought about it: I do not need to understand everything about the scriptures to know that they are true. I do not need to understand the confusing allusions, symbols, and cultural background behind the baffling scripture verses to feel that the words in them are TRUE. And I DO feel that truth burning brightly every time I read the scriptures or listen to our church leaders speak, even when I don't understand everything.

With that small thought, a big burden was lifted from my heart that I hadn't entirely recognized was there until it was gone. I no longer felt semi-guilty for loving Handel's Messiah even though I don't completely understand the words sung in it. In the past I have felt like a poser when it came to Handel, because I am not a good enough musician to play his music well or know what all of the parts to his compositions are called or even know what the musical terms for what he wrote are. I am not scripture-scholarly enough to understand the scriptures quoted throughout the oratorio (I had to look that word up, haha). All I know is that I love the music and I feel the spirit when I listen to it. Certain phrases have become precious friends to me--I know them well and they teach me and help me feel loved whenever we're together:

"comfort ye my people"

"arise and shine, for thy light is come"

"and he shall purify"

"behold your God"

It's amazing how powerful repeating the same phrase over and over can be. George Frideric understood that, and he made good use of it. Repetition leads to memorization, and memorization allows for constant pondering. The more I ponder these words, the more I know that they are true and that they refer to Jesus Christ, who is real and who loves all of us so much! I guess that means I do understand them a little bit after all--at least a few parts of them.

Maybe that's why children have such simple pure faith--they aren't burdened with the adult need for detailed, complete knowledge. They feel the spirit and it feels good and right, and they believe in what gives them that good feeling. Jay gave a talk about the Holy Ghost at his friend's baptism this weekend, and while guiding his preparation for the talk, I asked him to explain what the spirit feels like. He said "it feels good" and left it at that. When I tried to get him to explain it more, he got frustrated and  kept saying "it just feels GOOD!" I think it was obvious to him that the spirit feels GOOD, and he automatically believes in it because of his pure childlike faith.

 [yes Jay and Rose are both younger than their friend--Jay by 6 months, Rose by 2.5 years. Tall kids.]

The spirit doesn't need to go through our brains to get to our hearts. Sometimes I try and force it to go thataway, but it leaves me feeling confused and a little frustrated, like when I try to make sense of Isaiah--haha. Of course, our brains aren't completely useless! Sometimes the spirit does go to our minds first. We need our minds and our hearts together, but the spirit also often teaches through feelings in our hearts, and when our minds are humble and willing to believe and accept what the spirit tells our hearts, that's when testimony is built. That's when we start to understand.

I wish I had a picture of sunlight shining through the fog on my drive, but it actually never happened. So let's keep it metaphorical for now. I do have pictures of Jay and Rose before the church sacrament meeting Primary program from a few weeks ago (the kids memorized and said their parts up front like pros), and they are rather sunny if you ask me.

 [Amber jumped on the bed while I took these pictures]

Utah for a day

Jeff and the two schooligans had a long weekend starting Thursday, November 3rd last week. We decided to go visit our grandmas in Utah. It all came together about a week before the actual date of departure, so there was a whole lot of preparation to do in a very little time before the drive. Consequently, we left our house in a state of disaster--I didn't even manage to sweep the kitchen floor or vacuum before we left! I always try to sweep and vacuum before trips because it feels so good to come home to a clean house. But this time we left a tornado and returned to a tornado. At least we didn't see any real tornadoes while we were on the road!

Our plan was to drive the 9 hours to Salt Lake City on Thursday and stay for three nights, driving home on Sunday. Yes, we joined the droves of young families committing stake conference hooky. Cue thunder, lightning, and doom! I reserved a budget-friendly Econo Lodge that was located a mile from Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We decided that it would be easiest to do our own thing and stay in a rented room instead of camping out with family. Cue lightning, thunder, and doom again! [foreshadowing] So we reserved three nights at the cheapest place that was within walking distance of Temple Square. Well, staying three nights was the plan. What ended up happening was: we slept so badly on the small hard beds all in one tiny room together in that uncomfy icky motel that we pulled out a day early and left on Saturday. So it was: drive all day Thursday, play all day Friday, and then drive all day Saturday. [we still stayed home from stake conference on Sunday because we were all too exhausted to face it]

This was the first road trip over 4 hours that I have had Jeff along with the three kids, and let me tell you, it was awesome! Having another responsible wonderful adult along was a game changer. Now I understand why so many people think I'm crazy for driving 30 hours to Missouri solo with three kids. Having a second adult to switch off driving and to help change discs, wrangle children, and provide conversation made the whole trip a piece of cake. The only thing that was still just as bad together as it is alone: cramped/achy hips, butt, and legs. Other than that and the agonizing lack of sleep, this trip was a breeze!

Disclaimer: We know so many awesome people who live in Utah that I sort of froze up and only told our grandmas and one friend that we were coming because we didn't know how much we would be able to do, etc. I hope nobody who finds out about our 38 hours in Utah afterwards is too terribly offended that we visited incognito! 

Now for the breakdown, interspersed with pictures:

Thursday, November 3rd: I opened my birthday gifts a day early before we left, because the kids wrapped them in giant gift bags with copious fountains of tissue paper, and I didn't want them to get mangled in the trunk of the car. They gave me: two illustrated Harry Potter books that I have been drooling over for months, a set of colored pencils, and Adobe Lightroom photo editing software (since I need something to make me spend even more time on pictures and photo management, haha). I gave myself Wendelin Van Draanen's latest book, The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones (released last week). My parents sent me an Amazon gift card, and all in all, I was feeling quite plump and overloaded in opulent gifts. 

After the gift extravaganza, we drove that 9 hours to Utah together, finishing Harry Potter #7 audio book on the way. It was Jay's and Rose's first time all the way through the series--a rite of passage in our family, and triggering many philosophical questions from Jay about the deeper inner workings of the Ministry of Magic, wandlore, dark magic, and the wizarding world in general. We arrived in Salt Lake City at 8pm local time, checked in to a seedy motel 1.3 miles from Temple Square (Econo Lodge--neveragain), and walked to Temple Square in the dark. We walked around the temple and listened to 15 minutes of MoTab rehearsal in the Tabernacle (gorgeous!). After the obligatory temple picture, we walked the mile back to the hotel by 10pm for a very broken night sleep piled into two hard little beds. 

 Some of my birthday spoils

 Family road trip selfie!

 I'm such a Utah tourist, but those acoustics in the Tabernacle were absoultely breathtaking!

Even the sleep-deprived travel-worn children listened with rapt attention. 

 I forgot to pack Amber's jacket, so she borrowed mine. I have loaned that purple fleece jacket to all three of my children over the years. Amber was pretty adorable running around in that long nightgown-ish jacket. Then she wiped a big slimy snot slug right on the front of it. 

Family temple selfie fail 

 LATE bedtime! Three kids in the bed and the little one said...

 Amber kicked Jay and Rose awake enough that I eventually brought her over to sleep between Jeff and me. She pummeled and head butted us all night. We got maybe two consecutive hours of sleep. Agony. But there was NO WAY we were putting any human being on the carpet in that room.

Friday, November 4th was my 30th birthday and Amber's 2nd birthday. Jeff and I took turns running in downtown Salt Lake City first thing in the morning. After that, Amber opened her gifts at the motel. I had such a fun time choosing her presents and then hunting them down as thriftily as possible. In the past for kids' gifts, I have picked something that the kid wanted and  something from my mental list of "quality toys that all kids love" to build our base collection of toys. Well, after two kids and seven years, we had amassed that "base collection" of quality toys. So this time I changed tact and only thought of little things that Amber likes. We are to the point toy-wise that I do not want any gifts to increase the volume of toys significantly, so toy gifts take more thoughtful contriving to make them feel big, exciting and special, while the things themselves do not add too much mass to the playroom floor. That was my first consideration. My next consideration was: how much can I find secondhand? I am turning into quite the Goodwill Guru, because the total cost of all of Amber's birthday presents was less than $20. We gave her: a Bink and Gollie book, a small toy castle, blue plastic Elsa shoes, a sparkly Elsa crown, two stuffed balls, and a small metal school bus. As I predicted, she would've been just as happy with just the shoes and the school bus. (beep beep!) Amber LOVES shoes and school buses! We sang to her a few times and told her all about how she's TWO now and Jay and Rose crowded around her, shoving gift bags in her face before she had even looked at the gift in her hands. The birthday excitement brightened our dingy little motel room nicely.

At 11am, we headed out to Legacy Retirement community to see our grandmas (my Grama Brown recently moved to the same place that Jeff's Grama Kay has lived for years!). We had lunch with Grama Brown in a special private room next to the dining area that she reserved, all fancy. After lunch, she surprised us with a birthday cake and candles! I was so touched at her thoughtfulness. It was fun to have my Grama make me feel special and surprised on my birthday. As a grownup mother with kids, that is a rare feeling!

After lunch, we went upstairs with my Grama and visited in her room for a while. She taught Jay how to play Mancala even though she's 95% blind--it was the best! She still can play Mancala because she can feel the stones and she can still see vague shapes. One of my favorite memories with my Grama Brown is playing games like that with her. I remember one summer my sister Em and I told Grama that we wanted to play Uno all day! She sat down with us and we played game after game after game for maybe an hour until our eyes started wandering towards the window and we weren't as attentive to the game. Grama kindly asked us if we were done, and we ran outside. I love that Grama was willing to sit there and play that simple game with us over and over until we had our fill! It was so much fun watching her play with Jay. For the record, Grama won by three points!

After that we visited Jeff's Grama Kay in her room in the other wing of the same retirement home (she's having some health issues and we haven't seen her in a few years--a big motivator for our Utah trip). About halfway through our visit with Grama Kay, I had to take Amber out to the car because it was 3pm and she had not had a nap and she was going CRAZY. But we ended up staying at the retirement place for four hours! It was quite possibly the best way to spend my 30th birthday. Going and visiting sweet grandmothers and actually hanging out with them for a while took me out of myself and just felt good. I was spared the nostalgic heart-achy feelings that I get on my kids' birthdays, I didn't worry too much about getting particular pictures of Amber, and I didn't think about myself. It was great! And it made the surprise birthday cake even sweeter.

From the retirement place, we drove to Murray Park at 3:30pm, where we met up with Spencer and his fun parents (if you forgot, he's the boy we watched for 3 summers--his family moved from Grandview to Utah 2 months ago). It was so good to see them again! We picked up right where we left off, in the spirit of good friends. We used to meet at the park on Fridays in fall after school when they lived here, so it felt fun and normal to meet at the park there on a mellow fall Friday afternoon. After lots of park playing, we had birthday dinner with them at Chuck-a-rama. Apparently there's some sort of cultural stigma/joke/eye roll related to that mega-buffet restaurant. My non-Utah-ness didn't pick up on it, but I did love their rolls and jam! And Amber got her birthday mac while we were away from home. Our dear friends surprised us and paid for our meal! (happy birthday again!) 

I actually felt overwhelmed with all the birthday love--gifts, meals, cake, cards, notes--30 is looking awesome so far! I had to tell myself to stop feeling guilty about all of the kind gifts so many dear people gave me and instead simply accept them and let myself feel the love. It made me weepy when I dropped my guilt-barricade and let the love sink in. That makes me wonder how much I miss out on when I resist my natural emotional reactions? Then again, if I never resisted my tendency to tear up, I would probably have to drink an extra gallon of water every day to avoid severe dehydration! 

This November 4th I began to figure out how to celebrate my own birthday as well as my daughter's birthday together. It's not an either me or her choice; it's a let's do something good and special together kind of a day. I'm sure when Amber is older she will have more thoughts and opinions on the matter--haha--but for now, celebrating together worked. And I loved not having to cook or clean on my birthday. Let's take a trip every November 4th!

After dinner, Jay went home with Spencer and had a sleepover while the girls went back to the motel room for another night of attempted sleep. We were marginally more successful than the previous night. This time we were jolted awake by an awful, high-volume heavily profane argument outside our window from other motelfolk.

Amber opening her presents:

Birthday cake and two candles. This was the only picture I got of Amber with her birthday cake, and it was so nice not to worry about it! Although I do wish I had thought to bring in the good camera instead of just my cell phone. But you can't prepare for surprises! 

Mancala mania 

I hope it's not offensive, but I have to say it: every year, pictures of my kids with their great grama get more precious. 

Amber and I took lots of birthday girl selfies on November 4th. It will be our tradition. 

At the park with Spencer--there was an awesome big hill. Amber fell right back into the routine, playing with the big kids and following them around like she did all summer. I LOVE watching these four kids play. They sure know how to have fun together! 

Birthday bathroom selfie. We were waiting for Rose to finish up in the bathroom at Chuck-a-rama, so I documented her birthday mac-on-dress.  

Saturday: We made the executive decision to leave Utah a day early (no way we could've stayed in that motel a third night. We were losing too much sleep and that 9 hour drive loomed on the horizon, taunting our heavy eyelids. It was totally worth wasting $55 on the motel room and not staying that third night. We picked up Jay from Spencer's house (his first ever sleepover, and he had a blast!) and hit the road, eating Chick-fil-a in Boise (cue heavenly chorus) and arriving home sweet soft-bed home at 8pm.

 Post-sleepover pickup. Love these two.

The drive home: diapering on the road. This is legal in Idaho, right? Multitasking x100!

Lesson learned: don't stay in cheap motels downtown. Downtown + cheap = SEEDY and likely rife with prostitution, based on the argument we heard at 3am Saturday morning. Eeeek! Cringe. And it was only one mile from Temple Square! Utah, your...diversity astounds me. 

Another lesson learned: watching four movies in one day is a perfectly acceptable way to survive a post-sleep deprivation 9+ hour car drive with three tired kids.

One more thought--all parents with daylight savings dilemmas, there is a solution: right before daylight savings, go on a 3 day trip where you drive all day for two of the days, skip naps, and let the kids stay up super late and eat lots of sugar. Then when daylight savings comes, everyone is so thrown off, frazzled, and fried that you hardly notice the difference of a paltry one hour time change! Problem solved.