Gratitude

All of my little boy's prayers this morning have been about me. "Thank you that Mommy's sprained ankle is getting better." "Thank you that Mommy made me this toast." And then all day he's been telling me he loves me. I put some batteries in a toy this morning, and when he discovered that it was working, he started yelling, "Thank you Mommy. Thank you for fixing this. You're the best mommy ever." All this while he's dealing with a flu and dehydration, but he has time to be so full of love and gratitude for me.

Gratitude is such a powerful thing. Between the winter and a sprained ankle that killed my exercise routine and other complaints I won't bore you with, I've been down lately. But today I feel happy. Today I feel blessed and grateful to be the mommy of such a special little boy.

Musings

My Faith: I feel like, as Baby Amazing grows, I'm coming out of a fog and trying to put my life back together. I'm studying my scriptures more diligently and helping my children have personal study time too. I'm trying to devote myself more fully to motherhood and discipleship, strengthening my family and my testimony, and trying to align my life more fully with the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ and his prophets. We're trying to create a home of order, where we work together as a family to get things done. We're trying to have better organized family home evenings that are more of the family teaching and strengthening tool they were meant to be, and our family scripture study time has become so much more enjoyable as we've turned it into more of a learning time and less of an item on our to-do list. I'm trying to figure out how more of our lives can be given in service and less about caring for our endless amount of stuff. Of course, none of this is going perfectly. But I feel like we're moving in a good direction.

I think one of the things that has helped with getting us moving in a better direction is significantly improving our temple attendance. I've seen the Lord bless us and strengthen us as we've served at the temple more often, blessing us with greater strength and a better spirit in our home. I've seen how it's blessed our children. I know that the promises of the prophets that temple attendance will bless us and our families is true. I have seen the blessings in my life.

My family: Some days I love being a mother. I love my babies. I love looking at them, watching how they think and move. I love the things they say. I love watching them grow into good people. Other days it is just plain hard work and lots of it, and all I want is a good workout, a hot-uninterupted shower, and a minute to myself. Some times I feel torn between wishing that I could always be a mother of young children, and wishing that I could just get them all in school and have that chunk of the day to keep the chaos at bay, or at least to spend more time writing, which always makes me a happier mommy. Some days I wish I could have both. Most of the time, I figure I better just be happy with where I'm at and try to be where the Lord wants me to be.

My fiction: I'm writing again! As part of trying to put my life back together, this has been one of my top goals. I've been writing almost every day, and I even sent out a picture book to a couple agents. I got a nice rejection letter from the first and am waiting to hear from the second. I'm thinking about sending it out to a third agent this week. Rejection isn't fun, but I really feel like a writer, and I'm back to working hard and it feels great. I'm really excited about my friend Jamie's new project, One Page A Day. She's starting a group where everyone commits to writing a page a day and you report by email every day, either by emailing your page, or just the fact that you finished. There will even be a weekly contest for the best sentence or paragraph written that week. I believe it's open for people to join at onepageadaygroup.blogspot.com. Yeah for Jamie! I've been looking for a way to feel more accountable for getting my work done, and I think this is a great way to do it.

Writing Rants

There is a popular series that I have a funny mix of love and loathing for. I love the fantasy elements, the author's vivid imagination, and the spunky main characters. What I don't like is the fact that in every single book, the author gets the young main characters to a point where it's hopeless, which is great, but then he always brings in some random magical being or adult to save the day, rather than letting his awesome main characters be strong enough to do it themselves. It's always a big disappointment for me.

My new big frustration with the book was a poorly done twist at the ending. I thought I loved big twists of plot near the end. That's one of the reason that I love Harry Potter, especially books 3 and 4 in that series. But this book I just finished last night taught me that there are a few things that I do not love in a twist ending. A good guy ended up being a bad guy, which I could handle, but this good/bad guy also happened to be the love interest, and there just weren't enough hints to lead up to the fact that this romance was doomed. So disappointing. It felt like one big huge "Gotcha," and I don't really like to feel tricked as a reader. It just changed gears so fast, without enough subtle hints to lead up to it.

In all fairness, the author is good enough at what he does right that I've bought every book in this series, and I'll probably buy the last one too. I suppose that's what I'll have to analyze next. What makes a book good enough that even if it's flawed, you can't wait to read more?

Little Miracles

I've been trying this year to learn frugality. So instead of buying the dresser that I've been feeling like I need since we added one new person to the house, so I don't have to keep her clothes and things sitting in messy piles, I've been holding in the urge to spend that money. We haven't really figured furniture into the budget at this point. I've been looking at the thrift store in town, but they charge a lot for falling-apart dressers. My next plan was to browse garage sales this summer, but still, I wasn't sure if I should justify the expense, unless I could find it really, really cheap.

Well, this Saturday, I happened to be driving down the street with my husband on our weekly date, and we passed what looked like a garage sale. I noticed they had a dresser and a few other things that caught my eye, so we stopped. To my delight, the dresser was in good working order--and it was free. Yeah! They also gave us a cute little table and a couple solid wood doors that looked like they might make a nice fake headboard.

I know it's a small thing, but it will be such a blessing to have that dresser. It was a miracle to me that I was able to find it for free, that we happened to drive by shortly after they set out the free items, and that we happened to be out without the kids so we could fit the items in our van. I feel so blessed, and I'm grateful the Lord is mindful of me.

The Girl Who Cried Diva

Earlier this week, I felt like the crummiest mother on earth. My daughter had a broken arm for almost a full day before I realized we really needed an xray. In my defense, who does an air guitar, enthusiastically and with joyful gusto, with a broken arm? And every time she complained about her arm hurting, it was connected wanting to make sure that she could wear a pretty silk scarf as a sling to school the next day, or wanting to get out of buckling her own seat belt, a fit that she throws almost every day. Also she was making a bigger deal out of the scraped knee she got at the same time, because she could see blood. The Diva puts the same amount of emotional energy into complaining about papercuts or having to get herself dressed for school. So really, I ask you, what's a mother to do?

Before the Last Day of School

Last night Diva Girl said to me, "Ha! Now you have to take care of four kids instead of just two!" (Her tone of voice was full of nah-nah-nah-nah-nah!)

I told her I was looking forward to having two more slaves.

She told me that I'd be the one to be a slave.

We'll see. Considering they've been home for less than an hour, and they're already babysitting Baby Amazing for me, I think I may be winning.

Oh My Diva

Diva Girl was in a class play this week. As much as I love to hear that girl sing, I've been dreading it since I heard that in what was probably an attempt to make parents' lives easier, the only required costume item was a pair of jeans.

Diva Girl doesn't do jeans.

As I knew would happen, Diva woke up the morning of the play with a serious scowl going on. The scowl progressed to tears as she cried, "Nothing matches with jeans!" The crying only got louder as I heartlessly told her that "Everything matches with jeans."

And then she started the banshee howl as I reminded her that the bus was going to be here in a few minutes and like it or not she better get her little rear in some jeans.

The howl continued and intensified as I called upstairs counting down till bus time. Three minutes. Two minutes. One minute . . . and she stomped down the stairs with her cute little face scrunched up in fury, finally wearing some adorable jeans with a very matching shirt.

I handed her her breakfast on her way out the door, and she turned and said to me, "They tell you that school plays will be fun, but they're not!"

This girl is going to be such a fun teenager.