My children don't care...

My children don't care that we don't have a 70 inch flat screen tv.  All they care about is that I sit down and snuggle them while we watch a My Little Pony episode on our 27 inch boxy 10 year old tv.

My children don't care that we don't have smartphones.  All they care about is that Mommy can take a picture of them being silly with her basic phone and text it to Daddy. 

My children don't care that they have hand-me-down clothes or clothes from garage sales.  All they care about is that their skirt flares out as they twirl around the living room, imagining they are princesses.

My children don't care that we drive a 9 year old minivan.  All they care about is that I buckle them in safely and that I play I Spy with them as we run errands together.

My children don't care that we don't have a Dyson vacuum.  All they care about is that they get to take turns practicing running our funny sounding Bissell vacuum that a friend gave to us that they were going throw away because they didn't need it anymore, but it still does the job ok. 

My children don't care that we don't have a MacBook Pro.  All they care about is that we can watch a hilarious-to-them video of a cat jumping in and out a box on youtube on our $300 HP laptop that we bought on Black Friday 3 and a half years ago. 

My children don't care that we don't have an iPad.  All they care about is jumping for joy for the few and far between times that I let them play games on our 3 and a half year old iTouch that was Daddy's chiropractic graduation present. 

My children don't care that they haven't been to Disneyland yet. All they care about is that they can bring a seashell or two home from our local beach after they play in the sand for hours.

My children don't care that we don't have a gigantic bookshelf full of children's books just for them, but they do have a sufficient amount of books.  All they care about is that we make it to the library often to check out new books and that we read them all 800 times before we take them back.

My children don't care that we don't have extra plush hypoallergenic couches.  All they care about is that I watch them do flips and tricks and jump off of our 11 year old scuffed leather couches. 

My children don't care that they aren't taking piano, gymnastics, swimming, soccer, and dance simultaneously.  All they care about is that I take them to a splash pad, let them run and kick a big bouncy ball on the local baseball field, take them to go jump on their grandma's trampoline and pound on her piano keys, and have spontaneous dance parties with them in our living rom.

My children don't care that we don't have an Xbox with 50 different games.  All they care about it that I let them play Super Mario Brothers a few times per year when we set up our NES and also play Wii Sports, both systems that were given to us years ago. 

My children don't care that we don't own our own home.  All they care about it that I let them hang their pasted, taped, and glittery artwork on their whitewashed bedroom walls in our home that we're renting. 

My children don't care that they can't buy a toy every time we go to the store.  All they care about is that we let them pick a toy to carry and walk around with while we shop, and then they know that they have to put it down before we get to checkout and they do just fine with that.

My children don't care that we don't eat strictly organic.  All they care about is that they are fed when they are hungry, that they have a sufficient amount of fruit and yogurt and chicken and pasta in the house. 

My children don't care that they have to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday morning.  All they care about is that they get to see their little friends there and also learn the basics about sharing, praying, singing, the scriptures, and learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus. 

.....................................

I have never ever once heard my children give a genuine complaint for not having anything listed above.  An occasional whine about them wanting a candy bar or wanting to buy a toy at a garage sale? Sure.  But of the more expensive things in life?  No.  They.Don't.Care.

So why do I write this?  I write it as a reminder to myself, a reminder that it's ok to have simple inexpensive things. And I have absolutely NO PROBLEM AT ALL if other people have/do/have done any of the above, that's perfectly fine and everyone is entitled to spend their money how they choose.  No judgment passed whatsoever.  If you can genuinely afford it, go for it, you've worked hard for your money. 

Of course I occasionally covet nicer amenities, gadgets, vehicles, and vacations, but this is a season in our lives where we have chosen to not have most of these things.  Could we indulge in any of the above listed?  Sure, we definitely could.  But we have made a conscious decision to wait and to live simpler, to make what we have last as long as we can.  We have a Mt. Everest of student loans we are trying to pay down (they'll be paid off in abouuuuut 99 years) and we choose to put most of our extra money towards easing our financial future.  It's hard though, so very hard sometimes.  But we figure we will sacrifice now while our children are younger, while they still see the world as their playground and tangible things hold little value for them. 

My children want for nothing.  They have everything they need and they have a lot of what they want.

My children will choose me over anything else.  If we were to go out and buy a $500 Barbie Dreamhouse and 2 minutes after we got home and set it up I offered to go play outside in the dirt with them, 3 seconds later they would be outside up to their elbows in dirt, laughing and smiling with me.  They don't want stuff, they want me.  

Very very few of my childhood memories involve tangible items.  They involve people and experiences.  They involve road trips.  They involve church activities.  They involve joking around with my parents and my siblings.  They involve playing with friends. 

So during those times where I am debating whether or not to make a purchase that I think will bring my children happiness (I hardly doubt they will care if we get new couches or a flatsceen tv), I have to sit back and think "Am I buying it for them or am I buying it for me?".  And of course we occasionally splurge because I think it is human nature to have the intense need to indulge a little more than we should.  We've gone on vacations.  We've spent too much on unnecessary purchases.  We're trying to reign in our micro spending, $20 here and $10 there, it adds up and it adds up quickly.

One day I will have all of the above.  We'll have the nice flatscreen tv, we'll have the smartphones, we'll have the home, we'll have the Dyson, but right now is not the time for us, we need to spend our money elsewhere, we need to pay down our debt and I need to create memories with my children

And now you know why my children don't care.
    

The hardest lesson of 2012...

Last year was a pretty rough year.

Landon's pregnancy was BY FAR my most difficult pregnancy.  There was much nausea, much puking, much insomnia, much relentless aching, much fatigue.  I wasn't just sick for the first trimester, I was sick for the entire pregnancy, save a few weeks in the middle when I felt functional, but then the nausea and puking was back, making each day feel like it was a week.   

I was in survival mode.  My only focus was on me and making it until mid September when our little baby would make his entrance.  I was so sick a lot of mornings that Dean would take whichever one of the girls that woke up super early with him to go teach seminary because I literally couldn't take care of them in the morning that early because I would have finally fallen asleep at 4:30 a.m.. I desperately needed to sleep.  Even though my friends offered to take my girls to give me some reprieve, I always objected because as difficult as it was to take care of them throughout being so sick for so long, they were at least a distraction throughout the day, something that I had to attend to that took my focus off of the nausea for a moment.

However, my daughters watched more television during those 8 months of feeling like death than I'm proud to admit though.  You know it's bad when your 3 year old can tell you exactly which episode of Dora we're watching from the first 5 seconds of it being on, and there's about 80 episodes to choose from on Netflix.

I spent a lot of time in self pity mode.  Why did this pregnancy have to be so hard?  Why were none of the anti-nausea remedies working?  Why couldn't I sleep?  Why did my daughters seem to become exponentially more difficult overnight?  What in the world was I thinking, thinking that I could handle another child, giving us 3 kids ages 3 and under??!?!????  

I desperately missed and wanted my mom.  I ached to talk to her, to lament to her, to tell her how nervous and excited I was to have another child, to have her come over and just let me put my head on her lap and have her soft my arm until I had to go wipe a child's nose or get them a snack. I never had an experience of "I feel like my mom is close right now during my time of trial", which I had built up in my mind was going to happen, so that made it harder some days.  I just missed and needed her.    

Dean picked up all of my slack. The man did everything during my pregnancy.  Everything.

This was his schedule:
-Wake up at 5:30 a.m.
-Teach Seminary to a bunch of teenagers from 6-7 a.m.
-Come home and shower the girls and get them ready and fed
-Get himself ready, often times not having enough time to eat in the mornings
-Load up the girls so I can take Kara to preschool
-He goes to work
-Work,work, work
-Come home for lunch from 1:30 to 2:40p.m.
-He made food for the girls for lunch.  I was so nauseous that it was hard for me to prepare food for them.
-He goes back to work and work, work, work until 6:30 p.m.
-Gets home around 6:40-7 p.m.
-He made dinner and fed the girls
-Plays with the girls
-Gets them in their pajamas, reads to them, and puts them to bed
-Does dishes, laundry, cleans up the tornado of toys all over the house
-Gets his seminary lesson ready for the next morning
-Goes to bed around 11p.m. or midnight
-Gets up at 5:30 a.m. and does the same routine over again

Dean was mommy and daddy.  He would let me squeeze out every last minute of sleep in the mornings because I slept so little.  I would spend a lot of my day leaning over the kitchen sink, ready to vomit, or I would be on the couch with a bowl next to me.  I was just existing, not parenting.  Dean picked up all my slack.  Of course not all day of every day was like that, but it was more so than not.    

I'm not very good at taking self-pity and despair and translating them into tears, except when I get pushed to my absolute limit every few months.  Instead I sublimated my angst into anger.  And sadly I used my anger on the one closest to me.  Dean.

Through everything he was doing to serve me and our children, I still found myself angry at him for lots of little things.  Why was he cleaning the microwave when there was laundry to be folded?  Why was he making noodles for the girls when the smell was enough to send me running for the bathroom?  Why was he doing his seminary lesson preparation instead of sitting on the couch spending time with me?

Irrational annoyances. 

But they were there, nonetheless.  There was a wedge silently driven between us.  I started to get annoyed.  He started to get annoyed.  I REALLY started to get annoyed.  I felt completely not in control of my ever growing belly and body, I couldn't assuage my all day sickness, I just wanted this pregnancy to be done, yet I didn't because I knew Landon was going to be our last baby.  It was a bittersweet pregnancy.

And then we got to the point that Dean and I just orbited around each other.  Co-existed.  Roommates. He was so busy taking care of everything, and I was so busy taking care of me. We didn't hate living with one another, but we just lived with one another, that's all.  Significant communication was happening less and less frequently, and small talk was more common place.  We did what we needed to for our kids and then let life get in the way between us.

That's not okay in a marriage, at least not in our marriage.

Through a couple of happenings, a couple of months before I was due, I ended up calling my sister, who is one of my best friends and happens to also be an amazing therapist (good thing she's my sister and I get the free family discount because I'd owe her a brand new Mercedes Benz as back payment if she ever decided to charge me), and I unloaded all of my annoyances, fears, frustrations, and crazies all over her.  I knew she was safe, that she would help me through this tumultuous time.  I let the waterworks flow and cried myself to the point of exhaustion to her more than once.

Now, if you know me then you know that I don't publicly complain about my husband to family and friends.  I just don't do it.  Nothing more than "Dean didn't pick up his shoes and I tripped on them in the middle of the night" ever comes from my mouth.  People are ALWAYS going to remember the bad things you say about your husband at a 10:1 over the good you say about then.  That's just an agreement we've always had, we don't go verbally slaughtering the other one to other people.

But I felt like I needed someone, SOMEONE, to talk to and I know my sister well enough to know that she wouldn't be a gossip, she would have sound advice for me on how to properly handle what I was feeling, and that she would know when I just needed to talk and she just needed to listen.  And she filled her role perfectly.

I vented about my frustrations.  I vented about Dean's shortcomings.  Since I'm his wife, I know his chinks in his armor, and just had tunnel vision for his shortcomings.  I thought he wasn't living up to his potential in some very simple areas so I focused on that.  So I bark bark barked to my sister, and she listened and gave advice and listened and gave advice.  She and I did the same dance on the phone for a few consecutive days.

Finally on the 3rd or 4th day of me venting frustrations to my sister on the other end of the phone, she threw me a curve ball.  I still remember this conversation perfectly:

Me, crying: bark, bark, bark and give excuses about everything I'm annoyed and frustrated and despairing with.....
Sister: "Ok, Michelle, stop."
Me: "What?"
Sister: "Stop."
Sister: "Do you want me to be nice or mean right now?"
Me: "What???"
Sister: "I said, do you want me to be nice or mean?"
Me: Ummm, mean?"
Sister: "You sure?"
Me: "Yes."
Sister: "Ok."
Me, nervous: "Ok."
Sister: "Michelle, YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS."

One-two sucker punch to the stomach.

I was at a loss for words.

I just sat there stunned, silently crying into the phone as I let those words sink in.

It took me about .3 seconds to realize that she was completely right in every sense of the word.  I had put myself on a pedestal, I was better than Dean because I didn't have his struggles.

Those words were EXACTLY what I needed to hear, and my sister was brave enough to purposely and lovingly hurt me, she, knowing that I needed to be brought down and have a mirror held up in front of my face.

I didn't like what I saw in that mirror that was now held up in front of me.  I saw a girl with a lot of unfounded anger.  I saw a girl who was trying to do everything and nothing by herself all at the same time.  I saw a girl who had slowly pulled herself away from her Heavenly Father because she was afraid of the hurt and sorrow she would have to face to completely turn back towards him and do everything that she knew she was supposed to be doing.               

I had unconsciously and semi-consciously focused on everyone else's shortcomings in my life as to avoid acknowledging and dealing with my own.

Through talking with my sister more, she helped me to see what I needed to work on, what Dean and I needed to work on together, and we started to do the work.  It was uncomfortable to start to remove that wedge, it was uncomfortable to really start to talk again, it was uncomfortable to remove the distractions and de-clutter our lives, and it was uncomfortable to make the spiritual shift.

I often heard my sister's words, "YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS" swirling around in my head, reminding myself that Dean is my equal, that I need to work on my own problems and that I cannot work on his problems for him. We are both in charge of ourselves and the more we try to get another person to change, the more they will resist the change, they are the only ones who can make a true change if they so choose.  As I slowly practiced relinquishing control and nitpicking, the more of a positive shift I saw in our lives.

Effective communication will always be a lifelong effort, and it's something that will probably come in waves, but I don't even want it to put us to co-existing status again.

I like the slow shift that I've started to see occurring in me.  I'm by no means a perfect wife and mother and sister, but I'm trying harder.  And I've applied my sister's words of wisdom to all aspects of my life.  I've become MUCH less judgmental of others because I realize that getting involved and passionate about other people's drama just distracts me from working on me.  I cannot fix other people's lives.  I can compassionately listen, but I cannot fix their problems for them, it's not my job to fix their problems, and it is only emotionally draining for me to get so vested in their drama.

In a way, I'm grateful for that stressful time in our marriage because though I couldn't see the forest through the trees at the time, now I can and it's one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

Lost in Translation...

They say parts of the Bible have been altered, added, and deleted through the many many times it's been translated.  Kara was kind enough to clear up one of the alterations today:

Mary and her camel rode into Bethlehem in a Boeing 747.

My fridge...

My fridge:

The bottom third of my fridge is covered in alphabet magnets, animal magnets, bendable monkeys with magnets on their feet and hands, magnetic wooden plank painted art projects with sparkles poured on them that Kara proudly painted, and 3 big ABC magnets that click and have colorful beads in them to roll.

The bottom third of my fridge is scratched up from little hands sliding magnets with rough edges along the front of it.  There are sticky smudgy fingerprints everywhere.  There are lines of water that have dried but left their water spots from when Kara has over filled a glass from the dispenser.  There are bite and chew marks on the animal magnets. 

The bottom third of my fridge has been staked and claimed by my children.

Occasionally I will sit down, take off all the magnets, open up a canister of Clorox wipes, and sanitize the heck out of all of the magnets on that bottom third, as well as the front of the fridge.  I'll then put all the animal magnets back on the left door, trying to make as many animals fit as close to each other as possible creating a Pangea of magnetic wildlife.  Then I will alphabetize the alphabet magnets in 2 straight-as-an-arrow lines, 13 letters on each line.  The 3 big ABC magnets are arranged in an arc, trying to resemble a rainbow.  The flexible monkeys are contorted into the shape that I think best resembles a frolicking monkey, and then they're placed above the 26 alphabet letters.

I spend no less than 20 minutes on my keester performing this cleaning, restructuring, and organizing ritual.  The bottom third of the fridge looks great when I'm finished.  It's shiny!  There is order! It's germ free!  Alike groups are tightly bound together!  All things are in their proper place! 

I stand up and proudly survey my work.  Immediately, from the other room, Kara and Leah's mommy homing beacon starts beeping and they levitate to the kitchen against their will.  The intoxicating smell of sanitation wipes draws them closer.  They feel off kilter. They realize that something is not right.  No, no, not right at all.

And then they see it.

They both lunge, jumping horizontally at the bottom third of the fridge, not caring for the belly flop that they will sustain in 1.2 seconds, and not 5 seconds after I had given myself a proverbial pat on the back for my cleaning and organizing victory, they each eradicate the newfound alphabetical and wildlife order with one fell swoop of their extended sticky hands.  Letters fly left and right. Animals that can't fly are now airbound heading towards the oven, countertops, and pantry.  The flexible monkeys have magically come to life and are trying to climb to higher ground on the fridge by scaling up it to escape the ensuing carnage. After Kara and Leah bounce up from their belly flops, each girl grabs one of the big ABC magnets, throws it down as hard as they can just in front of their feet making it bounce and leaving a dent in the lineoleum, and do an endzone victory dance.  They then ask me for a string cheese, turn on their heel, and walk out of the room, going back to whatever they were playing with before. 

They, too, believe everything has a proper place.  And that place is on the floor.  Every single bit of it. 

Now allow me zoom in on my fridge, to this, the upper right hand side:

There is order.  Pictures and magnets are squared off and aligned as to be pleasing to my eye.  Multiple times per day as I purposely, yet sometimes mindlessly, make my voyage to the fridge to open it and retrieve whatever sustinence I'm craving or my children are pleading for, I always look at the upper right hand side before opening the door. 

I see my 3 children forever frozen in their perfect newborn state in the form of a birth announcement that my wonderful friend Ashleigh created for me for each of them. 

I see Dean's refrigerator chiropractic conversation magnets that he received in a packet at an orientation for Palmer.  We used to have a ton of them but they've gotten lost or thrown away or somehow lost their magnetism through the years so now we're down to these 6, which are very fitting. 

I see the picture of Dean and I holding hands while each holding one of our daughters with the ocean in the background.  That was at out first ever Davis Family Reunion in October of 2011 in Port Ludlow, WA.  We rented an oceanfront house on a cliff that had a gorgeous view and a tiny living room.

I see 3 different German word magnets from a German conversation magnet set that I bought Dean at an LDS bookstore in Logan, Utah when I was helping take care of my Mom in 2007.  They say "Honig" which is what I call Dean and it means "honey", and the other 2 are "Sonne" and "Monde" which mean "sun" and "moon".  Dean said he put them by me in the pictures because I'm his sun and moon. Awwwwwww.

I see my "I Love My Mommy" picture frames that Dean gave to me last Christmas with a picture of each of the girls in them, Leah with crazy bath hair, and Kara making a sweetie cheesey face.  I'm a sucker for small things like that, i.e. my childrens' handprints, footprints, art projects, etc. 

I see the picture of us when we were just a family of 4 in front of the Salt Lake City Temple, taken from atop the Conference Center across the street.  We had driven down to Utah to attend our friend's funeral, and we stopped in Salt Lake to go take the Conference Center tour, to walk around Temple Square as a family, and to see the Christus statue. 

I see our Washington D.C. thermometer magnet that Dean and I bought in D.C. just a few weeks after we started dating in 2004.  We've never walked as much as we did that vacation, and we learned that the Capital lawn is a good place to just lie down in the humidity and let your heel blisters breathe.

I see an old fashioned photo strip of Dean, Kara, Leah, and I that was taken in the arcade on Pier 57 in Seattle in March 2011 when my sister Tawny was here visiting. Leah was only 6 itty bitty months old in that picture.  Sigh.

I see the picture of us in a corn maze at Maris Farms in Buckley, WA.  We went with my sister-in-law, Chelsey, her daughter Tenley, and my mother-in-law, Terrell.  We had a great time talking and laughing and gossiping throughout the maze, which took way too long to get through, and we were happy to have finally made our way out of the muddy maze. 

I see the square flowery background magnet that Terrell gave us that says "Mothers hold their children's hands a while, and their hearts forever."  Amen.

And in the middle of all those pictures and magnets and frames and baby announcements is a plain white piece of computer paper that I took off my Mom's fridge after she died and we were cleaning out her house.  The paper has been cut down, laminated, and had a sticky strip magnet slapped on the back.  It has a generic Microsoft Word boarder around the edge of it, and the font is nothing special.  It's what's printed in the middle of it that makes it beautiful.

"Wherefore, be not

weary in well-doing,

for you are laying the

foundation of a great work.

And out of small

things proceedeth

that which is great."

D&C 64:33

 

 

Weary. Well-doing. Laying the foundation. Small things.  Great.

Beautiful and powerful words.

 

There are days that my children make me weary, oh so weary  The days where they obliterate their bottom third of the fridge.  The days where I organize their toy bins so that just the train tracks are in one bin, the Marble Madness pieces are in another bin, their books are arranged from biggest to smallest from left to right in the 3 top bins, but my girls dump everything out 2 seconds later.  The days where I can't find my toothbrush that Leah was playing with but later find it shoved in the dishwasher.  The days where they have a full-on-melt-down-fight over who gets to use the Monsters, Inc. spoon and not the cruddy Cars spoon.  The days where Kara spills an entire cup of juice all over the ground and then purposely steps in it to splash it everywhere.  The days where I can't seem to get one second to myself no matter what I try, or where I try to stealthily sneak off to. 

 

The days that they make me weary, I look at this simple magnet with this powerful scripture, and I try to remember that even though my children are demanding and narcisstic and tempermental and sticky and naughty, they are also sweet and giving and forgiving and snuggly and thoughtful and hilarious and perfect.  I am laying the foundation for who they are going to turn out to be by my small deeds and service for them.  I will keep putting their toys away because eventually they will catch on that it's better to have a house of order than a house of chaos.  I will keep wiping up their spills because they will see that a nice clean floor is better than a sticky floor.  I will keep letting them play with my toothbrush because I want them to not be afraid of the toothbrush and to establish good oral hygeine.  I will keep having days where I want to scream because I can't get any time to myself, but eventually I know I will be the one going to them for attention, and not vice versa.

I want to help them become great in whatever aspect of their lives that they want to.  It is the small everyday things I do for them, the experiences I provide for them, the laughter that I provoke from them, the hugs and kisses and praises I give them for a job well done, and teaching them about all things spiritual and good that will help them become great.  I have such an essential and almost overwhelming duty and privilege to raise my children correctly.  There will be bumps and chaos along the way, but I get one shot, only one shot, at raising my babies.  I don't want to look back when Kara is 10 years old and say, "Man, I really wish I would have paid more attention to her instead of always being on the internet wasting hours each day or watching mindless tv or distracting myself with a million other things that could have waited."  Of course I'm not perfect and I have found myself distracted or wasting time, but Dean and I are making a concerted effort in our lives to remove more and more distractions, and we're finding ourselves feeling more and more fulfilled with our family life, even though it has its' expected stresses. 

When my children go kamikaze on the front of my fridge and annihilate my cleanliness and organization that I try to provide for them, I sometimes walk away from the magnetic chaos for a little while, but sometimes I kneel down with them and have them help me put everything back on, magnet by magnet.  And we don't organize it, we don't put everything on left to right, there is no rhyme or reason to how everything is put back on.  But that is how my kids like it, that is what makes them feel more comfortable.  They are teaching me that it's ok to have chaos at this stage in my life, that my world will not end.  And in the cleaning effort it helps to bring me down on to my knees, to their eye level, where I am suddenly one of them.  And I can see the world from their view, and without fail every single time I get down to their level in front of my fridge, they run at me to give me a full on hug and tell me they love me.

So I'll keep organizing those magnets for them because I really get the better end of the deal in the clean up. 

I'm sure one day when my kids are grown and gone, I will find a gallon ziploc bag of alphabet magnets and magnetic animals and flexible monkey magnets in a storage bin that's been on a high shelf in our garage, untouched for years.  I'll go sit down on my kitchen floor, open the bag and dump everything out, clean them with a Clorox wipe, and put them on the bottom front of the fridge from left to right and in proper order and groups.  Then I'll look at them, smile, and then attack the front of the fridge, scattering and sending all the magnets airborn.  And then I'll sit there, I'll smile, and cry.

Sometimes....

Sometimes Leah makes me laugh until I cry when she climbs up on top of the highest semi sure footed object in the room and proudly yells "MEEEEEEEE!".

Sometimes I think not nice words in my head when my children stain my clothes with their grubby little pasta sauce covered hands and mouths.

Sometimes Leah mopes around for no reason at all.  It's hilarious.

Sometimes I look at my never ending to-do pile that I avoid and want to chuck it across the room.

Sometimes I literally feel like I can't contain the excitement and love that builds up in my chest when Landon smiles at me.  

Sometimes I wish the man who invented PlayDoh would have never been born after I see it ground into my carpet.

Sometimes I stop and take a good long look at the picture of my Mom on my mantel and wish she wouldn't have died.

Sometimes Kara does back somersault splits off the couch, and she's freakishly good at them.

Sometimes I wish I could sing well enough to sing a solo in public, i.e. church.  I belt it out in my van, but that's about it; my vocal confidence doesn't permeate beyond the confines of my minivan.

Sometimes I wish that I liked cooking.  I like baking, not a fan of cooking.

Sometimes Dean gets up with Landon in the middle of the night so I can continue sleeping.  Bless that man.

Sometimes I wish that the tv cable company would let us subscribe to only HGTV.  I don't want the other 500 channels, I only want HGTV.  I would pay $15 per month for just that 1 channel. 

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so hard on myself.

Sometimes I love building train tracks with Kara and having her line up ABC animals on them so that the train coming can "feed the animals".

Sometimes I wish I was a better sister.

Sometimes I realize how fleeting this stage in my life is, the stage of having newborns and toddlers and preschoolers, and I savor those stages.

Sometimes I wish this stage would hurry up.

Sometimes I tear up when Kara and Leah go pick dandelions for me, and ask me if I love them as they hand them to me with such proud smiles.

Sometimes I smile when Kara prays "that we don't drink tea and coffee, that we got a pony at a garage sale, and that we have bear" in every.single.prayer.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky.

Sometimes I get so frustrated and exasperated by the end of the day that I know the healthy outlet would be to have a big ugly cry to get it out but instead I sublimate my rage and ball it up in my chest and shut down. Not so healthy.

Sometimes I wish I did more service for others.

Sometimes I wish that I had a weekly housekeeper.

Sometimes I yell at other stupid drivers when my children aren't in the van with me.

Sometimes I'll go 3 or 4 weeks without shaving my legs.  And I'm ok with that.  It's been 3 weeks so far.

Sometimes I think I see spiders or bugs crawling in my peripheral vision, but nothing's there when I look. 

Sometimes I think that I'm the only mommy with young children who feels like she loses her patience too often with her kids.

Sometimes I feel like the best and most loved mommy in the world when I instigate and play the "Let's hide! Tell mommy what animal's going to get us!" game on my bed while Kara, Leah, and I dive under the covers and laugh our heads off together..

Sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of Dean and I talking in bed.

Sometimes Dean falls asleep in the middle of us talking in bed.

Sometimes I look at my children sleeping, and I am so happy that their biggest concern that day was whether or not they got to go to the park and if they get a Dora fruit snack or a Disney princess fruit snack.

Sometimes I get way too stressed out over trivial things.

Sometimes I'm very chill and go with the flow.

Sometimes I will fall asleep on the couch and without asking, Dean stays up until midnight hand washing all of the baby bottles and all of my pumping supplies.

Sometimes Landon grunts so loud in his sleep that it wakes me up.  He's a loud grunty sleeper.

Sometimes life gets to me and I wish things were different.  I wish I handled things and situations and conversations differently. I wish I had closer relationships with some people.  I wish I was a better mom.  I wish I was a better wife.  I wish I was a better sister, daughter, in-law, niece, cousin, etc.  I wish I was a better friend. I wish I was a better person.  I'm doing what I can with what I have right now, at this insanely busy time in my life with 3 kids 3 and under.  I'm not going to say "I'm doing my best" because that's not always true.  Some days I only have so much to give, some days I purposely hold back, but some days I truly do try my best.  And those days where I truly try my best are the better days in my book.  The days where I push myself a little more out of my comfort zone, when I tackle just 1 little project that I've been avoiding, when I don't say "just a minute" when my kids want to play with me right that very second, where I bake cookies just because, when I stop and hug Dean instead of us walking by eachother to go help one of the kids for the 173rd time that day, when it's more important to turn off the tv and let my kids tackle and jump on me as I lay on the floor and then go hold my newborn son and feel his body melt against my chest as he tries to hold up his flailing head. Those are the best days.

Sometimes I realize I'm human.  
 

Leah does what she wants...

If you know Leah then you know that she is one insanely stubborn and headstrong child and will put me in an early grave.  Instead of constantly telling her no over everything like I feel like I do every day 8 billion times, sometimes we just let her run free and do what she wants and only discipline when she's in danger or being mean.

"Hello?  Where are all the balls??!  I don't want to have to pay for this game."

 Sometimes you just need to take a nap on a Skeeball game.  Carry on, Leah.  Carry on.

This is one of my absolute favorite Leah pictures of all time, and it hits my funny bone every.single.time. that I look at it. 

Daddy and Kara were mini golfing just beyond that rock and Leah was bored with mini golfing long before this was taken so she just ran on the greens and walked on the bricks that edged them while Daddy and Kara golfed.  Landon was only 9 days old when we went to Leavenworth and went mini golfing so Mommy held Landon and made sure Leah didn't jump into the creek that was flowing through the golf course.  She decided she needed to come over to where the hole was and then she got really mopey all of a sudden (she pulls an awesome pouty mopey face and takes a neanderthal stance) and then just dropped to the ground and laid like this for 20 seconds or so.  I couldn't grab my camera fast enough, and I was laughing so hard.  She's such a nut.

4 exhibits...

 I'd like to present you 4 exhibits regarding Leah:

 Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

 I believe that those 4 pictures are enough to prove to the court that Leah officially hates having her picture taken.

She.Is. AWESOME.