Scattered Thoughts

I’ve started avoiding blogging again because I only have little bits and pieces to tell, not any sort of coherent narrative of really anything. But that means stuff is piling up, so we’re doing another random pile o’ junk post. (Also, I started this a week ago, so it’s all old news, but I’m not going to try to fix any weird verb tenses or time references. Ptui.)

Major Minor Miracle. Yes, I know “major minor” doesn’t make sense, but here’s the thing: it was a total miracle to me, and really huge for that particular moment in my life, but it’s also ridiculously small. Yesterday I was so stressed out over preparing for our co-op’s class fair that is happening tomorrow. I had a list of performances on a sheet of paper, and I needed it so I could type up the programs for the fair, but I couldn’t remember where I’d put it. I’ve been on high stress about this activity for a while now, and this was the last straw. As I searched, I prayed—please, please help me find it. I looked in every spot I could think of that it could have possibly ended up, and I finally hit the last spot—the car—and it wasn’t there.

I came back inside the house feeling utterly defeated and on the verge of tears. Again I prayed. Please. Then my eyes wandered over to our fireplace mantle, where our family yearbooks are lined up, and there was the paper, sitting with the yearbooks. Exactly where I had put it and completely forgotten it almost a week ago. I was so grateful.

Koa the Earthling. This just barely happened—Koa walked out into the living room with a box on his head. He told Brice he was an earthling.

The Anthology! My latest gigantic and insane project is finally finished and printed and distributed! I’m enormously proud of it. It’s a collection of stories written by the teens in the writing class I’ve been teaching at co-op this last year. I’ll be posting more about it on my other blog soon and I’ll link there if I can remember. But let it just be said that it was a large undertaking and I am so thrilled to be done (but also thrilled to have done it).

Short Fiction. Speaking of writing, I have been returning to short fiction a lot lately and really enjoying it. It’s been so much fun, and I think I’m going to spend more time in short fiction for the next little while. I have several places I’d like to submit things to, so we’ll see.

Mormon Lit Blitz. Also speaking of short fiction, go look here! Pay particular attention to the entry for June 10th.

Mother’s Day. Brice is so wonderful. He made Mother’s Day quite lovely, as he always does. This year he made me a delicious breakfast frittata and said, “Fri-tada!” Complete with a “tada” gesture. It was pretty great, but it doesn’t translate on paper very well. Also, he bought me a lock-picking set! Yay! Now I can start learning a new skill. It comes with a see-through lock, which is pretty cool because then you can actually see the mechanisms, which I’ve never really understood before.

I love this about Brice—he is always supportive of my whims and desires to expand my learning, even when it’s silly.

Compliments. Okay, this is probably weird, but I keep two compliment files—one is informal, in my memory, and the other is actually in a file in my email. The email file is where I put emails or facebook messages or other communications that people sent me that were really touching and made me feel all glowy and happy. I get to go back and refer to it occasionally when I’m feeling particularly crappy. The other file is my internal list of the weirdest/funniest compliments I’ve ever received.

This last week, I got to add two potential compliments to the weird file.

1. As part of our class wrap-up, I was asking the teens what their future plans were with writing. Many mentioned how they felt about the class (overall positive), but this was my favorite: “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”

2. Driving home from church on Mother’s Day, Brice and I were talking about how our various parenting abilities had improved since the beginnings. I mentioned that I was much better with small children than I used to be (though still not very good), and he replied that he thought I was “pretty decent.” Which was both honest and amusing, given that he said it on the day we’re supposedly telling all the mothers how incredibly awesome they are. But actually, “pretty decent” felt like a pretty great compliment. It was real and completely believable (not like “you’re the best with babies!” which would just be a lie).

Must update photo! Holy crumbs, I just looked at the photo that’s on our blog header, and we are two babies behind. Yikes. I really need to fix that. Someday...

The end. Oh so many times in the past little while I’ve thought of something to add to a blog post, but I never do remember them long enough to add. So we’ll just end here.

In honor of his birthday...

 The baby took nine steps today!

Yesterday and Tomorrow

 Yesterday was the anniversary of my mother's death. Maybe I'll sound callous saying this, but I didn't remember it. I rarely do. The only reason I remembered today was because I was doing a critique for someone who'd written a story about grieving, and part of her story was so much like mine that I suddenly noticed the date.

When my mother died, I was in grad school. It was break, and we were all meeting with our professors and planning our schedules for the summer. I had a lot to do. It's not like we were super close. I hadn't lived with her growing up, and things were complicated. And we all knew her death was coming. So really, I told myself, I should just be carrying on and getting stuff done. I had clients to see, a meeting with my professor, some case notes to type up. After all that, then there would be time to grieve or feel whatever I was supposed to feel.

I remember one of the other students really wanted to be in the practicum class I had been assigned to. She came to talk to me in the computer lab to see if I'd be willing to trade. We talked for several minutes, and I never once mentioned Mom's death. Later on, when she found out, she felt terrible for putting those details on me at such a time. But really, it wasn't her fault. She could not have known. I had given her no clue.

The facts and feelings finally came spilling out when I was meeting with my professor. We were discussing my progress in the program, and he was concerned about some of the things I hadn't gotten done yet. Like the good therapist that he was, he was kind but firm, and there was definitely some reprimanding to be done. I took it all in, silent and perhaps a bit withdrawn. A call in his office took him away for a moment, and while he was gone, I burst into tears. The poor man returned to the room to find me bawling, and at first he thought it was because of his comments. I quickly explained the real reason--funny that I felt the need to reassure and comfort him instead of receive comfort. It was strange that those few minutes alone, in the silence, were what finally brought on the breakdown.

I don't remember exactly what he said, but I suddenly realized that the way I was dealing with things wasn't quite right. I couldn't just pretend everything was the same. I needed to take a break. I needed to get back home to be with my siblings as we planned the funeral and dealt with her possessions. I needed to let people know.

I remember the weird awkwardness of calling all my clients to tell them I was cancelling appointments because of a "family emergency." Some of them asked if everything was okay, and I just told them yes. What else could I say? I was their therapist, not the other way around. So I still wasn't telling it all, but at least I wasn't pretending to myself anymore.

Even now it all seems surreal, this strange detachment, this desire to just keep moving.

And yet.

I fast forward now to the preparations for Mom's funeral. My older sisters and I gathered at the funeral home to put the finishing touches on Mom's body. It sounds morbid and weird--and at first it felt that way too--for us to work over her body, doing her hair, trying to get that ghastly orange makeup to not make her face look too fake. Who knew that a dead body's hairstyle was so hard to get right?

It sounds awful, but it wasn't. It was, for me, the most important step in my grief. I looked down at this body lying before us, and the overwhelming feeling came to me: This is not my mom. This is the house she used to live in. She isn't here anymore, and that's okay. She's just moved out of town. It wasn't so much about being detached finally as it was about realizing that it was okay.

Tomorrow is Easter. It's the day we celebrate the life, death, and resurrection of the one who made it possible for me to say that--she is gone, but I will see her again. There are things for us to sort out, apologies and forgiveness to be had, hugs to be given. Knowing my mom, there's probably some crocheting to do.

I am grateful to know that even when sadness comes--and it does--it doesn't have to last. He is risen, and we will too.

Totally our kid

There are moments when you turn around and think, "Yep, that kid is definitely mine." This is one of those moments.

Eating Glue, and so on

I managed to make it through 36 years of life without ever eating glue. Up until yesterday. Yesterday I was sitting at the table with my kids, cleaning up our lunch dishes at co-op. I moved a lid and felt something wet on my hand. It was a little white smear. They'd eaten go-gurts earlier, so I thought nothing of it and just licked it off.

Not yogurt.

The 6yo had a class project sitting next to our dishes, and the class project had huge globs of wet glue. Which is, of course, what I'd just eaten.

In case you're wondering, it was gross. Not the worst thing I've ever eaten (that would be horseradish), but I'd definitely never eat it on purpose. I had to eat an orange slice and a big bite of cake to try to get rid of the flavor, and even then it felt like it was sticking to my tongue. (Sticking. Har har.)

So, there's that item off my bucket list.


In other news, the 2yo is currently even more crazy about reading than his sisters. Yesterday morning he woke up around 5:30 wailing, "Read a book!" Which was pretty much how he'd fallen asleep the night before too.

Also, we were playing with wiki sticks earlier in the week, and I made the letters for the 6yo's name, so the 2yo wanted me to do it for him too. I did, and I spelled out his name while pointing at the letters. It was fun, and then he started jumbling them around and picking up each letter and saying it was his name. Good golly, 2yos are cute.

The next day while I was showering he toddled in (I have got to start locking that door!) holding a bunch of wiki sticks in his hands and saying, "Letters!" Also ridiculously cute. But you probably had to be there to understand.

On second thought, you shouldn't be there. Because I was showering and all.


Now for a teaser: Soon I hope to regale you with tales of our trip to Londontown and my giddy jumping-up-and-down excitement over getting to use a drop spindle. It was good times!

Also, maybe I'll get around to updates on my teen writing class and our epic anthology!

So far

Things I may or may not have done so far today:

*Eaten cheesecake in hiding. For breakfast.

*Let the baby chew on a shoe.

*Looked at the 9yo's outfit and thought, "Oh well. At least it's weather appropriate?"

So pretty much I'm winning.

Jewelry!

 It's been a jewelry kind of a day. Every once in a while I get a chance to work on it, and today was the day! I really just dabble, but I quite enjoy it.

Today was ...

... the beginning of a treble clef pendant and earrings. Not done yet, but mostly done.

... a random experimental ring that spells "love." I've never made rings before, and this one isn't good, bit it was fun to try!

... a pair of earrings made by Addra for me. She designed them and I put them on the hooks.

... a bird's nest pendant that I've been planning to do for a while.

Yay!