How I Found Out I'm an Unfit Mother....

 

A few weeks ago, while perusing my facebook feeds, I came across a quiz posted by a good high school friend of mine.  You’re all familiar with these kinds of quizzes, right?  They are constantly getting floated around amongst all of our facebook feeds.  Quizzes like “What Disney princess are you?” or “Which Muppet are you” or “What Hunger Games Character are you” or “What European country should you really live in?” or “What major city should you live in” or any of a thousand others.  If you choose to click on the link, you are then taken to an external website and asked several questions that seem to be not so scientific and rather random...but it doesn’t really matter because it’s all for fun...right?  So we take five minutes of our life and find out that we are really Cinderella and also Gonzo and should actually live in Romania and we move on with our life with that bit of fun tucked somewhere in the ridiculous part of our brain where we store things like that.  

I want you to first understand that I realize that these quizzes are a total waste of our time. And second, to understand that I totally take about half of all the ones that come across my path.  Curiosity drives us to do silly and senseless things.  

That’s fine.  

No harm done.

I have found out some important things through my quiz-taking.  For instance, I am Peeta from the Hunger Games...which totally rocks because I LOVE Peeta!  Also, that I should simultaneously live in Portland and Germany...which slightly disappointed me because I answered the questions trying to get results telling me New York and England.  Sigh.  Why am I destined to never live in England?  It is my dream within a dream...but, I digress.

Recently I came across the quiz I mentioned at the beginning of this little rant (yes...this is going to turn into a rant).  The title caught my eye and immediately made me scowl a little scowl.  It was called “How many kids should you have?”  You should be forewarned that I have OPINIONS about how we should decide that sort of thing.  And that I think far too many people go about that decision too cavalierly.  

So, scowling and curious, I took the quiz.  I decided to answer it how I would have before I was a mom (single, selfish, squeamish about bodily fluids, and not very interested in spending time with kids) probably like most young, single adults would answer.   At the end of the brief quiz I was told that I should have no more that one child because I just wasn’t cut out for mothering.  I honestly laughed at the result because, as a mother of five, it was ludicrous!  I don’t think that the results actually ever said the words “unfit mother”, but after I took the quiz, that’s how I remembered me being described in the results.  An unfit mother.

The reason that I am so bothered by this quiz, in particular, stems from my beliefs about God and about motherhood.  In society, we are told that we need to take care of ourselves first.  That we have to “find” ourselves and be “true to ourselves” and be free to “pursue our dreams” and “have it all...all at once”.  Though those concepts are true to some extent, we are taught them in a way that encourages selfishness and egocentric living in the vain pursuit of happiness.  Even a casual study of God’s words tells us that finding happiness is actually achieved in the opposite way.  Lose yourself and you shall find yourself.  Serve others and you are serving Him.  There is value in putting someone’s needs before your own.  In layman’s terms it’s called growing up and not being a princess!  Of course, anything taken to the extreme isn’t healthy either.  The mother who is in shambles emotionally because she does absolutely nothing for herself isn’t what God teaches either.  Not running faster than we have strength is also a commandment...and for good reason.

God commanded Adam and Eve to have children for more reasons than just to populate an empty world.  It would be good for them.  It would bring them joy.  It would teach them eternal principles that would make them more like Him...if they would allow it...and, ultimately, bring them back to Him again.

Parenting is a Godly pursuit.  

Deciding to become a parent and deciding how many children to have is not something to be taken lightly.  God is deeply aware of us and willing to guide us if we allow Him...especially about things so eternally important as IF and HOW MANY children we bring into this world.  We shouldn’t base our family size decisions on what we thought was cute when we were 13, or on how many kids Cliff and Claire Huxtable had on the Cosby show, or even on what we thought was a good idea when we started having kids.  We definitely shouldn’t base it, or even let it be influenced by, some internet quiz.  I was told I’m Peeta.  I’m certainly not going to run out and legally change my name to Peeta Mellark!

When I got married 15 years ago I was about as insecure as a girl could be about my future mothering “abilities”.  I had grown up as practically an only child and had little patience for kids.  I did my fair share of babysitting, but never LOVED spending time with kids or getting on the ground and playing make-believe with them.  It was always a task rather than a pleasure.  I was sure that mothering was not something I would be very good at.  I even went so far as to warn my (then) future husband when we were engaged that I was going to disappoint him where mothering was concerned.  I gave him a chance to get out before we said “I do” and find a sweet girl who would be a wonderful mom to his kids.  Thankfully, he laughed, assured me that he wasn’t going anywhere, and expressed far more confidence in my future as a mother than I then had.  We married and had a baby boy a couple of years later.  I was right about a few of my inabilities.  I wasn’t patient.  I was selfish.  And I still didn’t like to get on the ground and play make believe.  I learned, though, that there were so many things about motherhood that I actually did well...things that I’d never even thought about.  And I loved that red-headed baby boy more than I ever thought imaginable.  I laughed at all the hilarious things that happen when raising a child.  I loved my husband even more as I watched him become an amazing dad.  I grew as God taught me things about myself that I didn’t know and He helped me to become a better me.  As I grew more accustomed to giving more of myself to others I really did begin to ‘find’ myself.  I grew more confident in who I was and in my relationship with God, and in turn He helped me to see myself more through His eyes than I ever had before.  He helped me to understand that what I was doing as a mother was more important than I realized.  I was learning to trust Him more.  

After having each child I just knew that I did not have within me what it took to have another.  I did not have more love and more patience and for sure I did not have more time to give.   After counseling with God, though, I also knew that somehow I would figure it out….and we would have another...and with God I did figure out the things that really meant something.  Somehow, he gave me more patience.  More love.  More time.  I am forever grateful that I did not make a decision early on about the size of my family because it most certainly would not look like my family looks today...what a tragedy that could have been.  

I know there are so many reading this who may not have been able to have kids or to have as many kids as they wanted due to marital circumstances, infertility, or many other reasons.  I am absolutely not saying that you are selfish or less grown up than those with kids.  God knows each of us well and uses whatever trials we face to mold and sculpt us.  He is as constantly there helping you with your difficult decisions as He has been there for me and countless others.  Also, there are those who did counsel with the Lord about family size and the size for them was very small.  That’s wonderful!  Every person on this earth has their own plan.  The number is not the important thing.  The process we use to decide upon that number is.

We also live in a society in which we are told that you don’t choose to do things unless you are really good at them.  If you’re not athletic, why would you sign up for soccer or basketball?  In so many areas, including parenting, that idea negates God’s power and His purpose in our lives.  If I would have believed that philosophy I would never have become a parent.  It was in the act of willingness to do something hard (become a mother) that God was able to start to mold me (I say start because I’ve got a long way to go!).  We are, all of us, imperfect beings in need of God’s power.  We must  be willing to venture into activities that naturally illustrate our imperfections in order to grow as God teaches us how to be strong in areas where we are now weak.

So, back to the quiz.  I was told that I should only have one child because I wasn’t cut out for mothering.  That is partially true.  At that point in my life I didn’t have a lot of great mothering skills.  

BUT.  

I did have several things going for me.  At the top of that list I had a loving Heavenly Father that was going to walk that road with me and teach me the things I needed to know as I went along.  Fifteen years later I have five kids.  I am more patient than I used to be by far.  Although, my son recently described me as “An awesome mom….but, when you get mad you’re……….INTENSE”  So, perhaps I’m still learning patience.  I still don’t love getting on the ground and playing make believe, but I do love my kids.  So, we find other things to do together that we can both enjoy.  I’m trying to do better……..on most days.  And on the days when I need a break I’ll take a quiz and become Peeta who is living in Germany rather than England (Grrr), or find out which Star Wars character I really am.  One thing I will not be doing, though, is letting an internet quiz be a swaying factor in how I view myself as a mother (or future mother)....and I can only hope that instead of letting it influence you, you’ll instead remember that being a mother is the closest we can get, here on this earth, to heaven.  That you have more potential than you, yourself can see….especially on the hard days, and that God is always there to walk that road with you helping you to learn and grow as you go along, and that He is always patient….even when we are….INTENSE.  

The Lentil Horror of 2013

We all have something in our world  that gives us the creeps.  Something that makes your hair stand on end, or gives you the chills, or possibly makes you sick to your stomach when you think about it.  In fact I think most of us have several things that cause that kind of reaction.  Think nails on a chalkboard or being outside alone in the dark after watching a scary movie and knowing deep down inside that there is someone coming up behind you.  It doesn’t matter how many times you look and see that there’s no one there, you’re still seriously creeped out.  For many it’s probably spiders, and snakes, and insects or the like.  Some very manly men throw caution to the wind and scratch chalkboards on purpose while eating spiders, and snakes, and insects, outside and alone in the dark.  They are not without their own set of horrors though.  The thing that creeps them out is probably something more along the lines of commitment in a relationship or doing the dishes by hand.  It doesn’t even need to be big things like venomous snakes and murderers.  My husband is creeped out and sicked out by burgers from a certain hamburger chain that will go unnamed.  Every single time he has eaten at that particular restaurant he gets very sick.  We don’t know why, but I have two theories:  either they are lacing their meat with salmonella, which seems like an odd choice for a marketing campaign...but a possibility nonetheless, OR he unluckily got sick after eating their burger once and ever since has experienced visceral PTSD.  Either way, it’s his thing.  

My thing, on the other hand, is lentils.  You may think that’s crazy and ridiculous, but I’m telling you that lentils are creepy and sinister.  They look innocent enough, but they are out to get me. They literally give me the chills, and when catching me at an unstable moment, have been known to make me dry-heave at the sight of them.

I haven’t always been this way.  In fact, just last year, one of my favorite things to make for dinner was lentil stew.  I hate running out of basic foods that I use often, so frequently I buy non perishable food like beans and rice in bulk and store them downstairs in our storage room.  Due to their super healthy status and my accumulation of great lentil recipes, I had acquired quite the stash of lentils downstairs.  That accumulation is what led to the lentil horror of 2013……….

Living in the country is peaceful, beautiful, and serene.  There are few things better than the nearness of pastures of cows and horses grazing to make you feel like all is right with the world.  There is a dark side, however, to empty fields in close proximity to your house...mice.  When you combine country fields with five children who can’t possibly comprehend that the door should stay shut throughout the summer, and the lack of a cat on the premises due to allergies, what do you get????  

Hickory dickory dock!  That’s what you get!  

This is the part now where I insert all of the self explanations and pleadings about how I’m not filthy and how it’s not like there are constantly mice in my house and how I’m not filthy and HOW I’M NOT FILTHY!  Please don’t think that...I beg of you.  I’m traumatized enough as it is.  It is what it is, though, and about it I must tell...because telling is what I “do”.  So, in the eight years we have lived here, we’ve had one or two mice get in during each summer that we have to catch.  That’s not so bad is it?!?  I’m still a decent person who’s relatively put together...right?  Only one or two…that is until 2013.  

It all started normally enough with a single mouse sighting, the accustomed screaming that accompanies it,  and a dispersal of mouse traps in all the usual places.  No big deal.  Shortly thereafter a carcass was found in the trap and disposed of.  Problem (usually) solved. Not this time.  

Another sighting.  More traps were immediately dispersed.  No carcass.  Day after day, no carcass.  Another sighting and then another!  No dang carcass.  We knew we had a clever little mouse on our hands.  Finally a body was found!!  I cheered and sighed a heavy sigh of relief that it was over and we were rodent free...which is how I prefer to live my life….BECAUSE I’M NOT FILTHY!   

My joy was not to last, though, for shortly after my relief came it fled due to……. another…... sighting!  This was inexcusable!  I immediately tripled the traps and became an official mouse hunter rather than a passive trap layer.  I tried to think like the mouse...to be the mouse.  I searched the house from top to bottom.  In my searchings, I found my lentil stash to be nearly gone and assumed that the mouse had eaten all my lentils.  I threw out all the rest of them and put everything into containers so the little varmint couldn’t get into anything else.  I was pathological about not leaving any food out ANYWHERE in the house.  I thought that if I did a better job of starving it that maybe it would be more prone to sample the fine array of delectable treats attached to our various deadly traps.  (Cue the maniacal laughter.)  

Finally two weeks later we caught him and all was right with the world.  

Until the next day when there was another sighting!

After Alan talked me down from putting the house up for sale we went to work doubling the amount of traps.  Again.  More pathological cleaning...more searching.  At last we caught it.  Another sighting!  This was not to be tolerated!!!  I thought about our options:1.“If Alan won’t let me sell the house...I could burn it…radical, but not out of the question. 2. I could become a Hantavirus survivor/expert and travel the country speaking to elementary kids about the importance of closing the door in the summer.  3. I could let more vermin in and charge people money to come into my “ZOO” and pet them.”  I could certainly use the money.

It was at this point in the “game” that I started finding them...the lentils...scattered throughout my house.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if I wasn’t so creeped out in the first place by the fact that we were on our fifth rodent and I had no idea how many more there might be.  I was sickened by the thought of all of them scurrying throughout my house and POOPING EVERYWHERE!!!  I’m not really into poo, so the thought of it being scattered throughout my house...even in tiny increments...grosses me out.  Even worse than the spectre of the imagined poo were the insidious little lentils. I can’t explain why.  It makes no sense, but to me they were like tiny foul messages left just for me to find.  Like a pernicious stalker was hiding in my house placing the nasty things for the sole purpose of haunting my dreams...and haunt my dreams they did.  One night I woke up horrified and sweaty because I dreamed that I was awake and my hair was all ratted.  As I sat up and tipped my head to the side to feel my ratted hair, hundreds of lentils poured out of my hair all over the bed.  I could suddenly feel the mice scurrying around in my hair, ratting it and depositing those forbidding lentils!!

I suppose the mouse found the lentils and decided to hide them in different places throughout the house as its own form of food storage.  Perhaps we had a case of Ratatouille on our hands.  I didn’t care how “natural” or unnatural it was for the mouse to carry lentils in its mouth and deposit them all over my house.  The lentils had turned this mousehunt into something very sinister and repulsive.  One night Emma heard a trap go off in the middle of the night followed by the sounds of something thrashing and flinging the trap around...did I mention that this trap was actually a RAT trap??  She said that whatever was in it sounded huge.  By the time we got there it was gone and the trap was empty.  Now I was REALLY freaked out.  Not only was it leaving threatening lentil messages...but it was a giant.  Ever heard of R-O-U-Ses??  

I started finding lentils EVERYWHERE and every time I found them I battled nausea and deep shudders.  Finally, after about a month and a half, we triumphed and caught it!  After several days of celebration we were able to get back to normal life.  It turned out that it was the fifth and the last of all the rodents.  Thank goodness.  It wasn’t huge either...just your typical mouse.  I’m pretty sure, though, that it was twisted.  

In the many months since the mouse skirmishes of the summer I have continued to find those disquieting lentils.  I have found them in dark corners, on closet shelves, and in cupboards.  When we got the christmas decorations out they were all intermingled with lentils.  I had to put a sweater on because it gave me the chills...literally.  Just last week I was cleaning the bathroom and pulled a roll of paper towels down from the closet shelf.  Lentils fell out of the paper towel roll.  I fought down the sudden queasiness.  The worst one of all, though, was when I went to get the kids’ boots out of storage for the winter.  As I picked up each boot, I noticed one boot felt heavier than the others.  I tipped the boot upside down and thousands of lentils poured out of it.  I was suddenly the star of a horror movie with shrieking music playing in the background and lentils falling in slow motion out of that boot as I staggered backward, ashen faced, slowly waving my hand as if trying to sweep the heinous scene from before my wide eyes.  

As I anticipate the summer that will inevitably come I am thinking that maybe we should consider investing in a few things:  a screen door that will close automatically, a bald cat (so we have the benefits of a mouse catcher without the allergies),  and, if I can find it, a few sessions with a therapist that specializes in trauma surrounding the bean which shall not be named.  One thing is for sure --- we will not be having lentil stew anytime soon.  Actually, forever.

The Angry Elf From San Francisco

A couple of weeks ago my daughter, Emma, and I went on our yearly mother daughter weekend getaway.  We started doing this several years ago as a way to spend time together, have fun in the city, and get some shopping done...which is desperately needed when you live in a town as small as ours.  The trip is something we both look forward to all year.  As part of our weekend extravaganza we usually get pedicures as a way to make it extra special for Emma, who is now 11 years old.  Last year I realized that if we got our pedicures at a beauty college it would cost $12---less than half the cost at a nail salon.  Being cheap, I decided that the college was the way to go.  After all, it wasn’t about the quality of the pedicure for me, but rather the experience of getting pedicures with my daughter.  Last year we had a great time at the beauty college, so we decided to return to the same place.  As we walked in, we were greeted by the student at the front desk and told to wait for the students who would be doing our nails to come and get us.  When our apprentice-pedicurists came to show us back I immediately suspected we were in for a good story.  The girl who was going to be doing my nails looked sweet and shy, but the girl assigned to my daughter did not look sweet.  Or Shy.  She looked like a bulldog who has just been kicked in the chops.  It’s true that half of her head was shaved, yes, but the part that worried me wasn’t the way she looked, but rather her demeanor.  As she stared us down, with hands on her hips and pierced eyebrows raised, I felt like a little girl who had done something very bad and now needed to pay the pierced and shaved lady for my wrongs.  The tone of disappointment in her voice made it feel like she was accusing us of coming in for pedicures.  I thought perhaps that she hated doing pedicures and she was stuck with us, but later found out that she’s the best nail tech at the school.  A line from  the movie Elf went through my head about a hundred times while we were sitting there…”She’s an angry elf!”

As the pedicures began, my daughter, raised in a small town where you don’t run in to as many angry little elves per se as in the city, looked at me with large eyes that asked if she should be worried.  I gave her a comforting glance that bespoke all of my assurance: that as we get to know this vexed pixie over the next hour we will see that she isn’t angry so much as misunderstood, like a chocolate lava cake...steamed and cracked on the outside but soft and sweet inside.  Emma swallowed her fear and faced that pedicure head-on, like...well, there are no analogies for that, but head-on nonetheless!  I was surprised to find that our shorn friend liked to talk.  I had imagined her to be the angry, sullen type, but was quickly disproved in that stereotype.  We learned all sorts of things about her:  she grew up in the San Francisco area, she had a three year old son, and most importantly that her labor and delivery were at the same time the easiest and the hardest in the history of the world...which is a serious accomplishment when you stop to think of it!  We also began to see that everything she said was accusatory...as in “If you don’t agree with me and nod your head vigorously and smile then I’m going to break your knee caps”.  We came to this crazy conclusion because her most frequented saying to us was “I’m going to kill you”, but said as a filler phrase the way I would use the phrase “Do you know what I mean?” or “So anyway”.  Emma, who tends to be shy around strangers anyway, melted into the pedicure seat, saying absolutely nothing so as to not be noticed or.....threatened.

I felt closer and closer to our pedicurist as she went to great lengths to share intimate details about her labor and delivery, in between death threats, of course.  For example, Emma and I can now tell anyone who is curious how many pushes it took to get the baby out of our nettled pedicurist, how many stitches she received after his birth, and what the stitches felt like...exactly.  She was even kind enough to introduce us to new vocabulary terms and phrases that I had never heard before, but that were graphic enough for even the likes of us to visualize and understand.  To top it off, she even acted out her delivery for us so that we could really feel what it was like to have been there at the easiest and hardest birth in the history of the world…which I thought was really generous...especially seeing that sweet 11 year old Emma has clearly never given birth. It’s wonderful how willing some people are to share their hard-won knowledge! I can honestly say that her reenactment moved things within me.  I really felt like I was the doctor as she, time and time again, told him she was going to slap or kill him, and of course, break his kneecaps.  She especially showed off her acting prowess as she revisited the tender scene describing how she grabbed her brother’s...yes, you read that right...BROTHER’S, arm during the delivery and shouted the “F bomb” at him.  Lucky for us, she chose not to edit that memorable moment, so the actual “F bomb” rang out into our innocent ears.  I was literally speechless through much of that particular depiction...which, again, is really amazing.  If you know me at all, you know that not many things render me speechless.  

In an effort to change the subject to not only cut down on the PTSD that Emma was quickly developing and to also remind the hostile nail painter that her audience included a child, I mentioned that Emma’s twelve year old birthday was coming up and how excited she was for it.  Without missing a beat,  the pedicurist assured her that age twelve was awful, sixteen was worse, and eighteen was a nightmare.  I felt like giving open thanks for this candid commentary because I have felt for too long that we mistakenly make life out to be exciting and happy when deep down we all know that it’s really just a tiptoe through one cesspool after another.  Thanks be to those who are willing to call it like it is to the young and naive!  The subject of shopping later that day then came up and with a defiant stare she asked me if I was going to buy her something.  I quickly assured her that I was.  When asked what exactly I was going to buy her I answered with the most obvious choice: “a crow bar”.  At first she seemed taken aback by my answer, but after a moment of mulling it over she slowly started nodding and told me that she could actually use that.  I thought so.

When all was said...literally...and done, we emerged from the beauty college with our kneecaps still intact, which was my biggest concern, and our nails painted in bright, happy colors.  Yes, we were each twelve dollars poorer, but full of laughter...which kept pouring from our eyes in the form of tears.  Twelve dollars seemed a small price to pay for that, and a story that will be remembered for years to come.  The truth is that our pedicurist has most likely led a much harder life than either of us and probably has a lot of reasons to feel angry and cynical.  I’m sure that when she graduates she will probably become either a great pedicurist in some hard core, shaved head, hell’s angel’s, hostile salon somewhere, an elementary school counselor, a candy striper at a local birthing center, or a hit woman for the mob (this one is actually quite likely due to her newly promised crow bar).  Either way, the world is her oyster and I am sure that she will excel at whatever she puts her mind to.  

Having lived in other, bigger, and more diverse places, I have seen stereotypes of mine go out the window as I have gotten to know people for who they really are.  So often we have preconceived ideas of how people who look a certain way are supposed to act and as we get to know the real person we realize that nobody is one dimensional and everyone has something to offer--including our pedicurist.  Though we didn’t really get an opportunity to get to know her, there were a few human characteristics that came out in the short time we spent together amid the more stereotypical angry swearing “I’m going to break your kneecaps” moments.  One of which is that she loves her son and finds him adorable, which he was--- she proudly showed us his picture.  I can relate to that as a mother.  I can also relate to the fact that childbirth is painful and one heck of a story.  She also is clearly trying her hardest to be a provider for him by attending this beauty college.  That is something I can admire because being a young single mom is more exhausting, more gut-wrenching, more mind-blowingly difficult than the regular “mom-ing” I already do.  I’m grateful that we met up with such a pedicurist on our little weekend getaway because I think it’s healthy for Emma to encounter people and places that are different from what her world usually hands her.  It helps to teach her that the world is a diverse place full of sights, sounds, smells, and reenactments that we are not used to...and that it’s okay for things to be different.   I know that Emma got an eye and an ear full, but she knows a few things that help her to stay grounded:  She knows that she should be tolerant and not jump to judgement.  She knows that she should use clean language.  She knows that her life is full of wonderful possibilities at twelve, sixteen and even eighteen and beyond.  She knows that she shouldn’t  believe everything she hears.  Most of all, though, she knows that when all else fails we should laugh until we cry...and then laugh some more.  

At The Foot Of Her Bed

Today is my mom’s 82nd birthday. She has always been the epitome of fun, kindness and grace.  Since I was born when she was 44, I was the only child at home throughout much of my life.  When I was nine she was stricken with an autoimmune disease which led to much of her life being spent in a wheelchair.  These factors (me being the only child at home and her illness) could have led to sadness and loneliness for both of us, but thanks to my mom’s natural self-effacing humor, a Lucille Ball-like ability to land in the middle of a great escapade and amazing storytelling abilities, my childhood was filled with joy, laughter and adventure.   I have so many memories of Mom sitting at the foot of her bed telling stories from her youth.  Many of the stories that she shared are the kind that others would hide.  The ones where we act ridiculous, or end up in embarrassing situations or are otherwise mortified.  She understood from an early age that you have two choices in this life: laugh at yourself or hide under a rock.  She chose to laugh and she taught me to do the same.  For that I am eternally grateful.  It is a hard thing to take ourselves so seriously in this life.  There are so many things that are serious and that we must suffer, it is nice to not let our own need to be perfect be one of them.

I thought it would be fun to reminisce a little on some of the stories that my mom and I experienced together.  When I was about 10 years old Mom, Dad and I decided to take a day trip to a small southern Utah town to search out some genealogy.  While eating lunch at a small locally owned restaurant, my mom decided she needed to use the restroom.  Not arguing with a woman who’d had five children, I jumped up to ask where the bathroom was located.  I was told that it was handicapped accessible and just up a ramp to the second floor.  As we neared the “ramp” it became horrifically apparent that in an attempt to make his facility “accessible”, the owner of the restaurant simply laid planking over the top of his staircase that went to the second floor.  It was a deathtrap. I asked if she wanted to try to find somewhere else to go, but it was clear that the lady needed to go!  No person in their right mind would try to push a wheelchair up that ramp of insanity...except us.  I told her to hold on for her life.  I backed up to get a running start and off we went running up, up, up.  About halfway, my 10 year old legs were still running for all they were worth, but we were at a standstill.  My mom grabbed the railing to the side of her as if her life depended upon it...because it did.  As I tried desperately to gain traction and forward momentum she clung.  We would have made better progress if we would not have been laughing so hard.  By the time we made it to the loo we both were drenched with tears...of course we counted ourselves lucky because we could have been drenched by much worse!

A few years later, when I was 17, my sister, Teresa,  was visiting from out of town.  We decided to go with Mom out to lunch at a restaurant located on a busy downtown street in Salt Lake City.  When I pulled up to the restaurant’s curb my sister unloaded the wheelchair and opened the car door for my mom to get out.  Only then did we realize that the curb was too high for her to transfer into her wheelchair.  I spotted a driveway a half block down that would work better and told my sister to just push the wheelchair down the street to that spot. Now, something that’s important to know at this point is how dramatic my mom and my sister are.  I am too, it’s true.  I have joked before that we all live in a movie with our own theme music playing which varies according to the kind of movie we happen to be in at the moment.  The difference between my mom and sister and I is that they are very innocent and gullible and I...well, I exploit that...and enjoy every minute of it.  Getting back to the story, when we pulled up to the curbless spot it became apparent that it was a driveway for a loading dock.  My mom asked if it was safe for us to stop there and I innocently said “Well... at the moment it is.  But any second a semi truck could come careening in here and kill us all.”  With a gasp and frantic look to my sister sauntering down the block with her wheelchair my mom screamed in the most urgent and panicked voice “TERESA!!!!  RUN!! RUN!!  WE ARE ABOUT TO BE KILLED!!!”  Not missing a beat, my sister took off, wild eyed, pushing an empty wheelchair, that held only my mother’s purse, at break neck speeds down a city street, not knowing what or who was about to kill those she loved.  She looked like a purse snatcher who had just mugged a handicapped woman by throwing her from her wheelchair and escaping with the purse and chair!  The entire distance was frantically run with my mother continually screaming “RUN!  FASTER!  IT COULD BE HERE ANY MOMENT!!”  Now, you would think that I would have put a stop to such a situation that I, myself, had created.  I could have, but I was laughing so hard at the scene presented to me that I was literally unable to communicate.  When my sister arrived at the car out of breath and full of unanswered questions she saw me in a ball in the driver’s seat with tears streaming down my red face and all too quickly realized that I was the source of terror.  We went to lunch and all laughed and laughed until our sides hurt.  Nobody can laugh at a good story like my mom...or be as generous to someone who scared her to death as she always was to me.

My mom and I were always good friends.  I would come home from school and sit at the foot of her bed and she would patiently listen to me recall all the ins and outs of my social life from elementary years through high school.  She is a gifted writer, so I, in turn, would listen to her latest poem or story that she had written that day.  I always knew that I could confide in my mom and she would be loving no matter what I said.  I also knew that she could tell when I was lying which helped me decide to confide in her since she would figure out all my secrets in the end anyway.  We loved to take drives together just to give her a way to get out of the house.  I remember many times that we would take off with no idea of where we were going, just the object in mind of finding something interesting and fun to see.  We were the closest of friends, made so by the circumstances of our lives together.

I spent much of my childhood praying that my mom’s illness would be taken away from her.  I was troubled that my prayer was never answered until I got older and had the power of perspective on my side.  I began to see that God allows mortality to afflict us as the laws of nature require.  We are in a mortal existence and as such we will experience mortality with all of its pain and suffering.  That does not mean that He is not there to lift the burden of those trials and ease our suffering...because He does!  He also uses the trials that we must bear to bless us and teach us along the way.  I began to see that He did answer my prayers, just not in the way that I expected. My mom and I were given a special relationship partly because of her physical limitations.  The trial was eased, in part, because of the blessings the trial itself brought.  It made me a more compassionate daughter.  It gave her plenty of opportunity to listen to and spend time with me.  It gave me more motivation to spend time with her.  God blessed her, and in turn He blessed me, with a sense of humor to be able to laugh at life and the experiences it brings us.  Marjorie Hinckley once said “The only way to get through life is to laugh your way through it.  You either have to laugh or cry.  I prefer to laugh.  Crying gives me a headache.”  This is something my mom understands to her core.  She has faced a life of physical and emotional pain and has laughed her way through experiences that would make others crumple---not to minimize what she has suffered or to insinuate that she has not or could not cry.  For there have been tears.  How could there not?  Yet laughter prevailed and she passed on to me a legacy of laughter, and grace, and kindness in the face of pain.  I will forever admire and love my dear mother who taught me to look for the fun and interest that life has to offer and most of all to laugh at myself and the situations that life brings me.  

When Alan and I decided to move to the middle of nowhere eight years ago we successfully talked my parents into moving down here as well.  It was a safe place where they could retire and I could help them as they grew older.  Mostly, though, I wanted my kids, who were still very young, to be able to associate with my sweet parents on a regular basis.  I wanted them to hear from the lady herself all about her Lucille-Ball like moments and to have the pleasure of laughing with and learning from her just as I had... at the foot of her bed.

All In a Night's Work

One morning last week I woke up absolutely amazed.  I had slept.  I mean actually slept.  As in I went to bed at a decent time and never woke up, or to be more specific, was never woken up, until my alarm went off in the morning.  I honestly was so pleasantly surprised that I laid there a moment trying to recall the last time that had occurred in my life.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had made it through an entire night.  I sound like a little kid who slept in my big girl bed all night.  Except, I am a big girl who is THRILLED to have slept in my big girl bed all night...but there are plenty of kids in this house who make it their life’s pursuit to make sure I know they are alive ALL NIGHT LONG!  

The night before, I had gone to bed around eleven (which, unfortunately, is a bit early for me) and I laid awake for an hour unable to sleep, even though I felt dreadfully tired.  Finally around midnight sweet sleep overtook me and I drifted peacefully into dreamland.  Ten minutes later I was jolted out of sleep by the most horrific sound.  A VERY LOUD and VERY ANNOYING toy jukebox had suddenly decided to play its music loud and proud in baby Jacob’s room.  Nothing could have pushed the play button on it other than sinister spirits straight from the devil himself.  I bolted from my plush pillow paradise toward the nursery with only one thought running through my mind.  Murder that jukebox.  Nothing can incite blind fury within my soul quite like getting ripped out of sleep for something so asinine as that.  In my rush for vengeance I failed to grab my glasses.  For many that would mean life looked a bit fuzzy in the darkness, but for me it gives the phrase “blind fury” literal meaning.  As I entered the nursery to quiet the satanic device I searched desperately through the darkness.  Finding the blurry light source I plunged toward it.  Grabbing the toy I wildly pushed buttons trying to desperately to locate either the “off” or “incinerate” button.  Unfortunately, because of the aforementioned blindness, I was only able to locate other offensive yet happy tunes.  After many frantic and failed attempts Jacob started to cry.  In one grand and sweeping motion, I turned on my heel to run out of the room, stepped on a toy, fell full force slamming the changing table into the wall, scraped the skin off my finger, and fell to the floor, all the while clutching the happily singing demonic device to my chest in hopes of smothering the neverending tune.  It must have been quite a sight as I emerged from the room on all fours in the darkness.  I made it to the front room where I could turn on a light and euthanize the overly chipper plaything properly.  Then I had no alternative but to sit in the hallway and wait for Jacob to go back to sleep.  I knew if I passed his door (even slinking like a snake on my belly….which is not beneath me) to get back to my room that he would see me and the jig would be up.  So I sat...and looked at my blurry bleeding finger...and pondered life.  Finally he succumbed and I crawled back to my bed.  Do you know the feeling when you have wanted nothing more than the comfort of your pillows and mattress, the feel of the warm blankets as they rest upon you?  Well I felt it.  And as I eased in under the covers I gave a great sigh that it was finally over.  It took me a little while to fall back asleep because my adrenaline had been pumping, but soon enough sleep took me...and I rested...for twenty whole minutes before Brigham woke me to tell me that he had diarrhea.

The truth is that everything that happens to me as a parent is deserved, especially where sleep is concerned.  I was born into a family where I was eleven years behind my closest sibling and twenty behind my oldest.  I am sure my parents were already exhausted when I arrived on the scene.  Unfortunately, this youngest child of theirs was blessed with a vivid imagination and a vivid sense of her own mortality.  From my earliest memories I was terrified to sleep alone knowing that my short life would come to an end in any manner of horrific ways if I tried to last the night on my own.  Unfortunately, there weren’t any kids to share a room with.  My parents tried everything to encourage, support, cajole, and motivate me to sleep in my own room, but to no avail.  To their utter delight, I am sure, the most comfortable spot conceivable to my young mind was their bedroom floor.  They told me there were probably spiders down there.  “Spiders.  Who cares about little spiders”, I thought, “when there are murderers in my room?!”  They pled with me.  They gave me a brand new bed for Christmas when I was eight.  Who want’s a brand new bed when you can sleep on your parents floor and listen to your dad snore like a freight train?  Certainly not me.  I was as content as a bug in a rug...or as content as all the bugs in the rug that I slept on.  It was pathological and no matter what they did I always snuck into their room as soon as they were asleep and staked my claim on their carpet.

Before they knew it years had passed and I was still bunking with them.  Then heaven intervened and my mom did something that turned all my sleeping priorities on their ear.  I was twelve...yes, you read that right...twelve years old.  I am ashamed now to even admit it...but there it is.  My mom was driving my friends and I to school when she innocently  reminded me that I had forgotten to clean up the blankets off her floor that morning.  Horror.  Utter horror went through my heart.  What if my friends found out my dirty little sleeping secret?!!  What would happen to me if the whole school found out that I slept...ack...with my parents??!!  At that moment the terror of being murdered in my sleep was insignificant compared with this new dreaded threat.  The pendulum had swung and my life would never be the same again.  That night, and every night of my life thereafter, I went to my own room and slept.  Then I grew up and had kids which means that now I go to my room each night and take short naps intermixed with helping them all night long.

Honestly, I feel my lot is easy compared with what my parents went through, and the laws of justice demand that I deserve every bit of what I get.  My husbands dirty little childhood sleeping secret is that he was a bedwetter.  When we got married I told him we would probably have a kid that slept on our floor and peed on our carpet until he or she was twelve.  Thankfully we don’t have that.  So, though my finger is bloody and my eyes are baggy, I am grateful.  Truthfully, it is these experiences in life that help us learn what being a parent is really all about and help us to laugh as we learn.  What would life be like if we slept every night and woke up in the morning feeling refreshed?  Boring.  Boring... and awesome actually.  For now though, let’s focus on the fact that it IS boring and as parents we must unite in the mantra that WE WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT!  Hail the sleepless eventful night!  Hail Pond’s Hydrating Moisture Cream and Avon’s Virtual Lift Serum for baggy eyes in the morning!