Here and there and everywhere is my specialty...ask my husband. I want so much to document the little things that go on every day, but doing the best I can does not currently allow that time. I am pretty good at catching at least some of the things between journaling in an honest to goodness journal and the blog and what we will call my oral history given to my children, so here's hoping my legacy and heart and true love of my family gets passed on in one way or another.
First (here's where the randomness comes into play), I want to remember that Daphne likes to help me peel onions. No matter what she's doing, if I am peeling an onion she drops it and runs over to help me. So cute. She is such a little lover of hearth and home, naturally. When I emptied the garbage last week, she drug the big trash can into the kitchen and was trying to put a new garbage bag in. She likes to pass out scriptures to each person when we read as a family. She likes to make sure every one has what they need. This is when she is in her sweet mood, the one that doesn't scream I AM A 2 YEAR OLD AND YOU GOTTA DEAL WITH IT! She loves cows on long drives and yells excitedly when she sees them. She finds many things that she simply declares CUTE! She is sensitive. Tell her no once in a serious voice and she fetal position pouts for several minutes. And when she isn't taking the house by storm or feeling picked on, she is still a master cuddler, bless her sweet little self.
Shawn is a talker (can be said of most of my children at one time or another, in one way or another), but he can talk my ear off. Shawn is one that makes my heart ache on my 2 long work days as he has so much he wants to share and I have to keep my headphones on as much as possible and work. Goodness, I love him. How he is still my "baby" in a way, loves his baby blanket, likes cuddles and hugs and kisses, and thinks I can make everything all better. But how he is also growing into a soon to be elementary schooler...I think. I still can't feel 100% awesome about sending him to Kindergarten. I better decide soon, though. Registration is next month. He has a hard time saying his B's and F's and replaces them with a soft V. At the end of words, he uses P's instead of T's. Let's just say we could have a lot of good speech practice this summer, after he is done with his traditional speech classes. He is my sturdy boy, not as skinny as the other boys, and there is even something about that I love. And his facial expressions and phrasing of things...yep, no wonder I still see him as so little even though he is almost 5. He'll always be my little boy regardless.
Ben continues to confound and confuse me. He tells me nearly daily how much he hates school and finds it boring. He has an awesome teacher (i'm so not kidding) who says his intelligence makes her stretch and find new ways of introducing things...occasionally pulling him back to learn a basic concept even though he knows stuff beyond it. She also says he is borderline class clown but always dials it back when she gives him THE LOOK. That doesn't sound like a kid bored out of his brains all day. We are contemplating doing some room rearranging after some minor remodeling work and it would involve Ben and Shawn sharing a room. We think maybe if Ben is around Matt less he will stop trying to be a doppelganger. Matt teaches him a ton and for that I am thankful, but I can see how less Matt time (and more time for Matt to have some space from his adoring little bros) would benefit Ben and Shawn and "force" them to work on their relationship and their own interests...maybe. I'm clearly no expert. CLEARLY.
Speaking of Matthew, he just played his Festival pieces at a senior living center tonight. His last recital with his old teacher he had an embarrassing performance and was mortified. This teacher is all about giving kids lots of public performance opportunities, and Matt went and, according to Lily, he did pretty well. He felt great about it, and I really hope he does even better at his recital and Festival because he has put hours and hours and hours into these pieces. I can't often say that about a kid and piano practice, but he really stepped up when we asked him to. He has been getting extra good behavior at school (which is nice because inattentiveness was a struggle earlier in the year), and he has one really good friend that makes school worth it even when the rest of the day is a drag.
I seriously don't know where these boys came from. Smart, love to learn, not in love with school. I loved a lot of school. If school didn't have bullies and idiots, I would have been perfectly happy there all the time. As it was (and is, if I"m honest), summer vacations are MUCH looked forward to by this mama (well, I wasn't a mama then but now,, erg, never mind).
Lily is hopefully, hoping, hoping, hoping, going to play TENNIS starting this month with games starting next month. I definitely am wishing my girls (and boys) would try some sport or another as I was too chicken and do regret it. So, in an attempt to prove us wrong and also, I hope, because she wants to try something new, Lily came home all fired up. Hurray. Must get racket and tennis outfit on the cheap. She is really worried about losing all her friends via moving, and all I can tell her is pray that if they move God will provide new wonderful friends, and I know he will IF they move. Poor girl is going to be traumatized about friends until high school I sometimes think. She is doing pretty well. She is always excited for the next thing and extra projects. Again, except for the self-induced chaos of her bedroom, I love how Lily lives with energy and excitement.
Lucas and I? Well, I can't totally speak for him, but I can say this: LIFE IS SO HARD. There are so many important decisions to make, and the responsibility of parenthood is huge, so heavy. We are tired. We are overwhelmed many days by life (not the kids - they make it all interesting and worth it), and a vacation nearly always feels in order - a long, long, long one. Through trials I feel myself more easily turning to the Lord as He seems to be the only one able to make me feel okay about all the pain in the butt stuff of life. And through our individual and couple hardships, when we dump pride, I feel our marriage strengthen and I feel my tender sacred feelings about my husband grow, and my snarkiness and impatience diminished bit by bit.
Today, our Primary music leader introduced the kids to a new song to sing on Easter Sunday. I had heard it once before, but I just cannot hear it without feeling overwhelmed (in the best way possible) with love for my Savior and knowing that He loves me so much (all of us obviously but this song makes it feel so personal. I am so little, so nothing in many ways, even though I am a daughter of Heavenly Father, but Jesus did atone for my sins. He did suffer deeply all my losses, broken hearts, missed out on dreams and that desperateness I feel some days as my list of what I really "needed" to get accomplished goes down the toilet and, instead, I focus on the bare essentials of home maintenance, getting work done, and growing little people in between it all as best I can. This song reminds me that HE KNOWS. He gets me completely. He loves me completely. He will offer me all the relief I need but will never stunt my growth and shield from what I need to grow through to learn and become THE ULTIMATE ME (whatever she looks like).
The song, "Gethsemane"
