One Month to Go

I’ve been praying for about three weeks now that the baby will come early. I don’t mean 6 weeks early (although, methought to myself, if that’s when it came, what could I do?) I mean ANY day before May 12th – May 11th, May 10th, today, whatever. And still people, when I make jokes about having the baby, say, tonight, shake their heads and say, “Oh no! You don’t want to have the baby THIS early.” I want to tell them to shut up then. I DO want to have the baby. That’s the fun part – to meet my cute new baby, and to NOT be pregnant anymore. Of course I’ll then have to take care of a newborn AND all my other kids AND have to heal up AND have to wake up every three hours to nurse AND stress about post-baby weight and on. But I won’t be pregnant. Right now that sounds like the best incentive to deliver this bun tonight.
Joel has said several times recently that he thinks my belly is bigger than it’s ever been with any of the other kids. Once, when I looked down and saw my awesome, blossoming chest, Joel looked over at me and said, “Your belly is so big!” Only, I was anticipating that his comment was going to be about my chest. It was a downer.
My emotions and feelings are conflicted during these times. I’m glad to see my belly getting tighter because I feel more justified in being and feeling enormous – they baby is taking up more space, but I also start to worry about where I’ll find more nasty stretch marks after the baby is out. I feel calmer about when the baby will come because at this point it feels like the end is in sight. But I’m also becoming more tired, less able, more encumbered and more desperate to not share my tummy any longer.
In my mind I like to imagine that all these contractions (painful and not) are much more frequent than in previous pregnancies, that my body just isn’t as able to carry this pregnancy through to a precedential full week past my due date. Sometimes, when I don’t have heartburn or a sore back and I’ve slept through the night without having to wake myself up and eat some lame snack or watch infomercials from 2:30 – 3:30 a.m. or read scriptures by flashlight because I can’t sleep I’ll think I’m handling this last trimester with an unmatched degree of sanity and elegance. Usually within an hour, though, I’m so pooped from strenuous activity (You know, like carrying Clara up the stairs or cooking dinner or folding laundry) my frustrations and self-pity mounts and I’m nearly in tears about how I can’t bear to make it to my due date.
I have had several blessings from Joel when in dire emotive states that leave me disappointed because I’m not blessed that the pregnancy will soon be over. No. I’m blessed that I’ll have strength to endure to the end of the pregnancy, to endure the same fatigue, discomfort, pain, sickness and FRUSTRATION that women throughout the world and throughout history have endured time and time again. And then I think about how hard things happen to us to prepare us for our future selves and our future experiences. And it kind of annoys me that it means that while this pregnant state is hard for me to endure, it’s not as hard as what’s coming my way from the future. I want to shout, “Dang it!” because I prefer to have fun, easy, relaxing days where everything goes my way.
Why is it so against my nature to become a better person? I hate getting back into shape after a baby because it is so much hard work. But I love how good it feels to BE in shape – to have the energy to run around with my kids and be active and energetic and willing. After hard life experiences I feel the same way – usually grateful for the hard experience because I’m subsequently stronger. But anticipating it, going into it and experiencing it I feel like I’m ducking my head the whole time, trying to avoid the full glare of the oncoming experiences, as if that’s going to make it go away. Sheesh.

One Was Johnny by Maurice Sendak

Lincoln is practicing for a school storytelling festival. Here's the first time he did it completely from memory:

Swan Lake a la Beth and Joel

The thing that geeks me out about this is that it's the EXACT routine Joel and I have been practicing for our ward talent show. I mean, we haven't lately because I'm 45 pounds overweight right now, but you can picture it, right?

P.S. I'm looking for cute ideas for my baby announcement. Any ideas? Here's a picture of what I done for Clara, which was pretty crafty for me. Link me to wherever I'll get great ideas. Thanks, friends.

I heard you were fat, so I found a resource I think can really help you.

Trip to Zion National Park

Earlier this month we took a trip to Zion National Park. We were headed down to Las Vegas for the weekend anyway to see Joel's cousin Liz give her farewell missionary talk, so we left a day early and had some family time together. We had so much fun! Joel had Friday off, so as soon as I was done with work we packed a lunch and drove down. We stopped at a gas station at Cove Fort for lunch (that's a shout-out to my bro-in-law, Dan!) and the whole place was CHARRED from the fires last summer. We should have taken it as a bad omen, because unfortunately Joel had a great idea for the kids to race among the construction barrels and loose gravel and Lincoln got a HUGE chunk ripped right out of his knee when he fell. Needless to say, that little blunder disqualified Lincoln from the competition.
We arrived at Zion in the afternoon and readied ourselves for some sweet hiking.Our first was up to the three Emerald Pools. It was fun and I was able to keep up only because Joel had Clara in the backpack and the boys are still kids.

This was my favorite of our hikes. We enjoyed breezy weather, cool destinations and the kids were all in the best spirits.
Interestingly we saw a polygamist family on the trail - one man, three wives and about twenty kids, all in pioneer get-up. One of the wives, when she saw our gang, remarked, "You guys are almost as ambitious as we are!" My question about them is: Who decides what they can and can't wear? The girls all wore hoodie sweatshirt jackets over their long dresses and open-toe sandals. Why is it that they can buy sandals but not sneakers?
Hey, we got some family pictures taken, thanks to several volunteer photographers on the trail! And, look, we even saw real deer!

For dinner we found a Thai restaurant (Joel's and my gastronomic weakness) that was pricey but the curry was awesome!
Back at the hotel we played in the pool for about two hours: Joel and I would stand in the pool while Lincoln, Asher and Clara would jump into our arms over and over and over again. Then we enjoyed the luxury of a heart-shaped tub in our room! Somehow the romance of it all was lost on Joel and I, and I think it was mainly due to the three kids that bathed in there with us.
Saturday morning we ate at the hotel's surprisingly good continental breakfast and then headed back to the park for more hiking! Our first hike for the day was Canyon Overlook, which was easy and fun and really beautiful. Normally Asher could care less about whether the camera is pointed at him or not, but on this trip over and over he would turn around and call out for me to take his picture.
It was the perfect time of year to go: the weather was so mild and we didn't have to fight swarms of people in the parking lots or on the trails. It was really relaxing and enjoyable.We had plans to hike Pa'rus Trail, but our kids were pooped and after Lincoln had a breakdown of sorts, we regrouped and hiked to Weeping Rock, instead. After that we passed our park pass onto my little sister and her husband, who had also just driven down for the weekend, and we headed to Vegas to spend time with Joel's family. What a fun trip! I love doing things with our kids. It is so satisfying to me!

But, I was also pooped! It took a couple of days after we got home before I felt recovered from the lack of sleep and extra exertion. Viva la Zion!

I can't wait for our next family trip!

This Video Reminds Me of Someone

Here is a video I really enjoyed watching.



About twenty seconds into viewing these sweet jedi moves an uncomfortable feeling crept over me. And I realized I was watching my oldest son, 10 years in the future. I mean, I hope it's not, but it may be.

Recently we let our kids watch Star Wars and now they pretend Star Wars all the time. It never stops. They sleep with their light sabers, wear capes all day, and even bring Clara into the mix by giving her a weapon and crowning her Princess Leia. (She's pretty good at killing her brothers.) Out on the front lawn they layer camping cots and snow tubes on top of each other for their base camp. In their room they don all their Jedi accessories, real or improvised and become Luke, Darth, Obi Wan, or Quaigon. They sleep with their weapons (as all good Jedi do) and spend a lot of time on the trampoline sequencing fighting moves and simulating training sessions. And while Asher feels content to stick to established Star Wars characters - Luke, Yoda, and on, Lincoln can only refer to his Jedi alter ego as "Force of the Green."

That's powerful.
As parents we mostly just enjoy the show, but at times I wonder how long and far their pretending should go on. At what point (12, 14 years old?) do I say "Please DON'T post your Jedi moves on YouTube"?I mean, the other night after a heartfelt discussion about spirits Asher announced he was the bad Emporer from the Return of the Jedi. And it kind of spooked Joel out what with Asher forming his hands into claws and hissing, like he was killing Luke with his lightning powers right there.

Star Wars is the newest incarnation of fighting warriors around here.

Before Star Wars we beheld the terrors of Cap'n Jack Sparrow and his band of pirates.

Last summer we witnessed the daring adventures of every superhero known!

A year ago we could only watch in awe as Luchadore's frequented our house, entertaining us with killer wrestling moves, eagle powers, and amazing skills in the ring.

And before that underpants warriors, who remained unnamed, lurked in the shadows of our humble home, fighting who knows who or what.

Amazing, huh? We love all the heroic dramatics. We're mostly content to allow these theatrics to continue until they've outgrown them. However, if you EVER see one of them displaying these antics when they're WAY past the "cute" stage, please, help me and help them by simply removing the light sabre from their hands and walking away.

P.S. I realize Clara is shirtless in the video, but she takes after her Aunt Megan in her love of tube tops. I only wish this were a video of Clara mowing the lawn.

I'm in Love...with Improv Comedy, that is!

I met this guy last night.

(I've read his blog a couple of times and he has some funny posts, my favorite one here.)

I had a girl's night out with me sisters and mom and went to see Thrillionaires at the new Covey Arts Center.

The tickets were $10 each (a bit pricey, I thought) but it was a quality show. It was an improvisational comedy show where they take suggestions from the audience to build their story around. For the first 45 minutes they acted out a play about a husband and wife having marriage problems. The husband is a garbage collector (my suggestion) who built their house and provides all their furnishings via his job. The wife is someone who pretends to be sick to get attention (also my suggestion - remember our conversations, Marilyn) Another character works at a bank while trying to hide his obsession with his roller skate collection (my suggestion, again) and his co-worker was a compulsive liar. It was great!

The second half of the show (another 45 min) they acted out another play, this time a musical, all according to audience suggestions and the music provided by Mr. Strong Man (above). The story line included an inventor who wants a robot girlfriend, a human girl who can hear with her eyes who also is on a love rebound and a technology company trying to get new techy technology.

It was a really intimate, casual show with great story lines, impromptu! It was way better than seeing a movie and a change of pace from Joel and my usual dinner date.

Go see them! It was awesome!

It was so much fun! Joel and I are planning a future date there. It was great! I highly recommend it to anyone planning a special date or a fun night out.