Blue Toenails?

He refuses to wear flowered swim trunks, but he sure loves his sister's blue nail polish.

First Sewing Project

Three Years Ago

My little guy, Nathan, turned three years old last week.

From the start, he has been delightful. Here he is at about seven months:

He has always been full of smiles. Here he is at three months:

Here he is with his adoring mom (and her horrible haircut) on his second birthday, one year ago:

And here he is, the messy-haired flirt, last winter, at age 2 1/2:

When he was born, my friend Shawna decorated the door for our arrival home from the hospital. "Boy: a noise with dirt on it." I didn't know then how true that phrase would be. Oh, how I adore my little Noise with dirt.

Baby feet. It doesn't get any sweeter than that.

Below is Jen the Pale Whale, a week before delivering Nathan. He weighed in at a whopping nine pounds, nine ounces, and was the longest baby I have ever heard of, at 23.75 inches. We grow 'em big on our farm.

My precious boy at one week of age:

Nathan is my little pal, my buddy. I love the kid oh-so-much. He's had a hard adjustment to the twins, but he is doing better. He loves snuggles, stories, hugs, and silliness. He is full of boy-energy, ready at all times to play with cars and trains and to run and jump. He loves to help Daddy hammer things and help Mommy clean out the fridge. I was so afraid of fitting a boy into his sisters' pink-and-purple princess world, but from the start, he has held a big chunk of my heart.

Happy Birthday, little Nathan, my golden-haired boy, my noise with dirt on it. I love you.

Boarding Call

Forget climbing K2. Everest. The Matterhorn. Mt. McKinley. Scaling their heights is not necessary for proving how tough you are.

Just fly across the country, without your spouse, with five kids--ages 8, 6, 3, and two four-month-old infants.

Make sure you take along someone, though. Someone patient, kind, and easygoing, who can handle Sprite being spilled down their leg and spit up being expelled repeatedly onto their shirt. Someone who is willing to hold a squirming baby in their lap in a confined space for five hours. Someone who will pick up a screaming toddler in the middle of a busy airport and carry him while he's kicking. (In my case, that someone was Brian's youngest sister, Emarie. The Saint. She just turned 15. She came to our house to be a slave for a week. What a great slave she was. But the greatest thing she did was fly, willingly and uncomplainingly, from Virginia to SLC with me & my brood. Did I mention that she is a saint?)

Along with taking along an unwitting but generous accomplice, pack all necessary items. Fourteen spit up rags. You’ll get off the plane with only one clean one remaining. Benadryl, in a small container. Oh, how we love Benadryl and its drowsy effects. Ibuprofen, for you, in two doses. The portable DVD player. And your husband’s iPod, with several movies on it, to be used when you discover the DVD player has been left on and there is no battery power left for it to run.

Next, pray. Pray hard. Pray for kind people to surround you while traveling. Ask your friends to pray on your behalf. (Thank you, Erin!) I KNOW that our prayers are heard, because only when we pray do kind people surface in an airport. The weary business traveler, behind you in the security line, who waits contentedly while men with white gloves search your diaper bag and confiscate the ominous-looking yellow Playdough. The cute woman in a leopard-print shirt, who offers to hold a wailing baby while you, literally dripping sweat, move your crying, overtired toddler to a different seat while the other passengers are boarding around you. (I didn’t even glance at her or see her later to thank her. She walked up and made the offer to hold my hungry, cranky little guy. I shoved the baby at her, and somehow Isaac found his way back into my arms later.) The beautiful goddess and her macho husband who, without being asked, split up on the plane so that your whole crew could sit together and not rows apart. The patient grandparents who sit in front of you and ask lots of questions about the (sleeping) babies, and who still smile kindly at you at the end of the flight, after one of those babies cried for over two hours and after your toddler spent the greater portion of the flight kicking one of their seats. The three returning missionaries behind you who are, well, “required” to be patient and smiling after listening to a chorus of endless crying.

Ignore the passenger who walks down the aisle of the plane and swears loudly upon seeing two infants in arms across from each other.

Ignore the mother in the bathroom, standing in line with a stroller, who swears at you when you accidentally bump your stroller into hers. (Honestly, aren’t we moms all in this together?)

Ignore the white-gloved men who look at you like a criminal for bringing yellow Playdough on the plane and for not bagging your sunscreen stick in a quart-size bag.

Smile cheerily at the people who tell you how brave you are. You are brave. Strong. Independent. Your face should be on a billboard.

Finally, remember to keep smiling when one of your suitcases comes off of the baggage carousel wrapped in packing tape, with the zipper totally destroyed—unraveling in a coil—and the handle broken. Smile broadly when there is no line at the baggage office, and smile even more when the airline gives you a brand new suitcase as a replacement. Laugh with joy when you realize that the suitcase fiasco took ten minutes to resolve and that the people helping you were wonderful. Use the fiasco as evidence that, occasionally, some parts of air travel can be painless. Or even pleasant.

After all, you survived the day, and so did your kids. No planes were delayed, and more importantly, no incidents were truly horrific or life-altering. It was a day. One day. Not the greatest, but not the worst, either. And you’ll never see those strangers again.

Memories, Anyone?

What's in Your Memory?
This is a fun post that is circulating on our friends' blogs.

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, leave an email address and I will send it there.

Birthday Celebrations...Simplified

Nathan turns three this week--on Friday, to be exact. We will be out of town for his birthday, sans Daddy, so we celebrated a little bit early.

The theme for his gifts: anything with wheels, or pictures of wheels.

I have been a little distracted of late, and I didn't focus much on making a "show" of beautifully wrapped presents and decorated cakes for my little guy.

I started to feel kind of bad about it. But then I decided that this year, for Nathan's birthday, I would give myself a gift. I gave myself a break from being the Amazing Mommy Birthday Planner, and instead, I adopted some new mantras.

First, my mantra for Nathan's birthday cake: Even if it ain't lookin' good, it sure tastes good. Note the blue drizzle in the corner of the cake.

In a last ditch effort to, um, "decorate" the cake, I found some old purple decorating gel. (I know, I know...purple for a boy. I raided the cupboards and that's what I found.) Anyway, I intended to write, "Happy Birthday Nathan!" in big purple letters across the cake. I squeezed the tube. Out came runny blue goo.

Blue? Why blue? It's supposed to be purple, I thought. I checked the date.

It expired in 2005.

So I scraped the blue goo off & doused cake with sprinkles.

Nathan never noticed or cared. He blew out his candles like a champion, and the cake got devoured.


Next, my mantra for Nathan's birthday presents: It's what's on the inside of the box that counts. Note the pathetic wrapping job of the box below. I was too tired to wrap the large box with wrapping paper that would just get ripped off and tossed. I found some old Christmas ribbon and ran with it.

Nathan opened that box up and has been playing with its contents (a tractor trailer, purchased used on eBay) ever since.

Again, I learn another supernal lesson of motherhood. Life can be simple and beautiful and uncomplicated, and our kids don't care. They don't need things to be dressed up to be memorable or wonderful...they just want our love and attention.

And really fun toys.

Firsts

First, rice cereal.


Next, drivers' licenses.

Mr. Minivan

Dear Mr. Minivan:

For three years, we have taken care of you. Fed you with expensive gas. Bathed you. Changed your oil. Given you many new parts. Played beautiful music for you. Exercised you. And in return, you have sheltered us from the rain, the cold, and the heat. You have taken us to places near and far. You have been our trusty steed on many, many excursions. Because of you, we have some wonderful memories.

But now, you demand more. Too much. What you demand is the equivalent to a year's worth of groceries. Or four mortgage payments. Or ballet lessons + piano lessons + preschool tuition, and then some.

I can't believe that you, our trusty steed, would betray us this way. Mr. Minivan, what are we going to do with you? Can we ever repair this relationship?

Sincerely,

Your Boss

Sweet Dreams

PROBLEM: Three-year-old boy goes absolutely ballistic when getting a haircut.

SOLUTION: Cut his hair while he's sound asleep.

"Independence Forever!"

Tomorrow is the Fourth of July.


I could write a long-winded treatise on why I love the Fourth and, in far greater measure, this country. Instead, I turn to the words of a few Founding Fathers as they wrote about the events of their day.

First, Sir Thomas Paine:

"It has been the will of Heaven that we should be thrown into existence at a period when the greatest philosophers and lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live.... a period when a coincidence of circumstances without example has afforded to thirteen colonies at once an opportunity of beginning government anew from the foundation and building as they choose. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government for themselves and their children? How few have ever had anything more of choice in government than in climate?"


Next, two statements from John Adams, my personal favorite:

"Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, measures in which the lives and liberties of millions, born and unborn are most essentially interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world."

"The [fourth] day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."

Then there was Thomas Jefferson, writing in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration's signing, in 1826:

"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self government... All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few, booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God. These are the grounds of hope for others; for ourselves, let the annual return to this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminshed devotion to them."


And John Adams, on that same anniversary: "Independence forever!"

Incidentally, both Adams and Jefferson died on that day, July 4, 1826. To me, it is a profound testament to their respective missions, that they were put on this earth for the God-given mandate of establishing this country, and when their task was complete, they were called home to their Maker.

Finally, I'll toss in two more bonus quotes from the ever-eloquent John Adams. (I love the guy.) Although these don't specifcally pertain to this holiday, they are certainly pertinent to life:

"The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know.... Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. This is enough."

"He who loves the Workman and his work, and does what he can to preserve and improve it, shall be accepted of Him."

Happy Fourth!