Sometimes I write down fragments of moments in life when I don't have my camera. Here are some snippets from life lately:
1) My car is filled to the brim with seven giggling girls on our way to gymnastics. I am on the phone with Max trying to explain how to finish off the spinach lasagna for dinner that I ran out of time to do. He does one step, then calls me back for the next (what a good boy). In between steps I'm trying to figure out what the heck to do when I get to gymnastics...sign my life away for the next round of classes or not. All the girls pile out when we pull up, I finish telling Max where the Parmesan cheese is, and all of a sudden Claire is screaming in agony because her finger is smashed in the door. Her middle finger. How in the world that happened I will never know.
2) Max comes home from some meetings for church (he is the president of the Deacon's quorum) and holds his thumb up in front of my face. His thumbnail is purple already. He has just slammed it in a car door. What is up with us and car doors this week? Pressure builds up quick and Dave pulls out his "surgical tools" to cut through the nail (he's had much practice with this if you remember his marathon toes). I pull out the camera to take pictures but can't do it. Yuck.
3) I take our car in for a much needed oil change only to have it take forever, making me late for a phone interview for a local magazine about being the Young Mother of the Year. So I find what I think is a quiet corner outside next to Lucy who's got her princesses spread out in front of her and is in her own world of imagination. For the next half hour I spill out jumbled answers to the tune of some big machine blowing the cars they are washing behind me. I hope that woman could hear a little of what I was saying...or maybe it's just best if she makes up her own stuff :)
4) I sit with my arm around Elle at our first General Young Women broadcast, tearing up at the sound of so many beautiful Young Women's voices there in the chapel during the opening song. My heart fills up with so much gratitude for the inspiring messages we get to soak in and that I get to share them with Elle...and all my girls some day. Click here to watch the video they showed there amidst the inspiring talks. I dare you not to cry. And then click here for more info. about the Young Women's program as well as other programs I love so much and am so incredibly grateful they are part of my life.
And then you better click here to read some amazing thoughts about raising girls from my friend Sarah. I so agree with her! She and this conference made me want to stand up even more for how deliberately we must raise our girls in this day and age. And the fact that I work with teenage girls every day for my church (and love them with all my heart) makes me even more aware of how critical it is to help them make good choices.
5) I steal away with Dave one night to go see a movie (which is a little luxury, it seems like we never see movies). We are so captured by the plot because it makes us think of the all the events that led us to find each other so many years ago. We come home and pull out all my old journals and read them 'til 2:00 in the morning. I look over at him, hair all askew from a late night and thank my lucky stars that he is mine.
6) After the dinner rush one night I lay on the couch and read some books with Lucy. Elle comes over and congratulates me for sitting down. You see, she's been giving the business lately (with a twinkle in her eye) that she never sees me sitting, "even for scriptures" (because I'm making breakfast and listening while they read). She has a point. I'm working on it.
7) I end up in tears for a day worrying about Lucy...giving her all her supplements that takes forever each morning and night and worrying about some social things her teacher has informed me of and wondering if they have something to do with the supplements and letting my mind wander to her future years and whether she'll have good friends to carry her through the tough times. My doctor frustration extends with one doctor we've been working with...I feel completely at my wit's end on how to help her best.
8) I watch Grace perform the new dance routine she has just learned in her new dance class (which she adores). It makes me so happy that she is not overloaded with gymnastics so much that she would have missed out on this new class. This leads me to finish agonizing about Claire and her gymnastics class after I realize that I have simply been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I lay there in bed with Dave one night musing how interesting it is that he is the one telling me we shouldn't do the class and I'm pushing for it (remember he is the "pusher" and I'm the "praiser"...that "Tiger Mother" has worked her magic in me a little too much...). But after calling around to see if I could find someone to help me drive on the days when I can't and trying to justify missing piano lessons for a gym class I stop dead in my tracks and tell myself that I am crazy. Completely crazy. So I sign Claire up for a different class with Grace one day a week and I'm totally at peace.
9) I scurry around to a hundred little details ready for a combined Young Women activity. I get up early to make rolls and roll them out to cook while I finish up some things while Lucy's gone to school. Oh wait, that's right now....gotta run! :)