Jude the Tropical Paradise

Jude’s four.

 

Four to me means feelings.  Something about being four means that you have to feel things passionately.  Would that I could be as firm in my convictions and opinions as a four year old.

It’s highly entertaining to me to watching him change on a dime emotionally from rage to delight.  I don’t provoke him, for sure.  That would be foolish.  But Jude is a bit impatient with his dramatic feelings at this time in his life.

 

Example:  “Jude, we need to go get some things at the store.”

“Nooooo!   I am playing toys!!  I don’t want to go!!  I hate the store!”  Thrashes about, frowns and twists his body in rage.

“Jude, it’s Target.”

“Oh, I yike Target!!”  Jumps for joy and starts chattering away.

“Jude, can you please go get your shoes on?”

“Nooo!  I don’t want to wear shoes!!  I don’t want to get them.”  Throws himself onto the floor.

“Why don’t you wear your flip flops?”

“Ok!”  Runs off to get them.

He’s high drama.  And he’s high fun.  He’s intense.  And he’s exciting.  He’s impassioned.  And he’s mercurial.  He’s my adorable tropical island with the smoothest skin you ever did see.

Thankfully, I can deal with this.  I don’t cave to feelings, but with Jude I don’t have to because they change so quickly.  He’s like a day in Hawaii.  Beautiful with occasional rain for variety.  These are not the hour long battle of wills, they’re just fracas.  He’s emoting.  And usually he’s a pretty happy enthusiastic guy.  I feel flattered that he tries to save all his storminess just for me because he knows I love him come rain or shine.

  To be fair, Jude puts up with a lot.  He’s the middle kid and gets to interact with Ms. Personality and Silas the two-year-old monster boy.

But Jude knows the hierarchy.  He doesn’t put up with crap.

Mimi has a clan of little girl friends she plays with frequently. Jude is always included, but he sometimes finds the girly stuff a bit taxing.  

So I have a special place in my heart for my Middle.  The new mantra around here is Middle Comes First.  And Hurricane Jude is definitely getting his due share of attention and privileges.

Jude got the RC Ferrari, Silas got the little Fisher Price car.  Life is unfair and Jude likes it.

   

He’s my cubby.  I live for the evening he sneaks out to chat with me once the other kids are asleep.  We love each other.

Come Little Child and Together We’ll Learn

“Teach me to walk in the light of His love

Teach me to pray to my Father above

Teach me to know of the things that are right.

Teach me, teach me, to walk in the light”

Today was the Primary Program at Church.  It was Mimi’s second such event and Jude’s first and it is a BIG DEAL for them.  They’d spent nine months learning the songs and themes and then the last three weeks preparing for the program.  Mimi and Jude both had one line each. 
The Primary in this ward is one of the main reasons I moved back to this area.  There were 93 kids in the primary.  93.  And not ONE of them was a screw ball naughty kid.  The leaders in our primary have it together and work really really hard.  I’m so thankful for them.  It’s because of their long suffering that the kids are so enthusiastic about church. 
As a theater person I consider this their debut. There was no way I was going to let MY kids be the naughty kids up there – the ones who stick out their tongues or race through their lines or, heaven forbid, not sing. This family has standards and I will sink to any level to achieve them.

The morning started out very poorly. Jude had spent the night at his cousins and was a basket case by the time we went on our morning family bike ride. He whined and complained the whole time.  When everybody was finally piled in the car and on our way I began the expectations discussion.  I told the kids the story of “Naughty Seth” an invented bad little boy who was four and acted naughty during the primary program.  He didn’t sing, he made mad faces, stuck out his tongue, etc.  The imaginary bishop took imaginary Naughty Seth and spanked him in front of everybody at church.  And also, Seth did not get a donut.  This plan worked like a charm.  Reward and a dollop of fear.  All the grumpy frowns were eradicated by the time we made it to the chapel.  Haha!  Victory!
Mimi and Jude wanted more than anything for their Dada Dx to be at the program.  It’s been a long time since Dx had been to church with the kids and even longer since we were seen together in public, much less church.  The kids and I are in the ward where everybody knew us when we were married, so this invitation was a double whammy:  not only was it going to church but it was pretty literally going as our original family in what I consider to be my home ward.  I was really nervous.  Had the situation been reversed I don’t think I would have had the courage to attend.  But he went and the kids were thrilled to have their Dada there.  I’m so thankful for the spirit of real Christian goodwill extended toward all of us today.  My favorite part about the LDS doctrine is the belief in progress and genuine brotherly love. 
Where was Some Guy you ask?  He has chosen to live in and attend the same stake where we had so many problems.  I respect his decision to stay there, but I chose to remove myself from that toxic environment.  I have nothing negative to say about him nor his entire family, they are good people following divine inspiration.  We are both doing what we believe is best for our children and Mimi, Jude and Silas are certainly thriving.  The kids and I are where we belong now – we have lots of real friends and are not ostracized nor condemned on the basis of false information and gossip.  Peace and love reigns here.  Come on in, the water’s great.
As soon as they were all up there and I could see my little four year old boy singing his little heart out and Mimi doing all the actions enthusiastically I couldn’t help myself.  Tears welled up in my eyes.  I’ve always gone back and forth about teaching children so young about a specific dogma, but my trepidation was quelled today as I saw my beaming children.

Outside our church building, 2008 on Jude’s blessing day.  And now he’s so big and in the Primary Program!
All the months and months of wrestling them into their church clothes, wrangling the three of them as they bug each other on the pew, trips to the time-out room (Spiritual Prison, as Ellie named it) all of the weeks I’ve thought to myself “Who cares?  We get so little out of church because it’s so hard to keep them focused” but attended anyway all paid off in one perfect second.  They knew the songs and loved to sing them.  They know how to pray.  They have a modicum of understanding about how the gospel can give us peace. 
All of this because so many teachers volunteer their time and have committed to attending church.  No one forces them to be there.  The teachers don’t have to be patient with Jude when he’s grumpy.  The leadership could phone it in or sub out their responsibilities, but they don’t.  They are pulling a huge weight and my children are soaking it all in and learning more than they could possibly believe.  Thank you all for your love and service.

While it was certainly their moment, I felt today an undeniable confirmation that I too have done right by these kids.    It doesn’t really matter what things are wrong or right in my life as long as they are given all the access they can have to education, both religious and secular, and that they know how much they are loved by their family and their church leaders.  Their Dada could see the results of my laboring to keep my kids in church every single week – no matter what my personal life was like – and that they are happy here.  My struggle is paying off as they learn to love the gospel.

Daring Greatly

 

The Man in the Arena by Theodore Roosevelt

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;

who strives valiantly;

who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

If you haven’t listened to Brene Brown’s TED talk “Listening to Shame” you should.  It gets wonderful around 11:45.

Click:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame.html

Me too.

Coooool Rider. A Cool Cool Cool Cool Rider

To be a coooool rider, a coooool rider.
If he's cool enough,
He can burn me through and through.
Whoa ohhhh
If it takes forever,
Then I'll wait forever.
No ordinary boy,
No ordinary boy is gonna do.
I want a rider that's cool.

Yeah, that’s right.  I just went all Grease 2 on you.  Michele Pfeiffer and everything. 

We recently became a bike family.

My dad is a major bike dude – with the stretchy pants and clicky shoes.  He rides for thousands of miles at a time, I’m pretty sure.

Last month Mimi got on a bike and started riding, like she’d been doing it all her life.  She was the first.  Things have snowballed since then.  Jude could not contain his jealousy and jumped on Mimi’s too small bike (pink and purple, he didn’t care) and took off.  We went back and forth with training wheels and now, after using the greatest invention in the world, he is a full time peddler.  Thank you like-a-bike.  Training wheels are for sissies.

The two of them ride all day long in our court with their friends.  I have to bribe them off their bikes. 

After hearing the bike riding enthusiasm around here, my dad sponsored a bike for me!  Now nearly everybody in my extended family has bikes and my father’s fondest wish has come true:  FAMILY BIKE RIDES!!

 

At my house we had three peddlers and one Silas chasing behind like a red-headed step child.

So then Silas needed transportation.  I don’t believe in bike riding if I can’t take my minions with me.  It should be a family experience otherwise, to me, selfish.

I know nothing about bikes other than how to ride one.  Can’t fix anything, don’t know when things are wrong, don’t know how to attach accessories,  have no interest in learning to change a tire, I know nothing.  I’ve brought these bikes in about once a week to the fix-it guy for tire problems, etc.

To solve the Silas problem I headed over to Any Mountain and picked out a $45 child seat for the back of my bike.  Mimi dragged it across the store while I wheeled my bike into the fixer-guys.  They said they could put it on for $15 and in an hour.  Party.  The Jungle is next door so the kids and I went off to play.

An hour later we were back and very tired.  The thing was on.  The store was crowded my kids were being naughty.  There were three people in line behind me.

“That’ll be $249.87.” 

WHAT THE WHAT??  Uh, that POS costs $45!  Apparently, NO, that is only the visor attachment.

So here I have a serious installation on my bike, three screaming kids and a bunch of people watching me.

And therefore I BOUGHT THE DAMN THING.

Yeah, Silas.  Looking Cool.  I guess.

And then I went to my car and cried.  I can’t handle that sort of pressure.  Sorry children, we will not be eating this week.  Silas must sit on the bike throne.

The offending item carrying my super stoked Silas.  I’m not even convinced of it’s safety.  Doesn’t he look lumpy and lopsided?  Arg. Whatever.  Taking it back would be too hard.

Well there’s only one real way to consol yourself when you get locked into buying a stupid $250 bike carrier thingy. 

You buy cool helmets to coordinate.

If we’re going to go down we’re going to do it in style.

These are some Cool Riders.

I No Costco

Once upon a time there was a horrible impregnable fortress down the street from me.  Every time anybody went in to the fortress they were accosted by the identification police. 

Inside was the fortress was a hideous wasteland stocked floor to ceiling with shrink wrapped pallets of huge stuff.  There was little rhyme nor reason to the contents of the fortress – travelers often go in looking for those uncooked Mexican tortillas and find nothing but Christmas Lights and the entire contents of a plant Nursery.

People often got lost inside for hours, maybe even days if they fell asleep on the ugly couches.  Each traveler is loaned an ungainly heavily laden handcart to push and pull down the aisles.  The fortress workers provided lost travelers with snacks, but only in humiliatingly small portions requiring the traveler to ask for more and more like a pathetic fool. 

In order to leave the fortress travelers were required to pay a huge fine, always upwards of $100, but usually closer to $250. 

It was a sad place.

Yesterday I met this sad place’s steroid-addled father.

Business Costco.

I never knew such a place existed, but was tantalized into making a voyage there under the auspice of preparing for the Festival of Camille in October.  There were drinks there and we needed to buy them.

If you thought the Costco Fortress was big, you have not met Business Costco.  Imagine a hotdog pack as long as a couch.  A Ranch dressing display as big as a Geo Metro.  Business Costco is a territory for giants.

I recommend you bring your own Tenzing Norgay.  Pam brought Ellie and me and we were not nearly capable of navigating this landscape.

You need some lamb?  They have whole lamb carcasses. 

You need carrots?  They have a log house made of carrots.

 

Oh, you think you need something from the freezer aisle?  I say nay nay.  They have no freezer aisle.  They have a freezer cave, complete with mountaineering supplies so you won’t die on your trek through.

Business Costco was not messing around.  If shopping is your bag, you’ve conquered the Costco Fortress and you need an Everest to climb, I recommend a voyage to Business Costco.

Maybe some day, once I have left regular Costco with exactly what I came in for and I know I have conquered that store, I will attempt to really summit Business Costco.  Until then, I’ll be over on the beginner trails: Target.

All Smiles Here! Peace and Love!

Why is my life so awesome??

Every 6 Months

I take my kids to get professional pictures done every six months or so, in February and August.  Mimi was born in February and Jude in August and Silas in December, so it works out that when I get the pictures done it’s Mimi’s and Si’s one year older picture near her birthday or Jude’s one year older picture.  Family pictures are a complete pain, but I think they’re important and I like to see how my babies have grown.

I just took the kids to get pictures yesterday and for the first time they would all stand in one place, sort of.

 

September 2012.  Mimi 5 1/2, Jude 4, Silas 2 1/2.

And these are the years past:

February 2007, Mimi a few weeks old.

August 2007, Mimi 6 months.

 

February 2008, Mimi 1 year.

 

August 2008, Mimi 18 months, Jude a few weeks.

February 2009, Mimi 2 years, Jude 6 months.

 

August 2009, Mimi 2 1/2, Jude 1 year.

 

January 2009, Mimi 3, Jude 16 months, Silas a few weeks.

August 2010, Mimi 3 1/2 

Not pictured because Jude was holding some toy in his hand that looked obscene.  A picture fail.

Fall 2010 because they were just all so delicious:

 

  Can’t find February 2011 . . . or can’t remember which one it was.

 

And then this happened in August 2011, Mimi 4 1/2, Jude 3, Silas 18 months.

February 2012, Mimi 5, Jude 3 1/2. Silas 2.

And my babies.

Q: What Can I Eat that Tastes Delicious and Won’t Make me Feel Chubby?

Want to know a little secret about me?  I know NOTHING about diet.  I don’t have any idea what a calorie is nor what the labels on food mean.  I am a food moron.  All I know is what my sisters tell me to eat.  I am under the impression that donuts are not good for you and that more than one dessert a night might make you fat, but beyond that I’m pretty much clueless.  But while clueless, I am not completely irresponsible.  When I go to the fridge at 10 every night (and 11, and 12) I know enough to not eat a whole box of Oreos dipped in milk, maybe only 6 would be good.  And maybe I should eat peanut butter not Nutella – wait I’m not sure about that.  I’m not a huge fan of fast food.  My fast food rule is “Never finish the burger/fries because you will regret it.”  This is probably the most I’ve thought about food, ever.  Food is fuel.  I like when it tastes good.  End of thought process.

At some point in my life someone told me I shouldn’t eat after 10pm.  So rather than stuff my face at night I eat these two things:

A1)  Fage yogurt with the cherry or blueberry goo attached.  I eat these every night when it’s 10 and I’m starving and all I want is cookies.  I pronounce it Fag, but rumor has it it’s pronounced Fay-ja. I prefer Fag, or Faggy.

A2)  Faux Cookie Dough.  Raw Cookie Dough Bites I ripped off from another website.

I live on these and pretend they are making me skinny and healthy.

Double the recipe, put them in 2 cupcake tins, leave them in freezer, eat them when you’re rushing out the door or want something to eat while you’re watching breaking bad. 

Raw cookie dough bites

Ingredients

• 2/3 cup raw almonds
• 2/3 cup raw walnuts
• 2/3 cup raw oat flakes (see note below)
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp sea salt
• 1/4 cup raw agave nectar
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp cacao nibs or dark chocolate chips

Instructions

1. In a food processor, process the almonds, walnuts, oats, cinnamon and salt to a fine meal.
2. Add the agave nectar and vanilla and process to combine.
3. Next, add the cocoa nibs (or chocolate chips) and pulse just to combine.
4. Roll the cookie dough into balls (about 1 tbsp each) and place them in a cupcake pan and freeze.

Speaking of Happiness

Yesterday I watched the sunset.  I never, ever do that.
My kids were in bed early and quickly because they had had a long day.  I was tired and just needed to sit for a bit before I began the after hours routine that finishes the day. A woman's work is never done.
But for ten minutes I sat quietly doing nothing but looking at the colors of the clouds.
My mind went back through my day.  My house was clean because I had taught my kids how to clean it along with their neighbor friends.  My kids were tired because we had ridden bikes most of the day and then I'd taught them how to play Kick the Can in the evening. My laundry was going.  That one basket full of car junk and house stuff had been cleaned out and put away.  My kids had seen their father, a visit which counted both as service and as quality time because he has been suffering in the hospital for the last week.  While we were there we had to find parking in a horrible lot and had success after I taught the children that they could pray for anything, including a parking spot.  We'd had plenty to eat that day and wanted for no material goods.  I'd listened to a great TED talk  "Before I Die" by Candy Chang on community art and a General Conference talk about Deliverance earlier in the day on my earphones while I was working in the house.  My carpools had taken both Mimi and Jude to and from school.  I'd been in textual contact with my friends both near and far.  My dad had called me and told me he thought I was doing a good job helping the people who needed me.  I'd talked to some estranged distant family and made some headway in repairing those relationships.
By the time the sun had set I'd come to a realization:  this was a day well lived.  I'm happy. My kids are where they need to be and so am I.  Nothing else is perfect but we are stable and content.

It was only about 8 and I had the rest of my evening planned: not one but two episodes of Breaking Bad and then working on my farfetched life-goal project that is taking up a significant amout of mental energy and really challenging my mind.  To break that up I meandered through the lovely things on pinterest and scrolled through my friend's instagrams.  And then I climbed in my cuddly bed with fresh sheets in my peaceful clean house and slept.

I've been thinking about trials recently.  Sometimes it feels like trials never end and that you never quite get to that plateau of peace before the next one hits you even harder.  These past few years for me have been trial after trial leaving me begging for a bit of peace.  I've been coping with many losses and unresolved relationships and found myself swirling down into the abyss of despair -- wondering if life itself is, as Macbeth claims "A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".
But even as chaos reigns and storms rage I look at my day to day life with great humility and gratitude.  Just yesterday I learned that "In the midst of winter, I found there was, deep within me, an invincible summer" (Albert Camus).  No matter how difficult things become I still wake up to a new day of taking care of my kids and navigating our world to the best of my ability.

And then at 10:30 pm  there came a knock at my door.  It was one of my sisters unexpectedly dropping off a loaf of warm homemade bread because "If I don't get rid of this I'm going to eat it all myself".
It was a day of service and tender mercies. A day too busy to dwell on the problems life presents.  And it was a day that, normal as it was, I will never forget.

Nice Job, Silas.

 

“Caution:  To prevent entanglement, keep hair away from wheels.”

Geez, kid.  You’re two already.  Learn to read.

Guilty Pleasures

 

This song:

“This is how bacon is supposed to be!”

This video never gets old:

Loving this blogger:

http://galadarling.com/

Can’t. Stop. Watching:

Eating hand-over-fist:

All natural vegan maybe frozen “cookie dough” balls that are healthy.

Not a guilty pleasure, but taking up a lot of my time:

The new biking situation and the Iron Horse Trail.  Arg.  More on that later.

Retelling this story:

What am I missing that I need to see to be entertained/distracted from this new totally hard endeavor (secret) I have just taken on?  Give me some tools of procrastination, people!

The Triumvirate

Yes, this picture is a blur.  This is how the last few months have felt with my three kids.

My three children are “Irish Triplets.”  They were born within three years of one another.  Mimi is 18 months older than Jude, Jude is 16 months older than Silas.  Their birth years are 2007, 2008, 2009.

For the last few months I have really been feeling their closeness, in good and hard ways.

To memorialize what these years are like and to paint a picture of what it is like to have three children close together, I give you this list:

+ They all like to do the same activities.

+ They all need the same things.

- They all need those same things at the same time.

+ I only have to shop at one store to find all their sizes.

+ Jude and Silas wear the exact same size, except in shoes.

+ I don’t have to separate Jude and Silas’ clothes.

- I buy a ton of shoes because people always lose just one.

- They are equally incapable of helping themselves with beverages.

+ Sippy cups for everybody!

- I am a slave to sippy cups.

- The pacifier battle.  There was great thievery of paci’s.  I finally won it back in June.

+  They all like to sleep in one room, most of the time.

+ They like the same movies.

+  They like the same rides.

(More or less)

- They are co-conspirators in cookie stealing.

+ They recognize each other’s needs because they have the same needs.  (If Mimi wants a cheese stick, she assumes Jude and Silas want one too and always gets them one.)

-  They desire equality at all times, much like twins tend to. 

-  The phrase “Me too!”  Get used to it.

+ They’re all bustle.  It’s like a traveling circus.

-  I worry about alone time with each one.

+  They don’t care at all about alone time with me, they aren’t possessive.

+  Their maturity level is still unsophisticated.  They don’t talk about boyfriends and love and stuff.

+  Because they have each other they adjust well.  They feel like the majority everywhere they go.

-  I worry about their experience when they’re separated.  Will it be like a phantom limb?

+  Baths.  They’re easy and efficient.  All pile in, all barrel out.

- CARSEATS.  One time I figured out how many carseats I buckle in a day.  It was high.

-  Childcare.  I have a good set of babysitters, but I feel obligated to pay for sitters rather than just drop them off at a auntie’s or friend’s on a regular basis.  All together they’re too overwhelming for anyone but me and Pam.  I try really hard not to abuse the kindness of the people who help me. 

+  If even one is away the dynamic changes exponentially.  With only two kids I feel like I’m on vacation.

+  Bedtime.  Ahhhh sleep.  They all go to sleep at the same time with one routine.

+  Assembly line parenting.  This appeals to my need for operational success.  I never get in the car having forgotten one kid’s shoes, because I grab three pairs every time without thinking they had that responsibility covered.

-  Assembly line parenting.  Things can get overlooked.  Mimi had a hurt tooth and she just managed the pain, rather than me noticing it. 

+  Quick recovery when hurt.  Everybody else is still playing so they want to get back in the game.

-  Whatif all of the sudden they’re teenagers and I was to busy surviving to enjoy them?

+  Cuteness times three. 

 

 I love their legs in this picture.  Mimi’s a bit gangly, but they’re so cute 1, 2, 3.

- Taking pictures.  It is nearly impossible to get these three kids looking at the camera at the same time.

- Sacrament meeting.  Don’t get me started.

+  Primary and Nursery!

+  Watching them play toys together.

-  Shielding Jude and Mimi from Si’s attack mode.

+  Everything is so little!  Not like baby tiny, but still.  Little underpants, little fingernails, little bodies cuddled in bed.

+  All three can and do come snuggle me in bed in the morning. 

+  I feel like I’ve earned my parenting stripes.  I am capable and I’ve been to parenting bootcamp. Largely by myself.

+  Little people trailing after me.

+  Calling out, “Ok, I’m leaving!  You better come!  I love you!” and seeing them race to the car.

+  Family Home Evening.  It’s chaos, but only because they’re clambering for chances to participate.

 

Ok, so what’s the score?  28 + and 17 - 

It’s hard, but the love and joy far outweigh the struggle.  I don’t think I’d willingly set myself up for this challenge again, but I sure am glad that I have three little kids close in age.