Little gifts to lighten the load

Tonight God gave me a sweet gift.

One month ago, my mom died.  She was young, and had no terminal illness.  The accident that claimed her life came as a complete shock to our family.  And yet, I feel an amazing sense of peace.

My mom had absolute confidence that God is real and trusted that because of Jesus Christ, she would someday be resurrected.  In my childhood, my mom and dad planted the seed of my faith and nurtured it, but as I matured, I had to come to know for myself whether what my parents had always taught me was true.  Through many experiences over the years, I have come to know for myself that God lives and that He is our father.  He loves each of us with a depth of love we cannot comprehend.  He sent us to earth to learn, to serve others, and to become more like Him.  When we have finished our work on earth, he will take us home to enjoy whatever level of light and joy we are willing to embrace.

Sometimes painful, even tragic, things happen to us, and He allows those experiences to come into our lives because He knows that they will make us stronger and better, that they will give us compassion and understanding and greater desire to relieve the pain of others.  He knows that in the times of our greatest suffering, we can draw near to Him and receive the greatest measure of His peace.  He weeps for our sorrows and sent His Son to relieve our suffering.

I know with certainty that I will see my mom again, and I am eager for that day.  I also know that God is giving me precious gifts to sweeten this hard time.

One of those gifts came tonight.  Early in the evening, my husband and I went on a date together and explored a small town near our home.  In one of the shops, one could buy a bottle and mix essential oils to create a unique scent that could be worn as perfume.  As I was getting ready for bed, I thought about going back to mix a scent for myself sometime.  I remembered that Mom had seemed interested in mixing a personalized scent for herself when one of my sisters told us about having mixed her own, and let us smell it.  As I thought about that exchange, I remembered that it had occurred during my last face-to-face conversation with my mom before her death, when she and my family visited my new home.

I teared up as I realized that Heavenly Father had answered a little prayer that mattered only to me.  A few days ago, I pictured Mom and my sister and me sitting on the floor in my younger daughter’s bedroom talking, and I could not remember what we had talked about.  I felt so sad not to remember my last conversation with Mom, and thought a little half-prayer that I would remember.  Tonight, in a quiet, simple way, Heavenly Father reminded me.  It was a beautiful gift.

Baby steps…

One of my friends once told me that I would be happier if I started with doing just one percent of something I wanted to do, instead of feeling like I have to do it one hundred percent right off the bat.  That way, I actually start chipping away at my goals instead of allowing them to loom over me until I feel I have time to “do it right.”  I have thought about that for a long time, chewing on it, and taking baby steps into various projects.  This blog for one.  I wanted to get it all set up and beautiful, replete with gorgeous photos and the perfect theme to set off my thoughts just right.  But I wanted to begin more than I wanted make it perfect.  Barely.  Maybe someday my blog will be beautiful, but for today, at least I am creating and sharing something.  Yesterday, I started something else that I have wanted to do for a long time.  I started a compost pile!

Every time I throw away food scraps–banana and orange peels, egg shells, carrot peelings and the like–I feel sad.  I think that those scraps have the potential to morph into rich, life-giving soil for new vegetables, and I feel sick thinking of that rich natural resource remaining trapped in a landfill where it does no good.

I have waited years to compost because I knew I didn’t want it to smell awful, and it seemed complicated to balance the ratio of “brown” and “green” components in the pile to ensure proper decomposition and preclude stench.  Hey, I can’t even keep straight what stuff is considered brown and what is considered green, let alone mix it right!  However, when my lovely family came to visit me last weekend and see my–relatively–new home, my “tiny bird mother,” who has had a compost pile for years, explained something that made composting seem suddenly simple.  She said that the green components are like a fire and the brown components are like the fuel, and both must be balanced for the compost to break down well.  I extrapolated that without the fuel, the “fire” “smolders” and that’s when the stench happens.

To return to where I began, feeling encouraged by the epiphany that I felt at mom’s simplified explanation of the process, I started my compost pile on Thursday.  I chopped up fruit and veggie peels to hopefully speed decomposition and carried them carefully to my selected spot, covered them with the leaves which have sat on the ground waiting for me to get up the guts to finally start composting, and smiled in satisfaction as I walked back to the house.

Friday afternoon, Big Sister helped me carry the scraps to the pile and raced about the yard gathering leaves to spread over them.  Before eagerly enlisting as my helper, she came into the kitchen and saw me chopping.  When she asked what I was doing, I told her about food scraps and leaves turning into new dirt to grow new food.  Seeming to catch the wonder I felt about the process, she said, “It’s like magic!”  Indeed it is.  True, divine magic.

This post on organic farming also inspired me to take my first baby step into composting.

Smiling inside.

I am listening to General Conference talks while cleaning the kitchen and looking out the windows at my girls running and digging intently outside.  Ahhh.  I am grateful for beautiful weather, many windows and a fenced yard!

Just a little one-on-one

“In family relationships love is really spelled t-i-m-e.”                                                                     –Dieter F. Uchtdorf (“Of Things that Matter Most”)

Today, after we dropped Big Sister off at a friend’s for preschool and stopped briefly at the store, Little Sister and I went to the indoor playground of a nearby mall.  I want to spend more time with her than I do, more time just enjoying her presence and playing together, and this morning I did just that.

She looked around the brightly colored and beautifully lit play area with wonder.  She climbed on a few toys before discovering the slide, where we spent most of our time.  She said, “My turn!”  as she ran from the bottom of the slide to the steps, where she tenaciously found her own way up.  I watched her interacting with the other small children playing on the slide and gently assisted her to develop interpersonal skills, encouraging her to wait her turn or to politely ask others to wait for theirs.

When she got to the top of the slide, she called out “watch!” and waited for me to acknowledge her request before scooting her feet to the edge, rolling onto her belly and sliding down the slide.  ”I did it!”  She exclaimed in triumph.  She called for my attention every time she was ready to slide, even when I had remained focused on her during her ascent back to the top of the slide.  I remembered a principle I recently read in Becky Bailey’s remarkable book Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, which is that one of the things our children want most from us is for us to notice what they are doing, to actually see it and reflect to them what we see rather than judging it with a dismissive, “good job!”  The constant stream of “watch me!”  ”Look what I can do!” and similar exclamations from children begs for us to truly look at them, to “embrace them with our eyes” (see “Become as a Little Child,” by Jean A. Stevens) and to acknowledge in descriptive terms, what they have accomplished.  ”You climbed to the top of the slide and went down by yourself!”  Then, the child gets to feel the satisfaction, the elation born of his or her accomplishment as well as gaining the positive attention of the parent, without feeling that the parent must pronounce their efforts good before the child can feel good about them.

Speaking of satisfaction…I felt great joy when I planned ahead, set a “five-minute warning” alarm on my phone and gently got Little Sister into the car in time to pick up Big Sister as soon as preschool ended!

Little Sister and I had a sweet morning together, and I am glad she is part of our family.

Keeping Christmas

I love Christmas.  Christmas time has been one of my favorite times of year since I was a child.  I feel a special sense of wonder and a greater feeling of kindness and love in the world at Christmas, and that always encourages me to try to hold on to that sweetness for the whole year by being kind and generous.

I was just on one of my favorite blogs, Katie’s “Making This Home,” and I loved her idea of keeping a Christmas journal.  I want to celebrate our little family’s unique brand of Christmas by recording some of the sweet, special and silly things that are happening around here this Christmas season.

A few of my favorites are:

Our nightly scripture readings about the life and mission of Christ, and the paper chain we are making as we read each scripture passage. (Thanks to Emily, a friend from church for the scripture selections and paper chain kit).

Our beginner’s version of Advent celebrations on Sunday evenings: I discovered Advent too late in the year to put together a wreath, but couldn’t wait until next year to add this layer of meaning to our celebration of the birth of Christ.  So, starting the first Sunday in December, we have gathered in our darkened kitchen around our wreath-less candles, remembering our need for a Savior to light our lives as we teach the girls in simple terms why we need Jesus: to help us “try again” when we do bad things, to help us come alive again after we die and to help us go back to live with Heavenly Father some day…I can’t wait until they begin to really understand the depth of those simple phrases as I am beginning to understand them through experience with God’s grace for my own daily weakness.

Daddy reading “How the Grinch stole Christmas” to the girls nightly after dinner.  Last year,  Big Sister begged to read that book so many times that she memorized it, word for word, and “read” it for Daddy’s extended family at our Christmas Eve gathering.  Soon both of the girls will have it memorized!  I also love that this is a Daddy-instituted tradition.

Listening to Christmas music.

Big Sister eagerly asking if she can turn on the Christmas tree lights as soon as dusk falls–it seems to be earlier every night!  I miss the sun in the winter :_)  I also love the way our Christmas tree looks from outside, glowing through our tall windows into the darkness outside.  I hope our home sends light into the world in more meaningful ways too.

The unusual decorations that have found their way onto our tree, after Little Sister’s thorough removal of the original ornaments from the bottom half of the tree, and the candy canes from the entire tree.  The inventive new decorations include two halves of an orange plastic Easter egg balanced on two different branches, four or five of Big Sister’s plastic dress-up necklaces, each draped artistically over multiple branches, and a tiny plush fish sitting happily on its own branch.

Big Sister sitting quietly at her bedroom window, watching the neighbors’ Christmas light displays change colors.

Plotting with Daddy about the girls’ presents, shopping for said presents and wrapping them together.  Thinking about how excited the girls will be about their presents.

Finally finding some presents for Daddy that I think he will like–and feeling delighted about that.  Also, choosing to be optimistic and trust that I will find delightful gifts for the people I care about instead of worrying that I’ll never find the right thing.  Oh, and Christmas shopping on my own while Daddy watched babies.

Shopping for Daddy with the girls and wrapping his gifts with Big Sister while Little Sister napped.  Big Sis was so eager to help!  After she discovered that wrapped gifts had magically appeared under the tree overnight one night, and learned that mom and dad had wrapped them and placed them there, she pouted that she wanted to help wrap some presents.  Imagine her delight when I told her that she could help me wrap Daddy’s!  Daddy had her help him wrap mine too.

Helping Big Sister choose some of her toys to give to Little Sister for Christmas.  Her choices are amusing, but sweet.

Watching a hilarious dancing elves e-card from some of our best friends and plotting to make our own…

Watching the girls play happily with our Nativity set…although I’m not entirely certain that suspending the donkey upside down over the manger is reverent…nor is having baby Jesus slide down the sloped stable roof…

Making frozen banana “ice cream” with my juicer on a whim and having even Daddy say he liked it!  Both of the girls devoured it with relish.

Watching silly little Christmas movies like “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and “Frosty the Snowman.”  They weren’t much a part of my childhood celebrations, but they have found a warm place in my heart, especially when I see that Daddy does have a few things he’s nostalgic about after all!  He and I both laugh at the plots, terrible claymation and sometimes strange transitions to irrelevant music, but we have a great time watching them with the girls.

Taking a walk with the girls when the afternoon sun is shining brightly enough to cut the wintry chill.  Big Sister gathered sticks and made a pretend fire.

Delighting in the first snow with the girls: peering out Little Sister’s bedroom window at the light dusting all over everything when we first woke up.  It had all melted by nightfall, but that did nothing to diminish the morning’s magic.

Going on a special date with Daddy while some friends watched the girls.  Sushi, Dave and Buster’s and frozen yogurt with my best friend in the world: priceless.

Taking the girls to see Santa Claus and proudly watching Big Sis overcome her nervousness and “give it a try”…

Watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional broadcast from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints together; enjoying the wonderful spirit of the meeting and remembering that its alright if Christmas celebrations aren’t perfect: it’s more important to share love than to fuss over the details.  Thank you, President Uchtdorf!

Watching brand-new videos depicting scenes from the life of Christ with the whole family, and again during special one-on-one time with Big Sister, and remembering the wonder and glory of what–and Whom–we celebrate at Christmas.

What are you thinking, Mom?!?

Today I was working on my NaNoWriMo novel during Little Sister’s nap.  When I started, Big sister was happily playing in her room.  When she found me at the computer, she begged me to let her play PBS kids games.  When I told her it was my turn on the computer, she was not pleased.  I told her that I got one half-hour and then it would be her turn again.  I even set the timer.  However, she continued to linger behind me making loud noises and generally making clear to me that the arrangement was not to her liking.  I asked her several times to stop.  One of these times, I was a bit distracted.  In a firm voice, I told her, “If you don’t stop, you are going to have to go out to the car.”  When I realized what I had said, I turned to Big Sis and grinned.  We made eye contact and both burst into uproarious laughter.  Between belly laughs she said,

“You said I would have to go to the car, but you meant my room!”

After that moment of pleasant connection, she settled down and I was able to finish my chapter.  I love laughing with my girls!

Brain on vacation…

Image via Wikipedia

I just found half a bag of frozen corn with a twist-tie on it in the drawer where I keep my twist-ties.  Thankfully it had only been a few minutes since my absentminded error, and the corn was still safely frozen.  A minute later, I caught myself trying to put the tortilla chips in the refrigerator.  Oh dear!

Leapin’ lizards! Or jumping beetles…

Little Sister found another dead beetle on the front porch.

“Bee!”  She shrieked in glee.  She extended her pointer finger and pressed it against the beetle’s back.  The pressure of her finger caused the beetle to shoot through the air in a big arc.  The beetle’s post-mortem gymnastics delighted Little Sis so much that she repeated the performance over and over until

CRUNCH!

her finger went through the exoskeleton.  I thought it was gross.  She thought it was hilarious.

Running Free

This afternoon, we went for a walk around our peaceful new neighborhood with our delightful new neighbor and her younger daughter, who is just Big Sister’s age.  The weather was delicious, sunny but not too warm, and the conversation pleasant.  We left the jogger home and I wore Little Sister in our well-loved Mobywrap carrier while Big Sis walked.  Before long, Little Sis wanted to explore too, so I put her down and let her run with the big girls.  I love watching her run!  At 17 months, she can’t yet get much speed, so her running looks like her walking, but more intense.  She throws her considerable enthusiasm into the small pistons of her legs and they churn furiously, thrusting against the ground, struggling to increase her speed.  She is the picture of delight, exulting in her freedom.  She is becoming faster, and I cannot wait until her body catches up with her desire to move.  Maybe she’ll be a runner like her aunts.

You have to go back? Every day?

One day after Daddy’s first day of work at his real grown-up job, Big Sister came down in her pajamas and saw Daddy on his way out the door.

“Where are you going, Daddy?”  She asked.

“To work.”

“AGAIN?”  She exclaimed, obviously shocked.  ”Awwww.  That’s too bad.”

Of course, we explained that we are grateful that Daddy has a job to help take care of our family, but I understand her disappointment.  It’s been fun to see a lot more of our Daddy the last few months, and this first week of work has been a big change!  I guess we’ll just treasure our evenings and weekend time together.