may day may day week 1

1. i had my yearly hair cut and color.  i always promise myself i won't do that to myself anymore and have regular follicle maintenance but yet again, i dip my toes into the overgrown pond of polygamist stringy, dry untrimmed hair. 

before:

after:

it only took from 10-4. my follow up appointment is already scheduled. 

2. athena blythe had her end of school program honoring veterans. someday i will have a DSLR so that i can better capture these moments, but take a gander at this fantastic, yet slightly blurry shot of athena letting is all hang out. according to her teacher, she has two levels: on and off. this is on.

i'm coming to terms with the fact that i will be buying new clothes for my kids every 3 months. i bought this knee length dress in december. not exactly knee length anymore. 

3. a nice weather action shot: painting bargain bin leftover easter egg crafts on the back deck with hersch's personal plunger. 

5. the girls started swim lessons at the local swim club. they both want to join the swim team next year so were trying out this club to see if we can be physically ready in time. i love it because i get to hold a wriggly, fate tempting toddler for 40 minutes inside of a sweaty, humid indoor pool facility. wah wah. 

6. mother's day. i'm coming to terms with what i want mother's day to be for me. maybe someday there will be a day when i can completely kick back and do nothing and be served and waited upon hand and foot. i wish i could do that now, because i absolutely DREAM of that, but i can't sit back and watch when there are things to be done. perhaps this will give me martyr status to lord over my children someday. one more step in the direction of marie barone, i guess. thomas cooked dinner and got me bouquets PLURAL of flowers, and i took a great nap on the couch while the kids watched a terrible disney movie around me. i read a wonderful quote from a blogger of 3 special needs children whom i greatly admire for her honesty and sensibility and resilience and faith. she summed up my mother's day thought's perfectly. "mother's day is to celebrate women who labor in all sorts of impossible situations." and most days feel impossible. lots of good, but so much hard and messy and overdramatic. 

the best part of mother's day was watching reagan pass the sacrament for the first time. though reagan turned 12 in march, he had been resistant to passing the sacrament. i don't know why. passing the sacrament has been something that we've talked him doing for years, but when presented with the task, he was pretty adamant that he was NOT going to do it. our young men's presidency and bishop were very supportive and the bishop lent us some sacrament trays so that we could practice at home. finally, we told reagan that it was his time. thomas passed with him and guided him through the steps and made sure he felt confident in what he should do. thomas was proud and excited and it was such a blessing to watch them work together to serve the ward. i cried. A LOT. then reagan cried  A LOT because he couldn't go and sing with the primary kids. reagan may be the first kid in the history of the universe to balk a leaving primary for the young men's organization. nothing can be easy, can it?

and as good as it gets mother's day photos. 

april is the coolest month

the reality of motherhood lives in sacrifice. of time, of sleep, of sanity. the requirements of motherhood are patience, practice, spontaneity and humor. you must have humor. it's the air of motherhood. the redemption of motherhood lives in forgiveness. of ourselves and others. the partnership is with God. 

patience- raising this rambunctious, effervescent girl. i'm glad she's patient with me and allows me to catch up to her pace.  

spontaneity- saying yes to the park and the rec center pool and cupcakes at the bakery all on the same day during spring break. 

forgiveness- me forgetting to bring the diapers to the restaurant in downtown st. simons island where herschel made an EPIC poop 5 minutes into the meal. thomas made a trek to a gas station where they only stocked the lowest quality diapers and wipes.  

humor- thomas had an excellent sense of humor as i dragged the family to a historic site, historic fort king george, the oldest remaining outpost on georgia's cost, built in 1721. the ghost of doug beck made an appearance. 

tears of sadness and gratitude- we sold the yukon. it served us well. it could haul 4 bikes at a time in the back. it was like driving a recliner. i also vowed to stop dressing like a pregnant woman. what's going on with me in this shirt? no. stop. i need to show myself forgiveness for continuing to wear things that are much too big, two years later. 

spontaneity- swallowing my frugal pride and paying a million dollars for the kids to go on the rides at the darien blessing of the fleet fair. 

again, that shirt! i could smuggle hersch into a movie theater in that shirt!

this is a bit of my partnership with God: reagan running in special olympics. 

he won his race, though i would have placed him with a more challenging group. all levels of special olympicness was represented.

humor, patience, spontaneity.

looks great. tasted terrible. i prefer ugly cakes that taste great. 

i saw this on an early saturday run. it was a moment of redemption after a hard week.  

athena blythe's 5th birthday was a sunday. 

another pretty but terrible tasting cake. i'm really off on my cakery lately.

and a small part of motherhood is knowing when to quit. the stress of dealing with so many children and so many activities and so much yelling about not practicing put me in a less than celestial state of mind. out of respect to my partnership with God, we quit piano lessons. i had dreams of children serving in the church through music. but music wasn't serving us. this decision to cease fire means i'm happier than i've been in a while. perhaps our children will learn to serve in the church in other ways besides piano accompaniment of worship.

their final recital was fun and their wonderful teacher was so patient and good.

this little monsterface has tried my last thread of patience. 

abandoning story time at the library for ipad time. 

molesting my birthday chicken and rechristening him "DUCK!"

busting into the bishop's office on activity night while the bishop is meeting with someone in confidentiality. 

messing with every gadget in my car so that it took me a week to figure out how to make everything normal again.

scarlett's end of year play, "alice in wonderland". she was great, but that is a terrible story. terrible.

the end.