dreaming

on days when i feel particularly haggard, i like to picture my life seven years from now. at that point, i will have a 16-year-old, an almost-14-year-old, an almost-12-year-old, a 9-year-old, and an almost-7-year-old. most importantly, all my children will be in full-day school, and i will be left to myself for about 6 hours on school days. i realize that by the time i am actually in this situation, my responsibilities will have shifted gradually, and maybe i won't want to do the things i want to do now, and other things will of necessity fill the time. however, i have been meaning to make a list of things i wish i could do but can't because i would have to bring small children with me. so, in no particular order, here is a non-exhaustive list of what i like to picture myself doing when i am in a situation to do so:

• take a class or two at the community college. someday i would like to be able to help my kids with their math homework when it gets beyond arithmetic and geometry, and that would involve finally conquering my fear and loathing of calculus. also, someday i would like to learn how to program. but both of those ideas are if i want to challenge myself by leaving my comfort zone. if i don't feel like doing that, i would take german classes, art history, linguistics (doesn't a masters in linguistics sound like fun?!), maybe sewing or a cooking or nutrition class. that list is only the tip of the iceberg.
• find an orchestra or wind ensemble to join. i have a feeling most of these would rehearse in the evening, which might make it prohibitive, although i'll have teenagers who can be home by themselves...
• get a massage, manicure, pedicure, haircut, facial...
• learn to play the oboe or cello, and practice piano and flute. how different my life would be if i had started on the oboe instead of the flute. but at least i could practice something without interruption if nobody were home during the day.
• volunteer in classrooms of my children, chaperon field trips, actually go to PTA meetings. sometimes i feel pressure from other moms at the school. i'm sure it's all in my mind, because if i ever vocalize the guilt i feel for not even having a desire to be involved in the PTA, i get incredulous looks and "but you have three other kids to worry about!" kind of comments from my friends who are on committees and volunteer weekly in the classroom and go on field trips with their kids. so, my time will come. i have great memories of my mom coming on field trips with my classmates and me.
• keep up with laundry and ironing. i don't know why this is an aspiration of mine. i hope that by the time i have a 16-year-old, they will be doing most of their own laundry. but right now, i don't really have a system, and i feel like i can't ever take a day and actually catch up because somebody needs to be fed or watered or cleaned or i need a nap more than life itself.
• go on lunch dates with friends. just a meal out in the middle of the day, and having until 3 to do it. awesome.
• take a nap at 10 am.
• go to movies, shop, run errands. probably the novelty of being able to do the things i already do right now but without any children will wear off eventually (although i don't go to movies in the middle of the day with children right now). that's probably what i dream about the most.

now, lest ye think that this is all i think about all the time and make myself miserable because it's such a drag to do anything with children, i don't.

i love my life right now and i enjoy my kids. grocery shopping with a two-year-old is sometimes more fun than going by myself (at least my current 2-year-old), and even going places like the post office or the mall for something specific is fine with kids in tow.

and i'm sure i will miss the mayhem that surrounds me most of my days right now. for example, my two older boys were just chasing each other with nerf guns (the younger one had a fake pistol and the older had a machine gun--go figure), and the younger was down here, hiding behind the counter for cover, waiting for the older to come get him with his giant gun. while he waited, i heard a small crunching sound and looked over to find him snacking on an errant frosted mini-wheat. you can't make this stuff up.

i know they will grow into themselves and be creative in other, maybe less messy ways than they are right now, but there is a purity and sweetness to the yogurt-covered countertop and grapenut sprinkled floor after breakfast, the absolute disorder of a lego-covered bedroom floor, and the half-finished art projects on the kitchen table, complete with tiny shapes cut out of the exact center of a piece of cardstock. someday they'll eat with spoons and know how to pour cereal without spilling, remember to put the milk back in the fridge and even close the door. that may not be until they're married, but i'm doing my best to train them now, future wives of my little men. someday they'll be responsible for their own laundry, have some semblance of order in their bedrooms (even if it's a mystery to everyone but the occupant(s) of said bedroom), and do dishes without being asked. at that point, i'll wonder where i fit in and have a whole other set of problems as a mother, i'm sure.

but some days, slogging through yet another load of stinky laundry because somebody wet the bed or pooped in his underwear, having walked to the school three times with my very pregnant body and stuffing a squirming screaming toddler into the stroller three times, operating on 6 hours of not-awesome sleep, and looking around the house and seeing an utter disaster at every turn because i haven't had the energy or time or will to do anything to maintain the order that probably once reigned (for seventeen seconds), and trying to figure out what i can make for dinner in 25 minutes that dwindles to 15 while i make a space in the kitchen to cook and then change a diaper and argue about why someone isn't finished with his homework, 6 hours to myself sounds amazing!

fridays are fun

ok folks. i sure do love the fact that friday is the day right before saturday.

but let me tell you my current schedule with kids and school.
(today is extra special because my husband is out of town.)
so here's the deal:

it is approximately .6 mi from our house to the school.
i am approximately 27 weeks pregnant and 30 lbs heavier than my not-pregnant, svelte self.

i have a preschooler whose class starts at 8 am. 

i have a first- and a fourth-grader whose classes start at 9:44 am on fridays.
my first- and fourth-grader don't appreciate getting up and ready before it is absolutely necessary.
then my preschooler is done at 11:20 am.
my older boys are done at 2:50 pm.

normally, my husband takes our preschooler to school at 8 and then i go around 9 with the other two (and the 2 year old) to drop them off, so they have time to grab a snack at the weekly bakesale and play a little before school starts. my original plan was to get everybody ready and just go once at 8. but i'm so nice i just couldn't do it. plus my oldest really needed a shower. so i came home at 8:15, and then left again a little after 9. but i had to rest after so much walking! so it was about 10 when i got home. then i got to go back to school at 11:15 to pick up my preschooler! yay! 3.6 mi walked in 3 hours by a pregnant lady and an unwilling toddler (it took her a couple blocks to reconcile herself to the stroller each trip).

and in exchange for babysitting my friend's one-year-old, i don't have to go back a fourth time to gather more children to my house.

meanwhile, i got a grand total of one load of laundry washed, and a basket overflowing with folded bedsheets and towels (most of which have been sitting in that laundry basket since last thursday) put away. and i crashed on the couch for almost an hour after lunch because i really didn't have much choice.

so it's the kind of day where you just congratulate yourself that you got people where they needed to be and got them back home again. that was my job today. anything else was a bonus.

i love fridays.

a few strides in my journey

i think this all started with the group of women trying to gain entrance to the priesthood session of general conference last month. i was frustrated that there were so many women who felt slighted or "second-class" within the church because they were female--and i realized i had never felt that. i remember being curious as a young woman about why men were ordained and women were not, but i just filed it away under "things i will understand later," along with other thorny issues people like to bring up about mormons that i honestly think are not important enough to lose one's testimony over. the fact is, there are things that matter in our day-to-day existence, (faith, repentance, becoming like Christ) and they are enough for a lifetime of work. the Lord who loves us doesn't keep things from us to taunt us or make us feel inferior. He just knows more about our finite minds (and what we can handle, and what we really need to know to keep going) than we do right now. but that is another discussion for another time.

back to women and men. i observed a wonderful example of an equal partnership in my parents, and i have read enough and heard enough from the prophets to know that women are valued equally with men. i'm not saying my parents never disagreed or that there was never any tension in our house while i was growing up, but i think they exemplified what it means to hold your covenants as a higher priority than who was right or who should take the blame for a parenting mistake. i knew my parents counseled together and made decisions together, and that they love each other and enjoy being together still, and that is enough for me. thus, the fact that women are not ordained to the priesthood hasn't been something that has plagued me. my mom was just as important as my dad, at home and at church. but i was disturbed by what i had read, mostly by the number of comments identifying with these women who wanted the priesthood.

i had all of this on my mind when i went to the temple the last time, and by the end of my visit, i had a very sweet and powerful witness that women are not just valued equally, but we have power and we are vital to the plan set forth by our Father in Heaven. i wish i could communicate that feeling of peace and validity as completely as i felt it to anyone who has a question about where she stands as a woman in the gospel. 

so i was on this women kick, feeling good about my spiritual stance, but having kind of bad body thoughts about my pregnant love handles and thighs, and then i got an email with a link to this website and i started reading and reading. it's a website dedicated to the proposition that women have more to offer the world than their looks. which is obvious when you think about it, but how often do we really analyze how often we think about what we're offering the world? how much value do we put on how we look versus what we are able to do? the authors are twins who recently got their PhDs and are on a crusade to educate women on actually believing that they are more than their bodies and being looked at. i have really enjoyed every article that i have read on this website, and i feel more and more settled in myself as i continue to read them. not to the point of just up and not caring about my appearance at all, but trying not to react to what i see in the mirror the same way. trying to think about what i do more than how i look all the time.

so here are some of the questions i'm asking myself after reading about several topics like photoshopping, bmi, mothers and daughters and body image, and fitness that really does have more to do with what your body can do rather than how many inches or pounds or dress sizes you lose. 

1. if i don't consider myself, in my little life, to be oppressed or neglected or marginalized or sexually harassed, why does this line of posts have such pull? why am i drawn to it and why do i feel so vindicated when i read these things, if these are concerns i don't remember having to voice or really grapple with?

2. how much do i really care about my appearance? what are my real reasons for anything in my regular beauty routine?

3. how do i truly rid myself of the desire to look like the absolutely unattainable-because-it's-practically-a-cartoon-drawing magazine cover? how long will it take before i look at those pictures and my true first reaction is, oh my goodness, look what they did to her! how ridiculous! instead of, wow, my arms are so fat? 

[i think ever since i saw this video my mind doesn't go immediately to i wish i could look like that, but i'm not disgusted enough yet with the magazine covers i see]

4. why is feeling beautiful so important? why am i so much more confident when i have a new haircut that i love or a new pair of jeans or a new bra that really fits? what is it about looking good that gives permission for that version of myself to come out, and what is it about looking like a slob that keeps that version in a basement, tied up and gagged, and insists that the whimpering, insecure version comes out to snivel?

i feel a sense of urgency about becoming secure in my body image and where i stand as a woman both in the world and in the gospel, because i'm going to have my second daughter soon. i want to have a healthy respect and love for my body so that my daughters will too. i know that because i am their mother, my girls will consciously and subconsciously use me as their template for who they want to be as adult women. i want my children, including my sons, to know that their mother was healthy and well rounded and was not a slave to the scale or the latest fad diet or fashion, because she had a deeper understanding of who she was--and to look for that and foster that in the women they meet in their lives. i want to be an example to my girls that my body is a gift, and i love everything about it--including the stretch marks and cellulite and wrinkles--and what amazing things i can do with it.

i'm not there yet, but i feel like i'm getting a good start. knowing is half the battle, right?