Catalyst

I’ve been looking for momentum for a while.  I just can’t stand that we’ve been here for five and a half years — all our other homes combined add to just under that.  We’ve collected so much stuff in that time and while I’d love to blame it all on the children that wouldn’t be fair.  The truth is we just have a lot of stuff and I’ve had enough.  I concluded that what I wanted to do was get rid of one whole bookshelf unit.  We could put a piano there, you know.  Miracle of all miracles, I had also convinced Paul of my little plan.  He said, “I know I’m slow to respond, and even slower to act, but I agree with you philosophically.”  That was a big step.  Now all we needed was a proverbial kick in the pants.

I told Janel on Friday afternoon, as she was forecasting a weekend of organization, that I, too, wanted to do similar things this weekend.  And I told Paul optimistically on Friday night that I was going to work out first thing Saturday morning.  In a very strange way I got both of my wishes.  We went to bed late after hosting the pajama party (yes, our babysitting coop is alive and well!) and the boys rewarded me by sleeping in until after 7am.  We awoke at 6 to hear the clouds fall from the sky with the weight of their loads, and softly fell back asleep to the soothing noises of a pounding rain.  I was comforted, knowing fully well that my patio was clear or any offending leaves that would clog the drains and flood my living room.  Life was good.

I knew that unmistakable swampy-feeling when I crossed the carpet first thing in the morning.  It also didn’t take me long into my triage to realize that the fault was not my own and that the water was coming through the wall from my neighbours.  And boy was it coming!  By 9 I awoke Paul, telling him that I knew full-well what I had said the night before about me wanting him to do nothing but rest all day, and asking him to go rent a shopvac.

Our landlords sent over a carpet cleaner who did a decent job considering the circumstances, but ten hours after he left we still took a couple of gallons of water out of the carpet.  We tried to balance our day between staying out since the boys had nowhere to go but on our bed, and staying home so we could keep the front door open and get a cross-breeze over the carpet.  It helped that it was a Saturday.  Paul’s class is over and we had no plans.  He went to In-N-Out.  He took the boys to the library for Italian storytime.  We went to Galco’s.  We delivered our crib to it’s new owners who had us over for dinner.

It couldn’t have happened at a better time.  And it was exactly what we needed to stop the inertia and get started on reorganizing.  When everything goes back, we will be short one bookshelf.  We hope to replace it with a piano.  Is it crazy to be happy about all of this?

Monday Night

I am so tired of being cold in this apartment. All winter-long I’m cold with the drafts. In fact, last year when we spent Christmas in Vegas, and it snowed an easy 20 degrees colder than LA I couldn’t believe how warm I was. When you’re inside and warm, it makes being out in the cold easier. When you’re cold inside, you’re cold outside too. Relative temperature be d–… well, you get the picture.

Now with all the downstairs windows and doors open all day to help the carpet dry I’m not even warm with my heavy sweater and shea butter house socks. I’m so sick of this place.

As for the living arrangements, I had everything under control and manageable (relatively speaking) until they had to move a bookshelf into the kitchen and another into the small walking space in the dining area. I thought I was going to lose it tonight at suppertime, disappointed with myself at how quickly I lost my adventuresome spirit. I can handle worse than this, sure!

But something with the rancid milk diaper bag, or the insolent child, or forgetting the library books, or being later-than-ever-before to school, or just being off my game set me off. Despite the gorgeous walk I took in the perfect weather with my stroller fixed, by the end of the day I lost all the gains I’d made with the walk.

But after supper, eaten on the stairs again, with the carpet so close to dry, the boys and I played. We played Elefun. We played trains. And we played ring-around-the-Mummy until they all fell down. In the perfectness of wide-open carpets I reminded myself that I can endure much worse than this, that this is nothing, and that this is almost over. And in the end, things will be even better than before.

Pardon the Interruption

Busy loading the ark.  Will be back as soon as possible.

Back on the Happy Pills

I will never understand why I always wait so long after a bottle of vitamins runs out before I get more.  Really — do they cost that much?  My Mum refers to vitamins as “energy pills” when I make her take them at my place.  She always swears she can feel the difference.  I used to think she was crazy-deficient if she could feel a change with a standard multi-vitamin.  But I get it now.  (Now that I’m crazy-deficient, too?)

So even though I know that taking a vitamin helps me get through the day, helps avoid those I-need-to-eat-something-to-stay-awake moments, and helps me be a slightly nicer person, I still let lapse the time it take before I buy a new bottle.

I used to joke that I would be taking prenatal vitamins for 10 years, calculating that for the first time I was gestating and lactating and just passing on the vitamins to the boys, and the following 5 years would be my chance to replenish what I had lost.  But this time, when buying my vitamins, it just felt silly to get a prenatal.  So I didn’t.

I also finally took the front tire from my stroller into the bike shop and after that was fixed I bought a real bike pump (the freebie that came with the stroller two and a half years ago has long served it’s usefulness.)  I have vitamins again and a way to go on my long walks.  Happy Heather is back, people!

(which will probably mean I’m blogging less.  A healthier choice for all of us, if you ask me.)

Rain

I love me a good rainy day.

Self-Talk

True.

Self:  “Hmmmm, I keep seeing such cute ideas for Valentine’s Day!  If I start now, getting them done in time for Little Red to pass out to his class wouldn’t be that big of a deal.”

Self:  “And who would benefit from this?  Do you really think Little Red cares?  Would he really want some cutsie craft more than Lego sticker puzzle valentines?” 

Self:  “You’re right.  It would be all for me and my ego.”

We settled one the box of valentines I found at the dollar store.  Little Red was absolutely giddy when addressing them.  “Oh, this is going to make him so happy!”  he kept exclaiming.  Lego sticker puzzle valentines?  Yep, I’m still a cool mum. 

Change Gonna Come

It’s in the air, can you feel it? This isn’t the New-Year-Spring-Fever change, this is big. This is a big year. Everything is going to be different by the end of it. It’s what we do with the change that’s important. It’s our attitude that matters. It is how we allow the change to change us that’ll make all the difference in the world.

I hope I’m ready, because ready or not, here it comes.

Growing Pains

When I was a little girl I got Tums for my leg pains.  Mum figured it was the best thing: part placebo, part calcium for my growing bones.  I am not a milk drinker so the calcium probably did me a lot of good in those chalky tablets.  (We had powdered milk when I was young.  I believe anyone who has had to chew their milk will not grow up to love milk.  Period.)  Paul said that when he was a child they got pain medicine for their growing pains.  Like most other things, we’re doing this Paul’s way.

Last night Little Red awoke right as I was about to go to sleep.  Paul got him some ibuprofen and brought him into our room for a prayer.  Then, while we waited for the medication to kick in we laid this giant, ever-growing boy between us.  I recalled memories of cosleeping with a tiny, redheaded baby.  How did he get so big?

I told him about when he was a baby.  About napping together.  About him kicking my scar no matter where I placed him.

I told him about getting up in the middle of the night to feed him.  About how it felt like Christmas, every time.  About looking into those darker-than night eyes in the middle of the night and feeling giddy.  About still feeling so blessed to be his mother.

I told him about how he’d stick his feet straight up into the air, even if he was sound asleep, everytime we put him in bed.  About “tenting” him with his blanket because his feet stuck straight up until we left the room.  About going back into our own room and playing “pop quiz: who am I?” and doing the same thing.

I told him that five years later we still pray every night to be good parents for him.  That every night we tell each other how amazing/cool/fun/smart/curious/adventurous/funny/clever/cute he (and his brother) is.  That we just can’t believe these amazing people are part of our family.  That every night we lie in bed and talk about how much we love our boys.

We talked long into a comfortable forever.  It was probably only ten or fifteen minutes but it was a soft eternity in which we had all turned off the clock to enjoy the moment.  He felt better, and though none of us begrudged being awake, it was time to go to sleep.  He was a bit hyper after this all-about-him trip down memory lane, so I made it a game.

On your mark . . .

Get set . . .

Sleep.

(I did.  And Paul took him back to bed shortly after.)

hmmm

After blogging daily for over a month I thought I’d have run out of things to say. I haven’t, but I’m getting there. Between you and me, I think Paul is grateful for his reprieve of my verbal diarrhea. I’m starting that exercise video again today, now that I’m all better. Wish me luck!

Circle of Respect

When I first moved out here I was assigned a very special visiting teacher.  She was one of those people who truly understood the Gospel and her place in it.  It was an integral part of her life and she moved seamlessly through all of her duties as mother, wife, teacher, student, disciple … It was a beautiful thing to watch and an inspiring thing to surround me.  For several years she visited me faithfully, and was truly my first friend in California.  Because of her influence, and the information she provided for me as she got to know my needs, I can say that nearly every good thing about my life right now can be traced back one way or another to her.  I will always, always be grateful for her.

I want to be more like her.

She would always say she wanted to be more like another mutual friend (one whom, for the record, I considered to be so stratospheric that I had no hope to be like her and was content just to be her friend.)  Today that mutual friend commented to me that she, too, considered my first visiting teacher to be one of her heroes.

(For more about the visiting teaching program, go here.)