March 5, 2016

Here I am being brave and posting the drafts I let stay unposted. Some of them never got finished, but that happens sometimes. Here's to life.


Ohhh, Eliza. Little 'Liza Jane...

-I've been going through a rough stretch. Time, circumstance, personality, and infirmity have combined in a perfect storm that I've been weathering for a while, and a lot of times it leaves my cup pretty empty. I've really been making efforts to choose good things, in spite of what I've been feeling and experiencing. Like, yes--what I'm carrying is heavy--but that doesn't mean I can't read a story with my girls, or go to the library, or make dinner, or do the laundry, or kick a ball with the girls in the back yard, or make lunch for Blake. I can feel all those things and validate my challenges, but still do good in the world at the same time. (More than you probably ever wanted to know, but it has been helpful for me to validate my own feelings instead of suppressing. Let it be known that I am an emotion-validator! Down with suppression. It is the stupidest thing ever. End of tangent.)

ANYWAY, so I've been going through a rough patch. But I have been absolutely blown away by Eliza's sweetness as of late. Don't misunderstand me--she's a normal three-year-old and is prone to all of the varied shades of normal three-ness. But many times in the last week, I've been surprised and touched by her love, her thoughtfulness, and how much she fills my cup. Here are some things I want to remember:

-This past Thursday had been particularly tough. But I really gave it my best that day. I felt like my efforts had been magnified and that I'd been blessed to be able to be a nice mom and an engaged mom even though I was tired, weighed down, and just wanted to put Mary Poppins on repeat and climb in bed. But even though I felt like the day had been a success, the effort left me feeling completely spent.

When we sat down for dinner, Blake was about to assign someone to say the prayer when Eliza just dove right into the prayer. "Heavenly Father. We thank thee for this food. Please bless it. Thank thee for Mommy for playing with us. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." I said amen as I was bursting into tears.


I remember that day, and there have been many more like it since then. Eliza is only four, but she seems to be remarkably keyed in to my needs to feel loved, appreciated, and reassured as her mother. Is that a good thing? Google it with the accompanying words "parenting in 2017" and you'll find out that I'm ruining my child forever and they'll be in therapy because of this until they're 217. You know, because that's how parenting goes in 2017. I saw this on facebook recently and it's hilariously (and heart-wrenchingly) spot-on. To all the moms who parented in other generations, I say, congratulations. To all of the 2017 moms, I say, delete your facebook account, take your children's hands, run for the hills, and trust your instincts as you parent them in the woods. It'll be WAY easier than tiptoeing around all of the mines, loopholes, dogmas, rants, soapboxes, and sermons of 2017 parenting.

Confession

Confession time.

#1. Sometimes I'm ridiculously scared to share my thoughts. In life, and apparently on this blog. I looked at my blogger dashboard for the first time in months today, and was perusing the posts I've drafted but not posted. I enjoyed a lot of what I read, and wondered what had held me back from posting initially. Sure, some of it was a little more on the vulnerable side than not, but as I read it months removed, nothing was too mortifying to have posted.

#2. I hate conflict. HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE conflict. I'm having to deal with some right now in this moment and I wish I could crawl into a hole and throw up. My general go-to when I'm feeling this wretched is off the grid in Flaming Gorge with her fiance's family this week (yay! Beth's getting married!!), so I hopped on here and I'm typing until I no longer feel like throwing up, and hopefully no longer feel like the dust of the earth for doing something that brought conflict to my own front door. In other news, I very seriously loathe mortality.

Okay... what can we talk about because I'm still wanting to throw up...

Blake and I rarely watch TV. As in never. (In a recent post--assuming it's one that I actually posted and that it wasn't just a draft I was reading--I told you Blake put an antenna on the house for us to get the Olympics. Long story short, that didn't work out, but he still gets all sorts of awesome husband accolades for being willing to do it!) We were recommended White Collar a few years back and decided to finally try out the pilot episode last night. I really liked it! The wittiness of Psych with a little less of the Shawn Spencer cheekiness and a whole ton of classy charisma. And I think only one swear word (and no raunch) in the first episode so that's a total win. I'm looking forward to the next episode... It will be tough to wait until Blake has a school-free night, but I like having something to look forward to together, so I'll do my best. :)

In other news, our family just made our first bonafide road trip. (We had done Austin and Houston, but that doesn't really count. 3 and 4 hours is nothing compared to 13.) The Packard Family had a giant reunion in Colorado over the Fourth of July, so we drove up for that. Then we had a reunion with Blake's immediate family which was total bliss. One of my friends in high school said that your husband was the only family member you got to pick. In picking Blake, I also inadvertently picked his eight other family members. And guys... I won. The freaking. Jackpot. And then two of those picked two more rockstars to bring into the family--and good heavens, I'm just beside myself with ecstasy. Seriously. Marry cool people, and bribe your siblings to marry cool people. It's the best thing ever. Between the Briggs and the Hulls, I feel pretty awesome about who my neighbors are going to be in our celestial kingdom cul-de-sac.  *Family... isn't it about... liking each other?*

Speaking of liking family... I mentioned earlier that Beth is getting married. *insert all sorts of outrageous, zero-inhibition happy dances* To Mr. Brendan Henrie--the most awesome guy, and dare I say it... kindred spirit? I told Beth we are unbelievably fortunate to have found not only one man, but TWO that will put up with our combined outrageousness and not put the kibosh on our sisterly antics. Seriously, it's a huge miracle and blessing. There are a lot of really, really good men out there that would have been great husbands but would have totally said, "Um, girls? Please act like you're mature adults. You're in your twenties... it's probably time." Not these guys. They take it like champs, and sometimes, they even think we're funny. The fact that Brendan still wants to meet me after knowing all sorts of ridiculous things about me says a lot about his outstanding character, if you ask me.

[Update: Feeling substantially less ill and less like dirt. This conversation is really helpful. Thank you, blog readers.]

Well, I think I'm going to post this now. I'm not even going to read back through this and scrutinize it and edit my own work because of my writerly nature. Because if I do, I might chicken out and not press "Publish" at all. And we wouldn't want that.

Thanks for listening, guys. I'll be back. Maybe soon, maybe in another 9 months...