We took a road trip to Oregon in the fall of last year. It was one of those trips I wanted to take for years, and one I often think about since.
Sometimes we even dream of buying a little cottage along a river nestled in those pines and wild blackberry bushes, minutes from the coast, even for just a year or two. It’s a happy thought I dream of from time to time.
Someday we’ll be back, if for nothing else than to feel the thrill of our heart’s content.
This was a last minute trip (as most of our trips are). We had hardly a plan except to explore and enjoy, which landed us on top of a volcano, through the cityscape, and to the sands of the pacific just on day two. We struggled to find a place to stay each night (it was Labor Day weekend) but ended up with just what we needed.
In four days we totaled 31 hours of driving in the car, but we mixed it up with park stops, beach play, and lots and lots of snacks. And the drive was half the fun with all the beauty we got to see together!
It was an incredible trip, one of my very, very favorites.
Ava was surprised the other day when she heard that we can bake things with pumpkin. (Clearly I’m still coming out of hibernation after having the twins, just starting to make a full week of dinners over here.)
BUT I am excited about baking again, it satisfies Ava’s love of making things and I love the opportunity it gives us to give some away, to have an easy excuse to go visit people.
We made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies for the first time the other day. I promised the kids that we’d get outside and ride bikes, and as the last of the cookies finished and the sun began to wane, we quickly dropped some off to the lady a few doors down that let us borrow her ground cloves.
As the kids geared up to head out the door again, I thought about how this may be the best time to offer them to someone else, so I stood by the door wondering WHO to bring them to.
I quickly thought of the elderly man a few floors above us, he lost his wife to cancer just the week before.
I had never met him, but I cared about him. I put a few on a plate and wrapped them up, wrote a note at Ava’s request and ran out to meet the other kids already playing in the hallway.
I imagined he might have family there, might be out somewhere, or might not care for visitors. Maybe he was doing just fine, we could just drop them off real quick.
He didn’t have family there, or visitors. A pile of funeral programs and two vases of flowers still sat on his table. He greeted us gratefully, responded that he was “hanging in there,” and didn’t seem to mind the kids hanging on my legs as we talked. He told me about his family, showed me a poem his autistic granddaughter wrote for him, and spoke of his last days with his wife with tears in his eyes. We talked for thirty minutes in his doorway, he mostly talked and I mostly listened, feeling my own tears and wishing I knew a way to better comfort him. Another lady down the hall toted my kids back and forth in her wagon until she got tired and Thea had to go potty.
I mentioned we’d better go home to the bathroom and he offered we use his. So we went inside and talked some more.
When we turned to leave, he looked down at the cookies and the funeral pamphlets next to them, his mouth pressed to keep back the tears.
I felt for him.
I wondered then, hesitant to leave him, perhaps people aren’t as “taken care of” as we think.
Are we ever “taken care of?”
I’m learning just how much we are all in need.
It’s inspiring to me the way God weaves our paths with others, the ones we need and who need us. When we are open to it, we see how we can reach out in simple ways. Ways for Him, and ways that take care of us both.
There’s a powerful feeling that comes when we take care of each other, when we try where we can, even when we’re not sure it’s needed or not sure we know how.
I imagine we both feel it. It’s God’s love we’re really sharing. We learn how to love more like Him and we get to feel His love because of that. Because we try. And that makes all the difference. #mamanotes
“Mom remember this morning how Thea had poop on her finger and we couldn’t figure out where it came from? Well we found it! It’s in your closet!”
Jake and I slumped on the couch together at 9pm, wondering, with partial desperation (but mostly just exhaustion) why the day was so hard. Except we knew largely why. It was Mother’s Day and the twins’ birthday and a whole clumpful of mixed expectations and efforts along with all the usual mess and mishaps (and lots of noise).
Add in my efforts to try to get a nice picture of all four of them together (because they were already dressed and looking nice for church) and everyone’s frustrations festered. I still didn’t end up getting it, at least not in their nice clothes.
It was funny (and not funny) throughout the day just thinking about everything that was happening. The twins fighting over their new toys, Ava yelling that she hated me, and Hyrum locking himself out of the apartment to pout. Esther was crying most of the day because she didn’t have the other stroller or she couldn’t fit her baby in just right, and the other kids whined and teased each other enough that I just laughed when we all sat down to eat brownies and ice cream because it was the quietest the house had been ALL DAY. We cringed at the thought of what our neighbors were thinking. We were all in need of a reset.
That reset came today. Jake and I got up before the kids to get ready for the day, and when Hyrum came into my room after waking I just held him. “I love you Mom,” he said, hugging me back.
I hugged them all as they woke up, looked into their little wanting eyes, and really looked, really listened. I moved along with their ideas and shooed away any thoughts of expectation. We fetched balloons from the grass, watched the wind move the leaves, and built train tracks. We still had tears and complaining and fits about strollers, but we were calmer, we had space to be calmer. And I really tried to hold that space too.
When Jake pulled up at the end of the day, we were already playing on the field. He joined in our frisbee throwing while the twins giggled holding hands and Hyrum rode his bike.
This is parenthood, I thought. It’s a mix of a lot of things, and certainly a lot that is hard. But a lot of it is fun and more of it is filling and all of it is growth. All of it is love. All of it is worth it. And I really love it all.
Elder Gong was at church again today. He’s in our ward along with Elder Rasband, but they are usually away on other assignments on Sunday.
They are apostles of Jesus Christ, some of only fifteen on the Earth today. It’s the neatest thing when they come. The Spirit of God fills the room when they speak. I feel it.
Last summer, a few months after we moved downtown, we were walking into church on Sunday and Elder Gong held the door open for us. I thought how neat that was, almost starstruck that here was an apostle of Jesus Christ, one of his special witnesses, helping ME.
Little did I know how much he and his sweet wife would be helping me just later that day.
The twins were too young to go to nursery at the time, so Jake and I would take turns strollering the babies around during second hour to get them to go to sleep.
That day they were especially cranky, in fact I couldn’t get them to settle down. They just kept crying.
I opened the church doors and started to make my way home, figuring that a nap was the only thing that would really settle them.
I stopped to soothe the babies at the end of the sidewalk because they were still crying. I sat back on my heels, searching my backpack for something to soothe them, when Elder and Sister Gong came up behind me asking if I would like some help.
“Oh I think they’re not feeling well or something, I figured I’d just take them home to nap.”
“Do you think they’ll be happier if we carry them?” Sister Gong offered.
“We could try it,” I said, not really sure what to do.
Sister Gong then picked Thea up from the stroller and her crying stopped. I did the same with Esther, and we started walking, Elder Gong pushing the stroller along with us.
I was sure to tell them that it was no short walk to our place, that we could try putting them back in the stroller and they could go on their way to wherever they needed to be. But they assured me that they were just fine and were happy to go with me all the way home.
Three quarters of a mile they walked and talked with me. Sister Gong carried Thea the entire way.
I thanked them greatly when we arrived to our door and felt somewhat bad for putting them out and keeping them from other things.
But the truth was, I think they were happy to. They carried what I couldn’t and lifted me up, just as the Savior would, if He was here. They are His friends, that was clear.
I’ve thought of that often, and what a special experience it was for me. I know they’re called of God to serve and witness of Him here, I’ve felt it and I know it.
Esther and Thea turned one the other month and we showered them with love and frosted cake and celebrated the joy of having them with us the past year, and all throughout the day and the weeks before I just soaked in the emotion of it all and wondered if I could put it into words. After their birth it took me months to write down their birth story because I didn’t have the words to. It was such a special experience and I forfeited writing for a while because words just didn’t seem enough (and I was neck deep in newborn care.) I still have a hard time finding the right words for them. They are such a blessing! These babies have changed us, they have changed me from the inside out. Since their earliest growth inside me I feel I was pushed into a growth of my own, perhaps dumped out and replanted altogether. But I am gathering more sunlight than ever and couldn’t be happier.
It seems dreamy to me really, that we get to raise them and love them and watch them grow and laugh and play together. I don’t know why this was our gift, but sometimes I feel as though my heart could burst I am so grateful. Today they climbed up into their stroller and peaked up over the edge at me with the cutest top teeth and smiles that squinted their eyes. They seemed quite pleased with their accomplishment, climbing all the way up there the first time, and beamed all that joy back to me. I soaked it up.
They’re walking around now, beaming joy everywhere. And we are all soaking it up. Ava and Hyrum get excited about every new sound they make or thing they do, and when we’re all together playing steamroller on the rug or racing rolling down a hill, or even just watching a movie and eating crackers on the carpet together, I think about how wonderful it is to have them, all of them. I’ve noticed when I take pictures at home now there is so much going on, so many little faces and bodies going different directions, doing different things, playing with each other. I love it. My life is so different now than it was six years ago when I became a mother, it’s all the more hard and busy and wonderful and so many other things. And I am so grateful.