Thankful

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Sunday, November 6

Earlier in the day I was feeling kind of crummy, and focusing on it too. Made me feel even more crummy. But then the afternoon came with its golden hues and unusual warmth for November, and I sat in a camping chair wrapped in a fluffy blanket basking in the best sounds I know.

It changed everything.

The kids were squealing and giggling as Jake rolled around in the burrito blanket playing steamroller. Jake and I were laughing too, the kids were so funny as they tried to jump and dodge him. They loved it. Then I’d hear Ava yell, “A car’s coming!” with Hyrum’s echo of “Car’s coming!” just as dramatic as hers. And with that they were quickly inside Daddy’s blanket where they all huddled until it passed.

In those moments I was entirely focused on some of my greatest joys, and nothing else could fit. No negativity, sickness, or whatever was so consuming before. I was so happy.

I brought out a pan of orange jello Ava and I made earlier, the kind that is packed with delicious mandarin oranges. The four of us sat together on the trampoline with our forks and blankets, and cleared that whole pan in five minutes flat. Doesn’t get better than that. #mamanotes

Monday, November 7

I had a painful headache for most of the day today. I was lying in bed at the end of the day with the 15th (or what seemed like it) movie on for the kids in the next room, and called Jake to ask when he would be coming home. I told him how I was feeling and he said he’d come right home. I felt like saying thank you and I love you ten times over to him for saving the day. When he walked in the door I could hear the kids SO happily yell, “Daddy!!” Then it was quiet until a quick, “Rawr!” and little giggles when the kids found his hiding place. I smiled from under my covers, imagining all those happy faces. And I just love hearing his voice when he comes home.

It was funny as they made their way upstairs, Jake asked them if they wanted to watch a movie and they both said no without any hesitation. 🙈Haha! That is so rare, Jake and I both laughed. Obviously they had movie overload today… He made a quick run to the gas station for a drink for me, then we whipped up some macaroni and cheese and frozen veggies and went around the table a few times saying things we were thankful for. We have SO MUCH to be thankful for. I was amazed at Ava’s responses. She talked so much about how she loves Heavenly Father’s creations and this beautiful Earth and probably mentioned being grateful for her family at least three times. Hyrum just chomped on his popcicle, but when we asked him if he was grateful for all these things too, he said, “yes,” with that cute lisp of his.

We really have so much to be grateful for.
#mamanotes

Good Morning

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I was on the couch reading, too cold to leave a cozy place for breakfast. This time before the kids are in school is nice because our mornings are slow and relaxed. Hyrum was on the stairs waiting for Jake to leave for work when Ava came down for the first time. “Good morning,” he said. Never heard him say that before, but it made my day. Jake left for work with the kids clinging to him, as usual. We went to the park and Hyrum wanted to sit in the big swing. I sat him on my lap and he snorted his happiness the whole time. He figured out how to do that this morning, then did it all day.

I’ve been swimming in laundry, getting close to getting all the clean laundry out of the laundry room though! Maybe tomorrow. 👍

Oh yes and Ava called me a “mean mom” tonight. I can’t even remember why she was so upset, I just remember her yelling and her angry face. It was a rough moment. But then we had some quiet time, a few back tickles and some pillow talk and things healed. That’s probably what she really needed anyway, to slow down and connect, to be understood. Or maybe that was me. We both probably needed it. #gratefulforher #mamanotes

Also, check out these North Dakota skies! I love the skies during a late summer storm. We could see the clouds at a distance when we strollered over to the greenhouse around the corner to pick up some strawberry plants. Those dark clouds trailed fast behind us on the way home! We quickly got the mail, admired the sky, then hurried inside as the first droplets fell. It’s so fun to experience different seasons in new places.

“I like having a mom”

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A little (ok long) snippet into our day… I took this from my journal. There have been so many days that I’ve wanted to write and let my feelings out or record special moments, but by the end of the day I’m just too tired to think so I let it go. So here is a snippet into our days lately…

It was dark this morning when the kids walked into our room and opened the curtains. That’s how Ava likes to get us up–she makes it nice and bright, and most of the time it works. But this morning it was cloudy and windy, the kind of wind that you can hear whipping against the walls. Jake got up and the kids followed him everywhere he went as he got ready for work, as usual. I curled up with all the covers, savoring my few extra minutes of sleep. Then the train blew its whistle, and Hyrum was next to me in no time, working his way onto the rocking chair footstool to watch from the window. I pulled the blinds all the way up and watched with him as the train chugged on its way– just past our swaying trees and their yellow leaves.

It felt so good to be there. I thought how happy I am to be able to do this–to sit with my baby at my bedroom window watching the trees and the train and the cold weather blow outside–with nowhere else to be. I felt so lucky, so happy. It’s not without its difficulties, for surely parenthood is full of them, but this is my favorite thing to be home with them.

Jake gave us all hugs and kisses, then locked the door before shutting it behind him. I put on my robe and wrapped in a blanket on the couch. Hyrum stood next to me and buried his head under the blanket, laughing as he tried to walk away with it over his head. Then Ava came over and the two of them tugged on opposite ends, laughing when they fell down. Soon Ava was in the family room closet again, climbing on top of the boxes and pulling things down, as usual. She was making a fort this time, and soon she and Hyrum were snuggled with pillows and blankets under the piano bench with umbrellas for covers. We had cereal and cantelope for breakfast, then headed to the neighboring town for another blood draw for me (I’ll explain why in a later post). The kids ran around the waiting area while I talked on the phone with insurance. I was on hold off and on with the lady, and at one point she came back on the phone while I was changing Hyrum’s poopy diaper in the bathroom wiping his bum with the toilet paper while he sat on the toilet because I had forgotten my wipes in the car. I read them books while they ate their lollipops in the lab. It was a good distraction for me, anyway. I don’t like blood draws.

Then it was rush rush rush back to our little town before Ava’s school bus came to pick her up. Hyrum was asleep when we got home, so when we pulled up, I ran to open the front door to make it easier for me to carry him inside without him waking. When I got back to the car, Ava had woken him up by unbuckling his seatbelt, and most likely talking to him. 🙁

Fortunately Hyrum went back to sleep when we got inside, and Ava curled under the piano bench while I quickly filled her water bottle, prepared her snack, and pulled the green beans and spaghetti noodles from the fridge for her to eat real quick. It was too cold for the short leggings and flip flops she was wearing, so I ran upstairs to grab her some new clothes and shoes. She said she was too tired to get up. I told her if she missed the bus she wasn’t going to be able to go to preschool, so she got up and got dressed, grabbed a handful of spaghetti noodles and we headed out the door by the time the bus beeped it was there. I kissed her forehead and she hugged me and hopped on the bus yelling back, “Love you Mom!”

Hyrum slept for another hour while I made banana bread with the much too ripe bananas, washed a few dishes, picked up the family room, and straightened up the kitchen. He got up when the train came by. I heard him crying at the top of the stairs, saying “Tren! Tren!” so I scooped him up, pulled up my bedroom blinds again, and watched with him again as the train went by. I vacuumed the family room, fed Hyrum quesadillas and green beans from yesterday’s meals and prepared a plate of food for Ava for when she would get home. Then the doorbell rang, and soon my house was full of all kinds of good things, like the smell of banana bread and the LDS missionaries and my sweet neighbor. The kids stayed upstairs watching 101 Dalmations in the playroom, at least most of the time. I love having the missionaries over, and I love sharing the Gospel that blesses us so much.

After they all left around 4:45, I sat on the couch thinking about what to make for dinner, settling on some kind of easy eggs and bacon dish, but not wanting to get started on anything. My sweet friend had brought me sourdough starter and a bag of four brownies, so I sat on the couch on my phone, eating those instead.

I eventually did make dinner. Ava helped me pull the huge fat chunks off the bacon “bits and pieces” (it’s cheaper that way) and tear the spinach into the eggs that she didn’t end up eating any of. She was excited to help though. She pulled one of my decorative plates off the top shelf of the cabinet and begged to eat off it for dinner. So I let her, and it seemed so special for her (even if she hardly ate the eggs off of it.)

I had two loads of dishes to wash by hand, so instead of getting the kids ready for bed on time, I washed dishes while they played in and out of the kitchen. Ava wrapped Bambi’s legs with bandages of toilet paper and made the bathroom into a special room of hers, filling it with decorations and all kinds of things. Hyrum played with a lego train on the kitchen floor and followed Ava around from time to time as she’d come in to tell me all about her Bambi’s injuries.

101 Dalmations was still running on repeat in the vcr player upstairs, so the kids sat in front of it and insisted on watching the rest of it before bed. I didn’t feel like making an issue of it, so we negotiated and I told them that this would take the place of reading books for the night since it was getting late. Ava agreed and I had some early quiet time. I sat on the couch downstairs and read through some of my journal entries over the past year, grateful for the times I did write. So here I am writing tonight while Jake is at the church so that I can remember at least a little glimpse into what our days were like at this time.

When the movie was over, we said prayers and I tucked the kids in bed. Ava prayed for her far-away friends in Texas, for Daddy to get home safely, for her grandparents and her cousins. She thanked Heavenly Father for the Earth and for her home. She prayed for Hyrum and for me, as she always does. Ava really wanted to go to sleep in her own bed next to Hyrum’s tonight, so I let her. They kept each other up (as usual), so after 20 minutes, Ava went into our bed to sleep, and Hyrum back in his crib. He got out a few more times, then finally went to sleep. Fortunately bedtime wasn’t so much of a battle tonight. It has been a lot lately.

When I tucked Ava in bed for the night she snuggled into the covers and said, “I like having a mom.”

That was just how I felt, from the beginning of the day to the end. I like being a mom too. Grateful that I can be near so often.

#mamanotes

Tuesday

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Sunday. Hyrum fell asleep on the way home, so I carried him up to his crib, got Ava a snack, then rested on the family room couch. I was soon asleep, and woke only briefly when Jake came home. He went downstairs to watch scripture videos with Ava, and I went back to sleep. I woke to the sound of Hyrum stepping down the stairs, one at a time, his elephant hanging from his hand, calling, “ma!” in his little raspy wake up voice. We went downstairs to find Jake and Ava asleep, so we put on our shoes and wandered out back for a little walk by the pasture near our house. Hyrum stopped and squated to observe every moving thing, every grasshopper, cricket, and ant. And he loved to watch the horses. “Mom, orse, neigh!” he’d say.

We had breakfast for dinner, I burned the bacon so we opened the doors and windows before the smoke alarm went off. All the flies came in. After dinner at Ava’s request, we went outside to the trampoline to watch the sunset. So many giggles playing out there. In true Schellenberg fashion, Jake was jumping and rolling in his Sunday best. The kids loved having him home. We stayed until the sun went down and the colors got brighter, then huddled downstairs to watch home movies. Hyrum wandered around the room most of the time, but Ava seemed so captivated, smiling as she watched her 1 year old self babbling away.

It’s Tuesday now, but I wanted to write that down to remember it. Surely the day was not without meltdowns and messes, but it was our together time, the four of us, and it was so good as simple as that. #mamanotes

Monday. I sat against the garage with my recipe book and sticky pad, waiting for Ava’s bus and trying to come up with a menu for the week. I like planning the meals, and a new recipe sounds like fun until the end of the day when I’m so tired that tuna sandwiches sounds like a great idea. So tuna sandwiches it was!

I packed steamed veggies in a tupperware, grabbed a can of pineapple, and wrapped some forks in napkins and we had ourselves a nice little picnic at the park! Jake replaced the tire on my bike when he got home, so we packed the picnic supplies in the back of Hyrum’s bike trailer, and biked around for a bit before stopping to eat at the park. Ava ate mostly pineapple and Hyrum ate everything. The sun went down quickly so we didn’t stay long. For family home evening we talked about the story of the Ten Lepers and how God gives us miracles and blessings too–then we went outside and looked at the stars with Jake’s new super laser pointer. It kind of scares me how strong it is, but the kids loved it.

Lately the kids have had a hard time getting to sleep because Hyrum keeps getting out of his crib. A lot of times he rolls out onto Ava’s bed, but then they chat and giggle or tease and neither of them gets to sleep. Well last night they fell asleep in the same bed! Hyrum was kind of on top of her all sprawled out, but it was the cutest thing. We put him in his crib, then retired for the night ourselves at 9:30! That’s been our goal for a LONG time and it felt pretty good to stick to it. #mamanotes

Surrender your perfectionism

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We went to the sunflowers the other day to take some pictures. We are surrounded by stretching, rolling, breathtaking fields of sunflowers in this area of North Dakota and I wanted to document that somehow. I have this anxious stir inside me to fully capture my favorite parts of life, and our time together here in ND is one of them.

But I also have this thing about me, this drive inside me to always do my best. Call it perfectionism if you will, this drive has helped me achieve top grades, make nice things, and receive the beaming validation I crave deep down. But it has never really satisfied me on the happy side. I often have to give up other things that matter a lot to get it (like my time, my energy, and my goodness it’s stressful.) I’m working on challenging it and letting go, but it’s so engrained in me. It’s taking time.

So the sunflowers. We drove into North Dakota for the first time last year at the peak of the sunflowers. I was in awe, and I couldn’t wait to take pictures of them. Well, moving in took most of our time and energy and by the time I felt settled enough to go anywhere other than the grocery store, the sunflowers were drooping, brown, and dry. I determined that next year I would catch them when they were just right, and get these cute pictures and video of the kids playing in them to remember our time here in this state.

Well it’s sunflower season again. When we got back from Utah, I started thinking about taking those pictures. There were lots of fields to choose from, I almost couldn’t decide which to go to. I wanted to go to the best one. We planned to go a few different days, but things got in the way or I wasn’t up for it. So we decided on a day last week and stuck to it. That was the problem though. I had too much time to think about it and plan it out. Because if I was going to do it, I was going to give it my best effort–simply because I could. That drive really takes over sometimes.

So when the day came, I bathed the kids and laid out their clothes, and even made sure Ava didn’t put her hair up in a ponytail so her hair wouldn’t get kinked. It seems so silly to me now, but at the time I just thought, if I could make the effort, why not?

Then Jake had to stay at work longer than expected, so when he got home we rushed the kids in the car to make it there before the sun went down. Unfortunately perfectionism breeds indecisiveness. I couldn’t even decide which field to go to while we were on our way! We turned around a few times, and tensions mounted as the sun inched its way closer to the horizon. Ava fell asleep after five minutes.Finally we arrived and parked on the side of the road. The grass was a lot taller than it looked from the road, and Ava would NOT walk through it (we’ve warned her so much about ticks in tall grass in the past, and she was not going to risk it.) It didn’t help that Jake mentioned to watch out for snakes as I made my way in. Hyrum fed off her worries, and screamed too. So there I was tromping through the prairie grass with two crying kids clinging to my neck. Somehow this was not what I pictured. I did everything I thought I could to make these pictures the best they could be, but somehow all my worrying and stressing didn’t make it happen.

I brought Ava back to the car, took a few pictures with Hyrum (and did everything we could to distract him and make him happy out there,) and counted it unsuccessful.

We still managed some pretty pictures, but the moments weren’t all that pretty. What I mean is, my high expectations spurred the negativity, the stress, the tension. And frankly, it didn’t turn out to be a moment I really wanted to capture anyway. I’m glad I got some pictures of the beautiful landscape, but that was all. That happens a lot when I let this “thing” get in the way.

Jake goes with the flow. He rarely stresses, worries, or overthinks. So often he reminds me to let it go, let it be, let it happen, and when I do, I feel so at peace, like I’m really overcoming something. Because frankly, this perfectionistic mindset has been driving for a long time. It feels so good to let go, to let things be and enjoy them as they come. Grateful to him for that.

After the shoot I told Jake that I want to try again maybe during the day sometime–that I’ll just take the kids out to a field that doesn’t have such tall grass and get some fun pictures with them happy in it and all. This morning looked like a good day for that, and I thought about it.

But we didn’t. I gave it up. This time I surrendered my perfectionism, and I’m really glad I did. The kids and I went on a little nature walk out on the path behind our backyard instead. We stopped to watch the ants scurry, the butterflies flutter, and the grasshoppers jump into the grass. We listened to the crickets and ran from a bee. We called out to the horses in the pasture, and waited for them to come to us so we could pet their soft noses and feel of their goodness. We passed a pretty green meadow, a rolled up hay bale, and a field of sunflowers. We stopped to admire them, then went on our way.

It was freeing, light, and peaceful. It felt so good to let it go and just enjoy.

While on our walk Ava said to me, “Mom this is a fun walk. I really like this.” And I really did too.

I have this little piece of notebook paper that I keep in my scriptures. I wrote down a number of notes in it while listening to a talk a few years ago. I probably wrote down some of what the speaker said, but mostly thoughts and impressions that came to me, thoughts I believe were divine instruction just for me. I keep it in my scriptures and refer to it often because those words are often just what I need to overcome some of my greatest challenges, some of the things most holding me back from greater things. One of the notes says this,

“Surrender your perfectionism. It’s slowing you down and keeping you from your potential. It’s keeping you from doing things that will make you happy.”

How grateful I am for the Holy Ghost, for His gentle guidance to better things. I still have a ways to go to fully surrender, but I’m trying. Dropping things one at a time. And I’m learning that following these divine impressions really does bring me the most joy. I’m learning that the times I give up my will, I’m more open to His will, and that always makes me happier.

Ether 12:27 “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weakthings become strong unto them.”

Do you take comfort in this scripture? I really do.

I also appreciated this little excerpt from a talk by Neal A. Maxwell, April 1988…

“We are here in mortality, and the only way to go is through; there isn’t any around! Yet our Deliverer assures us: ‘be of good cheer, for I will lead you along. The kingdom is yours and the blessings thereof are yours, and the riches of eternity are yours’ (D&C 78:18)…Thus He leads us along, but He desires that during that process we take His yoke upon us in order to learn of Him by our personal experiences.”

I find great comfort in that reminder. Because of His sacrifice for us He can lead us along, and because of His perfect love and mercy, He does. Even in the little things.