Jeremiah's Thankful List

Apples.

Dragon kites.

Squishing. (as in, Play-Doh)

Jumping.

John's thankful list

I'm grateful for:

Bacon on scout camp-outs

The Envelope Theorem (it really makes things so much easier)

Laffy Taffy

A wonderful wife who writes flattering blog posts

The economy (really, it's pretty amazing to me what you can get in exchange for the amount of work that we do. We went to IKEA today so this was on my mind)

The Book of Mormon (we've been doing really quick scripture time in the morning and I enjoy Isaac's answers)

Inventors

Science Fiction novelists

Watermelon (the word, not the fruit)

the expression "the bottom of the barrel"

Danielle's Thankful List

Shoes.

My brothers.

Oranges.

Isaac's Thankful List

I'm very thankful for scriptures.

I'm thankful for lizard.

I'm thankful for our family.

And I'm thankful for my robot friend.

And I'm very very thankful for our table. (When asked to come up with one more thing to be thankful for.)

Alison's Thankful List

This week, in conjunction with Thanksgiving, our family has been remembering things we are thankful for. In family morning prayers, we have been saying only "thank-you prayers" for this week preceding Thanksgiving, in response to Elder Bednar's counsel to "periodically...offer a prayer in which we only give thanks and express gratitude. Ask for nothing; simply let our souls rejoice and strive to communicate appreciation with all the energy of our hearts."I thought I would post each person's list separately.

My Thankful List:

Opportunities to create music.

Prayer.

That I unknowingly married an incredibly forgiving man; that I knowingly married a loving, kind, compassionate, incredibly brilliant, outgoing, entertaining, respectful, encouraging, slightly clueless, righteous man, who loves me and helps me to become a better person, on my personal time-frame.

For Isaac's laughter, his desire to help others be happy, his honesty and imagination, that each bring a sparkle to my life.

For Jeremiah's sweetness, his capacity to learn, his need for physical affection, "kissing fights," the bedtime stories that he tells to me, the Primary songs that he sings to me.

For Danielle's willingness to obey, to be happy, to be a helper, to be my shadow and my friend, that she's a child I can love and not worry about (so far).

Good food. Fresh fruit, homemade breads in many varieties, good tasting water.

Chocolate.

That clean, well-fitting clothes are a normal part of life.

That I have so many simple ways to communicate with my friends and family over long distances.

For my testimony of Christ, His life, His Gospel, and His love for me.

Grocery Shopping...with Children

I went grocery shopping with three kids this morning, something I typically try not to do. But John needed to get to school, and our refrigerator is in a state that makes it very easy to clean (ie, empty other than condiments and eggs and leftover pasta salad), so I took the kids to the grocery store.

Danielle was buckled in the front, Jeremiah was sprawled out in the back with his Leapster2, and I convinced Isaac that it was advantageous to walk because then he could help me choose what to put in the cart. He helped pick out apples, we found out that 5 apples weighs twice as much as a bag of baby carrots, voted on whether to get red potatoes or yellow potatoes to make mashed potatoes with in a couple days but got both because we had a tie, and decided that since the bag of mini Oreo's weighed a lot less than the package of regular sized off-brand creme-filled cookies we should get the bigger of the two.

An interesting event from the store: While we were in the beginning of our excursion, choosing our apples, a lady stopped us and said, "I need to tell you: You're a wonderful mother." Hmm, interesting.

A fun conversation from the end of our trip: We had a cute (old, very old) gentleman bagging our groceries, and he asked, "Where'd you pick up those things in your cart?" "Well, this boy came from the produce, this one from the meat. But the little girl definitely came from the chocolates." They didn't have any bars to scan, though, which is good because I'm sure sure if I'd be able to afford them. They're priceless.

Maybe I'll take my kids with me more often. :)

Indulging

I've decided that instead of trying to achieve balance in my life, I should instead indulge.

I haven't been able to figure out how to do everything "completely" all the time, so I'm going to do the minimum most of the time, and then splurge every month or so.

Like getting dressed. Sure, in high school and college I would shower daily, dry and curl my hair, put on make-up, wear cute clothes that didn't have kid-stains on them...but now that is a ridiculous thing to attempt. Well, and have any sort of a life. So, I take a quick shower at the YMCA, dry off, put on some clothes that fit, run a brush through my hair and scrunch it with some mousse, and call it good. Fancy days I put on mascara and lip-gloss. Much more reasonable, and then I can "really get dressed" every couple months (maybe for a date-night or a wedding) and be pleased with myself.

So, I decided taht I should do the same things with cleaning our apartment and reading books. Instead of thinking I should be able to do it all, I am instead going to indulge. Every month, I can "indulge" in a clean house--get it all clean and make it stay that way for at least a day, and truly enjoy it, knowing it won't last for long, but also knowing it's possible on an irregular basis.

And, every month, I'm going to stay up way too late reading some book I just don't want to put down, and probably eat an entire bag of chocolate candy while doing so...and not feel guilty because I only do it once a month...and then truly enjoy it.

I think it's a good plan. :)

Personal Revelation

John spoke in Sacrament meeting a couple months ago, but I just spoke on Sunday. My topic was Personal Revelation, and I shared a few personal stories. I'd like to share them here, too, because the people who read this blog know me more than the people in our new ward, and I feel a little awkward with these other people whose names I don't know yet knowing more about my personal life (well, just a few stories) than my friends and family. Here are some fun stories, straight excerpts from my talk:


When John spoke, I told him that he could introduce our family however he wanted, and that I'd correct anything that needed correcting when it was my turn. While the things he said were all true, I'd like to expand on how we met. I believe he said that we met at a ward prayer, the Sunday our sophomore year began. He was right off his mission, as were his friends. I was nervous about meeting new people, and one o my friends and I got up the nerve to go talk to some very awkward-looking guys who looked worse off than we felt. These two students were right off their missions, and were also John's roommates, who he always declares I was flirting with. John and his roommates, and my friends and I, became good friends, and started going out on dates in different combinations. Pretty quickly, John decided that he liked me, and tried to pursue me. I wasn't so sure. After a couple months of this, one of my friends pulled me aside one night, and we talked and talked...and then she decided it was time to tell me all the wonderful things about John and why we were so obviously perfect for each other, how we were alike in these ways and complemented each other in these other ways. It went on for about two hours. Me trying to leave, her coming up with impossible amounts of ways we were perfect for each other. (She was a national-level debater in high school, and went on to graduate at the top of her class in the BYU Law School, so I was way out of league.) When I finally got free, I went to my room and knelt to pray before I climbed in my bed, and in the middle of my prayer, when it was clear I definitely wasn't going to pray about John, I heard the words, 'You should date John," in my mind. Instead of being humble or polite and agreeing to the task or sentiment, I thought back, "But I don't like John!" And again I heard the words, "You should date John." Still not humble, I made a deal. I thought, "If I like him when I wake up in the morning, I'll date him." I thought it wouldn't happen, but I was curious if it could. When I woke up, I liked John. I flirted with him extremely well, got invited to go shopping and to lunch with him and his grandparents, and we were dating the next day.

Just a year ago, I was struggling with my son Jeremiah. He has autism, and I don't remember exactly what he was doing or needing, but I was having a very difficult time trying to figure out what he truly needed. I knelt in prayer, because I knew that even if I didn't know what he needed, I knew that my Heavenly father did and could let me know what it was I could do to help him. As I was pleading, I heard the words, "Talk to Avis." Our branch had just combined with a ward, and I sort of knew Avis by sight but not personally since she was in the ward, and I had no clue why I should talk to her. I tried coming up to her in hall at church, but she was always busy talking to someone, or getting things ready for Primary...and I didn't talk to her. A couple weeks passed, and I was praying about Jeremiah again, and I heard this "Ahem. Talk to Avis." I felt slightly reprimanded, a little ashamed. And I made it a point to approach her the very next time I saw her. We made a plan to talk in a few days, she wasn't sure what about, but she got sick, and it fell through. When I finally caught up with her again, in passing on the way to Relief Society, I told her "You probably are wondering why I wanted to talk to you. My son has autism, and I've been having a hard time knowing what to do, and I was praying, and I felt I should talk to you." And she said, "Oh, I have some information for you." It took me a year, but I'm fairly certain that my answer, to talk to Avis, wasn't because she could tell me exactly what I needed to do with Jeremiah, which was what I wanted to know, but because my Heavenly Father knew what I truly needed was someone who understood from experience that sometimes having a son with autism is just hard.

When I was finishing my junior year in high school, my best friend peer-pressured me into taking the ACT and SAT. There was a place to write in colleges to send my scores to, so I chose a few from the list, including BYU because that's where many of my friends wanted to go. A few weeks later, I went to get the mail, and there was an envelope with "BYU" in the corner. And I simply knew that I needed to go there. It was just a simple feeling of "yes." I only applied to BYU, and I went there, and I learned many things, made wonderful friends, and met John. BYU was a wonderful experience for me.

A few weeks after I left for BYU, my sister left for a mission in Brazil. I think I was very homesick, but having so much fun that I didn't realize it. I think that my homesickness took the form of writing my sister letters at least weekly. Long letters. When my parents dropped me off at school, though, my dad bought my sister and I matching CTR rings, and I treasured mine. Because it was from my dad and reminded me of my sister...it meant so much. After the first real snow, my friends and I had a huge snowball fight. at some point my gloves had come off, and when I put them back on, my CTR ring didn't make it, which I didn't discover until I was getting ready for bed. We had been all over in the snow. I looked for my CTR ring the next day. I couldn't find it. I got some of my friends to help me. And as I was looking with them, I prayed that I'd be able to find it, that it was important to me. I felt that I should look by the sidewalk, far enough away from our snowball fight that it was very unlikely, and kept looking where I was for a few minutes, thinking that it was more likely to be where I was looking than where I was prompted to look. A few minutes later my friend went directly to the spot that I felt I should look, and picked up my ring. I didn't receive an answer to my prayer to find my ring because it was valuable or important or life-changing or critical to my testimony. It was a very little thing.

Candlelight Carol

Our ward choir will be singing Candlelight Carol by John Rutter. I hadn't heard it before, and I wanted to get an idea of what it sounded like as I learn to play it on the piano. This is the best video I could find, and it's in Welsh, so I don't understand much other than the "Gloria, gloria in excelsis Deo!" part. But it's gorgeous. And reminds me that Christmas isn't far off, when we can remember the birth of our Savior and rejoice in Him.

Family Update

From an email to a friend back in Wisconsin, asking how we're doing.

Things are hard here. John's working/studying/dissertating (we made it a verb) a lot, which means I'm a single mom most of the time. I'm usually fine with that, but some moments, hours, days, and weeks are much harder than others. I know the saying "If Momma ain't happy, then nobody's happy," but here it seems to work the other way.

I took Isaac out of kindergarten because he was thoroughly unhappy when he was home and I couldn't deal with it. It's full-day kindergarten, and it was just too long doing exactly what his teachers told him to do--seven hours every day...I would get so upset at him for being crabby, which wasn't what either of us needed to be feeling or doing. Now he's a happy boy again. We'll either homeschool for a couple years or start him in kindergarten next year, I'm not sure which yet.

Danielle's starting her "terrible two's" and has very stubborn (wrong) opinions about many things. Usually she's angelic, so the twos-ness always comes as a surprise...usually I can redirect her from her opinions, so it's not a big deal.

But, Jeremiah. Oh, my little angel boy. So sweet sometimes, so loving. And then he'll completely out of the blue start physically beating himself up. He gets upset, and I usually can't figure out why or fix it if I can, then beat himself up--slapping his face and throat, punching his body. And that's when I get completely overwhelmed and lost and confused and sad. I can't help it--it makes me so sad to see himself hurt himself, and I don't think he's in control of himself at that point, and I can't fix it. I don't like feeling helpless, even for a few minutes.

I can't figure out how to balance attempting to have a reasonably clean home, teaching children to be kind and happy, preparing food for them to hopefully consume (quietly, if it isn't asking too much), and time for myself. If I could get Jeremiah to stop shredding toilet paper all over our apartment it would drastically help this place look a lot cleaner. :) But not being able to come up with a plan has been really hard for me. If I hada well-thought-out plan and didn't follow by choice, it would be a lot easier. But I just feel stuck.

Our bishop took me aside after he set me apart a couple months ago, and he told me that I have much more to do than is possible right now. So at least I know it's true. I know I just need to choose wisely..but I don't know how. If we had thousands of dollars to spend on food every month, I'd just have everything prepared for me by somebody else--but we don't.

Though, I am learning a lot. I learned a few nights ago that even if a green crayon destroys a load of laundry (from someone else's laundry, left in the dryer), it's still more fun to fold if I watch a TV show while I fold it. Very good to finally learn. Laundry has been so boring and time consuming for the past eight years, and now I can almost look forward to it.

I'm learning how to distract my kids into doing what I want them to do, which has been very useful, and sparks creativity. I'm learning that I can get my kids to walk into stores, home from the playground, down to the car...creatively...mostly races and bribes of food. I'm learning to give Isaac more responsibility and trusting him to obey, which has been hard and good.

Just little tricks to make things easier. And I'm teaching Danielle things now that will make my life so much easier in a couple years, and I wish I knew how to teach Jer the same things. She's so easy to teach, I understand how to teach her...But I can't figure out how to get Jeremiah to sleep without an adult right next to him. I keep hoping that when Isaac's a little bigger, he can get Jeremiah to sleep, but I think that's more hope than actual possibility there.

That's the longer version of "I think we're doing pretty good, with exceptions, of course."

The weather here is perfect. Isaac, Danielle and I walk Jeremiah to school, and a sweatshirt is optional. Pants are preferred but not absolutely necessary. I can open up our windows in the afternoon and there's a nice, chilly 60 degree breeze to cool things down a bit. I love the winters here. It finally isn't summer anymore. :)