Before and After

recently i came across a facebook post of a friend of a friend in which a before and after shot was featured of a woman. the post proclaimed amazement at the hard work of this beautiful woman to loose nearly 30 lbs. of baby wieght. she looked great.  i think it is awesome when women are able to achieve an "unattainable" goal.  and i certainly applaud the efforts of this woman to regain her former figure after the grueling nine months of growing a HUMAN BEING inside of her body, then within a few hours of excruciating and indescribable hard work, (this pain being the equivalent of ALL pain felt in the preceding 9 months) experiencing the inevitable life changing experience of keeping this new, beautiful, incredible, person alive. kudos to the "after!"
but it did get me thinking.  i once heard a guy say on the radio that every woman's body was ruined after child birth.  i was glad that my life experience enabled me to immediately deem him and idiot.  but that statement is so indicative of our society and how women are viewed and valued.  you can't go anywhere without hearing about how this famous person or that famous person can now where a bikini a mere 30 days after giving birth!  holy pressure batman.  it took me 30 days to be able to fix my hair again after baby.  i think it may have been 60 days until i could actually attempt excersise, and it's been 13 years now since i had an uninterrupted thought.
  i think of how i was before i had kids.  not just that  i was thinner, or that my stomach was free of purple stretch marks and pooches, but how i WAS.
 i was carefree.   i was ambitious, and flaky, and irresponsible, and a little selfish.  life was about me and what i wanted and my dreams and my dislikes etc. etc. etc.   somehow, thirteen years of little people have changed me. and it's been a refiners fire let me tell you.  a person cannot be the mother of four children and all that comes with that, live 3000 miles from family, move 8 times, spend 6 months with a husband on deployment, and not be different.  but  maggie is a much better person after children then she was on her own before children if i do say so myself.   and isn't that what life is all about.  learning and growing and changing.  we are so afraid of becoming older, of looking older.  but you know what: life is hard, you cannot escape it with perfect skin, toned muscles, & full flowing hair with just the right amount of highlights. we will all become  gray, wrinkled, saggy, beautiful creatures. people with wisdom and life experience and wonderful stories to tell.
the other day i heard avery and jace playing and singing a song.  they didn't know i was there. i was the only patron at their impromptu concert. how totally awesome is that? and  it is so worth it. the world will look at me and say i've lost my youth, i need to do a few situps and lay off the chocolate pie, but i think that i am grateful for my before and the choices i made to get me to the after that i never new i've always wanted.
so i don't want to say to the before and after girl on facebook anything about her awesome weight loss. i just want to say, hey thanks!  thankyou for sacrificing a little part of your life to make way for a new one. thanks for the sleepless nights and the stressful days. thanks for cleaning up the puke and the pee and the poop. thanks for letting go of the before so gracefully. the after looks good on you.

the annual summer meltdown

i ran away yesterday.  it really had to happen. it all started out rather inocously. a morning filled with the usual mothering routines.  "please clean your rooms, and get dressed!"  i said this in a voice singing with hope and positivity!  "your turn to practice the piano." said with equal vigor!

not surprisingly, my success rate was dismal.  25% to be exact.  only one of the four kidlets complied.  i love that one the best. i love the other 75% the best too, most of the time.

so naturally i repeat myself.  again. and again. and then just to be sure...again.  my eldest, bless him, says something reeking of attitude.  i surprise my self by responding calmly, " you need to change your attitude."

and my eldest, bless him, responds with even more attitude, " you need to change yours! you are grumpy ALL THE TIME!" 

also i noticed a smell this morning.  it's stinky six year old boy smell.  he is refusing to shower.  i am refusing to give him his breakfast until he complies.  he doesn't seem to mind. it still smells pretty bad in here.

my little lady is upstairs cleaning her room. or attempting too anyway.  to her credit she's been working on this since 2010.  to my credit, she is still allowed to keep trying.  but i decide to take a new route this morning.  "you've got 15 minutes to get this room cleaned up.  after that i am coming in with a garbage bag and taking everything left out to the thrift store."

to which she responds with complete indignance.  apparently 3 years is just NOT enough time to get a job done properly. she mumbles something about her grumpy mom, how she hates me, and how it's not fair and then throws something at her closet and exclaims! "i am running away."

i wanted to scream.  i wanted to yell. i wanted to swear very loudly! miraculously, i do none of those things.  instead consider my little ladies idea.

it was a light bulb moment for me really.  and so i say, "that is an awesome idea."  i think i will! maybe i need a break!  maybe the piano lessons, and swim lessons, and baseball games, and snowcone runs, and late nights, and road trips, and river floating, and camping, and complete summer chaos HAVE made me a tad grumpy?  maybe the complaining, and summer coughs, and rushing around, and constant sweeping, (seriously 3 times a day) and extra dishes and three homemade meals a day, and arguments diffused, and lost flipflops and swimsuits and and and and! 

 mommy needs a time out.

i take the 25% with me.  he's done with his jobs by now, imagine that!   so with the hormonal 13 yr old left in charge of the slow cleaner and the smelly six year old, i declare that i am running away and will be back soon. me and 25% head out the door to run away and do......errands! it was very exotic. it also saved lives.

i am encouraging you mothers to try this in some form. what do you do to escape? whether you can runaway to mail bills and eat a bar of delicious chocolate on the way home, or read a book in the bathroom or even, heaven fordid, turn on a movie and go sit in a warm shower for a bit, don't forget to take a little time for yourself.  i think it helped us avoid the annual summer meltdown. 

for the time being.

signs (a slightly tall tale )

*i recently discovered that lots of people read my blog! so fun for me! but not as fun for you dear readers, seeing as how i don't write too often.  i've decided that it is time in my life to pursue my writing a little more.  so while i am working on some new stuff...i thought you might enjoy some old stuff!  this here post was originally posted in 2009.  enjoy....and see you soon!

10 years ago, when i had my first baby, there was not much emphasis on cocoa butter. it was just a generally excepted fact that part of the exchange for one deliciously chubby baby, was purple slash marks on the various stretches of land that make up a person's person.
I have spent some time over the last 10 years lamenting the fact that no one bothered to tell me that these scars were avoidable, simply by coating my self in smellygood, lotion. but alas, they are starting to prove useful.
I have two boys who currently reside in the stage of "you can't tell me what to do." hA HA HA!! that's so funny. (big sigh after hardy laugh) anyway. for example here is a recent conversation.
me: austin it's time to turn off the wii and go outside.
austin: WHAT? i didn't get as long a turn as quinton...... blah blah blah......
me: (interupting, you just must do this as a mother sometimes) I don't know who you think you are, but when i ask you to do something, you say "yes mom!" and then you do it!
austin: YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!
me: (having an epiphany and pulling up my shirt to reveal just my train wreck abdomen) see these stretch marks? i grew you in here and YES I CAN!!
no 7 year old wants to see his mom's train wreck belly, let alone discover the cause.
he very humbly clamps his mouth shut. and turns off the wii.

all this trauma for austin has me examining my stretch marks again to see if they really are that horrendous. i discover that they are worse from the side then the front. i'll remember that next time i need to bare them and turn slighty askew as i do so. it'll be even more effective.
while i'm examining i swear i begin to see an odd pattern in my war wounds. you know how you look at something long enough and it starts to morph and expand before your eyes?
"could it be?," i think, " is that really what i think it is?"
i rummage through the toy box until i find what i need. an ancient kid magnifying glass shaped like a sea turtle. i grip the green plastic handle and take a breath, peering at the suspicious area. and what i see makes me gasp out loud. my suspicions are confirmed. the long hideous scars are formed by tiny grotesquely, artistic, graffiti. the message they spell out takes my breath away. it reads: 

austin was here

a smile forms on this mother's face. and i start the search on the sacred landscape of miraculous birthing history for signs of the other three.

in defense of the priesthood.

npr is usually on my radio when i am alone.  no one else can stand it i guess.  so it happened that while on my way to pick up the boys from art in henefer tonight i was listening to the utah version of natl. public radio and caught a snippet of a few women discussing the idea of women receiving the priesthood. a few of them pushing for women to receive it...and one soft but firm voice of reason in honoring the way things are.  the way the Saviour himself has set up His church.
 i have heard of  Kate Kelly.  a mormon mother and human rights lawyer who lives in DC.  she has started a quiet movement to petition the leadership of the church to, as she says it, "" ‘Let us have the priesthood’  ‘We are capable of doing more. What else can we do to help?’ "  i respect everyone's right to respectfully voice their opinions...so let me respectfully state mine.
since when do we not help?  since when do women NOT do just about everything?  since when do we need more to do?  if we are lining up to ask the culture, the country, the world  for major changes,then i would submit a few things that i actually need. 
i need help with the dishes at night.  i need more sleep.  i need an extra driver.  i need a miracle cream that shrinks my double chin.  i need women to love themselves.  i need them to show less skin and more brains.  i need to be respected, praised, and honored for cleaning up pee pee toilets and scraping puke out of the carpet and doing the dishes and making the beds, and ironing the white shirts, and not strangling my pre-teen, and wiping tears while little voices scream bloody murder in my ears.  i need our culture and country and our world to look at a womans seemingly unimportant and astoundingly, as some people call it:  "demeaning" role as something not to be ashamed of but as something to be cherished, something to strive for, something to aspire too, & something to be grateful for.  a PHD in motherhood would be nice.  what d'ya say byu? i think i will petition the Lord's university to offer that.
i don't need to be the bishop, i don't need to pass the sacrament, collect fast offerings, heal the sick or raise the dead.  i need the men in my life to be that strength i rely on in the middle of the sleepless night when i can ask for a blessing and finally get some rest. and when that preisthood is not available....  well in the words of dear Pres. Packer, "there are few things more powerful than the prayers of a righteous mother." 
our responsibilities are like our bodies.  they are different.  one is not better than the other. when our differences and strengths and weaknesses combine... beautiful things are created.  there is no doctrine that says mike can't clean, nurture, or cook.   there is no doctrine that says women having the priesthood is impossible...but motherhood is not mike's job and holding the priesthood is not mine.  and i for one am so okay with that.

i've a bone to pick...

on oscar night i dared to try and watch a little...with my kids.  so when the"you showed your  b o o bs song came on...well i learned my lesson. and quickly abandoned the oscars.    awards season is about the pretty dresses for me. and i can see them easily enough the next day.
so today i happened upon an article where the children's book author and one time b o o b baring actress jaime lee curtis was whining about the offensive song...in which she was mentioned.  and it sooooo bugged me.  yes the song was offensive.  but HELLO so is b o o b baring.  and guess what jaime lee curtis...you showed your b o o bs!   in the article she laments the "fact" that she was only doing what she was asked (by men she so critically points out)  and that those films in which her decolletage was featured enhanced her career.  so there seth mcfarlane...you are gross and jaime lee is an artist.  NOT SO I SAY!!!
dearest hollywood actresses....how 'bout you stand up for yourselves and SAY NO!!  NO! i will not show my b o o bs.  NO! i will not have multiple intimate scenes where my body is subjected to the known world and all we see of a man is hairy armpits and toned biceps.(i am not suggesting we see more of a man's body thanks, i am merely pointing out that we honor men for much different assets.)   NO! i will not let all the hard work we have done for the advancement of women's rights be reduced to the right to show my b o obs!! NO! i will not bare all at the suggestion of a man who clearly has found a fascinating loop hole in the never ending male quest to see some b o o bs. make him earn it...duh!  it just kills me how these women we glorify are being awarded for blatant disregard of so many men and women's efforts to honor a woman for more than her body and looks.     so dear actresses in pretty dresses, show us your BRAINS!!  show us you HEARTS!! show us your pretty dresses for crying out loud...and for heavens sake show us your GUTS!!  ladies of the academy... how 'bout you, JUST SAY NO!!!

10 things.

                               1# this sweatshirt.   i used to despise pink now...i embrace it.  life is funny that way.

#2.  this salad.  i am also trying to embrace the fact that i can't eat like a horse any longer...but i can still eat well.

 #3. this bag. everyone needs a good leather bag.  i no longer haul around diapers, but i still have 10 lbs of kid/mom paraphernalia at any given time.

 #4.this book series.  it's about an 11 year old chemistry genius who solves murders and lives in an English estate with her titled family. sort of downton abbey for the mystery lover.  plus flavia de luce (the genius) is hilarious.

 #5. these shoes.  too expensive...but why has no one put pattern on the wedge before?  genius i tell you. genius.

#6. this side table.  which mike insists is NOT a side table. but i find it fun to teach him all the wonderful things you can do to break the rules.  side table it IS! only maybe in red.....

 #7.  i think you may have to take a trip south to buy this stuff, but once you go with mexican vanilla...you'll never turn back.  all  my baking is enhanced by it's subtle coconut notes.  it'll change your life.  or at least those few seconds the cookie is being eaten.

 #8. this chapstick.  i've used up 3 or 4 tubes since i discovered it.  best ever.

#8. old team photos.  this is a picture of mike's great grandpa...not sure which one he is...anyway i have found a few team photos that i am using in the boys sports room...i'll show you in a different post what i'm doin' with them!

#9.  this non-fiction book.  i never thought i'd laugh about death.  mary roach writes a respectful, witty and so hilarious history of corpses.  awesome book.

#10. these socks.  i love too run. but my feet hate the blisters that  make my feet look like a lepers.  i found these socks that magically reduce friction and therefore blisters.  yay!  kinda spendy but worth the extra.