Lizzie did very well in the fourth grade spelling bee today. She made it through several rounds before she misspelled a word. The word that got her out? “intelligence”
I love irony.
A New Dedication
We got a bingo game. Sam used it for a different purpose. He started turning the cage that had the wooden balls in it with numbers from 1-75 and said, “If I get a number higher than 41, I will dedicate the rest of my life to God!” He got 28. He said, “That one didn’t count.” So he turned it again and again until he got a number above 41. I have a feeling that he was only looking for an excuse to do something he committed long ago to do. Once he got his magic number I said, “Well Sam, what does that mean for you now?” Interestingly he said, “I guess that means no more teasing!” Funny that that should be the biggest temptation for him right now. He may not stop teasing even with his new resolve, but at least I know leading a life of dedication is something he is thinking about.
Autonomy
autonomy |ôˈtänəmē|
• freedom from external control or influence; independence
For a few weeks I have been working on refinishing our kitchen table. It is the table that my parents passed on to us and is nearly 20 years old. It is big, and expandable, and solidly built. Sadly the finish on the table was wearing thin and so it was time to take action. I stripped, sanded, stained, glazed and applied three coats of oil based finish. By this time it had gotten too cold to work outside and so last Saturday we brought it into the kitchen. By Wednesday the final coat was drying. (I let each coat dry for 24 hours.) I warned and pleaded and reminded William and Anna to not put things on it, touch it, brush past it or even breath too much by it. Sweet Anna is a wonderfully strong-willed child. While I was on the phone with an old college chum, she took a sanding block and copied what she had seen me do for days and days and SANDED a 2×1 foot section. Fortunately for her I was on the phone so I could only sweetly say, “Anna, I said no touching! Why did you do that?” To which she replied, “I didn’t, William did!” (Nothing like a friend on the phone to calm a seething temper.) I fixed it and put another coat on which makes the table that much more durable (I think there is a spiritual significance to be found here) and the table is done! (left: old, right: new)
Another example of Anna’s autonomy does not require any explanation except that she loves to do everything for herself now. This is from today’s lunch:
Do I feel grateful for Anna’s growing sense of independence? One good thing that has come from it is that she decided it was time to be potty trained and has stuck to it this whole week! I guess I would rather have a child who is developing into her own rich personality than all the smooth tables, and full bottles of ketchup in the world!
From Grant
I was looking for something in my e-mail archive and found this long forgotten e-mail from Grant who had written down the following conversation with five year old Sam…
October 9, 2006 (Monday Evening)
I began playing a song on the piano, improvising like I often do, and Sam walked into the room. When Sam entered, I began adding words to the song that I thought he might like:
“I remember when Sammy was born, a beautiful boy. I remember rocking him to sleep, and singing to him, and reading to him. I remember walking him in the stroller. I remember teaching him the commandments, and learning about Jesus with Sammy my boy…” (words to this effect; the music was a simple progression of chords repeated a few times).
To my surprise, Sam began to cry. He walked over and sat next to me on the piano bench. Embarrassed that he was crying, he buried his face in my shoulder and put his arms around my neck and kept crying. I kept playing. I thought maybe he was feeling guilty for something, or that maybe he didn’t want to go to bed. Then I stopped playing and asked him about it. I was stunned by his response: “It’s just that… I feeled the spirit so much.” He further explained that it made him “warm” and “that’s why I’m crying.”
But he was just getting started.
For the next hour-and-a-half, he spoke to me of the Gospel: Jesus, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, Moses, sins, repentance, obedience, testimony… he even took out a piece of paper and began writing his testimony: “i love Gesus i fel the sperit” … all this with no prompting from me other than an occasional “really?” “that’s amazing” etc. Then he got on his knees and said a prayer. I sat entranced. I hoped that Candice might overhear and come in, but I didn’t dare move and I couldn’t call out to her for fear that I would interrupt this astounding vision. I could not help but think what it must have been like to have been one of the elderly and learned who sat in the temple every bit as stunned by words that seemed unearthly coming from the lips of a child.
I kept wishing that I had a video camera, a tape recorder… a piece of paper, a pencil… something… anything to record this – but I didn’t want to interrupt the spirit that had overcome him. So I sat motionless in his room. He had led me from the piano to his room so that “nobody else could hear.” Finally, after about 45 minutes of his ceaseless testimony… he began leaving the room for brief periods of time to report to Mom what he was feeling. At one point I followed him, and Candice (also very surprised by the depth and passion of the discourse) recommended that I please record some of this.
So I came into my room, sat on the bed, opened the laptop computer, and began to record what I remembered. Within minutes, Sam came in, sat on the bed next to us, and proceeded to repeat some of what he had said earlier. He needed no prompting. He was in the same interminable talking mode that we captured on video when he was a toddler preaching a spirited sermon of jibber-jabber. Just as then, he had something of urgent importance to say and it mattered very little who was listening at that point.
He talked – I typed:
“When Dad sang that song, you know, he kind of… see I’ll tell you how I feeled. I thinked back when I was little. And when I thinked back when I was little, I really felt where I was, who I was. You see, sometimes I know that there are sins coming. Let’s say that this is the forceshield and little sins come into this hole, and pretty soon the sins destroy the forceshield. Sins are like little people – they lock your repenting and goodness… and when the goodness goes away, the forceshield comes undone, and all these sins can get into your body.”
…
The Perfect Movie, My Ward Family and Fall
This weekend we were sitting down to watch a family movie when a preview came on that got the children VERY excited. Lizzie said, “That would be the PERFECT movie for us, it has horses, it has explosions…” Grant chimed in, “Does it have Abraham Lincoln in it?”
No, we don’t ask for much do we?
Today we had the most wonderful new member social at our house. There was a great turnout and the weather was delightful, an overcast dramatic sky that really brought out the vivid fall colors on the trees. It was fun to get to know the new members of our ward. I am so thankful for the Alpine First Ward. There are such solid, devoted, inspiring members who are willing to help and serve in any way they can. I love the diversity of talents and personalities you find here. Sure there may not be much of the diversity of cultures, religions, and skin colors that I enjoyed so much in the D.C. area. I feel that the diversity here (a small town in Utah County) is so much more subtle and so worth seeking out. Recently, I was sitting next to an elderly woman in our weekday Relief Society meeting. I have been in the same ward with this woman for more than seven years and this night I asked about her family and her interests, what she likes to do in her spare time. I learned that she is quite active! She is on a bowling team, she golfs, and most interestingly she is on a dance team of senior ladies that perform in half time shows and in other venues! I would never guess any of that about her by just looking at her. There are people around me everywhere that have so much good and so much passion just waiting to be discovered. How can life ever be dull? (Actually, sometimes I long for life to be a little dull – it is so fast paced, when was the last time I actually felt bored?) I have so much to learn from these people. We all have such individual life experiences and trials. I am just glad in the event that my individual trials get too burdensome, I not only have a Heavenly Father who will sustain me, a wonderful family to support me, but also an amazing ward family to help me through whatever the Lord sees fit to send me.
Now Fall…
I have never been a lover of Fall, I have always felt that it was a season sandwiched between two exciting seasons and too far from the best season of all…SPRING! I usually feel a real sense of loss when the first frost hits around the first week of October killing all our tomato and basil plants. I dislike the shortening days, the early darkness. I have never enjoyed putting our garden to bed for the winter. It lacks the same raw excitement of spring planting and planning. In the Falls of the past there seemed to be no mystery, no new growth, no expectancy of wonderful things to come like I feel in the spring as leaves bud out, blossoms burst and seedlings take root and present their small offering to the miracle of creation. (No wonder so much poetry is written about spring. If I could write poetry I would write some myself!)
This year I did feel some of those same feelings of loss and sorrow. It was such a wonderful summer. I had a hard time getting back into the grind of school, lessons, carpooling (I have four different carpools: one for morning and afternoon school pickup, one for kindergarten pickup, one for William’s music class, and one for Lizzie’s Dance), homework, bedtimes…I wasn’t quite ready for the structure either. And darn it, I missed my after dinner bike ride that I can no longer do because it is getting dark by that time!
However, this fall has been so stunning I can’t help but admire it. I am taken by surprise by how much I am enjoying it. So shocked am I by this that I have taken to asking people, children and adults what their favorite season is. I would say 80% of the answers have been…FALL! As I have been enjoying the colors, surprises, yes, even the mystery of this season (will it be cold or warm today??), and the anticipation of more color to come I realized something about myself, I don’t really like a good thing to come to an end, even if it makes room for other good things. When our trees were at their peak color I had to remind myself that there is no loss to the dulling of color and the falling of the leaves. (Indeed the children have taken to shaking the limbs with rakes to hasten the dropping of those leaves) I had to fight the urge to want to hold on impossibly to these golden days of Fall. Now, all those leaves that were there just one week ago when this picture was taken, are withered and fallen and the trees are nearly bare. And our aspens? Beautiful and bright yellow now, and enjoying their chance to be in the spotlight. I have decided that from now on Fall will be my favorite season…right along side Spring, Summer and Winter. I will try to enjoy life now and not look back nostalgically to past seasons or long for future ones.Thoughts from William and Anna
While we were in the car Anna said:
I want to go in an airplane to see Jesus.
William (knowingly) : Jesus is too far away for an airplane Anna, you need a rocket ship to go see Jesus.
Later Anna showed me a little cut on her side and said, “Look at my owie! A shark scratched me when I went in the water!”
My little Rebel
When our children get out of bed after we have tucked them in the consequence is that they have to go to bed an hour early the next night. So last night I sent Sam to bed at 7 pm and he was not too happy about it. This morning we had the following conversation:
Me: Good morning Sam! How did you sleep last night?
Sam: I slept great! I was going to be a rebel and just stay up and read all night but I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I laughed and prayed that that would be the most rebelliousness we would see in our home in the years to come.
Winners
Yesterday Lizzie competed in the Crossroads Feis (pronounced “fesh” or “fetch” if you are Grant) and earned her first first place trophy. She was the first dancer in the first dance of the day. It was a delight to watch her dance as usual. I am always so proud of her attitude. She isn’t overly competitive and simply loves dancing. And, as long as she gets a couple of medals, which she usually does, she doesn’t care what place she takes. And yes, for this picture she was in socks! She was in the process of changing from her ghillies (shoes on girl on the right) to her hard shoes (girl on the left) when she was called up to get her prize. Even shoeless, she looks the part of a winner!
Today I decided I ought to forgo my typical Sunday nap and play a game with the children. I made the mistake of starting Monopoly with them. All these wonderful memories of playing with Lex came flooding back. We would play for days (literally) and would write I.O.U’s to each other, make our own money, cheat, hide money, put thousands into the free parking jackpot…we even made our own Monopoly board with different names for the properties. The mistake in playing this game is that I can’t just play a timed game of say, one hour…no, I need to play Monopoly to the death! Finally at 10pm my poor children were having to mortgage their properties to me in order to pay me for landing on my squares. Lizzie sold out first and to remind herself that she is a winner despite the outcome of the game she left the room and came back clutching her trophy.
It is amazing to me how grateful they are when I invest a little time playing with them! I can spend five hours in a day driving them places, and sitting through lessons and don’t get as much gratitude as if I spent 10 minutes tickling/wrestling with them or playing tag, or a board game. I’ll have to remember that next Sunday when I am just aching for that nap! Perhaps that is why I played for four hours (plus we went on a walk to the park)… now I can have four Sundays worth of naps without feeling guilty!
General Conference Glow
What an amazing conference weekend! President Monson started the whole conference with his shocking announcement about the lowering of missionary age; boys can go at age 18 instead of 19 and girls at 19 instead of 21…I was actually jumping up and down with the news, especially about the age of sister missionaries changing. I remember the torture of watching all my guy friends leave at 19 and feeling oh so ready and having to wait those two long years. This change is certainly pure revelation. I can’t believe how it impacts our life too. Last year we let Sam skip a grade. As his birthday is in September he can now go to his Senior year, work that summer and then leave for his mission in the fall. If we hadn’t skipped a grade he would be 18 and a senior in high school! He reminded me that he will be gone in just SEVEN short years. Lizzie is also very excited. I told her that she is not expected to go, but that we would support her if she felt it was what the Lord wanted for her. She said most emphatically, “OH, I’M GOING!” (And she added, “Especially if I can go to Ireland!”)
I felt so filled spiritually this weekend. My favorite talk was Elder Holland’s on how we show we love Christ and his question to Peter after Christ’s resurrection about whether he loved him or not. How do I show Christ I love him? I don’t think I do it enough. Although something I learned at our Suzuki Mother’s Luncheon gave me hope. I learned that by devoting so much of my time and energy to helping the children develop their talents (especially music talent) I am actually consecrating that time to the Lord. I like that idea, and the spirit bore witness to me at that moment that what I was hearing was true. It makes a somewhat tedious and mundane task somewhat more celestial. I love how I feel when I am being edified spiritually. It seems to me at these times that it is possible for me to organize my home and stay organized, to learn to sing, to follow a budget, to always be patient and loving, to not want to take a nap everyday or shove my laundry in my closet… I feel like I can be my best self when the spirit is moving me, and I don’t even feel overwhelmed. The way seems clear how to make changes and improve. Then, when I get back to real life I look around me and can’t seem to figure out where to start! (Just that laundry pile in my closet seems like too much!) I realized that spending a little more time each day seeking that clarity of mind through scripture study and prayer will help me not to feel overwhelmed, will give me a purpose and direction I need each day, and I will be showing the Christ that I love him. He will show me which steps to take each day. I just need to show him I’m on his team.
Anna too was feeling the glow of the spirit. Tonight in her bed time prayer she said, “We thank thee that we can see Jesus tomorrow and go to his house.” If only…
Beckwith Fun Facts
William just told me:
Did you know that a ladybug can get to South America walking?