Thoughts on motherhood

 
I have never experienced joy like I have felt in my role as a mother to Kai. Having a child of my own has given me so much greater appreciation of how Heavenly Father must feel about His children. I truly know what unconditional love feels like.

Beyond teaching me about love, motherhood has taught me the importance and rewards of selflessness. Although I still have selfish moments as a mother, generally speaking, the needs of my child always trump my own needs. So motherhood can be tiring in a way that is hard to explain, because a child is in a constant state of need. But it is also hard to explain how rewarding the sacrifice for a child's sake is. There is nothing that I do in my life that is more worthwhile than the time that I spend and the service that I give to Kai.

Yo and I created a baby, but we are molding a person. More importantly, the little person that we created is often the one who is molding us. Motherhood has made me more patient, more forgiving, more joyous, more compassionate, more selfless, more invested, and in many ways, more myself than I've been in a long time.

There is something about the unconditional love that only a child is capable of sharing that makes me feel most at ease in my own skin. When Kai looks at me there is no judgment. I don't worry about how I look or what I'm wearing, the silly things I might say or the embarrassing things I might do. He looks at me as though I'm his whole world, and in many ways I am.

The responsibility is an awesome one. I look at Kai and my heart melts at his innocence. There is no contempt in his eyes. He has not felt the hurt of the world. He loves simply and perfectly. He is perfectly trusting and perfectly forgiving.

There are times that I cannot fathom how God could trust one so flawed to raise one of his precious sons--a son that he loves with the perfect love of a perfect Father. But I also have come to realize that it is out of His love for me that He has extended to me this blessing. That through my role as a mother, I might become the woman that He knows I am capable of being.

Grandma Vivian

My Grandma Vivian passed away this past Saturday. She was 85-years-old, but her death still came as a surprise because she has always been the image of health and her decline happened so quickly. I attended her memorial service out in Colorado Springs on Tuesday, but feel like I am still processing the loss.

There is so much about my Grandma that I have always admired. She is such an intelligent, strong-willed, independent thinking woman. I like to think that I take after her in this regard. Throughout her life she was a community and political activist. And yes, she was a Democrat, too. 

Grandma grew up in small town Utah and never lost the belief that a stranger was just a friend of a friend. She had this gift at making connections with people. And had the energy and intent to turn those connections into lifelong relationships. I remember that she was in the car with my family once when traffic came to a complete (and prolonged) halt due to construction up ahead. After a few restless minutes in the car, my Grandma hopped out (to my mother's dismay) and began striking up conversations with the people in the cars around us. She managed to share a good chunk of each of our personal histories with these people before the traffic got going again.

Sometimes we found her behavior embarrassing, but looking back I can see that my grandma just sincerely enjoyed people and looked for the best in everyone. I never heard speak an unkind word about another person. In fact, the only person I ever heard her make fun of was herself. 

A year or so ago Grandma started talking about the cookbook that she was going to publish, The Mean Grandma's Cookbook. A title fitting for some of her more memorable concoctions. It was at Grandma's house that I learned that Jello could pass as a salad, but only if served on a leaf of lettuce and that every plate needed a touch of green. I also learned that juice, soup, and condiments would last twice as long when water was added to them. She once combined cream of potato and cream of broccoli soup and then added tuna from a can to it to round it off. When I was pregnant she served Yo and I raw chicken and al dente lentils on top of a potato that had baked for 3 hours. No wonder she was so skinny! It might be fair to say that I inherited my own culinary skills from my Grandma, if only I weren't so picky and half as health-conscious as she was.

Another thing my Grandma will always be remembered for, at least in my immediate family, is her interesting gift giving. When I was young I remember receiving clothes that were several sizes to big for me, because she was afraid that I would be insulted if the size of the clothes didn't match my age. Size 6 for a 6 year old, etc., etc. As we got older the sizes of the clothes were less interesting than the clothes themselves. One year my sister got a little Swiss-beer-girl type dress made out of burlap. She wore it when Grandma visited. We thought it was hilarious. Other years we would get her hand me downs, because every teenager wants to wear her Grandma's clothes. 

She was a little frugal and more than a little eccentric, but she was ever so giving of her energies and time. When we were in elementary school in Kansas, my grandparents would drive out yearly to attend our grandparent's day at the school. I remember being so proud to have them there, getting to parade them around our classrooms and campus and show off our various projects and awards. 

My Grandma has traveled cross land and sea, often by herself, to be there for family events like weddings and baptisms and baby blessings. As devoted as she was to my Grandpa Matt, my grandma's life did not stop 7 years ago when he passed away. She turned all the energy and love that she had poured into serving him, especially in his prolonged years of bad health, to serving her friends and family. 

I was so moved by the number of people who came to pay their respects after my Grandma passed. Through church, in her neighborhood, and in the community at large, Grandma touched the lives of so many people.

Since I graduated from law school I've worked in nursing homes where I've gotten to spend lots of time with other people's grandparents and thought to myself on many an occasion, how it is such a shame that some of the wonderful people I work with don't have the support of their family members nearby. And here I am hundreds of miles from my own grandparents, three have now passed, thinking about the many opportunities that I missed to call, write, or see them. 

I feel very grateful that in the last two years, I've gotten to make three trips out to Colorado Springs to see my Grandma, which means that Kai has gotten to meet his Great Grandma Vivian on two occasions (three if you count the one he was in utero). But I hope that my Grandma knows that I am sorry that I didn't spend more time with her in the last 13 years since I moved away from home. It is so easy to take your grandparents for granted as a kid. It's only when you get older that you begin to appreciate your grandparents are people with interesting, relatable histories.  People who are not so different from you, despite the difference in age.

So I am sad that I have missed out on the chance to ask some of those questions that are left lingering in my mind and to hear some of those stories that were left unshared, but throughout the last week and a half, I have felt the Spirit testify to me again and again, that there will be time for that in the hereafters. So Grandma, I hope that you are enjoying the company of Grandpa Matt and all of your family and friends. I love you. I miss you. But I know I will see you again.

Emphasis on the "S"

The dog days of Summer

We have packed as much fun into the remaining days of summer as our work schedules would allow. While I dreamed at the beginning of summer of going to Hawaii or some other tropical destination with Yo, those plans were scaled back due to unfortunate survey timing (yearly inspection of our nursing homes by the Dept of Health). So a week in Hawaii translated into a weekend in Pismo, but it was fun nonetheless.

We rented a condo that was situated right on the beach with our friends the Jacobs and spent 4 relaxing days just hanging out at the beach and checking out the local sites. Here are a few snapshots from our weekend.

A family shot on the sand dune outside of our condo. My favorite perching spot for Diet Coke sipping, digging in the sand with Kai and reading stupid magazines.

Kai got the biggest kick out of crumbling sand "rocks". This expression was caught post-crumble.

One of the cool things about Pismo is that you get to drive your car right on the beach. Seeing the glee on Kai's face when he got to sit on Pappa's lap while he drove down the beach was priceless.

Splashing in the surf.

Kai would get stressed when his feet got covered by the surf. More so when I would ask him, "Kai, where are your feet?"

"I'll drive!"

Mommy's turn to play in the surf with Kai

Because every kid should get to dance in the nude every once in a while.

View of sunset from our balcony.

The weekend came to an end too soon, but couldn't have been timed better.... especially because Yo's facility went into survey the very next day. He performed brilliantly (as expected). Go Yo!

Cereal and Silliness

Hair, Ears and CHEEKS!

Wednesdays and Saturdays

It seems like this summer has just flown by with one work week blurring into the next. So we have been trying to pack as much fun into our Wednesdays and weekends as possible.

A couple of weeks ago, Kai and I joined some friends at a real, working farm. Between the animals, some of whom were free roaming, and tractors, Kai was in heaven.

Yo surprised me and Kai with tickets to go on a Thomas the Train ride up in Santa Cruz a couple of weekends ago. Kai got some sunblock in his eye early in the day, so he looks kind of teary-eyed in some of the pictures, poor kid, but he was so cute about smiling for the camera when we asked.

Just look at that little face!

We had some time to kill before it was our turn to ride the train, so Kai had fun walking around the grounds where they had a bunch of kid friendly displays set-up.

He was equally entertained by people watching. For about 5 minutes he just squinted and stared, stared and squinted at all of the passers-by.

When it came to the train ride itself, I don't think that Kai was particularly impressed that he was on Thomas the Train, but seemed pretty pleased to be on a train in general.

Posing with Pappa

Getting some love from Mommy...

...and giving it right back.

The kids on the train were thrilled every time the Engineer pulled the whistle and clouds of steam billowed overhead.

 After the train ride ended everyone had the opportunity to get a professional picture taken posing in front of Thomas. Yo and I were too lazy to stand in the line but we found an inflatable train (Percy?) that we figured would be an adequate (and free) substitute.

As much as Kai enjoyed the trains, the highlight of his day was when he got to go into a bounce house (at long last). There was one bounce house designated for kids under 2 so I felt comfortable letting him loose.

The only challenge was, that once inside, there was no way that kid was coming out. After letting him bounce around for 15 minutes or so, Yo and I were getting hungry and tired and were ready to hit the road, but Kai kept as far away from the opening of that darn bounce house as he could. I finally had to resort to luring him out with his binky which he usually only gets when he's sleeping or driving in the car. He chased after that binky all around the perimeter of the bounce house and right up to the exit. He tried to grab the binky from me and then dart out of reach, but I caught him by the tail of his shirt and managed to drag him out.

All-in-all it was a great day. Thanks, Pappa!

This past Wednesday, Kai and I headed to Raging Waters, a local water park, to enjoy some fun in the sun. Kai had fun splashing around the kiddie areas and even mustered up enough courage to go down a couple of small-scale water slides. I enjoyed my first whiffs of chlorine for the summer and my first sunburn in forever in a few random spots where I must have missed with the sunblock.


Before we are ready to bid our summer adieu, we are having one last hurrah and heading to Pismo next weekend where we've rented a beach house with some friends. Stay tuned!