Substitute Motherhood

I'm just feeling reeeeal sentimental right now, and I thought I needed to write.

Every time I'm mom for a day, I get so much perspective.  Sometimes too much perspective. (Lol, kidding. I still want to have kids. Promise.)

But, seriously. Momhood (and I'm not even a real mom yet, so I really can't talk.) is serious business.
It is the real deal.
It is hard.
And stressful.
And messy.
And tiring.
And embarrassing.
And loud.
BUT fun.
And joyful.
And smiley.
And giggly.
And so warm and fuzzy.

My favorite part of being a substitute mom for my siblings, is tucking them in.
Truly, nothing compares.
Bedtime for the five littles is no joke around here.
My parents call it "The Hard Push" which may or may not be related to childbirth sorry if that's tmi.
It's true, though.
Getting the kids "fed up, washed up, brushed up, and jammied up" takes effort, time and a hecka lot of patience.

But, once you do that, you get to read scriptures with them.
And say prayers.
And then (my favorite) sing to them.
And tickle their faces and their backs.
And they get really snuggly.
And tell you they love you.

And I really really like that.
That, is what makes the whole day worth it.
That, is the joy.

And so, I'll keep being substitute mom when my own mother needs a break.
I'll take them to a park, wipe their bums, feed them dinner, give them the pie that the adults don't want (only the three year old was okay with that), show them funny youtube videos, have them get mad at me when I ask them to clean, wipe their noses, and put on bandaids, and sing goodnight to them.

Because those little humans bring me joy, and some of the best kind, if you ask me.

Memories!!!

So many times, I get stuck in my head and I don't write!
I have so many parts of my day that are happy and joyful. I also have parts that are hard, but they help me grow and learn and give me perspective etc. etc.
But, I don't write them down.
And theeeeen, I forget.

Let me paint this picture for you. Today as I was listening to the Podcast, "Serial" from the producers of This American Life, they were interviewing a guy who was convicted of murder.  They were asking him for facts about where he was and what he was doing at the day and time of the murder but to him, it was just a normal day.  He couldn't remember what was happening one random Wednesday six weeks ago.  I mean, think about it, can you remember what you were doing at 3:30 PM on Wednesday six weeks ago? Even with our phones and social media, that's hard.

Now, with this in mind, I ask this question. If a memory six weeks ago, or even six days ago, is not written down or recorded somehow, did it even happen? I mean, yeah maybe it did.  But what is the point if we don't remember them? How often do we forget those happy, joyful and sometimes life changing moments? Yikes, I know I have forgotten way more than I'd like.

Sooooo, today's memories in a quick paragraph.  At work we took the K-2nd graders to the Provo Rec and this is always a bit stressful but so fun to see them so happy because they love swimming! I'm usually tense and always counting the kids to make sure we don't lose one. But today, we had 4 staff, so I relaxed a bit and played with the kids.  We swam and swam and swam. Played the color game. Practiced our floating skills.  Jessica was so cute in her life jacket, and Marilyn held onto me because she couldn't touch at four feet.  Jaczeri loved when I would hold onto the ball under water and then let it pop into the air.

As I write them down, they don't seem as significant.  BUT, it was such a good day at work.  And that, my friends, is a neat feeling.

In fact, having a good day at work, almost makes me feel like this.
Dancing in an art gallery of rugs while wearing thrifted hiking shoes.
Neat!!!

Eat More (Cold) Waffles

I forgot how good cold waffles taste.
This morning for breakfast/lunch I crammed 2 cold waffles into a baggie, grabbed a bag of wheat thins, an apple, and a banana and ate it as I drove to work.
Not one of my proudest moments, I know I know.
But it "did in a pinch." as my dad likes to say.
And it was delicious.
Thank you.

A Day With Bethany

To Bethany. A memory.
You are three and you call yourself Bobbies.
I spent all day with you, and it was an adventure.
You put your "tanties" (panties) in a line this morning to count them and decide which pair to wear today. You chose the yellow pair.
We went to the petting zoo with the other kids, and a guy referred to me as your mom. I didn't correct him.
At the petting zoo, you were terrified of the animals.  You enjoyed looking at them, but only at a distance. If we got too close to a horse or a goat, or a peacock, you would hold on really really tight to me,
Your favorite phrase right now is "no way" and no matter how hard I tried, you wouldn't finish your sandwhich at lunch, or your pizza at dinner. But you ate plenty of watermelon, carrots, and strawberries.
At the end of the day, I'm pretty sure that 50% of your food intake was probably toquitos.
You cried when Sammi tried to get you ready for bed, and ate my favorite dark chocolate EVEN when I told you not to.
We went to the petting zoo, and you loved the animals, but stayed a safe distance away from them because you were terrified of them at the same time.
When I sang "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" for bed, you looked at me with a wide, excited expression and said "Me love that song!"
And when I checked on you to make sure you were safe and sound and asleep, you had fallen asleep with your baby laying on your chest.
A long and a busy and a happy day for a little girl and her sister.

He(art)

I treasure the way their eyes light up when they do art. You can just see, and feel, their creativity flowing.

This is why I love doing art with other people.

Especially with the boys and girls.

After an exceptionally hard week, it was so nice to go into work today, and find ways to engage the kids. Instead of depending on a movie to entertain them, we painted for thirty minutes. Then played soccer in the gym for an hour. We had so much fun, We kept playing even after the club closed.

And this, people, THIS is my major. 

Sometimes I get so frustrated with accounting, and finance, and time value of money, and percent of sales method, etc. etc. 

I forget what I am aiming for.

But, this is exactly what I am studying to do.

Recreation has such a real way of connecting people with others.

And such a therapeutic way of connecting with you with YOURSELF.

Cool.

We're not supposed to post pictures of the kids on social media, and I reeeeally respect their privacy, but I have to get some pictures of the joyful happenings. So, I figure the top of their heads are private enough.

The kids made the brown color all by themselves, and I was very proud of them.

 This is art.

avocado sandwhiches

It was a good day of human development tests and avocado sandwhiches.

I went on a date on this Tuesday at 10:00 PM. 

We rolled up to the Roll-Up Cafe and listened to cool music and ate a yummy crepe and drank yummy hot chocolate.

I worked today. I work everyday. And almost every day (good weather permitting) I walk five of the kids home from school. It's about a fifteen minute walk, and I have really come to enjoy this time outside, and the funny conversations we have. Today, Elliot the fourth grader had his little nintendo ds out and he wanted to play on it while we were on our walk. At first I was like "yeah, cool" And I then I was like, wait, yeah right. This is such a good opportunity to teach kids about the importance of nature and to practice not letting my future children spend their time outside on their electronics, etc. etc. So, I told him to put it away. And at first he wasn't happy. He told me he only had three hobbies: eating, swimming (not expecting that one), and video games.

Uh-oh. 

We (I) spent the rest of the walk talking about how cool nature is, and by the end, his face was lighting up and I think he was really starting to appreciate everything I was saying and guess what? There, in the side pocket of his jacket, sat his green little nintendo ds, abandoned and forgotten.

Video games got nothing on this. Take that, Nintendo

Change and Cool Light

These are my feet.

Those are my mismatched socks.

Today I changed the name, the address, and the layout of my blog.

I did this partly because I am procrastinating my psychology homework, but mostly because I was ready for a change. I'm not sure how much better this one is, but I like it. So that's something, right? I feel this little spark in me that wants to write. I have so many thoughts in my head each day, and many of those are worthy of putting into words.

So I'm going to try to express my funny, random, and unusual little thoughts that go through my head each day. I want to remember who I was at this time in my life, etc. etc.

Now I'm going to go eat an avocado sandwich, and other vegetarian foods such like that.