This morning I was at Walmart with Anna. She was sitting in the shopping cart- in the main part surrounded by all of our groceries. She began to complain that her stomach hurt. She had awakened just before we left to take the kids to school and we were doing the shopping on the way home. I told her maybe she was just hungry since she hadn’t eaten yet. A few minutes later she exclaimed, in a panic, that she thought she was going to throw up. We ran to the bathroom and made it to the door before she lost her bedtime snack of grapes all over the floor, her hair, her jacket, and…all the groceries in the cart. Let me tell you, that was not a fun clean-up job! After that experience I still say “motherhood is so awesome” because even though the clean-up was NOT awesome, I got to see Anna grow in her suffering. She was such a trooper. She was so sweet and lovely. She tried so hard not to make a mess! And watching her make the best of the situation was so tender. Best of all, when we resumed our shopping trip (she was feeling better and we still had about ten things to get), and I told her, “If you have to throw up again please make sure you turn your head and do it on the floor” she demonstrated by pretending to throw up over the side with this purely angelic look on her face followed by a conspiratorial grin.
Fancy Schmancy
This week was full of great opportunities to dress up! It started with the Wednesday night youth activity where the young men and women submitted their favorite youtube videos and then came dressed up for the awards. Like a Grammy’s or Emmy’s or whatever prize good movies get (I can never remember!). The kids were excited for different reasons. Sam was excited to see the videos, Lizzie was excited for a chance to dress up. It was fun to see her wearing an old dress of mine and so great to see her get excited about getting ready. She found the hairstyle she wanted online and I attempted to make it work. Not bad for my first try if I do say so myself! Once everyone was ready I could suddenly see into the future of formal dance preparations! I can imagine when Sam and Lizzie are 16 and 17 having them both getting ready for a formal dance. Who knows, maybe by then they will be good enough friends that they will want to double date? With the two of them being only 14 months apart in age, it is not too farfetched to think that they might even be interested in dating each other’s friends! Aren’t my big kids handsome? Not to mention my good-looking husband!
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Late for a Wedding
Grant is a bishop in our church. As bishop he is sometimes asked to perform a marriage. Over Christmas, and then at a party at our house about a month ago, a woman casually asked Grant if he would perform her marriage and then told him she would send him an invitation with details. Then, the couple decided to not send out invitations. Instead they sent an e-mail that he missed informing him of the time and date. Last Friday at 4:20 pm he received this message on his phone:
“Hi Bishop Beckwith. Um… this is (name of bride). My wedding, (well I’m running a few minutes late)…it’s kind of NOW.” (The wedding was supposed to start at 4 pm)
The calm tone the bride used was marvelous. The location was half an hour away and Grant was still at work. He left immediately and made it in record time. He wasn’t pulled over but I wonder how many times a cop has been given the excuse that the speeder was late for a wedding!
Falling Rainbows
Today Anna came running in from playing in the falling snow. She said, “MOM! Mom! I have something to show you that is really amazing!!!” We ran outside and she pointed this out and said with all of the excitement that only a five-year-old can express, “A rainbow fell on the floor!!!”
I almost didn’t come out when she asked me to. I almost just saw a cracked and pitted driveway in need of repair. I almost felt annoyed that someone leaked oil on our driveway. Instead, thanks to the perspective of a child I saw the gift and wonder of a rainbow that fell on the floor just for our enjoyment. Thank you Anna.
Chicken Thoughts
Chicken photography by: Rolf Hagberg Photography
Over Valentine’s Day/Presidents Day weekend we were in St. George visiting Grandma and Grandpa Beckwith. We went to eat at a restaurant called Culver’s which serves high quality burgers. Anna ordered chicken tenders (we called them nuggets). She took a couple of bites and then refused to eat them complaining that, “They tasted too much like chicken and that she liked the ones that didn’t taste like chicken.” (ie: the dinosaur shaped ones)
Monday morning we woke up to a big chicken mess in our yard. As of Sunday we only had two chickens left out of our original flock. We have several predators around here that have a hard time passing up a good chicken meal including hawks, racoons, a fox that lives in a thicket on the other side of our fence and cougars (there are occasional sightings in our neighborhood). The chicken who lost it’s life on Monday was beheaded and disemboweled but left on our lawn. Rosie, the remaining chicken came over to investigate. As she was standing there looking over her companion Lizzie looked out and imagining that Rosie was feeling pretty sad said, “I wish chickens understood the Plan of Salvation.” I’m just glad that our children understand it well enough that they can feel hope even in the face of death.
Happy Loventine’s Day
16 years ago today my sweet husband proposed to me. We hiked to the top of Eagle’s Crag outside of Zion National Park as the sun came up and agreed to spend eternity together. What a good decision that was! I love Valentine’s Day because I get to reflect on that blessed decision and the amazing years since. I love celebrating love. I love that I got to teach our preschool group this week (I’m in a co-op where I share the responsibility to teach with five other mom’s and so I teach once every six weeks), and our topic was “Love and Family” and “Mail and Post Office”. We read the book “The Seven Little Post Men”, made cards for a loved one and took a little field trip to a blue mail box where the children, with great ceremony, dropped their cards in. I love preschoolers because everything is so full of interest for them. That great big blue box was twice their size and more than one child asked what would happen to their letter, and how would the postman get it out?
We started our discussion about Love and Family like this:
Me: Can anyone tell me what holiday we will celebrate this week?
Sweet boy in our group: LOVENTINE’S DAY!
So, to all of you out there whom I love and who have touched my life, Happy Loventine’s Day!
A Few Little things
Friday night I was putting Anna to bed. As we were snuggling and talking I asked her what was the worst possible thing that could ever happen? She said, “Kissing a frog and then turning into one.” The best thing she could imagine? Being able to snap her fingers and things just happening. Like Mary Poppins snapping her fingers and the room cleaning itself.
Also Friday night I was in charge of picking up one of the judges for Lizzie’s Irish dance competition (feis) held the next day. Our studio was running the feis and parent involvement was needed. I picked up a charming woman from upstate New York who had never been here before. She asked me to tell her a little about Utah. I told her about the culture, and climate (she wanted to know if it was as grey-skied as her hometown) and mountains. We also talked about the many recreational opportunities here. Then, kind of out of the blue she asked, “Tell me about Salt Lake. Is it a dry county?” I replied, “Well, Utah is considered a cold desert, and we really do not get much rain, so yes, it is generally pretty dry around here. But we do get more moisture in the mountains.” She exclaimed, “I’m not talking about rain! I’m talking about booze! Can you get booze here?” We both laughed and I replied, “I guess the nature of my answer probably indicates how ‘dry’ it is around here, doesn’t it?”
Saturday was Lizzie’s feis. She looked strong and graceful. She wasn’t happy with her results but I think not getting medals was good for her. I am pretty sure she is getting to the point where natural talent isn’t going to be enough for her to advance into the next level. I have been encouraging her to practice for some time now and I think Saturday’s results (her perceived “failure”) really helped her to see that if she is interested in progressing in Irish Dance, she ought to practice. This was just another confirmation that my nagging will never push these children to excel as much as their own conviction of the importance of hard work.
Fifteen years ago while Grant and I were living in New York we saw “Aida” on Broadway. Aida was performed by Heather Headley, a Trinidadian-American daughter of a pastor. Her voice in that performance utterly blew me away. (Think the vocal equivalent to the richness of quality dark chocolate.) She also played Nala in Lion King, and is one of the few singers in the world able to play Whitney Houston’s role in the musical “The Bodyguard”. She has toured with Andrea Bocelli, and has released several albums…in other words, she is a VERY accomplished singer. I recently stumbled across a blog post by her that made me laugh:…
Some Parental Re-assessment
Lately, I have noticed that my interactions with the children have been pretty negatively charged. I have felt that I am nagging over all the things that seem important to me and that I feel should be important to them. Those areas are (not in order of importance): Chores, music practicing, and schoolwork. What is so difficult for me is that I feel that all of these things are so important for our children and for their success and happiness. I want to save them the pain of consequences. In other words, I feel like if I don’t nag them to do their homework, or if I allow them to procrastinate, or not prepare for their tests, then they will not go to a good university, and they will be unemployed for the rest of their lives! Or if I don’t nag them to prepare for their music lessons they will waste their talents, and feel that awful feeling of guilt you get when you show up at yet another lesson unprepared. (I remember that feeling well!) Or they will quit playing their instruments altogether.
I guess it is pretty natural for a parent to want to save their children from pain and failure. But am I doing them any favors? Especially if in trying to shield them from those things I am sacrificing good relationships with my children for relationships of contention and anger. So what did we do? I find that everything gets easier when I enlist Grant’s help. He and I started discussing my frustrations tonight and then Sam and Lizzie joined us and we had an amazing talk where we were all brainstorming about how we can make things better. We listened to the children and they listened to us. We decided that it was time to let them experience natural consequences. I was going to back away from nagging over school work. Thankfully, the children are all good students (some are even GREAT students), but just need a little experience in figuring out how to use their time better. If our children are not prepared then they will get the bad grade, but it will no longer be my responsibility to save them from that. I am firing myself from the job of school nag and homework enforcer! And if they don’t have good enough grades to get into BYU (their dream school and mine) then I will be there to commiserate and console, since I was once there myself! (I ended up having to go to a Jr. college for 1 1/2 years in order to get the grades I needed to be accepted by BYU. It was a very sobering reality check the day I got that rejection letter!)…
Why We Feel SO Lucky to Have Four
Four children, that is. Awhile back I came across this blog that explains what our complication is with having children and why we feel so lucky to have our four sweet ones. As Anna turns FIVE today (I can’t believe it!), my mind turns back to pregnancy and the deliveries of each of our children and I am full of gratitude that they are a part of our family. Our doctors told us after #2 not to have any more because of our Anti-kell antibody issue. We took a risk and with only one miscarriage we were able to add William and Anna to our family. So as we celebrate Anna’s birth, five years later I am celebrating the miracle of each life that is a part of our family, and the peace of knowing that we are a complete.
I’m Thankful for my Nose
I’m going to take a break from adding content (recipes) to my blog and write for a moment about how grateful I am for my nose. I know, this sounds trite, but after a lot of fun late nights staying up talking with Zach (my brother) and Nikki who were visiting, I finally succumbed to a grand ol’ head cold. I can’t breath out of my nose right now and this has made me think about a few things. I am amazed by how balanced our bodies are and how everything has so many perfect functions. Of course our nose is for smelling danger, or when we need to help our babies by changing a diaper. Our nose also brings us pleasure when we can anticipate a delicious meal. Our nose also helps us breathe. Now that that function of my nose is gone my systems are a bit out of whack. Because I cannot breathe out of my nose, suddenly my lips are dry, rather, PARCHED because of mouth breathing. I wake up feeling like my whole mouth is the Sahara from mouth breathing all night. My throat hurts because it is so dry. My teeth feel different even. And I am so thirsty all of the time.
I think adversity, like having something not work on our body, is really to remind us a couple of things. First, we need to feel grateful everyday for each little thing. It really isn’t until those things are gone, or don’t work that we realize how much our lives are enriched because of them. Secondly, all things really do denote that there is a God. How can this all be an accident? How can such perfect harmony and balance just happen in our bodies and in nature? One of my favorite verses of scripture comes from the Book of Mormon and says “…The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” (Alma 30:44)
As much as I appreciate the reminder of things I have to be grateful for, I am rather eager to have my nose back in working order!
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