The extra birthday

Elsie got her extra birthday she asked Santa for. We played games where she got to jump off the couch, we sang, she blew out candles, ate pink sprinkled cake, opened a few remaining Christmas presents and got lots of birthday hugs. Everyone wore princess birthday hats (even Liam who realized he was getting tricked.)

Christmas

Christmas was perfect. I received a huge dose of gratitude- for family  that support and love us even though we live far away, for thoughtful gifts, for prayer, for my kids and husband that bring meaning into my life, and for blessings upon blessings, upon blessings.

This Christmas break has been a re-set of sorts.  It has been relaxing, satisfying, and a chance to recharge, and reconnect. The past months have been discouraging,  a little lonely, stressful, and a drag.  After 5 nauseous months of pregnancy the week of Christmas came around and the nausea magically disappeared.  I finally feel like myself! (plus a baby bump)  I feel recharged for the New Year, inspired, and ready for good things to come.

Watching kids opening presents was a thrill. 

 

The Girl Who Wanted a Birthday for Christmas

If you ask Else what she wants for Christmas she'll tell you Santa is bringing her 'a pink cake.' But for Christmas Elsie actually wants an extra birthday. She wants to wake up and have it magically be her birthday. (But she still wants to be remain 2.) A simple enough Christmas wish right?

 So naturally Santa ordered a toy cake on amazon.  But as the details emerged she figured out she doesn't just want a toy cake, she wants a real, fluffy, pink frosted chocolate cake, a party with pink balloons and games and prizes. . . It could be a really interesting Christmas.

 Elsie also caught the plague-like flu.  Burning fever, vomiting, can't sleep at night, chills, and everything miserable. Let's hope we don't have to postpone the party 'til May (when she has her actual birthday.) Pray for the Birthday Girl.

Liam has been sick. I mean really, 104 degree fever, can't swallow medicine because his throat is too swollen, sick.  There is nothing sadder than a sick kid. Especially a sick kindergartner that's usually the life of the party and got put into a trance by the flu.  We all (minus Liam) took a family field trip to the doctors office to get flu shots in hope that maybe all this fever-y, sad, sad, sickness will get beat out buy Liam and simply go away.

The week I wore pants to church

This week when I went to church I put on my Sunday best, took the sacrament, taught Sunday school out of the scriptures, felt the spririt, met with the bishop for tithing settlement- all while wearing pants.


Now there is no sign at the door of Mormon churches saying "Ladies: Absolutely no pants!" and there is no written 'skirts only' rule. It is absolutely inferred though.  In nearly 30 years of attending worship services weekly I have no memory of any one in my family, my husbands family, or even my friends EVER wearing pants to church. It's a way to distinguish outsiders and it's just one of those things- if you're a Mormon woman and you want to be taken seriously, you'll wear a dress. So I'll return to dress wearing next week.  

My reasons for wearing pants actually had almost nothing to do with pants. This past week a group of LDS women decided to wear pants to church and I joined in.  The word spread via blogs, word of mouth, and facebook. (I heard about the event from a friend.) The idea was to challenge social convention while encouraging more open discussion about gender roles, something I think we need.  Mormons have a reverence for womanhood but we limit women's roles in the church, socially and structurally, to exclusively mothers and stewards of other women and children. In my opinion this needs updating. I think there is more decision making, preaching, teaching, potential yet to be tapped (without making radical changes.) 
I didn't view my pantsing  as a 'social demonstration,' more an act of solidarity and an opportunity to engage in respectful conversation with the very the few people (actually just one person that read about it on the internet) that noticed. 

In my D.C. area ward you'd have to do a lot more than show up in nice trousers to make waves. We have men with long hair, working moms, immigrants that wear traditional African and Hindi costume, a man that hyphenated his name when he got married.  It's a place where the gospel looks different when worn by different people.  I was one of 4 people in my ward to reverently participate in 'pants day.' It was entirely unremarkable, but I don't think it was pointless.

I think LDS church members tend to think that the Mormon Church is totally insulated from the influence of any type of social movement because we have a top-down leadership.  But our ability to evolve is part of the beauty of the Mormon church. The history of the church has numerous examples of policy, and even doctrine, that morphed due to social movements. Polygamy was abolished when Utah was under fire and wanted statehood, blacks got the priesthood after the civil right movement, it was during the push for the Equal Rights Amendment that unmarried women (non-missionaries) were permitted to enter the temple for the first time.  Birth control used to be explicitly forbidden by LDS church leadership, now it's a personal choice. In the past 10 years our policies on gays and the nature of homosexuality has morphed. 

 I don't think any of these things have been coincidence, I just think socially we're often a little late to the game.  The day will come when womanhood in the LDS church looks a little different, where ladies are allowed to pray in general conference, conduct meetings, and be more integrated.
 In the meantime I can wait and once every 30 years, wear pants. 

(A silly song about Mormon 'pants day')  

Christmas concert

There is something about a Christmas concert that generates the warm fuzzies.   My orchestra Christmas concert ended with Handel's Hallelujah Chorus,  with all the audience invited to sing along at the top of their lungs.  Few things illicit Christmas cheer like Handel.  To me no matter how many times I play it, the Hallelujah Chorus is moving.  It is the ultimate prayer of praise to God, thanks to the Son, and an exclamation of the excitement the gospel brings to my life.
Hallelujah indeed.

These are a just a few of my favorite Christmas things

-Ghiradelli peppermint bark- part chocolate, part candy cane, wholly delicious
-Little Women, the movie- it makes me feel whimsical and nostalgic
-Gingerbread men- soft, chewy, Christmas-y goodness. Copious amounts of fluffy frosting required.
-Egg nog pancakes and milkshakes- Yep, just replace the water/ milk with egg nog
-Josh Groban's 'Noel' Christmas album- keep it on repeat for 1 month straight
-Playing Christmas songs on the piano- some years I forget I play the piano, until Christmas time

-Advent calenders, the chocolate kind from the store. Don't pay attention to the numbers. Disregard the 'one a day' rule.

We had our routine ultrasound this past week.  Yes, choosing to not to find out the sex steals the 18-20 week ultrasound punch line, but it was fun to see the baby anyways.   But both Brady and I independently peaked at the bum shots and although neither of us spotted anything exciting, it was fun to cheat.

Since I have 1 boy and 1 girl already I think I subconsciously assume I know exactly what the 3rd one will be like. (The girl will like pink and coloring, the boy will like super heroes and be laid back. . .)   I imagine them as clones of their same gendered sibling.  But I need to remember that this 3rd one will be their own self, probably just as different from their siblings as Liam and Elsie are from each other.  

Raising our 2 kids so far has yielded drastically different experiences. The things that gave us grief about with one kid were smooth sailing with the other. The troubles we encountered with one were things we thought we'd already mastered with the other

One kid was.....The other kid was . . .

a picky eater,  a hearty eater

a happy baby,  disgruntled infant

                                                loves being with friends, likes independence

an angelic newborn, tormented with acid reflux

 always running away from us in public, always clinging to our legs 

wears whatever clothes mom chooses, personally selects their clothes

loved drawing from the time they could hold a pen, too busy to draw

fearless around water, nervous around water

sleeps like a log,  wakes up to roll over

terrible at nursing, terrible at weaning

generally quiet, always talking

introverted, extroverted 

It's exciting to think about the suprises ahead of us with our next edition. 

bring on the holidays

I have been excited for the holidays ever since I saw the first leaf fall, back in September.  My kids are at this cherished age where Christmas is perfectly mysterious and magical. Elsie walked into Best Buy last week, saw a blown up penguin and Christmas lights and yelled out as is if she'd struck gold, "Ho Ho (Santa) lives here!!"  Liam has been filling Elsie in on what Santa Claus does, and his terms of being good and leaving carrots for his reindeer. He has also erroneously telling his sister for a month, "You'll go to sleep and wake up and then in 2 days, we're going to Nana and Papas house and it will be Christmas Eve."  The count down to Christmas has begun.

The days leading up to Thanksgiving I was all sulky and home sick. Both of our families were getting together for huge, everyone-but-Dani-and-Brady-sized gourmet Thanksgiving dinners.  I was too nauseous to deal with a turkey and worried Thanksgiving just wouldn't pan out this year.  Fate (and my moms prayers) were on my side and I ended up feeling fine enough to cook and although we skipped out on turkey we had a quiet, but charming, Thanksgiving.