A Musing Mother 6

This year for our 17th anniversary, my husband found this canvas picture of the Salt Lake Temple. I love it! To ease my conscience for breaking any copyright laws, the artist is Robert A. Boyd and his website is http://www.robertaboyd.com. This is where I should extol the virtues of 17 years of marriage to the most perfect man in the world. Instead I am going to extol the virtues of the best man for me. He is patient, kind, forgiving, accepting, insightful, handsome, loving, committed and thoughtful. The last 17 years have been a roller coaster of life in motion. I expect the next 17 years to be much of the same only with different twists and turns. I can't imagine riding it with anybody else.

My gifts and talents are many and varied. I know it is not polite to boast about your own strengths but this one is one to be admired from afar. Although my husband and children would not agree with this, I do have a gift of listening and discerning. To be more specific, I know what's in the dryer. This has come from my years of vast experience doing laundry. I can tell from the "clunks" and "thuds" what offending object is in the dryer. I can tell if it is a quarter, nickel, dime, or penny. I can predict any combination of the above. I can discern the size of the rock or wood chip. I have even finally figured out that the softer "clump" sound that doesn't seem to be offending could, in fact, be a red crayon. Multiple "clumps" mean that someone shoved a whole handful into his pockets. I have also figured out a rating system. Small change and rocks is an irritating but harmless sound. Crayons of any color require running to the

The day started as my usual day; 5:00 a.m. being pushed out of bed by a 3 year old boy who somehow knows how to spread himself over the entire king size bed. Loving sleep more than my bed, I stumble to my son's bed. As I am enjoying my slumber, hubby yells, " Jaxon threw up!" Suddenly, I remember that I really do love my bed. "On my bed?!" "No, he made it to the toilet." With relief, I started dozing again. Wait, my son just threw up. I tumbled out of bed and made my way back to my bedroom. During the next two hours, there were 5 more incidences of regurgitation . Three were successful. Two left a Hansel and Gretel trail behind him. "Are we going to do 'rock, paper, scissors'?" I asked my husband. "Did you want to teach Priesthood today?" Weighing my options of cleaning up throw up and facing a class of ambivalent men, I settled for throw up. Turns out, my choice was the best. The minute the family left for ch

The truth is that I have anxiety. It's one of my gifts. I'm good at it. I'd go into more detail but sufficed to say, you'd find me in the DSM-IV. This is genetic. I have passed this gene onto at least one of my children. This particular child needs a little more time and patience than other children. She needs transition, explanation, patience, rest and food. Last night hubby and I decided to treat the children to dinner out. We chose a place to eat. Of course, the children wanted three different restaurants. This is not a democracy, by the way. My particularly little Nancy was hungry and had no transition time. Dinner was a painful experience. She refused to eat. She only sat with us because I threatened to spank her right there in the middle of the restaurant. She touched her siblings, made rude noises, yelled inappropriately, and, by the end of dinner, her mother was completely and anxiously frazzled. The food given to her was untouched and pushed awa

These are my crocuses braving the cold air and peaking out of the nearly frozen ground. If we could all be like the crocuses...