Tell You [a] Little Story

One of these days I'll post something again. (Blog posts about blog posts are the worst kind.)

I'm the mother of a ten-year-old. A handsome funny inventive sneaky reading helpful sensitive long-remembering easily distracted logical independent meat- and carbs-loving self-conscious creative reserved inquisitive loving ten-year-old. Elliot had a birthday a few weeks ago. I love this kid to death. I'm probably too hard on him, and sometimes we fight for control (I know I ought to let him grow up, but it's so hard!), but deep down Elliot and I really "get" each other. I love to share inside jokes with him. I love to watch him develop his talents and succeed. I am so grateful for the help he gives me and for the kindness he shows his younger siblings. It's sad to think about him being on the downward slope of his childhood.

Yesterday morning, five minutes into my jog, something gave way in my lower back, and walking has been a complete joke ever since. The kind of joke that makes you wince and cry and stay in bed for eighteen hours at a time; not so much the funny kind.  Also, for the life of me, I cannot stand up straight. My torso bends a full thirty degrees to the left, and who knows? maybe I'll be crooked forever after. I got up at 8 to get the kids dressed for church and to send them on their way to sit with really nice people who also took them home afterward and fed them lunch (so nice!). I got up at 1 to make myself a peanut butter sandwich. And I got up again at 4 to soak in a long bath and get new pajamas on. Then I ventured into the kitchen and saw how my husband has been so busy taking care of me and the children and the ward at large that no one has been attending to the kitchen, so I decided to spend a few painful minutes on my feet to load the dishwasher. As I hobbled into the laundry r...

...off is a really good sale. ...is a solid B- on a test. AND ...of our children will be of the male variety. It's a boy! We like boys around here, so we think that is just dandy. Our kids are very happy and excited, except maybe for Norah who has been adamant for the last four months that the baby is a GIRL! She finally relented today that it is a boy, but she generously suggested that we name him Sister. All seems to be well with the baby. We are grateful for health: so far so good. My heart has been breaking lately with news of friends who are experiencing serious baby- and pregnancy-related challenges and to all of them I offer my most sincere expressions of love and offerings of prayer. I would give so much to not have my loved ones suffer.

I like this time of year. The weather is fantastic: I can drive with windows down, read outside, not turn on heat or a/c. The teachers have stopped assigning homework. I have vacations to look forward to. I have time and inclination to nap every day. Tomorrow I find out the gender and general health of my current fetal child.

I could write volumes of books about this girl, starting with how we really didn't like each other growing up, and I acted as though I wanted nothing to do with her or her friends, but really it was because I knew I could never measure up to her beauty and charm, so I acted as if I didn't want to, all the while stealing her clothes after she left for school and carefully replacing them just so in her closet before she came home from basketball practice or whatever it was so she wouldn't know I had worn them; then going on to how we became good friends as we got older and I liked that she liked to hang out with my friends, even when I wasn't around; then how we both got married and had kids and became genuine sisters who loved each other; then how she went through a really intensely difficult time in her life, and I felt like it was the most gut-wrenching thing that ever happened to me because I didn't want her to hurt, ever; and then on to how she is the greatest ol...

Nicole Hill Gerulat of A Little Sussy won a stock photography contest using this image of Isaac. I love it! (And my sister called to tell me about it, and thought it was Aaron.)