Ups & Downs

"Motherhood is a bi-polar sort of occupation." I recently read that comment, made by someone else on another someone else' s blog-post, and it stuck to me. Not precisely negative or complaining, not rosy or impossibly cheerful, just true for me. Mothering brings out the best and the worst in me; and, my mothering brings out the best and worst in my kids. Some days are fabulous and I congratulate myself for being such a wise, loving, educating, understanding mother. Of course, you know what comes the next day--the opposite. Where did my patience go? Where are the well-mannered, helpful children hiding? Didn't I laugh at disaster just yesterday? Why is everyone crying?

That tug-of-war, to and fro, bi-polar quality is exactly what I've noticed as I read over my journal lately. I'm finding that I must--must--record the happenings (good, bad, sad, and funny) so I can 1. remind myself that all is not lost, there are many happy times, and 2. so I can see the pattern and prepare for the next bummer day.

Case in point, try out these unedited excerpts from my journal:

February 23
Dallin and Nate played happily together with Legos today. That's always worth noting. It was actually about 2 hours! I didn't disturb them even though it was resting time! And I rarely use exclamation marks, so that really is something.

February 24
But they fought over the Legos all day today. And stole Matthew's “special” set from his room, and then lied to me about it. Grrr.

Jamie Beth threw a tantrum about practicing piano. I may have almost lost my temper.

Matthew is learning that not every school class is going to be his favorite. He's trying to decide for junior high between classes he doesn't like and classes he really, really doesn't like.

My brain is leaking out, I'm pretty sure. I'm eating Nutella on pretzels to console myself. But here's a tender mercy: Celia fell asleep just now, minutes after Matt took the kids to his basketball game, and minutes before I plan to go to bed.

It's 7:03 and that is 6 hours earlier than I went to bed last night. Which is precisely why my brain is leaking out.

March 20

I've actually had at least a week of good days. It's funny that during these better days, I can't even remember what was wrong with me back on those bad days. Not that this week has seen my house become a sparkling haven, or any projects have been finished, or that I was a singing, loving mother every moment. But...BUT...I did set a goal each day—just one, because after all I have a baby still—and I accomplished that goal each day.

March 26

I wasn't kind and patient enough with Nate, I shouted a couple times, I didn't accomplish my goal of cleaning up my room, I had a hard time with Jamie Beth and a school project—she cried twice about my helping her. She thought she would never finish because I was correcting too much.

March 31

Despite a day-long headache that precluded all housewifely usefulness, today is the third day in a row that I felt was a good day. It could have something to do with greater efforts at prayer, scripture study time, and talking quietly. Also meal-planning.

Now I should go to bed, but once again I'm hungry. Celia sucks the nutrition out of me.

April 17

Today the kids happily played card games and board games until church. They dressed themselves and each other so they would have more time to play. Matthew taught them the rules. I heard no fights, no tears, hardly a mean tone. Then, they were unbelievably, impeccably respectful and attentive when the home teachers came. They were reverent in church. (Nate was relatively reverent.) And, at the end of the day, no one argued with me when it was time to leave Nana's house. I wish I knew what happened so I could replicate it. Happy Sabbath day to me.

April 21

I'm busy, but calm. Surprisingly calm.

April 25

I worked hard all day but don't see much difference now. I'm telling myself that the house is just a little ahead of where it was this morning, so tomorrow I will get even further. Farther? I never know. I know in my heart that the living room is dusted, the hallway baseboards are clean, some walls are cleaner, two loads of laundry were washed (though not folded), and dishes were slowly washed throughout the day because, darn it, the dishwasher is not working and I have to handwash everything. Also vacuumed the living room and hallway, fed children many times, swept the kitchen, dropped off and picked up Dallin from soccer practice, and made a new, if mediocre recipe for dinner. Read scriptures and wrote in journal. A very full, though possibly invisible day.

Invisible. The word is a curse at times, a blessing at others. It connotes uselessness and futility on my bad days; it's like a giggled secret between me and my fast-growing children on good days. It's the bi-polar thing again.

Last week I sent this musing into the Facebook cosmos:

I feel tired and happy with the knowledge that some good things got done today, still-messy house notwithstanding. Maybe it's not messy after all; maybe it's just in a constant state of transition, a process rather than a completion. The reason I keep writing down in my journal all the household tasks I've done, all the reading to kids, and mediating arguments, is just so I remind myself that I really am doing something...because it's all invisible, isn't it? Yet not less valuable.

What we'll remember about 2010

Now that it's nearly May, I feel ready to reflect on some of last year's happenings. No, actually I wrote this in December and just remembered to edit and post it:

• Jamie Beth's permanent teeth grew in funny--completely behind, not even touching her baby teeth.
• Dallin's reading skills improved at an exponential rate as he often spent two hours a day reading. We have to actually limit his reading time so he'll do other things!
• Matthew moved from football to basketball without missing a beat. He tries not to complain about sore muscles or injuries, because he doesn't want me--the nervous mom--to nix the whole athletics thing.
• Nathaniel took apart everything: hinges off doors, screws out of switchplates, sockets, and toys, baseboard off walls. Nothing is ever safe at our house from this climbing, curious boy. Oh, and he figured out the alphabet.
• Disneyland & California Adventure for the first time. Five days was the perfect amount of time to explore and have fun. Matthew rode the California Screamin' Roller Coaster 16 times over two days; Jamie Beth couldn't get enough of the river rafting ride and coaxed me to go with her. We truly enjoyed a fantastic vacation together.
• Hired someone else to paint for us. And someone else to close in the carport so we have a real garage. Three cheers for getting projects completely finished!
• Matt began loving his job for the first time since he started there eight years ago. He's enjoying developing apps for the iPad and iPhone for Ancestry.com. He also began traveling to San Francisco on a regular basis.
• In November, Matt found a new favorite exercise program: CrossFit. He joined with his brother and brother-in-law and now works out like a crazy man. It's definitely become his hobby.
• I was pregnant from January to October, which seems like a really long time when I say it like that.
• Celia joined our family, with all her sweet calmness, her kissable chubbiness, her dark hair and blue eyes.

Very wise, I think...

Well, everyone needs a Dallin-ism once in a while:

On a recent evening, Dallin was describing his interest in taking up bobsledding (?!?), which led us to a short discussion about that old movie, “Cool Runnings”, which led us to a talk of Winter Olympics. Dallin became excited about maybe winning a bobsledding event someday and started planning his strategies. As our conversation turned to recalling a sledder who died at an Olympic practice, Dallin's eyes widened and his self-preservation instinct kicked in. In a suddenly serious tone, he said, “Actually, I think I would tell my team to go really slowly. I wouldn't mind losing so we don't die.”

(I just made a label for the kid whose talent is unintentionally making people laugh. Dallin.)

Sharing

(The past several months I've re-committed to writing in my journal. Between that and the instant sharing of Facebook, I haven't felt very motivated to keep up this family journal. However, I'm starting to think about maybe printing out the blog as a family journal for the kiddos to read. So here's to a tentative re-start.)

As we prepared bags of food to set out for the scouts to collect for the food bank drive, I said that my food storage was looking a bit low, so we would just do three bags. Jamie Beth then remarked, “But Mom, we have money to buy more food storage, and poor people don't!”

Well, how do you argue with such sweet generosity? We made up another bag.

Recent Photos, August-October

New Baby

Celia Jane Rasmussen

October 21, 2010

10:04 p.m.

8 lbs., 1 oz.

19 inches long

Greeted the next morning by siblings and cousins, none more excited than big sister, Jamie Beth.

This photo of Nate reminds me of another photo of another big brother holding a little sister.
Matthew was also 3 years, 8 months old when he became a big brother...

Calmly leaving the hospital.

Best position for a long nap.

Enthusiastically celebrating Halloween.

She does open her eyes! I took this photo of her tonight: almost three weeks old, a very quiet baby, channeling Grandmother Rasmussen a bit (according to her doting dad), possibly out-weighing her sister already (as observed by a certain uncle).
We like her very much.

About that baby...

The kids have varied responses and thought processes concerning the upcoming arrival of their sibling.

Matthew keeps his eye on the goal:

"So when are we switching the bedrooms so I can have my own room?"

He's also interested in the birth process:

(With his hand on my stomach during a random, painless contraction) "Does that mean it's time to go to the hospital?"

Jamie Beth is observant of my condition:

"Mom, after baby comes, will you be able to bend down and pick stuff up off the floor again?"

Dallin is ready and prepared:

(A couple days before my due date) "So baby is coming any minute now?"

Nate has plans:

"When our baby comes, we get to have pizza for dinner!"

and...

"I will not smack our baby; I will give her a binky."