A little perk of hanging out at home this week

In some magical way, despite my best efforts, laundry in our home has increased exponentially since the child came into our lives. The drawback is that folding it all (we haven't really made it to the putting-away step yet, but we're getting there) seems to take up an absurd and embarrassing amount of time.

Once nice perk is that when you're folding laundry, you might look out the window, and when you do, you'll happen to see a neighborhood ten-year-old cruising on his bike, and he thinks no one can see him because no one is outside, so you will have a secret front-row seat, and he'll have a backpack-style violin case on, and he'll be humming/singing to himself, and then he'll try to pop a wheelie, then he will fall off his bike, and you will watch the whole thing. And when he falls, he will smack right on his stomach, spread-eagle with his arms and hands spread out like hangman, and his violin case will hit his head, and he'll yell "Oooof!" Then, he'll look around to make sure no one saw, then thinking he's alone, he'll yell "DANG IT!" and continue on his way.

And you'll laugh about it all afternoon.

treat

You know how sometimes you get a little treat in your life that reminds you all is well in the world, that God exists and things are good and people are awesome and life is beautiful??

I know, I know, you're wiping a tear while you think about your own "tender mercies." Today, cute baby and I had to wait for 100 years (LITERALLY...literally...) at the clinic for her to get a blood test since she is 2 weeks old (timeout to brag and say she is packing on the pounds, er, ounces thanks to mama's cream). She's napping, I'm wishing I was asleep, and I'm staring out the window when TO MY DELIGHT AND AMAZEMENT I see two 'heavy-set' or 'plump' or (insert politically correct term for chubby here) women in their 50s come out of the lab. And they are twins. And they both have dyed red-but-also-slightly-pink hair. And they are WEARING MATCHING CLOTHES, khaki pants and navy t-shirts.

And....

they are both in jazzies.


God bless America.

SHIM-SHIMINY SHIM-SHIMINY

(INSERT LARGE CELEBRATORY SHIMMY)

Finished my second year of law school yesterday! Baby and hub took a big fat field trip to the law school with me and it was intense but now it is over so let us give thanks. Cute hub was on thankless law school baby lockdown basically all day and for that I salute him. In the morning, I had a big meeting during which I frantically ran out twice to feed her bc the cries of a 9-day-old baby's hunger break me heart, and by afternoon I took a lame Wills & Estates final during which she shat all over hub's shirt, the changing pad, and a large portion of the study room. Haha! Your father and I think finals are shitty too, dear. We have a lot in common.

In the last 10 days I have pushed out 1 adorable baby, fed her 30,000 times, changed her 30,000 times, taken 2 big law exams, and now I am 2/3 of the way through with law school and don't plan on thinking about it again til August and just want to shake it like a polaroid picture, but that hurts, so I'll just treat myself to another load of laundry and maybe a shower. Woopwoop!

Welcome to our family.

A few years ago, I really clicked with Ammon. I was preaching the good word door-to-door with a nametag, a frumpy skirt covered in cat hair and some serious bottom-of-the-foot blisters and I was the happiest I'd ever been. I read in the Book of Mormon about when Ammon says "My joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy" and thought, Amen, brother. I really got it. I was sure that THIS, this mission thing, this feeling God's love for strangers when I couldn't feel my toes and bits of my hair were frozen together, THIS praying for stuff then watching it happen, THIS was what he meant by a heart brim with joy. Gotcha.

Then, a year later, I knelt across from my champion husband as we got married and realized, nope, THIS is brim with joy, THIS is as good as it gets, THIS staring at your favorite person and realizing you're perma-joined for the long haul and about to build a life together, THIS is as good as it gets, THIS is brim with joy.

Then exactly one week ago, husband placed our 10-seconds-old, wriggly, bloody, screaming, perfect baby on my tummy. I stared at her and at him and together we looked at this little person we made together who was inside me just a minute ago and I realized, THIS is brim with joy, THIS is as good as it gets. I have never felt anything like it but it's gotta be what Ammon meant when he said, "I cannot say the smallest part which I feel."

I feel weird blogging about her. You blog about sushi night, funny things people say on the bus, lame commercials, or how you hate finals. How do you tell the internets about the most intense feelings you've ever experienced in your life in the same space that you laugh about the gas station lady's sex advice? I don't know what to say but I can't even handle the love I feel.

I will never forget how husband stared at me when it was all over, how proud he was of me and how much love I felt from him and for him and how the love I felt for this screaming, goopy infant was amplifying every good feeling I've ever had in my life and I forgot for a minute that I'd just pushed her out without any meds and that I hadn't changed a diaper since I was a Beehive and that I don't know how to give her a bath and I don't get babies at all, and for a minute all I could think about was how NOW I might explode with love and I finally know what Ammon meant and I finally got it through my thick head that this whole family thing really is what it's all about.

best. day. ever.

Welcome to your life, baby!

After a long drumroll, our daughter finally joined us Tuesday April 15th at a beautiful 8 lbs 13 ounces. I have never prayed so hard or hurt so much or been so happy, EVER, let alone all in the same day. Husband talked me through the whole thing and the hippie in me is delighted that everything went just as we hoped it would.

As I figure out life with a new little person, what one writer has termed "National Geographic crotch," enormous bricks for boobs and with two more law school finals ahead of me, I will have to delay blogging about the most amazing day of my life for a while. This poem is hanging in our baby's room and it captures what we're feeling, and it's my blog and I can cheese if I want to. She is so awesome I could explode.

On Children
by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Still in the oven, er, crockpot

One of the many perks of being this pregnant is that people start to give you advice on how to bring the baby out, and when I say "people," I mean strangers. The grocery store cashier told me to try black or blue cohosh pills. A professor suggested I sniff peppermint and start jumping up and down. A lady in the temple told me the baby would come "in the Lord's time," which is scary since at that rate, one day is a thousand years.

But best of all, the rough-looking gas station lady asked me if I'd tried "s-e-x," cautioning that "it might not be worth the trouble at this point." Ummm...YOU'RE THE GAS STATION LADY. DO I LOOK LIKE I WANT TO HAVE A SEX CONVERSATION WITH THE GAS STATION LADY?

drumroll....

Nope, this kiddo's not here yet! I keep eating spicy foods and pineapple and I keep taking long waddle-walks between sessions of pouring boring law into my head. And as time goes on, I'm developing a few theories. Do you have any ideas? Maybe she's waiting for...

• the sun to come out. The weather is gross, and it's been rainy and snowy and cloudy, which is probably tricking her into thinking it's still February so she thinks she shouldn't come out for two more months. Uh oh.
• us to get off her back. If she's anything like me or husband, she's likely shrugging us off with a "Don't tell me what to do!" when we try to nudge her along. Good luck trying to boss or rush anyone in our family.
• my finals to get closer and closer so she can make a hell of an entrance.
• tomorrow to come so she can share a birthday with Marlon Brando, Alec Baldwin and Jennie Garth.

What do you think?

This just in: hub just asked what I was up to, and I said I was just learning more about fiduciary duty. His response reminded me why I married him.

"Fiduciary duty sounds like something you tell your kids to do in the bathroom."