When I was little I didn’t like to wear my seat belt.  It got to the point that my Dad told me that every time I got my seat belt on without having to be asked he would give me a quarter.  All of the sudden I was always wearing my seat belt.  Even though I don’t remember ever being paid for getting it on by myself, I have been a seat belt wearer ever since.

I now have a child who struggles with the seat belt.  He doesn’t mind wearing it, it just takes him forever to put it on.  Then he freaks out when I start driving and he doesn’t have it on yet, wanting me to wait for him.  So, what did I do?  Last week I told him that every time he gets his seat belt on before I get mine on I will give him a quarter.  So far he’s earned 3 quarters and I haven’t had to wait for him to get his seat belt on.

I got up early this morning to write a post because I didn’t have time to do it last night.  I didn’t have time because I spent 45 minutes walking around Toys R Us while Big Boy tried to decide what to get for a friend whose birthday party he got invited to this weekend.  After looking at every possible toy for a boy in the whole store, we ended up getting him a light saber.  The same toy we have gotten the last 3 or 4 friends whose parties we went to.

After that we went to Lowes to buy a new garbage disposal.  My husband tried to fix our slow draining drain and discovered that the disposal was broken.  Since I didn’t want to go a day without a working sink we replaced it last night.

So, I got up early to make up the post.  You know who else got up early?  All three boys.  It’s going to be a long day.

You know what my husband is doing today?  Going on a KC-135 refueling mission.  For work of course.

The life of a mother.

One of the things that I have struggled with the most over the last few years is my perception of myself as a mom.  I always felt like a failure, like I wasn’t good enough.  I yelled at my kids way more than I should have, got frustrated with them easily and didn’t get over it quickly, and just felt like I wasn’t doing anything right.  I felt extremely inadequate in what is my most important job in this life.

I read books and articles trying to find some answers that would help.  Nothing in and of itself held all the answers.  One article I read said to focus on the positive, find some things that you are good at and remember them when you’re feeling down.  I thought that sounded like a good idea so I tried it.  I couldn’t think of anything.  Whenever I came up with something that I might use the very next thought in my mind was all the ways that I hadn’t done that well in the past or ways that I could be improving on it.  I really couldn’t find one thing to be proud of in myself as a mother.

I thought about it off and on and still never came up with anything.  Then one day (months later) a friend came over to pick up her son who had been playing at my house.  When she came in she said “Your house always smells so good.”

“That’s because you always come at dinner time.”  I replied.

Then she told me that she had just recently told her husband that I made dinner every night and he didn’t believe it.  I said something about how there are some nights that are harder than others and that was the end of it.  After she left I realized that was it, I had discovered one thing that I could say that I did well.  I make dinner for my family every night and we sit down at the table and eat together.  Most of the time it is a homemade meal but of course there are the times that I pick up a $5 Hot-N-Ready from Little Caesars or we have frozen corn dogs.  That’s okay with me because that is life getting in the way, not me failing at my responsibilities.  That helped a little.  I had a place to start from but I was still far from being confident in myself.

I remember sitting in a church lesson several months ago and a woman commented that God knows us perfectly and he knows our children perfectly and he still send our kids to us.  I have thought of that often over the months and it has helped me have hope.  God knows my weaknesses and my strengths, everything about me, and he still chose to send these boys to me.  That must mean something.

Through a mixture of a few different resources I have realized lately that I am who I am.  I am the mother that I am and my family is my family.  I need to be okay with that and celebrate it.  I do what is right for my family because it is what is right and works for us.  Sure, I can get ideas and inspiration from other people and families but ultimately I do what works for me and my family at this time in my life.  That might seem like such a simple thing but it made a huge difference for me.

The last week or so I have been reading “I Didn’t Plan to Be a Witch” by Linda Eyre.  I have really enjoyed it and there are a lot good ideas but there is one part that has really changed my outlook on mothering.  In the prologue she says “common, ordinary children have an incredible knack of driving an otherwise normal, fun-loving mother to the brink of insanity… there are moments when we put on our witch hat, stick a wart on our noses, and screech things like, “Don’t bother me!”  “I can’t talk about that right now!” and, “That was a stupid thing to do!” ”

And all of the sudden I realize that I’m not the only one.  All mothers get this way.  It’s a part of being a mother.  (If you don’t get this way please don’t tell me about it and ruin this epiphany for me.)  I feel so much better about myself.  Now that I know that being impatient and frustrated is normal, I can move on and try to figure out how to have it happen less often or work on my reactions when it does happen.

I still have so much to learn as a mother and so many improvements to make but I now longer feel inadequate or like a failure.  For that I am grateful.

I live a few blocks from one of the high schools in my town.  Last week I went to run an errand during the high school lunch hour.  In front of me was a scooter with 3 teenage boys on it.  Of course none of them were wearing helmets.  As I followed them down the hill many thoughts went through my mind.  First was, “Man, teenagers can be so stupid.”  Shortly after that I thought of my boys and the fact that they will someday be teenagers.  They’ll do stupid things too.  I hope they survive.

Last, I thought of myself as a teenager and some of the stupid stuff I did.  There was one time when we squished 12 people into my sisters Ford Escort after the Homecoming Parade.  We had to get the whole soccer team back to the school somehow.  Another time I went to a party where people were boxing.  I boxed a friend of mine.  Of course the only gear we had were boxing gloves.  (Yes, I did win.)

Then once when I was in college we were going on a field trip for my mountain biking class.  We were riding in my friends Geo Tracker and it was snowing really hard.  One of the windshield wipers was caked with snow so it wasn’t working well.  We were driving down the freeway and didn’t want to stop.  My friend, who was driving, leaned her whole upper body out her window to clean off the windshield wiper while the tall boy with long legs who was sitting in the passenger seat steered the car and pushed the gas peddle with his long left leg over the middle console.

Then there was the time I kissed a 21 year old drunk Canadian in Moab.

This is just a few of the stupid things I did.

Suddenly I wasn’t so judgmental of the three teenagers on the scooter.  I’m sure I would’ve done it too.

I updated my About page to tell the story of how this blog came about.  I figured I’d post it here too so that anyone who is interested will know the history.

 

If you want to know a little about me, I introduced myself here.  As far as the story of this blog, here you go.

About four years ago I started having a desire to write.  I didn’t take it seriously because I figured I’m not a writer.  Sure I was in honors English in high school and always got good grades on my papers but that was the extent of it.  I didn’t major in English or literature or anything that would give me credentials as a writer.  Plus, I had no idea what to write about.  I didn’t feel like I knew anything that people cared to read about.

As time went on I just couldn’t get the thoughts to go away.  I would sit down and write something here and there in a word document, kind of like a journal, but never did any more than that.

A few years ago I read a magazine article about writing your own memoir.  I was interested in writing mine and even started once or twice but it didn’t last.  Sitting down to write your whole life story is pretty daunting. I knew a little of what it involved because my mother-in-law was in the process of writing the story of her life until she got married.  It seems like all she ever did for 2 years (or more) was work on her book.  I didn’t have that kind of time to invest.

Then one day I just couldn’t put it off anymore.  The desire to write wasn’t going away.  I chose a blog because I was familiar with them and really enjoy them.  I view this blog as my memoir.  A place to write down stories from my life whether they happened today, 20 years ago or anywhere in between.  It is mostly written for my children and their posterity but I thought a few others might enjoy it along the way.

The two winners, chosen from random.org, are

#55 – Susan “I love Shawni’s blog and would love to have the book! Thanks for the chance”

#51 – llambertz “I have been following Shawni’s blog as well and she has such great advice! I would love this book ”

Congrats ladies.  You should have an email from me.

Last night I took the two big boys down to the college campus that is near our house.  I had learned there was a nice pathway along a stream to walk on and wanted to go check it out.  This is the college that I graduated from and even though it is only about 2 miles from my house, I rarely go on campus anymore.  Being there and seeing all of the students made me think back to my college days and I was glad that I wasn’t in that stage of life anymore.

As I continued to think about it I realized that although I sometimes long for the future, I rarely, if ever, wish I was in the past.  I have enjoyed each stage of life for what it was but I don’t long to go back.  Sure it was fun to be in college and have so much free time.  I would love to be able to go out on a hike or bike ride everyday like I could back then.    Or to be back in high school when there was so much fun to be had with so little to worry about.  Then there is always the carefree summers of our youth when nothing mattered but being home by dinner time.

Each of these stages has helped shape me into what I am today, who I have become.  Back then I wasn’t the complete me that I am today. I didn’t have the fullness of life that comes from being a wife and a mother and all of the other experiences that I have had since then.

My husband likes to talk about happiness in a similar way.  You can think that you are happy but then when you experience a greater happiness your previous happiness feels lacking.  The more happiness and joy you experience the more you realize how limited your happiness was in the beginning.  Not that you weren’t happy in the early days, you were, you just weren’t as happy as you are now.  You couldn’t be because you didn’t know how much more happiness existed.

That is why I don’t long to live in the past.  I don’t have “glory days.”  Each stage of life has brought a richer, more joyful life.  Now that I’m here and I know what my life can be, the past just doesn’t compare.  I was missing out on so much back then.  So much of the fullness that life has to offer was lacking.

Which may be one of the reasons why I find it hard to not long for the future.  To long for that life that is even more full than it is today.  To be an even more complete version of myself.

I think my “glory days” are yet to come.

 

This was Spring Break my senior year of high school.

April 26, 1998

I found some time to tell you about Moab so here goes.  We left Tuesday about 5.  It was me, Sarah, Adrien, Anna and Autumn.  Sarah drove her mom’s Jeep Cherokee.  We got in Moab about 7:30.  We put the tent up and unloaded the car.  Sarah was sick so she went to sleep and the rest of us went swimming and hot tubing.  After me and Adrien went to the bathroom and changed and stuff.  Anna and Autumn stayed at camp and Sarah woke up and yelled some profanities at a dog and went and slept in the car.

We tried to start a fire when we got back.  Anna and Autumn went to bed and me and Adrien stayed up and cooked our burritos.  We were sitting there eating them and this guy walked up and asked if we’d seen his friend walk by.  We said no and he just kept talking to us.  His friend walked up a few minutes later and we just talked.  They talked to us about the liquor laws in Utah.  They sat down by us after awhile.  We were just talking about the church and how we don’t believe in drinking.  They tried to get us to drink some of their screwdrivers but of course we didn’t.  We talked for awhile.  They fought everything we said.  The one pulled a joint out of his pocked once too.

We migrated around the fire and the one that came up first asked me to step away from the fire for a minute.  I was debating but I did.  He asked me to go on a walk with him.  I said no and that I didn’t really want to.  He was so manipulative though and he’s like I just want to ask you some more questions but my friend makes me feel dumb.  So I was dumb and gave in.  We walked to another part of the campground (not far) and sat down at a picnic table.

I knew when he asked me to step away from the fire that he was going to try something but I’m not smart enough to not go with him.  At first we sat on opposite sides of the table then he said “I’m freezing, do you care if I come sit by you?”  So he sat next to me.  I sat there with my hands in front of my face so he wouldn’t try to kiss me.  He just asked me how I know that I don’t want to drink when I haven’t tried it.

I saw Adrien walk by but she turned before she saw us so a few minutes later I said that we should go find her.  I got up and started walking back to our campsite.  He stopped me and said, “Heather, can I kiss you?!”  I totally saw it coming.  I said no and that I didn’t know him and I wasn’t comfortable with it.  He was manipulative again.  He said “just a little one, I respected you enough to ask you.  Just a friendly little kiss.”  I knew I shouldn’t but there was a part of me that wanted to and he was so manipulative that I just did.  It wasn’t a little kiss on my standards.  He gave the tongue right away.  I kissed him back.  I pulled away after a bit.  He said “that’s all?”  I started walking back again and he stopped me again and wanted to kiss me again.  I said no again and he was manipulative again so I kissed him again.

Then we went back to our campsite but no one was there.  He tried to kiss me again but I wouldn’t.  I heard someone walking up and Autumn and Adrien walked up and Autumn just started yelling “Get out, get the hell out,” etc.  He was shocked.  I told Autumn to settle down and that it was okay then I told Brent – that’s his name- to just leave.  He stood there shocked and asked what he did for awhile then he said “Nice to meet you” and left.

Me, Adrien and Autumn had a group hug/crying session.  Anna came out of the tent and we all settled down.  We went to the bathroom and got ready for bed.  We were walking back and Brent walked back the other way.  Autumn yelled at him again.  He kind of got mad.  He said that he came back to apologize.  He wouldn’t leave.  We all told him to leave.  He was stubborn but he finally left.

I can’t believe I kissed a 21 year old drunk Canadian.  He wasn’t a good kisser at all.  It was way slobbery.  Maybe he was just so drunk that he couldn’t control his tongue, who knows.  He was pretty cute though.

We realized later when we were all in the tent that they were at the pool earlier so they’d seen us.  That scared me.  I only slept a few hours that night.  I was scared I was going to get raped.  The next morning we woke up and tried to cook breakfast.  It took awhile but we finally managed.  Then we all got ready and went hiking.  On our way out of the campground we saw them coming out of the pool.  We didn’t look at them but when we were out on the road I turned around and they were watching us and waving.

We went into Arches and hiked around.  It was fun.  We hiked until about two then we went back to the campground.  Ben, Jared and Jason were there.  We yelled at them and made them camp next to us.  Then we all went swimming for the rest of the afternoon.  It was fun.  Then we showered and stuff and made dinner.

We went into town and got ice-cream then went on a night hike.  We tried to go to Delicate Arch but didn’t make it the whole way.  It was fun anyway though.  We came back and sat around the fire for awhile then we all went to bed.  I slept so much better that night.  We woke up in the morning and those guys made us breakfast, nice huh.  We just packed everything up pretty much.  We messed around a little too.  We left about 10:30.  We were going to hike Gemini Bridges but it was too far so we headed home.

We stopped in Green River though.  We went to this campground on the Green River that Sarah knew about.  It was all sandy.  We played in the water and layed out for a few hours.  It was so fun.  We just came home after that.  It was so much fun.

I think the Canadians got kicked out of the campground though because we never saw them again.  I learned a good lesson.  I had a lot of fun though.  We brought Chex Mix over to those guys tonight to thank them for saving us.  But I’m getting pains in my hand and I’m really tired so goodnight.

Shortly after I had the idea for the Blast From the Past posts I thought I should use this journal entry as one.  I’ve put it off until now because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share it.   I’m pretty sure the only people who knew about this are those who were involved.  I was {still am} pretty ashamed about how stupid I was, how easily I put myself into what could have been a really bad situation.

It’s interesting to think back on this now, to see it from older eyes.  First of all, I still see how it could have been a bad situation.  Yes the elements were there and my choices influenced that.  That being said, I don’t think the guy was going to hurt me.  I think he was a 21 year old on vacation looking to have some fun.  He was doing what he could to try and find someone to party with but I don’t think he was going to rape me.  If that was his intent, he could have accomplished it.

I am also so grateful for wonderful friends.  I was firm in my beliefs at the time and drinking and smoking pot weren’t temptations to me but I know in that moment the fact that Adrien was sitting right next to me gave me greater strength to resist.  I knew that she would be strong and never give in to what they were trying to get us to do.  That knowledge gave me even greater strength to resist.

My friends also came looking for me when they thought I could be in danger.  They were wandering around the campground trying to find me and were way more afraid of the situation I was in than I was.

I am also grateful for the three boys who came and camped by us.  Not only did they help us feel safe but they made us breakfast.  They were from our school and we knew them but I wouldn’t call them friends.  They were certainly good guys and I hope I can raise my sons to be like them someday.

I am grateful for parents who let me go on trips with just my friends even though stuff like this can (and did) happen.  (Don’t worry Mom and Dad, this is the worst thing that happened on those trips.)  Some of my very favorite memories from high school are the trips that I went on with my friends.  I hope that I can remember that when my boys are teenagers and asking to go off on their own.  I hope I can let go of a little control and let them go have experiences and learn life lessons.

Finally, I am grateful that I recorded events like this.  I had remembered the situation but there were details that I had forgotten until I went back and read it.  The details that I had forgotten are the good things that I did.  I had only remembered the stupid things.  Because this is written down I can look back on the experience thirteen years later and still be learning from it.

Image credit

I saw this on one of my favorite blogs today.  It made me laugh so I thought I’d share it.

We spent the afternoon at the State Fair.  I felt a little bad going into it because we got Big Boy out of school early and Medium Boy missed preschool.  I had already paid for tickets though and it was the only day we could go.  I’m not one who lets money go to waste but mostly I love the fair and really wanted to go.

Even though it rained part of the time it turned out to be a great day.  We stopped for dinner on our way home and it felt like a mini vacation.  It was one of those times that I thoroughly enjoyed my children.  Even when they were being loud and standing on the bench.  I laughed when Big Boy shot his straw wrapper in my face, then I shot mine back at him.

There are times like this in my life, when everything seems good and right.  From the outside you wouldn’t see anything special about that time.  We were at Denny’s, the kids were being kids, the baby was hungry and impatient for his food, we took more than one trip to the bathroom, but the time felt magical for me.

M. Russell Ballard once said,

The joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.

This was definitely one of those moments of joy and satisfaction.  It made me wish that everyday could be like this.  I know they can’t be.  Otherwise I wouldn’t be so grateful for them when they came.

It also made me realize that sometimes there are things that are more important than school and spending time with your family is one of them.