Image

I've had something on my mind lately, or maybe many somethings I've been trying to work out in my own head and they just need to get written down. Maybe the appropriate place for these thoughts is in a personal journal (like so much of what I think about putting on my blog); then again, maybe you've felt this way too or you have some helpful advice for me.

So the thought process started as I was complaining as I rarely do to Matt about the baby weight I still have to lose. And he asked me why it was so important. Did I think I needed to lose that weight and have the sculpted body of my dreams to have optimum health? "Well...no." Then what was the big deal?

What IS the big deal?

I think it's this: I care less about the weight than what I feel like it says about me. As a girl who graduated in Fitness and Wellness, carrying around extra weight seems hypocritical. And I feel like it makes me look lazy, like I'm not taking care of myself, when I am taking care of myself. Not perfectly, perhaps, but trying nonetheless, and it feels like I have nothing to show for it. Why do I NEED something to show for it? Isn't it enough that I know I'm trying to take care of myself?

It's the same with my house. I look around and see clutter and dust and mysterious gumminess stuck to things and think "It looks like I'm letting the place go!" And yet I feel like I never stop moving. But there's the fear when the doorbell rings that whoever it is will think a) I don't know how to clean my house, b) I don't care about living in filth, or c) I desperately want to clean my house but am trapped under something heavy (that reference was for you, Buff).

Seems like the obvious answer has something to do with not caring what other people think. Of COURSE that's true. But it seems like I'm going to have to stop caring what I think in order to achieve peace around here. Because I look at the baby weight and the gummy dust and think "You lazy bum!"

Okay, maybe not that harsh, but more like "Where are the results of all my hard work?" I'll tell you where: they're screeching like rabid monkeys and jumping off the furniture. And that's okay. I'm there. I get it. I would MUCH rather have the three messmakers (and the stretchmarks!) than an always-clean house and a beach body. I guess I'm just looking for some tangible evidence of a LOT of effort, for the kind of validation that a mom is unlikely to get because her work tends to be invisible and slow, with eyes turned to a far-off horizon.

So I write. Right?

Gratitude, Six Years Late

It's our anniversary today, so Matt and I watched our wedding video tonight. After we shooed Truman out of the room because he WOULD NOT STOP ASKING QUESTIONS ("Where am I? Where AM I? WHERE AM I? Am I sleeping in heaven? Why are some people born in this video but I'm not?") and settled in to watch, I was overwhelmed.

For one, we were so young. I mean, it's only been six years but I feel like I look so haggard now. Mothering small children will do that to you, I guess!

Beyond that, as we watched the rehearsal dinner I started to get uncomfortable with how long it was - not that I minded watching, but I was embarrassed at how long we tortured our families with tributes and slideshows and the like. Then at the end I realized, when do you get to hear yourself essentially eulogized? Your funeral, that's when. Or in our case, our wedding dinner, which we have on video and can watch whenever we want.

So thank you, families, for sitting through all that. Those tributes and memories are priceless to us. I loved hearing advice out of Grandpa Washburn's and Grandpa U'Dell's mouths, since we've said goodbye to them since then.

Thank you Jon for videoing all the advice. Thank you, Bry, for letting him abandon you and one-year-old Seth so our wedding would be immortalized on film.

Thanks, Dad, for the amazing food and paying for the perfect wedding. Thank YOU Mom for, well, everything else about that whole process.

Thank you, Paul and Jill for so much work and food prep for the second reception, for grinning at and bearing with and welcoming me. And thank you, of course, for raising the man of my dreams.

Thank you Alisa for the lovely pictures. I wouldn't have wanted my day captured in any other way. 

Thank you people who traveled from so far to be there, who didn't mind that they got only three minutes of one-on-one time with us during that weekend.

Thanks to everyone who cleaned up the aftermath while we went blissfully on our way.

I'm more grateful for that day now than I had the capacity to be then. I was youthfully oblivious, too, to the insane amount of work and cooperation it takes to pull off a big event like that.

I'm more in love now, too, than I had the capacity to be then. Matt looked at me tonight and said "It's funny to remember that panicky, butterflies, high-school-crushish feeling. It's just so comfortable now. I like it better."

Amen, my love.

Coming Soon

Posts about "image", darnit-you-ARE-good-enough, triviality, the dividing lines between moms and non-moms (or Mormons and non-Mormons or Zumba-lovers and non-Zumba-lovers...), and why I want to be Glennon Melton. Only the Mormon kind.

At least, all these posts are what I tell myself is coming soon. Dozens of them form and fade away in my head over the course of the day, and one of these times, they're all gonna start coming out! I like writing, a lot it turns out, I just can't seem to make the time. But at least there's a new post from me on your reader, right?

Dear New Mom,

I've hesitated to write this letter to you for a lot of reasons; mostly, I'm afraid you'll think I'm nuts (which, let's be honest, I sort of am), and I don't want to scare you if you're doing just fine. Plus, every experience is so different that I don't know if you'll even need to hear what I have to say. But having my first baby was hard on me, and maybe something in my situation will ring true for you – now or in the future – and you'll know that you're not alone.

I expected to feel instantly bonded to my baby the minute he was born, and I thought there was something wrong with me when I didn't. Mostly I felt scared. I was oozing from every part of my body, I was sore, and I was tired. Nursing HURT. My toes would curl in pain as the baby latched on (and I was doing it right!), and more than once I cried through a midnight feeding while my husband slept soundly. I resented him, a lot. I was mad at him for not knowing that I was so tired I thought I would die of it, how my life had been turned upside-down-inside-out and then lit on fire, while his life was essentially the same. He was working and going to school at the time, so I didn't want to wake him in the night; plus, I was nursing so there wasn't much he could do anyway. But I was still mad. :) And the poor man had no idea what to do with me.

Then there was the boredom. Suddenly, I didn't know what to do with myself. The baby was so unpredictable in public that I hated to take him anywhere for fear he'd scream the whole time. And the loneliness was almost unbearable, but I didn't want to interrupt the well-oiled routines of the other moms I knew. And I think I was secretly afraid they'd judge me.

There were times in those early days when I'd look at expectant mothers and think, “Poor girl, she has no idea what she's in for. Isn't anyone going to give up the act and tell her how hard this is?” At the same time, I was terrified that her experience would be the simple, beautiful transition that mine was not, and I was so mad at myself for feeling grumpy about the whole thing. I thought I must be unrighteous, totally selfish, or broken for my lack of contentment. I can look back now and see that I had postpartum depression, but at the time I just thought I was deficient somehow. How could this thing that I'd been told I was supposed to do, this life's work that I wanted make me so miserable? And since I felt at the time that I was “supposed” to have a gaggle of kids, all I could see was more of the same agony stretching on through the next two or three decades. I was, in a word, a mess. (Okay, two words.)

And now the good news: it got better. I did in fact want to have a second and even a third child, and my experiences have been completely different. I got help for my PPD after #2, using a combination of medicine and counseling to pull me out of what I refer to as “the dark place.” I had only a whiff of PPD after #3, and by the time I suspected it, it was gone.

I don't read childcare books anymore, because they're written about other people's children, not mine. I used to think all my kids' sleep problems were a product of poor parenting; then I had my third, who was sleeping eleven hours straight at two months old, and I realized I had no control whatsoever! I guess that's been the hardest transition for me – relinquishing control. My plans get changed, my sleep interrupted, my patience tested and tested and tested. And at the risk of sounding like that well-meaning but unhelpful friend who pats you on the head as she offers useless advice, I say this: whatever you are doing with that baby is perfect. And whatever you decide to do differently tomorrow will also be perfect. Because that baby is yours to mess up, but you won't. And if you ever find yourself swearing in your mind (or out loud) about how hard it is to be the mom, you know where to find me. I AM SERIOUS ABOUT THIS. I even know a good counselor.

Welcome to the club! I'm cheering for you.

Love,

Brittany

Perfect Peter Strikes Again

Last week I was watching two of my friend's boys, and when it was time to take them home I had to get their carseats into my van, then get my two bigger boys plus hers coaxed into it and strapped in. I figured Peter wouldn't much care for being trapped in his infant seat the whole time I did that, so I left him propped up on the couch while I took care of business in the garage. It took a few minutes to get everyone settled, and when I came back inside this is what I found:

I guess he figured I was never coming back. But at least Caleb had given
him that Power Ranger to keep him company.

While we're on the subject of the Angel though, here are a few more recentish shots:

Cute baby body


Peter's blessing day

My little Greek boy!

About as typical as it gets from the Three Stooges: Truman cheesing it up, Caleb gritting his teeth trying not to squeeze/hit/scratch someone, and Perfect Peter

Bilingual

I suspect that being part of an in-law family is a little like being fluent in a second language. (I wouldn't know for sure since I speak only English fluently, but come along with me here.) It seems to me that you might enjoy the second language just fine; you may genuinely love speaking it and take pride in your skill; you even may prefer speaking it in certain circumstances or to express a particular idea because of nuances that can't be captured in English.

I know from experience that it's possible to be so comfortable and well-integrated into your in-law family that you forget you're not one of them. You adopt their mannerisms and phrases, their tastes, even their history (I tell my in-laws' family stories like they're mine and I was there, when for the most part they aren't and I wasn't!). You may even prefer the company of your in-laws when you find common interests that aren't shared by your own family.

But I imagine that even a fluent, comfortable speaker misses her native tongue and hurts for those familiar sounds in her ears, those syllables flowing so easily from her mouth -- the words she could form from the time before she has memories.

So it is that sometimes I miss the comfort of my "native" family. Not because they're better than my in-law family, but because they're more mine. They have memories of me before I even remember being me, so I see my whole life reflected when I'm with them. They speak my language, if you will. Because they were my family first. And since they don't have to move aside to make room for me there, I suspect they feel my absence more keenly.

Yes, straddling two languages can be painful. You find at times that you've forgotten the right word in both, or maybe you never learned it in either one. But I bet that anyone who knows a second language will tell you (I assume anyway --I'm not bilingual, remember?) that her world is richer for the knowing.

Aha.

My sister recently introduced me to a blog by a Christian writer/mom of three who writes about as beautifully and honestly as anyone I've ever read. One of her most recent posts took sides on a very controversial topic, and while her heart was absolutely in the right place, her doctrine was not.

At last count, there were 668 comments on the post from readers with varying viewpoints, many MANY of them Christians with different interpretations of the Bible. The comments were respectful but passionate, and everyone had a different explanation.

First of all, I was impressed. I was impressed that there are so many faithful people willing to sift and struggle through the Bible to make themselves scholars of it, all with the hope of honoring God, not offending Him, and learning His will for them.

But at close second, I was thinking. "I can't believe what these people don't know! They don't know about modern revelation like the Joseph Smith Translation that clarifies and enhances the Bible. They don't know how the Book of Mormon goes hand-in-hand with it to teach eternal truth. Most of all, they don't know that we have a prophet on the earth today so we never have to, as the blog's author put it, 'decide what parts of the Bible to prioritize and demonstrate in [our] lives.' "(She cited the Biblical scriptures that state women are not allowed to speak in church, wear jewelry, or leave their hair uncovered, ideas which are obviously not supported by modern Christian women. But I digress.)

It has been a long time since I have been part of a conversation like this one. I guess I had started to take my faith, my knowledge, for granted. These people were in real turmoil over the topic at hand, with nothing but their own genuine efforts and an imperfect translation of God's word to guide them. I realized afresh, and maybe for the first real time, what it means to me to know that a prophet speaks to God today. Think about that for a minute: You can know what God's priorities are for your life, not only through your personal relationship with Him but also through His chosen mouthpiece. Two witnesses. That is dazzling doctrine! I'm almost embarrassed to have gone so long without fully appreciating it.

Perfect Peter

That's what we're calling him at our house these days, because he really is the perfect baby. Eats well, sleeps well, rarely cries, and puts up with a lot of tough love:

The shot above and the next four are from a photo shoot
his Aunt Alisa did for us when he was two weeks old.

This one is from a couple of weeks ago...

And these are from a bath just today.

Matt thought he looked like a Jedi in the hooded towel.
I can't get over that deep dimple in the right cheek.
And I can't get enough of this baby.