this introverted mama

Posted on October 24, 2012 by nance

I used to think that being an introvert meant you were shy. And extravert = outgoing. Not being a terribly shy person, I was always told and believed myself to be an extravert. But a few years ago, my friend, Belinda explained to me that no, I was not an extravert; that I was, in fact, quite the introvert. I didn’t believe her.

Here was some basic evidence she pointed out:

You could not pay me enough to enter a room full of strangers and mingle for an hour. Well, maybe you could. But I wouldn’t like it.
I cannot get enough alone time.
After our weekly community group meets on Tuesday nights (which I enjoy immensely), I am EXHAUSTED
Large parties are always a daunting business. In large settings, I’d prefer to find one person, sit on the couch and not move. At all.

Here’s the VERY basic definition as I understand it. This is by no means an exhaustive look.

Introvert = someone who is energized by being alone.
Extrovert = someone who is energized by being with others.

Like this…

I instantly felt like I understood myself in a whole new way. My life growing up with my extremely extraverted (and very dear) sister, who doesn’t even like to floss by herself, suddenly came into focus. So much of my behavior made more sense. Belinda was right, it turns out. Does everyone already know this stuff?

So I’m an outgoing introvert. Who knew? I don’t just like having time to myself. I need time to myself. And it has occurred to me recently that being an introvert is at direct odds with having toddlers/preschoolers. I know that it will not always be this way. One or both of my boys might end up being introverted as well (pretty please) and then we can all live peaceably together with long periods of silence and navel gazing in between all our dance parties and chatty meal times. That’s what I’m telling myself anyway. But right now? If there is a coping thresh hold for introverted parents, I think I reach it almost daily. Kids are so… up in your business. Physical boundaries don’t exist. They are completely needy. They whine and carry on about totally unreasonable things. And the talking. Oh my word, the talking. The sheer amount of words coming at me at all times from all sides.

This morning…

Isaiah: Ca’ I have ‘stachios? (“Could I have some pistachios?”)
Me: Yes, I’ll get you some pistachios. Let me finish getting brother some juice and I’ll get you some pistachios. (Gryffin, meanwhile, saying “Mom, did you for-get my juuu-ice? Did you for-get my juuu-ice?”
Isaiah: Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios? Ca’ I have ‘stachios?

Until my head explodes.

Seriously, they just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. Constantly. In so many ways, I love it and wouldn’t want it any other way. Except maybe with intervals of complete and total silence. I’m not suggesting that you extraverted folks would be able to handle this kind of incessant banter better (would you??) but my thresh hold for it seems much lower than, say, my sister’s or some of my other extraverted friends. Jason is also an introvert (though slightly less so than me, I think) and some (ok, most) evenings after we get the boys in bed, we do not speak to each other for at least an hour. Sometimes longer. It’s like we physically can’t speak. And I would guess that it’s the reason why some weeks we struggle to feel as connected with one another as we would like. We both just feel completely filled to the brim and we’ve got nothing left. So we retreat to our blissfully silent places in survival mode, sitting side-by-silent-side on the couch, reading, writing or just spacing out.

I like my friends, my family. And I like spending time with them. And I love those boys crazy much. But I seem to have an “all filled up” capacity and I reach that capacity SO much sooner now that the boys are at this particular life stage. It’s a fun stage and I’m thoroughly enjoying it but I’m functioning at my absolute limit most days. And the thought of spending the boys’ nap time in anything but complete solitude is mildly alarming to me. I’m wondering if other introverted people find this stage of life difficult? Does it get better? I’m constantly seeking out space that is quiet or solitary. Or if you’re an extravert, what difficulties do you have that might be different from your introverted counterparts? Like, is nap time lonely for you (I cannot fathom that this is so)? Talk to me, people.

And in the meantime…

tales of a control freak

Posted on October 17, 2012 by nance

This past weekend Jason pushed me to my limits. I mean, it was a real doozy, folks. I’m a planner. I like to have a plan. Jason? Not so much. He doesn’t like to make decisions or to figure things out ahead of time. Ever. He likes to make his mind up on a whim with no regard for important things like having a clean house, warm clothing, snacks so we don’t get grumpy. He’s been known to pack the boys into the car before we even know where we’re going. This is maddening to me! I’ll ask what we’re going to do and he casually says “oh, I dunno, let’s just get in and we’ll figure it out later.” WHAT??! Hanging out with some friends earlier this summer, we all rated our “ability to be spontaneous” and while Jason was easily an 8, I was, at best, a 2. So last Saturday when he suggested we go to the pumpkin patch later that afternoon, I immediately said no, of course. No way. Without 2 days notice so I can figure out what we’ll need for the car ride, snacks for the long afternoon, coordinating clothing for optimal photo-ops, and printed directions? I don’t think so.

While he continued to try to convince me, he casually asked if maybe we should carve some pumpkins with the boys. I said no again. I mean… right now? It isn’t Halloween! And the kitchen’s a mess! If we need anything, it’s a clean work space, right? And I hadn’t properly prepped the boys so they could be excited and eager and ready to go. Did we even have any newspaper to lay down for all the pumpkin guts? There wasn’t a fire going, a perfect Fall playlist piping, and seriously, people, the kitchen was trashed. So while I worked myself into a proper fit, Jason just got the pumpkins, gathered the boys, grabbed the knife and commenced to carving.

I rallied, friends. I totally rallied. I grabbed the camera, scoured the web for instructions on roasting the pumpkin seeds and put on a pot of tea. We even went to the pumpkin patch that afternoon and we had a grand time. It wasn’t exactly how I would have done it. Ok, not at ALL like I would have done it (wait ’til you see Isaiah’s shirt!). But I’ve gotta say that it was a lot of fun. And the boys really had a blast. I nearly had an aneurysm but this is the way Jason and I have been rolling since day 1. Sometimes we’ll have the planned outing, the yearly tradition, the coordinating outfits. But, heaven help me, we also have a whole lot of spontaneity and rolling with the punches (you should see us when we travel! not pretty) and somehow we’ve lived to tell.

—————–

On Friday, the boys and I made apple cider. You should have seen the cleanliness, the organization, the planning that went into it.

First the boys took the stickers off the apples.

Gryff spent a lot of time rolling his apples around in his little blue truck

Isaiah was in charge of washing the apples. He got a TINY bit of water on an apple, rubbed it liked a genie and called it a day

Getting ready for me to start the juicer.

We ended up with WAY more juice than I anticipated. Even the best laid plans…

Look how frothy it was! Not sure if it was supposed to be that way but we rolled with it. You know, cause I’m flexible like that.

While I worked on seasoning the cider, this happened.

Then Isaiah decided to be the dentist…

And then things got a little more invasive!

I seriously can’t believe Gryffin was able to have Isaiah on top of him for so long. Little brother is h e a v y

For the record, the boys did not like the apple cider.

—————–

And… on to the much less organized pumpkin carving

Gryffin wasn’t a fan of all the gooey mess at first.

He preferred to keep a safe distance

Isaiah had no such reservations

Our first attempt at roasted pumpkin seeds. They were… ok. Kinda hard to chew.

First order of business at the pumpkin patch was riding the animal train.

This picture doesn’t show it but Gryffin was completely pumped about this train. He waved at everyone like a politician
and kept saying “Isn’t this the best train in all the land?”

Then on to the corn maze.

Trying to coerce Isaiah to pose for a family photo

This was as close as we’ve ever gotten. We’ll take it!

Not in the orange and brown matchy-matchy Fall outfits I probably would have selected…

And… just, wow, that shirt… but they’re still pretty cute, no?

And finally selecting our pumpkins. Isaiah was a machine in that pumpkin field. Kid could not be slowed for anything.

We told him he had to be able to pick his pumpkin up.

With Isaiah plowing with abandon through the pumpkin patch, Gryffin was finally able to get some one-on-one time with Stella

Big brother’s got skills!

—————–

We finished off the night with an impromptu and sorta disastrous dinner with the Hickorys at a noodle house in the ID. Stella was up past bed time and super squiggly, Isaiah was COVERED with mud from the pumpkin patch, the boys spilled 2 waters and a soy sauce jar between them and I’m not sure any of the adults actually ate. All in all, though, a good weekend, and I think my spontaneity score might just be pushing past 3, what with all my wild and fancy-free ways.

fear(less)

Posted on October 11, 2012 by nance

For my 33rd birthday a few months ago I made three goals. Has a nice ring to it, no? Three goals for my 33rd birthday. That’s how I wrote it in my journal. Anyhow, one of them was to take more walks. Not workout walks. Just walks. Strolling. Leisurely cruising. Like my uncle John does. I think he walks nearly every day. Heads out first thing in the morning (at, like, 5:30am – that was not part of my goal) and just meanders about, sometimes for hours. My grandpa, Walt, too. He also took a walk every day, up until the last year of his life. It’s good for my body and my soul, I think. It gives me space to think and I enjoy being outside, looking at people’s gardens, strolling around the pond by our house and just slowing down for a few aminutes. Since my birthday I have taken a grand total of 2 walks. In… three months. I think I need to up the ante a little! I’ll work on that!

Anyway, so I took a walk yesterday. And as I was walking I was thinking about fear and anxiety. I’ve mentioned before that I struggle with anxiety sometimes and have to work hard to focus on what is happening, rather than what might happen. And I’ve been doing well lately. I recently read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir by Cheryl Strayed, who hiked the Pacific Crest Trail alone in the mid 90s. It was a good read and she talked several times about fear. How she had to choose to be unafraid. That hiking alone in such dire conditions was treacherous and intense and she had no choice but to be fearless. It was the only way she could proceed each day on her journey and it seems worth emulating. I can to choose to be fearless and as I was walking yesterday this all kind of solidified in my mind. I was thinking back over the last several years of my life, how I’ve made good strides in this area, how I no longer asume that every person out there is a threat or somehow dangerous, how my default now is to generally trust that most people are good and kind and just trying to get by – you get the idea. It feels good and freeing to feel this way. And I can continue to make that choice, to choose to be unafraid, day in and day out, as fears and uncertainty get heavy upon me. I decided as I was walking that my new anxiety mantra would be “If it’s NOT happening, I’m NOT going to be afraid. If it’s not happening, it’s not worth my mental energy.”

So this all sounds fine and good, right? Look at me all enlightened and what not, right? But get this. As I was walking along thinking all these positive thoughts about how I’m not afraid and that the world is a decent place after all, I decided to walk down a street that’s just a few blocks up from ours. I’ve walked down it once before (on my other walk!) and it has some beautiful yards that I wanted to see again. Halfway down the block I was passing in front of a house and I noticed that the downstairs (street level) lights were on and there was a man standing near the doorway. I looked away and keep walking as I heard him shout “heeeeey!” Being the oh-so-carefree and totally-not-scared person that I am now, I assumed he was talking to someone else inside his house and kept on at my leisurely pace. But then he let out this long, low cat-call whistle. One of these… but longer. And not at all cartoon-like.

And then I heard his screen door slam so I knew he was outside, behind me. At that point, I started feeling uneasy. He whistled again as I quickened my pace and put my hands in my pockets so I could grab hold of my phone. I crossed the street, heart beating faster, and decided to just head toward home and take a different route for my walk. I didn’t hear much for a couple minutes so I thought the coast was clear, and I decided to head over toward the pond. But half a block later, I heard a car slowly inching along a short distance behind me and another long whistle out the window. Now feeling significantly scared, I turned left down our block and headed toward our house at a much faster pace. A couple cars happened to pull out onto our street as I turned so the car was thankfully stuck a couple cars back. The man whistled two more times out his window before I turned up the walk toward our house. Once I was safely near our porch, I turned around and his white van was just sitting there idling as he looked out the window at me. Then he slowly inched forward and drove away.

Now, obviously I’m not hurt and while I was shaken and a little teary when I got inside our house and relayed the incident to Jason, I am completely fine. I know that I live in a relatively safe neighborhood and there are so many horrible things done to women every day around the world and this is not even a blip on that radar. But seriously? What gives? As I’m taking a walk thinking about overcoming anxiety and conquering my fears, this happens? Seems sort of unbelievable, doesn’t it? Jason wasn’t a big fan of the whole situation (duh) and ordered me some pepper spray this morning. And I’m ok with that, I guess, but I was kind of priding myself on NOT being that person anymore, you know? The person who is scared to leave the house and clutches at my mace when I’m downtown or on the light rail. I want to be a confident and capable woman. And I want my kids to see me that way. Not one who is fearful and cowering with her pepper spray waiting for her husband to come to the rescue. But I don’t want to be naive either. It’s all a little baffling. How am I supposed to embrace both?

I also feel angry. Why do I have to worry about this in the first place? Jason doesn’t. Why can’t I take a walk like Walt and my Uncle John, without worrying about some creepy man lurking? Do I need to change my clothes and wear baggy sweats if I want to walk at all? How do I balance all of those things I sorted out in my mind during my walk with my actual experience while walking? What do I do now? I’m not entirely sure. I’m still trying to figure it out. But I have decided that I am still going to choose to be unafraid. I’m still going to take my (admittedly infrequent) walks. And I’m going to carry on as the capable and confident woman that I am. I guess I’ll just have to be sure to carry my pepper spray as well.

present

Posted on September 6, 2012 by nance

Last night Isaiah was talking in his sleep and it woke me up. I didn’t need to get out of bed (halleLUjah) so I just rolled over and waited a few minutes, making sure all was well before drifting back to sleep. But during those 2 minutes of wakefulness I had the urge to check my phone. You know, to pass the time. To pass those 2 minutes by checking my email, maybe Facebook, do a quick browse on Pinterest while waiting for Isaiah to settle down. And it struck me while I lay there resisting the desire to pick up my phone… what is this about? Why on earth am I tempted to check my phone at 3am? Who has possibly emailed me, besides GAP, Amazon and Living Social, since I went to bed 5 hours ago? And unless my friends on the East Coast are updating Facebook suuuuper early, chances are there is nothing new there either. But I wanted it. I wanted that little dopamine release that comes from checking my phone. I resisted but not without effort.

This has been a frequent topic of conversation in our house over the past few years. Since we got iPhones, really. You know the drill. In the car and you have to wait at the light for, I don’t know, maybe 17 seconds? Check your phone! Maybe someone texted you! In the elevator and need to kill a whole 24 seconds riding to the top floor? Check your phone! Might have a new email! Got two glorious minutes while your kids play on their own after breakfast? Check your phone! Might be your turn in Words with Friends! (totally legit, btw – I mean, it works your brain - unlike all the other mindless apps). You know what I’m saying. That’s how it’s been for me, anyway. And Jason, too. We’ve talked and talked and talked about it. We’ve long known that these aren’t good habits, not good for our souls, and not something we want our kids to emulate. We’ve made resolutions regarding our screen time. We’ve made rules for ourselves, tried to encourage each other and sometimes scold each other for being sucked back in. We’ve tried putting our phones in different rooms, in the cupboard, on silent, deleted superfluous apps, you name it. But nothing has really stuck. It’s always taken monumental effort to change our patterns of behavior with our phones. And we so easily slip back into old habits.

A few weeks ago, Jason took the boys to the frisbee park for a couple hours and I found myself with some unexpected free time. I had about 17 loads of laundry to fold and I wanted something to entertain me while I worked on it. I won’t lie, I was tempted by Dawson’s Creek (season 3) but I had heard recently that my alma mater had a youtube channel with all of their chapel talks so I decided to check that out instead. Good decision, it turns out. Not that Dawson and Joey aren’t good company but I found a lecture by one of my favorite professors* and was transfixed almost immediately.

*Quick disclaimer – I credit Greg Spencer with changing the course of my academic life (and thus, in some significant ways, my personal life as well) during my undergrad years. So I might be completely biased but the man is brilliant. I know you’ll agree.

The lecture was in September of 2010 and was based on material from his book, Awakening the Quieter Virtues (we just got the book from the library and Jason has already snagged it so I’m currently waiting for my turn to read it). It spoke to just this topic of information overload and gave me a new framework and a new way to think about the use of my phone, and all technology for that matter. Anything that is competing for my attention, really. I won’t try to paraphrase his lecture. You should check it out, or better yet, read the book. But the one thing I think about now on a daily basis…

Am I being a good steward of the present?

I’d honestly never thought of such a thing. I have thought about being a good steward of my money, the environment, my resources, and so forth. But never the present. And it’s flipped everything on its head for me. Instead of making up rules for myself and my use of my phone, I’m asking myself that question. Dr. Spencer said (I’m paraphrasing here) that instead of trying to fill up each moment in our life with as much as we possibly can, believing that more is always better, we should focus on giving our full attention to one thing, and one thing only, in each moment. Instead of multi-tasking, which isn’t really possible anyway, we should uni-task.

I’ve found this much harder than I thought it would be. I’ve got 2 young kids and multi-tasking saves the day, right? Making lunch for the boys, scanning FB on my phone, prepping dinner, picking up toys, and starting a load of laundry between, say, 12:05-12:25, sounds about right to me. It’s hard to slow down. It’s hard sometimes to give my full attention to making lunch. Just lunch. It’s hard sometimes to sit in the backyard with the boys without bringing my book so I can catch up on some reading at the same time. To give my full attention to them as they dig in the sandbox and pick up bugs. It’s hard to go to the bathroom without my phone (I am totally embarrassed to admit that, by the way, but it’s true. I rarely go to the bathroom without my phone). But the more I attempt to be a better steward of the present, the more I work at it, the easier it gets.

And I’m finding this week that in those moments, those little spaces in the day, those brief seconds in the car at a stoplight or those 10 minutes in the morning before the boys come banging into our room, if I just sit, just be, rather than fumbling for my phone, those are often the “thin spaces” in my day. It’s an image I like from the Celtic tradition, referring to “a moment and space in time where heaven and earth are so close together that the spiritual and the natural world intersect. A place where it is possible to touch and be touched by God. Thin spaces are the moments when we experience a deep sense of God’s presence in our everyday world.”

So it’s not about whether or not Facebook or email or smart phones or television are inherently bad. For me, it’s about trying not to talk to one person while texting another (we all know how good that feels). It’s about resisting the temptation to troll Facebook while playing trains with Gryffin and Isaiah. It’s about focusing on one thing, not 3 or 4 or 7. It’s about sitting quietly so that I can sense those thin spaces. I’m finding that they are not so elusive as I once thought. It’s a struggle still (I’m finishing this post while the boys have their afternoon snack… sigh) but it’s sure worth the effort. Thanks, Greg – you came through in a clutch once again.

Jason reaping the benefit of a good stewardship moment. Can’t beat that!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a Wiggles dance party that needs my full attention.

Frustrated

Posted on August 15, 2012 by nance

Gryffin has been in a funk lately. Totally funked out. He’ll be thwarted in some endeavor or completely irked by Isaiah or just generally peeved by what’s for breakfast and he just… loses it. He screams. He wails. He’ll very dramatically say “I am NOT going to be your friend!” to whomever has offended him in some form or fashion, including inanimate objects. Part of me really feels for him, you know? He can’t quite seem to process his feelings. He’s bothered by something but he doesn’t quite know how to express his feelings or his frustration so he just screams. Makes total sense. But it’s also unbelievably annoying. Jason and I find ourselves vacillating between 2 extremes in our response to his outbursts…

Option A: What’s bothering you, buddy? What’s going on? Are you frustrated? Does that make you angry? How can I help?

Option B: Seriously, kid. Pull yourself together. Stat.

We’ve tried virtually every approach we can think of. And we know that these phases usually pass rather quickly. But oh, this one has been a doozy. I have lost my temper more times than I can count recently and yesterday I swear there was smoke coming out of Jason’s ears after a meltdown at breakfast. It didn’t help that we’ve been on a break from preschool for 2 weeks, which has meant a break in the usual routine (rarely a good thing) and I was away for a marathon birth (21 hours) last week so the stand-in routine was thrown off kilter as well.

Yesterday afternoon showed a bright spot, a ray of hope when, after being told that it was time to leave the restaurant (which he vehemently did not want to do), instead of just screaming, he yelled “I’M FRUSTRATED!!!! I’M FRUSTRATED!!!!” Improvement, yes? Baby steps, people, baby steps. We’ll take it!

Isn’t it crazy that the same little person who brings us so much unabashed joy, so much utter delight can also bring us so much irritation, anger, and stress? It amazes me. One moment I’m about to burst apart at the seams with how much I love him and the next minute I just want to flick him. Hard. It’s unbelievable. Thankfully the former moments still outweigh the latter. And hallelujah for that!

———-

Here are some of the ways we have been spending our time during the preschool hiatus…

We baked. The boys helped with their first baking project, a huge batch of banana bread.

They helped from start to finish and they were so proud of themselves.
I would measure and they would dump.

Aside from dipping their fingers in the sugar that I spilled and eating some of the finished product,
the most fun part was taking some of the bounty over to our next-door neighbors

I googled around for some new ideas for play time and here is one of them.
I used masking tape to make a huge race track around our living, coming up on the couch, and around the rug.
Turns out, after several days, masking tape does not come off the wood floor as easily as it does the first!

Gryffin really liked this one. I numbered 12 easter eggs
and he had to match the numbers with the ones I printed inside the egg carton.

He would fill up the carton and then “sell” them to anyone and everyone.

In the evenings, Jason and I have found our slightly battered spirits
lifted by our summer house guests, Jordan & Belinda.
We’ve been eating dinner together at least a couple nights a week
and there’s nothing like a good
towel whipping marathon to make anyone happy.

Jordan, post-towel contest.

I mentioned before that when I’m feeling frustrated with one of the boys, all I need do is watch them while they are sleeping. I found Gryffin like this in our bed two days ago during his “quiet time” and my cup just filled right back up. So I called Jason up from the office so he could take a quick peek, too.

More Surprises

Posted on July 28, 2012 by nance

Well, I’m home from my quick jaunt to Lodi. It was splendid. After a couple weeks of scheming and planning, we managed to pull off quite the surprise for my niece, Hannah. It was her 10th birthday and we wanted to do something extra special for her. She goes to a private school and she’s one of only 6 girls in her class and has struggled to make friends from the get go. She is an incredibly sweet little girl, likes to read more than anything else (my kind of gal!), is imaginative and funny and kind and I truly don’t understand why she hasn’t found a bosom friend yet. But there it is. And as her birthday approached, her tenth (a big deal – double digits), she was increasingly sad about the prospects for a birthday party. So when my sister sort of wistfully asked if there was any chance I’d consider flying down for a surprise, I said yes immediately. You know I like pulling off a good surprise. And it was a great chance to visit the rest of my fam, too.

I flew in on Saturday night and my parents picked me up from the airport. I slept at their house that night and in the morning we drove over to my sister’s house for the big surprise. My mom and I were absolutely giddy with excitement. We arrived at 9:15am, parked out of sight, and creeped up to the house. I brought a big bouquet of flowers (picked from my parents yard – thanks, mom and dad!) and held it in front of my face. When she opened the door, I said “Flower Delivery for Hannah Eby” and waited a couple seconds before lowering the bouquet and revealing myself. I’ll let the video speak for itself. (My nieces call me “Aunt Vicky” btw – long story). It’s more audio than visual but you’ll get the idea.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8LGLk8coAA&feature=g-upl]

Once the excitement wore off a little, we wasted no time lavishing Booge (Hannah’s nickname) with all sorts of surprises for her big day. My dad and brother-in-law left for a day of fishing and the rest of us (me, my mom, my sister, Hannah and her sisters, Emily [8] & Mary [6]) set out for a “day of the ladies.” Here’s what we did…

First stop: Pete’s coffee for Hannah’s first-ever coffee drink. She picked a vanilla freddo. It had just the slightest hint of coffee flavor and she relished every drop. And about 15 minutes later, that caffeine hit her system with gusto, let me tell ya!
Second stop: Barnes & Noble, where she got to pick out a new book. We consulted and discussed many possible options and she finally settled on a “choose-your-own-adventure” book. Remember those?
Third stop: Old Navy, where my mom gave her a shopping ticket good for “one thing for school, one thing for fun, and one thing to wear when you run.” Hannah recently started running with my sister a few mornings a week and she’s very excited about it. She asked my mom if she could exchange one of her items and get something for her sisters instead. How sweet is that?
Fourth stop: Lunch at the place of her choosing. It took all of 2 seconds for her to decide. Noah’s Bagels. So we schmeared it up for an hour and then headed back to my sister’s house before the…
Fifth stop: After dropping everyone off back at the house, Hannah and I headed out for yet another treat – her first pedicure. She really poured over all the color options and finally chose a very light pink and asked for one of those flower designs they can paint on your big toes. She was very excited about it all but also a little nervous. She hardly spoke while the woman massaged her feet and rubbed her calves. Just sat wide-eyed and staring. Later, though, on the way home, she declared “that felt sooo good, Aunt Vicky!”
Sixth stop: Back to my parents’ house for the big birthday dinner. We had all her favorite foods. Flank steak, artichokes, baked potatoes and french bread. For dessert, my mom put together a candy buffet complete with cellophane bags for the girls to fill up to their heart’s content.
Seventh and final stop: We all put on our PJs and snuggled up for a movie. Hannah picked the first episode of Little House on the Prairie and we re-watched the part where Pa falls out of the tree about 6 times and laughed uproariously every time.

It was such a good day. I’m so happy that I went, so glad we were able to pull off the surprise and completely lavish Booge with love and treats and laughter for her birthday. It’s cool to think that this is one of the first birthdays that she will remember in years to come. I hope she remembers it with as much fondness as I will.

Now I’m home again, settled back in with the boys and Jason and our routine, and this afternoon I got yet another surprise – this one not so happy as the first. My mom contracted hepatitis C 33 years ago, when I was born, because she needed a blood transfusion following a profuse hemorrhage. We had no idea. It has been dormant in her system until this year, when her routine blood work came back with the news of a possible problem with her liver. We were initially told that it was likely no big deal but after a trip to the specialist we’ve discovered that it is a big deal. She has genotype 1 and will have to undergo a year of combination therapy to (hopefully) rid her body of the HCV. It’s a 50/50 chance of recovery. And the treatment sounds a lot like chemo, in terms of it’s intensity. It kills off the virus but kills a whole lot more in the meantime. And since her stroke 8 years ago, she’s on several other medications that might further complicate her treatment. I feel pretty shocked. And pretty downtrodden this afternoon as I take it all in. I have no idea what this next year will look like for her and for all of us or what the final prognosis will be. When we were talking about it a couple weeks ago, before we knew the severity of it, my mom told me that she is not afraid of dying. And in theory, theologically, I guess I’m not either. But I feel pretty scared right now. This isn’t the kind of surprise I relish. And it’s hard to wait – wait for the treatment to start, wait to see how her body responds, how she feels and so forth. For now, I guess I’m going to try to remember my trip home last weekend and all the joy that day brought all of us and give thanks that my mom was able to enjoy it all before this next year fraught with treatment and upheaval begins.

Some photos from my trip…

Right after I walked in the door.

Hannah enjoying her coffee drink

Walking with her mama at Barnes & Noble

Emily (left), Hannah in the hat, and Mary on the right, posing with the manequins at Old Navy.

All 6 of us squeezed into a TINY dressing room at Old Navy.
All of us, except my mom managed to try on some clothes!

The birthday table set for dinner at my mom and dad’s house

My dad slicing Hannah’s favorite bread

Sars and Steve, married 13 years this year

Mary, in her leotard, showing me her gymnastics moves.
We also squeezed in the new American Girl movie about gymnastics while I was there.
Just say gymnastics and I’m all in. This movie was…well, awful, but hey, it had gymnastics!

Emily & Hannah had me do a photo shoot with ALL of their American Girl dolls
so they could have a yearbook for their “classroom” which they have set up in the guest room,
complete with lockers and grade books

And my mama, known to almost all as Muti, also an avid reader,
looking over books with Emily while we waited for Hannah to make her birthday selection.

Parlez Vous Francais?

Posted on July 20, 2012 by nance

It seems that every time I call my mom or my sister lately, they are together. Off to the grocery store, the yarn store, the fabric store, grabbing coffee, working on projects or just hanging out. It’s always fun to talk with them together but it also makes me sort of sad. I feel left out and more than a little lonely. I’m usually driving to the grocery store by myself. Or taking the boys out alone for some outing or another.

I meet with a really great group of women with young kids every Thursday morning but only one of them lives nearby (hallelujah for that!) and outside of that group, I don’t have many friends with kids. So I was at the park with the boys on Tuesday, sitting alone on a blanket while Gryffin & Isaiah ran around when this group of women walked up to the playground. It felt like the scene in Mean Girls when the “plastics” are introduced as they walk down the hall in slow motion. Something about those women just made me stop and stare. Their hair was impeccable (seriously, how do they do that?), they were all wearing the big sunglasses, and just looked so…together. So with it, you know? Their clothes were clean and fresh-looking. One had on skinny jeans and the other two were both wearing these flowy, wrinkle-free linen pants. They each had a couple of kids in tow and for some reason, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of them, these friends hanging out together at the park for a play date.

At one point I got closer to their group when I was chasing down one of the boys and get this… they were speaking French. For some reason this just sealed the deal. I’m sure that they were talking about tantrums and poop and time-outs but everything just sounds so cool in French. I walked away feeling glum, looking down at my dirty clothes, thankful I couldn’t even see my hair at that moment and wondering why the only language I can speak fluently is pig latin.

It was just one of those days. And it probably sounds worse than it was. I took some photos of the boys to help me keep perspective and we headed home on a high note. But now I’m feeling kind of blue again and I’m really looking forward to my brief trip home to California tomorrow. I’m flying down alone for 2 days to surprise my niece for her 10th birthday. I can’t wait to hang out with all three of my nieces, laze about with my mom and sister (and my dad and brother-in-law, of course, though they really aren’t the “laze about” sort!), and hopefully sleep in a little. One of the pastors at our church is always saying that if you find the grass looking greener somewhere else, then you need to water your own grass and it’s true. But I water my grass plenty and sometimes it’s just nice to lounge about in someone else’s yard for a change. Comprenez-vous?

A few shots from the park…

A lot of the parks in Seattle have these mini excavators and last Summer, Gryffin couldn’t manage to work them at all. This was his first go this year and he was so excited that he could operate it this time.

He kept saying things like “Do you see how hard I’m working, Mama? I’m working so hard.
It’s a tough job but I’m doin’ it”

Poor Zeebo. He couldn’t make a go of it at all.

Even with big brother’s “help,” he got so frustrated and finally contented himself
to just sit on my lap and watch brother work it.

G taking a breather so some other kids could take a turn.
It was almost more than he could bear to step away from it.

Love this face!

Perspective

Posted on July 7, 2012 by nance

Life is all about perspective, right? How you view the world and yourself in it? While we were on our mini vacation last week, Jason and I discovered that our perspective on our life with toddlers is so much more upbeat when we take lots of pictures. Look back at this post for evidence. Don’t we look so happy, so ain’t-life-grand? In reality, that morning was pretty rough. I said that Gryffin was sort of grumpy, which was actually the understatement of the year. But in the late afternoon, while the boys were napping, Jason and I looked over the photos and both of us felt like the morning had been a real hit. We reminded ourselves that we were both fed up and frustrated, had a minor argument of our own, the boys full of their own cranky toddler drama and it was actually kind of rotten. But you’d never know it by looking at the pictures. It changed our perspective.

Back in college, in my rhetoric course, we spent a small portion of the semester talking about picture-taking. How pictures can change our perspective and our experience of something. Do you remember your wedding, say? Standing at the end of the aisle and that thrilling feeling as you gazed at your spouse-to-be? Or do you remember the pictures of your wedding? Or the video? Based on those conversations in college, Jason and I discussed at great length before we had Gryffin and Isaiah about whether or not to videotape their births. I wanted to remember it from my own perspective, to recall how it felt to push them out of my body, to feel them in my arms, not just what it looked like on camera. In the end, we decided to go for it and Jason put together some incredible videos for each birth. I’m so grateful that we have them. But it did change my perspective and the way that I remember them. A little. Not entirely because I made an effort to be mindful of it, to write down their birth stories as well and to preserve the experience in other ways .

With all of that in mind, I got rather hooked during our vacay on taking photos of some of our everyday experiences. Jason and I enjoyed pouring over the photos each evening and it brought out the highlights of each day. And that really helps a glass-half-empty kind of gal like myself (that feels sort of embarrassing to admit, that I’m a glass-half-empty sort, but my mom always said I had a real flair for the melancholy and it’s true). Here are some shots of yesterday morning at the spray-ground in Ballard. Was Isaiah rather ornery all morning and unwilling to get in his carseat without tears and drama? Yep. Was Gryffin bawling his eyes out in time-out in the garage before we even left the house? You bet. Did I tweak my back and spend the evening on the couch, unable to move or breath without great pain? Sure did. But I didn’t take photos of those moments. Here are the ones I did take. I captured some of the genuinely good moments of the day. I look at these and I don’t think about all the difficult moments. I just smile and think ain’t life grand?

Gryffin when the water started spraying for the first time

Isaiah scoping the scene, checking things out

Taking a quick pomegranate break

Isaiah kept asking me to “take picture” but he would NOT smile for me

Some brotherly collaboration

Chocolate Marshmallow Fudge Delight

Posted on July 1, 2012 by nance

This kid most definitely comes from my side of the family. At least in so far as it relates to food. Gryffin likes to eat. A lot. He’s known far and wide as an eater, always talking, planning and dreaming about food, it seems. He’s always thinking ahead to his next meal, his next snack, his next treat. The way to his heart is most definitely through food. And especially dessert. This describes so many people in my family (my sister -big time, my uncle can pound an entire 1/2 gallon of ice cream in one sitting, my entire dad’s side of the family, it seems – hello, scotch kisses) that it just seems to be natural fit.

It’s strange because Isaiah is by FAR the larger of our two boys. We’re talking 110th percentile for a 12-month-old @ his 6-month checkup. That guy threw my back out when I was Bjorning him at 3 months. Seriously. Maybe it’s because Isaiah was such a huuuge baby and took to nursing immediately. He never had to fight for it. Never had to go hungry. Unlike G, who was only 6 pounds soaking wet as a babe, couldn’t nurse at first and just seemed to be hungry from day 1. Whatever it is, kid’s a Lundin/Myers through and through.

When we discovered that our vacation house had a fire pit and that Gryffin wasn’t afraid of the fire like he was last year, it seemed only fitting that we introduce the boys to s’mores. I thought Gryffin’s head might explode with the excitement. It was almost too much for him. He referred to them as chocolate marshmallow fudge delights, after a line from The Rattletrap Car and he was absolutely over the moon about them.

We usually go around as a family each evening and discuss our favorite parts of the day. Gryffin, of course, declared the chocolate marshmallow fudge delights his most favorite part and woke up talking about them.

Isaiah, on the other hand, was just kind of… meh about them. They were neither here nor there for him and tonight he barely even looked at his.

Besides eating copious amounts of dessert, we also hit the Children’s Museum, KidiMu, this morning and the boys had a blast. Jason spent the afternoon mountain biking again and trying out his new favorite sport of paddle boarding. He fell in, maybe just 15 times today? He claims that two of the times he jumped in of his own accord but I’m not sure I believe him. We also managed to go out to a nice dinner with the fellas. It was nothing short of miraculous. The boys were incredibly well-behaved, patient while waiting for their food and they both ate without complaint. And the food was brilliant to bout. Wonders never cease.

Up next? Bloedel Garden Reserve in the morning.

Jason after his mountain biking this afternoon. Just a tad muddy.

Isaiah was so sad after his nap to discover that J had left without him on the bike ride.

He just sat outside and kept calling “Papa! I go bike ride too!” every few minutes.

Still waiting

Jason trying to look like he’s got this paddle boarding thing down.

Not even remotely excited about the marshmallow

And… me. I was thinking about dinner and whether or not I could convince Jason into stopping at Mora’s again. Apple doesn’t fall far, that’s for sure.

5,785,436.43

Posted on June 8, 2012 by nance

I have been accused of writing depressing blog posts. And looking back over the last few, it certainly seems like I could use a hearty dose of vitamin D. I’ll blame it on Seattle. Things really aren’t so bad. In fact, they are quite good most of the time. Maybe I just write when I want to complain? Or I process some of my angst through pen and paper? Whatever it is, it’s time for a happy post. And the timing couldn’t be better. It’s our anniversary this weekend. Eleven years. I’m happy to be celebrating with Jason, reflecting on our years together, looking ahead and dreaming together about what’s to come. I’m not one for gushing but life together is good.

Time for a look back over the years…

In our very first (tiny) apartment on Cacique Street in Santa Barbara, 2001
Gotta dig that goatee

At a friend’s wedding in 2001.
Sorry, again, for the toast, Anthony & Jess.

Our first New Years together married.
Unlike at our wedding, Jason was of legal drinking age

Graduation #1 – undergrad in Theological Studies in 2002

One of our first camping trips. This was Jason’s attempt at a fire. I had about 18 layers of clothes on.
We’ve come a loooong way with our camping skills!

St. Patricks Day in 2004. Dargon’s in Santa Barbara.
Can’t remember the story about that coat but it was… memorable.

Banff, 2004

On our way to Europe, 2005
We visited England, Italy, and Hungary

Jason about to disappear on Platform 9 3/4
Check out the cargo pants! I forgot about those!

Still honing the camping skills, 2005

Graduation #2, Masters of Theology
J and his grad school pals

Moving to Seattle, 2006

Gearing up for the L O N G drive

Buying our first home together, 2007

First time painting together… definitely a milestone!

Camping skills improving by leaps and bounds.
The PNW helped a lot.

Here comes trouble

For the record, Jason’s belly is always smaller

Olympics party. Can you believe that leotard fit at 8 months pregnant? Spandex is stretchy.

September 28, 2008. Early labor

Gryffin Mylor Rust. And life as we knew it…

Gryffin, 5 months

First Mother’s Day

Spring 2009

Anniversary (8th) Trip to Vashon

Summer 2009

Me, looking so calm, thinking life was finally getting to a manageable place. Until 2 days later when…

ZOIKS!

Clearly no longer calm and collected.

Christmas 2009, Gryff 15 months

April 19, 2010

Isaiah Mylor Rust

A jolly fella from day 1

Spring 2011

First family camping trip – Isaiah is in there somewhere!
August 2011
Not a major success.

With several folks from our community group – our family in Seattle
Somewhere along the way, we discovered J has mad skills with long distance running, thanks to some of the guys in our C-group dragging him along to a few races.
This was a triathlon but earlier in the year he ran a half marathon at 7:30/mile. Not too shabby!

And here we are, 11 years later. Spring 2012

And a few stats for the books…

13: number of years we’ve been together
2: number of sweet boys we have
19: number of (mostly) epic camping trips we’ve taken
8: number of job changes between the two of us
10: number of countries we’ve been to together
5: number of homes we’ve shared
5: combined number of trips to the emergency room
5: number of glassware sets we’ve broken our way through
3: number of cars we’ve owned
5,785,436.43: number of minutes we’ve been married

Here’s to hoping we’ve got millions more minutes together. Happy Anniversary, Slug. I think you’re pretty great.

the rusty life

into the peace of wild things

Tag Archives: life

this introverted mama

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Parlez Vous Francais?

Perspective

Chocolate Marshmallow Fudge Delight

5,785,436.43