I had a strange experience today, one in which I am not used to having. I have been nervous for over a week now because the first paper of the semester was due last Wednesday and I still had not received a grade. It is always nerve racking, that first assignment, because most of the time you have to learn what your teacher or professor wants by default. Never a good situation. Plus, I had not written one thing the entire summer (thank goodness) and I had lost what little ability I mustered up last semester to write over the past few months. Least to say, it took me about 15 hours to write it. It was exhausting and painful.
So, today I had paper number two due (same professor) and I was still feeling the jitters from my last writing experience. I did, however, take a third of the time to write it. I wrote some this morning, played with the littles a bit in the afternoon, went back to writing, greeted the oldies, and continued to write. In the middle of all of this writing, I had a most unusual experience. I was informed that the grades were in and that one of the girls in my class had her paper in this little showcase area in the content section of our class. I found that a little strange that my professor should put that up the day the next one was due, but oh well. It took me forever to finally access my grade. I honestly don't understand what is going on with my computer today. I guess it has bee used far too many times today. Anyway, I was finally able to access my grade and I received full credit. To tell you the truth, I was kind of shocked. Then I found out that she had left me audio feedback about my paper. That is so bizarre to me... doesn't that just create more work? Anywho, she told me that I was a good writer and I was able to communicate and offer my opinion clearly (or something like that). For anyone who has read this blog, they know I have the brain of a two year old on a bad day. I am not much of a writer, but I think I will allow myself this compliment. I have now taken four classes and for whatever reason, each professor has told me I am good writer and that I have a good writing style. It has been overwhelming for me. I guess I am not much of a descriptive writer, however, if you have need of a lab report or an article review, I am your gal. My professor also asked if she could put my paper in the "showcase" section. Normally I would be extremely embarrassed (and I am), but I think I am going to allow myself to take this compliment. I don't actually tell this story to toot my own horn, I just want to be able to remember that I was once a pretty good writer. Not bad for a stay at home mom of four little ladies :)
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Love Story
Once upon a time there was a girl who was a dateless girl. No, wait, she went on a few blind dates, but very, very few. So it would be safe to say that the prospects were not very high. Due to the lack of date-age, the girl's mother guilt tripped her into going to the ball... or the modern day equivalent to a ball: a matchmaking website on the internet. And while her first time upon this website was a complete disgrace and a creepy experience with a psycho caused her to close her account and never put her picture up again, she decided for fun one day to get back on and check to see if there were any knights (aka not psychos) out there looking for a dateless young lady.
Meanwhile, in a land far, far away there was a young knight (and I mean young) fresh off the boat from a two year mission in Italy who, without his knowledge, was placed upon said dating site by his older brother who wanted to check on the ladies, but use his brother's identity as to not taint his own. The young knight had many, many visits to his kingdom/profile and, like any chilvelrous knight would do, he responded to them all (and by all I mean divorced mom's looking in the wrong places). At the same time that was occuring, this young knight was dating a young maiden. Least to say the young knight had no issues in the dating kingdom. I guess, for whatever reason, he was bored and decided to utilize his profile to converse with the maidens, young and old.
One day, while perusing the endless compatible males (jokes, jokes), the girl (we should call her lady because she really wasn't a girl) came upon a picture of a young knight, kneeling in front of a turkey that was halfway out of the oven, with a homeland that was similar to that of one St. Nicholas. Upon believing this must be mockery, she clicked upon his photo to see this young knight. After reading his profile, and spending quality time looking at his photographs, the lady decided to write to him and answer his question, "Will you marry me," as this was his question to "get the ball rolling." The lady proceeded to tell him that if he could answer a question about the Roger and Hammerstein's version of Cinderella, she would meet him in a catsuit, ala Britney Spears, circa 1999, in front of the Portland Temple/Castle and marry him.
The young knight did not answer and the lady felt very silly as she seemed quite old for such tomfoolery. She wrote to the knight and told him that she was acting like the court jester and was, as they say, pulling his leg. He finally responded and told the lady that he had spent his time trying to find the answer to her request. And this is how it all began...
Fast forward ten years and we find the lady and her knight celebrating ten years of marriage. In ten years we have moved twelve times, lived in four states, had four beautiful children, had one of us die and, thank the Lord Almighty, come back to life, lived in what the government considered poverty, and have moved from one extreme to another. We have talked and laughed and disagreed and talked and laughed some more. We have grown closer than I thought was possible and I can honestly say I love him more than I ever did. I am so grateful for the lessons he has taught me over the years and for his patience as I work on switching over to the more unselfish side of life. He has endured my cooking, the bad and the good, and has encouraged me to better myself and has never,not for one second, made me believe I am anything but beautiful, even when I know the world would tell me otherwise. I admire his strength and the way he has sacrificed to provide for our family, especially his free time.
In the end, this story is about love, the love of two people who have come a long way in ten years, literally. And while he is not an official knight, he is officially my knight, forever young, forever my best friend, forever my love. David, I love you more than I can explain with words and I look forward to spending eternity together, quoting Nacho Libre, eating Ben & Jerry's, going on spontaneous road trips, staying up on a school night talking all hours, calling you as soon as I leave the house just to hear your voice, reading your loving texts to me, going to dinner and a movie for every birthday/anniversary, working your part-time job of watching college football on Saturdays, telling stories with the girls in the dark, watching you wrestle with our children and them LOVING every second of it, cooking for you and having you tell me it was really good... the five hundred times I ask you if you like it, you making fun of my awesome flight attendant pointing skills, the joy of being with our girls and sharing a smile when they are not being crazy, begging you to rub my head, ironing your shirts, taking up the bed (even though you and I both know I don't do that), talking politics and shop, you being handsome, and being in your arms. Ti voglio bene... I love you like the Dickens!
Meanwhile, in a land far, far away there was a young knight (and I mean young) fresh off the boat from a two year mission in Italy who, without his knowledge, was placed upon said dating site by his older brother who wanted to check on the ladies, but use his brother's identity as to not taint his own. The young knight had many, many visits to his kingdom/profile and, like any chilvelrous knight would do, he responded to them all (and by all I mean divorced mom's looking in the wrong places). At the same time that was occuring, this young knight was dating a young maiden. Least to say the young knight had no issues in the dating kingdom. I guess, for whatever reason, he was bored and decided to utilize his profile to converse with the maidens, young and old.
One day, while perusing the endless compatible males (jokes, jokes), the girl (we should call her lady because she really wasn't a girl) came upon a picture of a young knight, kneeling in front of a turkey that was halfway out of the oven, with a homeland that was similar to that of one St. Nicholas. Upon believing this must be mockery, she clicked upon his photo to see this young knight. After reading his profile, and spending quality time looking at his photographs, the lady decided to write to him and answer his question, "Will you marry me," as this was his question to "get the ball rolling." The lady proceeded to tell him that if he could answer a question about the Roger and Hammerstein's version of Cinderella, she would meet him in a catsuit, ala Britney Spears, circa 1999, in front of the Portland Temple/Castle and marry him.
The young knight did not answer and the lady felt very silly as she seemed quite old for such tomfoolery. She wrote to the knight and told him that she was acting like the court jester and was, as they say, pulling his leg. He finally responded and told the lady that he had spent his time trying to find the answer to her request. And this is how it all began...
Fast forward ten years and we find the lady and her knight celebrating ten years of marriage. In ten years we have moved twelve times, lived in four states, had four beautiful children, had one of us die and, thank the Lord Almighty, come back to life, lived in what the government considered poverty, and have moved from one extreme to another. We have talked and laughed and disagreed and talked and laughed some more. We have grown closer than I thought was possible and I can honestly say I love him more than I ever did. I am so grateful for the lessons he has taught me over the years and for his patience as I work on switching over to the more unselfish side of life. He has endured my cooking, the bad and the good, and has encouraged me to better myself and has never,not for one second, made me believe I am anything but beautiful, even when I know the world would tell me otherwise. I admire his strength and the way he has sacrificed to provide for our family, especially his free time.
In the end, this story is about love, the love of two people who have come a long way in ten years, literally. And while he is not an official knight, he is officially my knight, forever young, forever my best friend, forever my love. David, I love you more than I can explain with words and I look forward to spending eternity together, quoting Nacho Libre, eating Ben & Jerry's, going on spontaneous road trips, staying up on a school night talking all hours, calling you as soon as I leave the house just to hear your voice, reading your loving texts to me, going to dinner and a movie for every birthday/anniversary, working your part-time job of watching college football on Saturdays, telling stories with the girls in the dark, watching you wrestle with our children and them LOVING every second of it, cooking for you and having you tell me it was really good... the five hundred times I ask you if you like it, you making fun of my awesome flight attendant pointing skills, the joy of being with our girls and sharing a smile when they are not being crazy, begging you to rub my head, ironing your shirts, taking up the bed (even though you and I both know I don't do that), talking politics and shop, you being handsome, and being in your arms. Ti voglio bene... I love you like the Dickens!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Confessions and Small Miracles
CONFESSION #1: If you know the real me, you know I have a serious LACK of patience. I will admit, I think I was born that way. I often times would like to blame it on a MASS of children begging me to do or get something for them all at once, but I don't think I can charge them with such. I think I just don't have there is a lot to begin with, let alone there being any sort of reserve. That being said, it has been a very real, very challenging struggle to help my oldest child with her homework. Yes, I do have a degree in elementary education AND yes, that should help me, but it doesn't. If anything it makes me more frustrated that she is not catching on to what I THINK she should understand. Because of this, my voice sometimes booms with the wrath of a fury I never knew I had. Which brings to CONFESSION #2: I, Megan, am a yeller. I have tried not to yell, I pray not to yell, I have seriously conversations with myself about not yelling (yes, you should be worried), but I can't STOP. It's pathetic. Both of my parents were YELLERS. It's just who I am, unfortunately for me and my WHOLE family (I do try to work on, I will have you know). I am a passionate person, a stubborn person, and a LOUD person. The first step is admitting it, right? Now you know...
Back to the story... so NOW that you know I am a loud and ferocious mother, I will explain the small, but mighty miracle that has occurred in our home as of late. Here is a little back story: Miss Happy and I spent much of this SUMMER working on school work so that she won't get behind. She, bless her heart, did not have much of a structured preschool background. I should have paid to send her to preschool the first year we moved here, but we wanted to EAT. I know, terrible, terrible parenting. I probably should have gone out and got myself another jobby job, but I was naive enough to believe that it wouldn't be a big deal. For our child, that wasn't the case. She, and this is something I absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about my child, is a dreamer. She makes up her own songs and her own rules. Let me repeat that: she makes up her OWN rules. She doesn't have too many self-made boundaries and, because of this I ENVY her freedom and her ability to be herself no matter who she is around or where she is at the time. However, trying to harness such a free spirit is a CHALLENGE. She doesn't seem to think the rules of grammar or mathematics apply to her. She doesn't like to write inside the lines. Her letters are uniform, whether they are upper or lower case. She doesn't care that 9+7=16. It could equal nine or four. It can change from time to time. AND, while it does drive me nuts at times, I do love it about her. Her teacher, not so much. She is SUCH a hard worker and can give it her al when she wants to do so.
This being said, we worked and worked all summer on her reading and she struggled. I think she is so focused on the smallest details that she starts to sound out words she already knows. And she works hard at it, SO HARD that she makes it harder for herself by working so hard. It was a exasperating at times and drove me to the edge of what I thought I could handle. We worked and worked for months and months on sounding things out and we just kept crashing up against this painful, jagged wall that seemed to have no end... up until three weeks ago when I realized, again, something about my child and myself. SHE is a GOOD girl. She is an AWESOME girl. She is AMAZING and SMART and KIND and FUNNY and CONSIDERATE and LOVING. And I am a heel. I was trying to force her to do things MY way, not the way she was taught and not the way she is used to doing things. I was making it WORSE by pressuring her to do something she wasn't ready to do and wasn't used to doing. She was so afraid to mess up that she couldn't do anything but that. There are so many times in my own life where I want don't want something to happen so BAD that I almost will that thing to happen. I can't say this was the case, but something clicked. As soon as I apologized for pressuring her, and forcing my own agenda on her it all changed and my child, my SWEET ANGEL girl, who puts up with all of my ugliness and yelling, read for the first time like a champ. Her staccato reading was music to this momma's ears. And while she has not yet perfected the rhythm, and is not perfect in sounding out her words, HER VOICE, AND HER BEING, ARE PERFECT TO ME.
In the end, I know this isn't a big deal, it's not even a significant deal, but it is a ginormous deal to me because I learned the sweetness of my child and how PATIENT and KIND my daughter has become. I also learned that I cannot FORCE things that are not yet to be, even if I think I can. And finally, I learned how GRATEFUL I am for tender moments and lessons my Heavenly Father has for me. While her being able to read won't move mountains, it once again affirmed the fact that he does ANSWER prayers, even the simple ones, and wants us to feel joy... especially a little seven year old second grader who feels so proud of herself that she is BEAMING.
 |
| Sweet angel girl and her yelling, crazy mother. |
This being said, we worked and worked all summer on her reading and she struggled. I think she is so focused on the smallest details that she starts to sound out words she already knows. And she works hard at it, SO HARD that she makes it harder for herself by working so hard. It was a exasperating at times and drove me to the edge of what I thought I could handle. We worked and worked for months and months on sounding things out and we just kept crashing up against this painful, jagged wall that seemed to have no end... up until three weeks ago when I realized, again, something about my child and myself. SHE is a GOOD girl. She is an AWESOME girl. She is AMAZING and SMART and KIND and FUNNY and CONSIDERATE and LOVING. And I am a heel. I was trying to force her to do things MY way, not the way she was taught and not the way she is used to doing things. I was making it WORSE by pressuring her to do something she wasn't ready to do and wasn't used to doing. She was so afraid to mess up that she couldn't do anything but that. There are so many times in my own life where I want don't want something to happen so BAD that I almost will that thing to happen. I can't say this was the case, but something clicked. As soon as I apologized for pressuring her, and forcing my own agenda on her it all changed and my child, my SWEET ANGEL girl, who puts up with all of my ugliness and yelling, read for the first time like a champ. Her staccato reading was music to this momma's ears. And while she has not yet perfected the rhythm, and is not perfect in sounding out her words, HER VOICE, AND HER BEING, ARE PERFECT TO ME.
In the end, I know this isn't a big deal, it's not even a significant deal, but it is a ginormous deal to me because I learned the sweetness of my child and how PATIENT and KIND my daughter has become. I also learned that I cannot FORCE things that are not yet to be, even if I think I can. And finally, I learned how GRATEFUL I am for tender moments and lessons my Heavenly Father has for me. While her being able to read won't move mountains, it once again affirmed the fact that he does ANSWER prayers, even the simple ones, and wants us to feel joy... especially a little seven year old second grader who feels so proud of herself that she is BEAMING.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
More Pencils, More Books, and Hopefully No Dirty Looks
It's that time of year again, the time when schedules rule my life. I loathe and love this time of year. While it helps me to get things done, getting up at 6:30 to get two girls ready for school isn't the what I would consider a good time. This is particularly difficult when 50 percent of said children has to basically be DRAGGED out of bed by her toes (which proves to be even more difficult because she sleeps on the top bunk). I know it's bad when I have to resort to not fixing them breakfast in order to get them to move. I don't want to get out of bed either, so I can't blame them. My mother is not-so-secretly laughing to herself because I used to do this to her (no, really, she laughs out loud on the phone for me to hear her lack of pity) ALL THE TIME. She used to pinch me, rip off the blankets, and pour water on me all because I wanted that five more minutes of sleep. Poor, poor woman! Unfortunately for my girls, I know all of the tricks because I was a devious child and played them all myself. There was a reason why I tortured my mother, in the end... it was so that I could get the same thing back four fold.
So the two older ones started school. I can't believe we have a second grader AND a kindergartner. It boggles my mind. To me, I am still a fifteen year old girl with occasional pimples who talks her mom into letting her stay home because it is just too embarrassing to go to school with Mt. Everest on her face. Oh, if life were that simple again. If there is nothing else I can teach our girls, I want them to know that this time is to be ENJOYED and CHERISHED because there will never be a time when it is this simple again. If only I could convince the education system of the same. Sorry if I rant, but I am bothered by the pressures put on children. Spelling tests in kindergarten, second graders having not one, but THREE quizzes the second week of school. Seriously? What happened to children being children? Do we not allow our youth to be youthful? No wonder there is so much violence and complacency in the world... there are no more CHILDREN in the world, just young adults in a miniature body. I am stepping off of my soapbox now.
So Miss Happy and Little Lady are in school (and yes I cried again), but so is Ilyn. She started preschool last week. It is a co-op preschool, which is basically some mom's getting together and doing a little something so that our three year old children can learn some social skills and get some interaction. It think it is GREAT and I love it. I am happy she started. David and I also started our second semesters in grad school. While I thought going back to school would be super fun and NERDY, it ends up that it is really HARD and a lot of work. Grad school definitely involves more writing, which for someone like me, isn't that difficult, HOWEVER, it has to make sense and not sound like I just finished watching Sesame Street. David's is more difficult than mine (Biology vs. Library Science... mine is a science, right?) so I give him a lot of CREDIT for that. He is amazing and my hero.
So that is our LIFE right now. We are coping and living it up. We have a lot of special dates coming up so we will see how they all go. I will do my BEST to update this as much as possible, but I am lousy at it. Until next time...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Happy 2nd Birthday, Sweet Girl!
Today is a special day, it's our baby girl's second birthday. It's hard to believe it has already been two years since we completed our family with this beautiful little gal. Belly, I want you to know how much I love you and am proud of you. I hope you have a wonderful day and pray that this next year of discovery and fun is a safe and fantastic one. We love you!!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)