Thursday, December 08, 2011

Life is good


Do I complain too much in my blog posts? I hope not. I'm really just trying to document life so I remember things and not just the good and easy things. It isn't all hard and is usually happy. Not perfect but happy. When we first moved here and Eric's Aunt came by for some of her things and gave me a hug as she was leaving and I started crying. I apologized and said that I was happy to be here and she said that it was good to cry it out. She said that I had to grieve because I left 10 years of a life behind. I appreciated her saying that so much, it really made sense. Now as we've entered the holiday season, I find that I've had to grieve a bit again as I think of friends and traditions that I love that are not part of our celebration this year. It has helped. Don't worry, there is a lot of joy to celebrate still.

And while I'm talking, I'll just say that it is sometimes hard to read blogs by Mormon Mommies. They are so creative and beautiful and their homes are perfect and they wear cute outfits everyday and their children have their hair done and they take photos in fields in coordinating colors that compliment the field's color scheme. I don't want my blog to be an antithesis to these other ones, just saying it like it is. I like a lot of the Mormon Mommy bloggers: Design Mom, a room somewhere, and of course the Our Best Bites girls. But I'm not one of them, except that I'm Mormon too.


So anyway, this week Massimo learned to say the word "up" and he also discovered that he can yank my hand or push my legs in one direction to get me where he wants me to go. So in every room he wants to be up. He was quite pleased with the seat he found for himself this morning in the bathroom.
Laine has been doing jump rope all week at school. She's found a new friend and is happy to have this activity to be excited about. On Monday she wore her winter coat to school, protection against the freezing temperatures, but on Tuesday she was trying to figure out how she could be warm with a sweatshirt instead. I tried to convince her otherwise until she explained that her coat got in the way of her jump rope. Fashion has to function. I tried to get the three school kids to wear their winter coats but they said they didn't need them yet. 18 degrees outside in the morning and they want to wear hoodies to the bus stop. They haven't complained about being cold so I stopped pushing for the winter coats.

Eric remembers wearing short sleeved shirts during recess in the winter, playing football in the snow with his friends. He come back in to class soaked and spend the rest of the day in wet jeans. But he didn't care.




Cannon, Ridge, Sommer and I put up the Christmas lights. We used duct tape for the part along the roofline because we couldn't reach the gutters, Ridge's idea. He did the right side of the house. It looks kind of funny in the daylight but rather pretty at night. Sommer helped with one of the bushes, she was so insistent, and Cannon helped with with the pillar lights and other bushes. Not bad for a bunch of short people.

4 comments:

Kathi said...

Love you Paige. You are perfect in my eyes, a beautiful mother and kind friend, always have been, always will be. I, too, have blog envy sometimes. I just try to remember to enjoy the tiny moments in my life, with my kids and husband, even when all the other moments are hard or fractured for awhile.
I haven't blogged one bit this year. With my Mom and her cancer, the year slipped right on by with me running to keep up. But I respect your blog,and how your written it, with real emotions and thoughts on what really is happening. All those shiny lives and pictures the other have can't be all truth, right? And even if it is, I'll take this life, with disagreements and disease and fender benders anyday. Love to you all this holiday season. It will be great, don't worry, new memories right? Ps. Your lights look wonderful :)

Kimberly said...

Paige whenever I read your blog, I constantly think you are such a good mom. When I get married someday and have kids of my own, I hope to be a mother as good as you. You seem have being a parent down. By the way, who needs to wear cute clothes around the house everyday? That sounds like being a person you really aren't.

Good job on your lights. That's a much better job than I would do.

Shannon said...

I know just what you mean about some of those blogs - soo fun to read, but they can make the home hearth look a little dingy. Last year I was totally discouraged after reading a post by a mormon mommy who was touting her homemade cleaner recipes and modeling her favorite cleaning outfit - a shirt from anthropologie and designer jeans! I promise you, if I had a shirt from anthropologie, I would not be wearing it to clean my house!
Your blog is perfect, Paige. Being a "mormon mommy" is not about being stylish and color-coordinated. It is about learning to be patient, laughing through tears, helping and hugging your family and friends, making the most of what you've got and doing your best to be like the Savior. It's about hanging Christmas lights with duct tape - and you do it very, very well!

sheena said...

Love what the others had to say - yes, I like reading your blog because you are REAL! I don't know any family that is perfect all the time - even if they're making their own cleaner and cleaning in designer clothes. You are real, your family is real, your Christmas lights are real - and writing openly about this brings us all in because it's authentic and we can identify with it. And, because of the authenticity, we can also feel all of the love that is radiated from you and your family.