Sometimes I write down fragments of moments in life when I don’t have my camera. Here are some snippets from life lately:

1) My car is filled to the brim with seven giggling girls on our way to gymnastics. I am on the phone with Max trying to explain how to finish off the spinach lasagna for dinner that I ran out of time to do. He does one step, then calls me back for the next (what a good boy). In between steps I’m trying to figure out what the heck to do when I get to gymnastics…sign my life away for the next round of classes or not. All the girls pile out when we pull up, I finish telling Max where the Parmesan cheese is, and all of a sudden Claire is screaming in agony because her finger is smashed in the door. Her middle finger. How in the world that happened I will never know.

2) Max comes home from some meetings for church (he is the president of the Deacon’s quorum) and holds his thumb up in front of my face. His thumbnail is purple already. He has just slammed it in a car door. What is up with us and car doors this week? Pressure builds up quick and Dave pulls out his “surgical tools” to cut through the nail (he’s had much practice with this if you remember his marathon toes). I pull out the camera to take pictures but can’t do it. Yuck.

3) I take our car in for a much needed oil change only to have it take forever, making me late for a phone interview for a local magazine about being the Young Mother of the Year. So I find what I think is a quiet corner outside next to Lucy who’s got her princesses spread out in front of her and is in her own world of imagination. For the next half hour I spill out jumbled answers to the tune of some big machine blowing the cars they are washing behind me. I hope that woman could hear a little of what I was saying…or maybe it’s just best if she makes up her own stuff 🙂

4) I sit with my arm around Elle at our first General Young Women broadcast, tearing up at the sound of so many beautiful Young Women’s voices there in the chapel during the opening song. My heart fills up with so much gratitude for the inspiring messages we get to soak in and that I get to share them with Elle…and all my girls some day. Click here to watch the video they showed there amidst the inspiring talks. I dare you not to cry. And then click here for more info. about the Young Women’s program as well as other programs I love so much and am so incredibly grateful they are part of my life.

And then you better click here to read some amazing thoughts about raising girls from my friend Sarah. I so agree with her! She and this conference made me want to stand up even more for how deliberately we must raise our girls in this day and age. And the fact that I work with teenage girls every day for my church (and love them with all my heart) makes me even more aware of how critical it is to help them make good choices.

5) I steal away with Dave one night to go see a movie (which is a little luxury, it seems like we never see movies). We are so captured by the plot because it makes us think of the all the events that led us to find each other so many years ago. We come home and pull out all my old journals and read them ’til 2:00 in the morning. I look over at him, hair all askew from a late night and thank my lucky stars that he is mine.

6) After the dinner rush one night I lay on the couch and read some books with Lucy. Elle comes over and congratulates me for sitting down. You see, she’s been giving the business lately (with a twinkle in her eye) that she never sees me sitting, “even for scriptures” (because I’m making breakfast and listening while they read). She has a point. I’m working on it.

7) I end up in tears for a day worrying about Lucy…giving her all her supplements that takes forever each morning and night and worrying about some social things her teacher has informed me of and wondering if they have something to do with the supplements and letting my mind wander to her future years and whether she’ll have good friends to carry her through the tough times. My doctor frustration extends with one doctor we’ve been working with…I feel completely at my wit’s end on how to help her best.

8) I watch Grace perform the new dance routine she has just learned in her new dance class (which she adores). It makes me so happy that she is not overloaded with gymnastics so much that she would have missed out on this new class. This leads me to finish agonizing about Claire and her gymnastics class after I realize that I have simply been trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I lay there in bed with Dave one night musing how interesting it is that he is the one telling me we shouldn’t do the class and I’m pushing for it (remember he is the “pusher” and I’m the “praiser”…that “Tiger Mother” has worked her magic in me a little too much…). But after calling around to see if I could find someone to help me drive on the days when I can’t and trying to justify missing piano lessons for a gym class I stop dead in my tracks and tell myself that I am crazy. Completely crazy. So I sign Claire up for a different class with Grace one day a week and I’m totally at peace.

9) I scurry around to a hundred little details ready for a combined Young Women activity. I get up early to make rolls and roll them out to cook while I finish up some things while Lucy’s gone to school. Oh wait, that’s right now….gotta run! 🙂

18 Comments

  1. secretly I am happy your cutie isn't doing the class, so much pressure if she isn't going to want to be in the Olympics…
    you are such a wonderful mother!
    but you do need to sit down more!
    relax and enjoy yourself!
    elle is right!!! go elle!
    I think it's great you have such a beautiful loving family and sweet husband. you are such an inspiration to many! and of course to me!
    oh and the slamming in the doors thing, is entirely from rushing rushing rushing, I KNOW because I do this myself, way too much!!!
    xoxo
    tara

  2. I love that your mind works like mine, taking all these decisions and choices to heart, while in the midst of making lasagna and getting oil changed.
    And thank you so much…I take it as the highest compliment!

  3. I know exactly who that Sarah is that you are talking about because my sister in law and I LOVE her and my sister in law said to me the other day…."She is already a mormon. She just doesn't know it yet." You and her are my favorite inspirational blogs.

  4. Love you, love your blog, love your insights. Thanks for being you! BTW, that article by Sarah was AMAZING. I'm sharing it will all of my friends that have daughters.

  5. I somehow found your blog… I love reading, really it gives me hope that raising kids and growing up is a lot funner than some make it out to be, Your beautiful and have a cute family!

  6. I found your profile on mormon.org

    Your family is beautiful and your love for life is so refreshing. I am a student in college and it is so easy to get bogged down by all the hard things in life; however, there is so much beauty everywhere too!

    Your blog is beautiful.

  7. The movie had to be The Adjustment Bureau… the only movie my husband and I have seen in the theater in at least a year. So thought provoking!

    Maybe that magazine reporter will make up some really good stuff! 🙂

  8. You are amazing and I I love you. When you look at all you do in a few days…gosh, we are all superwomen! I'll eat a treat in honor of you and women everywhere! 🙂

  9. I love that video, thank you for posting it. I didn't cry til the end when President Monson came on… I love to hear our prophet speak to us, you can just feel how much he cares about people, and how much our Father in Heaven loves us to send us a living prophet =)

  10. Both you and Sarah are such an inspiration to me. When I first started reading Clover Lane a few years ago I had thought she was a Mormon (she pretty much is). I think her ideals and values are right on. Thank you both for sharing from the heart.

  11. Wow, I didn't read this post that way at all. In it, I saw a day in the life of a mother of five young children. That is busyness in itself. I don't know much about Mother of the Year, but I do know there are multiple awards and accolades for those in the business, literary, science, and artistic worlds. I wouldn't begrudge someone their Nobel Peace Prize or foundational grant. Why not applaud a mother who excels in her chosen vocation, and in so doing applaud the efforts of all such mothers everywhere? We all think and parent and juggle our time so differently. But even so, we can inspire each other & lift each other up.

  12. I am a friend of Dave's from high school. We graduated the same year. I found your blog thru his Facebook page. I have loved reading all your posts and looking at the amazing pictures of you and your beautiful family. Dave is a lucky & blessed man. As are you. Thank you for your great inspiration.
    Amy Stiles King (Flagstaff, AZ)

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