Afternoons of Nothing

Posted by Jennie | September 2, 2010 | 18 Comments

I have just done my most radical act of parenting so far in my fifteen-year career of raising six children: I have pulled my children out of all extra-curricular activities.

Even piano lessons.

Last year I spent just about every afternoon driving little people to various lessons, games, practices and rehearsals. There were the accompanying happy experiences: pride and excitement as my daughter performed onstage for the first time; my sons becoming more flexible and strong through Kung Fu; the sense of accomplishment my oldest two kids felt after finishing well in a golf tournament.

But there was the ugliness of all the extra-curriculars too: the fact that I spent very little after-school time helping kids with homework and just being there; the nagging and quarrelling about practicing, the lack of decent dinners (I always meant to do something in the crock pot, but it just never seemed to happen).

This year instead of becoming more accomplished we are going back to the basics: we will be working on eating good meals together and getting to sleep early. That’s our after-school curriculum now. Read more

On Names

Posted by Brooke | September 1, 2010 | 34 Comments

This morning at the temple initiatory, most of my names were simply surnames and this struck me in a way that it can only strike a sleep deprived and anxiously addled brain that resides in the cranium of a lady still very much postpartum: I just spent almost nine months obsessing over my baby’s name… and maybe it doesn’t even matter. Read more

The answer, I believe, is a resounding “NO!”

Posted by Dalene | August 29, 2010 | 23 Comments

The Elders Rowley, Preston, England

Early last Sunday morning I found myself sitting before our stake’s high council. Noticeably the only one dressed in a skirt, I was there to witness the reporting of two recently returned missionaries. One was my own son, just back from the England Manchester Mission; the other was a stranger to me. Both young–so young, barely 21–men had been asked to, by promptings of the spirit, share an experience from their respective missions that had changed lives. They were also asked to bear their respective testimonies.

The stranger went first. I can’t recall his words or even the experience he chose to share. The details are not as relevant here as the spirit that was present.

I was blown away. Read more

a good giver of gifts

Posted by Michelle L. | August 26, 2010 | 16 Comments

You read Melissa’s goodbye post? I did that yesterday– drove down to BYU with my oldest son and cried through the whole process of moving him into Heritage Halls, filling his kitchen shelves and coming home to a dinner table where his seat sat empty.

And today I’m weary and overwhelmed with the work I need to do and completely unable to write an inspiring post. So how about this? Let’s talk about presents.

My friends gifted my son with an incredibly thoughtful freshman survival kit: laundry bag, vitamins, shoe polish kit, air freshener, apron, Kleenex, gum, Gatorade, Cliff Bars, a USB drive, Shout wipes, a piggy bank with “Mission Fund” on one side and “Dating Fund” on the other, lots of other things I’ve forgotten and best of all a homemade cookbook filled with Kit’s best recipes. Ben and I were both overwhelmed with their generosity. “I just can’t believe they went to all this work just for me.” he repeated over and over. Read more

Good-Bye

Posted by Melissa M | August 24, 2010 | 33 Comments

Two days ago I sat in Primary and watched as my youngest child—my baby—received her Faith in God Award and stood at the front of the room, smiling, braces flashing, as the other Primary children sang, “If you’ll miss her and you know it, wave good-bye. If you’ll miss her and you know it, wave good-bye. If you’ll miss her and you know it, then your face will surely show it [here they all pretended to wipe their eyes, as if they were crying]. If you’ll miss her and you know it, wave good-bye.”

She just turned twelve last Thursday. In fact, today she starts junior high and my next-youngest child—my blond-haired boy who just yesterday, I swear, was starting kindergarten—starts high school. I still can’t figure out how we got here: one minute I was nursing newborns and changing diapers and watching wispy-haired one-year-olds take their first steps; the next I’m sending lanky adolescents out the door to junior high and high school. Even more unfathomable to me is that this past Sunday morning—the same day that my youngest graduated from Primary—my second-born, my eighteen-year-old son, had his final pre-mission interview with the stake president (his final pre-mission interview!) and moved into his freshman dorm on Sunday night. He’s off to BYU for a semester before leaving on a mission, hopefully right after the Christmas holidays. Read more

Many Faces

Posted by Melissa Y. | August 19, 2010 | 7 Comments

A few days ago I went to J. Kirk Richards’ open house. The show featured forty miniature, unfinished portraits of Christ.

I went by myself, which enabled me to look at each face as long as I wanted. The diversity astounded me, especially given the limited constraints of space and subject. The images were all facing forward—there was no variety even in angle or posture—yet each had a unique mood and feel.

It got me wondering if I could do something similar in my own medium of writing. Each artistic field is weighted differently, and I wasn’t sure if the concept of playing with color, light, and line could really translate to language. For instance, there’s no direct linguistic equivalent to the feeling of blue. But writing has the advantage of being able to employ multiple senses, even if indirectly—temperature, texture, taste, sound, smell. Read more

Sad

Posted by Melissa Y. | August 16, 2010 | 13 Comments

Our little pet rabbit died today.

It’s been a tough afternoon, and all of the post ideas I had floating around in my mind seem flat and unimportant. Ironic, because to most people the death of a pet sounds flat and unimportant.

But here in the four walls of our universe, it’s our own small tragedy. We got him for Christmas, so we’ve had him for almost eight months. We watched him grow from a tiny fluff ball into a big fluff ball. We loved it when he did a “binky”—a random, springy jump that is a rabbit expression of joy.

Last night he was fine. This morning he was sick. This afternoon he died. Read more

Magic Beans

Posted by Emily M. | August 16, 2010 | 17 Comments

Yesterday I went out to our little garden to pick beans for dinner. Our beans this year grow over trellises in a lush, exuberant way, in a way they have never grown before, leaves upon leaves, with vines spilling over and reaching for something else to hold on to. Every time I think I have picked the last ripe bean, I lift a leaf and discover more. I intended to get just a small potful and ended up picking two good-sized bowls. My kids and I sat on the lawn, in the shade of the bean trellises, and snipped them into bite sized pieces. Bean snipping makes a satisfying sound, like a Lego click, only alive. Read more

A Mother in Professor’s Clothing

Posted by Catherine | August 14, 2010 | 13 Comments

This morning I had mandatory training meetings for new faculty associates at ASU. I’m teaching one class for them this fall after a five-year break from teaching. Last night I made the necessary preparations for a smooth morning: I packed the kids’ school lunches and my snacks, set out everybody’s clothes, packed the baby’s bag (complete with extra clothes, diapers, food for lunch, snacks, and a note to remind me to put his blanket and noise machine in), and set my alarm. Not fifteen minutes later, I hear an all-too-familiar wail from the baby’s room. I peek in to see him standing in his crib, sweat plastering the hair to his forehead, his little limbs shaking with fever. After hours of rocking him, holding him, dosing him with medication, I return to my room with his little head on my shoulder, and I turn off my alarm clock. I won’t be going to the mandatory meetings. My husband is out-of-town this weekend, I have no family around, and I cannot take a sick baby to my visiting teacher’s house so I can attend my meetings. I say a quick prayer that the directors of AS U’s writing program are understanding people and that I can figure out this class, the technology, and the system at a new university without going to the meetings.

After I finished my master’s degree and before entering my doctoral program, I taught for two years full-time at BYU as a “visiting instructor.” The position was a new one, and the 5-interview process of being hired seemed grueling to me. My second-to-last interview was with a vice president at BYU, who was wary of past BYU English professors’ liberalism. He noticed on my curriculum vitae that some of my conference presentations incorporated feminist and Marxist theories applied to literature.

“Do you consider yourself a feminist?” he asked me.
“Yes,” I told him. “I enjoy studying feminist theory.”
“How do you balance being a feminist and being a Mormon?” he questioned.

I responded that there had come a time when I had to decide that I am first and foremost an LDS woman. That my religious identity gets precedence over others. So, I do my best to look at feminist theory from the perspective of my base identity as an LDS woman, rather than focusing on what my religion looks like from my feminist identity.

This morning I was remembering that conversation in light of my shifting roles. Last night, I had prepared for the day as a mother, who was getting ready to step more fully into my professor identity. But this morning, I had to put my professor role aside for the responsibilities of my current base identity as a mother of a sick little boy.

This jostling of identities often doesn’t feel entirely comfortable when the choice about which to step into isn’t as clear as it was for me this morning. There’s guilt associated with identity shifts. And self-doubt. I remember going back to a major conference after my daughter was born and feeling like a big, fat fraud sitting there with people who eat, sleep, and breathe this stuff while I could only devote naptimes to my study. But a few years later, I’m getting more comfortable with my shifting identities and more confident in my choices.

What about you? What identities are you juggling currently (mother, wife, daughter, sister, ward member, friend, employee, etc.) and which has priority right now in your life? How do you personally balance your roles?

The Privilege of Being a Mormon Woman

Posted by Marintha | August 11, 2010 | 98 Comments

This post is mistitled. It should read The Privilege of Being a Middle Class (American-Mormon) Married Woman. I admit that up front.

We marry. We have a baby. We breastfeed them and change diapers. We potty train them and squish play dough. Then we walk them to school, and drive them to lessons. We usually have more than one baby. And the routine is more or less the same. Soon the last baby is no longer potty training or squishing play dough. And we walk him or her to school. And then we have, time.  It’s like air at the top of an hourglass, gradually increasing, letting us breath deeper and deeper as time runs out with our children. The time creeping up on us, the time that is ours. Read more

When your guilty pleasures aren’t all that guilty…

Posted by Shelah | August 9, 2010 | 20 Comments

I was talking the other day with a group of girlfriends, all moms of school-age children, and one of them asked us each to name the guilty pleasure we wanted most at that moment. A few mentioned pedicures and massages, a chance to read a book uninterrupted, nights away at a hotel by themselves, or trips with their husbands. I guiltily copped to wishing I could send my kids back to school a few weeks early, and a few others mentioned things like hot fudge sundaes or diet cokes drunk in peace and quiet.

After everyone had said her piece, I started laughing. I was thinking about what the answers might be if a similarly-aged group of guys had been asked the question. Would they want to watch a baseball game by themselves, or would they want some action? While none of the women had mentioned sex, my guess is that it would be big on the minds of our husbands. I’m still at the phase of parenthood (especially in the summer when more kids are home) when someone always wants a piece of me. At night, until I’ve had some time to decompress, it’s often hard for me to switch from someone who doesn’t want to be touched in any way to someone who wants to be touched in that way.

So how about you? What would you name as your guilty pleasure? Is it hard for you to transition from being “the mom” or “the boss” to being a woman who welcomes physical affection? What helps you make that transition?

Our mothers knew it

Posted by Guest | August 7, 2010 | 35 Comments

Today’s guest post is from my darling eighteen year-old son, Ben. He offered to write a post last Spring, and with the craziness of girls’ camp in my life this week, it seemed like the perfect time to cash in the favor. I’ve left it largely unedited; I love reading the fresh, raw opinions of my boy and his friends.  –Michelle Lehnardt, Segullah Blog Co-Editor

My boxes aren’t exactly packed, but I’ve been sorting through my clothes, searching for a sturdy bike lock and asking my mom a little more often than usual, “How do you cook _______?”

In two weeks I’ll be at BYU, away from home for the first time in my life. As you can imagine, my mom has been pretty emotional about my departure. It probably wasn’t very nice of me, but I took her to Toy Story 3 with full knowledge that she’d cry through the whole movie (I should have brought more Kleenex).

But her influence in my life isn’t over. As much as my mom dislikes driving, I’m pretty sure she’ll make the trek to Provo pretty often to bring me cookies, walk through the art museum with me and, hopefully, restock my fridge.

And as I prepare to go on a mission this winter I’ll also be depending on my mom to navigate all that suit shopping for me (I really, really despise the mall). Read more

Travel Tips–help!

Posted by Jennie | August 5, 2010 | 26 Comments

Summer is drawing to a close and it seems like most everyone has taken their summer trips. We’re just getting started, though. We will be taking our six kids on a plane tomorrow to head to the Motherland (a.k.a. Utah). What I’ve learned about plane travel is to wear shoes that slip off and on easily and to not unwrap all the little toys I’ve bought for my kids (the unwrapping kills five minutes right there.)

Car travel seems to be a bigger obstacle. It takes a lot longer than a plane ride usually, and there is a lot of room for annoying and obnoxious behavior where kids are concerned (sibling rivalry to the tenth power!)

We have a DVD player in our car, but I hate to keep it going full time. Growing up we endured yearly drives across the country and I really grew to appreciate the simple things like reading and looking out the window at the changing scenery. I feel like my kids should have that same experience, but turning off the DVD player seems to punish the parents more than the kids.

I read that staying hydrated is really important, so on our last car trip I drained my water bottle regularly. Which meant that I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the New Mexico desert more than once. So now I have decided that staying hydrated is maybe not the best idea for the two days we are stuck in the car.

What secrets have you learned travelling, either with kids or without? Has anybody ever given you really great (or really awful) advice ?

Here comes the bride…and cake and flowers

Posted by Leslie | August 2, 2010 | 41 Comments

I always love to come to my parents’ house in the summer and look through the stack of wedding announcements that sit in the basket by the desk. Envelopes in cream, white, and ivory, laced with tissue- paper squares, and ribbon embellishments. Sprinkled in are photos of smiling couples—bearing resemblance to those kids I used to babysit or teach in Young Women—now sporting diamond rings and cuddling up next to guys I don’t know.

Weddings and receptions come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I’ve been to LDS weddings, and weddings of people of other faiths. I love the ceremonies and also the celebrations. I’ve been to churches, temples, plantations, bed & breakfasts, cultural halls, reception centers, houses, clubhouses and big white tents. I’ve seen some very interesting color schemes—which were probably regretted a few years later—my share of atrocious dresses, and flowers gone awry. I have also admired flower arrangements two stories tall, enjoyed the glamor of getting dressed up for black tie, and a taken a turn on a few ballroom dance floors. I’ve consumed much wedding food—ranging from delicious to unusual (politely describing it). I’ve eaten plenty of slices of cake in all its varieties and downed more than my share of punch (both of which I unabashedly express ardent love for). Man might not be able to live on bread alone, but I think this woman could get by on punch and cake pretty nicely.

I had very definite ideas for my own wedding all the way down to typestyle for the invitations. I didn’t want extravagant, just simple and beautiful. I designed my dress and helped make the veil, designed the bridesmaids’ dresses, made the five-layer wedding cake, made every bouquet and corsage, hand addressed every invitation, made the favors and cut out typewriter style “g’s” in my wedding colors to be stuck on the front of the out-of-town guest bags for the hotel, gave my photographer very specific instructions that I wanted no cheesy shots, not a bunch of kissing, or soft-focus pictures. I wanted everything just so. Mostly these opinions were formed in reaction to perusing the wedding albums of many people who had gone before me, which taught me all the things I didn’t want to do.

It was a whirlwind, but delightfully marked at every turn with memories. Like assembling and transporting my over three-foot-tall cake in our dear friends’ kitchen, or wiring tons of flowers with my best friend as wing man with the  floral tape  in my aunt’s kitchen, or  finding my then fiancé asleep on the hotel lobby couch at 1 am the night before our wedding, where he was diligently attempting to wait up for me, as I came racing in after a full day of preparations and the two-hour drive from my parents’ house to our hotel by the Washington, D.C. Temple.  I am still slightly miffed that I didn’t throw the daisies on the floor that the caterer put around my cake without asking me and I wished I had worn my hair down part of the day, but eleven years later I look back with few regrets and still think it was a pretty great day and the beginning of something amazing.

So tell me about your wedding. Did you love it or hate it? Do you look back with regrets? Do you laugh or simply smile fondly? Did you run the show or turn over the reigns? Did you have any funny mishaps? What was the most memorable one you’ve attended?

Tell me something happy

Posted by Michelle L. | July 31, 2010 | 52 Comments

It’s been a season of heartbreak. Strolling up and down the streets of my neighborhood I can describe the anguish in one house after the other:

a baby born still

a house under foreclosure after the loss of a job

a teenage son addicted to marijuana

a marriage broken by pornography addiction

the sudden death of a 36 year old father of four

debilitating depression

a sister with stage 4 cancer

a father who abandons his wife and children for the bed of his secretary. Read more

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Art Credit: detail from painting "Branch and Remnant" by Rebecca Wagstaff, Featured Artist of the Winter 2009 issue.

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