Michael’s travels to Phoenix and Chicago are ensuring that the kids and I are getting lots of time together.  Today we went to “the tree park”.  It’s covered by a huge fabric shade and the play equipment is made to look like trees.  The kids pretended to be pirates and ran around chasing each other.  Every so often they’d run over to sit on me because I was “safe” where no one could get them.  It was one of those sweet, insightful moments that come every now and then that made me reflect.  I sure hope I can be that: a place, a person, that intangible “safe” for them.  Last night, I cleaned up the house and went in to kiss them.  It was so easy to love them all sleeping soundly with the house quiet and still.  It brought feelings of immeasurable happiness.  I’m trying to love them the way God wants me to, to remind myself to be the parent to them that I’d want if I were one of them.  It demands that I love them when I don’t want to but make myself do it anyway.  When there are conflicts, tears, some lost me-time, stains, dirty dishes in the sink while making something that takes four times as long because I have four times the helpers.  It’s holding hands during the awkward stages that we may or may not grow out of, moving past my parenting failures and forcing myself to pick them and myself back up again.  It’s choosing to do the right thing in the moment when it doesn’t come naturally and I simply don’t want to.  So I’ll hold on to the easy to love perfect report cards, adorable clean-faced smiles, folding arms nicely in church, special occasion, reading books sweetly love, win me over with kisses and cuddles and figure out what God is trying to teach me about His higher love.  Hopefully I can learn to understand it a little better before I meet Him again to account for these little charming, occasionally infuriating, all-consuming little munchkins in my stewardship.  

Ryan sat on my lap for all of Sacrament Meeting on Sunday if you can call it that- hooray!  We don’t let our kids have toys or food in church so the only thing he could find were my keys.  He decided to go “fishing” for my keys on the ground while managing to keep his legs and tummy on my lap.  I think he was probably upside down for a third of the time but managed to stay put.  He didn’t need to be told that Gracie would take over my lap any chance she got- smart kid. 

A couple weeks ago I was tucking Gracie in her bed.  I was laying in the dark with her and telling her stories about when I was four years old.  I told her how we lived in a house right next door to my grandparents and she gave an audible gasp of excitement.  I told her how I stole bubblegum from the grocery store but how my siblings told on me, my mom made me take it back as well as pay for it and how ashamed I was.  According to her primary teacher, she told her primary class the entire story the next day at church with all the details.  I also told her about how one morning I slept in and my brother told me I had missed a flood in the basement.  My brother went into details about how it was a huge swimming pool and they had a big party playing with all the toys and swimming around while I slept.  I saw that all the furniture and toys had been moved and that the carpet was still wet with fans on it, since there really had been a small flood.  I was really sad that they didn’t wake me up to go swimming before they got rid of all the water.    It was cute because I could just picture her swimming around in a basement the same way I had imagined it at her age.  Obviously, my brother was quite the storyteller. 

A couple days ago, I was weeding in front of our house.  There are some tall grassy weeds that like to grow here and there amongst our woodchips, which is odd seeing as how our backyard grass started to die within a week of water restrictions.  I was ready to pull them when Ryan told me I couldn’t because as he worded it, “They make me happy”.  Whenever I went back to pick that grass, Ryan would quickly stop me and remind me that I couldn’t pull those because, they make him happy.   He is quite the defender of which ever sibling or parent is the underdog in a wrestling match and will throw himself on the assailant to assist.  Our sweet Ryan looks out for the underdogs, even the weeds.  He likes to talk about how he used to hold me as a baby (not me holding him but him holding me) but how he is getting big and tall.  Such a big kid, that boy.

Other updates:  My cousin whom I have many childhood memories with, Jackson, passed away last week.   His premature death took all the fun out of going to LA and meeting the extremely rich and famous last weekend. 

Also, last week, Grandpa Neyens returned to Oceanside from a year deployment to Cuba.  We thought he was in harms way and weren’t picturing him snorkeling in beautiful waters every weekend.  Well at least he wasn't attacked by any sharks with all that snorkeling.