Lost in Translation...

They say parts of the Bible have been altered, added, and deleted through the many many times it's been translated.  Kara was kind enough to clear up one of the alterations today:

Mary and her camel rode into Bethlehem in a Boeing 747.

My fridge...

My fridge:

The bottom third of my fridge is covered in alphabet magnets, animal magnets, bendable monkeys with magnets on their feet and hands, magnetic wooden plank painted art projects with sparkles poured on them that Kara proudly painted, and 3 big ABC magnets that click and have colorful beads in them to roll.

The bottom third of my fridge is scratched up from little hands sliding magnets with rough edges along the front of it.  There are sticky smudgy fingerprints everywhere.  There are lines of water that have dried but left their water spots from when Kara has over filled a glass from the dispenser.  There are bite and chew marks on the animal magnets. 

The bottom third of my fridge has been staked and claimed by my children.

Occasionally I will sit down, take off all the magnets, open up a canister of Clorox wipes, and sanitize the heck out of all of the magnets on that bottom third, as well as the front of the fridge.  I'll then put all the animal magnets back on the left door, trying to make as many animals fit as close to each other as possible creating a Pangea of magnetic wildlife.  Then I will alphabetize the alphabet magnets in 2 straight-as-an-arrow lines, 13 letters on each line.  The 3 big ABC magnets are arranged in an arc, trying to resemble a rainbow.  The flexible monkeys are contorted into the shape that I think best resembles a frolicking monkey, and then they're placed above the 26 alphabet letters.

I spend no less than 20 minutes on my keester performing this cleaning, restructuring, and organizing ritual.  The bottom third of the fridge looks great when I'm finished.  It's shiny!  There is order! It's germ free!  Alike groups are tightly bound together!  All things are in their proper place! 

I stand up and proudly survey my work.  Immediately, from the other room, Kara and Leah's mommy homing beacon starts beeping and they levitate to the kitchen against their will.  The intoxicating smell of sanitation wipes draws them closer.  They feel off kilter. They realize that something is not right.  No, no, not right at all.

And then they see it.

They both lunge, jumping horizontally at the bottom third of the fridge, not caring for the belly flop that they will sustain in 1.2 seconds, and not 5 seconds after I had given myself a proverbial pat on the back for my cleaning and organizing victory, they each eradicate the newfound alphabetical and wildlife order with one fell swoop of their extended sticky hands.  Letters fly left and right. Animals that can't fly are now airbound heading towards the oven, countertops, and pantry.  The flexible monkeys have magically come to life and are trying to climb to higher ground on the fridge by scaling up it to escape the ensuing carnage. After Kara and Leah bounce up from their belly flops, each girl grabs one of the big ABC magnets, throws it down as hard as they can just in front of their feet making it bounce and leaving a dent in the lineoleum, and do an endzone victory dance.  They then ask me for a string cheese, turn on their heel, and walk out of the room, going back to whatever they were playing with before. 

They, too, believe everything has a proper place.  And that place is on the floor.  Every single bit of it. 

Now allow me zoom in on my fridge, to this, the upper right hand side:

There is order.  Pictures and magnets are squared off and aligned as to be pleasing to my eye.  Multiple times per day as I purposely, yet sometimes mindlessly, make my voyage to the fridge to open it and retrieve whatever sustinence I'm craving or my children are pleading for, I always look at the upper right hand side before opening the door. 

I see my 3 children forever frozen in their perfect newborn state in the form of a birth announcement that my wonderful friend Ashleigh created for me for each of them. 

I see Dean's refrigerator chiropractic conversation magnets that he received in a packet at an orientation for Palmer.  We used to have a ton of them but they've gotten lost or thrown away or somehow lost their magnetism through the years so now we're down to these 6, which are very fitting. 

I see the picture of Dean and I holding hands while each holding one of our daughters with the ocean in the background.  That was at out first ever Davis Family Reunion in October of 2011 in Port Ludlow, WA.  We rented an oceanfront house on a cliff that had a gorgeous view and a tiny living room.

I see 3 different German word magnets from a German conversation magnet set that I bought Dean at an LDS bookstore in Logan, Utah when I was helping take care of my Mom in 2007.  They say "Honig" which is what I call Dean and it means "honey", and the other 2 are "Sonne" and "Monde" which mean "sun" and "moon".  Dean said he put them by me in the pictures because I'm his sun and moon. Awwwwwww.

I see my "I Love My Mommy" picture frames that Dean gave to me last Christmas with a picture of each of the girls in them, Leah with crazy bath hair, and Kara making a sweetie cheesey face.  I'm a sucker for small things like that, i.e. my childrens' handprints, footprints, art projects, etc. 

I see the picture of us when we were just a family of 4 in front of the Salt Lake City Temple, taken from atop the Conference Center across the street.  We had driven down to Utah to attend our friend's funeral, and we stopped in Salt Lake to go take the Conference Center tour, to walk around Temple Square as a family, and to see the Christus statue. 

I see our Washington D.C. thermometer magnet that Dean and I bought in D.C. just a few weeks after we started dating in 2004.  We've never walked as much as we did that vacation, and we learned that the Capital lawn is a good place to just lie down in the humidity and let your heel blisters breathe.

I see an old fashioned photo strip of Dean, Kara, Leah, and I that was taken in the arcade on Pier 57 in Seattle in March 2011 when my sister Tawny was here visiting. Leah was only 6 itty bitty months old in that picture.  Sigh.

I see the picture of us in a corn maze at Maris Farms in Buckley, WA.  We went with my sister-in-law, Chelsey, her daughter Tenley, and my mother-in-law, Terrell.  We had a great time talking and laughing and gossiping throughout the maze, which took way too long to get through, and we were happy to have finally made our way out of the muddy maze. 

I see the square flowery background magnet that Terrell gave us that says "Mothers hold their children's hands a while, and their hearts forever."  Amen.

And in the middle of all those pictures and magnets and frames and baby announcements is a plain white piece of computer paper that I took off my Mom's fridge after she died and we were cleaning out her house.  The paper has been cut down, laminated, and had a sticky strip magnet slapped on the back.  It has a generic Microsoft Word boarder around the edge of it, and the font is nothing special.  It's what's printed in the middle of it that makes it beautiful.

"Wherefore, be not

weary in well-doing,

for you are laying the

foundation of a great work.

And out of small

things proceedeth

that which is great."

D&C 64:33

 

 

Weary. Well-doing. Laying the foundation. Small things.  Great.

Beautiful and powerful words.

 

There are days that my children make me weary, oh so weary  The days where they obliterate their bottom third of the fridge.  The days where I organize their toy bins so that just the train tracks are in one bin, the Marble Madness pieces are in another bin, their books are arranged from biggest to smallest from left to right in the 3 top bins, but my girls dump everything out 2 seconds later.  The days where I can't find my toothbrush that Leah was playing with but later find it shoved in the dishwasher.  The days where they have a full-on-melt-down-fight over who gets to use the Monsters, Inc. spoon and not the cruddy Cars spoon.  The days where Kara spills an entire cup of juice all over the ground and then purposely steps in it to splash it everywhere.  The days where I can't seem to get one second to myself no matter what I try, or where I try to stealthily sneak off to. 

 

The days that they make me weary, I look at this simple magnet with this powerful scripture, and I try to remember that even though my children are demanding and narcisstic and tempermental and sticky and naughty, they are also sweet and giving and forgiving and snuggly and thoughtful and hilarious and perfect.  I am laying the foundation for who they are going to turn out to be by my small deeds and service for them.  I will keep putting their toys away because eventually they will catch on that it's better to have a house of order than a house of chaos.  I will keep wiping up their spills because they will see that a nice clean floor is better than a sticky floor.  I will keep letting them play with my toothbrush because I want them to not be afraid of the toothbrush and to establish good oral hygeine.  I will keep having days where I want to scream because I can't get any time to myself, but eventually I know I will be the one going to them for attention, and not vice versa.

I want to help them become great in whatever aspect of their lives that they want to.  It is the small everyday things I do for them, the experiences I provide for them, the laughter that I provoke from them, the hugs and kisses and praises I give them for a job well done, and teaching them about all things spiritual and good that will help them become great.  I have such an essential and almost overwhelming duty and privilege to raise my children correctly.  There will be bumps and chaos along the way, but I get one shot, only one shot, at raising my babies.  I don't want to look back when Kara is 10 years old and say, "Man, I really wish I would have paid more attention to her instead of always being on the internet wasting hours each day or watching mindless tv or distracting myself with a million other things that could have waited."  Of course I'm not perfect and I have found myself distracted or wasting time, but Dean and I are making a concerted effort in our lives to remove more and more distractions, and we're finding ourselves feeling more and more fulfilled with our family life, even though it has its' expected stresses. 

When my children go kamikaze on the front of my fridge and annihilate my cleanliness and organization that I try to provide for them, I sometimes walk away from the magnetic chaos for a little while, but sometimes I kneel down with them and have them help me put everything back on, magnet by magnet.  And we don't organize it, we don't put everything on left to right, there is no rhyme or reason to how everything is put back on.  But that is how my kids like it, that is what makes them feel more comfortable.  They are teaching me that it's ok to have chaos at this stage in my life, that my world will not end.  And in the cleaning effort it helps to bring me down on to my knees, to their eye level, where I am suddenly one of them.  And I can see the world from their view, and without fail every single time I get down to their level in front of my fridge, they run at me to give me a full on hug and tell me they love me.

So I'll keep organizing those magnets for them because I really get the better end of the deal in the clean up. 

I'm sure one day when my kids are grown and gone, I will find a gallon ziploc bag of alphabet magnets and magnetic animals and flexible monkey magnets in a storage bin that's been on a high shelf in our garage, untouched for years.  I'll go sit down on my kitchen floor, open the bag and dump everything out, clean them with a Clorox wipe, and put them on the bottom front of the fridge from left to right and in proper order and groups.  Then I'll look at them, smile, and then attack the front of the fridge, scattering and sending all the magnets airborn.  And then I'll sit there, I'll smile, and cry.

Sometimes....

Sometimes Leah makes me laugh until I cry when she climbs up on top of the highest semi sure footed object in the room and proudly yells "MEEEEEEEE!".

Sometimes I think not nice words in my head when my children stain my clothes with their grubby little pasta sauce covered hands and mouths.

Sometimes Leah mopes around for no reason at all.  It's hilarious.

Sometimes I look at my never ending to-do pile that I avoid and want to chuck it across the room.

Sometimes I literally feel like I can't contain the excitement and love that builds up in my chest when Landon smiles at me.  

Sometimes I wish the man who invented PlayDoh would have never been born after I see it ground into my carpet.

Sometimes I stop and take a good long look at the picture of my Mom on my mantel and wish she wouldn't have died.

Sometimes Kara does back somersault splits off the couch, and she's freakishly good at them.

Sometimes I wish I could sing well enough to sing a solo in public, i.e. church.  I belt it out in my van, but that's about it; my vocal confidence doesn't permeate beyond the confines of my minivan.

Sometimes I wish that I liked cooking.  I like baking, not a fan of cooking.

Sometimes Dean gets up with Landon in the middle of the night so I can continue sleeping.  Bless that man.

Sometimes I wish that the tv cable company would let us subscribe to only HGTV.  I don't want the other 500 channels, I only want HGTV.  I would pay $15 per month for just that 1 channel. 

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so hard on myself.

Sometimes I love building train tracks with Kara and having her line up ABC animals on them so that the train coming can "feed the animals".

Sometimes I wish I was a better sister.

Sometimes I realize how fleeting this stage in my life is, the stage of having newborns and toddlers and preschoolers, and I savor those stages.

Sometimes I wish this stage would hurry up.

Sometimes I tear up when Kara and Leah go pick dandelions for me, and ask me if I love them as they hand them to me with such proud smiles.

Sometimes I smile when Kara prays "that we don't drink tea and coffee, that we got a pony at a garage sale, and that we have bear" in every.single.prayer.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky.

Sometimes I get so frustrated and exasperated by the end of the day that I know the healthy outlet would be to have a big ugly cry to get it out but instead I sublimate my rage and ball it up in my chest and shut down. Not so healthy.

Sometimes I wish I did more service for others.

Sometimes I wish that I had a weekly housekeeper.

Sometimes I yell at other stupid drivers when my children aren't in the van with me.

Sometimes I'll go 3 or 4 weeks without shaving my legs.  And I'm ok with that.  It's been 3 weeks so far.

Sometimes I think I see spiders or bugs crawling in my peripheral vision, but nothing's there when I look. 

Sometimes I think that I'm the only mommy with young children who feels like she loses her patience too often with her kids.

Sometimes I feel like the best and most loved mommy in the world when I instigate and play the "Let's hide! Tell mommy what animal's going to get us!" game on my bed while Kara, Leah, and I dive under the covers and laugh our heads off together..

Sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of Dean and I talking in bed.

Sometimes Dean falls asleep in the middle of us talking in bed.

Sometimes I look at my children sleeping, and I am so happy that their biggest concern that day was whether or not they got to go to the park and if they get a Dora fruit snack or a Disney princess fruit snack.

Sometimes I get way too stressed out over trivial things.

Sometimes I'm very chill and go with the flow.

Sometimes I will fall asleep on the couch and without asking, Dean stays up until midnight hand washing all of the baby bottles and all of my pumping supplies.

Sometimes Landon grunts so loud in his sleep that it wakes me up.  He's a loud grunty sleeper.

Sometimes life gets to me and I wish things were different.  I wish I handled things and situations and conversations differently. I wish I had closer relationships with some people.  I wish I was a better mom.  I wish I was a better wife.  I wish I was a better sister, daughter, in-law, niece, cousin, etc.  I wish I was a better friend. I wish I was a better person.  I'm doing what I can with what I have right now, at this insanely busy time in my life with 3 kids 3 and under.  I'm not going to say "I'm doing my best" because that's not always true.  Some days I only have so much to give, some days I purposely hold back, but some days I truly do try my best.  And those days where I truly try my best are the better days in my book.  The days where I push myself a little more out of my comfort zone, when I tackle just 1 little project that I've been avoiding, when I don't say "just a minute" when my kids want to play with me right that very second, where I bake cookies just because, when I stop and hug Dean instead of us walking by eachother to go help one of the kids for the 173rd time that day, when it's more important to turn off the tv and let my kids tackle and jump on me as I lay on the floor and then go hold my newborn son and feel his body melt against my chest as he tries to hold up his flailing head. Those are the best days.

Sometimes I realize I'm human.  
 

Leah does what she wants...

If you know Leah then you know that she is one insanely stubborn and headstrong child and will put me in an early grave.  Instead of constantly telling her no over everything like I feel like I do every day 8 billion times, sometimes we just let her run free and do what she wants and only discipline when she's in danger or being mean.

"Hello?  Where are all the balls??!  I don't want to have to pay for this game."

 Sometimes you just need to take a nap on a Skeeball game.  Carry on, Leah.  Carry on.

This is one of my absolute favorite Leah pictures of all time, and it hits my funny bone every.single.time. that I look at it. 

Daddy and Kara were mini golfing just beyond that rock and Leah was bored with mini golfing long before this was taken so she just ran on the greens and walked on the bricks that edged them while Daddy and Kara golfed.  Landon was only 9 days old when we went to Leavenworth and went mini golfing so Mommy held Landon and made sure Leah didn't jump into the creek that was flowing through the golf course.  She decided she needed to come over to where the hole was and then she got really mopey all of a sudden (she pulls an awesome pouty mopey face and takes a neanderthal stance) and then just dropped to the ground and laid like this for 20 seconds or so.  I couldn't grab my camera fast enough, and I was laughing so hard.  She's such a nut.

4 exhibits...

 I'd like to present you 4 exhibits regarding Leah:

 Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

 I believe that those 4 pictures are enough to prove to the court that Leah officially hates having her picture taken.

She.Is. AWESOME.