Best & Worst: The Great Family Project

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Best & Worst: The Great Family Project: As parents of nine children, we are always on the look-out for anything we can do to help them navigate the astonishingly complex and d...

A Brief History of Moms from 1970 to the Present

Eight?  Really?  

My kids and I watched the first episode of the first Sesame Street ever th'other day.  Although (due to some hippyish no-tv, no-Barbie tendencies of my mother that lasted through exactly one daughter) I never watched it before (OK, to be precise, I had never watched THIS episode before.  Once I had children of my own, they watched the occasional Sesame Street.  This is not about Sesame Street, really--why are we still talking about it?)--the people all looked familiar.  

This is not about Sesame Street--it's about the clothes.  And the people.  The moms looked exactly like I remember the moms of the 70s to look like--sort of homely and comfortable, and not particularly beautiful unless you think big glasses and bushy hair are beautiful.  And make no mistake, if that's how your mom looked, that was beautiful.  

The Mom Image has gone through a lot of changes in my life--there's the 80's PowerMom who has a career, latchkey children, and shoulder pads; the 90's SoccerMom who runs her children around in a minivan, the 00's SuperMom who blogs about birthstories and shares pictures of homemade (and elaborate) everything from Halloween costumes to birthday parties.

So now I have, incredibly, eight children.  All wanted, planned for, wonderful.  And I am their Mom and they love me and think I'm wonderful.  Even with my near-constant directives to do this and that and the other, I am often the Most Popular Person in the Universe.  We will take a family walk, and people will be shoving each other in order to get the chance to hold my hand (which, in a different generation, might well have gotten the Stinkeye of Death). 

This family thing is pretty great.  Wonderful little people who are filled with light and love and joy and freely share it with you in return for some food and hugs and not-exploding when they are eating sugar fist-over-fist.

And the new baby?  Wonderful,  Precious, Sweet  (to quote the two-year old).  Smiles that stop your heart.  A good sleep-ethic. Every bit as special and wanted and needed as the first.

The Lab

I had to take a glucose test at the lab a few days before Halloween.  Luckily, I had my four youngest with me to cheer me on.  They were fascinated by the whole procedure.  Briellen saved the moment so beautifully that I couldn't keep it to myself.

We tried minimalism, but it's not for us . . .

 So, when we sent our furniture and etceteras towards the States in June, I tried very hard to keep the absolute minimum needed for clothing, feeding, cleaning, and entertaining the family.  We did pretty well--except the one kid who grew out of all of her clothes within two weeks.  And the other kid who grew out of all of his shoes.  And let's not mention the Stomach that went from fitting-in-regular-jeans at 20 weeks, to gargantuan at 21 weeks, which of course called for all new clothes or endless embarrassment (Lucky me, I went for both options, since none of my maternity jeans will stay up.)

Entertainment-wise, I let each child keep One Toy (which generously expanded to about three each), and we went through three reams of paper and six boxes of crayons.  It was a good summer, full of walking in Prague and Paris, and playing in Colorado Springs.  But two days ago, it got cold.  Really cold.  We had light summer jackets and fleeces, but no hats, scarves, or gloves.   And sleeping on a borrowed mattress on the floor for six weeks is not all that it's cracked up to be.

 So imagine the joy when our Stuff got here yesterday.  Sleeping in my own bed--pure delight! (Not to mention, we retired the thrift store quilt with the awesome car-airplane-helicopter design.  It will eventually go on the wall of Brigham's room, but yeah, I sort of felt like a five-year old every night.  Which is not the worst thing ever.)  

Seriously, if you have a family of almost-10, there's probably some little bit of you that hoards things.  Or wishes that you had when the inevitable needs for random things come up.  All of our hoarded stuff is back-books, art supplies, extra clothes.  And our children are zealously breaking open boxes in search of More Stuff.  So, I like the Idea of minimalism, but from now on, we'll pass.  Except when I get those Mom Urges to Purge everybody's junk.  Those are fun, even if they're a little terrifying (for the everybody else, anyway.) 

Na shledanou

Is this really the end?  Praha, we will miss you.  We will miss rohliky, children's parks with climbing towers made out of rope and zip-lines, cobblestone streets, young men who give up their seat on the tram for older women and children, castles around every corner, and good friends.

Every time we move, we find that we are faced with many new things.  Prague has been full of many intimidating new things.  A different culture and a different language have been a challenge, as has the fact that every time our family goes into public, we are a miniature version of the Macey's Thanksgiving Parade.  We are an Event.  

The great joy for me, however, with each move is that we have been able to meet such amazing people.    With each new home, we have had the opportunity to come into the orbit of people who have touched our lives through their faith.  Some have had great trials, some have been an example of how to find beauty in everyday life. 

Prague has been no different.  The people who we have met here have been wonderful.  There are those who have shared their time and talents with us--just because!--and have been an answer to prayers.  And our Prague family, our brothers and sisters in the gospel?  Oh, what faith!  Some of the older members joined during the dark days of communism.  They were baptized in a pond at midnight, to escape the eyes of the secret police.  If discovered they faced extreme hardship and possible imprisonment.  In the current rein of atheism and promiscuity, the younger members have come one and two of a family, standing against the popular culture with faith and joy.  There are myriad struggles, too, but they only make the joy more profound.

Praha, we love you.  Until another day.

Eight is a magic number!

Vilate Update

Vilate was a little warm when she went to bed a week ago Sunday night, but she was a raging inferno by the time she crawled into bed with us sometime in the middle of the night.  She was also hallucinating/ talking in her sleep in a rather hilarious way.  (Ammon, stop biting me!  Brigham, move over!  Both of these fellows were in their own beds, of course).  After both children's ibuprofen-like stuff and children's tylenol, she calmed down and went to sleep.  After that, the morning seemed fine until we noticed that our resident albino had lost all the residual color in her face.  From there, it was a few short steps to the hospital and the rest of our week-long ordeal.

She was admitted to the hospital solely on the results of a finger-prick test.  She was, in fact, so lively during that time, that the nurses indicated that it was just a precaution and she would shortly be sent home.  Unfortunately, her CR-P levels (these indicate levels of infection in the blood) were sky-high, and she was immediately put on an IV and the wild goose chase for the cause of the infection began.  The first course of antibiotics was ineffective, and her CR-P levels rocketed up to even more horrifying levels.  She was put on full-time monitors and her organs were in danger of failing.  

Throughout the last week, she has been pricked, had blood taken every day, had countless ultrasounds and x-rays, contracted a bonus cold from her original roommate, been on an IV non-stop, been constipated most painfully, had to use her little potty in front of strangers, and been poked and prodded by what seems like legions of doctors and nurses (to whom she has been completely rude).  There has still been no Actual Diagnosis of something-or-other-its.

She's beginning to seem more like herself.  Yesterday she scurried under her bed every time a nurse came into the room.  She also turned into a kitten, a tiger, a dog, a dinosaur, and a rat.  I was the littlest bit scared of the rat.  She's also learned how to use the laptop fairly well--also scary.  (Funny little story--the first night we were there, we settled down to watch a movie on the laptop, only the sleeve full of DVDs had disappeared.  We were limited to the two movies downloaded onto the laptop--What's Up Doc and Nacho Libre.  So she chose the wrestling movie.  We got a lot of strange looks from the family sharing her room.)

Alan and I have traded off 24-hour shifts at the hospital, one of us coming home to man the fort, the other one promoted to Head Waterboy for Her Imperial Highness.  (Also, I have memorized much of Barbie and the Diamond Castle.  Although I can't think of an exact scenario when this may come in useful in the future, you never know).  I've come across many deep and teary stories that take place in emergency rooms, etc (OK, so my parents had a subscription to Readers' Digest), and the hospital seems to be ripe ground for spiritual experiences, for A-ha! moments, for changing into a better you.  I'm afraid that in my experience, I was mostly just exhausted. And hungry. (They don't feed the parents at the hospital.  You have to scout out your own food.)  And after a while I caught Vilate's cold, so I was exhausted, hungry, and miserable.   

But tomorrow, maybe (if all the new bloodwork and tests come back negative), just maybe, Vilate will put away her Pet Machine (the IV thingie) and come home.  I'll see my husband for longer than the 15 minutes a day it took us to trade places.  I will get to hold all of my children at once, and feel at peace for the first time in 9 days. 

Tangentially, having been immersed in a Czech-only environment for much of the last week, my Czech is WAY better!  I've had several long conversations where everyone has understood each other.  (Also a couple of notable lapses--I totally didn't get the whole sterile container thing.)

In which no one is locked in a castle

Back in 1945, you may recall that the Czechs were involved in a little kerfluffle that started with a depression in Germany and ended with a madman and WorldWideWar.com.  One particular battle included a heavy American bombing run over a weapons factory in Plzen.  Several US planes were shot down over the town which was later liberated by Americans.  (Luckies--when the Russians liberated towns, they just stole stuff.  Especially watches.)  Every April Plzen hosts several Thank You America ceremonies.

We had the chance to attend one of those ceremonies today (as VIP Super Duper Special People, no less).  It was an incredible experience.  There are three different monuments that commemorate the men who died, and it was very moving to see the people of this small town turn out en masse for something that happened 67 years ago.  There was a small choir from the grade school that sang songs in English--I am certain that I will never hear "My Bonny Lies Over the Ocean" quite the same way again.

The most interesting part of the day, though, was when an older woman invited the children and me to walk through the park.  The park was attached to a small castle.  I learned that she and her husband owned the park and the castle (which is not open to the public, but we did get a private tour).  The woman was warm and gracious, and her story was Fascinating.  The castle had been in the family since the 1200s.  She told us that her husband (who was born in the castle) had a grandfather with 12 children.  You could easily imagine 12 children laughing and running around the estate, hanging out windows, climbing walls and trees.  I have never seen a more perfect layout for a family!

In the 1940s, the family refused to collaborate with the Nazis, and lost many privileges and most of their servants (they had 20 servants, most of whom fed the giant wood stoves that heated the castle).  The Nazis cut down the woods that belonged to the castle and left the family poor and freezing, but not homeless.  The communists one-upped the Nazis, and kicked the family out of the house, turning it into worker dormitories for the Skoda factory (they vandalized it, destroyed it, and painted everything on the inside the most unpleasant {probably with leaded paint, too} color of green that you can imagine).

Mr. Lobkowicz became the lowest of the low.  As a former aristocrat, he wasn't allowed to attend college or to receive career advancements of any kind.  He became a television repairman and a private in the communist army.  After Prague Spring (Russians invaded Czechoslovakia with 500,000 troops due to a bureaucratic misunderstanding involving free elections and the Communist party), life became unbearable in Czechoslovakia.  Mr. Lobkowicz emigrated to Germany, which welcomed him with open arms, and there he went to university, met a lovely French lady, had three children, and settled down to a nice, fairly middle class life.

But then!  After communism fell, all of the properties that had been confiscated were restored to their original owners.  This nice man and his wife became the owners of several large but barely functioning properties, and suddenly faced the prospect of restoring heaps of rubble to something approaching their former glory.  The 12-acre park that we walked through?  She and her husband cleared it by hand.  He did eventually get a machine, she said, but to begin with, it was the two of them, pulling up seedlings and clearing brush.

And contrary to our fears, the missing Brigham was not locked in the crumbling bell tower.  He was down at the pub, using the WC.  (The castle, with two wings, and numerous bedrooms, originally was home to two bathrooms.  That number has been reduced to zero).  

A little linguistic confusion

Vilate: I have two bodies.
Mom: Really?
Vilate: Yes. Right here. (points to her bum)

I wonder what she thought about the nursery lesson on Sunday. The subject? Heavenly Father and Jesus have bodies.

Things That Make You Cry

So there I was in the kitchen yesterday, making a last minute treat for FHE, when my son comes up to me crying. (It is, unfortunately, not unusual for my children to cry about the food I make, but that's life. Have some more mushrooms.) I was, however, making something decidedly un-disgusting. A little concerned about the tears from nowhere, I asked him, "What's wrong, honey?"

"I'm just so happy, Mom! I'm just so happy that you're making cake!"

My son. Brought to tears of joy by cake.

Exciting stuff!

We have our new assignment! We will be leaving Prague with its castles, clean and convenient public transport, endless Nutella and Nutella-substitutes, $10-gallon gas for . . . .

. . . Colorado Springs! Hurray for the west! Hurray for mountains! Hurray for keeping our cold-weather gear and skis! Hurray for transcontinental airplane trips with seven kids (oh, wait . . . )

BYOTP

Let's just pretend that I haven't been around for, oh, like 9 months. (Which coincidentally, is just enough time to bring a li'l human baby into the world, which I DID NOT do.)


We had a broken arm happen at our house this week, due to misuse and abuse of the trampoline. Briellen broke both bones in her forearm, and I took control of the situation . . . like one of the Keystone Kops. I couldn't do anything right, and my poor little girl sat in a chair howling, holding her arm with it's new improved S-bend, while I tried to get my dead phone charged and get a babysitter for the other children.

We finally got everyone in the car with their wide variety of odd clothes (they had all been dressed normally to start the day, but had dressed down before the Calamity). As they all got out of the car, the broken-arm girl started howling again. "I want to go play! Why can't I go play? It's not fair!"

After x-rays, the doctor explained our options. She could have her bone set right away, with no pain relief, or we could wait several hours for surgery with anesthesia. After explaining, he said "I think, the second is better, yes?" I thought so.

She ended up having surgery on her arm and staying overnight at the hospital for two nights. During that time, she was 1. traumatized by waking up from surgery with no underwear on ("Why, why, why would they take my panties?" she sobbed), 2. discovered that jumping in the hall was painful, 3. tightrope-walked on the back of her bed, the couch in the play area, etc., 4. ran up and down the hall repeatedly, 5. learned to draw with her left hand 5. ate "yucky" food (soup, goulash, and rye bread seem to be the mainstays), 6. watched too many movies, 7. read her favorite book on Insects, 8. made friends with her roommate, an eight-year old with a broken leg, 9. played with her toy spider, Janie, 10. listened to her Dad read The Secret Garden (the whole book.)

My husband was incredibly noble in staying overnight at the hospital with her, taking on the nurses and the cultural differences in level of expectations. Our cultural expectations, for example, were that the hospital would provide toilet paper while the nurses expected us to bring our own. (They also expected us to bring our own hospital clothes, combs, etc. I guess most hospitals expect you to bring your own comb--I just couldn't remember to bring one, and Briellen ended up with a notable case of bedhead.)

Meanwhile, I held and comforted everybody at home, but unfortunately let them out of my sight twice. The first time, two people tracked green food coloring out of the pantry and throughout the house (the culprits were pretty easy to spot, though). The second time, I found the bathroom door locked, and discovered that the three-year old was cutting the one-year old's hair. (He didn't scream at all, though. And she really did a very good job, despite the fact that she had somehow gotten SCISSORS.)

I did not win Mother-of-the-Week honors this week, but we all survived. And it was something to feel what a hole Briellen leaves when she's not in her rightful place at the center of our family. When we picked her up from the hospital, Ammon kept reaching out to touch her and chuckling. We all pretty much felt the same way--so glad to have her back home.

Stockholm.

So, here I am in Stockholm, Sweden. Here are a few of our more memorable moments (so far): (By the way, I am using a Swedish keyboard and stuff just isn't where it ought to be. So pardon any ö or ä!)

Poland-- We drove through on Corpus Christi Day, which is a Catholic holiday (which is the same as a huge national holiday in Poland.) There were parades being set up in all of the small towns, with banners and pennants and saints' pictures with candles and tree boughs. We felt like the whole parade when we would whizz through a small town in our 12 passenger behemoth.

Lithuania-- On the way to Vilnius, we saw several old farmers working their fields with horse-drawn wagons. We wandered around the old town and saw a couple of knights (actually military guys, but ACTUALLY wearing shining armor.) The young ladies posed for a picture, of course.

Latvia-- We camped by the Baltic Sea. The kids lost no time getting in swimsuits and jumping in the water. They were frozen by the time we pried them out, but ready for more. Also, the most powdery sand I've ever felt. I ran on the sand and felt awesome. For about 100 yards.

Estonia-- We wandered around Old Town Tallin until late at night. The nights were getting longer the farther north we went. A group of breakdancers on the town square fascinated Brigham so much that he had to go join them. He broke out some of his sweet moves and got a huge round of applause. (I'll post video when I have a chance. It was hilarious!)

Finland-- We camped in Finland for a couple of nights, and stayed at a cabin at the Arctic Circle for another few. Favorite quotes:

Briellen (at the lake by where we were camping. Incidentally, and not related, we couldn't drink the water there.) "Daddy said I could just tinkle in the lake. So I did. Five times!"

Late at night at the Arctic Circle, Vilate put her arms around my neck, and said in the saddest, weariest voice, "The sun is broken."

Sweden (the first time) Lovely, etc. Delicious cookies.

Norway-- beautiful scenery. Gnats. Biting gnats. We looked like we had the measles. Especially Vilate, who had an especially bad reaction to the gnat bites. No benadryl, either. Norway is also outrageously expensive. We're talking $20 Happy Meals and $40 pizzas. Ouch.

Sweden (the second time)-- still lovely. Still here!

We have a few more days before Denmark and the last part of our trip. So far we have only lost or worn through four pairs of shoes and collectively outgrown three dresses. Not bad!

Checking in from the top of the world

We've been up here at the Arctic Circle (Rovaniemi, Finland) for the weekend and have really enjoyed it. We spent most of the day visiting Santa Claus (and buying his stuff. cough, cough.) Time can really sneak up on you here during the "white nights" of summer. It's impossible to have any sense of time when the sun is always up and it's always light outside.

A few fun things: Ammon loves salmon. He will shovel in a whole steak and yell for more. Alan bought some fresh-caught fried whitefish fingerlings for everyone to try this morning. All of the fish-haters booed and made snide remarks, while Vilate kept asking for "one more." She ate the whole lot of them, heads and all. It was impressive!

Sweden tomorrow . . .

The North Pole. Pooh Found it.

When I was young , whenever my family left for a long trip, we had a tradition of waking up at an unearthly hour (3:00 am? 4:00 am?) to get a good start on the day. For us kids, this mostly included stumbling out to the car in our pajamas with as little actual disturbed sleep as possible. Luckily for me, my children must have it in their bones--five of them were up (and three dressed) by 5:00 am. We're not leaving until 8:00 am, but I already have a grrrrreat start on the day. Thanks guys! (Seriously. I was able to throw in the last load of laundry, call my family, and make the oatmeal cookies that I didn't have time for yesterday. There are so many more hours in the day to do stuff with when you don't use any of that time sleeping. Awesome!)

So, we're off to the Arctic Circle (not the one with milkshakes, but if you happen to live close to one of those, have a milkshake for me. And maybe a hamburger and curly fries, too. Go crazy! But keep the calories for yourself.) Our internet connection will be spotty, so blogging will be random (what, MORE random?) but if there are any great pictures and/or stories (and you know there will be), I'll try to post.

(Also, for all of you house burglars who read my blog in anticipation of knowing when we are out in order to rob us us while we're gone, our landlord is going to be here the WHOLE TIME we're gone doing landlord-y things and making our house even better. And he's a tough man to tangle with. So do not even THINK of robbing our house.)

Primary

I had the chance to make a card for a family who is leaving (an incredible family, who we will miss dearly) and so I thought I would share a piece of it with y'all. (In case you are wondering about my card-making skills, I used only ink. No glues of any kinds, which always cause weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth as wrong things are glued to wrong things and smeared on other wrong things.) Anyway, I thought this little portrait of our primary with fingerprints was kind of fun.

Silence is Sticky

There's a certain kind of silence that begins as enjoyable and becomes . . . ominous. And when you go to check on the silence, your bare feet step in something sticky. And Choose-Your-Own-Adventure time starts. Do you a) start looking for the source of the stickiness (go to page 56), b) keep looking for the Silent Ones (go to page 13), or c) decide that you don't really want to know about the Stickiness or the Silence, and go downstairs and let the adventure come to you (go to page 97)?

Obviously, you use the free gift of time to do chores (yay!) that you've been putting off--and when you're making the guest bed, you find both the Sticky Stuff--(a licked-clean can of sweetened condensed milk) and the Silent, Sticky Ones. You win!

Also, do you ever find that your children's little utterances are layered with nuance and deep meaning? For example, when your child states (with elegant simplicity), "I learned to turn the key in the lock today!" and you murmur, "um-hmm, good for you!" You are missing the layers and layers of meaning in that little phrase, a fact that becomes overwhelmingly obvious when you realize that this same lovely child is wearing your antique hat from your {locked} bedroom, carrying around your purse, and making purchases on the Internet.

Sweet Nothings

My little white-haired hurricane was sitting on my lap, giving me a funny-faced smile. Looking at her, I couldn't help doing a little (bad) ventriloquism. "I'm a little gnome," said I. She looked at me with her big blue eyes, and very sweetly and seriously broke into song (a la Michael McLean), "You're not a gnome." (Sing it. It's much funnier that way!)

Another young lady had an interesting talk with her dad about trees. He was talking about sin or bad habits or something like that and she was . . . not. He compared sin to a seed (like she had just planted in the garden) and how easy it is to pull out the seedlings when they were young. "Imagine you had planted a tree," said my good husband (and this of course, is where the conversation went terribly wrong.) "Wouldn't it be easier to pull it out when it was young and new?"
"WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO UPROOT A TREE? Trees are GOOD!"
"Wait--I understand!" said the savant, "We should plant the seed in our hearts and keep it there. Because seeds grow trees and trees are GOOD."
Seeing that they were at cross-purposes, my husband retreated from his analogy and no seeds of any kind were planted at this time.


Kristin's Laws of Order:

1. Bedrooms must be picked up before everyone goes to sleep. If everything is not picked up, someone will get sick during the night and vomit over EVERY LAST THING on the floor.

2. If you assign someone to clean the living room, the only thing that they will be certain to move is the book that you left on the couch. You may never see it again.

Notes from Sunday

I have been attending sacrament meeting all of my life, but it wasn't until I came to Prague that I realized I have been taking a few things for granted. For example: the ability to listen to the speakers with one ear and still keep my children (somewhat) in line. We do have the option of using headsets, where everything is translated into English. However, I have found them very impractical--either someone sitting on my lap is ripping the earphones off, I drop them when gathering a small person out of the next row, or while listening raptly, I miss the airplane-throwing going on next to me. In other words--a distinct lack of reverence ensues in our general vicinity.

So, for the last several months I have gone without headphones. I catch what little I can (hoping that I will later get a general summary from my husband.) And something marvelous happened yesterday. I UNDERSTOOD the sacrament prayer. And I UNDERSTOOD one of the talks! (It was the talk when I WASN'T holding Vilate. But I even understood a good portion of that one!) It was a small, wonderful miracle. Happy day!

"This will pretty much make your wildest dreams come true."

Napoleon Dynamite goes on a mission. Frickin' awesome.