Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! Especially to my own Mom! (Loved talking with ya tonight, mom. Told you I wouldn't go to bed even though it was late!)

Today was a really nice day. Our little baby Alex was blessed today at church! Isn't he just adorable? He's wearing the same suit Jacob wore when he was blessed (minus the bow tie, which I decided to skip this year...I'm getting more practical and less fancy by the minute!). Jesse, as much as I dearly love him, has never been a very eloquent man. So Alex's blessing was short and to the point, as have been all our children's, but it was still nice and included all the important stuff! He was blessed to grow well and grow strong, have health and happiness, grow well in the church, have great faith and a strong testimony, and go the temple and be sealed there. And I don't know why, but I'm always nervous Jesse's going to say a different name at the start of the blessing, but nope, it's still Alexander Boden. ;)

Since we had no family who could attend the blessing, and also because Bishop Paul challenged us to think about inviting people we normally wouldn't, we had some friends visit us at church today. Cara and Russ (our good friends from our early days in Maryland, who have since moved to Pennsylvania) and their kids, Anna, Leah and Bethany, came down to share the day with us. It's always nice to get a chance to visit them, and Melinda enjoyed having Leah in her Primary class, and Jesse and I got Anna in our Primary class! Also, because of the Bishop's challenge, I invited some friends from my parenting/playgroup. My friend Johanna and her family accepted the invitation, and it was so fun to have them. I was nervous... I've never invited a friend to church before, but they were happy to see so many kids in Sacrament meeting (since as is typical with most other Christian churches, the churches they have attended in the past all have nurseries for young kids, and she would end up spending the whole sermon out in the hall with her kids instead).

Both families joined us for lunch at our apartment after church was over, and it was so nice to have enjoyable company for Mother's Day! Johanna and her husband asked a lot of questions about how the church works (What's a ward? Are there a lot of mid-week activities? Was that pretty typical for a Sunday service? etc.), and I was grateful for Jesse and also for Russ, who, as past missionaries (and in Russ's case, a previous ward missionary leader), knew how to answer questions easily and keep it fun at the same time. (Like... "How does someone become a Prophet?" "Well, first, you hope and pray that it's never you!") Meanwhile, all the kids had a fun time playing, minus Jacob, who had passed out on the drive home, and slept soundly through it all, poor guy. Missed out on all the fun. (That's the problem with not falling asleep till almost 11pm... Listen to your mother when she tells you to GO TO SLEEP!!!)

After we had the house back to ourselves, I was dead tired, since Alex greeted me this morning with a "Happy Mother's Day! I'm going to wake up at 6am and not fall back asleep until 10 minutes before your alarm goes off!" (And yeah, I hadn't gone to bed until midnight, of course.) So I headed back to the bed to try to get some sleep, and hopefully get Alex to sleep, too. Jacob was still there asleep. And this picture was the result of my efforts. Squishy-faced, still-asleep Jacob, wide-eyed and wiggly Alex. I eventually had Jesse take Alex out, where he spit up a bunch, pooped a bunch, and got the hiccups. During this time, Jacob woke up and started bugging daddy for food and diaper changes. I finally called for Jesse to bring Alex back to have mercy on the poor kid (and freeing him up for Jacob sure helped, too). Nursing cures his hiccups in 2 seconds flat, every single time. And it worked like a charm again. Unfortunately, even though he fell asleep nicely at that point, it was getting late in the afternoon and my window for a nap had passed. Still, I did manage to lay there long enough to doze off a couple times and drool all over my pillow. (Yeah, so, I thought that was only a pregnancy thing for me, but like the last 15 or so pounds of this pregnancy, it's being stubborn and not going away! *sob*)

Melinda and Jacob (with Jesse's help) made me cards. They were so excited to give them to me!

Jacob drew three happy faces, complete with hair and noses!
Melinda drew herself on the front of the card (Daddy drew the heart)....
And wrote a note on the inside. (She needed a little bit of help spelling, but did great! The last M in Mom is upside down, but "it's okay like that!" according to Melinda!)

Of course, Jesse made me dinner (usually I request steak, but felt like something different and got "Big Daddies", my Grandma Crockett's recreation of a restaurant dish: Fried tortilla with a meat/salsa/refried bean topping, with other typical taco toppings like lettuce, tomato, etc., all piled up on a plate). After dinner, since Jacob had napped so long, Jesse conducted some Newson Olympics in our house, which was basically just trying to get the kids to run as much as possible to expend some energy and get them tired again. Lots of running up and down the hall, jumping over wooden spoons like hurdles, climbing over and under chairs, that sort of thing. (It would have been super to have a sunny day for running outside, instead of a super wet stay-inside type of Sunday. Oh well.) Afterwards, we called our own moms and talked to them.

And Alex gave me a nice video performance for Mother's Day! He's just started smiling regularly, it's so cute! And he was also cooing a tiny bit for the video. It wasn't until halfway through that I realized, HEY! He's not talking to me, he's talking to the little red blinking light on the camera!! LOL! But here's some baby goodness for you to enjoy with me! Alex is almost 6 weeks old!


And now, I really must go to bed. *Yawn* 12:30am, yikes! Time flies when you're sharing every detail of a long day...

Parenting goals

In one of the parenting groups I belong to, a question was posed:

What is your long range goal for your child? How will you look back and judge your parenting choices as successful or unsuccessful? As an adult, what qualities do you hope your child will have, and what are you doing now to encourage those qualities?

This is a fantastic group of parents that belong to this particular group. Whenever we get together, I see such joy, patience, love, and understanding in their parenting style. They're the kind of parents I try my hardest to be. And all too often, I feel like I fail miserably.

I've never been an especially goal-oriented person. I tend to live more in the moment than anything else, and react to situations as they present themselves. I can't say for sure whether this is more due to my personality, or the fact that I don't like to expend the effort needed to actually formulate and follow through with goals. But living "in the moment" tends to have a not-so-great effect on the way I view my relationships, I think. I don't plan ahead, I don't dream of how I want the relationship to evolve. They just are, and I tend to accept them as-is. While this is a great way to avoid getting into fights, I think maybe my relationships lack a lot of depth, which is a shame. Especially after reading some blog posts like this one and this one, I've been feeling like maybe I should put more conscious thought into my life and especially my relationships. Take them beyond what they are, and see them for what they could be.

And then the above questions are posed, and BAM, I'm just hit by how much I really wish I could answer those questions. I just don't have an answer for them! I've never sat down to think about my long-range goals (or even short-range, really!) for my children. What qualities do I feel most important for my children to have, and what on earth am I doing to instill those qualities in them? How will I judge my parenting as successful or not? And how can any of those questions be answered unless I am consciously working at some sort of goal on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis?

I find myself quite wrapped up in some sort of survival mode, I think. I spend far too much time just trying to survive the mundaneness of going from one poopy diaper to the next, one grocery shopping trip to the next, one day to the next... There are so many opportunities throughout a day for me to teach something to my kids, but I don't take advantage of more than a very small percentage of them. There are so many opportunities for really valuable activities, but I get lost in the motions needed to make it through the day.

I know it can't be impossible to be what I want to be. And as I'm about to write "I just wish I knew what it takes to get from where I'm at to where I want to be", I realize the answer: I need to make those goals. I need to think of them every morning as I wake up. I need to review them regularly throughout the day. I need to pray for the inspiration for how to follow through with my goals during our daily activities, so I can slowly gain that patience and joy in my parenting that I'd love to have.

The only way I'm going to get out of the rut is to make some changes. And changes take goals. And goals take conscious thought. So I'll be thinking.

I've been summoned.

I've been an official adult for almost 10 years now. I have never before received a Jury summons, despite how fun and interesting I think it would be.

Never before, until today. Today, in the mail, I received a Jury summons.

And before you go jumping up and down with joy for me, seeing as how my desire is finally within grasp, please realize a few things:

1) I have a 1-month old.
2) Said 1-month old is breastfed exclusively- and will be for a minimum of 6 months.
3) Jurors can't bring babies, and don't get pumping breaks (not that I have a decent pump, anyway).
4) If a breastfeeding mother does not nurse or pump regularly, she is at risk for mastitis, an infection of the breast. Typical mastitis symptoms include a fever of 101.3°F or greater, chills, flu-like aching, malaise and systemic illness. NOT FUN. It usually requires antibiotics to cure.
5) Even if mastitis is avoided, there's still the problem of terribly uncomfortable and leaky breasts, and a huge risk of affecting the milk supply, which could definitely be problematic with a nursing infant.

And finally, the worst problem: The state of Maryland does not have any breastfeeding friendly laws in place for jurors. You can request to be excused, and it's pretty likely that you will be, but it's not guaranteed, by any means. It's solely at the discretion of the judge whether or not you will be excused, and if you are, how long it will be valid. Personally, I would like to see a law in place in every state that excuses breastfeeding mothers through their baby's first year. Preferably, I would like to see automatic excuse for up to 2 years (which is the AAP's and WHO's standard minimum recommendation for breastfeeding).

So wish me luck. Go ahead and say some prayers for me, too. I personally feel that it would almost disastrous to my own health and well being (and that of Alex's, of course!) at this point in time to serve on a jury, even for one day. Why didn't they call me a year ago? :( I would have loved to serve on a jury!!