Remembering the Good Ol' Days

Yesterday evening, both Jason and I got a chance to relive some of our early adulthood memories. Jason worked at Cold Stone for several years, first after high school and then after his mission, so when Marla suggested that she take us and another of our freshman roomates' family out to Cold Stone on her treat, we both jumped at the chance to reminisce.

For Jason, it was fun to remember his work at Cold Stone. It was one of those jobs that was fun, satisfying, and challenging enough not to get boring. For me, it was partly about remembering the fun freshman memories with my old roomies, and partly about remembering Jason's and my courtship (since he was pretty much married to Cold Stone before we got serious about dating). ;)

And Rudy? Well, he got his first chance to visit a real live ice cream parlor (unless you count the Ben and Jerry's Free Ice Cream day, but that wasn't your typical parlor experience, so I don't count it.)

Thanks to whomever bestowed $30 worth of Cold Stone ice cream upon Marla, and thanks Marla, for sharing the experience with us!

Saying Good-bye to Gaye Merrill

A woman of great influence left the world on Monday, May 24th. To read other's tributes to her, check out the blog in her honor. Here are my thoughts on how Gaye blessed my life:

When I started visit teaching Gaye, I was about 2 years into my marriage, young, and clueless. During the subsequent 3 years that I got to visit with her for 45 minutes or so each month, I grew up, partly just because time does that, but also partly because of her influence in my life.

I remember visiting and thinking, "What on earth am I supposed to share with someone who gets life so much better than I do?", so we mostly shared testimonies with each other. Coming to her home was like going home to my parents' place. It was a welcoming, warm environment where the Spirit seemed to have set up base camp. I always left feeling inspired and excited to be alive, even (or maybe especially) on days that I had come into the visit feeling tired, burned out, or self pitying.

One of the greatest things Gaye blessed me with during those visits was a "You can do ANYTHING" philosophy. I had given up on running after having my first child because of some knee problems I ran into (besides the lack of sleep and trouble of what to do with the baby while I ran.) Gaye never told me what I should do, or pushed me any direction or the other, but little by little, as I saw her face major health problems with courage and grit, I began to wonder if maybe I'd given up my dreams too cheaply.

I eventually asked her for a recommendation to a good sports medicine doctor, which she happily and enthusiastically gave me. Now, a year later, I'm 15 weeks pregnant with my second child, and signed up to run in the Freedom Run 10K this July 5th. I feel strong, and empowered to be able to work through any barrier that should come up with proper cross training and precautions.

Gaye helped to inspire me to reach for a part of myself that was missing-the part that believes I can do anything I put my mind to. Running has been a boon to me as I greet the every day challenges of parenting a toddler and making ends meet as a poor student family. It is because of Gaye's influence that I decided to fight for it, and do what I need to do in order to help support my body to be able to perform as I would like it to. I'll be running this race in her honor, and will have her in my heart as I continue to work towards future dreams and aspirations that I would have otherwise told myself were simply out of reach.

Thanks, Gaye, for showing me how to fight with faith and determination, and how to love and serve with genuine caring and concern. I hope I'll be able to live up to the example you set in both those areas.

Love,

Maria

"I'll Eat You Up!"

Hurumph. I guess I'm holding a bit of a grudge against my sweet son right now. Hopefully I'll be all smoothed out by the time he wakes from his nap.

The kid full on bit me when I picked him up and informed him he was going to time out for high-tailing it across the yard with a pointy spade instead of coming inside for his nap. I guess I have to allow that he was tired, and not his best self at the moment, but still! My right shoulder has an angry welt to remind me that in the future, I should always hold him facing out when I only have one arm to wrestle with and I'm about to do something I'm sure Rudy will strongly object to.

I just can't believe he went and all out bit me. He's never (0h wait-RARELY) done such a thing before. I guess now I can sympathize with one of his best friends, Amy, who got the brutal treatment almost a year ago. Maybe its a sign of true affection, but probably not. ;)

To his credit, he calmed down in his time out, came out and asked if he could kiss my owie better. He gave me the sweetest little kiss on my owie, stepped back, and said, "Now it will feel better." So he is a sweetie-just a sweetie with sharp teeth and strong jaws.

A Snowy May Day

It's the 24th of May. Schools around here are beginning SUMMER vacation in 4 days. It snowed for about 5 hours today. Left our backyard looking like this:

Luckily, by the end of the day, the sun had come out and things were looking pretty normal again, but really, I'd have never thought I'd reach for my snow boots and winter coat on the 24th of May!

"Daddy Killed A Coyote"

So. Rudy is officially all ears. We're not allowed to say anything around him that we don't want him to absorb. Not that Jason and I shoot swear words around or anything-just we can't have a conversation between us in front of him-because it automatically becomes between the 3 of us-even if he's across the room playing with his cars. Example:

I had this bizarre dream the other day in which Jason rather brutally killed a coyote. I was telling him all about it as Rudy was playing on his own across the room. (I can't help myself but tell Jason about my dreams-especially if they're bizarre/disturbing. Poor guy!)

THE NEXT DAY, after Rudy stomped on an ant and I was telling him about how we need to respect living creatures and not just stomp on them 'cause we're bigger, he turns to me and says, "Daddy killed a coyote."

What?! It took me a bit to understand and remember why he would think such a thing.

A week later, Rudy is still convinced his Daddy is a coyote killer; he brings it up out of the blue about once a day. We've had countless discussions about how dreams are just make believe stories we tell ourselves in our sleep, but Rudy is convinced that this actually happened, because he heard me say it did. Sigh. Luckily, he doesn't seem too terribly traumatized by the idea of his Daddy being a coyote killer. I'm not even sure he knows just what a coyote is. Sigh. I wonder if this is going to be one of those skewed childhood memories that he'll actually create his own 'memory' of, and insist he was there and saw the whole thing happen when he's older.

Apparently, it's time to keep adult conversations between adults-and that means Rudy is not even in the room. Sigh. ;)

BYU Baseball

Jason, Rudy, Heidi, Josh, and I went to BYU's last home game on Saturday. The Recent Graduates program hooked us up with a pre-game tailgate complete with J-Dawgs hotdogs (the only hotdogs worth eating, really) face painting, and Cosmo the Cougar.

The weather was perfect, the food was good, the company was great. An "All-American" dream come true!. ;)

Peanut's Debut

13 Weeks Pregnant

Peanut has been rockin' my belly lately. He (I'm sorry, Jason, I just can't stick to the she agreement anymore. I'll call her she when and if the ultrasound says so. Until then, I gotta go with my heart on this and call him he. Maybe I just can't imagine growing anything other than a boy, since that's all I'm experienced with, but for whatever reason, this little babe is totally male in my head.)

ANYWAY...he has been kicking or punching or both, for a few days now. I kept telling myself that I couldn't possibly be feeling him 'cause I'm only 13 weeks, but I finally googled the possibilities, and apparently its not unheard of to feel your baby moving as early as 13 weeks if it's your second (or 3rd or 4th) kid.

So, from now on, I'm just trusting my maternal memory and when something feels like a kick to me, I'm accepting it as a shout out from our little Peanut. I love it! It's like our first contact or something. Like we can begin to really communicate with each other. (For example, when I was sitting so my belt buckle encroached on his space, Peanut totally kicked it with attitude-like, "Get that thing outta my space!")

Besides that exciting development, he's also come to a stage where his hearing should be functional enough to hear my voice, and the voices of those around me. So now every night, when I'm singing Rudy his lullaby, I can know I'm really singing to both my kiddos. When I read Rudy stories, I'm reading them to Peanut too. It's nice not to have to tell myself I'm not weird for reading to my belly like I did with Rudy. 'Cause now I'm reading to Rudy and my belly. :) I'm excited to begin this phase of my bonding experience with Peanut. Maybe Jason will be able to feel his movements by the end of the month...who knows?