annesley, the BIG girl

Miss Annesley Aliyah, the joy of my life and pretty much constant companion for the past 2 3/4 years has decided to become a BIG girl! What is a BIG girl you ask? It is a baby that makes the BIG decision to not nurse anymore and to fully enter the world of childhood.

To celebrate her BIG decision she got to pick out a Big Girl bike. It is bright green and she is loving it. She is still working on mastering pedaling and steering, but she is getting the hang of it.

I am super-duper proud of Miss Annes. This is a big step in her life and after the first two days she is handling it really well. At first, she was asking to nurse every 30 seconds or so, then I would ask her if she had changed her mind and didn’t want to be a big girl. She would say “No, me BIG girl” and calm down. Thirty seconds later she would ask again and the same conversation would repeat. Today she has only asked to nurse once and I didn’t even make it to the conversation part before she started giggling and saying “Me Big Girl, Me Don’t Nurse!”

Some people wonder why I nurse my babies and especially why I nurse them past the first year. Here is a a list of 101 reasons why breastfeeding is such a large part of my mothering.

While all those things on the list do wonders for my research-lovin’ brain, what it really boils down to is this – it feels right, it feels like this is exactly what babies need, what God created mothers to do, and the best process I know of to learn how to be a mother.

I am so grateful for my breastfeeding experiences. I know I would be a vastly different mother if I had chosen to bottlefeed. I easily could have become a bottle-propping, leave-baby-in-bed while I do more “important” things, but instead breastfeeding forced me to slow down, to gaze into my baby’s eyes, to feel the prolactin and oxytocin rushing through me, and to learn that motherhood was the most important thing I could be doing.

I have now nursed for 143 months of my mothering life. That is almost 12 years of providing nourishment for my children. Twelve years of being touched much more than even I am comfortable with. Twelve years of wearing nursing bras (and let me tell you, Bravado Nursing Tanks are BY FAR my favorite nursing bra!). Twelve years of sleeping with babies. Twelve years of having super-amazing antibiotic milk to treat cuts, infections, and rug burns. Twelve years of seeing my children’s cute little faces light up with joy at the end of a nursing session. Twelve years of wearing shirts that don’t tuck in.

Twelve years…unbelievable.

blythe’s gift to me

My oldest child recently turned 14 years old. I am still bewildered that I have a child this age. How can that be even remotely possible?

I thought I had written about her gift to me before, but I can’t find what I thought I said, so I am going to write about it some more.

Pre-BMW (Blythe Moriah Ward), I had far different priorities than I did post-BMW. In fact, I was a different person. I did not want to be a mother. I wanted to spend my life doing important things – like traveling the world, studying the Torah, and teaching people God’s ancient words. I wanted to be known for doing important things. I wanted to fill my time with scholarly research and the subsequent presentations of my findings. I wanted to stretch my mind and challenge myself with doing really hard things.

I had absolutely no desire to have a child need me. I had no desire to ever change a diaper again. And if by some chance, I was given a child, he or she was not going to interfere with my life, my plans, my needs.

Throughout the first three years of our marriage, all of this started changing. I decided I wanted to have children. I started researching the role and value of motherhood. I started arguing with my feminist professors who advocated a position of “daycare is best for children.” I began to feel disgust for the mothers I saw dropping off their six-week old babies at a daycare at seven in the morning and picking them up at seven at night. I began to desire to be a mother who would be with her children…someday.

But, I was still ambivalent about actually being a mother. I had been told by two different doctors that I would die if I tried to have a baby and we believed them. We decided we would not have biological children and would look into adopting when I was done with my college education.

And then, in spite of doing everything we could to prevent pregnancy, I became pregnant. I was not happy. I was, in fact, pretty much terrified that I was going to die. Not only that, it felt like a huge interruption to my life. I was in the middle of my Speech Pathology program and I wanted to complete it. I couldn’t see how it would all work out. I worried about my education and my job and my life and a million other things that seem so trivial now.

We decided to let the pregnancy continue…to just see what would happen. Our OB sent for the reports from the previous two doctors and he disagreed with their findings. He felt like I was not in danger of death and could safely be a pregnant and birthing woman. We were comforted, but not convinced. As the months of pregnancy continued, all seemed to be well, and I began to believe that the first two doctors were completely wrong.

At 36 weeks pregnant, when my uterus had stretched as far as it was going to stretch, our OB pronounced that my abdominal wall was sound, that it was not going to rupture as had been declared by the prior physicians. He said, “See, I was right, everything is going to be just fine.” At that moment, I knew he was correct and I also knew I could not give birth with him. I informed him I would be birthing at home. He flipped out and quickly informed me how dangerous and insane that would be (he later called me at home and apologized for his outlandish behavior). I stood my ground because I knew in my heart that birthing at home was what I needed to do.

We found a midwife and started preparing for a home birth. It was so wonderful to finally be excited about our baby and not to be full of fear about dying. We gathered supplies and Tami came around 38 weeks for the birth that was sure to be right around the corner and we walked and walked and walked. And no baby came.

And then, in her 43rd week of gestation, Blythe was born. After ten months of throwing up every single day and hours of throwing up every 15 minutes throughout her labor, she was born! As I held her that first day, I fell completely in love with her, with motherhood, with homeschooling her, with devoting my life to her. All of a sudden, I knew what motherhood meant and it was not drudgery, it was not a waste of time. It was the most important work I could ever do. It was exactly the work God wanted me to do. It was exactly the work my soul needed to do to grow and learn and develop into the woman I was created to be.

It saddens me to think how backward my thinking used to be and I am filled with gratitude for my brave Blythe who came into my life before I even knew I wanted her, before I valued motherhood, before I knew how absolutely essential motherhood is to the foundation of each family, community, nation, and world.

She taught me that I am doing the most important work. I am spending my days teaching the next generation what it means to be good. I am teaching them about freedom, government, history, God, math, cooking, serving, patience, and family.

I am so grateful for this 14-year-old girl. Thankful for her courage to follow her own path. Thankful she chose me as her mother. Thankful she forgives me and gives me another chance. Thankful she was born at what I thought was an inconvenient time. Thankful for her deep, inner knowing and her absolute devotion to what is right. I am humbled to think of the love God has for me to have sent me a child I didn’t know I needed, but He knew I needed. He knew what motherhood would come to mean to me and how it would change my life forever.

Here are some pics of this beautiful girl:

Blessing Day

Blythe and Grandpa Ward

Blythe and Grandma Smith

Blythe taking a bath

Blythe and her papa

Blythe and her mama

Blythe with Andie and Grandma Dorothy

Blythe and Marcus at Bear Lake

Blythe and Stephen at Bear Lake

Two years old at GRL

Third Birthday at GRL

Crazy dress-up with her first cat, Spike

Four-years-old

5th Birthday

Another Birthday party…with Becca and Mikelle

Blythe and Andie’s birthday at Bear Lake

Somewhere around the age of six

Sevenish?

Baptism…and me at 38 weeks pregnant with Fisher

Eight-years-old with Keziah and Great-Grandma

With Grandpa’s horses

Pioneer Days rodeo…almost nine-years-old

Christmas at nine-and-a-half

Eleven-years-old

Twelve-years-old…beautiful, isn’t she!

Thirteen-years-old

Fourteen!

Isn’t she adorable!

I am so blessed to have her in my life and to have the privilege of being her mother. She has taught me much about love, patience, sacrifice, acceptance, putting people first, doing hard things, and so much more.

Most importantly, she was willing to come as my first child. Willing to let me learn how to mother on her. Willing to teach me the power of motherhood before I knew I was ready to learn that lesson.

Happy Birthday, my girl.

I love you.

music video

The music video that Keziah was in back in March has finally been released!

The story of the video is that the children attend a very restrictive school where they are fed slop for lunch, given 5 seconds to play with one ball at recess, have boring lessons drilled into them day after day, and they are just supposed to live with it. They are supposed to be good little students obeying every demand of their teacher. One girl decides to lead a revolution and make some changes. She orders pizza, finds the key to the ball cage, and inspires all the children to escape.

Now, some of you may be offended at the disrespect shown by the children in this video…that’s okay. I won’t be upset with you if you are offended. It bothers me an eensy-teensy bit, but given what resources the children have to fight back, I think they used the tools they had in powerful ways.

I am thrilled Keziah had the opportunity to be part of making a movie. It was a great learning experience for her to see what goes into producing what we see in our media laden world every day.

Here is the link:

Taylor Swift Music Video for “Change”

Enjoy!

the past eight days

Whoa Nellie, it has been a busy time and I have had not a moment to get on here and post.

Let’s see if I can even remember clear back to last week…

1. I had a horrible sore throat last Monday-Thursday. It was better enough to do gym on Friday (only out of my feelings of duty – I would have much rather been in bed), but I had to whisper a lot. Grapefruit seed extract in pulpy orange juice, Immupower essential oil, cough drops, and lots of time sleeping are what got me through.

2. Keziah was asked to be in a music video on Thursday and Friday. It was a fabulous (and COLD!) experience. She got to see a film crew up close and see how long it takes to shoot a five second scene. She was paid $50 for her work and has been treasuring that green bill ever since. The video will be available on ScatterTunes on Monday, so I will post the link for you then.

3. Thursday we (well, I just had to get her there, didn’t have to lead the discussion or anything – couldn’t have anyway, I didn’t have a voice!) had Blythe’s colloquium on Bendigo Shafter (what a great book!), the music video, packing for our trip to the TJED Forum in SLC, and the Relief Society Birthday dinner. I didn’t make it to the dinner, though I tried mighty hard.

4. Oh yeah, back to Wednesday…when I drove Blythe to Shakespeare, my suburban did not sound or feel right. I was leaking lots of antifreeze and was fairly concerned that something was wrong. I called a mechanic we know and he came over to our house to look at it. He said there was oil on in the coolant and the radiator must have been damaged by the GHO. He said I absolutely must not drive it or I could lose my whole engine. Well…knowing we needed to leave for our annual trip to SLC in two short days I asked him to fix it right then and there. We bought a new radiator and all the fluids we needed to be replace and he got to work (he also had me get a zip tie to clamp the distributor down a little more securely and so far it is holding fabulously!). Several hours later we had a new radiator in place and found the crack in the old one. The suburban still doesn’t sound quite right, but we don’t know what else is wrong. It got us to SLC and back, but we know it still needs some more work. It has carried us far and wide for 210,000 miles and we pray it keeps going for quite a few more.

5. Friday morning we had gym and the goal was to have everything ready to go before gym so we wouldn’t have to come back home. We Richard loaded the cooler of food, bags of clothes, and most of the rest of the piles of stuff a family of six needs for two days away from home (seriously, why does it take this much stuff to be away from home?????) When we went out for the final loading on Friday morning, I noticed Keziah’s bike was not on top of the suburban. I ran and grabbed it and some tie downs and set to work. The roof was covered in ice and I was mildly afraid of slipping off the top and breaking my arm (or worse!). With Chet’s (our friend and father of my gymnastics assistant) help, the bike was secured and we were ready to go…except for the stuff I still needed to buy at Winco.

6. I somehow made it through five gymnastics classes and then picked up Fisher and Annes and then ran to Winco and then picked up Richard and then got gas and then stopped at Wal-mart for more coolant and THEN we were really on our way.

7. We finished up Les Miserables on the way down. Fabulous. Truly. You should listen to the Focus on the Family production. It is so well done. While you are getting that one, get all of their dramatizations…Chronicles of Narnia (unabridged version so you can get every word of Lewis’ masterpiece), Ben-Hur, Silas Marner, The Christmas Carol, Billy Budd, The Hiding Place, Bonhoeffer: The Cost of Freedom, Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, and Little Women. They may have more, but those are the ones we have and love. We have listened to them over and over and lent them out and everyone enjoys them.

8. We found our $40 Priceline hotel deal and after dragging all the before mentioned stuff up three flights of stairs, we made dinner, cleaned up, and fell into bed, exhausted and ready for a deep and restful sleep.

9. The deep, restful sleep? Well, it didn’t happen.

10. We were up and going early in the morning so we could leave by 7 a.m. for the TJED Forum. It was a wonderful day of inspiring classes, food for the soul, reacquainting with friends from all over the country and Canada, and so much laughter in Heather Burton’s class I almost peed my pants.

11. The Family Ball is my girls’ favorite night of the year. We finished up our classes, hurried back to our hotel, got everyone looking beautiful, and then back to the Hilton we went to dance the night away. Richard was so tired by this point (he had taken care of me all week when I was sick and hadn’t slept well at all at the hotel) that he just wanted to sit on the sidelines and watch, so I sat by him and watched the dancing. Fisher, of course, doesn’t dance – he is much to shy for that – but he did get up his courage to ask his mama to dance. It was adorable because he was so formal about the whole thing. He even escorted me back to my seat afterwords. Keziah enjoyed doing the Virginia Reel, working on her swing skills, and running around with her friends. Blythe looked simply lovely and enjoyed her time with her friends, but was quite disappointed in the boys lack of asking girls to dance. She normally is asked over and over, but this year, she was only asked once. She was pretty sad about the whole deal. Annesley demanded that her friend, Preston, dance with her and it was so stinkin’ cute. The rest of the time she ran around with her friend, Paige, and they twirled, donkey kicked, skipped, and galloped all over the ballroom.

12. Sunday morning we slept in too late and had to hurry to get all packed up and out the door in time to attend our favorite church building in SLC. It is the old 2nd Ward building and has a beautiful stained glass window of the First Vision in it. We love attending the 14th ward and this year we were able to do so. This ward has people from all over world in it and is a melting pot of different cultures, personalities, needs, knowledge, and accents (my favorite part is the accents!) We had great lessons on Joseph of Egypt by a well-spoken, orderly, and spiritual man and then the Fall of Adam and Eve by a woman from Puerto Rico who handled the large group of sisters well and led a wonderful discussion on the topic with grace. This ward welcomed us right in and we had a wonderful time. They even created a Young Women’s class for Blythe and another girl who was visiting from Canada since they have no young women who attend the ward.

13. Grandma Dorothy stayed with us the whole time and took care of Keziah, Fisher, and Annesley. Let me just say she is the best grandma ever. She calls her grandchildren every day and talks to them, sings songs to them, and helps them get through diaper changes, stressful moments, and long car rides. She loves taking them out for ice cream, movies, and trips to the park…and that is just what she did all day on Saturday.

14. Did I mention yet that Keziah wanted to do a triathlon on Saturday? Yes, she did. And her amazing grandma said she would take her. So, they loaded up early and drove to American Fork for the Ice Breaker Triathlon. We are not professional triathloners, but Keziah wanted to do it, so we let her. According to my mother, everyone else there had two parents and several other people helping each child. Keziah had her grandma and two little siblings. Everyone else had wetsuits for the swim, and warm clothes for the bike ride and run. Keziah wore her swim suit and then pulled her swim shorts and rash guard shirt over top for the bike ride and run. Other athletes had expensive bikes, Keziah had her well-used one that is missing 60% of the seat and looks like it might belong at the dump. Spectators had on coats, hats, and gloves. Fisher and Annes had nothing to keep them warm. It was 29 degrees. Yeah, below freezing. Keziah was blue, frozen, and numb by the time she finished her 3.1 mile bike ride. Grandma told her she had done enough and wasn’t dressed properly and she could stop without doing the run. Keziah determined to finish and she ran one mile, in the cold, with shorts on, with frozen hair, and she ran it fast. What a girl!

Thanks Grandma for helping her get to and through this race. She loved it and is so proud of herself. I know it was a ton of work, especially with the two little ones…YOU ARE AMAZING!

15. After church on Sunday, we went to the SLC cemetery to find the grave of Gordon B. Hinckley. My mom has been wanting to take the children for awhile now and it was the perfect day to do it – no wind, not too cold, not too hot, and a few extra hours of time. My children had a love affair with this man. We all absolutely adored him and miss him greatly. Blythe sobbed for hours when Sister Hinckley died and again when President Hinckley passed away in January 2008. We went and paid our respects at their graves, touched their beautiful headstones, cried a little more, and then went searching for other headstones. We found President McKay’s, President Taylor’s, President Grant’s, the Hyrum Smith family plot, the Moyle family, and so many others that we had no idea who they were and loved making up stories of their lives. I saw a really neat headstone that listed the couple’s children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren – I think that is how I want my headstone – full of family. We had a picnic lunch from the cooler and then started on our way home. Ben-Hur provided the entertainment for the drive home…always a thriller!

16. Now it is Wednesday morning. H.O.P.E. is on Saturday. Passover is in five days. I have much to do to get ready for both, so I may not be back on here till next week.

Home School Read-A-Thon

Blythe, Keziah, and Fisher are participating in the First Annual Idaho Home School Read-A-Thon. They have been challenged to read 300 minutes in the next two weeks. They are searching for sponsors for their Read-A-Thon and have created a plan to raise $1000. They are trying to find 100 people to donate $10 to their cause. If they read for at least 300 minutes, they will be able to buy books – 50% for their personal use and 50% for children who live at F.A.I.T.H. – Families in Transitional Housing. These are families that used to be homeless who are now in a program learning job skills, taking classes, and working towards purchasing their own homes. There is a library at F.A.I.T.H. for the children who live there to check out books from. They are in great need of books and are very excited that the home schoolers of Idaho have adopted them for their Read-A-Thon project. There are over 100 children from all over the state of Idaho participating in the Read-A-Thon and reading books to earn books for needy children.

If you would like to become a sponsor, please paypal your donation of any amount, large or small, to mom2bmw@aol.com or you can mail a check to our home (email me and I will give you the address):

Thank you so much for considering this cause!

With much gratitude from,
Blythe, Keziah, and Fisher

Blessings to each of you!

throw up – what is it about my lil’ ones?

My children throw up. A lot. It is their number one response to stress, illness, allergies, and perhaps, Wednesdays. We have leather furniture because of this sad state of affairs. Today, the one piece of non leather furniture got nailed.

Annesley has been throwing up all day. She covered me from head to toe twice. She covered the toilet once, the snuggler once, the carpet repeatedly, numerous towels, the bathroom floor twice, the kitchen floor once, the island once, and herself over and over. She wants to be held. By me. No one else will do.

I had a lot to get done today, instead, I spent the day holding her and working on my mom’s new website. After hours and hours of tweaking, she says she is happy with it. You can go check out her musings at weighingmatters.com. She is a pretty funny lady and I think you will enjoy her thoughts on food, life, and family. She has been on a weight loss journey for several months now and I am pretty sure she is smaller than me now. She is looking fabulous!

Meanwhile, I will be here holding Annesley, having Blythe make dinner, and reading books to Fisher. I am looking forward to a long, deep sleep tonight.

Maybe a slow day holding a baby is just what I needed.

p.s. Now we have had poop added to the carpet, more throw up, and a chapter of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland completed.

my fisher and a penguin

Today Fisher and I were reading one of his favorite Usborne books, How Deep is the Sea.

It is about a little penguin who has lots of questions about the world around him, just like my little guy does. Pipkin, the penguin, dives down into the ocean to see if he can discover how deep it is. He meets lots of other creatures on his journey and talks to them. Fisher asked me, “Can penguins really talk?” I said, “Yes, but they don’t speak English,” and he said “Oh, they speak Spanish?” It was so cute to hear him say the word Spanish, I don’t think he has ever said it before.

For those of you that don’t know, my Fisher didn’t speak at all till he was about 2 1/2. He said “mama” for the first time at Christmastime in 2006. He turned two in September. He didn’t really start talking to communicate till he was about 3 1/2. Even though he has been talking up a storm for the past two years, it is still music to my ears because I honestly didn’t know if he would ever speak. I didn’t know how it would all work out, but I trusted that somehow it would. They magic key to helping him find his voice was music. He loves music and so I started singing with him everyday. Simple songs that he could say a syllable of the last word, then the whole last word, then the last few sounds, then the last line, then the first line, then some of the sounds in the middle, then the words in the middle, and finally, the whole song. Music was our lifeline – with it, he was vibrant and tried his hardest to get the right sounds out. Without it, he was silent and the few sounds he did make sounded like utter nonsense to our ears.

He is still really hard to understand, but now he wants to communicate and he is improving his pronunciation all the time. Because he didn’t speak for so long, he has reams of information in his head that have never come out. Every time he says a new word I find myself jumping with glee on the inside because I know what a journey he has been on and what a struggle it is for his brain and mouth to work together to make those sounds come out.

Today’s word – Spanish.

favorite playdough

This playdough is the softest, bestest (yes, I know it is not a word, but I love it anyway), most squeezable dough in existence. Fisher was begging for some today, so I thought I would share the recipe with all of you lovelies.

2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
2 packages Kool-Aid (you decide the flavor!) Don’t use cheapo brands…use Kool-Aid
2 cups boiling water
3 tablespoons oil

Mix dry ingredients, then add wet.

Knead until smooth (Careful– it’s hot! It may take a minute or two before you can really ditch the spoon and get your hands in there!) You may need to add extra flour for desired consistency. Will be sticky for a little while, but then will just turn soft and squishy. If it stays sticky after 5+ minutes of kneading, add more flour. Sometimes I knead for awhile and then put it in the fridge for about an hour to cool it off and let it get less sticky and when I pull it out, it is perfect. You’ll figure it out!

Our favorite flavors are orange and lemon. They smell yummy and don’t stain hands or counters. Keep it stored in a ziploc bag with the air squeezed out and it should keep for several months. It makes great birthday presents and I always recommend it or make it for big sisters and brothers in families I am a doula for.

Try it, try it, you will see, you will like it in a tree…sorry, that is one Fisher’s favorite books and it keeps running through my head as I type this post…but really, try it and let me know how you like it. Actually, I already know you will love it!

A funny story about this playdough is that when Blythe was little she had no idea what white flour and Kool-aid are used for by the majority of Americans. They were playdough ingredients to her because that is all we ever bought them for. Once at a ward party, she asked what was in the cups. I told her Kool-Aid, to which she pulled the most grossed out face ever. She was disgusted at the thought of drinking playdough ingredients. I had to explain to her that some people drink the stuff, to which she replied “that is a non-food item.”

new words

uh-oh
bird (buuuurd)
more (mo)
side (siiiiide)
bite
goodnight (g’niiiiight)
hot (haaaaaa)
bye
fish (eeesh, eeesh)
quack (wack, wack)
cat
dog (dah)
duck
knee
toe
ow
cheekie (eekie)
freeze (eeze)

Annesley is experiencing a language explosion. She has started saying all of these words in the past week or so. She cracks me up because she is so proud of herself.

Her favorite word right now (and for many months) is “NO” shouted at the top of her lungs when she really means it or given in answer to every question we ask her when she usually means yes. “Would you like a bite?” we ask. “No” she responds, and then opens her mouth to eat it. “Do you want to swing?” we ask. “No” she says, and then runs to the swing with glee (this girl LOVES to swing).

It is so fun to watch her growing up. She is delightful even when she is driving me batty.

Her current approach to driving me batty? She feels that she owns the phone and that every phone call MUST be for her and no one else can talk. If she doesn’t get to answer it and listen to whoever is on the other end of the phone for a LONG time, she just screams so loudly that we can’t hear the phone call anyway.

Thank goodness my mother calls and talks to her several times a day. We would all go insane if not for her!

annesley helps again

I tell you it is getting nearly impossible to get food on my table in the state I intend it to be in. Annesley is soooo busy and she loves to pour, stir, dig, climb, empty, stab, shake, and poke. This morning I was making waffles from a mix my friend, Kat, gave me to taste-test. Well, I had no syrup and no honey with which to make syrup, but I had promised the children waffles, so I emptied some jam jars, added some water and heated it up till it resembled syrup. Keziah and I finally had the waffles ready and the syrup was ready, so I called everyone for prayer. I looked over at Annesley and she had climbed up to the spice cupboard, found the Nature’s Seasoning (onions, garlic, celery, parsley, salt, and pepper) and had poured in TONS! Luckily she hadn’t started stirring it and I was able to ladle most of it out. For once I was thankful my children are so slow in coming to breakfast because even though I had called them I still had time to rescue the syrup without their noticing.

I am keeping it a secret until after they eat because they probably would turn up their noses at contaminated syrup!

I adore this girlie, but she surely keeps me on my toes!