Second trimester check-in

Well, I've made it through the second trimester! The past month or two has been a really, really happy time (except for today, haha #adultbirthdays #thishappenedvalentinesdaytoo), and it's been fun figuring out what's made it happy so that I can replicate the results in the coming months. (I mean, the real answer is that I got enough sleep, but hopefully I can find other things to compensate for that until baby #3 is weaned.)

The main thing is gratitude, of course (which was one of my goals for the year), but I've been trying to figure out what gratitude encompasses for me. So far I've pinpointed accuracy, ownership, and letting things go. And those probably don't make sense right now, so I should probably elaborate on that. Another time.

Anyway, here is some of what I've discovered the past few months about what made March and April pretty good.

Things that aren't necessary to be happy
1. Apartments without mice
2. Utility bills under $300 or even $400 (joke is, the whole winter the apartment never got above 64)
3. Life without heartburn or sciatic nerve pain or any number of pregnancy symptoms
4. Competent mailmen
5. Life without stomach bugs (we've had a few lately that have made us cancel a lot of things)
6. Marches that aren't frigid or Aprils that aren't rainy.
7. Having an open invitation to play at the student housing we can see from our house. (I'm still sad that baby signing time ended abruptly back in February without anyone telling us [and we were the only ones who were going] but it is what it is.)
8. Boy Scouts of America doing things right. (All those hours I spent on rechartering and 5 months later they told us we did it wrong. Hahahaha.)
9. Kids who don't need to play with the same toy at the same time.
10. Having Primary run smoothly every week.
11. Maternity pants that feel good. I am so excited for it to be warm enough to wear maternity shorts because those aren't quite as demonic.

Things that help a lot with happiness
1. Two bathrooms (it's not so much that it's two as much as there's one on each floor)
2. Longer days
3. Days where we don't turn on the heater
4. Visits from Kaylie and Derek
5. Weeks where every recipe I try is a winner
6. Joseph learning how to color in the lines (he likes to know how to do things right)
7. Joseph learning how to deal with not coloring in the lines (thank you abstract and impressionistic artists for making beautiful art I can use to demonstrate)
8. Matthew finally picking up the word "yes," pronounced "dus." And now nodding.
9. Trips to NYC one weekend and Providence, Rhode Island the next. (more on those later.)
10. Joseph learning to ride a regular bike within 2 minutes of getting on one. Balance bikes are the best! (pro tip: whatever we did wrong that made his brand new shoes get scuffed up and holey from the balance bike, don't copy us.)
11. Clark Kent Days (days where we tell Joseph he has to wear a non-superhero shirt)
12. All 4 canines.
13. Dyeing Easter eggs and having Easter egg hunts with friends (even though Matthew was only willing to pick up one egg).
14. Seeing Kevin work night after night for months on a paper, and then seeing people get really excited about it.
15. Doing "homeschool" with Joseph and having him get excited about math. (We're starting public school in the fall, but in the meantime we just talk about whatever we think sounds cool that day.)
16. Watching him pick up a book and sound out a few words here and there.
17. Pretending to learn Spanish with Duolingo. (My opinion: if I hadn't already had foreign language classes that gave me a good grip on grammar, I would be totally lost doing this. But it's fun.)
18. Hearing about friends moving to New Haven.
19. Sending emails after emails to people telling them about both Ann Arbor and New Haven.
20. Running into friends in unexpected places. (Ran into a guy from Ann Arbor at the Chicago airport and an old engineering friend at Thanksgiving Point, for example.)
21. Hearing from old friends. Man, I love a good email exchange.
22. And at the same time . . . realizing that even the most beautiful, life-changing friendships don't have to continue. I had been wanting some things to be the way they used to be, and it felt like I was keeping them on life support. But now I realize it's okay to let them die a gentle death. I can still go put flowers on the grave, but I don't have to be bitter or upset that long-distance friendships don't always work. (I give myself permission to cry though.)
23. Going to the Yale Symphony with Kevin for our anniversary. We only got to hear half the concert because one of the pianists had an accident an hour or so before the concert. (Isn't that just so sad? I can't imagine how stressful that was for everyone.) But that's what YouTube is for.

24. Pink trees. All over New Haven.
25. Learning the names of those trees. Weeping cherry. Star magnolia. Crape myrtle bush. I can't learn them all at once, but I've got a few down!
26. Going to the teeny tiny library for books, setting Matthew up with a bunch of puzzles and Joseph with a bunch of superhero books while I futilely look for books in the adult section, and then having the ladies at checkout tell me I have beautiful children instead of telling me I'm a bad mom for not being within two feet of my kids at all times.
27. Forgiving God for creating people who do unwise or dangerous things under the guise of revelation or do evil things just because they can. This one has bugged me for about three years now, and the past year and a half I had to grapple with the darkest, direst implications of this (i.e. is all revelation just in our heads?). In addition to reading scriptures, praying, temple, callings, etc. I think opening up about this in multiple places has finally made it so I could finally just let it go and begin to trust and forgive again. So, that has been great.
28. As has Matthew's jumping been.
29. Hearing Matthew sing the ABCs (well, like 6 of the letters here and there) and then start into Twinkle Twinkle.
30. Watching the baby wriggle and jiggle and wiggle inside me.

and, sure.

31. The Jazz winning. I guess.

Well, I guess this just sort of turned into a list of what we did the past several weeks. Whatever it is that's made this spring so fun, I'll take it!

Obligatory Anniversary Post

We've made it to 7 years of marriage! It sure has been pure magic. (It's like the opposite of breaking a mirror.)

I don't have anything too deep to say right now, but I have a few funny thoughts.

1. One great thing about life is how you acquire important days in your life. Like, the days my kids were born weren't particularly important days in my life before that, but now they are some of the most important days of the year.

The same goes for my anniversary. I use On This Day on Facebook which tells me what I posted that given day for all the years I've had Facebook. The past few years, I post something related to our anniversary on April 23rd, like pictures or poems of some kind. But before that . . .

A pet raccoon? What on earth was I talking about? What kind of strange existence did I live where I had to make Facebook statuses about cows? (That didn't stop after marriage, of course, but I try to talk about less bovine things on my anniversary.) At any rate, things have gotten a lot more poetic since then.

2. We decided that we would keep my maiden name a secret in this ward, just to see how long it would last. It has actually come up a few times, such as when my dad visited, but it hasn't been widespread knowledge the way it was in Michigan.

One time, we were chatting with a couple and it came up that his dad was friends with my uncle. As he and his wife thought about it more later, he wondered why on earth I had the same last name as my uncle.

"I bet she made Kevin change his last name when they got married."

I explained the whole situation later, but the funny thing is, if you compare bits and pieces from these two websites (one from my dad and one from Kevin), he kind of did take my last name. And, even funnier, even if we hadn't gotten married people would have still assumed some relation based on their similar interests. (I guess technically they would have been right, though third half cousins isn't the answer they would expect.)

3. Since it's on my mind, here's another story about maiden and married names. When we first got married we also decided to keep it a secret since we were tired of all the jokes and questions that we got over and over. One time at church, a friend leaned over and asked Kevin if he ever thought it was weird to hear his wife referred to with her married name instead of her maiden name.

"No," Kevin said simply. He gave no explanation or anything. Just, "No." I think it wasn't til several months later that we finally explained that and he was forgiven for being a wet blanket.

4. One time we were talking about death, and I said that if Kevin died and I was over 60, if I remarried I wouldn't bother taking my new husband's name.

"You didn't bother the first time, either," he replied. He had a point.

5. Since this is probably the weirdest blog post ever (see why we kept this a secret from our ward this time?), I'll just end it with something even weirder. It's fake news, but if you can pretend it's real then it puts all our weirdness to shame.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/04/16/story-about-married-couple-discovering-were-twins-during-ivf-appears-to-be-fake.html

And really, we're not all that weird. I promise. We're actually pretty boring. But happy.

Two Good Friday thoughts

(posted on Facebook too)

Eli, eli, lama sabachthani

Over the past few years, I've come across several stories about those whose prayers have been met with silence. Mother Teresa's long struggle with spiritual darkness was re-visited as her canonization approached. Michael McLean spoke openly about his decade-long faith crisis. Professors, motivational speakers, and many others have described similar journeys through darkness, despite countless prayers and tears begging for some kind of reassurance.

"In me ye shall have peace," the Savior promised (John 16:33), but what if that peace doesn't come when it's needed? What then?

One of my favorite tellings of the Adam and Eve story describes a scene shortly after they have left the Garden of Eden. Adam prays, and prays, and prays, desperate for guidance from the God he once knew well -- and instead Satan shows up. Adam had already repented of partaking of the fruit, and forgiveness had already been granted. He and Eve were keeping the commandments. And yet it was Satan instead of God who showed up.

This scene has been replayed by countless people throughout history, often when they are trying their best to draw closer to God. It seems like spiritual darkness and heavenly silence are no respecters of persons, though they seem drawn in particular to those who have suffered abuse, deal with mental illness, or are even just plagued by sleep deprivation. This doesn't help matters -- what if what they thought was spiritual peace was really just good physical, mental, and emotional health? Is anything certain anymore?

Perhaps not -- and perhaps that is how it should be. Perhaps in order to be truly like God, we must first have our certainty stripped away. After all, if our fervent convictions about His existence and His gospel are matched only by our fervent convictions about our politics or our pet theories, then we are not on firm ground. Perhaps silence is a chance to rebuild true faith slowly and deliberately, without emotions and preconceived notions pushing us through the process. Perhaps if we are to become engaged in His work, be it the details of administration or the details of ministration, we need to be left to our own devices, not always gently led along or given clear instructions. Perhaps if we are to develop charity, we need to first know some darkness.

"Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" Jesus cried from the cross (Matthew 27:46). Like Adam and Eve, like Mother Teresa, and like so many of us, Christ knew how it felt to be forsaken. He knew what it was like to be taunted by Satan instead of succored by angels. And because of this, because He descended below all things, He knows how to succor us. In Him we will someday find peace.

I posted that on Friday, and I read a lot of lovely things this weekend about Good Friday that related to that post. This one in particular stuck out to me:

"That a good man may have his back to the wall is no more than we knew already, but that God could have His back to the wall is a boast for all insurgents forever. Christianity is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete. Christianity alone felt that God, to be wholly God, must have been a rebel as well as a king. Alone of all creeds, Christianity has added courage to the virtues of the Creator. For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point—and does not break. In this indeed I approach a matter more dark and awful than it is easy to discuss; and I apologize in advance if any of my phrases fall wrong or seem irreverent touching a matter which the greatest saints and thinkers have justly feared to approach. But in the terrific tale of the Passion there is a distinct emotional suggestion that the author of all things (in some unthinkable way) went not only through agony, but through doubt. It is written, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." No; but the Lord thy God may tempt Himself; and it seems as if this was what happened in Gethsemane. In a garden Satan tempted man: and in a garden God tempted God. He passed in some superhuman manner through our human horror of pessimism. When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God. And now let the revolutionists choose a creed from all the creeds and a god from all the gods of the world, carefully weighing all the gods of inevitable recurrence and of unalterable power. They will not find another god who has himself been in revolt. Nay (the matter grows too difficult for human speech), but let the atheists themselves choose a god. They will find only one divinity who ever uttered their isolation; only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to be an atheist."

—GK Chesterton

"God seemed for an instant to be an atheist."

I have wondered how Christ could descend below all things when He never had reason to doubt. And yet this year I think I began to understand His cry from the cross. It wasn't just that He didn't have the Holy Ghost with Him. It was that an entire facet of His identity -- that of God -- was somehow stripped from Him while on the cross. He was left as a mortal then, it seems. He was confronted with the same doubts that many face here. All the miracles up to that point really truly might not have mattered at that moment -- He really might have doubted everything, at least momentarily.

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . . . and with his stripes, we are healed" This is the good news of the gospel. This is the good news that He proved by rising from the dead, and it is the good news that will save the world.

At one

Every night after reading scriptures, we recite a few verses from memory. The one we always choose first is "Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25)

Over the past few years, I've learned more about just how big a fall from heaven that was, and it's been overwhelming.

In the past, I've generally thought of sin as an isolated, individual event, as are its effects. Sin might hurt you and the people closest to you, but that would be the end of it. A little bit of repenting would fix things up just fine.

But for whatever reason, I see things differently now. Selfishness is always at the heart of evil, but it can be perpetuated a variety of ways, and sometimes it is taught as much as it is chosen. People do have agency, but it is often hampered by a variety of environmental and cultural factors. Although a terrible person occasionally has a wonderful upbringing, most people who choose wickedness seem to slide into it in one way or another, be it through addictions, lousy parents, mental illness, societies that teach them how to hate, or any number of factors that seem to limit their accountability and agency from the get go.

Additionally, most nations have a history of oppression of some kind or another, and the effects of that can linger for centuries. Worse, quotes from religious texts -- be it the Bible, Quran, or other scriptures -- can be used as a battering ram for outrageous policies that can further this oppression by adding the threat of the wrath of God toward anyone who speaks up.

How could the Atonement cover all of this? How could the Savior redeem countries with stains of evil on them? How could He make centuries of state or religious sponsored abuse not impact the present anymore? How could He atone for pollution, for systemic racism, for unwise foreign or domestic policies, for corruption, for poverty, for drought, for wishful thinking confused with revelation, for poor decisions, and even for mistakes that still result in death? How could Christ save the world from itself?

The Savior himself had an interesting answer to that in His intercessory prayer: "I pray not for the world." (John 17:9) Considering that He earlier told Nicodemus that "God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved," (John 3:17) that seems a little harsh and contradictory.

But here's the detail I hadn't understood -- it's the "world through him" that will be saved, not just the world. It is the disciples that believed Christ that he prays for, and they are the ones who will become one with the Father, even as Christ is one with the Father (John 17:11).

Christ's Atonement is absolutely about families and communities and societies -- that's why we have churches and temples, and that's why we look forward to Zion. But those communities will be comprised of people who have chosen Him individually. No matter how we first become acquainted with sin, whether we slide into it or willfully choose it, we all need to individually turn to Christ. It is through Him that every person in the world can overcome all the scars and baggage we inherited by being born.

This is not to say that we should just give up on "The World" once we have individually accepted Christ. Although it is ultimately more important to take the slums out of a person than a person out of the slums (to quote Ezra Taft Benson), often we take the slums out of ourselves by working to take each other out of the slums. Besides, people really do have an easier time choosing the right and seeing the light when they aren't surrounded by crime, alcohol, and scarcity. Kids really do have an easier time in life when we take the lead out of their drinking water and their paint. People are less likely to return to sinful ways when they have a supportive community to nurture them through the change. We should work to create Zion both temporally and spiritually in the world we currently live in, even if The World itself will never fully be incorporated into Zion.

And ultimately, though I still do not fully understand it, I have faith that somehow all the gaps in our efforts -- the people who grow up without proper accountability, the ones who are subjected to a failed policy here or there, and the ones who never get the chance to accept Christ in this life -- were somehow already accounted for in the Garden of Gethsemane. Somehow Christ's Atonement is big enough to handle a really fallen world, because it is a world full of individuals who are still God's children. And though things may never look like Zion in this lifetime, we can all find out one by one that when we turn to Him, He is mighty to save.

Ten little life updates

Even though I've been posting regularly, it's been a little while since I posted specifically on what we've been up to. So, here's a quick recap of the past few months.

1. We went to visit the Paulsons in New Jersey. February was really getting to me, as you might have noticed on the blog. In some ways it's worse than January, and I'm pretty sure President Packer has some quote to seminary teachers about "beware of February" that I cannot find anywhere but will quote anyway. "Beware of February," President Packer said, and he was right. It's when everyone is sick and people have babies and snowstorms shut cities and churches down and you go crazy because everything is canceled and then you cry about lots of things (mostly Cub Scouts related). 

So, it was wonderful to go see family for a few days (minus me having a bout of morning sickness that lasted the whole weekend). We decorated cookies, saw Lego Batman, visited parks, walked around Morristown, ate ice cream, and partied it up at the Paulsons' stake dance.

2. At the end of February, I finally snapped out of my sad spell, just in time for Kevin's conferences! He had one in Long Island, one in New York City, one in New Orleans, and one in Chicago, all over the course of two weeks. Whew! Luckily, he was able to be home on the weekends, and luckily he lived even after he went on a few sketchy streets in Chicago (his phone didn't tell him to walk on the upper level, which is a lot safer than the lower level of the city. so weird). And the kids were pretty good, except that Matthew was teething again so he didn't eat or sleep or handle things well, but it was all fine. Kaylie came and spent a day with us, and that definitely helped.

3. Matthew spent a few days here and there not teething, because he finally has all his molars and a canine or two, and he was back to normal! Hooray! Right now I don't know if he's teething or what but he has boycotted all fruit for the past few days. But he will at least try celery, carrots, and broccoli. Honestly, I kind of prefer vegetables too.

He would prefer, of course, to subsist on crackers.

4. Most of March was cold, and that was especially true during the middle of March. So we found things to celebrate. For Pi Day we walked in an ice storm over to our friends' house to bake some pies with them. For the Ides of March the boys wore togas for about a minute and we looked at Facebook albums of cool people who've been to Italy. For Square Root of Ten Day I made German Pancakes in an 8x8 glass dish and talked about math with Joseph. For St. Patrick's Day we talked about Ireland, but I can't remember any foods we ate that day. I don't even think we used green food coloring. Oh well.

5. We were finally able to take Kevin with us to the Natural History Museum. Sometime it'd be nice to go alone with him since there is nothing in the world more boring than diamonds and sapphires and crystals according to Joseph, so I never get to spend as much time there as we want. Then, we walked over to a creperie. It's been funny seeing so many articles lately about restaurants where kids are banned because ours were not super great there. Then again, it's pretty hard to wait upwards of a half hour for a crepe when you know you could make your own at home in less time (albeit without all the fancy ingredients). After a few trips out of the restaurant Matthew finally calmed down enough to even try his. So, definitely not bringing him to the next restaurant we patronize.

6. Kevin finally got his big cool paper up, which has been really exciting. Of course, he's just as busy as ever because he's had a backlog of other stuff to catch up on. He spends much of his evenings coding, chatting about figures, and asking me which scatterplot looks better (I pick the one that looks most like a bird). He is also good at dashing the dreams of young men who want to be in the NBA when they grow up.

Not this young man. He has a few football dreams here and there but we think he will lose those naturally.

7. Joseph discovered the DVD section of the library. Since we can only check out DVDs for one week with no renewals (oh how I miss thee, Ann Arbor District Library and the 36 weeks you let us keep Alpha Oops) he tries to watch them as many times as he can in the week. It ends up being a bit less than once a day. One time I asked him what his favorite thing to do is and he said "watch stuff." Not play with friends or build with Legos or read books (sometimes by himself!!!) or color or ride his bike or go to the playground, which are all things he does a lot more. It reminded me of this depressing commercial.

But then again, did those grandparents and parents have Super Why or Paw Patrol to watch instead of planting blueberries? I didn't think so.

8. Matthew also loves to watch whatever Joseph's watching, and he has also picked up his habit of eating baby carrots while watching. Although, I don't even have to have anything playing for him to eat the carrots -- he just needs to be sitting there in front of the laptop. 

When Joseph sings, "Paw patrol, paw patrol, be there on the double," Matthew echoes "Paw Troll Paw Troll W. W. W." If I ask him to count to 10 he usually gets stuck on W. I don't know what comes next either, baby. When we go to the library he makes a beeline for the puzzles, and usually doesn't leave without some flailing, kicking, and screaming. 

Oh he loves his puzzles.

He still likes to scowl at people, except for men we see when we go on walks (he calls them all Grandpa). So I try to document his smiles as much as possible, since they are usually plentiful.

He always wants to "see it? see it?" when I take pictures or make movies, but this selfie movie turned out okay.

9. Oh, and speaking of kicking . . . this little baby in me loves to kick! I can even see him move now, which is always so fun. My ultrasound was in the middle of all of Kevin's conferences, but luckily Kevin was able to make it back to see it. Just like we had been expecting, it's another boy!!!!!!!!! So fun! It'll be so fun to have another boy to read Little House and Betsy Tacy books to, at least when we're not reading more superhero books.

Joseph took this after my 20 week appointment. 4 weeks later, I am quite a bit bigger. I guess my tummy knows that it's supposed to be big now!

10. And that's what we've been up to! Throw in a few play dates, sunny days at playgrounds, rainy days inside, snowstorms, Google docs for Primary everything, mice that hang out next to traps but don't go in them (at least that's what we've heard the past few nights), temple trips, last-minute organ playing, family walks, family movies, games, songs, and chores, and that's life! 

We like it pretty well. We are still eager for real spring though.

Obviously.

Okay, these pictures are two weeks old, so there's no snow on the ground now. But we're ready for blossoms and leaves!