When my sister and I were young, we watched Mary Poppins almost every day. One favorite part was when Jane, Michael, and Mary were taking their medicine after being caught in the rain.
“Lime cordial, delicious!” says Jane.
“Strawberry, Mmmmmm!” says Michael.
My sister and I would take a spoon, pour water or something in it and pretend it was magicked into delicious lime or strawberry cordial.
This last week, I bought cordial.
Cordial = Kool-Aid.
It was so disgusting. It was so disappointing.
True response to Sunday Scribblings prompt: Guide
I grasped the robe. The volunteer secured the blindfold and nudged me forward.
I stepped tentatively in the dark. Then I heard the voice.
“Let go of the rope!”
I knew the voice: a teenager a few years older than me. He was supposed to make this harder. Another voice joined his.
“Come here! What’re you doing? Where do you think you’re going?”
I’d known they’d try to distract me, and yet I felt disoriented hearing them while blindfolded.
“Let go of the rope and come here!”
“This is where you want to be!”
I held on and stepped forward, ducking beneath a branch and nearly stumbling on a log.
Then I heard another voice: “Rose.”
Rose, my middle name. Only one person called me Rose: my bishop. My heart calmed.
“There’s another log; step more to the left.”
I felt it and stepped around it. The other voices still called, but I didn’t hear them.
“Don’t let go of the rope.”
I held on and walked forward. Then the rope led to two new ropes: one going one way, one the other.
“Choose the rope on the right.”
I followed the rope on the right.
Soon it was over. Taking off the blindfold, I turned to where the voice had been, but my bishop had gone to help the next person.
As my bishop was my guide on the obstacle course, so God provides me a guide on my daily course: His Holy Ghost, a quiet but sturdy, familiar voice amidst the chaos.
When I first heard the prompt “Guide” I tried to think of something more “secular,” but this experience and sentiment kept returning. It reinforces what I said in the About page to this website: my religion is an incredibly important part of my life, and as such, I can’t separate it from my writing.
I’m just a first time mom. I’m sure some of the rest of you “pros” could help. Please, share your insights!
Sleeping
Baby Signs
My wonderful sister gave me a baby signing book for Christmas and I’ve been signing to him, pretty much just some basic signs: FOOD/EAT, MOMMY, DADDY, BATH, MORE.
I haven’t gotten any indication from Paul that he understands these signs, but he did start communicating via his own sign.
Smacking his lips together/opening his mouth and closing it = I WANT TO EAT NOW
It’s quite cute to realize I can understand what he wants!
Eating
I was the only girl dressed as a knight.
You can blame it on the fact that I had two older brothers. They’d also participated in the sixth grade medieval banquet: my mother had already made a knight’s costume. Of course that’s what I wore.
The costume was made of felt: two bright orange and two bright red squares. On the orange squares were red lions. On my head I wore a red felt helmet. I had an aluminum foil-covered cardboard sword and shield. Never mind that if someone actually attacked me the felt wouldn’t protect me at all.
I didn’t care that I was a knight until I saw that I was the only girl dressed as one: every other girl in sixth grade showed up to the medieval banquet as a princess.
The medieval banquet was the end of our lengthy unit on chivalry and medieval times, the culmination of six weeks of learning. Fifteen years later, I can only recall two things about the medieval unit:
1. The banquet at which I was the only girl with a cardboard sword
2. The motto I created for my carefully designed family coat of arms
I don’t recall to what purpose we designed a coat of arms. I suppose illustrating a coat of arms has something to do with medieval times. I remember that mine had four small illustrations and a motto. I don’t remember what I drew; all I remember is the motto.
Never Quit.
I had asked my mother to help me with my coat of arms. She was the one that encouraged me to write “Never Quit” at the top of it as the motto.
“Isn’t that what we do in our family?” she asked me. “We hang in there?”
I nodded and wrote it down. Now, in retrospect, I realize that “never quit” is a perfect motto for me. Having insane discipline to persevere has been my life curse and blessing.
I’m becoming less rigid when it comes to discipline in some things. For example, I have no problem putting off cleaning the house! Also, after one class of graduate school, I quit, wholly and completely. I wasn’t going to like it, so I decided I wouldn’t continue it for $2,000 a class. I’ve determined the same thing attitude with books: if I don’t like it, I won’t finish it. It is so refreshing to quit something insignificant every now and then.
Ultimately, though, I’m glad I’m disciplined; I’m glad I hold myself to the standard “never quit” (albeit with some caveats). Even the curses listed above have blessings attached to them: I didn’t procrastinate some things, I could answer honestly and not sacrifice my integrity, I could be trusted to follow through on what I said I’d do.
While it was my sixth grade teachers that encouraged me to declare a motto, it was my mother that instilled it in me.
I look at my mother now, persevering to the end of one of her life goals: a PhD, earned one class at a time, one year at a time, first while being a full-time mom and then while being a full-time teacher. I am so proud of my mother, PhD. She practices what she taught me: Never quit.
That is why “never quit” has stayed with me all these years: my mother. I remember a felt knight’s costume, carefully made by my mother.
To my mother.
(True but loose response to Write Anything Bright Stuff #482: Discipline.)
It wasn’t fair! I was two years older, but I still had the same bed time as my little sister. I complained every night, stomping and whining.
Finally, my parents succumbed. My bedtime would be 8:31 p.m. Her bedtime would remain 8:30 p.m. I was appeased.
Someone would turn off the lights, and I would lie awake, listening to my dad playing the piano — a lullaby to go to sleep by, he always said. I would remain awake, waiting for the music to end so I could sleep in silence.
Sometimes, my sister would stir slightly in her bed on the other side of the room.
If I knew she was awake, I’d make noises with my spit.
“Stop it!” she would complain. “That’s disgusting!”
Sometimes she’d stomp out of the room. The piano would stop mid-phrase, and I’d hear her voice. I would smile into my pillow.
Some evenings, my parents would go out. I don’t know where our older brothers — our babysitters — would be. But my sister and I would go to our bedroom. She would stand by the window while I jumped from her bed to mine and back again, bouncing and laughing. Then I would stand by the window and she would bounce. When I saw the lights for our car in our court, I’d shout: “They’re coming!” She’d stop mid-bounce, and we’d quickly resume a more innocuous activity, like practicing our headstands on the bed, she against her wall, me against mine.
(One night, ten years later, my mother wondered out loud why those mattresses wore out so quickly. My sister and I glanced at each other and grinned.)
Other nights, we got mad at each other, sometimes for doing nothing worse than existing. While we were not usually physically violent with each other, one night we were. We threw things. I don’t know who threw the winning object, but it met its target. The glass lamp shade, dotted with little blue and pink flowers that matched the wallpaper, fell to the floor and broke. We stood over it in silence, staring at the sharp shards of white on the blue carpet.
Eventually, the “cat fights” got to be too much for my parents. The day my oldest brother left home for college, my parents moved my sister’s furniture, clothes, and knickknacks into his room.
At ages 10 and 12, respectively, my sister and I finally had our own rooms.
That night, I dragged my pillow and blanket into her new room, ready for our sleepover.
We had fun.
To my sister.
(True response to Sunday Scribblings #114: My Nights.)
A few months ago, when Paul started to sleep through the night, I’d wake up in the morning terrified that I’d find him dead in his crib from SIDS.
At his eight-month checkup, I was told to stop feeding him pureed food: mix chunky/mashed foods so he learns how to chew. Now I feed him his meal, terrified that he’s going to choke on his food and die, right before my eyes.
He’s becoming mobile now, and I’m realizing that the next step will be terror that in the two minutes I turn around, he’ll put his finger in an outlet and die from electrocution (even with outlet covers…). Or fall down the stairs and die. Or grab at something that I didn’t mean to leave out and choke on it and die. Or cut himself on something sharp I thought I’d put away and bleed to death. Or…
I could go on. All these terrors keep recurring in my mind.
Someone responded back in December that these fears aren’t from the spirit and I shouldn’t worry. But really, they are all very possible. And if he dies because of something I did or didn’t do, I could not live with myself.
When will I stop worrying that my son will die? Or will I always worry?
Today, I found a list on a sticky note inside my pocket hymnal. Because of the items on the list, I believe I wrote it when I was traveling in the Middle East with my BYU semester abroad eight years ago. It’s amazing that the note is still sticky after all these years.
Happy Thoughts
I wish I remembered what “the Ah Ha moment” is. It sounds so nice.
What is on your Happy Thoughts list? Was your list different eight years ago?
I started writing when I was sixteen. I’m thirty now. I get my ideas from fourteen years of thinking about it.
Markus Zusak, author of I Am the Messenger and The Book Thief, on how he gets his ideas; Q&A for Random House
If he wasn’t born by 3 p.m., I would die. I would quit, that’s all.
“I can’t do this!” I said again.
“You are doing it!” the midwife repeated.
At 3 p.m., I decided not to die. Thirteen minutes later, with one long push, my son appeared, blue and squirmy and tiny.
That night, alone and exhausted, I held my fussy newborn in my arms, willing him to sleep: “I can’t stay awake much longer!”
And I realized I will never quit on him: after birthing him without medication, I can and will handle anything in the challenge called motherhood.
I meant to post this yesterday, but didn’t get the chance. It’s written as if it still were May 20. Since it’s still May 20 in the USA, I guess I can still count it.
Two years ago, my 100-day engagement drew to a close. May 20, 2006 was such a perfect day for me: I had a pleasant breakfast with friends and family, a lovely wedding, and a perfect reception. It was the perfect beginning to our perfect marriage.
Don’t get me wrong: we’re not perfect. And life has its regular ups and downs. But I very happy now, two years later. I am looking forward to the next 48 years! I’ve decided we’re going to live to celebrate 50 years together. My husband tells me that it isn’t very long and I’m going to be very surprised when we actually are celebrating 50 years. We’ll see.
We celebrated by getting our temple recommends renewed. How wonderful that we can be worthy to enter that glorious building!
I am so grateful for my husband, who already believes I’m the woman I some day hope to be.