We had a blast celebrating Maverick on Saturday. Usually I am the one who plans and organizes the birthday parties, but Andy got a 3D printer for Christmas (which has been printing nearly non-stop since then) and wanted to use it to plan activities for Maverick’s birthday as well as print the goodies for the goodie bags. The kids were thrilled to put together their 3D printed battle droids, though they were definitely difficult without some help, so I didn’t get any pictures of the activity because I was too busy helping. Andy also printed a death start that opens. They were planning on playing hot potato and whomever won got to keep the Death Star as well as the treats inside, but we ran out of time. We did manage to play pass the parcel. I handed him a bag of treats before going to a primary baptism on Saturday and said, “Can you wrap this for pass the parcel while I’m at this baptism?” He took the task to wrap those treats seriously and wound up with a giant ball of duct tape which ended up looking like a version of the Death Star. The kids had a blast trying to rip into it and they were all excited to walk away with a candy bar. He also put up decor and straightened the downstairs. He also printed some StarWars space ships and Darth Vader for the cake I made. He’s a rockstar. Having 9 boys averaging around 9 years old was a little nuts, but they all had a blast.
I think I mentioned on here that I had applied for a volunteer position at Max’s school that was election based. I’ve been serving on the Supplemental Resource Advisory Committee this school year by reading texts that need to be reviewed for quality and appropriateness for middle schoolers. I’ve read some great books because of this. I really enjoyed Lines of Courage and Where the Black Flowers Bloom. I’m currently reading 23 Minutes. I am intrigued so far. I am working on Shock the Monkey which is heavy sci-fi where a scientist has basically caused the world to fall into an apocalyptic state with characters having accessible animal traits and an entire community thinking they’re this scientist. It’s weird… not sure I can recommend it. I’ll let you know. I also read The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. If you like historical fiction, especially the WWII era, this book is for you. But it is HEAVY. I definitely wouldn’t recommend it to middle schoolers. It has some love scenes and a r*** scene that is mildly graphic. But this book will change you. It will make you feel so grateful we don’t live in that era. The starvation, the inhumane treatment of an entire religious group, the harsh conditions for those who avoided the concentration camps… it’s a lot to stomach, but it was so moving. I don’t have the book with me anymore, but there were so many beautiful quotes. One was about how she used to want to forget about her life during the war, but how she realized that though it was painful, her life was so beautiful. I think that is so powerful. I’ve had this idea come to my mind a lot lately. Life is pain (I think that’s a quote from Princess Bride), but it is in those painful moments that we emerge, like a butterfly, something more beautiful than we were before. I also love the song by Andy Grammer, “I wish you pain.” I first listened to it and thought “is this for an ex-girlfriend? That’s harsh.” But the words are so endearing. He is addressing his child, sharing the wisdom that it is the painful things in life that teach us and make us who we are. As parents we often want to shield our children from pain and suffering, but this isn’t the way they will rise to their potential and become who their creator knows they can become.
Speaking of pain, I have been meeting with an endocrinologist for my energy levels, hair loss, irregular periods, etc. They did discover that my hormones are all over the place (I suspected as much, though I’m glad the labs proved it wasn’t just in my head). So now they want to run more tests to rule out Cushings (the symptoms don’t really match aside from the highly elevated cortisol, so I think we’ll rule it out pretty quick). As I was talking to the doctor, however, I had a bit of an epiphany. The day before, I was in a Primary presidency meeting and afterwards was asking one of my friends how she’s been doing. She gave me a vague answer then returned the question and added, “I know about Andy’s upcoming deployment, how can I help with that?” I told her that we would be ok, that it would be hard, but we’d manage and she said, no really, let me know what I can do to help you during that time.” Asking for help is not my strong suit. Sometimes it just seems easier to suffer through it, but I opened up to her a bit and told her that the thing I was most worried about is that my anxiety will increase and I will become a short-tempered mom. Her vague answer that things were fine and she was just living life was just the surface answer as she opened up that she had been struggling with anxiety too. She recently sought help for it and shared a wealth of knowledge about what she’s learned during the process along with the name of her physician. So, as I was talking to my endocrinologist, I asked him, “Could all of my symptoms be caused by anxiety?” He looked like he was having an epiphany too and said, “Yes, that’s entirely likely, but that’s something you’d have to address with your PCP.” I’m not a big fan of my PCP so I reached out to my friend’s psychiatrist and I’m hoping he’ll see me before Andy takes off so that I can be the best possible mom for my kids while they’re dealing with their dad being away. We’ve been going through the Emotional resilience lesson book that the church made for military families and the first lesson was on this very subject of how even the hard things in our life can “work together for our good.” While I was sharing this with my kids, I realized that this annoying deployment might just be what my kids need to hit the next level on their personal development… but I still don’t want their suffering to be caused by their mom losing her mind.
Aside from normal life, volunteer meetings, church calling stuff, etc we decided to dive in to some house projects before Andy leaves. I got paint for our bathroom and got to work Friday. I seriously painted/taped, etc from 9 AM to 6 PM and my whole body hurt by the time I ran out of paint. I got more paint after Maverick’s birthday party yesterday and Andy helped me finish. I am very happy with the results. My ADHD brain got sidetracked a couple of times while working with other projects. One was the mystery wall in our bathroom. There is about a 2.5 ft space next to the shower that has always been a mystery to me of what’s behind the wall. Andy said, “Drill a hole in it, stick the plumbing camera in there and find out.” So I took his permission and went for it. There is NOTHING behind that wall so we are going to cut it out and put in a linen shelving. I’m so excited for this, but also nervous because Andy and I have done a lot of handy projects (especially in our previous house), but I’ve never done something like this. So it may be a learning process, but I am excited to learn and to see the finished product. Here are some pics of our inspiration and the before and after of our bathroom’s paint color.
