Morning of Dec. 8

I have finished my morning workout and am taking advantage of the still-quiet house to do a little reading before the kids wake up. I'm reading a book called "Everyday Blessings" on "mindful parenting." The chapter I'm on is called "Live-in Zen Masters" and is causing me to reflect on all the things my children have taught me, and are still teaching me. Like how impatient, rigid, and attached to having my own way I can be. How reluctant I am to cede any of my planned free time to unexpected interruptions. How little I pay attention to my own internal state when under stress and how often I lack empathy for what it's like to be small and powerless. Yes, my little Zen masters are powerful and effective teachers.

Ten glorious minutes of reading go by. I hear small footsteps and look up to see Sam's head, covered in a blanket, peeking around the corner. I offer my standard morning greeting: "Samwise! Good morning sunshine!" His mouth opens and a little squeak comes out. The blanket goes over his head and he disappears back into the hall. A few seconds later he is back, curled up face-down on the floor at my feet. "Woof, woof," he says. I rub his back. "'Woof, woof' means 'I am hungry,'" he informs me. "OK, little puppy dog, let's get you something to eat."

The morning routine begins. Coffee, oranges, cereal, frozen berries. Sam gets himself dressed but in the process opens up a wound on his thumb that begins to bleed. At the same time, he urgently needs to go to the bathroom. He runs to the toilet clutching the front of his pajamas and sucking his injured thumb. Alex makes him a "band-aid" out of yellow sticky-note paper and offers to bandage him with it. I am happy she's trying to help, but must veto the paper "band-aid" in favor of a Snoopy one with an absorbent pad. We finish breakfast. I start a load of laundry and load the dishwasher. The kids find the number 8 on their Advent calendars and happily munch their chocolate squares.

10:00 AM. Swimming lessons for Alex. She is making beautiful sine-waves with her body, moving like a dolphin across the pool, a plastic ring around her feet to keep her legs together. Sam is borrowing the instructor's clipboard, writing "SAMUEL" and "MOM" in awkward capital letters with a pencil. "How do you spell 'humongous?'" he asks. We write more words and draw mazes. Alex does a delicate dive, followed by a belly-flop and a cannonball off the diving board.

11:30 AM. Half an hour for lunch and then we head to school. Alex asks if we can go to the library, "pretty please, with a cherry on top" to get a book called Barn Owls that she read in school.  She also asks, "Mom, why is it important to know how to fight?" I tell her that sometimes we need to fight to protect ourselves from being hurt, or to protect others who we love. We talk about self-defense. She wants to study Tae Kwon Do. I think I may sign her up, and Sam if they will take him.

That's it for today. Just wanted to record the ordinary stuff. Life is beautiful, no?

November MauldenNews

Alex's homemade glasses

Hi All,

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. We had a great time in Reno with my mom and various Billharzes/Billharz associates. Sam kept singing "Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go!" In this case it was "over the mountains and through the snow." We had cold temps (the lowest recorded on our car thermometer: 2 degrees) and icy roads on I-80, but we made it in about 9 hours. Kids' dramamine and a portable DVD player with "How to Train your Dragon" kept the back seat crew pretty happy. Alex drew some awesome dragons too.

Thanksgiving day - Alex had a blast sledding with her cousins in grandma's yard. I ran my own 5K around the neighborhood and broke a new personal record - for the coldest I've ever gone running outside (at least voluntarily). 26 degrees. Crazy! We had the usual holiday mob - 25 or so for the big turkey dinner, 15 of which were kids ages 1-18. Thomas ate mostly broccoli, Sam ate mostly cheese cubes and grapes, and Alex ate mostly cranberry sauce. Mom cooked all the side dishes and Jenny brought 3 turkeys: one real and two made out of fruit and veggies. I need to get the pictures from mom - they were amazing! It was actually a little strange NOT to cook for Thanksgiving this year, but I didn't mind too much. :-) The rest of the weekend was soooo nice and relaxing. We watched UNR beat Boise, spent time with family, helped put up the Christmas tree, and took the kids swimming and then out for pancakes. Sunday I went to church and sang hymns with my mom, which made me happy. I ran into some familiar faces there, including the pastor who married me & Bryan 19+ years ago.

After playing with their cousins, Sam and Alex decided to start their own clubs. Sam's is "the flying club," in which the boys shoot people with marshmallow guns from their airplanes, and no girls are allowed. Alex's is "the loving club" and grandma and I were the first to join.

In other news, I visited Washington, DC for a work conference and enjoyed the change of scenery, the chance to eat at a good Ethiopian restaurant, and warmer weather than in Utah. But it was good to get back home.

Four books I liked this month:
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (listened to Jeremy Irons read this on CD - great stuff!)
The Hunger Games - good suspenseful thriller with an interesting premise
Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan - an American woman goes on an impromptu 4-month "walkabout" across the Australian continent with a tribe of Aborigines
Fool's Gold by Gillian Tett - the story behind the 2008 financial meltdown - the housing bubble, the big banks crashing and burning, the Wall street craziness behind it all. Not my usual reading material but it's been surprisingly interesting, and eye-opening.

Well, that is about all our news for November. We are full of thankfulness and mindful of our many blessings.

Peace,

Sarah

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MauldenNews October 2010

Hello All,

How is everyone? 

We've been busy with the usual things - school, work, 3 friends' kids' birthday parties, swim lessons, and of course, Halloween. We had a purple fairy princess and a Lightning McQueen racecar driver this year.

This month was pretty nice, weather-wise, for Utah. We did get our first snowstorm, with about 5 inches of snow at our house and more in the mountains. Ski season has begun. Still, Tammy and I have been lucky to have several good long runs together on Saturday mornings. I love keeping in shape and getting some extended chat time with a good friend. :-)

I've had a pretty good reading month, too. My book club read The Help by Stockett, which I really liked,  and I have slowly been working my way through Parenting Your Internationally Adopted Child by Patty Cogen. This is my new favorite on adoption and parenting issues - I HIGHLY recommend it for anyone parenting any child with a complex background - very helpful insight,  interesting research reports, and best of all, practical wisdom and tools for every age and stage all the way to adulthood. Grateful to be reading it at this stage, as both kids are growing more aware of adoption issues and asking questions about their identity. I wish I'd had it earlier - am now more acutely aware of my many parenting mistakes  - but I'm learning. 

Other books that are worth mentioning:

Razing Hell by Sharon Baker - a well-thought-out, interesting and provocative look at the theology of hell. Actually it touches on other key theological topics as well - but easy to read for us non- (or amateur) theologians. This would be a good one to discuss - if anyone's interested or has read it - let me know! I really liked it. 

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah - I listened to this on CD - it was painfully sad (story of a child soldier), but good. Not for the faint of heart.

Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan - I'm halfway through this one now - woman gets sort of kindly "kidnapped" by Australian Aborigines for a 3-month "walkabout" across the Australian continent. Intriguing so far...

And that's about it for us. As always, I hope things are well with all of you.

Sarah

first school photo - kindergarten

I was a little worried about how this first school photo would turn out, since this girl does not like to comb her hair. Plus, picture day was Papa's day to drop her off at school and who knew what she would be wearing. I think we got lucky! Whew.