Moving On

Our little family is in transition.  We have a few cell phone photos capturing snippets of our life for the past couple of weeks, but mostly little memories that fade as life marches on to South Carolina.  We still have a few weeks until our big cross-country trek, but every day of this month leans in that direction.  And it's been a little hard for me to move on.

Salt Lake City was good to us; the University of Utah was good for us.  I miss the people I got to know--seeing them on the way to get the mail in the Heritage Center, watching my boys interact with them, and pigging out on banana bread with them during late night staff meeting.  I miss my running buddy, and our early morning "save the world by raising our famlies right" conversations.  I miss girls' nights with some of the most hilarious and awesome women I have ever met.   I miss making dinner for my family in our little kitchen and pulling the table away from the wall so we could all fit together in one table.  I miss pushing my boys in the double jogger around Research Park sidewalks and feelings so awesome as I chugged up that huge hill.  I miss the sweet little girl and her amazing mother who live a couple buildings over.  I miss watching my boys race up and down the hallway on rainy days--screaming with energy as I shushed them.  Somehow God knew that we needed that life at 1420 Heritage Center.  And just maybe, it needed us.

But, we are moving on.  And except for the poor digestive health of my children, it's all running rather smoothly (ask me about the dirty underwear in the garbage if you want to know).  Aaron and JJ love living at grandpatty's home.  The first night we spent here, we opened the door to our downstairs room and let the boys roam onto the backyard.  I felt like I was watching my boys experience boyhood for the first time; they ran onto the lawn in PJs and diapers, searching like savages for a long lost sense of backyard discovery.  They found it.  Jared giggled as he dug in the sand and Aaron wore his fierce expression as he wound up to sling the frisbee across the yard.  Grandpapa has a lot of yard to throw frisbees in.  We have been in Heaven.

But, it's easy to come back down to earth when trimming the lane hedge.  For Grandpapa's birthday we gave him a day in the yard and spent the whole day pruning the top half of his pyracantha (too lazy to look up spelling) bushes.  It was a "dust of the earth, noxious weeds, blood sweat and tears" experience (I even have a thorn lodged in my shin).  And it was SO worth it.  It feels awesome to see the results of our labor so quickly.  Plus, Aaron loved helping.  He worked right alongside me and Jonny with his own pair of trimmers.  He would say, "We're such a good team, aren't we?" and "Look Dada, I'm working right across you," and "Oh my gracious, that was hard" over and over again.  But the best thing he did was devise a point system for our trimming.  At first they were "pounds" we earned for various trimmings.  He said, "You earned 20 pounds mom, and you have 40 dad," etc.  I asked him why he measured with pounds, and he didn't know.  But, he piped up a few minutes later with a new and improved system.  "you have 50 works, Mom," he said.  It was priceless.  I loved working right beside him, knowing how much he loved it.  I know it's not Jonny's favorite thing to do, but I hope to have a few more happy family yard work memories in the future.

JJ has been tickling his belly button a lot lately.  I think the transition has him a little confused, but his jolly personality (mostly) overrides everything.  Plus, he has a magic button.  His belly button.  Somehow he switched from eyelash tickling to belly button tickling when he's in need of a little pick me up.  And, it works for all of us.  Whenever I see him casually lift his shirt and worm his finger into his belly button, I laugh and kiss the frowns off all our faces.  Also, Jared has fallen in love with the "NO David" book, which can cure a case of the moving blues pretty quickly.  Aaron's favorite book at night has become his picture scriptures.  Nothing makes my heart happier than seeing Aaron in bed, with a flashlight, searching the stories.

And, to wrap up my update, I went to a "Power of Moms" conference with Amy and her sister in law last weekend.  It was extremely motivating, and I do feel empowered.  I'm excited about using the phrase, "mommy is a person," and "in our family we..." and a whole lot of other good ones.  I'm learning a lot of great systems to help me move my ideas and projects forward too.  I am the luckiest momma.  My boys make me so happy (yes, worried and sometimes frustrated too, but mostly happy).  Mother's day was awesome.  It deserves it's own post.   It is high time to end this post and officially move on.