Dancing with Daffodils

Today is a special day.  Five years ago today I became a mother.  I went through three years of infertility treatments, had one miscarriage, dozens of shots and medications, one D&C and three doctors before I was able to become a mother, but none of that mattered on August 17, 2008 when my beautiful daughter was born. I woke up around 4am on that Sunday morning and just laid there wondering if I was in labor.  I finally stood up and went to the bathroom around 5am and definitely felt a gush that was not normal.  I woke my husband up and we then called the doctor who said I should come in to the hospital, so I showered and got ready and we drove to the hospital very calmly.  They checked me when I got there at about 6am and I did have a tear so they went ahead and broke my water all of the way for me.  Then I got an epidural and the next few hours I just sat around.  I couldn’t feel anything below my waist so I was relaxed and not even aware of w...

A few weeks ago my 19-year-old nephew left to serve a two-year mission for our church in Bogota, Colombia.  We got to hear his talk in church on his last Sunday before leaving and the room was full of family members, friends, and church members who were there to support him in his good decision. My nephew with his mission president in Colombia My nephew is a good-hearted kid and we've always been close.  When he was just learning to talk I had him convinced my name was “favorite aunty ‘lecia”.   He has always had a natural desire to do the right thing and that was increased upon the tragic death of his father when he was 12.   My grandfather died when my dad was only six months old so he too grew up without a father.  He has said that God has made up the difference.  Men have been placed in his life at key moments to play a special role and my father promised my nephews the same thing in their lives.  On that Sunday before my nephew...

We recently returned to my hometown of Rochester, New York to visit family.  It is a joy to grocery shop at Wegmans, eat Abbotts custard as I walk along the Charlotte Beach pier and to drive through downtown, pointing out to my kids my two favorite buildings: the sandwich and the clippers.  These are moments from my childhood that I love living over again. I lived in a great neighborhood when I was a kid where my two best friends lived just across the street.  We would play board games or Atari at my house, Super Mario brothers at Laurie’s house and Sonic at Heather’s house.  We’d swim, play gymnastics, ride our bikes to the local grocery mart for candy, walk to school together, build leaf forts, have bouncy ball competitions and race in the snow.   Each May my family would go to the Lilac Festival.  We would take a picnic dinner, walk around the tulips beds first and then head over to the large hill covered in deep purple, light purple an...

A few weeks ago I was sitting outside with my very newborn baby watching my two older children play.  Like many Americans with kids, we have a Cozy Coupe and at one point my children went down our sloped driveway with my three-year-old son driving and my almost five-year-old daughter standing on the back.  I told her that she was being unsafe and warned her that she could easily fall off and get hurt and I asked her to get off.  She chose to ignore me and stayed on the car.  I asked her again and she just said, “No.”  At this point I decided to let it go.  Not ten seconds later, the car tipped over as they were crossing the road (having looked both ways, of course).  My daughter was able to jump off and was not hurt, but my son who had been inside the car was now in the road, stuck underneath the car.   Since I was still holding my newborn, I asked my daughter to go help her brother.  The tipping was a result of her bad choice and I want...

I was recently watching Cars 2 with my children and while it isn't unusual for me to be moved by Disney movies, this one surprised me.   Mater, a rusty old tow truck, is with some secret agents who are trying to put him in disguise.  To do so, they want to fix his dents but he says no.  He defends his dents because he got them while with his best friend and he doesn't want to erase those memories.  By the end of the movie, one of those secret agent cars leaves her dent in too because Mater helped her appreciate its value.   During this movie I was holding my five-week old baby.  While she is perfection itself, what she and my other children have done to my body is not.  Looking in the mirror recently has been painful because all I see is how I am 15 pounds overweight with a very flabby belly covered in stretch marks.  Getting dressed is depressing since none of my clothes fit well.  I hardly have time to exercise, shave my legs, do m...

Happy Father's Day!  I am very blessed in my life with a wonderful father and also an amazing husband who is father to my children.  I am not much of a poet but have written a few and this is one I wrote as a birthday present back for my dad when I was 18.  I thought it appropriate to share for Father's Day. A Tribute to my Father Being sent from above, I know it was trying leaving Father in Heaven was a new kind of dying. His promise was sure that love I would find in a father on earth, gentle and kind. I was sent to a home in which to prepare for the calling I accepted with great hope and care. The love that I found there made Heaven feel near I was meant to be there, it was perfectly clear. I was taught of my Savior and what He did for me to pray and serve others--that's the way it should be. I learned the only way back from whence I came was to know Him and love Him, take upon me His name. How could this be done whe...

I served for 18 months as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Kiev, Ukraine.  Every mission is led by a mission president and his wife who oversee all of the missionaries both spiritually and physically.  I was lucky enough to enter the country with President Frank Trythall and his wife, Nancy, there to greet me, ready to teach me and to make sure I was taken care of while serving as a missionary.  I immediately liked President Trythall.  Every week I wrote him a letter letting him know how things were going and every eight weeks, we sat down for an interview.  Those interviews were some of the most profound learning experiences of my  service and I came to respect President Trythall as a leader and love him like a dad.   Even with 150 missionaries in his care, somehow I felt like I was his favorite.  He has a gift for listening and understanding and saying just the right thing to make everything clear. ...