I have a dear aunt that has always been exceptionally kind to me. She expresses undaunting faith in my potential and views me with the greatest compasion and lack of judgement. I just got off of the phone with her. She was calling me to tell me that she had been given an apple t-shirt and was mailing it to me as she new I was an apple fan. It would seem like such a small gesture, but along with the shirt, she told me exactly what l needed to hear tonight. Recently I've been contemplating my goals and my direction in life (primarily professionally) and I've felt I've come up a little short. Without even knowing how I was feeling she expressed empathy for the stage I was in at this time in my life, trying to balance a young family and a career. I'm not sure why I'm writing this, I guess I'm just grateful to be blessed with good people in my life- undercover angels if you will, that
without even knowing it provide you with hope. I hope I am able to be that for other people at times.

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Back to work

If there is one thing I love about the holiday break, it is spending time with my kids. When the time finally rolls around for me to come back to work, I know it’s an adjustment for me, mom (whose become accustomed to the extra help) and the munches who are used to eating out at least one meal each day courtesy of dad. I have a host of memories from the past week and wish to share just a couple of incidents that made me smile.

Poor Yaks has been infirmed the entire Christmas break. This has provided for some challenging nights. Although Yaks is approaching two, he is still addicted to a bottle. And if he wakes up in the middle of the night his conditioned response is to ask for a refill. Sometimes he’ll be completely asleep but holding the bottle in his hand. As was the case this week, he’s figured out that if he takes the bottle and clanks it along the slats of his crib he doesn’t even need to cry out—mom and dad will come running. The clanking on the bars reminds me of those scenes from the movies when a prisoner is clanking his metal mug across the bars.

Boo received the Beauty and the Beast DVD for Christmas. Incidentally, the DVD was purchased online and upon arrival we discovered it was an illegitimate copy. It still plays, but the quality is less than a typical DVD. We’ve felt quite comfortable letting Jane watch this show without mom and dad in the room. It wasn’t until we were in the car a couple of days ago and heard Boo exclaim, “Stupid” that we realized she had picked this up from the DVD (the part where the beast gets a less-than-stellar haircut before the big date with Belle) I guess it shows you can never be too careful. There is one exceptional set of parents in our ward that has taken extraordinary measures to ensure their children aren’t influenced by Disney pop culture. They noticed that many of the Disney Princesses wear immodest dresses so they color in sleeves in coloring books and sew new clothes for their dolls. I don’t think we’ll go that far.

Finally, I decided about a year ago that I would attempt to have a monthly date night with each of the children. Boo incidentally has the first Tuesday of the month and Yaks has the second Tuesday. I’ve had to be flexible with these dates since I was called into the bishopric, but I think I’ve done a fair job of making sure each child has a little one-on-one time each month. Yesterday Boo and I spent the morning sledding (cell phone picture below) and then got hot chocolate and Bagels at Einsteins. Boo was so proud of herself that she could go down the hill all by herself. I was proud of myself that I could continue to pull her back up the hill for nearly an hour.

It’s been a great holiday break, but I’m so glad I’m back at work. I know I’ll miss the kids even more during these next few days, but I relish the good times we shared during this break.