An amazing baby story

Wow, this is such an amazing story from my sister in law Charla, especially appropriate for this Thanksgiving time. Please read!

Running the River- a New Year's Resolution that actually got achieved

Ian ran his first marathon over the weekend! He ran up in Sacramento's Run the River marathon whose trail sidles up along the American River. It was a gorgeous time of year to run with all the fall foliage out. If you knew his exercise habits over the last six years since we moved to LA, and before, you'd know that this was a really huge accomplishment for him. We are so proud of him!! It wasn't always easy to get in all of his training sessions, and it's a miracle he was able to do the marathon, but somehow he managed to pull off the whole 26.53 miles! Yeay! I can't believe he actually did his New Year's Resolution...


Last Christmas/New Year's Ian and I were relaxing with his family and my family over the break. Ian read Michael Pollard's Omnivore's Dilemma and was so inspired to make some changes in our food choices that we set a goal to start eating local produce. Eating healthier also inspired him to make some changes in his exercise routine, and he decided to work towards something... say a marathon perhaps. Actually, he set the goal to run a half marathon, which was still a big goal, and the fact that he did even more is so impressive to me. I had my goal to nurse my twins exclusively for one year, and we also made a family goal to have Love at Home (this is practically our family mantra now).

When we got home because I'm a little scrapper now I made a 'goal board' that hung in our room. It was the last thing we saw each night and first thing we saw in the morning. I put everything up there except my nursing goal- I just couldn't find a photo I felt comfortable with at the time. I put up Ian's long standing goal to produce his Western. It's really great to look at it now and see that we've accomplished (almost) all the things we set out to. We've been eating out of our CSA box all year, learning how to cook comfortably with chard, cabbage and kale (finally! although we never really got okra) and loving all the fresh, seasonal, organic veggies. We're holding FHE each week, and trying to have Love at Home (that's one of those nebulous goals, I should probably choose something more specific, although I don't know what that would be- only five fights per day??). Ian is still working on producing his movie, but he's made so much progress I think we can pretty much count that one.

It's almost time to make a new goal board for next year. I'm so grateful for all the opportunities that 2009 has given us! It's been an amazing year and I feel so excited to see what we'll choose to work on next year!

My Priority is Figuring out My Priorities...

One of my huge frustrations over the past few months has been that I have sooo many things that I want/need to do that I'll start on thing A, then that doesn't seem nearly as important as thing B, which then seems to pale in importance to thing C, and on it goes. My to-do list is insanely long, but I just haven't been able to figure out what to cut back because everything seems important. Some things non-urgent items have been on my list for over a year, like getting a new ironing board. At the top of my list are doctor's visits, these are my big time sucker. Since Caleb and Julian were born so heart-stoppingly early they're followed by a fleet of doctors. Some of them we only see once a year, and others we see bi-weekly. And then I've got my medium pressing items, like getting flu shots for everyone, calling about health insurance snags, getting to Costco, getting the oil changed, reading daily with my kids, paying bills, tracking expenses, unpacking the new stage of clothes, packing up the old stage of clothes, making healthy food, taking photos, organizing photos, not to mention trying to shower, spending more than 2 seconds doing my hair, working for the church from home on occasion, getting the kids some outside time, reading the news every once in a blue moon, trying to exercise, get a haircut, date nights with Ian, the occasional service project, church activity, playdate, visiting teaching, reading my scriptures, building my community, corresponding with my extended family... just thinking about it all makes my head explode.
The worst thing is when I talk to different people, different priorities are hi-lited are hi-lited: "oh, exercise makes you feel so much better and then you can be a better mom!" or "it's so important to read to your children every day! their brains are developing so much and you don't want to miss the window" and "oh I wish I took more photos of my kids when they were small, they grew up so fast and I wish I has some albums!" and "it is so important to do your hair. It affects people's whole attitude about you " and "date nights are really important to your marriage when you have young children, even just a couple times a month are vital" and "you can't afford not to get a flu shot! We can't have you down for a few days" and "even when you're really busy, it's so important to serve others".
I hate feeling frustrated that I can't get to everything, and the last thing that I want to sacrifice as a mom is my temperament. Crabby moms are often doing too much... but it doesn't seem like they have a choice! I brought up my frustrations at a recent Parents of Multiples meeting. On tap was a psychologist who specializes in the stresses of having twins. I was hoping that someone would have tips about how to multi-task or use their time really, really effectively. Au contraire, this lady said that most twin moms seem to be A-type personalities (why is it that we always hear about the A-types... I'd like to hear the B-types or C-types or G-types pipe in every once in awhile...) with these really long list of goals and things we want to do (ahem) and we have to accept that fact that we are only going to be able to get a few of these goals done. Maybe per year. Period. End of story.
For about two seconds I resisted the notion that I had to cut down on my list. But I was too tired to really resist and before I knew it I started letting things go... I still have goals, it's just that I cut back on how much I do them. I only bring out my camera a couple times a week now, I've cut waaay back on scrapbooking, which meant that I had to say good-bye to my Project 365 (I had done it for a year though, I just stopped being insane enough to want to do it for a second year). I style my hair once a month, I only exercise a few minutes here and there, and despite what doctors tell me, I've cut back on how much we see them. I feel bad admitting that I'm so OK with these teensy goals, but for the first time in years my guilt and frustrations have melted away.
Somehow we had a really great Hallowe'en month this year. We missed two fun parties, my hair was super wacky, I had to postpone some doctors appointments, and as you can see I haven't blogged in forever, but I FEEL awesome. When a doctor's appointment ended really early I hadn't stacked my schedule like usual so with our free time we hit the Beverly Hills library and found wonderful Halloween books that set the tone for the whole Halloween month. We planned ahead to go to the pumpkin patch on a free Saturday and didn't schedule anything else that day. I found out about a trick or treat event at a retirement home just a few blocks from us and met up with a bunch of friends for a service project with our kids. Ian took a day off work and we hit Disneyland to check out the decorations, which were awesome, and we enjoyed our family day. And on the 31st it just felt easier to go trick or treating in our neighborhood instead of trunk or treating and Ian and I even dressed up for the first time in years at the request of our kids. (Caleb asked me if I could be Snow White) We met awesome neighbors and the boys had a blast trick or treating. I'm not exactly sure how I did all that, but I know that it had something to do with cutting down my expectations and enjoying my time with my kids. I've decided that whoever says you can do it all is only lying a little. I guess I can do it all, as long as my list only has a couple things on it.