Initiating Metamorphosis

I got on the computer to post a blog entry with a heavy heart this morning, but while I was on G-mail Dad logged on and between chatting with him and writing to Mys,  my heart no longer feels so heavy and I can write my feelings without weeping.

It has been a long, emotionally draining week.  After the accident on Sunday and the blessings of Monday morning, I re bandaged Lily's wound, and though I tried to do what Fred instructed, I just don't have his skill and it was in such an awkward place, that by the time he got home and checked it, Lily's wound had opened up more than it should have and healed enough where he couldn't get it completely closed again.  She's fine, my family is fine, but it has been excruciating for me on so many different levels and has "compelled [me] to be humble" and vulnerable enough to learn (or at least begin to see the need for and have the desire to want to learn) some hard lessons about pride.  (I keep thinking I have learned those particular lessons on a profound level and then a deeper level gets unearthed, and I am starting to fear the vastness of an abysmal weakness)  Mys answered some important questions I didn't even know how to ask, in a way that only she can and Fred and my children have spent some good hours helping me to "see" more clearly, and "answers" seem to be springing from everywhere, but honestly I feel like a selfish little child, that barely comprehends, but doesn't quite know how to internalize all the wisdom around me.  I have some Personal Progress goals, in this focus, that are supposed to take two weeks, and which I have been working on since last March without satisfactory progression, but which I finally feel like I am moving on.  It feels welcome, in a painful, ripping, wrenching sort of way.  I am so grateful that I am surrounded by patient, loving, compassionate people who know how "succor the weak", and who are being guided by a Savior who feels it all and perfectly guides, when we are willing to listen and try to obey.  Enough about me.

(Lily healing)

Jordan has come pleading (not so much in words, but in his eyes) for permission to go to BYU-I for Valentines weekend.  He has set some financial and personal missionary prep. goals to accomplish, as a preliminary investment, to offset the "expense", and has good motivation to propel him forward, so we are trying to encourage his success in fulfilling them.  He's committed to doing some hard things and it's exciting to watch him push himself into more of a missionary lifestyle.  These months of separation have been good for him, hard on us, but so important and beneficial and inspired in thier emotional preparation for our family.  Just the thought of Jordan leaving on his mission used to bring me to tears.  I know those few minutes where he walks out one door and we walk out the other in the MTC will still be fraught with emotion, but the thoughts now bring so much excitement and anticipation as well, and I can hardly wait for the time to come, because I know this experience is so vital for his spiritual growth right now, and what he can experience at home, with us is no longer enough.  I guess that means he's ready to fly and we're ready to push him and I never could imagine that I would ever be ready to push.  It is a happy change.

In the middle of January, we are being teased with tastes of Spring.  There have been a few days where the sun was shining in such a bright and happy way, that my children succumbed to the temptation to run around outside barefoot (though they came in with very cold feet) and I was even convinced to go out, on my way to the car, without my wool coat on.  I know winter will come back upon us with a vengeance, before it gives up, and I am preparing my stacks of seed catalogs and garden books for those blustery days, but my heart has no more allegiance to Mr. Winter.  I sense that Mikayla's loyalty is waning and Fred is starting to talk of vacations, so I think we are all fleeing to the meadows in our minds.

Lily and Sophie are learning to read and it is an exciting new world to them.  What an amazing gift of exploration we can attain at such an early age.

Abe's hours seem to be spent divided between reading, Lego's, happily beating on (which actually ends up being happily beaten by)  Jordan, and Star Wars imagination and "research" which we never encouraged and which we have curtailed for the time being with library book restrictions and encouragements in other areas :) Getting inside his mind continues to be an enlightening, adventurous challenge for me

Mikayla and Eden continue to be as different as two sisters ever were, complimently each other and our family perfectly and both infusing the house with trails of beautiful smells of residual Bath and Body sprays wherever they go, reminding us of the blessings of "Sugar and spice and everything nice".

Fred continues to amaze me with his strengths, which are my greatest weaknesses and his arms that continue to spread wider as the years go by to encompass me and all of my extensive baggage.  I am, and will always be, forever his girl.