This little guy (above) has been waiting a number of years for these guys (below) to make it to the World Series.
Thank you Texas Rangers for the times I got to spend with my dad listening and watching you play your hearts out.
10.27.2010
10.25.2010
I think she wants to be a cowgirl!
She loves all animals so much right now! Every time she sees one she throws her little pointer finger out and tells us what it is or what sound it makes! Next time you see her, ask her to say elephant, it is our favorite!
10.04.2010
Finding my voice.. or something like that.
I wrote this last week and have debated posting it, but I think the point of the whole thing is that I need to stop being afraid of speaking out, so for the ten people who might still read this blog, I will publish it.
I know most of you are probably laughing inside; could a voice as loud as mine really be lost? But I feel it has, over the past couple years dwindled down at least. While it still carries across a room, the things that carry are less interesting and less honest than they used to be. I have felt that unshakable funk, pulling me down into slothfulness and boredom.. Chalk it up to turning 22, but I'm having a sort of mini-life crisis that has lead to to do some serious soul searching. And I've realized that my voice really has more to do with my self-confidence than anything else, and area of my life I have been faltering in ever since I stumbled into this labyrinth called parenthood and even before then. I used to have a lot of trust in myself, perhaps to a fault. But anyone who went to high school with me will attest, I never let any one tell me what to believe or how to act.Though my father instilled a great conservative spirit in me, I think even he was a tad apprehensive when I related my head-to-head arguments with government and history teachers. My naivete shines through now, but I am still proud of that stalwart girl, who knew with certainty that I WAS right.
Perhaps the hardest thing of all is coming to terms with that fact that things aren't always black and white. I was sure at 18, when I got engaged, that everyone who dismissed me as another one of those girls was wrong. I was intelligent and free-thinking and I would prove the stereotype wrong. If you swear you've heard me say, "I'm just a few credits away from graduating," for two years now, its because you have. I morphed into a 19-year old bride/mother stereotype faster than you can repeat the overused Breed-Em-Young University. Here I sit, just shy of my college degree, unable to get myself to commit the time and patience to getting a couple online credits done. Currently, I'm enrolled in a Food Prep in the home class. One of the questions on each assignment is, "Did you sweep the floors and take out the trash?" Another reads, "Did you wash and replace your linens?" Still more, "Did you eat at a set table?" It does stop short of asking whether I went to the powder room to freshen up my bouffant hair before my spouse got home... Needless to say, it hasn't been the most intellectually stimulating, and I have shirked at the menial, and in my humble, not-much-of-a-feminist opinion, demeaning requirements. So instead of completing a quite simple two credit course, I let it and my education, sit and fester.
For the last year or so, I've shrunk down in embarrassment about these things. Perhaps I should have waited longer to have kids. This is absolutely exhausting. Perhaps I should have known myself better before I got married, figured out what I wanted to BE in life and how to get there. So oftentimes I feel like a failure, because I think often in our culture, we start to believe that we should be completely fulfilled in being wives and mothers, but that isn't the case (for me at least.) I married Chris because I loved him, because he loved me (so unconditionally, I might add, that he puts up with the kind of crap over and over) and because I knew he would hard and take care of me and be exactly the kind of husband that most women can only dream of having as a spouse. I had Claire because we wanted to, and I believed it was a righteous desire and thus pursued it. Those were two decisions that completely embodied that spirit I used to have-- this is me, take it or leave it. And while those remain two of the best decisions of my life, I have started to realize that those decisions did have some of the negative consequences of which I had been warned, and I think I've lost my footing a bit. What I'm trying to come to terms with is that I can be both right and wrong about the decisions of my past, and that doesn't mean I have to give up my good judgment to admit it.
Parenting is hard because I have no idea what I am doing. Right now, Claire is up in her crib talking and banging and in general, just giving me an ulcer. I hate these moments. I hate them more than I imagine most people ever hate them. I just want so badly for her to take a nap and leave me alone for a few minutes, but I don't know how to achieve that. She is tired, right? I think she is tired. But then why is she still talking? Is there too much light in her room? Can she hear the clitter clatter of keys as I type? What will happen when Chris gets home soon? I feel like I am constantly stumbling through the dark, grasping at anything, praying for help. I know this is a huge part of having lost my self-assurance. I have no idea what I am doing.
And so I want to share a little experience, if only to further engrave it in my memory, that I had last week. I'd been doing a lot of studying, something I haven't done in so long, I forgot how incredibly enthralling it could be. Perhaps I would have been better off at a university other than BYU, because I think most of the time I found it too intimidating to voice my opinion and thus just existed in quiet mediocrity. Anyway, I had been reading and studying, and I was feeling, if not enlightened, at least challenged. It was a feeling I hadn't had in so long, and it was empowering. I headed to Wal-Mart with Claire in tow. Now I have one rule with Claire at the grocery store. She can sit in the cart, or she can walk alongside me. The only place I don't want her is in my arms while I struggle with a cart. Of course that often doesn't work, and I am left feeling like a walking stereotype, unable to keep a hold on a kid, flustered, buying a schizophrenic mix of fresh vegetables and preservative laden convenience products. We were in the baking aisle when she decided she wanted to eat the bananas that were in the cart (of course, the one thing I can't prematurely open and feed her, because bananas happen to be charged by weight.) This resulted on her standing awkwardly on the cart while I pushed it. (She's still making a fuss upstairs. Should I go get her? Could she be pookie? Or is she just about ready to give up the fight and checking on her will only disturb the process? See- I'm lost.)
Anyway, as I pushed the cart past the chocolate chips and pre-chopped walnuts, an older man watched us knowingly as only a 65 year old man in a red tank top could. He then leaned down real close to Claire and said, "All you're doing there is making yourself red." First off, I'm not even sure what he meant by this, because it contradicts what he said later, but I assume he meant that her fussing and screaming to get to the bananas was counter-productive. I ignored his insight and went on my way.
Come the next aisle, there is creepy man again. At this point I am gratefully relieved because Claire has allowed me to put her in the cart's seat, and we are moving quickly and efficiently. So red-tank top man says, "I see who is in charge there." Now, Taylor V 2.0 would have walked away, ashamed and embarrassed, but I had just started running a beta copy of V 3.0 and I wasn't going to put up with it.
"What do you mean?" I snapped back.
"Well she got her way, didn't she? She's sitting in the cart."
"Not exactly, that cart is where I want her, so she actually got exactly the opposite."
"Oh, well, I, Um..."
And so with one last push out of the aisle I persisted, "Yeah, I'm the one in charge here."
Now, this isn't groundbreaking to most of you, but it was to me. Because I feel like I've spent a lot of time beating myself up for not being in charge of my life, and yet, in that aisle, while accusing me of being taken by a 19 month old, Creepy Old Man tried to let me be taken by him. And he didn't win. I was in charge.
I don't suppose most of this makes much sense, but perhaps you can glean a thing or two from it. I guess what is is important to me is that it is okay to be a bit of a stereotype. I did get married at 19, have a kid at 20, and leave college just a little too early, but that doesn't make my opinion worthless. It doesn't make me less of a person. I have an amazing husband, a pretty remarkable daughter, and I can still be an educated person even if I did rush it a bit. I'd say compared to most, my life isn't too shabby. Most importantly, being a partial stereotype doesn't mean I have to buy into the whole thing. I will finish school, and soon, Dad. And if I choose to keep going, I hope that circumstances will allow. Above all, I don't have to lose my voice just because it may have been wrong a couple times, or just because I'm not quite sure all the time. Things are not black and white, there are many different shades of gray in between, and it is entirely up to me to replace those monochromatic moments with bright and vivid colors.
(Okay she wins, I got her out of the crib. Shoot, forgot to turn the movement monitor off...)
I know most of you are probably laughing inside; could a voice as loud as mine really be lost? But I feel it has, over the past couple years dwindled down at least. While it still carries across a room, the things that carry are less interesting and less honest than they used to be. I have felt that unshakable funk, pulling me down into slothfulness and boredom.. Chalk it up to turning 22, but I'm having a sort of mini-life crisis that has lead to to do some serious soul searching. And I've realized that my voice really has more to do with my self-confidence than anything else, and area of my life I have been faltering in ever since I stumbled into this labyrinth called parenthood and even before then. I used to have a lot of trust in myself, perhaps to a fault. But anyone who went to high school with me will attest, I never let any one tell me what to believe or how to act.Though my father instilled a great conservative spirit in me, I think even he was a tad apprehensive when I related my head-to-head arguments with government and history teachers. My naivete shines through now, but I am still proud of that stalwart girl, who knew with certainty that I WAS right.
Perhaps the hardest thing of all is coming to terms with that fact that things aren't always black and white. I was sure at 18, when I got engaged, that everyone who dismissed me as another one of those girls was wrong. I was intelligent and free-thinking and I would prove the stereotype wrong. If you swear you've heard me say, "I'm just a few credits away from graduating," for two years now, its because you have. I morphed into a 19-year old bride/mother stereotype faster than you can repeat the overused Breed-Em-Young University. Here I sit, just shy of my college degree, unable to get myself to commit the time and patience to getting a couple online credits done. Currently, I'm enrolled in a Food Prep in the home class. One of the questions on each assignment is, "Did you sweep the floors and take out the trash?" Another reads, "Did you wash and replace your linens?" Still more, "Did you eat at a set table?" It does stop short of asking whether I went to the powder room to freshen up my bouffant hair before my spouse got home... Needless to say, it hasn't been the most intellectually stimulating, and I have shirked at the menial, and in my humble, not-much-of-a-feminist opinion, demeaning requirements. So instead of completing a quite simple two credit course, I let it and my education, sit and fester.
For the last year or so, I've shrunk down in embarrassment about these things. Perhaps I should have waited longer to have kids. This is absolutely exhausting. Perhaps I should have known myself better before I got married, figured out what I wanted to BE in life and how to get there. So oftentimes I feel like a failure, because I think often in our culture, we start to believe that we should be completely fulfilled in being wives and mothers, but that isn't the case (for me at least.) I married Chris because I loved him, because he loved me (so unconditionally, I might add, that he puts up with the kind of crap over and over) and because I knew he would hard and take care of me and be exactly the kind of husband that most women can only dream of having as a spouse. I had Claire because we wanted to, and I believed it was a righteous desire and thus pursued it. Those were two decisions that completely embodied that spirit I used to have-- this is me, take it or leave it. And while those remain two of the best decisions of my life, I have started to realize that those decisions did have some of the negative consequences of which I had been warned, and I think I've lost my footing a bit. What I'm trying to come to terms with is that I can be both right and wrong about the decisions of my past, and that doesn't mean I have to give up my good judgment to admit it.
Parenting is hard because I have no idea what I am doing. Right now, Claire is up in her crib talking and banging and in general, just giving me an ulcer. I hate these moments. I hate them more than I imagine most people ever hate them. I just want so badly for her to take a nap and leave me alone for a few minutes, but I don't know how to achieve that. She is tired, right? I think she is tired. But then why is she still talking? Is there too much light in her room? Can she hear the clitter clatter of keys as I type? What will happen when Chris gets home soon? I feel like I am constantly stumbling through the dark, grasping at anything, praying for help. I know this is a huge part of having lost my self-assurance. I have no idea what I am doing.
And so I want to share a little experience, if only to further engrave it in my memory, that I had last week. I'd been doing a lot of studying, something I haven't done in so long, I forgot how incredibly enthralling it could be. Perhaps I would have been better off at a university other than BYU, because I think most of the time I found it too intimidating to voice my opinion and thus just existed in quiet mediocrity. Anyway, I had been reading and studying, and I was feeling, if not enlightened, at least challenged. It was a feeling I hadn't had in so long, and it was empowering. I headed to Wal-Mart with Claire in tow. Now I have one rule with Claire at the grocery store. She can sit in the cart, or she can walk alongside me. The only place I don't want her is in my arms while I struggle with a cart. Of course that often doesn't work, and I am left feeling like a walking stereotype, unable to keep a hold on a kid, flustered, buying a schizophrenic mix of fresh vegetables and preservative laden convenience products. We were in the baking aisle when she decided she wanted to eat the bananas that were in the cart (of course, the one thing I can't prematurely open and feed her, because bananas happen to be charged by weight.) This resulted on her standing awkwardly on the cart while I pushed it. (She's still making a fuss upstairs. Should I go get her? Could she be pookie? Or is she just about ready to give up the fight and checking on her will only disturb the process? See- I'm lost.)
Anyway, as I pushed the cart past the chocolate chips and pre-chopped walnuts, an older man watched us knowingly as only a 65 year old man in a red tank top could. He then leaned down real close to Claire and said, "All you're doing there is making yourself red." First off, I'm not even sure what he meant by this, because it contradicts what he said later, but I assume he meant that her fussing and screaming to get to the bananas was counter-productive. I ignored his insight and went on my way.
Come the next aisle, there is creepy man again. At this point I am gratefully relieved because Claire has allowed me to put her in the cart's seat, and we are moving quickly and efficiently. So red-tank top man says, "I see who is in charge there." Now, Taylor V 2.0 would have walked away, ashamed and embarrassed, but I had just started running a beta copy of V 3.0 and I wasn't going to put up with it.
"What do you mean?" I snapped back.
"Well she got her way, didn't she? She's sitting in the cart."
"Not exactly, that cart is where I want her, so she actually got exactly the opposite."
"Oh, well, I, Um..."
And so with one last push out of the aisle I persisted, "Yeah, I'm the one in charge here."
Now, this isn't groundbreaking to most of you, but it was to me. Because I feel like I've spent a lot of time beating myself up for not being in charge of my life, and yet, in that aisle, while accusing me of being taken by a 19 month old, Creepy Old Man tried to let me be taken by him. And he didn't win. I was in charge.
I don't suppose most of this makes much sense, but perhaps you can glean a thing or two from it. I guess what is is important to me is that it is okay to be a bit of a stereotype. I did get married at 19, have a kid at 20, and leave college just a little too early, but that doesn't make my opinion worthless. It doesn't make me less of a person. I have an amazing husband, a pretty remarkable daughter, and I can still be an educated person even if I did rush it a bit. I'd say compared to most, my life isn't too shabby. Most importantly, being a partial stereotype doesn't mean I have to buy into the whole thing. I will finish school, and soon, Dad. And if I choose to keep going, I hope that circumstances will allow. Above all, I don't have to lose my voice just because it may have been wrong a couple times, or just because I'm not quite sure all the time. Things are not black and white, there are many different shades of gray in between, and it is entirely up to me to replace those monochromatic moments with bright and vivid colors.
(Okay she wins, I got her out of the crib. Shoot, forgot to turn the movement monitor off...)
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