A Mother's Arms are Filled with Many Things

Around 10:00 on Thanksgiving morning, just as I finished watching the Macy's Parade and dreaming of the day Shulamith and I can visit New York City and see it in person, I headed out to the convenience store down the street to get a newspaper for the Black Friday ads and Diet Cokes on ice for Shulamith and me. For the record, we generally wait until later in the day to drink Diet Coke; in the morning we really try to drink water. But holidays are exceptions, right? Right. It would not have occurred to me to take Shulamith's baby with me on this little jaunt, except that for some reason, he really wanted to go. He wanted to go so much that he literally followed me down the stairs, sliding on his tummy like toddlers do, and then attempted to follow me out the door, waving bye-bye to everyone in the house. Well what could I do if it was that important to him? I picked him up and put him in the car.

Inside the store, I put him down to fill our drinks and grab the newspaper, and as I was paying, I wondered just how difficult it might be to get back out to my car with two large Diet Cokes, a giant newspaper filled with Black Friday ads, and Swen! Just as I decided I would need to make two trips, a kind man behind me said, "I'll carry those drinks out for you," and he picked them right up. On our way out to my car, he continued, "A mother's arms are filled with many things."

Indeed they are. In this case, he meant that literally, and it's true literally; it's often so very true. Our arms are filled with dishes and laundry and irons and toys and homework and backpacks and lunch boxes and missing socks and, of course, babies! But it also occurred to me that this man's statement is also true figuratively. A mother's arms are filled with many things:

Sometimes, they are filled with worry. Yesterday was the first real storm of the season, and we awoke to a blanket of beautiful white snow but also treacherous driving conditions. I immediately thought about Isaiah, whose car doesn't handle all that well in the snow, driving to school and work and wherever else he needed to go. I texted him. I did. I try really, really hard not to bother my adult children with texts and calls. I rarely initiate contact with any of them; I figure they'll get in touch with me if they want to. But in this case, I deviated from that standard and texted Isaiah. Because I was worried. He texted right back saying he was indeed out and, yes, road conditions were awful, but he was being careful. A mother's arms are sometimes filled with worry.

Other times they are filled with angst. It's not exactly the same as worry. It's that feeling of dread just before our children are about to perform in a recital or play in a soccer game or cheer at a state tournament or dance in The Nutcracker. We so desperately want them to do well, to excel in their chosen activity, and most importantly to feel good about it. We say a silent prayer for them, and we sit frozen on the edge of our seats. I experienced this feeling just last night at Seth's holiday piano recital. He had worked so hard on his two pieces, and I wanted that effort to be rewarded with his best performance. It was. He played beautifully. But as always, I sat with my hands clinched together, praying for every single note to be correct. A mother's arms are sometimes filled with angst.

Other times they are filled with pride and joy. Whether its our kindergartner dressed as a shepherd in the Christmas pageant, our 3rd grader playing Ebenezer Scrooge in his class production of A Christmas Carol, our 8th grader representing his school at the state spelling bee, or our senior in high school singing a solo in his high school's production of Brigadoon, nothing fully describes the joy that fills our bodies from head to toe as we watch our children do whatever it is they do. Even when we don't get to watch in person, the feeling is the same. Just the other day, a church member from Tennessee, whose friend is taking the missionary discussions, posted a picture of Eli at church with this gentleman, and included these words: "I'm so grateful I can trust my friends Elders Webster and Hadlock to teach my friend, Tom, the truths of the restored gospel." Yes, sometimes a mother's hands are filled with pride and joy.

Other times they are filled with sorrow. As the saying goes, "A mother is only ever as happy as her saddest child." If we could, we would shield them from all of it. All the pain. All the disappointment. All the fear. All the judgment. All the danger. We would gladly take it all ourselves if we could only protect them. But of course that's not possible, so instead we live it right along with them. We hurt when they hurt. We cry when they cry. We are their advocates always, their soft place to fall, their forever friends.

Always, our hands are filled with gratitude. Though it is the hardest job we will ever do, much harder than we ever imagined, motherhood is the best job, the very best, and every day we give thanks for the opportunity to raise these precious children. And always, our hands are filled with hope because no one sees more clearly the potential in these beautiful little people than we, their moms. And always, our hands are filled with love, a love like no other, a love we never before thought ourselves capable of. For sure, it's the closest thing in life to understanding God.

A mother's hands are filled with many things.

I Am Thankful, Indeed!

 It is now nearly 11:00 p.m. on Thanksgiving night. The house is quiet, other than the occasional shout from Seth's bedroom where he and Isaiah are playing video-games. I am tired. It's a good kind of tired, the kind that comes from a full day of fun, but I'm tired nonetheless. This will be my final "thankful" post of 2013. I'm thankful for many things this day. For one, I'm thankful for sweet sister missionaries, who stopped by today just to take this photo (above) for us.

Also, after moving our Thanksgiving dinner and celebration to a different day for the past three years in order to accommodate various schedules, I'm thankful we got to have Thanksgiving on the "real" day this year. Moving the day worked out okay, and I expect we will do it again some year if need be, but this year it was just really nice to celebrate Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving. Really nice.

I'm thankful for extra help cooking! Shulamith and I always cook Thanksgiving dinner together, but today we had extra help from her baby, Swen.

I'm thankful for food that actually turned out. This doesn't happen often. See, who says Shulamith and I can't be "Mollys" if we want to?

I'm thankful for this pretty table. When you only set the table about once a year, you have to make it count.

I'm thankful for Black Friday sales, which for some reason now begin on Thursday. And yes, I realize there is quite a lot of controversy surrounding the retail industry choosing to open its doors on Thanksgiving afternoon, rather than waiting until Friday morning. How do I feel about this? I guess I wish they would wait until Friday. However, my conviction was not strong enough to keep me out of the stores today. You see, I have five children for whom I need to buy Christmas gifts, on a limited budget. And a sale is a sale is a sale! So about 5:30, Shulamith and Swen and I braved the crowds in attempt to get just a few outstanding deals. Here we are waiting outside Target in a crazy long line:

We will still go tomorrow morning, just not as early as we usually do. We will still get hot chocolate at Starbucks. We will still get breakfast at McDonald's. We just won't do these things at 6:00 a.m. We will shop and eat and laugh and shop some more. We will listen to the first noon Christmas concert of the season. It will be good. It will be very good. And it will be soon since it's now already nearly 11:30. I'd better go to sleep.

Lastly, I'm thankful to every one of you who reads my blog. It makes me happy that others enjoy what I write. Happy, happy Thanksgiving to all! 

The Power of Intermittent Reinforcement

Psychologists tell us that intermittent reinforcement is the strongest of all types. Indeed, it keeps the casinos in Las Vegas thriving. It keeps the convenience store in Malad, Idaho, just over the Utah/Idaho state line, in business, with Utahns eager to buy lottery tickets, which cannot be purchased in Utah. But since I don't gamble or buy lottery tickets, I never fully understood the power of intermittent reinforcement. Until now.

You see, I own this "possessed" computer. It turns on when it wants to. When it doesn't want to, sucks for me. It doesn't matter if I have a set of grades to enter, or an email to write to my missionary, or my bank account to balance, or a blog post to upload, or some simple Facebook time to waste; if the thing doesn't want to turn on, it won't. And just how long will it be before it comes on again? Who knows? It might be a couple minutes. It might be a couple hours. It might be a couple days. But always, at some point, it comes back on. Yep, intermittent reinforcement, aka "hope."

Intermittent reinforcement provides hope. It worked before. It will work again. I just need to keep trying. I won before. I will win again. I just need to keep playing. I totally get it now. Twice in the past few months, Gerald has texted me, "It's totally dead now. Forever. Seriously." But both times it has mysteriously resurrected, and yes, it is the very computer I am typing on right this second.

This is SO frustrating. I need a computer that works, not some of the time, not most of the time, but all of the time. And were it not for intermittent reinforcement, that is if I didn't know it would eventually come back on, I would have replaced it months ago. Earlier today, I nearly tossed it out the window with the sentiment "WOULD YOU JUST DIE ALREADY?!"

So Saturday, Gerald and I went to Best Buy to look at alternatives. I'm drawn to the new tablets that convert to laptops. Way cool! We looked at the Microsoft Surface Pro, but Gerald also thought I should check out the Asus Transformer T-100, which is brand new. Best Buy had received stock but had not yet set up a display, so I have to wait a couple days to try it.

It's okay. Because for right now, my computer is working. Until it decides not to.

Intermittent Reinforcement - clearly the strongest of all types.

Speed Dating

One of my missionary mom friends recently wrote as her Facebook status: "I just got home from speed dating, aka middle school parent-teacher conferences." I laughed out loud. I had just that night returned from "speed dating" myself. I had circulated the gym of Seth's middle school, visiting seven different teachers, each for between 5 and 10 minutes, and then moving on. It was tiring enough for me; just imagine how exhausting it must have been for those poor teachers, who had been at school since 7:30 that morning, making a 12-hour day. Yikes!

As I was walking from "date" to "date," I overheard one mom say to her husband (I presume), "Let's go see the P.E. teacher. Maybe we can find some good news there." In that moment, I stopped momentarily and thanked Heavenly Father that all my children have been such good students. I honestly have no idea how it would feel to encounter bad news at a parent-teacher conference. I knew Seth was doing well academically because we already had his grades from the first trimester. Nope, he didn't quite reach his goal of all A's; he got one B+ in Utah History because it's "so boring." Ah well.

More important than grades, though, it was pure delight to hear all the kind comments from Seth's teachers. One "date" after the other, they spoke of a wonderful kid, so cooperative, so helpful, with such a great attitude and mature sense of humor. Yep, that's my Seth! The whole experience was any mom's dream. I was particularly interested in two "dates":

Because Seth had a difficult experience last year in P.E., and because this year has been so much different, I was anxious to "date" his P.E. teacher. I walked up to his table, sat down across from him, speed dating style, and said, "I'm Seth Erichsen's mom." Without even a pause, he replied: "Seth! Superstar athlete. Best kid ever." Wait...no. No. "You must be thinking of someone else," I countered. "He's definitely not a superstar athlete," to which he responded, "In my class, if a kid shows up, dresses out for P.E., maintains a positive attitude and tries his best every day, he's a superstar athlete to me." Enough said.

I quickly moved on to my final "speed date," the science teacher. I was especially interested in "dating" her because of Seth's constant, unadulterated praise. According to Seth, she is the "best teacher in the entire world," the best one he has ever had in any grade in any subject the whole eight years he has been in school. Now you'd have to know Seth to know that this says a lot, a whole lot. Seth does not just hand out compliments willy nilly; he is not easy to impress. But this teacher clearly has his attention, and I wanted to know why. Aside from the fact that he finished the trimester with 104.5% in her class, I could see right away why he likes her so much. She was energetic (even at nearly 8:00 p.m on "speed dating" night) and so enthusiastic about her curriculum that even I was interested in science, I, a full on, right-brained, touchy-feely English major!

About then the clock struck 8:00 p.m., and the "dating" was over. Until next time.

Here Ya Go, Gerald and Shulamith!

I always get the sweetest positive comments about my blog posts from both Gerald and Shulamith. They are my cheerleaders; they read every word, and they always like what I write. Unfortunately, this was not the case with my most recent post. "Why not?" you might ask. Turns out they felt left out because I didn't mention the two of them in the list of what I was thankful for. I explained that it was just one "thankful" post, that there would be others. I also reminded them that I didn't mention all our family members in that post either, only Seth. But apparently, these explanations were not sufficient.

Therefore, here is my second "thankful" post, a tribute to Gerald and Shulamith, because truly, I am grateful beyond belief for these two people.

 Let's begin with Gerald:

Most of all, I am thankful for the kind and gentle father he is to our children. They will never know memories of a dad who dealt harshly with them, not ever, not in any way. They know for sure that always, from the time they were tiny right up to now, they have his unwavering and constant support. They never have to wonder whose side he's on as they face an often unjust and unkind world. He is on their side. Always. He is eager to help them with whatever they need, whenever they need it, even with math assignments in the early morning. Just today I awoke to find him and Seth at the kitchen counter working through Seth's math homework. Shulamith claims she would never have made it through high school chemistry without her dad to talk her through the problems and formulas. I can edit their essays till the cows come home, but higher math and chemistry I cannot do.

I'm thankful for his willingness to work so hard to support our family, so I can be primarily an at-home mom and raise our children, even when that means he needs two jobs. That is a rare gift these days. Even now, when our youngest is 13, I value the privilege to work only very part time.

I am grateful for his natural spelling ability. Not kidding. I tell my students when they are in the market for a spouse, they should first consider character,  personal testimony of the Gospel, commitment to righteous principles, sense of humor, and yes...physical attraction. But they also might want to consider adding spelling ability to the list. I can't begin to tell you how handy it is to be able to say "How do you spell _______________?" and instantly have the word spelled for me. Seriously convenient!

I am also so thankful for his knowledge and understanding of all things political. Whenever I have a question or need something explained to me, he can do it in a way that I understand. It helps that we agree about politics; it would be tough for me to be married to someone with differing views. 

I am thankful for his testimony of the Gospel and his constancy in living its principles.This has provided a solid role model for our children throughout their lives.

Now to Shulamith:

I am thankful for the sweet, funny, optimistic person that she is. The glass is always half full in her world. I am not like that, and I admire it in her.

I'm grateful for her amazing problem-solving skills. Whenever I have a problem, she has the answer. She somehow always knows a way to work it out perfectly. The girl is seriously Olivia Pope II. (Note, if you don't watch Scandal, you should!)

I'm forever grateful for her help raising my children. That might sound funny, but I honestly don't know how I ever had children before I had her to help me raise them. When Isaiah was born, she was five. From the very start, she was my little Mommy's Helper, and it was the same when Eli was born two years later, and to this day she feels quite "motherly" toward both of them. When she was 14, I had Seth, and she was automatically his second mommy. I hope I have been able to partially repay her this past year and a half with her own little baby.

Mostly, I'm thankful she grew up to be my best friend. Neither of us was blessed with sisters, although I gave it my best shot to get her one, so I think we fulfill that sister/friend role for each other. It's the best. Our days are not that exciting, mostly just the normal stuff of living, but everything we do is more fun together.

So there ya go, Gerald and Shulamith. You are now included in my "thankful" blogs.

Thankful, Just Not Every Day

Many of my Facebook friends are sharing something they are thankful for as their statuses each day in November. While I think this is a wonderful idea and I love reading what they write, I opt not to do that myself. I am thankful. Just not every day. Wait, no. That's not right. I'm thankful every day; I'm just not going to post about it every day. There we go. Whew!

Instead, I will just do it whenever I happen to feel like it. Maybe even now.

Tonight, I'm especially thankful for Seth, who lies across the room from me on the couch, all set to read scriptures whenever I'm ready. Together, he and I have read the Book of Mormon this year, well almost. We will finish on Dec. 31st. Both of us have learned much and grown closer to the Savior and to each other.

I am also thankful for the sweet dog who lies next to him. Kitty is the most patient creature I know. Never does she complain, even when Baby Swen (who is learning body parts) pokes her in the eyes and nose and mouth and says, "eyes, nose, mouth."

I am thankful for persistent, hardworking students, who have been emailing me back and forth all evening, working to get their thesis statements crafted and approved so they can draft essays. This is not easy for them, and they don't give up!

I am thankful for the Internet, for so many reasons, but most importantly so I can email my missionary every Monday, so he knows I love him and think about him always.

I am thankful for the vast array of technology, including the Internet, which makes it possible for me to be in touch with my friends, even though they don't live near me. I still feel isolated sometimes, but not nearly as much as I would without all these wonderful tools.

I am thankful for Christmas music, which is already playing at my house and in my car (my own Pandora Christmas station) and on my piano, as Seth learns his music for the Christmas recital.

I am thankful for a long walk in the rain yesterday morning. I was able to be out for an entire hour, and it never stopped raining. How lovely!

I am thankful that See's was sold out of maple pecan bon bons tonight when Seth and I stopped by, because I am on my healthy eating plan between my birthday and Thanksgiving, so I couldn't have had one anyway.

I am thankful for my warm, comfortable bed and for sleep, one of my very favorite activities. I think it's time now.

I will write more about the many things I'm thankful for. Just not every day.

The Wrong Side of the Door OR Making New Halloween Traditions

This was the second year I have not taken a child trick-or-treating. Last year, Seth asked if he could go with his friends. He was 12 and in the 7th grade. It was time. So dressed as a fairy in a pink tutu and looking every bit as ridiculous as that sounds, off he went with a group of his friends from church. I waved goodbye, longingly, the words "Be safe; watch for cars!" on my lips. For 25 years in a row, I had taken one or more of my children trick-or-treating. How could it be over?

One year later, I'm still not fond of this whole deal. It doesn't feel right. But instead of whining any further, I decided to take control of the situation and make some new Halloween traditions. I am moving forward. Halloween can still be fun, right? Who am I trying to convince? Yep, myself.

First tradition, breakfast at Einstein's to start the day. With a blueberry bagel in one hand and a nana in the other, Swen was momentarily distracted from the garbage can. He prefers garbage cans to just about anything else in the world.

Next stop was Target to do some early Christmas shopping. Oooh, I am so excited! I know, I know. Lots of people don't even want to hear the word "Christmas" this early, but for me, the season cannot come fast enough. The music, the decorations, the lights, the presents---I love everything! Wait. Okay, yes. It's still October. The spotlight is Halloween and new traditions. Stay focused, Terrianne. We headed home to get Swen down for his nap. Once he was sound asleep with Gerald upstairs to listen for him, we were off to our next new Halloween tradition: massages. Ahhhhhhh!

How relaxed and refreshed do we look, even with oily hair (mine, that is; Shulamith was smart enough to tie hers back) and wearing workout clothes? If I were wealthy, massage is a luxury I would indulge in regularly. I am not. Instead, we do it maybe twice a year, and from now on, Halloween will be one of those times.

We ate lunch and arrived home barely in time for me to go teach one lesson with the sisters before the next new tradition: trick-or-treating at the mall. This was my only chance to be with Seth for just a bit before he left for a night of intense candy retrieval and consumption. He looks in pretty bad shape here. His "back story" is how he was hit by a car and thrown 30 feel into the air. I think this is a tribute to the time back in December when he actually was hit by a car, though he escaped that incident virtually unscathed.

All too soon we were home again, Seth was gone, and tiny goblins of all varieties were ringing my doorbell, one after the other. It was so weird. Each time I answered, I thought, "I'm on the wrong side of the door. I'm supposed to be out there on the sidewalk watching my kids trick-or-treat. This is all just very wrong."

Forward. New Halloween traditions. I can do this.

It is now 9:30. The doorbell has ceased ringing. I sit in a way too quiet home, my lighted witch glowing in the window, my depleted bowl of candy on the coffee table. I await Seth's safe return, anxious to hear his Halloween tales, every last one. Seth. My baby. My very last child. My brand new teenager, who no longer needs his mom to take him trick-or-treating.