Liam and Spencer doing their thing. 

Heidi and Addie slept all the way from Ashton to Bozeman--about 2 hours--and they were so cheerful the last 45 minutes of the drive.

We got home to Livingston about 4pm and we stopped at the office first to say hi to Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa. The girls were so excited to see their daddy--they just about jumped out of their seats! Ahhh, home sweet home! 

The Best Boy in the World

Last night at my brother's house in Herriman, I was laying on the queen mattress on the floor in niece Melanie's room trying to get my two darlings to sleep. Addie was playing with my wedding ring and she asked (as she always does when she notices my ring), "Hey, mom...who married you?"

"Daddy did!"

"In the temple?"

"Yes."

"And who married Daddy?"

"Me."

"Oh, I want to get married in the temple and get my ring."

"Who are you gonna marry?"

"Heidi"

"Nope, you have to marry a boy."

"Then I will marry daddy."

"Nope. I already married Daddy. You will have to find you own boy, a boy who is little right now and will grow up with you, who's your friend. When you grow up, you can marry him in the temple. Do you know a nice little boy?"

[She thought for a few seconds...] "Ummmm, no. Just Daddy. I'll have to marry Daddy. He's the best boy in the whole world."

Awww. Could that break your heart?

Addie is getting to be best pals with her cousins, especially Liam. And a few nights ago, we were singing the "Latter-Day Prophets" song to get to sleep, and we sang "David O. McKay was followed by Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee, Spencer W. Kimball---wait! Mom! SPENCER! We said SPENCER! That's our baby boy name!" By "Our baby boy" she means my brother's baby boy, Spencer, who turned one last week. Funny girl.

We head home to Montana tomorrow, but not before tonight's big family dinner---Jill and Audrey's Lasagne Cook-off and Spencer's very belated birthday. My family rocks and I couldn't have better sibings and inlaws (or cousins, for that matter--Brenty Bobbins is here, too). It makes the first 20 years worth it!

We have had a blast but are very excited to see our daddy and start packing up our apartment for the move which will (I have faith!) come eventually! Richy-baby, here we come! Hope you got some sleep cuz the girls are back in town!

Photo travel log soon to follow.

Still Utarded

Last night on the NBC Nightly News, the teaser question said something like, "The Middle East Democracy Movement: How much credit can President Bush take? Some say the ground work was already laid and he's just lucky..." blah, blah, blah. Um, okay--I can answer that: The amount of credit Bush can take for democracy in the ME is equal to the blame he'd have to take if it didn't work. Take that, stupid network news.

Anyway--yeah, I am still in Utah. It's been fun getting Will and Audrey all settled and just puttin' around doing my thing. I could yammer on and on with a travel log (and I might later), but I just wanted to post some tidbits tonight.

1. Rich was here over the weekend and we went to Home Depot (because we don't know what else to do when we are together anymore). There we saw a very white woman with a bright red afro, except only the front was a 'fro--in the back there was a long silky ponytail curled into a long ringlet and tied with a big green satin bow. After we walked by her, Rich said, "Oh, Happy Birthday....that was poodle-rific!"

2. Addie said she likes Liam's mom (my sis-in-law Audrey) better than me because, "She's not scary."

3. When we were really tired the other night, Audrey said she didn't even have a coat for Melanie to wear to school. Michael said, "Well, it's a good thing it's almost dinner time" when he meant to say, "It's a good thing it's almost summertime." It was funny at midnight.

4. Tonight we looked at Brent's silly picture on his blog and laughed our bums off--when Addie saw it she giggled and said, "[sighing] Aw, that's my Brenty!"

He's everybody's Brenty, Addie. That's the beauty of Brent--and if Brent gets to live in Willy's basement, I am gonna be so jealous. Then the Postie kids can sing the "Charles In Charge" song all the time. Or, "It's a Jolly Holiday with Brenty, no wonder that it's Brenty that we love!" BRENTY BOBBINS! We adore you! It was so fun watching Arrested Development with you--it makes our family look normal!

And speaking of Posties, my brother Sam has left Clan Post. He is officially (once again) Samuel Christopher Layton. He changed his name back to our biological dad's name this month, and Gram says he even got a new Social Security Card. Cool.

More later...

My Destiny

Sunday night, watching old videos recently transfered to DVD at Willy's house, we notice footage of me washing dishes is Provo (circa 1991)--twice, two different houses. Later, different DVD, I am washing dishes in Tucson. Everybody notices and laughs, "There's Jamie, doing dishes again." I say, "Duh, why do you think I was born?" More laughs. Later, another video of Willy's hike in Sierra Vista, I note--"Well, at least I'm not doing dishes." Willy quips, "You probably are, you're just not being video taped." An uproar of laughter. We laugh because it's so sad and so true.

A Little Bit More Crazy

If I was going crazy back home, I have officially arrived there. What's my definition? TEN KIDS UNDER 6 in about 1200 square feet of space. Um, yeah--not exactly a "Calgon" moment--EVER. Thankfully, I am actually "staying" at my sister's mother-in-law's spare basement apartment, which is dark and quiet at all times, but my girls hate it there. They scream and they cry for their dad. So we hang out here at COUSIN CENTRAL and endure the joyful ruckus.

Speaking of crying, Heidi goes into to total freak-out mode when she sees Aunt Amy! (not AMIE--Auntie Polka Dots; AMY, my sister) If Amy even walks through the room, Heidi goes bonkers. Funny, but also kinda sad.

I miss my husband sumthin fierce (especially when the girls cry for him at night) but I am excited to shop for house stuff here and hang with my sibs.

I don't have any fun travel tales to tell because we have mostly just been wrangling kids and continually doing laundry and dishes. Oh, but there is this tidbit: I left my debit card in Bozeman when we bought breakfast on Monday morning (and didn't notice until I had driven 200 miles to the south end of Island Park, Idaho), so I had my dad meet me in Pocatello to fill up my gas tank (thanks, dad!) and kept on truckin. I haven't had any money so I have really been homebound, which I am sure gives Rich some peace of mind. But it sucks for me cuz my bro had to spot me for stamps and sippy cups and I have to mooch food off my sister. That's what family's for I suppose, but I will be happy when the card arrives tomorrow.

Right this minute, my sister whose house this is, is at the store with my wisdom-toothless brother picking up his pain meds, my girls are wrestling in the Pack-n-Play here next to me, and My bro Will and his wife Audrey (who are STILL waiting to move into their new house) are wrangling the other kids and cleaning up their Mac-n-Cheez dinner. A snapshot of our glamorous Utah vacation.

Utarded

Looky! I am in Utah! I ran away from home and I am staying in Sandy hanging out with my sister Jill and her family and my brother Will and his family (Will's family just moved here from Phoenix--their brand new house will be ready today in South Jordan! Will swore he'd never live in Utah, but HERE HE IS! It sucks you in--well, at least the good jobs do!) Never fear, I brought my girls with me and Rich is a bachelor in Livingston. Of course he is using this time to slave away on our house--I called to say good night last night at 11:30 and he still wasn't home. I found out he is working hard to finish plumbing before he has to return some borrowed tools on Wednesday. Awww--he's such a super hero.

I've gott a bail to take my little brother Michael to his pre-mission wisdom-tooth-extraction, exercise in torture (they just want to be sure you want to serve a mission THAT BAD). I will be back to share my Utah observations with you--stuff like O MY GOSH, Utah from I-15 looks like an industrial wasteland compared to my pristine and wild Montana. Spoiled I am.

Mo' 2 Come...

OH--PS: HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAKERS!!!! The Jakinator is ONE YEAR OLD today! All your cousins love and miss you, Jake. They are trashing the house in your honor--all 8 of them!

Indeed Quite Perfect

I was sad to read today the Hugh Nibley has died , just before his 95th birthday. I suppose you can say that it's about time, but I will miss the idea of having him around. I suppose it is merciful for God to take him now, before his daughter's book is released next month. I used one of his quotes on my wedding annoucement, as you may recall. It's still one of my favorite ideas:

"We recognize what is lovely because we have seen it somewhere else, and...when we see an object or person that pleases us, it is like recognizing an old friend; it hits us in the solar plexus and we need no lecturing to tell us that it is indeed quite perfect. It is something we have long been looking for, memories of how things should be."

I have read only two of his books (Approaching Zion and Temple and Cosmos-- about a million pages!) and heard him lecture only twice at BYU (once at a peace day rally during the gulf war and another time at a Book of Mormon Conference in the Library with my friend Kevin). But his thoughts and insights into the bigness--the eternal nature of truth, its consistency in all dispensations--helped me to reconcile my testimony with everything I have seen and learned as an adult. I am grateful for his life and work.

By the Way

For mom, Gramps, and any other new internet people, those words in my entries that are colored and underlined link to other web sites and information. If you click on the colored words, another window will open and you will see the thing that I am talking about in my paragraph. You can close the linked window( or just click the BACK button) and go back to my blog when you are done. Nifty.

The Lost Boys (and Girls)

I read an interesting article last night (thanks for the link, Jeanne!) that articulated a lot of my thoughts lately. It also reminded me of Neal A. Maxwell’s June 1995 address at BYU called “The Bitter Harvest,” wherein he talked about all the ways in which our society has drifted from “traditional values” (which are now—thankfully—outlined in the Proclamation) and what the fruits that drifting has produced. It’s heartbreaking, really, especially all the fatherlessness. Think about what a cycle it produces—boys with no role models, girls with no male attention who seek it in the wrong places and end up as single mothers, raising yet another generation of fatherless children. The word “lost” just echoes through my mind over and over again. These kids are lost, wandering, wondering. A sample:

Statistically speaking, of course, few latchkey children grow up to be murderers. Yet beneath the public anxiety provoked by every such savage who takes the stage, beneath even the ritual media cycle that follows the recorded-for-television atrocities, lies an element of unspoken truth about the link between these adolescent outcasts and the rest of society. This is the fear shared by much of the adult world that perhaps the kids aren’t all right after all — that perhaps the decades-long experiment in leaving more and more of them to fend for themselves, whether for the sake of material betterment, career fulfillment, marital satisfaction, or other deep adult desires, has finally run amok. What troubles the public mind about these killers is not that they seem anomalous, but precisely that they might be emblematic. And the reason for this apprehension is essentially correct — in important ways, their lives have been indistinguishable from those of many other American children. Most, in virtue of their times, are part of the same trend that has been building for decades now throughout American society — the trend of leaving children increasingly to their own and their peers’ devices, bereft of adult, and particularly parental, attention.

I also love her explanation of the “cultural code of silence” about children really needing their mothers. And I would add, not just as babies, but as middle-schoolers—maybe even more so as middle schoolers!

I was kinda proud of this sentence: “The reality of the situation, as David Gelernter observed in Commentary four years ago, is that ‘Except for a few benighted precincts (the Mormon church, parts of the Orthodox Jewish community, parts of the Christian Right), society from Left to Right is lined up in force behind the idea of mothers taking jobs.’” Yay, benighted precincts.

And this statement sums of so much of what women are doing when they work outside the home: “Hochschild observes that for many women, ‘The emotional magnets beneath home and workplace are in the process of being reversed.’… for many women (and men), [office life] partially or fully supplants the hearth, offering simpler emotional involvements, more solvable tasks, and often a more companionable and appreciative class of people than those waiting at home.” Duh. This is exactly what happened to me when I quit my job to be with Addie. All my shiny dreams of motherhood faded and it was hard—much harder than my desk job, and certainly more thankless. But, for me, infinitely more rewarding.

Why? Well, with most people, I don’t have to defend my decision to stay home with my girls. Some days I have to defend it to myself, but it only takes about an hour away from then for me to know I simply cannot be away for a workday. Perhaps I am a little more emotional that the average mom, but from the moment I held Addie and wouldn’t let the nurse take her away, I have been attached to my kids. I thought I should return to my job, but I just couldn’t do it. I kept telling myself we needed the money, but my heart wouldn’t let me go. So we had to scrimp and save and sacrifice and even go bankrupt to make it work, but all the THINGS I had to do away with can be replaced. Addie’s babyhood can’t be replaced. My love and my memories can’t be replaced. As much as I have struggled with the isolation, the humbling craziness, the numbing sleepless of stay-at-home-mothering, I could never give it up. If I am going to be held responsible for these girls and what they become, then I am going to raise them hands-on!

“The connection between empty homes on today’s scale and childhood problems on today’s scale cannot possibly be dismissed as a coincidence. For some time, the data have been there for all to see, the dots fairly demanding to be connected.”

My girls will be surrounded by lonely, virtually abandoned kids. I hope I give them all the security they need, and enough to share. Enough so that they can rise above the sadness and desperation their generation will be drowning in.

I mean, my generation—we children of divorce, the first generation after The Revolution—thought we had it bad (“Americans born and raised in the 1970s and 1980s were three to four times more likely to commit suicide as people that age had been at mid-century.”)! The little broken hearts have multiplied exponentially and the expressions of that hurt have grown increasingly violent and disturbing. I hope their mommies (and daddies) will listen—are the houses and cars and vacations worth the price your babies are paying?

It’s hard to stay home. But it’s even harder to watch your child suffer because of your absence---at least I hope it’s harder. If it’s not, as this article concludes, “what we are in for next may be worse than anyone has guessed.”


Addendum: May I just add that some people are just not good mothers and can't handle their kids; in this case, perhaps their children are in better hands in day care. It's sad, but true. Lots of girls my age weren't raised to be mothers and consequently are unprepared for the demands. They return to work, and, although it's not the ideal situation, their kids are probably better off. I just had to admit that one little thing.