A Word On Motherhood

I first saw this on a handout announcing a mother's group activity. My sisters and I laughed heartily. What makes it so funny? Is it the fact that it's true? I'm not sure, but it has been very thought provoking for me.

*Disclaimer: I am not, and have never been, a mother. That is, unless you count my brief stint as a tomato mother this summer, which ended in my being forced to give up my precious tomato plant baby for adoption when we moved to NJ. Or unless you count my numerous childhood attempts as a parakeet mother, all of which ended with a little heap of stiff, starved feathers at the bottom of a cage, followed by another tearful placement of a large rock in the corner of the yard surrounded by an awkward planting of woodland hyacinths and other flowers stolen from various flowerbeds. (Mom! Dad! Why did you keep letting me get parakeets!?)

However, I have had the privilege of observing many mothers, none of them perfect, but some better than others.

Recently I had the misfortune to be lazing by our pool in New Jersey one fine day, enjoying the glorious sunshine and a good book, when my peace was interrupted by a mother. I repeat, by a mother, not by her children who were, granted, making all kinds of noise. But their noise was not offensive to me. Hers was. At intervals of about 3 minutes, this mother would take a break from her conversation with another mother (which must have been a real sacrifice for her, as they were discussing with relish their favorite late-night reality t.v. show). She would then proceed to bark at her three children for a period of about 5 minutes, after which she would resume her conversation, apparently satisfied that she adequately demonstrated--to the entire neighborhood-- what a conscientious parent she was. These are the kinds of things I heard:

"Barney! BARNEY! Get out of that pool this INSTANT!"

"Why, Mom?"

"Barneeeeeeeey! Don't make me count to 3! One... Two..."

"I'm coming! What is it?"

"Take a drink of water!)

"But I'm not thirsty..." (Barney reluctantly drinks)

"More... MORE! Three more gulps! THAT wasn't even a gulp! C'mon Barney, three big gulps... NOW! Don't MAKE me count..."

"Mavis! If I have to tell you one more time to get your thumb out of your mouth, you're gonna be sorry! Who do you think's gonna pay for your braces when you look like some kind of circus freak! Huh? HUH?!?"

"But Mom, I think I got stung by a bee..."
"Don't give me your excuses! Did I raise you to talk back to me?"

"Elbert! ELBERT!!! Get over here this minute and tell my why you splashed water on your sister!"

"Because... we're at a pool. We're just playing around. See? Look, she's laughing. Everyone's splashing..."

"OH YEAH?! If everyone decided to jump in front of a train, would you do it too? Huh? Sit down over there in the scorching sun and shut up until you can behave yourself. And TAKE THREE GULPS OF WATER!!!"

*Names changed to protect childrens' identities. And okay, I may have exaggerated the outrageousness of this mothers' demands a little--but not much!

I'm a realist. I know that mothers don't always like their children, but I think they sometimes have more choice in the matter than they care to claim. I mean, seriously, what's one more gulp of water? Maybe it's a matter of choosing one's battles a little more carefully. And I'm always interested to see how different parents go about it. This is an area in which I think my parents excelled, and that my siblings are good at too. We always knew that our parents loved us, and maybe more importantly that they liked us (there's a big difference), even when we were naughty. And now it's such a delight to see how my siblings genuinely enjoy their kids. Not that they're always angelic. Kids aren't supposed to be! But their parents have commented to me that, often, the characteristics in their children that drive them the most crazy are also the things that they most enjoy and admire about them. Maybe that's the trick. Remembering that they're children, and remembering to admire them.

But, again, what do I know? I may eat these words someday. For as I said, I'm not a mother. At least, not until April 7th... ish!

So, apparently we should not reproduce...

...at least, not if our offspring are gonna look like this:

Can you tell how bored I've been without Chace?

Ni hao & Guten tag!

My sister Anna compiled this little collection of quotes from our missionary brothers. Here's what she said (with a few additions)--If you don't have time to read the whole thing, skip to ones with asterisks; they're my favorites!: "I enjoy getting letters from my brothers (both serving their missions in Taiwan) oh so much. They are so them! I was just reading one from Adam and the brilliant idea came to me to post bits of their letters for the enjoyment of all. With that, introducing:

Elder Pietr Mikkelsen
3/16: "Time is strange here in the MTC. Chace was dead on when he said 'a day seems like a week, and a week seems like a day.'"

*3/30: "My companions and I were teaching a little family, a father, a mother and their teenage boy. We were in the process of explaining what the Holy Ghost was, and what the Spirit felt like, when my companion (Elder C, he's odd but a cool guy) says to the mother, "The spirit is like a warm calmness, like.., like.., How did you feel when Mark was born?" It took all I had to contain my laughter. The father and mother just looked at us like 'What did you just ask?' I'm sure whatever that mother was feeling when she passed her 9.5 pound kid it wasn't the spirit."

"I love to tell the MTC kitchen workers to make me giant plates of meat, to disgust of all the sisters."

4/13: "This week we had a Grape Nut challenge. To see who could go the longest eating nothing but water, & Grape Nuts. I went the longest at 3 days, of the 8 that started the challenge everyone washed out."

*5/25: "Our apartment [in Taiwan] is quaint, we don't have any cockroaches, which is good because they won't be crawling on me as I sleep, but bad because we won't be able to have competitions with them..."

*8/16: "I survived the typhoon here, it wasn't very bad in Taibei. But the southern part of Taiwan (Kaoshung namely) didn't do so well. There were some towns in the south that got completely covered by giant mudslides & a lot of people died. The missionaries in the Taichung mission having been doing a lot of service digging mud out of homes. It was the worst typhoon in 50 years. It's a good thing Yard-Work-Adam got there when he did, with his countless hours of horse-stall cleaning experience he will be a HUGE asset to relief efforts, doubtless to become "Mudder Teresa" of Taiwan."

9/29: "We're working with a lot of investigators, a couple of them around my age. It is a struggle to keep them progressing & continually applying the gospel to their life. The BOM is difficult for them to understand often. Try explaining "circumsized of heart," which is very directly translated in the Chinese version, as they read with a mix of fear & bewilderment. The last transfer just ended - I will have been in the same area for 6 months at the end of this one. We continue to search for Bruce Lee..."

Elder Adam Mikkelsen

*6/1: "PIETR ("Man Beast") IS A LEGEND HERE [in the MTC]! I am not kidding in the least. Within minutes of getting to my room I heard "little MAN BEAST?" shouted from the door...all the older elders came to see what Pietr's little brother was like. He said good things about me fortunately. I will list some of the things he is legendary for: 1) His 4-square skills...a game they play in the gym, talk to Pug. He was really good at it and everyone knew it. When he got someone out he would run at them with arms outstretched like Wolverine and shout "FORGET ABOUT IT!" 2) His chinese...they all say he had some of the best chinese of any of the elders... 3) His crazy diet. The first meal all the older missionaries came to check my plate and and see if I was a patron of the legendary "Meat Salad"...a plate stacked with nothing but meat. Then days of nothing but Grape Nuts...the fiber cleanse. 4)His work in the referral center which he wrote about so much. Last night two of the sisters went on and on about how great he was in there... They said he had pages of investigators that he found and that he called and taught each week..."

6/29: "Once agian I find myself on a getto keyboard so forgive my bad spelling...it isn't totally my fault. We had a special fireside and seven of the twelve were there!!! I sat close enough that I didn't need to watch the screen. It was amazing and as intense as ever. Elders Bednar and Oaks gave some of the elders chest bumps as they came in but I didn't get one. This week I broke Pietr's fiber cleanse record of three days and went a solid four, of which I am very proud! Being as how it is coming up on the halfway mark it is expedient that my system be cleansed in preparation for going to the island."

8/19: "The second night [in Taiwan] we went to a night market and all the new missionaries took turns getting on a box and preaching as loud as they could, then going with a senior missionary and contacting people and setting them up for appointments. I yelled pretty darn loud and turned a lot of heads and got got 6 people to meet with us."

*9/9: "I got some pot stickers for dinner on Sunday but left them out and ants got into them, but I can't afford to buy new ones and there are a lot in there so I just refroze them and am eating them with ants on them, mmm."

10/22: "My comp is starting the "Return With Honor" diet and trying to eat healthy before going home since this is his second to last move call, not htat you gain much if any weight here. The food here is just so greasy it is hard to be cut. So we started a subway only diet this week. Subway is comparatively expensive here so we eat less and more healthy..."

10/27: "The subway fast was great, we are finishing it today. I recked more food this week; I left out a bag of brown sugar and it was defiled by ants within 10 minutes. Coagulated pig blood is grose. Nutella costs its weight in gold around here... Good luck to those who are heavy laden with child: Miriam, I hope to hear of a new record, how about an 11 pounder, I know you've got it in you...literally. Liz, I hope you have a good medicine man around there. I hear crushed rattle snake rattles helps, that is what Sacagawia used at least..."

Then there's Chace's brother, Scott, who is serving in the Germany-Munich mission. His letters are so funny to read after my brothers'. They are so long and emotional and very heart-felt, whereas we're lucky to get a couple solid paragraphs from Pietr--certainly no talk of feelings. Adam is a little better! But we take what we get! How we love these missionaries! We're so fortunate and so very proud to be related to them.

Elder Scott Wilcoxson

4/4: "This week had alot of up and downs. For example Monday I bought my lederhosen, Big up! The next day we were dooring in a city about 20 mins away by bike. I was so tired and for some reason we had like 30 doors in a row slammed in our faces. Some people are just jerks! That did not help my energy levels at all. Finally about an hour of absolutely nothing we decided to head home. While we were riding home (this ride is so pretty, its right along the riverside and its lined with trees and bushes) I was falling alseep on my bike. I ran of the path a couple of times and i could not wake myself up. Finally Elder F noticed what was going on so he slowed down and started riding behind me to make sure I didnt ride into the river and die."

5/11: "We got a letter for a missionary who got transferred 2 months ago so Elder F and I steamed opened it and stuck a bunch of random pictures of us in there and then sent it to buro. lol I cant wait until I see him and hes just like It was you!!! HAHA!!!"

*6/2: "Today is a members birthday so we're all taking her to lunch. And we're going to wear our Lederhosen."

7/27: "So last P day we went up to the top of the Alps in our Lederhosen. There was still snow up there and so of course we had an Alpine snowball fight. Elder K and I went hiking a little bit and came across a heard of sheep. They were afraid at first but after like 3 minutess they came to us. Maybe they smelt our leather and thought we were one of them. "

*8/10: "Most of Elder B's and my conversations are about how we can help [other missionaries] and what we should do. One night while we were talking he looked over at me and said, "Man its like we have kids, like we're an old gay married couple who are worried about our kids." It was so funny but its completely true. I feel like that a lot. Not the gay part, but the fact that I'm doing well and so is my companion so we just focus on others and trying to help them."