We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by eating special green marshmallow Lucky Charms for breakfast, wearing green, and eating delicious potato soup and soda bread.
And I didn't take pictures of any of it.
Oh well, it was fun, even if we don't have photographic evidence.
I've begun to feel that I'm living two lives: the life I document here on the blog and the actual life I'm living. I don't like that disparity. I aim for authenticity and transparency. I don't want to be one thing and pretend to be another. The life I record in these posts is real, but it's sanitized, the good parts version.
Why do I hold some things back? In part, because it's not all mine to share. I can write about struggles that my kids have when they're little, those stories are relatable and cute and only mildly embarrassing but not in a way that will cause harm in the future. Big kid struggles are different. Teenager struggles are different. They are part of a bigger story, one that the protagonist may not wish to remember.
Another reason is that real life is hard. So so so so hard. I've marveled recently that we had the foresight (which came from inspiration) to adopt We Can Do Hard Things as our family motto so many years ago. We had no idea how often we would need to refer back to it. I know the past year has been especially hard for so many people. I feel that our family keeps getting hit with bigger and harder trials. We move through one, or into the beginning of one, and I think, "How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to get through this?" And then we're hit with something even bigger.
The overwhelm that I feel on a daily basis is suffocating. I consciously narrow my vision so I can see the trials directly in front of me, otherwise I would drown.
And that's why I don't write about it too much. This real life business is not so pleasant to read about. Even when I do talk about it, it's usually with a laugh and a joke as a way to be honest, but not so honest that I drive people away, or worse, become someone's project.
In the past when people have asked me how I'm doing I have been known to answer, "How honest do you want me to be?" And that's a problem, because honesty is very important to me. But few people are truly interested in that kind of honesty, or are prepared to hear it.
I realize I'm painting a bleak picture. This is the part of the post where I would normally find something positive to write, some kind of silver lining about all of these hard things that I'm vaguely referencing. That's what I do. I lighten the hard things. I make them more palatable. I don't want people to worry.
But I need to get this down, I need to be able to look back at this time and remember these hard things. These hard things help me to have understanding and compassion for other people experiencing their own hard things. These hard things connect me to the Atonement. There's always a lesson in the hard things, I just have trouble seeing the lesson while I'm in the middle of it, but I can often see it when I look back.
Tonight for our virtual YW activity we had a baby picture guessing game. Everyone was instructed to email a baby picture to one of the young women, she put together a slide show, and we all named who we thought each child was.
When the first picture came up, the majority of people guessed one particular girl. Then someone said it might be me. Another leader pointed out that our (the adults) pictures would have a more faded look. Sure enough, it was the girl most of us had guessed.
A few pictures into the game, this photo appeared on the screen.
There was no doubt in anyone's mind. They were all immediately sure that this was me because it looked just like all of my kids. While I don't think it actually looks just like all my kids (several of them favor Bryan quite a bit), they were right, it is me.
I had shown it to Phoebe and Sophie earlier in the day and they were both appropriately impressed with the fullness of my cheeks, which they quickly claimed as part of their own faces. They're not wrong, we are a full faced bunch. I think it adds to our youthful appearances.
"Mom, can we do chalks?"
"Sure, we can get out the chalk."
"No, not chalk, chalks."
Topher clearly didn't want to be stuck with only one color option as we enjoyed the glorious sunshine outside this afternoon.
Phoebe has been exploring her newfound love of photo editing. She's turned Topher into a very cute troll.
For the last eight weeks Peter and I have had a standing appointment on Friday night. That's when we've been watching WandaVision. It's a really fun show and tonight it comes to its conclusion. And it's been a cool thing that Peter and I talk about throughout each week.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go join Peter and Bryan for the last episode!
Remember when Peter and Cooper were featured regularly on the blog? I had lots of pictures of them and funny anecdotes to share because they were always doing and saying clever and adorable things.
They still say clever things, but I don't have very many pictures of them, especially not of Peter, because he's in the stage of teendom (yes, it's a word) where he doesn't want his picture taken, ever. Plus, the line between something funny that can be shared and something embarrassing that cannot be shared has become very blurry. And because these blog posts act as a record of their lives (to an extent) I try to be very mindful of what I document.
Here's a general update on both of them:
