Being a parent right now is hard. It is filled with worry. Worry that you are doing it all wrong. Worry that you might mess up your kids forever. Worry that despite doing your best those kids have the ability to choose for themselves and there are certainly plenty of opportunities for them to choose the things you know won't make them happy...truly happy. Worry that the people around them won't love them for who they are, that they might get picked on or teased or worse. Worry that they might be the person who picks on or teases someone else. Worry that they won't make the right kind of friends. Worry that they aren't excelling in school. Worry that they are excelling too much in school. Worry that there just isn't time in those short hours they are home with you to mold them into the well rounded person you want them to be. Worry that you can't fit in piano and soccer and dance and football for all of them starting at age 4....or afford all of those things for 6 kids simultaneously.
And so you are left to choose what is best. And I am glad to have prayer and communication with God to help with that. Time and time again, I find myself choosing to fit less and less into this life of ours. Maybe I am getting old...I am 30 after all. Maybe I am getting tired from months of sleepless nights and carrying two babies around all day. Or maybe I am just getting better at figuring out what really truly builds us up as a family. So, I say no to tennis, and later to piano and yes to having the missionaries over for dinner. I say no to a charter school because I am not willing to take the time out of our lives to spend it in the car back and forth every day even if it means removing the disaster of common core from our lives. I say yes to inviting friends over and playdates, but no to the science fair. I say no to just about anything that falls on a Monday night because that is family home evening and we need to yell, "Welcome to family home evening" at the top of our lungs together as a family so we can make it through the week. I say yes to a later bedtime so we can go for a walk around the neighborhood together as a family while the sun is setting, but no to later bedtime to go to an event at the school. And as I type this out, I am ridden with a kind of guilt for admitting it, but liberated by the reality that in making these choices I am doing what is best for my family.
I wonder if I would have figured this out without the struggles of the last year. As I have been reflecting on where we are now and where we are headed, I have felt such gratitude for the journey we have been on. When we found out we were going to have twins, my initial prayer about it included the words, "What are you thinking, Heavenly Father? How can I possibly handle having two babies?" And now my sentiments have changed so much. I can't imagine my life without these two sweet boys. What a horrible tragedy it would have been to miss out on all the joy and love they have brought into my life. I would have never known what I was missing out on, but now that I have it, I know that it would have been impossible for a loving Heavenly Father to not send them to me. I am sure he patiently smiled to himself, shaking his head during that first prayer on the way home from the ultrasound. He knew what he was doing and I had no idea what I was questioning. Thankfully, I am not in charge of the plan.
Here is another not-as-fast-flashback flipagram of our twin journey: http://flipagram.com/f/RaKSVYoPhm
Each night at the dinner table we ask a "question of the day" and each person has an opportunity to answer. Often the questions are silly, "If you could be any kind of tree which one would you be?", and sometimes they are more serious, "What is your very best quality?" The kids love to suggest questions, and some of the things they come up with are quite fantastic. One of those included last night's question: "What is your favorite thing about the baby boys." The answers were all similar, but the love was palpable. I wish I could come up with words that would communicate how they have changed our family. Every single one of us. How they have made us love each other more. How they have made us see the world differently. How they have challenged us and shown us our weaknesses. How they have brought out our strengths and deepened our love for ourselves and for our Heavenly Father. How they have built confidence and independence and self-worth in each of our children. How they light up our home.
I feel similarly about our job adventure. Fresh out of school 2.5 years ago, we thought we would take one of the many job options available, get approved for the loan repayment and 2-3 years later be debt free and ready to move back to Utah and start the rest of our lives. And while you will not find me knocking Utah (many out-of-state Mormons are not big fans of Utah, it seems), the part of my life I thought was going to be the "endure until I can get back to my real life" has turned out to be such a fun adventure. It has been hard in many ways, but again, worth it for the way it has changed us.
Apparently I haven't actually shared this as I thought I had (probably because I don't actually sit down and blog very often), but the loan repayment thing still hasn't happened for us. When we set out to Portland originally, we really thought (based on what we had heard and read) that we would apply the second it opened and we would get approved and they would pay the money and we would fulfill the service contract. After the program changed and that didn't happen in Portland, we set out to find a job that was more likely to get approved, but we did know that it still wasn't a sure thing. We were approved for one of the repayment programs in the summer, but accepting it would have taken us out of the running for the other (higher paying) program. So, we prayerfully considered and both Seth and I felt like we shouldn't take it, and so we declined it. I thought this meant we were getting the other one and didn't worry. Again, the word came back, though, that we had not been approved. And while it should have sent me into panic mode, it didn't. The email came, the reality sank in, and I said ok, knowing that this was part of a bigger plan and that it would all turn out ok. And so, here we are, at the point we originally thought we would be finishing up our service contract, debt-free and headed back to "start the rest of our lives" and wondering what the next step is for us. We sort of hope it involves sticking around Tucson for a while longer (we are contracted through the end of September, so for sure until then), but the last few years have helped us to realize that we just want to go where Heavenly Father wants us to go and do what he wants us to do. It may not always result in the outcome we were seeking, but it always results in something better than we could have imagined.
So onward, friends and family. Keep doing the hard things and we will too...looking back it is always the hard things that bring the most joy into our lives!
