The Coast, 2013

The weather was warm for two weeks before the rain began again.  A taste of summer as orange popsicle drips down dirty hands and arms that have spent the day romping outside.  And we all really, honestly thought that it had come.  Days spent in the park, soaking up the sun while skidding down slides, followed by evenings with all the windows open, trying to coax a breeze through the house.  It is only May and too good to be true.  Which is why we took off for the beach the first chance we got.

It's important to go to the beach at the beginning of the summer.  When 70 degree days are "peel your clothes off" hot and your toes are freshly pedicured after months of being stuffed into socks and shoes.  Even as they they turn blue as they hit the wet sand, they are too beautiful to put away, and brown-sugar sand kicks up as you run from the waves.  When a person can overlook the gale-force winds forcing sticky salt air into their lungs because there is no rain slicing its way through squinted eye-lids.  This is the season to go to the beach.

Despite its sapphire blue water and shell scattered sand, the Oregon coast is no event that you can hop in the car with a towel, sunblock and swim suit tied on under your shorts and t-shirt and expect to stay the day.  It is a complicated procedure of selecting one complete outfit from each season of the year to fulfill the requirements of beach-going, including comfy clothes for the ride home.


The following is a post to facebook:

Day at the beach ahead of us. Got our swimsuits, our shorts and short-sleeves, our apples for a snack and knife to cut them with, our long pants and long-sleeves, our socks, our jackets, our coats (yes, at the Oregon coast there is a difference between a jacket and a coat), our two strollers, one for shopping and one for beach running, our shoes and barefeet, our hair bling to hold our hair back from the wind and our high hopes for a warm day. Takes two bags.


Alaska wasn't sure about the sand.  She lifted her legs up to avoid being set on the unknown ground of sand being pushed by the wind.  Her toes curled up into her feet and she took a few careful steps before letting loose and gathered sand into her fists to watch as it slowly escaped her palms into the wind.

The water licked her toes and you would never know it was freezing cold.  She chased the waves into the ocean, looking back only for a hand to hold to steady her feet as the water pulled sand out from under her.  And when I say chase, I mean waded up to her little hips until she couldn't go forward any further.  She is a brave girl, a girl who chases with all her strength.

We played til the goosebumps were thick and Alaska was shaking with cold, her eyes still bright and yearning toward the water.  I didn't have the heart to swoop her away from such a good time, but her daddy did and she reached out, screaming for that ocean.

The love broke my heart.  I understood it.  I stood in my own shorts, the ones I had exchanged from pants before getting out of the car.  Handsome Husband had asked, "why" and the most honest answer I could give him was, "I can't go to the beach and stay out of the water."  Even as an adult, the wonderment of the ocean is the same.  The packed sand that becomes near liquid as the water touches it and the ever-beckoning waves call my name on the wind and I answer it with my legs poised, running among the waves.

16 Months with Alaska

Alaska.  Sweet heart.  You are 16 months and so grown-up.  And not just bigger grown-up, you think you are grown-up.  Today when I told you to get in your high-chair for breakfast you by-passed the highchair and pulled out a regular chair to climb up on.  You had breakfast at the table, using your own spoon while pouring all the milk out on your jammies right before it got to your mouth.

You love to color and draw.  When I am cleaning up the kitchen in the morning you find some paper and a pencil and sit content at the table to scribble.  You know to only used lined note-book paper and if there is other paper in your way, you move it out of the way.

Your first week in nursery was phenomenal.  You had been extra wiggly in sacrament meeting and both your daddy and I were scared stiff to make you behave in our next classes.  So we tried it.  You aren't old enough, by any means, but we took you anyway and you were welcomed with hugging arms and bright smiles and a, "We were wondering when she would be coming!  We're happy to have her!"  Daddy left you for the first hour of play-time and came back to check-in for the second hour of snack and lesson and singing and was waved away through the window.  You were doing great.  Using your sign words for things, sharing with the other kids, smiling big.  You are a heart-winner.

Another mile-stone of this past week is you are sleeping in your own big-kid bed.  Successfully!  You are truly so incredible!  We're in Oregon right now and instead of setting up your crib, we set it up into a daybed for you and you love sleeping in it.  At night and for naps you stay put so well.  There was never any pounding on the door crying, no crying at all, actually.

We've been working on sign-language and you are doing excellent.  We've got the essentials down and now we are working on building your vocabulary for common things that you like to eat.  You know eat, please, play and more.  We can't get you to say 'thank-you' - perhaps it is still too abstract.  This week you also broke out in signing 'milk' and 'cheese'.  We're still working on banana.

I would think you have said your first words.  You would sign the word for 'eat' and also say 'ea' at the same time.  Shoes are 'eash'.  Kitty Kitty is 'itty itty' and Grandma Mary's dog JD is 'yadie'.    You can say 'here it is' but there are really no words attached to it.  It's mostly intonation.  I haven't heard you say mama, but you call dada when you need him.  You also know everyone's names and when asked to take something to Grandpa or Megan or Dorian you can respond and go to the correct person.

You love giving hugs and know just when to give them.  All the time.  As well as kisses, both giving them and blowing them at goodbye.  You are my loving little girl and I hope to always be worthy of that.

Woodland Tulip Festival

My mom and I signed up for a 5k tulip trot for the Woodland Tulip Festival on a Saturday morning.

We heard the race start and trotted our hearts out.  The lady who was trailing behind us at the end confessed that she had to jog a little to keep up with us, we were walking so fast.  We made the 45 min. time and did a victory lap over to the show fields and u-pick fields to take some pictures of The Punky for the baby photo contest.

She was fast asleep, snuggled in the jogging stroller, totally unaware that the race had ended.  We took some pictures of her surrounded by tulips i
n her chrysalis and woke her up.  She opened her eyes and said, "Oooooh."  I held her in my arms and turned slowly so she could view all the flowers at once.

Alaska wasn't much interested in getting her picture taken, more so in adventuring and she headed her way down the furrows of tulips.  What pictures we did get, we got in that one stripe of tulips.  She wasn't willing to venture down another row.

We asked her what was in a tulip and she graciously looked inside while Grandma Mary pulled the petals open for her to look in.

Near the end of the row Alaska's punky self started to errupt from her shortened nap and she shook her shoulders to stop the tulips from tapping her on the back, stopping to look behind her and scowl as she tipsed down the rows.

Love that little girl so much!

I Zipped Your Mouth

Alaska, I am so sorry.  Today I zipped your mouth.  And by that I mean I was zipping you into your nice warm coat for a hike up some logging trails and it slipped and totally caught your lip.  It bled.  A little.  You cried.  A lot.  My heart hurt for you.  I know what that feels like, the surprise of the pinch and the sting that comes afterwards and the way that it just won't go away.  No band-aids, kisses or pressure can make that go away.

I pulled you into my lap and tucked your head up on my shoulder, your piercing screams next to my ear, and the sting of it all was inside my heart.  Tears came to my eyes as I rubbed your back.  I wanted to scoop the pain away.  As if your heart were a bucket of ocean-wet sand and I could take my plastic shovel and neatly scrape out just the part that hurt.

You are my precious daughter and I felt so sorry that you hurt.  That I had been the one to inflict that pain.  Accident or no accident, it still hurts the same.  My tears brimmed over onto my cheeks, bent over your little head, and I cried.

While I let you tell the world about your hurt, I thought quietly, trying not to focus too much on the noise you were making right in my ear.  Sometimes a good cry is the only way to release the pain and that is something that I can let you do while holding you close.  I thought about all the more times I will hold you while you cry.  All the more times there will be a pain that I will wish to take upon myself so that you won't have to.  All the more times when your little heart will hurt and all I can do is hold you tight.

And then I thought about Heavenly Father.  How He must hurt when we do.  How He prepared a way for that.  For one other person in the whole world to be able to feel the exact way that we do.  How He sent His son, Jesus Christ, to take the hurt from the world.  Not just the hurts from mistakes made, but the hurts that come from feelings being bruised and things not going as we have planned.  The atonement covers so much more than just forgiveness of sins.  It is God's healing gift to the world.  A gift that He could only give through Jesus Christ.

As we face the temptations of time, the confusion of choice, the embarrassment of error, the pursuit of perfection, our Heavenly Father is there to listen, to love, to inspire. Our Father, to whom we earnestly pray, is not an ethereal substance or a mysterious and incomprehensible being. Rather, He has eyes with which to view our actions, lips with which to speak to us, ears to hear our pleas, and a heart to understand our love.  
                                                                                                                     President Thomas S. Monson.

Alaska, any hurt can be resolved through prayer and scripture study.  I will be there to hold you.  Every time.  But I cannot take my sand shovel and scoop the pain out of your heart.  There is only one person who can do that.  And I hope every night when we say prayers as a family and we call it 'good enough' if you are quiet that you are learning the manner of prayer.  Of communication with the person who loves you the most.  When your heart hurts and you are done crying I hope that you find yourself on your knees.  That you can pour out your heart to someone who knows.  Knows every hurt and ache, and not just as in, "I've been there, too" but as in, "Your hurt is my hurt, let me take it away."

And, Alaska, you let Him.

You are not the only person in the whole world who is feeling exactly the way that you are feeling.  Jesus Christ has felt that exact same hurt.  The marvelous thing is, He can take it away.  He can take his sand-shovel and scoop out just what hurts, leaving the rest untouched.  His sand-shovel is so precise that it can even grab the small grains of sand that have been touched by pain but are mixed with joy.  The love that you had for that boy that broke your heart.  Christ can take the pain and leave the good.  The best-friend that you've had forever that told those lies about you.  Christ can take the pain and leave the good.  The scary parts of leaving home for college that are mixed with excitement.  Christ can take the pain and leave the good.  Yes, his shovel can be precise.

Already, I know that you are brave.  You are going to make brave decisions and do brave things.  And brave people often get hurt.  It's part of taking a chance.  I love you fiercely.  I will always be there to hold you when the tears have no where to run but down your cheeks.  But it doesn't matter how fierce I love, I cannot take the hurt away.  You know who can.