Happy Kids

I wanted to capture this one memory really quick before it escapes me.

Peter is just over 4 1/2 years old. He learned to ride his bike a few months ago, but with summer time being so hot in Modesto, he hardly practiced riding his bike. As a result, he still looks like a wobbly little deer that is learning how to walk. He veers around, can't really hold a straight line, and doesn't really know how to start. When he initially learned to ride, he could do those things okay, but without the practice, he can barely stay upright.

The other challenge with Peter is that he doesn't like being pushed into doing things that he's uncomfortable with. Obviously that's true of just about anyone, but he resists it more so, to the point where it's almost not even worth trying to push him into something new at all because he'll be totally resistant to the idea.

That setup all brings us to yesterday. It was General Conference weekend and we finished watching the last session. We typically go on Sunday walks and with the weather turning to fall, it was a nice day to head back out. I prodded Peter into riding his bike and he, of course, was hesitant. I let him ride on the street and jogged with him the whole way to make sure he didn't veer into traffic and that seemed to help him feel more comfortable. This ended up being just what he needed because he figured out how to start himself again on his own, and he was riding like a champ by the time we were done with the walk.

Now for the memory: Amy stayed with Jane and Peter as they rode their bikes home. I was lagging behind because Ali kept wanting to walk. As we got to the house, Peter stayed outside riding up and down our little cul-de-sac. Not only that, the kid was riding his laps while happily belting out all his primary songs from church. It was the cutest thing in the world to see him so happy and gleefully riding his bike, knowing he figured it out, and feeling just so proud of himself that he did so. It was such a highlight for me, one of many that makes me so happy to be a dad.

Sam's Blessing

We decided to do Sam's blessing in Utah instead of our own ward. This is the first time we have done this, mostly because we're not super attached to our ward and thought it would be nice to do it with family. We would have done it in Amy's parents' ward, but we were driving home on the first Sunday of the month when it's traditionally done, so we decided to just do it at their house instead.

It ended up being really nice. In addition to David and Mary, Scott and Elisha came over with their kids, Brian Walton, Katie Johnson, and Greg and Sherrill Reid were all able to be there. I was especially happy that Greg and Sherrill could be there. For some reason, I invited them over as kind of an afterthought the day before the blessing, and he, of course, made it a priority and showed up.

We did the blessing in their front room which has just great lighting. It was a bright summery day just right after church. It was kind of funny because I kind of felt like that it would be kind of like a church meeting, but once everyone got there, the priesthood holders stood up and we did the blessing, and that was it. Not much fanfare or pomp, but it was really nice.

With my other baby blessings, I have gone into them with some pre-formed thoughts about the things I would like to bless them with. Most people in the church would probably disagree with that approach, saying that it should all come through the Spirit and that you are simply acting as a mouthpiece for God, but I don't see why if I'm acting as the proxy for the Lord, blessing his/my child, why some of my own thoughts wouldn't also be inspired, even if they are some things that I have conceived of beforehand.

This time, however, I felt more prompting in a direction with the blessing than I ever have before. I blessed Sam that he would be able to grow up with the blessings of peace and happiness that come through the gospel. As I started pursuing this line of thought, I felt impressed to say that Sam would be able to bring the light of the gospel to those who are in darkness. He would be the means by which the Lord could work through to touch the hearts of those who are despairing and help bring them back to the light of the Lord.

It was a neat experience for me because going into the blessing those weren't my thoughts at all. I didn't really have much going into the blessing, and maybe that's where you could argue that's because I finally allowed the Lord to speak through me. I still don't think I completely agree with that line of thinking, but this experience did help me to see more explicitly how God could use my voice.

This morning Dave shared with me that his dad had told him just how proud he was of me, and of the person that I have become. He said that he knew Dave had been seeing this all along, but he was able to have a broader perspective not being as closely connected to me to be able to see a little more about the far reaching impact the gospel has had on my life. I was happy to hear that, and so happy that he could be part of that experience with us.

Winning Over Jane

I wanted to capture a memory while I still have it. It came back to me while listening to my current book, and it was as vivid as ever, but not one that I recall regularly so that neural pathway will probably extinguish at some point and I need to make sure I keep a record of it somewhere.

Jane is a daddy's girl, through and through. She was at a point not that long ago where she would be kind of mean about it to Amy, but she's mellowed out a bit. This hasn't always been the case though. When she was a baby, she was very much all about mama. I don't think I ever really thought much of it because she was our first kid and I didn't really know any different. It didn't bother me either, it's just how it was.

 When she was about 9 months old, we were living in a small apartment in Michigan. I was interning at Ford for the summer and we were having a pretty good time there. That was a great summer for our little family and Jane was scooting around as our only child. We had a few toys and no furniture and that was our life back then. We were figuring out how to sleep train her and one night I decided that I would help her get to sleep without mom's help. I don't know what made me make that determination, but I was going to make sure that I could be one that she could come to and I would be able to put my own kid down for bed.

Jane can be stubborn. This has always been the case from the first night she was born and of all of the babies in the hospital that week, she was the only one who couldn't sleep without being held. On this particular night in Michigan, she just wouldn't settle down enough to fall asleep. I went in to comfort her and she just wasn't having it. She kept reaching for the door, desperate to get to mom. It wasn't a feeding thing. She has been fed. It was purely needing some kind of consolation and for whatever reason she just didn't want to get that from me. I held firm. I knew that I could wait out a half hour or longer if I needed to and that I would outlast her because a half hour to an infant is an eternity, right?

I held her, tried to console her, but it just wasn't working, and that was when I started to put her down on the ground. She was wailing, trying to make her way over to the door, and I just kept blocking her. I would pick her back up, try again, and then she would fight to get out of my clutch, and then I repeated the same process. I wanted her to know that if she wanted comfort, it was only going to be coming from me. It took a few attempts, but eventually she gave in. Cuddling into me, she calmed down, and I was able to get her to sleep on my own.

And the funny thing is from that point on it's like her brain got rewired. I became the favorite parent and she sought me over all else from that point on. It's a neat thing to be a parent. I love having memories to point back to where I can say, that's when I won you over. That was my night with Jane.

Here Comes the Baby

I wanted to post on Ali's birth. I started going through video that I had of the day that she was born and as I was going through it, I realized that the one part of the day that I didn't have - her actual birth - I failed to capture. Now looking back, I vaguely recall not wanting to get that actual recording because I felt like it would be too personal. Isn't that funny? In this day and age of social media and sharing everything digitally, I decided on this very significant event to pull back and not record it?

I mention all of this because I wanted to see the footage of the room for when she was born. In the weeks prior to her birth, I remember wondering to myself if I would feel anything special when she was born. I kind of dismissed the thought pretty quickly, but then as the moment arrived I really did feel something so very special.

The day of labor and delivery is one of the best days ever. It really is. There are so many swirling emotions as you are about to welcome a new child into this world. I couldn't remember much about my feelings from either Jane or Peter's birth. I know that they were happy occasions, but the specifics of those feelings eluded me. That's why, I guess, I paid special attention to that day when Alice was born.

Her birth was scheduled, unlike Jane and Peter's, but in reality how it unfolded wasn't that much different with the exception of the sudden rush of what it's like when Amy's water breaks and we know that we are about to have a baby. After that, it's all been routine for us.

I do remember Ali's crinkly head as it began to emerge from the birth canal, and the full head of dark hair that she was sporting as she came out, much more than our other kids. The thing that will always stay with me was this feeling of fullness that enveloped me. It was as spiritual experience as I have ever had. This feeling of warmth, love, and joy just washed over me like a Gatorade shower over the coach when the team wins the championship. It was that quick and I felt drenched in that warmth. It's a feeling I'll never forget.

I just wish that I had it captured on video to remember it better.

In any case, I'm so excited for our baby boy to arrive. To be honest, this one has been the hardest for me to get excited for, I think mostly because I know too much now as a parent of three kids. I know the disruptions that come with adding a newborn to the family. I know the many sleepless nights that are ahead for us. I'm quite familiar at this point with the physical and psychological adjustment that comes with a new baby and his arrival.

But I do know the good stuff too. I know the feeling of seeing your child for the first time. I know the sweet cuddles that come as our child settles into my chest and makes the tender coos and infant breathing noises that only a new baby can make. I also know the love and tenderness that our other kids can express as they welcome their newborn sibling. And I know all of the wonderful times Amy and I will fawn over ours kids as we talk about how much we love them once they have gone down for the night (after racing to get to that point in the first place. It's a funny irony).

I'm getting pretty ready for it. It's nice to have these memories to reflect on that bring me back to all of the wonderful things about having a new child in the first place.

Happy Easter from...Modesto!

I never come on here anymore, but I still really value the exercise of writing. There were a couple of things from this past weekend that I wanted to capture somewhere and, well, that's why I'm here. 

I think the last post that I had was about changing jobs...2 years ago. I have since then changed jobs again, this time for a new company. BUT, that's not actually why I'm here. 

It's about my kids and about Holy Week, Easter, and General Conference weekend. 

We had a really great week this past week. Amy and I decided that we wanted to try and place more particular emphasis on Holy Week and really sharing with our kids what Easter is all about. I've said this to her a number of times, but I wish our church were better at Easter. The popular line that I attribute to President Hinckley about why we don't focus on crosses like other churches do is because we focus on the living Christ. It's a good line, and there's much truth to it, but for some reason it always feels like we end up skipping to the end of the story without remembering that the drama and the build-up to the resolution only occurs because of the preceeding acts. I think we do ourselves a disservice by not taking the requisite time that we should be spending on Christ, the crucifixion, atonement, and subsequent resurrection. It should be the holiest, most spiritual time of the year, but as a church sometimes it feels like we only pay lip service to it. We'll sometimes not even hold church meetings on Christmas day, but sometimes we barely even have an Easter program assembled for the bigger of the two holy days. At least in my opinion. 

So there you go, there's the background of why we decided we would spend more time this week focusing on the Lord and what he did for us. The week looked like this:

• Sunday - Palm Sunday and triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 
• Monday - Cleansing of the temple, and talking about what they mean to us. 
• Tuesday - Focus on Christ teachings - this time around we focused on the parable of the 10 virgins, which for our kids, turned out to be really good. 
• Wednesday - Last Supper and institution of the sacrament. 
• Thursday - Gethsemane and the Atonement. 
• Friday - Crucifixion. 
• Saturday - Review some of the previous events and preview Easter Sunday. 
• Sunday - Resurrection and appearances following resurrection. 

I'm looking forward to how this practice will evolve and help us as a family focus more on the Lord and this special week. 

All of that is to preface me talking about the two things that I wanted to bring up: the solemn assembly for General Conference that we had yesterday during the first session of Conference, and then tonight talking about the Resurrection. 

Solemn Assembly

Solemn Assemblies only happen every so often in the Church. Most commonly they occur with the sustaining of the new president of the Church. Other ones that I can think of were the dedication of the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, and the dedication of various temples, Nauvoo and Palmyra being the first ones that come to mind. 

President Monson passed away in January and so this was the first General Conference with our newest prophet, President Russell M. Nelson. I don't really remember that one that we had for President Monson even though it was in my adult life, and I'm almost certain that I watched it with my then girlfriend at the time, Becca Silva. So how things were arranged seemed new to me. 

They begin by naming the new President of the Church, then the First Presidency, and ask for sustaining votes from the top quorums of the Church, down through the other quorums and auxiliaries of the Church, starting with the First Presidency. 

We were seated in our home still finishing up breakfast. Jane, our oldest, was very interested in the proceedings. She's at a pretty good age (5 1/2) to where we can explain these things and she can grasp pretty well what's going on, and also the fact that she is naturally curious helps keep her pretty involved in these kinds of things. It's really kind of my favorite feature about that girl. 

Anyway, I stood when they asked for elders and sustained the prophet, and Amy did when it asked for the Relief Society, but what really stuck out to me was when it came time for the general body of the Church, which included our Jane. President Oaks was conducting the meeting and he asked for the general body of the church to sustain President Nelson, and we pointed it out to Jane and she stood up on top of her chair and proudly held her right arm up in the air. The spirit really touched my heart as I saw her participate in the meeting in a way that really seemed more grown up to me than just the little 5 year old body she is occupying right now. 

I know people hear about an 8 year old "making the decision" to get baptized and kind of roll their eyes at that. Well, of course they are deciding to get baptized. It's what the family expects of the child and has been working toward with that child, so to do otherwise would really upset the standards you have coached in your family dynamic. I've been that person with the semi-eye-roll. It's like saying that Jane decided on her own to eat her vegetables. Yeah, she decided that, but I also told her that she wasn't going to have the treat after dinner if she didn't, know what I mean? 

But I think I get it a little more now. There's more to it than that, because you can actually coach your child through those things, but they are acquiring those behaviors and practices on their own. Maybe I have to coach my kid through prayers most of the time from 1-4 years old, but some time during that 4th year of life, there's a light bulb that is starting to light, powered by its own electricity, to where the kid is acquiring those habits of their own volition. I've seen that with Jane a number of times over the past year or two. 

She's prayed a number of times on her own to try and solve her own problems. She got stuck in the back of the van before and couldn't figure out how to climb back over the seats, but she thought to say a prayer, then thought of a new way to climb out that worked. Another time I fell asleep with her on her bad while she was sick, and I woke up next to her in the night with her kneeling on her bed saying a prayer out loud to help her cough go away so she could go back to sleep. There are tiny acts of faith that are starting to accrete and form into the makings of her  own testimony. 

That's what I felt about seeing her raise her arm to the square in support of our new prophet. I was so grateful to have that moment. 

The Resurrection

We finished the night this evening talking about Easter morning and what happened in the tomb, and the events that played out thereafter. We reviewed the events of the last few days and then we started to talk about when Mary sees Jesus, and asks for where the body is. Thankfully, Amy started to telling the story because she had the details more firmly in her mind than I did. 

Amy shared that Mary talks to the Lord without realizing that it is Him. He asks her, "why weepest thou?" And she makes her reply, and then he says, "Mary," and that's when she realizes that it's Him, capital "H". Right as Amy explained that, I felt the spirit of her words, and I could see that Jane was feeling it too. I mentioned that I felt the spirit when Amy shared that story, and then Jane replied, "I felt the Holy Ghost" when Amy shared that story. 

Of all the things that I though were most helpful when I was taking the missionary discussions, I thought when Elder Quinn asked me how I felt about Jesus, and when I expressed my feelings and felt the spirit, he astutely said, "I felt the spirit when you shared that." That's when it clicked for me.

All those times where people say, "I feel/felt the spirit," as someone new to the church, I never had any clue what that meant. What does that feel like? What does that even mean? I never had any idea, that is, until Elder Quinn made that comment to me. 

Yesterday, after the Solemn Assembly experience, and maybe it even occurred to me before sometime earlier this week, I thought that if there were a time that I felt something like that that I should point it out. Maybe it could help Jane in the same way to identify what that is she is feeling. 

Well, the moment came and I felt it, and she confirmed that she felt it too. 

For the last couple of years I feel like my testimony has undergone some changes. I've never really questioned or been moved to doubt much, but I have just looked at things with some different perspective than I did 10, 15, or more years ago. I've wondered more times out loud, at least to myself, is this stuff really true? I've read other friends accounts of how they write off "the spirit" and attribute it to something else entirely. Or they consider the truth claims of the Church - the First Vision, the Book of Mormon, etc. - and the ascribe the events to other explanations. 

For me, it's these kinds of moments that confirm to me the truth claims of the Church. It's through the expression of faith in my children where I'm feeling something tangible, but not something that I can easily explain, like say, if we both felt the chill of a cold breeze. We shared a feeling, and she's barely understanding everything that is being said, but she is present enough in the moment and coherent and savvy enough to pick up on some level of meaning, and then the Spirit comes and is able to testify to the both of us. 

That's what it really comes down to, isn't it? I don't know any other way to explain that to someone. It's real, and it hides in the background, but it is really there. I know it is.