Live Like I Am Living

All the time in mommy blog posts across the world, tragic news stories, or Tim McGraw's greatest hits albums I hear the phrases "treasure every moment" or "live like you were dying." Most of the time these phrases are attached to some kind of "because."

Treasure every moment because... you never know when your precious child will be taken away from you.
Live like you were dying because... you only live once and you don't want to live with regrets.
Treasure every moment because... life can completely change in the matter of a second.

And so on.

As I've read these stories and the precious sentiment behind them, I have often found myself thinking about this concept. How do I live like I am dying every day? How do I seize the moment, treasure every minute with those that I love to make sure that I don't end up with regrets? With these questions comes inevitable guilt. I ask myself, "Was I treasuring my life when I spent 2 hours watching TV last night instead of connecting with my husband?" or I'll say, "Dang, I failed at that YOLO thing today because all I did was clean my house and make sure Sam didn't seriously injure himself in some way."

But through hours of allowing my mind to contemplate this concept, I've come to a comforting conclusion:

There is no way to "treasure every moment."
There is no way to consistently "live like you were dying."

In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say living like that is counterproductive and unrealistic to real life.

I understand where mommy blogs and news articles are coming from when they tell us to reexamine our lives and try our best to live them to the fullest. The realization I've come to, though, is that sometimes living life to the fullest means doing the things that are completely mundane and seemingly meaningless.

I think about what my day would be like if I knew Sam only had 24 hours to live. Assuming he was healthy and could still do everything he can do now, I imagine it would start with me waking early in the morning (perhaps never sleeping the night before) and creeping into his room to watch him sleep. I'd watch his belly go up and down and love every breath he took. I think our day would consist of Isaac not working, nothing else in the world getting in the way. We would go to the park or let him ride some fun kiddy rides. We would eat all of his favorite foods. He wouldn't hear one correcting word or pay any visits to timeout for bad behavior because we wouldn't have the heart to go through with it. My computer would be completely ignored as well as any other media-related device, unless it was a music player and we were dancing together. With all of that and more, I guarantee that at the end of the day I would have some regrets. I would think of things I could have done differently to treasure my time with him more.

So as I think of that "ideal" day of treasuring my time with my family and living like I or they are dying, I think about how unrealistic it is. No work would ever get done, no bills ever paid. Our house would stay dirty because what's the point of cleaning? Sam would never learn the difference between good or bad behavior because I would treasure anything from him at that point.

So how do I treasure the special moments without feeling guilty that more often than not, my life will feel just normal? Well, I answer myself, I guess it would be best just to treasure it all.

Maybe in the end it's not that I need to change much about my life. I don't need to spend an entire day complying to every one of Sam's whims in order for me to feel fulfilled and not have any regrets. In fact, that would be really unfortunate. What if life is really more about treasuring the mundane things because it's the mundane things that teach us how to really live? I don't need to feel guilty about every time I put Sam in time out or tell him to go play in his room by himself, because he learns things through those times that I could not teach him otherwise. This life is about learning and we have to experience the normal to learn that the exceptional is exceptional. How else would we appreciate it?

I guess the conclusion I've come to is that I need to live... like I am living. Because, I am. And at the end of the day, if something tragic or unfortunate occurs that changes my life forever I hope I can look back and say to myself, "It's ok, you lived like you were living and you did your best to love it."

Oh, Boy!

Hey Sam, do you want a huge sucker? 

 There's a reason I gave you this big sucker. Do you want to know what that reason is? 

 You know that blue is usually a color for boys, and pink is usually a color for girls, right? And what color is the sucker you are holding?

 What I'm trying to tell you, Sam, is that I'm giving you this sucker because I have some big news for you. 

You are going to be a big brother! And guess what? 

 You're getting a little brother! You aren't going to be the only boy anymore! 

Say "hello" to Olive baby boy #2. 

Baby's First Haircut

Ok, so I know that his haircut was long overdue. 

I think I was avoiding it because I have absolutely no experience with cutting hair and didn't want to make him look bad (plus his curls are just so cute, I didn't want to have to get rid of them). But alas, his hair kept falling into his eyes and it was starting to bug him so I decided to go ahead and take the plunge.

Before

Before

I had him watch a couple episodes of his favorite show- Shaun the Sheep. He didn't move the entire time. :)

After

After

After (He was very into his show.)

 He has some weird hair lines where his hair doesn't grow in spots that it probably should, so I did my best not to make him look like a monk. :) Overall, I feel like it wasn't a huge disaster, so that makes me happy. I can't believe how big he's  getting. 

In Provo and Loving it

Hey Utah! It's nice to see you again!

We are officially moved in a finally getting settled into our new apartment here in Provo. Our move went fairly smoothly but we were definitely happy to get here and get unpacked.

Since moving here, Isaac found a job at BYU that he is completely in love with. It is exactly in line with what he wants to do career-wise. We are super grateful he was able to find a job so quickly, especially since we know the Provo job market is not always easy to navigate.

I have been having adventures with Sam and really enjoying the one-on-one, no-interference time that I've been able to spend with him. He's my little buddy and I love him to death. In many ways, I'm glad this new baby still has a little while to cook because I'm having lots of fun getting to know Sam outside of having school and work responsibilities. Provo/ Utah has so much to offer in terms of fun things for families and children to do, I'm almost overwhelmed by it all. But we just plan out each day and try to go do fun things as often as we can. I love watching him explore this new world of grass, hills, trees, water, rivers, and mountains. He is already in love with it all, in his own little cautious, reserved way of course. :)

Since pictures are more fun than words, here are some pictures of our latest adventures.

I took Sam to the splash pad, and he was very unsure about it at first.

It always makes me laugh how there can be an entire splash pad available to big kids, but they have to come over to the one little spout my toddler is playing with. Luckily, Sam was pretty chill about it and the big kid got bored quickly. 

Eventually, he discovered it was actually pretty fun, but he never wanted to go completely in the water.

Occasionally, the splash pad would turn off and then begin another 15 minute cycle. Sam loved when all of the water was off and he could just splash in the puddles, but he was caught off guard when the water started spraying and he was in the middle of the pad. 

We also like playing at the park.

Sam and I have been on a couple of walks and I continue to just soak in the beauty of all of the nature around me. Much different from the barren, windy, dirt-filled prairie we just left. 

The river we walk along.  

This week, we have also had a lot of fun because my mom has been here in Utah. She came to visit her newest grand baby/ my newest niece, born just over a week ago. After spending lots of time cuddling with the new baby, she got to come hang out with me and Sam and we have gone on adventures. 

My Aunt Cyndi had the idea to visit the City Creek Mall in SLC and to take the Trax train with Sam. My mom had never been to the mall before so she loved getting to see it. Sam loved the train and not having to sit in a carseat. Being his analytical and cautious self, Sam had to figure the train out first, and then decided it was really fun.

The next day, we all went to my Grandma Snow's house so she could see a bunch of her great grandchildren she hadn't seen in a long time. She also got to meet my new niece. We had a great visit with her and my Aunt Kathleen. 

Sam had funny climbing the stairs and looking at us through the balcony. 

Beyond all of my fun mommy adventures, I'm looking forward to getting my Etsy shop up and running again with more merchandise and exciting new ideas. I enjoy thinking of things to create and finding ways to create them. I also hope to continue to challenge myself intellectually by researching books and articles about the things I am passionate about. 

Today, I also have my first Utah doctor's appointment, so we're hoping for good things with the new doctor and the babe. 

Life is good and we are very excited to see what the next couple of years holds for our little family here in Utah.