here I am

So it's been six months...

when i come here to write...i am empty, or too full.

but today...my sister sent me this picture, and i want to write.

some of you know i have a private blog...very uncensored to the workings of my mind and heart. i have rarely written anything over the past few months. i have missed writing, but it tends to evoke too much emotion...and it makes me realize how fragile i am inside.

how scared.

I've learned a little over the past 6 months...in my silent listening.

like i'm really not in charge of things. and life doesn't go as planned.

i've learned to hold onto my husband closer, and tighter.

and i've learned a lot about letting go.

of expectations. assumptions. control.

I don't want it to sound like I've had a terrible 6 months,

because it's been wonderful. but hard.

this miscarriage was harder than i thought...and continues to affect me. my sister's graduation was harder. the family reunion was harder. going to south carolina was harder. dance has been harder. reuben's last semester of nursing school has been harder.

all good, but hard.

and i think i know why... after my miscarriage i became really numb. detached. in letting go of the baby, i let go of others.

and although it served it's survival purpose...it makes things harder.

but i have needed to focus these past few months.

in south carolina i realized i was pregnant again.

i felt guilty for not being happy and excited.

i cried a lot at night, when i should've been praying.

i wrote a lot back then, but posted nothing.

then my words stopped.

i went off my medicine as soon as my intuition was confirmed.

it took me four days to tell reuben i was pregnant.

it took us 16 weeks, and 2 heartbeats to tell the girls.

i was detached. anxious. protective. defensive.

being off my medicine is a big deal for me. i've had to simplify my mind. sometimes that means being quiet. sometimes too quiet. and even though i am still somewhat disconnected...i want to open up a little today and tell you...

10 days ago...my reuben, lynzee and emi huddled around an ultrasound.

we heard a beating heart and saw a healthy growing body.

and a complete face...reuben squeezed my foot at this sight.

[my medication causes cleft lip and palette. to see perfect lips never meant so much before.]

I was excited for the girls to see their little brother.

I was sure we were being sent a prepackaged crazy bundle of testosterone

to keep us grounded during this next season of hormonal drama girls.

but I was wrong.

We saw a perfectly healthy baby...girl!

it's another step in learning that I'm not in charge.

of a lot of things.

Wizard of Oz...May 22

Yes, it's late coming...and yes, it will be followed by a plethera of photo albums from my sister's graduation, my month long trip to South Carolina and the recent Hyde family reunion last weekend...but first things first.

Off to see the Wizard...and it was a wonderful Wizard of Oz!



and here are some albums of my classes...each of these girls is truly a joy in my life.







yes, that was over 220 photos...and did you see that backdrop!
My dear Reuben, Colby & Ashley, Amy Gabbitas, Maren and Jen and mostly Amy Richen helped me paint that in less than a week...plus three other side backdrops!

Here's to long nights and early mornings...
Here's to sweeping glitter and gluegun burns...
Here's to cutting music and long phone calls for costumes...
Here's to the support of so many that love me...
Here's to the support I have for these tiny girls...
and here's to the moms...
Cheers!

Queen for a Day

I'm late posting Emi's birthday...she was Queen for the Day.

and of course what is a queen without a real crown.

she got her favorite breakfast in bed...and her loyal subjects took their bears to build-a-bear for a makeover. then we took some kiddie kandid pictures and went swimming at the cool indoor aquatics center...I was very grateful to have my sister there...that's when the miscarriage started so the pictures stop there.

it was ironic to celebrate birth and loss during the same day...i'm very grateful for my emi. this miscarriage has been hard for her. even tonight while we were shopping she said, when i see little baby clothes it makes me feel very sad mom. i feel it too.

when we discovered there was no heartbeat she cried a lot and said she really wanted to hold a baby. i told her our neighbor katie had a tiny newborn and i bet she could hold her. i could see katie on her porch. as i walked with emi down the sidewalk i hollored out...can emi hold your baby. my throat caught with the word "your" and i didn't say much more. i didn't hold the baby, but i touched her tiny head and that thick dark hair felt like silk. emi held her for a while and then ran off to play. since then she told me "it is different mom to hold other peoples babies"...as if i didn't know.

so...i'll tell you about the performance next...i need to finish the slideshow.

it really was a great experience.

ode to the sun

(from my personal and private files...)

today i woke up to find it was suddenly summer.

no more school. no more dance. and the roses bloomed early.

i've decided to postpone my trip to fallon so i can sit on my swing and remember why i live among these gigantic green mountains that turn pink at precisely 9 at night.

i woke up this morning to find my house framed in arching roses.

and mr. darby had exploded into at least ten heavy blossoms that smell like lemon starbursts.

true.

and my peony out back was full of large fluffy very bright flowers.

I sat on my front porch swing today.

I played with my family in the grass.

I took the girls out to terabithia...my tree

and although she is still surrounded by the high water of the river...she was beautiful.

this was my third time to see her this spring.

a while ago...on a hard day i went. she was submerged in the river. when i saw how unreachable she was...it affected me deeply. i sat on the bank and looked at her root system in the water and wondered how she had survived such a great fall. she still reached out over that river with all these new branches sprouting upward. yet she was her own island. I felt unreachable that day too...I wanted to feel alive like her...so I waded out thru the freezing water and sat on her lap of a trunk...my legs were red and numb. i wanted to be numb too. i wanted to stop hurting. to stop feeling so angry. i wanted to feel strong and supported and supportive. i didn't climb thru her. i just sat and tried to still my mind for a few hours...i watched the twisted current around her...until i could feel my legs and then i waded back to the trail and walked barefoot on that hot paved trail back to my car...

today...she was extra isolated because of the heavy rains all night long...and i stood on the bank with emi and stared at her. emi said, "you know mom we could still get to her." obviously she had been figuring it out in her mind...just like i did a while back. she explained how to get to her...and she was right.

terabithia was indeed reachable.

"but let's leave her alone. and come back when the water is lower"

came the realistic conclusion and off we went on our bikes...emi is right.

it just takes time, and some sunshine...and water will subside.

from the private blog...

her name is terabithia...it's time to go see how she braved the winter

and to sit in her roots and breathe in her green. there is something very healing about the color green and the sound of water.

there is another tree nearby. it does not belong to me. it belongs to everyone.

and there is a very high swing...where one can practice...

how to fly and the art of letting go

either way it takes your breath away.

and then you sit in the uprooted roots of Bithia...and breathe green.

air can be green...when it is alive with growth. movement. water.

it's like the yellow sun absorbs the water and sky and somehow

fills the air with green...and it filters in the houses

yes. green is a good color. and it's back.

from the private blog...

I held Emi today as they gave her a stinging shot and put her under for her dental work. When she was coming out of it she couldn't open her eyes and the nurse was trying to wake her up...she was trying to get her to nod. or react in some way. she put a cold ice pop on her tummy and asked her if she could take it off. Emi didn't budge. I started talking to her asking her if she wanted to go home...she was out cold. or so it seemed. Then the nurse asked her...do you know where your mommy is? and with all her energy my emi flung her arm around my head and neck. I kept whispering in her ear...say "mom" and they will let us go home but you have to use your words. Somewhere inside that drugged little body came very slowly 'mom'...and we went home.

(for the next five hours she threw up and shook and cried in delirium...there is a youtube video of a little boy in the car from a dentist appointment and he screams and talks nonsense...i use to think it was funny, but not anymore.)

When we got home there was a note on the door that Lynz made before her ride picked her up for school...we had to leave before her. Emi was still half dead and was so upset that her eyes weren't working and she couldn't read it and she couldn't see anything right. But the note meant a lot to me. Despite the fighting and fits...there is actually a lot of love in this little house.

I held Lynzee too, she was a train wreck today...she asked to be held...and around 6:30pm she fell asleep in my arms in the rocking chair I bought when I was pregnant with her...I use to rock them every night and measure their bodies as they lay across me...I remember when Lynzee's legs were long enough that they fell over the arm of the chair...

I haven't taken time to hold them for a while.

it hurts. i'm not sure why it hurts so much...but it also heals.

everyone needs to be held...and everyone needs to do some holding.

no heartbeat

actually...there was one. mine. and that's pretty important.

So it's time to tell you about the miscarriage...
let me read you a letter...and tell you a story...or two.

"Hello parents,
I'm afraid I have some sad news, but I'm determined to turn it into a learning experience. I began having some difficulties with my pregnancy this past week and on Wednesday had to get my first substitute for dance class (thank you Rachelle!) so I could go in for a dr. appoinment. We could not find the heartbeat and a later ultrasound confirmed that I was in the early stages of a miscarriage. Gratefully the miscarriage completed itself yesterday (this past Saturday), although I am tired I would like to continue with our dance classes this week.

I want you to know how I am going to present this news to them. I will talk to them in the middle of class so all the dancers are there and they still have time to dance after the news...I'm hoping they can process it thru movement. I'm not worried about the children under 5yrs, some of the 3 yr olds still tell me they are growing a baby too, and their concept of when a baby comes is very vague.

But the after school classes...although they are resilient, it's going to stick with them a bit. I want to talk to the girls about how our bodies are amazing creations and forming a baby is a miracle...and it is also a miracle that our body knows what to do when things aren't forming right. Tell them how blessed I am that my body recognized right away that something was wrong and stopped it. Tell them how wonderful it is to have each of them with their perfect beautiful bodies that can do so much. Focus on the miracles that they are. I want them to know it is ok to be sad, that it is a sad thing, but it is also a blessing. "Imagine if I told my husband to paint the studio pink and I meant the inside, but he started painting the outside walls and on the windows...we would need to stop him right away. we would say "stop, that's not right" then we would need to clean it up and start over. I am very blessed and lucky that my body said "stop, that's not right."

now here is the story...it happened yesterday...in dance class.

with these 7 girls...plus 5 more [yes, it's a big class.]

Ten little familiar faces line up against the wall, listening to my every word as I tell them what we will be doing at barre today "two demi plies. one grande. releve. balance..."and little Maddie comes in a little late with a bouquet of flowers and a huge bag of cinnamon bears (i love those)...she doesn't say anything. she gives me her sweet smile and takes her place at the barre. I try to go on...and in comes Miranda with a big envelope...handwritten "I am sorry you lost your baby" and she holds on to me tight. I was undone. Every girl left her spot at the barre and surrounded me...almost knocked me over actually.

It's pretty amazing...children know how to wrap you up and make it all better. They don't need to know if it is their job.
They just follow how they feel.
Somewhere along the way, they learn how to be guarded and hold back...
fear I suppose. of rejection perhaps. they reach out at one point and are turned away...so they stop reaching.

I reminded them how amazing and beautiful our bodies are. I reminded them of the light that spreads thru our heart and out our fingers and all the way thru our pointed toes. I told them that it was a miracle to create a body inside of us...it is amazing because we don't tell it what to do. Our body just knows. And our body knows when it's not going right and it stops it. I told them that I was not going to have a baby right now. that it is sad. but it's ok. Miranda raises her hand and I let her tell the kids about her little brother Adam that could not breathe when he was born and died. Suddenly, every hand went up. Everyone had a loss. Alexa actually said it Allie...she raised her hand and said "my grandpa died Miss Amber and I was sad too." She knew she was not alone. We were together. Everyone had been touched with death. I wasn't meaning to go there, but soon everyone was hugging everyone else. no tears. but smiles.

We all needed to be held. just a little bit. and then we danced.

that, my friends, is called...'mourning with those that mourn'

moments like this make my studio sacred. you can feel it.
it is a safe place.

It has never been about the dance steps...It is always about the experience.

When I built this place I said I wanted it to be "a safe place for expression".

A place where these girls would learn about their bodies...

where they would love themselves and learn to love the differences of others.

It would be a place where they would teach each other more than I could teach them.

Where they would learn to deal with every emotion...I didn't realize what I was creating.

But it has happened. It has become bigger than myself...a creation of its own.

It is invisible to the eye...but you can feel it.

There was a point in the miscarriage, at the end, when I finally got to lay down on my bed...and my big sister Brittney came and laid next to me. I saw The Little Prince by my bed and I read to her...about the rose garden. and the fox. and being responsible for what we tame. how it is the time we devote that makes each other so important. I have devoted a lot of time to these girls...almost every week [besides summers] for four years...they have come and danced with me. I have held them when they fall down or just bonk into each other...and also when their parents get divorced and they don't know who is coming to pick them up.

It is the time you devote to taking care of someone...listening to them, yes, even sitting and watching them...just being there...that's what establishes such a strong tie between people. Antoine De Saint-Exupery is right, it takes time...and it is the only way we understand anything at all. We only understand what we have tamed.

And I have spent a great deal of my time taming children...

and being tamed by them.

I know most of you will not go out and read this book...

so I'll do you the favor of posting this part.

THE LITTLE PRINCE, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."
"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed." "Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added:
"What does that mean...'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"To me, you are nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince.
"There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . . "

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."
"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.
The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.
"On another planet?"
"Yes."
"Are there hunters on that planet?"
"No."
"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"
"No."
"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.
But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," he said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . . "

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.
"Please! tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time.
I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox.

So The Little Prince tamed the fox.
And when the hour of his departure drew near . . .
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm;
but you wanted me to tame you . . ."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back and say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The Little Prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world." And the roses were very much embarrassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you. But in herself alone she is more than all the hundreds of you other roses; because it is she that I have watered; because it is she I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies): because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.
Because she is my rose."

And then he went back to meet the fox.
Goodbye," he said.
Goodbye," said the fox.
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have devoted to your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have devoted to my rose" said the little prince,
so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it.
You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.
You are responsible for your rose . . ."
"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated,
so that he would be sure to remember.

the bunny brought bubbles

Easter is about dresses and eggs and lots of chocolate and kites and golf
and bubbles and green grass and oh yes...all about hope.


i'm not really a fan of the bunny.
i'm not sure what it's purpose is . . . and it's nice to get credit for the basket and goodies. i really wanted church to be about the resurrection . . . or the atonement . . . and i tried really hard not to be so bothered when they talked about provident living.

when i went to nursery. . . shauna brought out her magic toys and somehow came up with a cave with a stone that rolled in front. the twelve little faces stared at her and gathered so close as they watched the little mary figure come and cry at the tomb. and we learned that Jesus came back to life after all. nursery is a very magic place.

my mom and sister were in town and that made my house the easter gathering place. britt brought her family down from idaho and colby and ash came too...that's about half the fam! it was heaven sent for me and posting these pictures makes me want to rewind time a bit . . .
i will let the photos do the telling . . .

Hip Hop Hunt

better just tell you

it's a bit early...but I feel like I had better just say it

yes. I'm pregnant. Surprised? me too.

my babies

i think my baby is growing up...

but at least she's safe in her daddy's arms

lynzee's life revolves around her social network. texting on my phone. calling on the real phone. chatting on gmail. passing notes. friday playdates. and the hope of a sleepover. there is a 5th grade boy that has the power to make or break her entire day....her entire life. it's drama.

my little emi revolves her life around her upcoming 7th birthday and the constant revolving invite list...i think she has the biggest parties ever. last year there was like 50 people at her HSM party...and the year before every single person came to her disneyland party...all dressed up. i think every child in the world is ready to party in april...spring! this year...pixie & pirates party!

and the invite list is over 30 kids. oh dear.