Frozen Diaper Wipes

Ever since Anjali was a baby, I've always left the diaper bag in the car. Always. That way, it's always there when I need it.

Last night it got down to 6 degrees. So today when we got all bundled up and went to the bank, and Anjali had unidentified sticky stuff on her face, and I pulled the wipes out of Nadira's diaper bag to wipe her off, I found a pack of frozen wipes, a diaper wipe brick, if you will. When I pulled one out, diaper wipe ice chips flew out of the bag.

I hate the cold.

The Anniversary I Forgot.

I'm shame-faced this morning, seriously.

This morning Fai and I woke up this morning before the baby and before the alarm clock. We laid in bed and cuddled. It felt so warm and safe under the blankets with Fai, I was just about to doze back off when he said...

"Do you know what today is?"

"Hmmm? Thursday?"

"Do you remember what we did on this day?"

I started wracking my brain. Married July 10th, Met April 20th, what other anniversaries did we have? Baptized Dec. 28th, just different years....

"Look under your pillow."

Under my pillow I found two lumpy red packages. I unwraped them, and one was a red knit hat, and the other a red knit scarf.

"Today is our anniversary."

I looked at him, the wheels turning in my mind but not making the connection.

He laughed at me. "Four years ago we were sealed."

If I were on the desktop, I'd put up the pictures from our sealing, but instead I'll share a few of my favorite memories of that day.

We'd been married six months. We still lived in that little apartment on Park. We were in that glorious stage of newlywed life known as "broke broke broke". We drove to Orlando in the wee small hours of the morning on the 14th to recieve our endowments.

We didn't have escorts, so President Austin had his in-laws, the Belnaps, escort us. I was nervous that I didn't know them, but Sister Belnap immediately treated me like an old friend. We spent the night at their home, and the next morning we went to be sealed. Dan and Marianne were there, and Marquesas and Drew, although Marquesas had to wait outside. It was a typical Janurary day in Orlanda, in the 60s. After our sealing, we all went out to eat, and then everyone else headed home and Fai and I went back to the temple to do another session. It wasn't a busy day, and I remember how sweet it felt sitting next to him in the Celestrial room. we didn't have any deep conversation, or an incredibly spiritual experience, but rather we sat and smiled and whispered softly.

So this morning in bed in freezing Virginia we smiled and whispered softly, enjoying a few moments together before he had to hurry off to work and I had to get up with Nadira. After he left, as I laid there feeding Nadira I thought about first experiences, and how different going to the temple will be for Anjali and Nadira. They won't drive there alone, the experience will be a family one. I'm glad that I will be there with them, and I'm so glad they're growing up with the gospel in their lives. At the same time, I'm a little sad for them. I know they'll one day have their own testimonies, that they'll have to discover it for themselves, but at the same time they won't have that same experience of discovering the gospel, of knowing what life is like without it, and then to suddenly have it there.

Next time I leave my nice warm home(assuming I do so before June), I will wear my hat and scarf. I think they'll look really good with my cordoroy jacket...

The Power of Rant

So I've had lots of friends talk about endurance, patients, tolerance, acceptance. And I've heard talks at church about enduring to the end. Now I do agree with this. I do believe that it's important to bare our trials with patients. However, I also believe that when we're at that breaking point, when we're completely fed up, we have to have humor about our trials as well. How do we do that? How do we laugh at our problems, when we're in the middle of them? A good rant.

I believe in the power of rant, and I use it. When I'm just so frustrated that I can't take it any more and I'm at my breaking point, I call a good friend, and I rant. This rant will last five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes, and usually ends with both of us laughing at the problem in question regardless of what it is. That's when I can stoically pick myself up and carry on with the processes of "enduring to the end".

What is a rant? It's just getting stuff off your chest. It's getting to the point where you can start a fresh. Frustration builds up like steam in a pot of boiling water, eventually it has to come out. Once the steam clears out some, then you can see the humor in the situation.

Brief example of a rant:

So when I lived in Florida with roommates, we went out west for a wedding. The reception was in Idaho, we left at like ten pm. It was May. May to me means the beginning of summer, good time to go to the beach. Yeah, we drove through a blizzard for TWELVE HOURS. Then we had to walk through the snow to get to the bathroom at the rest stop. We were all wearing FLIP FLOPS. Yeah. Then in Kansas, we had car problems, and ended up walking through a Super Walmart for SEVEN HOURS. Did I mention that we had to be home by Monday? First day of the Summer semester (yeah, that's right, SUMMER, not the time for blizzards) plus we all had to be at work on Monday. So we're in Walmart, and one of my roommates buys some strawberries and offered me one. It was moldy. It was just that kind of day. So finally we're on the road again, and everything going fine until Alabama. In Alabama two of my roommates got into a huge screaming match in the middle of the parking lot, and we all were tempting to just get out of the car and let the owner drive home by herself. Then we got back in the car, and drove the last five hours in dead silence, no talking, no radio. The worst road trip ever. When we finally did get home, everyone scattered and I locked myself into the bathroom for a three hour bath.

After having a good rant about this experience, it became one of the funny stories I like to share. Faiyaz is sick of hearing me tell it.

The theraputic power of rant is not reserved for bad experiences that are over, it's also good for problems that are ongoing. I've ranting about potty training, house training the dog, problems with the cat, moving problems, money problems, school problems, disagreements with Fai, problems with my mom, etc. All you need is a good friend who's willing to listen, and a few minutes. Let it all out, find the humor, keep in mind that almost all problems are temporary, and "this too shall pass".

You can even rant about things that annoy you, like political issues or humidity or the cold. Just a couple of minutes to get the frustration out and laugh at what's bothering you.

So there's my rant on ranting.

More Nadira

So here are some more pictures of Miss Nadira. I can't believe she's a month old already! Her blessing was this past Sunday (hence the pics in the white dress) As Faiyaz sat back down with her after the blessing, I watched him hold her. It struck me what a wonderful bonding moment a blessing is for a father and baby. I wish I had more pictures of Faiyaz and the girls. I should have taken some last night, after dinner. Fai was holding Nadira in the arm chair, and Anjali climbed up too. It was one of those sweet, sweet moments that always have me close to tearing up.

Sleep: a sweet gift

Yes, I will post more pictures, yes, they are coming soon, possibly later today. But I wanted to share a few things, and the laptop (which has no pictures on it) was right here, and both girls are occupied (Anjali has the TV going, Nadira is drunk from breastmilk) and I've got a few minutes to share.

The past three days have been rough, literally no sleep. Nadira has timed every nap for times when I can't sleep. Yesterday I had to drop Fai off at the train station, and as I drove home in the wet, cold rain I missed three turns. I took Nadira to her one month check up, and when the nurse asked me for her date of birth, I had to think a minute about what year she was born. Yeah. Major zombie. Last night was the breaking point. Anjali was in bed at 7, Fai went to sleep at 9, and there I was with my beautiful, screaming, cranky, not sleeping baby. She dozed off, and I slipped into the bathroom with a mission: to take a bath before the baby started to cry again. This was a much-needed bath, I smelled like spit up and sour breast milk. There was even spit up in my hair. So I washed it, then put in the conditioner and leaned back in the hot hot tub water to relax a minute. I felt myself starting to fall asleep in the bath. But then it started: Nadira was awake, and not happy. I rinsed my hair as fast as I could, ran the towel over my body quickly before wrapping my dripping hair up in it, and started scrambling into my pajama bottoms. This was when Fai woke up. Half asleep himself, he threw this gem out:

"Where are you? Why aren't you feeding her? Why'd you leave her?"

Now, in the light of day, I can appreciate that he'd just been woken up by a screaming baby, in the dark, with me no where to be found, but at that moment, as I ran half-dressed and still dripping out of the bathroom to get the screaming infant so that he could go back to sleep in the nice, soft, warm bed, I lost it. What followed was perhaps the dumbest fight of our marriage, which ended in me screeching at him "You're breastfeeding the next one!" and then errupting in sobs. When Fai started snoring again, I started crying even more from pure jealousy. I'm sure anyone who's gone three days without sleep can relate.

Don't get me wrong, I'm actually enjoying breastfeeding this time, very conveniant, smells better than formula, it's free, it stores better, and I love the cuddling with Nadira. It's going great, none of the problems I had trying to breastfeed Anjali. It's the not sleeping thing that's getting to me.

And this is when I got my gift. I laid down a sleeping Nadira, brushed my teeth, finished dressing, and curled up in bed with no expectations of actually getting to sleep...

Seven Hours Later.....

Yep, that's right, seven hours. I woke up with a start, and checked to make sure Nadira was still breathing. When I was sure she was fine, I stretched out and enjoyed a few more minutes before she woke up ready to eat.

I doubt this means anything, I doubt my never-sleeping baby is now magically going to sleep through the night every night, but rather I feel this was a gift. At my lowest, my breaking point, my yell-at-my-husband-for-no-reason point, God handed me a gift, a sleeping baby. Or maybe Nadira just knew I couldn't keep functioning without a rest. Either way, I'll take it. Seven hours never felt so good.

Obviously, other things of interest have been happening, but I'll share some of those later when I post the pictures.