Twelve years ago, my life changed forever when my most heart's most sacred and profound desire was realized: I became a mother.
I cannot forget how I felt when I held my baby Maia in the hospital, knowing that my dream was coming to fruition and that this tiny baby had made me a mother.
She's not so tiny now. She's 5'2", actually, and growing like a weed. She's not a baby or a little girl, but a young woman!
There are many things this proud mama loves about her girl, but I will share just a sampling today.
Maia is her own person. While she enjoys having friends and sharing their interests, she is perfectly content to fly solo. As a preteen! Where does she get this confidence?
She has her own sense of style and creates her own fashion looks. Sometimes I don't know how she comes up with some of her ideas!
She is very creative and artistic, a gifted writer and artist.
Maia is a champion of the underdog.
She is great with babies and little ones (I think because they like her laid-back nature). She recently started being a "mother's helper" weekly for our neighbor. It is so fun to see how the little one lights up when she sees Maia coming!
Maia loves music. If there's a nanosecond of silence in the car, she immediately asks for some music. She practices the piano beautifully and enjoyed going to guitar camp this summer.
Although my heart sometimes feels a pinch of pain when I look at how big she's gotten, I am really enjoying having a big helper around here. Maia loves to learn in the kitchen and never complains when I ask for for help with housework. What a kid!
Here's a shot of Maia on her first day of seventh grade:
(See what I mean with her look here? Who else would have thought to wear P.E. shorts under a denim skirt with a gauzy ballet skirt on top? She's got a style all her own.)
If I had a nickel for everyone who has asked me that question in the last couple of months, I think I could pay the bill for Michael's graduate school. Hand on heart.
At first, when the question was put to me, I tended to legitimately answer. It went something like this:Well, I plan on being in the school volunteering at least one day a week, and that doesn't include field trips. And I've still got a household to run. And I have a job to do at church that will require me to attend weekly meetings. And I've joined a new book club that meets during the day. And I have a substantial job with the PTA. And I have to take my kids to the doctor, still (two starting orthodontia).And I'm going to go to the temple more. And visit my grandma. And...
By this time I was stammering and the person who asked the question was looking at me like she didn't care that much.
Then, I moved on to my next phase: The Smart Alec Phase. It went something like this: Oh, you know, with all my kids in school, what else is there to do but eat bon-bons all day?
I'm not proud of that phase.
Next, I entered the defensive phase. Well, I still have six people's laundry to do. I still have six people's meals to plan, shop for and prepare. I still have the same number of toilets to scrub, sets of stairs to vacuum. And I thought, Why do I have to justify my time to you? Do I ask you for a daily itinerary of your tasks completed?
You get the idea. Thankfully, that phase didn't last long because I realized that people didn't know how very many times I had been asked that exact question. And that they ask it for different reasons.
I think that young mothers ask it because they want to hear that I get to go to the bathroom all by myself when the urge hits. I think they want to know that this day can and will happen for them. And to them I say, I have gone on long walks alone and come home to curl on the couch with a good book!
I think some people are curious because they cannot imagine how I can't be anything but bored in this, my new station in life. They simply do not know how much work it takes keep a household running and to be the kind of mother and person I want to be. I am glad that I have the time to do all the service, volunteering, and trips to doctors without it being a conflict with another career. My family is my primary occupation and that hasn't changed because my kids are all out of the house for 5 hours a day. Believe me, those are the fastest 5 hours of the day!
And when I have some extra down time for a little luxury like a lunch date with my Michael, all the better. I don't feel bad at all--I work pretty hard for a kept woman!
Basically, my sister, Amber, doesn't know how I sleep at night because of the supposed guilt I should feel over not yet posting about my baby's first day of school.
Show's how much she knows...I've been sleeping like a log.
But seriously, my baby started full-day real school this year. Wa-hoo! I mean, isn't that wonderful?
Now, you must know that I love my baby as no one else on the earth can, but between you and me, dear friend and devoted reader, the child is a pill. She's bossy, moody, and opinionated. And she loves her mom, a characteristic she shows through her ultra-clingy-ness to me.
Once upon a time, I had another five-year-old who often acted like the kind of kid only a mother could love. Said child happily went to Day #1 of kindergarten but came home disgruntled with the fact that Mommy was not seen for such a length of time. Taking said child to the classroom in the morning on subsequent days of school was met with screams, cries, tears (from both of us), tantrums, physical restraints by school counselors, aides and teachers (just the child this time) and the like.
It wasn't pretty.
Having lived through that, I decided to go about Mackenna's entrance into the public school system with a new approach, one of the hands-off variety. I realized that Marlee, a first grader, had to wait in the same line as the kindergarten kids and that she knew exactly where Kenna's class was, as is had been her classroom last year. You see where I'm going with this?
That's right: I pawned off a potentially unpleasant parenting task onto the shoulders of my six-year-old.
And you know what? It worked like a charm.
Mackenna didn't cry. I didn't cry. It was win/win! We've never had an ugly scene where it's taken 5 adults to hold onto my screaming child while I race, crying, from the building. Because I've never walked in there. She's never expected me to walk her in to her desk because I haven't ever done it.
Now, I know that this decision might make me seem heartless and indifferent, but I am pretty pleased with how it's all worked out.
And Mackenna is one of only two of my kids who hasn't cried for days the first week of school. And believe you me, that is a little miracle in an of itself!
Here's a shot of my new school girl at home before the trek to school:
And here are Kenna and her Teense as they walk:
See? Teensy had it all under control.
Dear friend and devoted reader, things have certainly picked up here at the Hunter house in the past few months. My Michael left his place of employment of the past 7 years and started a new job. He also applied to, got accepted to, and started graduate school. We thought we were busy before, but things have certainly been crazier than ever these past couple of months.
Allow me to brag a little: My Michael, smartypants that he is, got himself into a pretty good graduate program. He is now working on getting a Masters of Science in the Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce (say that ten times fast--I dare you). The program is geared toward working professionals and is an accelerated program. He'll have his M.S. in M.I.T. completed next August. Wa-hoo!
Now, he doesn't go to class for an hour or two every Tuesday/Thursday or Monday/Wednesday nights; instead he goes a couple of Saturdays a month, a l l d a y l o n g. Usually. In June, he had to report to the campus in Charlottesville, VA for two weeks straight.
Instead of having him drive home Saturday morning and head back to school again Sunday night, we decided to turn a weekend in Virginia into a family mini-vacation. The kids and I had never been to Charlottesville and we thought it would be a great chance to be together without a ringing kitchen telephone and the responsibilities of home.
After Teensy played in her All-Star baseball game, I loaded up the kids and drove to the hotel where my Michael had been staying. We piled into the hotel room and hit the ground running in the morning.
After a yummy breakfast at a little corner deli, Michael gave us a tour of the University of Virginia's campus. I really thought the campus was beautiful. I am a sucker for brick and the red brick buildings with large white columns surrounded by all the lush greenery sure made for a pretty, pretty campus.
After touring the campus, we headed out to Thomas Jefferson's plantation, Monticello. I have heard many wonderful reviews of other people's visits to Monticello, so I was totally excited to go. My kids weren't sure why they were going to visit some dead guy's house, but Mason quickly became a believer. He found the estate fascinating.
Check out how big the stump of this tree is! Our entire family could have fit inside.
It was a super hot day and Mackenna, especially, started to melt (emotionally and physically) but I think everyone had fun. Monticello has a special family-friendly tour and our tour guide was very good at trying to do hands-on activities to interest the children. There is also a children's Discovery Room with all manner of hands-on exhibits that our kids didn't want to leave!
Teensy and Kenna both loved playing house in the slave quarters of the Discovery Room. I tried to tell them that the real slaves had to sleep on the floor, work all day, etc. but the girls thought it all looked great to them!
Maia had fun working on a loom.
Here's Mason writing with a quill. He was supposed to write his name, but he wrote his catchphrase, "I like pie," instead.I would love to go back sometime with my Michael to do the regular tour and to visit all the nooks and crannies our kids were too pooped to explore. The scenery around the house itself was stunning; I can only imagine how beautiful all those trees are in the fall!
I will say this: I cannot quite figure out Thomas Jefferson. Certainly, he was a genius innovator. And he no doubt had some great ideas and believed in America. I just don't know how to reconcile all that with the slaves and the slave mistress thing. It boggles my mind.
Anyway, I am glad we got to steal this little weekend away. With all of my Michael's church, work, and now school responsibilities pulling him away and me running kids to piano and baseball back in June, it was awesome to just get away from it all and spend time together as a family.
For years, my Michael has called our bedroom "The Room of Shame." It's always the last room I clean when I clean the house and sometimes (most times/almost all the time--don't judge me) I run out of steam so I don't really do a good job. I have always shut the door to our room when people are coming over because, in truth, I have always been ashamed of anyone seeing what a disaster zone hides behind that door.
My Michael has complained to me, "It just seems like you take anything you don't want people to see and you shove it in our room." BINGO! "That's because that's what I do," I have responded.
In my defense, even when my room was picked up and organized it was nothing to look at--with its four different colors of mismatched adolescent furniture, its flat white walls and its general blah-ness. I never took any pride in my room.
Well, dear friend and devoted reader, I decided to make some changes around here in the master bedroom department.
My Michael had to go away for two weeks and I thought I'd give our bedroom a make-over while he was gone. I thought I'd change everything he hated about our room and even some things he'd never mentioned. In short, I thought I'd play HGTV (one of my favorite pastimes).
When I went to take some "before" pictures, I thought I'd leave things as messy as they were so that the after would look all the more dramatic. Looking back, I see that step was completely unnecessary and I'm more than a little embarrassed to show you the grossness that was my master suite, but alas, that's what I get, I guess.
Without further ado, I present the Before and the After of our space:
Do you like how I didn't even shut the dresser drawers to snap the photo? Cuh-lassy! And do you think we have enough books?
This is my Michael's awesome hand-me-down dresser. The last owner of this small wonder was a two year-old girl, hence, the tulip shaped drawer pulls. 
Here is the new view of my side of the room. What? You think this looks better? I mean, it's basically the same, right?
This is my Michael's grown up big boy dresser! Isn't it pretty? And don't you love how Maia's copper embossed art project from school matches the room and looks great in the space? I know I do!
Now, dear friend and devoted reader, please don't think that the Hunter children will not be able to go to college just because their parents now have a decent space in which to lay their weary heads. 'Tis not so!
I'm nothing if not thrifty and I stuck to a pretty tight budget to pull off this spousal surprise. I scored both of the new dressers and the lamps for free, thanks to a friend who wasn't using them to do anything other than gather dust in her basement. I bought the new, slim bookshelf off of Craigslist. I stumbled upon some bi-fold doors at the thrift store and was able to quickly turn them into an easy headboard. Several cans of spray paint made all my "new" furniture match, if not in style at least in color. I got my pretty coverlet (the first bedspread I've ever bought for my bed) on sale at Target and I sewed my accent pillow shams and bed skirt one late night with Kendra (my sewing machine). So, you see, not bad at all. We won't be eating beans until Christmas because of my room redo!
And my Michael? Let's just say that sometimes I catch him up there just staring, enjoying the adult retreat he's always wanted our bedroom to be. (And it's never been messy for even 30 seconds since I did it nearly two months ago. I won't let one misplaced item mar its peaceful beauty.)
List of disgustingly gross parasitic and/or viral ailments from which one or more of my beautiful children has suffered:
Warts? Check.
Molluscum? Check.
Toenail fungus? Check.
Athlete's foot? Check.
Pinworms? Check.
Lice? Check.
Frankly, I thought the pinworms were the worst thing in the world. But hand on heart, I'd rather deal with the ick-factor of pinworms every month for the rest of my life than deal with the combo ick- and endlessly-pick factors of lice one more time.
It's nearly done me in, but I am winning. Some little parasites think that they are going to compromise my daughters' heads? Think again, little suckers (no pun intended).
As a general rule, I don't like comics. I just don't think they're funny.
My Michael loves comics. Early in our marriage he would snuggle with his mistress (The Washington Post) on Sunday afternoons and become amused. Invariably, he would try to share the source of his amusement with me, his beloved wife. Almost without fail the conversation would go something like this:
My Michael: Seriously, Hon, just read this one comic. You've got to like this one.
Me (rolling my eyes): You know I'm not going to like it. I just don't think comics are funny.
My Michael: Come on! Read it.
Me: Fine. (Silently read comic.) Here's your paper back, Jorge.
My Michael: That's it? Come on! That was funny!
Me: I guess I just don't get it.
My Michael: See...this guys does this and then that guy says that. See?
Me: Yeah, I see, I just don't see how it's funny.
My Michael (rolling his eyes): Fine.
Thankfully for my Michael, he has passed the comic gene on to our children and they now chuckle together on Sunday afternoons. I'm fine with that. I, the non-comic-loving wife can happily abstain from comic reading and my comic-loving husband has learned to leave me alone about it (for the most part).
Until now.
Or recently, I should say. My darling Michael has started to write comics. Naturally, I can't politely refuse to read them.
Sometimes, they are a little "comic-y" but several times I have actually genuinely laughed at them.
I even have a hands-down favorite! Can you guess which one it is? Check out the whole she-bang here: http://sticky-comic.blogspot.com
Quotation of the Month
There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one.
-Jill Churchill
