Where is the ME in Mommy? Guest Blog

Today is a landmark day. Someone else actually let me scribble all over their piece of cyberspace. My friend, Reagan, maintains a wonderful blog replete with advice on motherhood, cleaning and fashion. Today I am her guest blogger. Check it out here.

(Almost) Bridging the Gap

Is everyone sufficiently sick of pedestrian bridge abutments? Yes? Well, then stop reading because you've stumbled into another post about the two glorious chunks of concrete that represent the pinnacle of my post baby career.

I went to go watch the bridge being set last week. It is 73'6'' which is a respectable length for a pedestrian bridge. It was a cold miserable day but I was determined to catch the whole beautiful process on film. Fortunately for you, Blogger takes a long time to load photos so you are now seeing the Cliff's Notes version.

You will notice my stunning abutments at stage right and stage left, bearing up the mighty bridge. (I won't think about the fact that the contractor made an error that caused a gap across the traveled way between the bridge and the backwall of the abutment. From this distance, it looks perfect.)

Once the approach slab is finished, punk kids will no longer have to ride their trick bikes with the tiny wheels and their skateboards with those weird hinges in the middle across the paved section of the channel slightly downstream to get across the ever formidable Dry Creek. Although they probably will. Because it's cooler and more dangerous. I don't need them on my abutments anyway. 

Really, what more is there to say? Please, feel free to admire.

You've Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

Has it really been four years since that memorable day in May when Chris and I went from being a couple to a full blown family? Apparently it has. And we had the blowout extravaganza celebration to prove it.

Emily selected a "Little Einstein's" theme.

This is the cake:

This particular cake may have taken a professional decorator 15 minutes, but it took me and my skills 5 hours to do. I am recording the amount of time here so that in the future when Emily doesn't call me in the nursing home on my birthday, I will have adequate basis for a huge guilt trip.

For her party, we invited her sunbeams class and I had a brilliant idea of letting 7 small children paint conducting batons. I don't recommend this particular practice, but no permanent damage was done and I learned a valuable lesson. (yes, folks - those are garbage bags we put over the kids' heads)

The rest of the party went pretty well and I believe a good time was had by all. My mom and dad were able to join us for the day and Emily loved having them there.

I am thankful Emily is part of our family. She brings a great deal of joy into our lives and she amazes us every day with her ability to figure things out. She is able to express herself with the typical 4 year old humor and wit reminding us that some of the greatest pleasures in life can also be the simplest. Happy Birthday, Emily! We love you!

Black Magic Woman

I am cursed when it comes to borrowing Chris' car. His cars only break when I'm driving them. Back when he had his Hyundai, I came home from grocery shopping and announced the dash lights had gone completely dark. This began a saga that eventually ended in the car not functioning at all, a small electrical fire and thousands of dollars of (thank goodness) warranty work. I hope the new owner is having better luck with it.

The Subaru never gave us a moment's worry when it was mine but this winter, after Chris inherited it, it started to smell distinctly gassy. At first I thought it was just the lingering aroma of Chris. After another grocery shopping trip, I realized this was not so. The car had a leak. This led to a month of tightening, tinkering, returning of gas smell and repeat. On a really cold day, it still smells like an Exxon station.

This past week, I had big plans. I've started to try to shop with coupons which requires trips to multiple grocery stores. I hit Safeway and came away with two months' supply of fruit cups, apple juice and the heady feeling that can only come from getting as close to stealing something as I ever will. Next stop: Albertson's. The coupon game didn't work so great there. I had been out for a couple hours at that point and it had gotten dark and windy and cold and had started to snow just a little.

That's when I saw it: the flat tire. I'm a modern woman. I can change my own tire. That's what I told myself as I started to get out the spare and dialed Chris, coolly telling him I had some flat tire business to attend to and I would be home a bit late. He said he was coming to change it for me. I protested. He insisted. Conversation ended.

(This, by the way is not it, but I wish the weather was like this in my story.) 

I would show him. I would change the tire before he could get there. I leaned the spare up against the car and tried not to let anyone see I was reading the owner's manual to find out where the jack was. Jack located. Tugging to no avail. Owner's manual consulted. Frozen fingers prying at nut to no avail. Screwdriver located. Leverage obtained. Jack finally freed. Hands are painfully red but blissful numb begins to set in. Chris arrives. Task gratefully surrendered. I get in the other car with the kids and drive away, happy that I'm not in a dark, cold parking lot changing a flat tire. I'm convinced I have some kind of bad voodoo when it comes to my husband's car. Perhaps it stems from my hatred of his first car. Or perhaps not.

All I know is that I am getting ample payback for being so unreasonable in college about B's incident when she was borrowing my truck. If it means anything now, I wish I would have let you guys borrow my truck more often and I now realize what a jerk I was. Accidents happen... and well do I know it now.

Concrete Blessings

Four years ago today I was very pregnant. I had made a decision that I wasn't thrilled about. I had prayed and prayed and prayed and every time I did, I received the same answer: I needed to stay home and take care of this baby. I thought I was giving up my career. It wasn't fair of Heavenly Father to ask me to do this. I had worked hard to get where I was and I didn't want to throw it away. After four years of school and four years of working as an E.I.T. I had finally earned my Professional Engineer's license and now I was just supposed to leave all that work behind and take care of kids. At least that's what I thought.

Fast forward a couple weeks. We were going to leave for the hospital and I (being a novice) had no idea how bad labor was going to get. I didn't want to bother anyone at 11 o'clock at night for a blessing of healing, so I asked Chris to give me a blessing of comfort before we left. I was more scared than in pain at the time, so it seemed appropriate. I was in the moment where I realized that this was really going to happen and I was more frightened than I had ever been. I knew labor would be easier if I was calm, so a blessing seemed to be just the ticket.

But as Chris lays his hands on my head, does he talk about how I will be able to be calm through labor and be able to stand the pain, etc., etc.? No. He does not. He briefly says something about how this will be over soon and he starts talking about my career. My career? Does Heavenly Father not realize that I am about to push a human being out my body? Does he realize that I have 20 hours of labor left? Does he realize that the epidural won't work and that when Emily finally comes out she will have colic on par with demonic possession?  If he did, none of those things seemed to be what I needed to hear at the time because most of the blessing was assurance that I would be able to pick my career back up where I left off and how I would be blessed for my decision to stay at home with Emily. I was more than a little ticked off. But off we went to the hospital.

And everything I was worried about was over soon. After labor, after childbirth and after colic, I was left at home missing my career and wanting to rip off every mom's head who said that she "needed" to work because if she was at home, she would "go crazy". Here I was at home, going crazy for the sake of my baby. The adjustment was not smooth. But once we started to get into a regular schedule, something miraculous happened. My faith was rewarded and Chris' blessing came to pass.

I don't know how it happened, but projects started to fall into my lap. I didn't really have to solicit. It just happened. First it was checking of plans, then a bit of drafting, and then some design. Pivik Engineering was born. I don't work very often and when I do work, it's not spectacular but it's work. It keeps my head in the game and it gives me something that's mine. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Chris makes my work possible by giving me time to work and by checking my designs.

Tonight we went to go see Pivik Engineering's first design to go to contract (it was very windy). What you are looking at is a pair of abutments for a pedestrian bridge. The manufactured bridge will be inserted in the seats and span the creek between the abutments. I will share some pictures of the bridge when it's placed. Bottom line: I designed those chunks of concrete and, to me, they are beautiful. They are the fulfillment of a blessing and evidence that Heavenly Father knows me and cares about my happiness.