Fathers and Sons AND Mothers too

My husband and sons are at their first ever father/son camp-out. Sending them out the door armed with long pants and bug repellent, I couldn’t help but feel just a little bit older and more mature than I usually do.

Speaking of more mature, my birthday is tomorrow. That is if this ever gets posted on the 18^th of May. Tomorrow I have to attend a meeting, but we have big dinner plans. In fact, I told Brian that we are going somewhere really nice to celebrate. We are talking $15 dollar a plate here people.

I’m going to be 24. When I realize the gravity of only being 24 and reaching only what I hope is a quarter of the life I’m supposed to live, I feel…relieved. I still have so much to learn. Sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders when it’s not at all. I have time to get it right. And as I look back on even just the last few years of my life, I can see how much I’ve grown (on the inside and out sadly).

One thing that I’ve learned recently is that you can’t go through two pregnancies without exercising much and eating whatever the heck you want and come out fit and trim as you’ve always been. It isn’t that I have gained a ton of weight, but the few extra pounds I have put on are most unwelcome. So a few months ago I decided to do something that I never thought I could really do, and that is wake up at 5 am and go running. Yes, I am finally one of those people. I never thought it would have to come to this, but here I am. I go three times a week. I run about 2 miles and have a 13-minute a mile pace. I am improving too, don’t you worry. My goal was to lose 10 pounds. That would put me about where I was pre-baby. Well folks, after running for about 8 or 9 weeks I have lost a total of .8 of a pound. I know right? So now I realize that you can’t eat whatever the heck you want even if you are getting up in the AM to go running. Sheesh. Can’t I just choose one? Eat healthy or exercise? It isn’t that I pig out on candy all day. Or that I don’t eat veggies. I love veggies. I love grilled meat. I love vitamins and drinking water. I heart green smoothies. I love sprouts. I mean come on! No, my downfall is my deep and abiding love of baking. One day last week it was a drizzly, cloudy, dark day. The kind of day that it just feels so right to stay inside and watch the storm out your window and BAKE. So that one day I made sugar cookies with lemon frosting, WHOLE WHEAT banana bread (in case you were worried I didn’t know what healthy food was and/or thought I didn’t like it), and those sinful little peanut butter cookies with the Hershey kisses. Man I love those.

I’m just so not okay with giving up cookies and delicious ice-cream sundaes, and milkshakes, and cinnamon rolls. Sorry Charlie. No can do.

So even though I’ve lost just less than one pound, I have lost inches, which has to count for something. And Brian thinks my chubby cheeks are loosing just a bit of chub…that is always a good thing.

Other than feeling more energized, etc, etc, etc, that comes with running, I really want to lose the weight so I can GAIN IT ALL BACK AGAIN in the form of another baby. No, I’m not pregnant. But eventually I would like to be, and it just seems better to start off where I had started with my first pregnancy, otherwise by baby number 13 I’m going to be one fat mama!

I’m realizing more and more what this “season” of my life is all about. Have the baby. Feed the baby. Feed yourself. Feed yourself and your baby cookies. Lose the weight. Repeat.

This is one seriously taxing stage of life. But I’m happy to do it. I love children. I love my children so much it just plain hurts sometimes. I can’t seem to kiss Nathan’s little face enough, and when David blows raspberries on my collarbone I feel like the luckiest mom in the world. And when I gaze into their perfect faces and notice their shining eyes and flawless baby skin I can’t help but feel grateful for the stretch marks and dark circles under my eyes. I grew these babies. I gave a portion of my youth to them that I will never have back on my person, but it manifests itself in their beautiful little faces and I’m so, so, so happy do have given them the gift of life.

Well my boys are walking in the door. David immediately told me that Brother Carter, his nursery teacher, was there as well as Santa. And Brian told me nobody had a quilt (I told him to take one for Nathan to sit on and he politely informed me that no man brings a quilt to a campout).

My Jolly Husband

To know the Cook family well you have to know Brian. He hardly ever posts on our blog so I will do the honors. Plus, I kind of really sort of love him a lot so he is on my mind at the moment.

Brian is a choir teacher. He has a masters degree in Choral Conducting and he is a middle school teacher at a very diverse school. For the most part his students are disrespectful, but he tries to make them laugh and he tries to make them behave even though they don't want to. He comes home with the craziest stories...probably not the type that I could share (unless my blog was private). Teachers are the bomb. I have way more respect for public school teachers than I have ever had. Especially good public school teachers.

Brian details cars for extra income and sheer entertainment. He finds joy in jobs that make a noticeable difference--like mowing the lawn.

Brian is at a complete loss in the kitchen. He has cooked maybe 4 or 5 meals in the four years we have been married. That excludes frozen pizzas. He can do those. 

Brian showers everyday without fail. Sometimes he showers twice a day. I can't remember a single day when he didn't take a shower. It may seem gross to you that I find that fascinating...I can think of plenty of times when I went a day or two without showering.

He teaches voice lessons...voice lessons that turn into guitar lessons or piano lessons. People think that he can teach anything musical which is actually probably true. 

Brian has never criticized me. If the house is a mess he doesn't say a word about it. If a meal I make is not as good as I had hoped, he still thanks me for it and sings my praises (a little something I have learned is that if you marry someone that can't cook at all you will be sooooo appreciated. He tells me over and over again how lucky he is to be fed so well. I try to tell him most Mormon women can cook well--I haven't met any that can't put a good meal together and probably should just generalize that to all women--but he still thinks I'm exceptionally good at it).

He wins trophies.

 

He greets our children with energy and enthusiasm everyday. He plays and plays and plays with them. In short, he is a good daddy. 

He is funny. And I know funny. 

(Pictures taken the last day of school before Spring Break. We had a little too much fun with David's balloons. And let me tell you, I could have posted worse pictures but I didn't.)

 

He tries to make me laugh and brightens my day by leaving me little notes or doing the dishes in the early hours of the morning. Just yesterday I woke up to find a giant note left for me on our bathroom mirror written in marker. "ITS YOUR DAY" the note said, along with "I LOVE KAYLA COOK" and a giant circle where my reflected face would go that said above it, "I AM AWESOME" and an arrow pointing down to the outlet that said "You don't have to blow dry your hair today because it is your day!" and at the bottom a PS "I thought of this idea in the shower. I hope it is a good one." Let me tell you what he meant by that.

Brian is a very deep thinking shower taker. His best, worst, (and sometimes weirdest) ideas come to him while showering. This is due mostly to the fact that he isn't really awake until he gets out. The funniest idea that he had in the shower lately was a wedding gift that he thought to give a couple that was getting married at the school he works at. That particular day the faculty was invited to share their congratulations during lunch or something. Brian had very few encounters with the couple, maybe only a "hi" in the hallway, but he remembered when he first met the groom that he discovered that Brian was a Mormon and he said something like "Ah! I used to date a Mormon." So with this bit of information in the back of his mind, he thought of giving the new couple (neither of them members) a copy of The Family Proclamation to the World. But instead of just sticking a folded up copy in a nice note of congratulations, he thought he would put it in a frame. So on his way to work he stopped at Walmart and bought a frame for the nice copy of the proclamation we already had on hand. He bought a cute gift bag and tissue paper and a card to explain the gift to the couple. Now don't get me wrong, I was impressed with Brian's courage in giving something to them that has been so meaningful to us in our marriage. But when Brian got to school and actually began to wake up out of the half-sleep he usually is in when he is thinking in the shower he realized that not only did none of his co-workers have a gift for the couple, but he actually did not know these people at all. He realized that maybe he should re-think his wedding gift and at the end of the day, the gift came home with Brian along with his explanation. I'm usually still in bed while he takes his shower in the morning so he had to explain the whole process of the gift gone wrong. Only it was well intended and he hopes to give them a copy of it someday...just maybe not a framed copy for their wall since that might be a little overboard. 

Brian aspires to work in the choral department at a university somewhere (preferably one in Utah or Idaho that starts with "B") or if that doesn't work out for us we'll take The Mormon Tabernacle Choir...but only if we have to. And first he will need a doctorate degree... 

Well I don't know how many people have read this, but I know that Brian will and that is the whole point! I love you my jolly husband!