Archives for "Ramblings"

Last night, like so many nights at the McDaniel house, I lay awake listening to my two boys softly snoring. Bedtime was some time ago, and they’ve both managed to find sleep, but no matter how I toss and turn, I can’t seem to follow their example. Ryan’s advice in these situations is to just let my mind wander and let sleep find me. So I give it a try and sleep still doesn’t find me.

But the worries do.

Worries of all shapes and sizes, likely and unlikely, start flooding my brain. SIDS. Being T-boned in a left-hand turn. Being bullied in the third grade. Being the bully in the third grade. Bad friends. Bomb threats in school. A national draft for some yet-distant war. Cancer. Earthquakes. Fires. Famines. Anything and everything beyond my direct control.

There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Never before have I had anything as precious to me as my little family. These two boys are the source of the deepest, simplest joy I have ever felt, and it seems almost too fragile to have so much daily happiness wrapped up in two  people. I think, in some small way, I finally understand that poor one-talent servant in the parable of the ten talents. My little family is this most precious gift I have ever been given, and it’s unsettling to risk them out in the wild world. Sometimes digging them in the earth (or just holing up with them at home) seems like the only way to keep them safe. (Unless the house collapses on us—quick, what’s safer than a house?)

Does this incessant worrying ever go away? Or is it just another part of parenthood along with changing diapers and soothing tears?

As if I weren’t already dealing with enough questions—what do I do with a baby, how should I handle maternity leave, will we ever decide on a baby name, can we afford to have me stay at home with the baby, etc.—we’ve decided to throw selling our condo into the mix.

This change of course came about so suddenly. One week, I was sewing curtains for the nursery; the next, we were boxing up non-essentials, getting ready to place our home on the market. Since we listed the condo two weeks ago, we’ve had only a handful of phone calls and a single showing. Really, with such limited interest, it didn’t feel like we were actually selling the place—for me, the only tangible difference was living day-to-day with an unsustainable level of cleanliness. (Running late? Too bad—the dishes must be washed, the bed must be made, and the counters must be shined just in case.)

All of that changed yesterday, when we received a last-minute phone call about a surprise showing. Said showing lasted nearly two hours and ended with us receiving a verbal offer. Now, I know there are about a million other things that need to happen before we can sell, but this is the start of the process. Believe it or not, this selling thing is really happening. 

I have such mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I really think this is the “right” move to make at this time. As I look back, I can see how our prayers for guidance on laying a solid foundation for our growing family have been answered a little at time. At its core, selling allows me the freedom to choose to stay at home with my babies, rather than letting the HOA board’s financial decrees decide for me. By selling our condo, we are doing everything we can to stabilize our monthly costs. By living with my parents for a short time after we sell, we are preparing to buy something that is suited to a family rather than a couple. And even though we’ll be selling our condo for a loss, we’ll more than make up for that loss in being able to afford a nicer house than we could in a better market. On paper, the decision to sell couldn’t be more clear.

On the other hand, my heart tells me that this little place is our home. From the moment we bought it during our engagement, we have poured so many daydreams into this place. It really feels like a part of our marriage—all the furnishings, pictures on the walls, and even the contents of the cupboards—in a way, all of these are a physical record of our memories and dreams of building a life together. I still feel like I have so much still to do here—bringing a little baby boy home to his little yellow nursery, celebrating a first Christmas together as a family, spending summer afternoons outside on the playground. These are some of my most tender and happy daydreams, and my heart is having a really hard time imagining them happening elsewhere.

I will dearly miss our little place. I will miss that it only takes 45 minutes to clean from top to bottom. I will miss being able to set the thermostat to whatever temperature we want without it really making much difference to our monthly bill. Most of all, even though it will just be temporary, I will miss having a place to call our own, a place where Ryan and I can be completely at ease, where we can be as silly and as loud as we like, and where we are completely in charge of our own schedules.

Furthermore, the timing isn’t quite what we had expected. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to not have to worry about watching a baby amid all the upcoming packing and unpacking; however, with under two months until this baby comes I am much less physically able to help with the actual moving process. I hate not being able to help. Also, I’m nesting like crazy—but I’m packing up for moving when all I want is to be putting down roots. Hopefully this sale will go smoothly and I’ll be able to have a little time for nesting once we get to mom’s house.

Still, from what I hear, change is inevitable and will lead us off to grander adventures in the future. So, I guess, here’s to new adventures, where ever they may be.

So last week I get a phone call from my brother Nick. Since I never know what to expect from those calls, I almost always answer them.

Me: Hello?

Nick: JENN! MOM GOT THE BOYS CELL PHONES. IT’S SO NOT FAIR.

He then launched into a minor tirade about the injustice of it all—the boys are only 15 and he begged for one but didn’t get it until he was 16 and their phones are nice and new and his is old and broken, etc., etc., etc. He was really funny about it.

It doesn’t bother me at all that Matt and Cole got phones at 15. However, I can totally relate to him—not about phones but about curfews. I still get moderately ruffled when I think that Nick was allowed to stay out until midnight starting his 9th grade year and I wasn’t allowed to stay out until midnight until after I turned 18. That’s almost FOUR YEARS of leaving parties before the movie was over, leaving games unfinished, and missing out on inside jokes at school the next week. I so know that feeling of injustice—it just didn’t apply in this case.

It turns out I really, really like my brothers having cell phones. I rarely get to talk to them at all—when I call, I’ll get one word answers to any of my questions, if I’m lucky. But now that they have unlimited texts, we’ll send stuff back and forth, and I’ll actually get to talk with them. (Well, with Cole at least. Matt still sends back one-word responses. But I’ll take what I can get.)

Suffice it to say that Harry Potter has been a big part of my life. Since I’m sure this is news to no one who’s ever met me, feel free to watch this awesome internet video instead. However, I wanted to write a bit about how this whole thing started… Continue Reading

Me: Ryan, I’m still losing weight from when I was sick.

Ryan: Maybe the scale is broken.

The infamous sludge has returned. Probably. Nobody knows what it was in the first place, so it’s rather difficult to know for sure if it’s returned. WebMd thinks it’s either a panic attack or tuberculosis. My mother/in-laws/random strangers insisted it was morning sickness. Ryan’s diagnosis was rheumatoid arthritis of the stomach. My doctor’s guess was either a spasming esophagus or feverblisters in my throat. (Yeah—I want that diagnosis sheet.)

But I still think it’s the sludge. And since no one else knows what it was, I’m right.

Because the sludge is evil. Only the sludge is capable of producing the situations I went through, like:

• going to the doctor because I couldn’t breathe, panting through a million medical tests, and winding up flat on my back surrounded by six nervous nurses after I failed at getting my blood drawn;
• listening to the Big Boss tell everyone at work that I’m “on the nest” because I’d forgotten to remove my band-aid after getting said blood drawn;
• having Ryan leave work mid-day to rescue a very feverish me from my nauseous hell-hole in my car in the work garage; and
• worst of all, going in for a simple strep test and getting awkwardly questioned by my doctor about my sex life…in front of my father (who had accompanied me to the doctor since I’d left my ability to drive in my work garage).

Ryan’s been super nice throughout the whole thing—he didn’t laugh at me when I couldn’t breathe properly, even though I sounded like a whiny Darth Vader; he went to the grocery store early in the morning and bought practically everything in the store I had a chance at keeping down; and he quite generously let me sleep, ignoring the fact that I was clearly on his side of the bed. He’s truly Husband of the Year.

At this point, I’m feeling better—I guess it was a quick-acting sludge this time. Regardless, I’m rooting that next time will be a regular, more run-of-the-mill sort of sickness.

So after a really late night and a busy morning getting Primary things together, I go to church and learn…they’re dissolving our ward next Sunday, splitting us up among three other wards. And worse, we’re not supposed to know about that until next Sunday. Which means that everyone’s going three different ways and we don’t have a real chance to say goodbye.

It makes me so sad.

Being in Primary has been my favorite calling in the history of church. We have some kids who are a challenge, but they’re all pretty good kids. I love that we talk about the basics of the gospel, that the kids get excited about learning, and that I can feel the spirit pretty much every week. The girls give me hugs all the time, and all the kids wave to me in sacrament meetings and smile when they see me. This is 100 times worse than being released, because I won’t even get to see at least two-thirds of them, let alone hear their awesome stories.

Plus, Primary is the only place in the church where it’s perfectly normal to discuss Jesus, ninjas, and transformers in the same sentence. (Defeating evil ninjas makes Jesus really happy, by the way.)

And, holy smokes, I am really going to miss it.