Growing

             

The vision of life is not exactly what I had pictured it to be as I made my plans in high school. Growing up I envisioned certain aspects to look and feel how I hoped they would. We all do this. I remember observing people and how they interacted with others, how they carried themselves and how they provided, worked, and how they played. I observed different marriages and quietly took note of what I would take and use and what I would toss aside as I saw it unproductive or not in line with who I thought myself to be. In high school as many of us do, I knew everything because experience had not taught me all the things that I didn’t know I didn’t know. Much like how I was the perfect parent at one point in my life. I knew how kids should be taught and treated and disciplined, I knew what a father should do and how to do it… and then I actually had kids and discovered I knew nothing about it. I learned how to be the parent of Dallin who crazy enough came with his own personality and his own will. When he was 1 yr old I felt pretty darn good about being able to parent a 1 yr old Dallin, but then he turned 2 and I had to learn how to parent 2 yr old Dallin. That may sound like the same thing but many know  that it clearly is not.  Then comes my daughter. At this point in time I had already known how to raise a baby (for me at this stage, that mostly consisted of standing back in awe at how much my sweet wife already did with perfection and try to anticipate my instructions in hopes to be of some use) This little girl couldn’t be much different… except maybe that I didn’t have to duck and cover during diaper changing time with her anatomy difference (both thoughts turned out to be incorrect assumptions) Turns out a little girl is nothing like a little boy… who knew? Enter Evan, another boy… I know how to parent a little boy. Wrong again. Being Dallin’s dad is not the same as being Evan’s and so I learn about more things that I didn’t know that I didn’t know. Such is life. I think all wisdom is just finding out about more things you don’t know and then collecting knowledge on the topic. My point here is not to be condescending to anyone that does not have the same experiences as I do. My trials and experiences are very different from anyone else. I will never know it from another’s perspective, and to be honest I don’t know if I want that. I will never know what it is like to not be able to have children, that was not my trial. I don’t know what its like to grow up in a 3^rd world country or deal with childhood illness firsthand. Even being a child with a single parent, I never knew what it was like to be the parent in that until being one myself. I don’t have the burden of enormous wealth (although I wouldn’t mind that “challenge”) these are not my experiences. Even very similar events will bring a very different experience and different emotions and reactions, I will never know what it is like for someone else to lose their wife or their baby girl…. I only know how it feels to me. The best we can do is to empathize with someone else's pain or hard times and try our best to help them through it. Well, that and try not to make it worse by saying dumb things… we all say a lot of dumb things.

Just when I figure something out, a new thing comes and teaches me yet another thing I don’t know how to do. Even as I sit here and look at this sweet little girl that has none of my genetics but who is my daughter all the same, sleep next to her beautiful mother that I get to call my wife, I can’t help but think that what I planned and what has come to be is not even in the same realm… and yet happiness is found here.

Having been a child of divorced parents from a young age I wanted something very different for my kids. I wanted something very different for myself. I remember watching my mom stress about things as a single parent that I never wanted to stress about.  I planned and made choices that I thought would allow that to be. I married such an amazing woman that I would have never had to know such things. I remember many times in my marriage to Wendy thinking how lucky I was that she was not only my wife, but that she was my kid’s mom. She was so incredible at being their mom.  There are many hard things about losing her but if there is one thing that made me angry and maybe even provoke a little mental pity party, it is that my kids would have to grow up without this amazing person that I picked out to be their mom. I hated that they can’t have her and know her in that way. I do feel incredibly blessed to have such an amazing and loving mother in the home again. Evan told me the other day when he was talking about Wendy and Lynnette that I was “really good at picking who to marry.” I can’t help but agree with his observations. 

I met Lynnette a year before we got married after a mutual friend emailed me about her amazing friend she thought I should meet. She lived up in Utah and had not really started the dating thing quite yet. I called a few times only to talk to her voicemail. I had a trip planned to go up for a family reunion and so I coordinated with her friend to go to lunch with them so she didn’t feel like she was thrown into the dating thing too quickly. The lunch ended up being dinner and it felt comfortable right from the start. We made plans to go out the following week and after dinner stayed up talking on a park bench until late that night. I had come to realize that while there were some great women that I had spent some time with since starting the dating 2.0 process, the most important element I was looking for was not  a list of criteria but was more a feeling I needed to feel. Of course there were things that needed to be there in who she was but if those were not there I wouldn’t feel that feeling anyway. With Lynnette I loved who she was and how in spite of some very difficult trials she was able to make the choice to be happy still. It is something I still love about her. I felt love for her very quickly and I was excited that I was feeling that way as I had begun to think that I wasn’t capable of that kind of feeling or that it was something I would never feel again in such a way. I was very comfortable with the idea of where it might lead and knew that I needed to give her time to process things in her own way as she came to accept the new facts of her life as well. The long distance dating was not ideal but we seemed to navigate it well for the most part and made time for each other under busy circumstances. We figured that I probably wouldn’t be able to see her every day even if she lived here because of the demands of school. After a while I was able to convince her that being married to a doctor would be a cool thing… I might have failed to mention that I would be a student still for a few more years. I knew it would be a hard thing to ask her to move to another state and I knew rotations and residency would require a lot of hours at work and I wanted her to be sure about us. She has two young girls and so with my three it would be an instant five kids. No small task. I had known I loved her for some time, but love and details of life are not necessarily the same thing and both had to be considered. Marriage had been part of the conversation for a while and as we started looking at our schedules we quickly came to realize that in order to not pull kids out of school, study for boards, have a small wedding, move my house, then her house to another state, a small honeymoon and some time to settle in as a family we had a window in between boards and rotations of about 3 weeks to hit. So, on her next visit after a night out for dinner and whatever else I could find to make her think I would propose any moment, trying to throw her off a little, we found ourselves on another park bench looking out over the distant Las Vegas lights where I asked her to marry me. There were immediate fireworks… no, literally, a friend and his wife were hiding up the hill watching and they lit off some really impressive fireworks after I got off my knee. Lynnette jumped as it caught her off guard. To top off the night as we walked back to my van we were greeted by a gang of hooligans looking for trouble. It looked like a scene from West Side story… and it very well could have been the original cast because they were probably 70 years old and not happy about firework shinanigans by their neighborhood. I opened the door for my new fiancée and walked around to my side while trying to ignore the foul language spewing from these geriatric juveniles. As I drove off we couldn’t help but laugh at the scene. It makes for a funny story now anyway. My friends parked in another spot so they made a clean get away.

The next few weeks consisted of me studying for my board exam and Lynnette organizing a little get together for our wedding. We noticed really quickly that we are very blessed with some incredible family and friends in our lives and figured that unless we wanted to rent out a stadium, we had better draw the line at immediate family on our budget. And to all the guys that don’t really like going to weddings anyway… you are welcome.  I took my board exam on Monday and we were married in Draper Temple on Tuesday. After a few days to ourselves we came home and started the process of merging two houses into one.

I saw firsthand how difficult merging two families could be as a kid. I never wanted to deal with that. It was really hard to imagine being able to love someone enough after Wendy to want to tackle that task with as well. There were many times after I started dating again that I felt it would be easier to not deal with that. We were content with the life we were creating for us. But much like that analogy of the frog that doesn’t jump out of a boiling pot when the heat is turned up slowly, I had become accustomed to just being us and I had forgotten how much better life could be with someone you love by your side. I was always excited to see my kids at the end of the day, but it was not until I had a teammate again that I could fully see how exhausting it is to do parenting by yourself.  There was always that moment at the end of a brain sapping school day pulling into the garage knowing that as soon as I walk in that door these little humans that were so excited to see me would need more than what I felt was left in my tank to give them. The prospect of playtime and permission slips and bills and bedtime to cap it all off with a few hours of light reading about pharmacology was daunting most days. Now I had a partner to do that with and it felt good. Lynnette says that while crazy,  parenting 5 kids with a loving spouse is easier than 2 kids by yourself, and I agree with that.

Admitting that I am happy is hard with the thought that others might perceive it as me over the fact that Wendy is gone. It is something that brought feelings of guilt for lack of a better word. I will never be over the fact that she is gone, it hurts every time I think about how much I miss them. Much the same is Lynnette’s pain. I know she is happy, and I know the love we have for one another and how much sharing in that means to us, but it does not make null the sting of past wounds.

There are some unique differences in how we got to be in a second marriage and while we try to understand each other and what we are feeling the truth is that we can’t completely relate. Yes, while at one time Lynnette felt that being a widow was going to be her reality with her husband’s heart problems, the fact is that she never went through that first hand and can only try to understand my views on losing Wendy. The same goes for me in that I can only imagine her pain. I have never had to deal with the betrayal of an unfaithful spouse and the painful process of redefining my life because of that. It is hard for me to understand why she would fight so hard to save a marriage to someone that hurt her in that way. For me Wendy’s death will always be painful and I would never want anyone to have to experience that ache, but the truth is that her death was filled with love for her and we know her love for us. That is not the separation that Lynnette experienced. My children will have a very different view as they understand that their mom did not choose to be away from them and I hope that Lynnette’s girls will be secure enough with who they are as they grow and mature and come to realize the choices their father made that changed their life in such a way.

The kids have done very well. They are the best of friends and play and love and fight like they were always siblings. Lynnette and I communicate well, something very necessary as we come together and learn how to parent in a whole new way as a blended family. We both like that they are young and integrate well. They have all began to get accustomed to the new places in the family. Dallin is a great big brother and while he has his moments he is very patient and is rarely the source of any quarreling. He sets his alarm and gets the rest of them moving in the morning to the point that there is little to do for us as parents, he even makes “Dal-iscious eggs” on occasion. That’s a fried egg with cheese and peanut butter if you were wondering…. the other kids love it, but I think they have a more refined palette than me I guess. Eden seems to like having live- in friends 24/7 where a playmate is never far away. She is very high energy and usually has some great ideas for a new game or adventure. Most of her life has been spent as essentially an only child since her little sister is so much younger which I am sure is very different than her new family, but she doesn’t seem to mind the change. Kenna, likewise, a very strong personality who was used to being the only girl in a house with 3 boys (Dad included) has enjoyed having a sister to always play with. Kenna has talked about how much she wished Maylee was here so she could have a little sister so often over the past 4 years. While I know it is in no way a replacement, she does take to the role with Eliza quite well. She is a good little mama to her new little sis. She will even change her and fix her cereal for the parents. Evan is a happy kid who genuinely loves other people and friends. He is always ready to tease and joke at any given moment and his giggles are contagious. Most times his humor is very clever too. I think his, while still doing great, is probably the toughest in this transition. He is no longer the baby in the house and not quite old enough to be included in everything the older kids do either. If I am tossing Eliza in the air he wants to do the same thing. The only problem is he is a tank! Compared to Eliza who has her mom’s petite build, I can’t hold him quite like I used to and so we modify our play and wrestle and tease and there are still moments when I can tell he doesn’t quite understand why Eliza is on my shoulders on our way home from the park and he is walking next to me. Eliza had just turned 2 when we were married and was not used to having a dad in the house so I think she had to get used to the idea. The good thing is that she was 2 and so she will never really remember it being any different. She has become the family mascot it seems. Everything she says and everything she does is dinner table conversation worthy in the other kids minds. She has rock star status at times and so it makes for a fun family dynamic… that is until she has had enough of big kids prodding at her and trying to hold her. Overall it has felt like a family from the start. They have all done well together. We have all done well. We put the decision of what each of them would call us individually and so I am Dad and Lynnette is Mom. I didn’t want to make that decision for them and I know Lynnette felt the same way. I think in the kids desire to feel more normal they were excited to be calling someone mom again. In the midst of all the aunts and grandmas that love them and cared for their needs, I think there is something to be said about the personal relationship of the role of a mother in the home, a role that can never be substituted. They still talk about Wendy often, I would never change that. Lynnette lost her mom to cancer when she was 8 years old so her perspective is one that can sympathize with their needs there where maybe others would not as much.

I have been in my clinical clerkships in various specialties for the last year now. I enjoy interacting with people more than with books but it does make for a little less consistency from month to month right now. I think there are a few areas of medicine that resonates with me on several aspects so that narrows down what I want to be when I grow up.  Amidst all the chaos of rotations and tests and maybe some negative opinions of the future of medicine there have been many moments that have given value in this career choice and an appreciation for getting involved in such a way with different people. I am enjoying the process and look forward to the next step in it as well. It is hard to imagine now how I would have been able to navigate rotations like I did with the last 2 years of school as they are very different creatures I am finding. Luckily I don’t have to figure that out. Lynnette has been doing great with all the new craziness added to her life as a mother of 5. I am grateful to her for stepping into that role, but more than that, I am grateful to feel the love that I feel and be able to share in this kind of relationship once more. There are many things that I don’t know how to do, what to say or how to go about. So many times when I am struck by the oddity that I can feel so much for two women and still strive to hold the unique feelings for both with a balance that neither one is taking from the other.  Like so many times before I am finding new things that I don’t know how to do and so I get out of my comfort zone as I learn to be Dad to 2 more and learn how to be a husband again in a different way than I have ever had to before. Our story is uniquely our own and while there is much that we would never have chosen, there is also much that we are grateful to have learned and many blessings that have come holding happiness with them.

This seemed more true of 5 kids than the split second they all looked. 

Kenna's Baptism

Starting School

                       

We lost my brother this last year. He is missed and I wish very much that he could still be with us. 

3 years

There was a point when imagining there would ever be a time that I would be this long without her was impossible to fathom, yet here I am. I gave up long ago trying to conform to what I was “suppose” to be feeling in this process and just allowed myself to feel what comes. I gave up on the companion of guilt with every smile and happy moment. I gave up fighting when the pain and tears come for no noticeable reason and just allow them to come, though they are not nearly as frequent as they were once. The memories of our everyday life together fade more with each day. While I would much rather be in this place now than being in the recent pain of losing them, I don’t like that some days it takes some effort to think about the face that once came so readily into my mind. The sting still finds me often and for many reasons that I wouldn’t have expected. The cruel irony of losing Wendy and Maylee is that one of the hardest elements was that she was not here to help me throughout this hard thing. She was my source of comfort and my biggest support and not having her to confide in makes it all the more painful.   Mommy and Maylee are still common conversation in our home, as it should be, but I certainly won’t claim absolute answers on how to best parent 3 children missing their mother and baby sister. We still take one day at a time and the reality of being a single parent is ever present. No matter the events that brings one to solo parenting, there is no easy way to navigate it, plain and simple it is a job for two… maybe even 10. Every day brings frustrations of my limitations there. Dallin wants to be involved in and learn how to do so many things and I wish I was able to schedule it all. Their birthdays sneak up on me and are here before I have time to dedicate to it the way I would like. I realize that these are small things, but they all add together as reminders.  I am and will always be grateful for the amazing women that fill some of the gaps left by her absence, obviously nothing will replace her but I will never be able to express fully what it means to me to have good examples of virtuous women showing love to our kids.

These kids still amaze me. One day in the store there was a little kid yelling at her mom and said she hates her. Dallin looked at me and said that she probably shouldn’t be doing that “some people don’t have a mom and you never know when she won’t be around anymore to love her” I wish he didn’t have to know that first hand, but I wouldn’t rob him of the strength and wisdom he possesses from his life either. Their experiences will offer compassion in ways that others will never fully come to know, and for that I am glad for them. It doesn’t diminish the pain of who and what is missing from their life, but it does bring a little peace to my thoughts.

I have been very grateful to discover feelings in my heart for another, feelings that I had given up on expecting to feel. My head was ok with dating long before my heart was truly open to it. I even wrote some about expectations trying to convince myself I knew what I was going to expect or what I thought I should be feeling. Reality is that the process was different for me there. With some close friends I have made that found themselves widowed also and discussing with them it is clear that while there are many similarities, there is much to the process that is different for every individual. Again, I found it best just to let it take its own course after fighting to be where I thought I should be. On days that are happy, let myself be happy and on days when memories flood and sadness takes the reigns, let those come too.  For me I found it very hard to imagine someone else filling that role by my side for a long time. I still have to remind myself on occasion that I don’t have to hold back what I say or do out of fear that someone might misunderstand that my feelings for Wendy have changed. They will never change in that way, but moving forward with another woman will only serve to enrich our lives. 

I put googly eyes on her glasses on April fools... 

The gloves are for tetherball, the boots and leopard print are because she is Kenna. 

Its exhausting to be a clown.

More epiphanies from the mouth of little Macks

(put this post together  a few months ago, but just didn't get around to finishing it and just added the last few comments. the pics are a few months old on this one)

Evan(4): “I am just going to lay in your bed and think about my life”

Dallin(8): “Dad, does everybody have to be normal when they grow up?”

Dallin just got deodorant and was arguing with Kenna about not using it. “girls armpits don’t stink, Kenna!”

Dallin is in a school play and he keeps referring to it as a “dress reversal” ha.

Evan and Kenna got in the bath while Jourdan (their Nanny) was still here. Apparently she had told them they could have ice cream after dinner.  She left while they were in there. When they got out the conversation went like this:

Evan and Kenna: “Jourdan! Where are you”

Me: she left already

Evan: “what? What about the ice cream?”

Kenna: “but what about hugs and kisses?”

With a small pause and a look that said clearly Kenna has no clue Evan says: ” but what about the ice cream?”

Haha, priorities! Love that boy.

Evan (3) during sacrament at church… and not quiet might I add: “I wish Jesus would put orange juice in those little cups!”

Then he paused in thought as if thinking that if he were going to ask for something the thought occurred to him that orange juice wasn’t going to cut it. He said “I wish Jesus would just get Ice cream for all us people here”

Clearly I have my work cut out in the teaching department.

Kenna (6): “daddy, can I watch the videos on youtube, I won’t watch make up” (she likes to watch the vids of some Asian girl do her make up like a Disney princess and I have told her not to do that too much because it drives her brothers nuts… and me a little)

Dallin came in later: “Kenna, I thought you said you weren’t going to watch make up?”

Kenna: “ its not make up, she is doing her HAIR… I just wanted to see how she does it”

… I have no response for that.

Evan (3): while we are driving down the road he is looking into the rear view mirror moving up and down a little seeing the double image. He says “Dad, I can see me and my spirit in that mirror.”

Kenna (6) : on our way out the door I go to remind Kenna to get in the van. She is crying one of her sad cries. I ask her what happened and she says “I just didn’t get enough time with mommy.” I stammer through something to help her, but I don’t really know what to say to her.

Me: “ Evan, your shoes are on the wrong feet!”

Evan (3):” Yeah, that’s so everybody will say, “hey, your shoes are on the wrong feet!””

Dallin (8): “Dad, can you become president?”

Me:”president of what?”

Dallin: “you know, like Obama… of the states?”

Me: “ I guess I could, but I kind of chose a different path, most Presidents do something like law school now days”

Dallin” well, can you go to law school when you’re done being a doctor? Cause it would be nice, you know, if we run out of money, then we could still have the White House and stuff… Evan wants you to be president so he can have a private Jet”

Kenna (6) “Daddy, I am not crying, I am just sweating from my eyes… sweat is coming from my eyes… its weird”

The other night at dinner the kids were saying that it was funny that mommy worked at Wendy's when she was a teenager and then Evan with a clever grin on his face says "Daddy, wouldn't it be funny if there was a restaurant named "Denny's" and you worked there?" the best part was the blank stare his two older siblings gave him and his sheepish "oh, yeah... I forgot"
... although I never worked there.

Evan(4) word combos: Frankemstyle (frankenstein) I think Gangnam style had some influence on it. Also calls the hunchback quasimoto “fuzzy photo”

I saw that Dallin got a test back for math “good job on getting 50/50”

Dallin: “thanks… but I knew I was going to get that…"
me: "how did you know that?" 
Dallin: "I always get 50/50” he says with no fake modesty, but with a sincere grin.

Two weeks after Dallin was baptized Dallin was pretty distressed about something and so i asked him what was wrong. He said that he thinks he might have already broken his promises from his baptism... I asked him which ones and he said he wasn't sure because he forgot, but he was pretty sure he was supposed to finish reading the book of mormon by now, haha. I told him that he was doing pretty good and that Heavenly Father knows how much he tries to do what is right. It was a good review for me, as I explained that our main promise is to do all we can to do what's right, and we have to have faith that Christ can help us with the rest. Dallin is certainly one that takes his promises very seriously, I learn a lot from that boy!

My Roommates

Every day these littles grow a little more. I have that movie scene from “Father of the Bride” playing in my head often as I have conversations with my kids. You know the one, his adult daughter is at the dinner table telling him she met a man and is getting married and all he sees is his little girl in pigtails. I do that, only includes my two boys too… no pigtails though. The difference right now for me is that they are still that little… they grow every day and surprise me often about how much they understand about this world, but then there are moments that they remind me how innocent they still are as well. The difference between me and George Banks is that they stand before me as these little people and I can soak in the moment knowing that someday this is going to be the age I view them as. Last year when I was able to take the year and be at home with them was a real blessing, I don’t know many dads that get that opportunity. It helps me through some of the crazier days now.

Here we are 2 years in the future from when everything turned upside down. We talk about Mommy and Maylee often, and I still miss Wendy terribly and miss what we could have known with our baby girl. There are many reminders every day… things as simple as them getting excited about seeing her Mii character on the Wii when they play games to instances when I notice the kids do certain things that are exactly how Wendy would have done them. We all miss her. I can’t help but notice how little the kids looked the day we said goodbye to them. The kids see the date on the family calendar and the marker that says it is Maylee’s birthday and they get excited to celebrate. I am glad that they don’t necessarily make the connection of what necessitated her birth on that day. I get asked a lot about how the kids are doing and so I will introduce you to my little roommates as I see them today with another year under our belts. I hope that as they read this when they are older and trying to get to know themselves a little more and maybe just trying to figure life out that they can identify with their obvious strengths as I see them today. Yes, I may be writing these things from a dad’s view point, but that doesn’t make these descriptions less true… or less valuable to their future selves. Besides, in a world that can offer a lot of things that will try to tear them down, I make no apologies for seeing them through a doting father’s perspective. 

Dallin:

He recently was in a school play where he played the Pied piper. He came home one day and started telling me that they were trying out for the play at school and he was going to be the pied piper and so he was memorizing the part. We acted it out a little and had some fun with it, but I couldn’t help admire his dedication when he puts his mind to something. His teacher was laughing when she told me about his try out and how he was so animated and had the whole pied piper part already memorized during the general try outs. He was so excited that he got the part. I found him a hat with a big quail feather for pretty cheap and he thought it was the coolest thing… I am glad they are easy to please at this age.

 Lately he is always wanting to build things… a roller coaster is his ultimate idea right now. I don’t want to stifle his excitement nor do I want him to put limits on his ideas and visions of what he could do, at the same time, I just don’t think building a roller coaster in the back yard is going to happen either. He gets on youtube and watches home-made roller coaster videos. He spent the better part of his Saturday on Wikipedia and typing a report on sharks… I am not even sure if it was all for an assignment, he just enjoys doing things like that. He loves math and hates when others get bullied at school, hates it so much that when he gets home he is almost in tears when he tells me about it, empathy is something that is at the core of who he is. He still is a regular older brother with arguments and bossiness, but if I am threatening to take away privileges of his younger siblings… he cries more than they do. When I ask him why he is crying he says that he really wants Kenna to be able to go to that party and it makes him sad that she is choosing not to. We are trying to put that in perspective and how he can’t take on other peoples bad choices. I have to remind him on occasion that he is not the other parent in the house, although many times he is mature enough to pull it off… maybe even more mature than me at times. He is the first one up at 6 in the morning and gets ready for school and comes in right as I am getting up to get the other two ready... sometimes even wakes me up. He makes the morning process easy that way. He is at that stage where he is still my little boy but in the process of becoming a little man. He talks the least about Wendy and Maylee, but I don’t fear he is holding it in anymore. We have had a few conversations and I think he has a healthy view of things right now. He is my rock most days and even laughs at things that the other two don’t quite get why its funny. Sometimes I worry that I forget he is so young and I hope that he is still just having fun being 8.

Kenna:

I was getting ready this morning when I heard a song coming from Kenna, I focused to hear what she was singing and it was a song about her need to go to the bathroom, her going to the bathroom, and then a grand finish of her wrapping up the whole process. It was moving. That might sum up her personality better than I think. She finds fun in the mundane and she has a joy in life enough to sing about anything… even a trip to the potty. I know she may not be too happy with me writing about this topic, but I think we all know a good parent is one that takes advantage of the opportunities to embarrass their kids whenever they can, keeps them humble. She will understand that more when she has her own kids someday. She is a strong little girl that is very interested in pretty things and bossing her two brothers around. She is in a broadway class right now and they are working on the musical “Annie” where she is playing an orphan and Drake the butler. She was upset at first that it was a boy part, but since has embraced “Mrs.” Drake.  She likes it when I refer to her as goldie-locks with us as her three bears. One morning I was frustrated with her and yelled at her to clean her room up. As I looked down at this little blonde girl, she just furrowed her brows, put out her bottom lip and folded her arms in defiance and stared at me with such a face of stubbornness that said she would not listen to me until I calmed down… I have thought a lot about that look and it does help me understand, clearly that is no way to parent any little girl, especially one with such attitude and personality. I like that she knows how she should be talked to and I hope she always keeps that fire and doesn’t take that from any guy… even her Dad.

I have noticed that she seeks out moms and aunts and older girls whenever we go somewhere. She usually has a lot of random questions for them and will usually play with their earrings or hair or nails. Sometimes that brings to the surface a little more of the relationship missing in her life and she just breaks down in tears, seems to be more often when she sees other girls with their moms. I am getting better at gaging when she is really hurting and when she is just thinking that she can get away with not doing something if she plays that card with her teachers. Generally she is pretty open with her feelings but there are still times when I am reminded that I know very little about why a little girl will do what she does. There have been a few women that I have dated and the kids have met. We had a talk about the dating thing after hanging out with a friend one night. When someone like that is around Kenna will often say that Mommy is Daddy’s girlfriend and that the front seat is her mom’s and feels the need to talk about mommy more during those times. I talked with her about it one night after and why she feels the need to do that and maybe it wasn’t the best way to make someone feel comfortable. She started to cry and said she didn’t want me to be married to anyone else, that I was married to mommy and didn’t want me to not be married to mommy for someone else. Hearing her talk clarified a lot to me on how she felt it was “a one or the other” kind of thing. I tried to explain that I will always be in love with mommy and she will always be my wife and her mom. I told her that if I do marry someone else it will never change any of that, but that if I got married again it would be because we love her and she is someone that would love us and even understand how to love mommy with us. We talked about the temple and what that means for us as a family. I have noticed a huge change in how she approaches that topic since then, in fact she brings it up often… maybe trying to motivate me, ha.

Evan:

The other morning driving Dallin to school the kids had the windows down while we traveled the speedy 15 mph stretch in front of the school. That’s riding the brakes in idle for those of you who don’t have a feel for that kind of power. Evan calls out of the window to say hello to everyone, which is just how he is, but I start to laugh as he starts calling names… “hello Peggy, hello Jim!” I look back and chuckle pretty amazed that he knows names, and then bust up laughing as this older couple wave back and shout “hello Evan!” I laugh to myself and ask him how do you know them, he answers quite nonchalantly as if suggesting everyone knows “that’s Peggy and Jim the crossing guards” he then shouts out of the car at one of the Dad’s there “Hey, Mark!” and then tells me how Mark is his friend and he lets him play on his phone. He gets to know people as he waits for his siblings to get out of school with Jourdan, their nanny. We continue driving as he calls out to a few more people by name as they wave and call his name back and I continue laughing to myself. This is Evan. I have never met a little boy so comfortable with people. He will walk up to people and ask “Hey, what’s your name?” and he sincerely wants to know the answer, but what’s more is that he will remember it. We had a talk for family home evening one night on stranger danger to be safe and then we role played. I would act like a stranger and ask him if he wanted candy or his ultimate weakness… help me find my puppy. I can’t say how often I will take my eyes off him for a moment only to turn and see him running toward someone across the park yelling “Hey, can I pet your puppy?” Anyway, the roll playing was tough for him. As I would ask him if he wanted candy, his instinct would get the better of him every time and he would say “yeah” and then start chuckling at his foible when I would drop my head and laugh at him. “Wait, let me try again” he would say. It just isn’t in him to turn down a treat… even an imaginary one. He has gotten better at that, he explained that he knew it was me asking not a real stranger and he wasn’t sure if I was really going to give him a treat or not... every time.

Evan is a tease… any opportunity to joke with you or trick you, he will take it. He rarely doubts himself and will not back down often. He truly believes his greatest argument that will justify everything he does is “but I want to”. There are so many things that he does that I always wished I did more like him. His “I don’t give a what” attitude will make people want to be around him and perhaps follow him in his future. In many ways its these traits in him that I am learning to parent a whole new way, and while it is so great to see in him, it also brings so much frustration and he is teaching me to be different. What works for Dallin, and what works for Kenna, does not work the same with Evan. In fact all three of them are so very different. During a long study day he will run up and hurry and push as many keys on my keyboard as he can before running off giggling and waiting for me to react. I have come to understand that time outs do nothing but drag on, but a brief pause to play with him buys me another hour or so of studying. He is so strong and at the same time there are those moments that let me know he is just a little 4 year old boy that for reasons I cannot fully explain has decided that I am the coolest person in his world right now. He is strong willed and very bright, but his laughter is always contagious and he is a great cuddle buddy. He talks often of Wendy and will make comments that confirm to me that he does remember some things with her. I am glad for that. Lately he does not sleep unless I lay by him for a few minutes, and every night I find him by my bed around 2 or 3 climbing up to sleep by me. I don’t know the reasons for that, but I am ok if that is what he needs. Sometimes I need that too. 

... As for all of us, the first year of school came and went down here. There were many times that we had to adapt a little or change up some ways of doing things, but I think we have a routine with help that seems to work for now at least. The first year of med school as a single parent brought a lot of challenge and brought many moments, especially at the beginning, that made me question whether I was doing the right thing in being here. I feel like it is still the right place and while it doesn’t make things any easier, at least it strengthens my resolve to make it work. Time is going to pass regardless of what you are doing, might as well do something that will get you closer to what you want to be.