Perspective

So, you get to hear what I have been thinking about a lot lately - Perspective. It's been on my mind and in a few phone conversations. It's interesting to me how drastically my view or understanding of something can change given a little more or a different perspective.

Sisters: I am so, so lucky to have sisters. I love them and count them as some of my closest friends. This is still true even when I don't talk to them or get to see them for a long while. I know why now. I've been watching Brie and Ava this summer. They are 21 months apart. They have no where to go and nothing to do, but just be with each other. All day. Every day. They play together the whole day, they talk in bed together until we yell at them to go to sleep, they fight together, they do jobs together, they help each other in their school workbooks, they color together, and on and on . . . . I mean, really, they are never apart. I can see the relationship that has developed and continues to develop between them. I just started watching and realizing that this is how I grew up with my sisters. Teresa and I are only 15 months apart. And then four of us girls were born by the time I was 5. Although I don't remember it all, we must have spent all of our time together just like my girls are now. So, even though they live so far away and we don't talk all the time, they are still someone I developed a very close relationship with at a young age and I still feel it. I learned more about our sister relationship by seeing it through my own daughters.

Target: Target is the happy place for almost every mom I know (except my own). Around here, when I would drop off Brie at school and then Ava at preschool, Zachary and I would head to Target. We would go happily skipping in to browse around the store for the things we needed, a few things we didn't (but were fun) and to see what great finds now had those thrilling new, red clearance stickers on them. Sometimes we would even share a Slushee and popcorn. We were joined there by every other stay at home mom in a 10 mile radius that had also just dropped off her kids at school. It was so fun and so happy. Just ask Scott, who watches our American Express bill.
Things have changed. I see Target in a different way in the summer. I go there now with all four small children. They are begging for things, whining when I say "no", yelling out their Christmas wish lists, Zachary is running away to look at toys, girls are following, Kate is screaming because she needs to be fed, Zachary is climbing out of the cart, Ava and Brie are riding holding onto one side of the cart tipping the cart over, I'm holding and bouncing Kate while pushing a cart full of stuff that is now tipping over, someone needs to go to the bathroom, by now it's lunchtime and everyone is hungry and on and on and on. It's not so fun anymore. Now I'm just trying to make it through the place. And guess what . . . I look around and every other mom has the same fed up, frustrated, frazzled and "just holding it together" look on their face. Our happy place will return to us in the fall I suppose.

Forgiveness: I loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk, "The Merciful Obtain Mercy" in the last conference for our church http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-merciful-obtain-mercy. I have listened to it, read it, re-read it and taught it. All because it is a lesson I really need to learn. It is about forgiveness and judgement of others. I am too judgmental. As I have studied this talk I have thought of ways that I need to be better at forgiving others and not judging others. I've tried to work at it. I came to a whole new understanding of all of this as I discussed this talk with other women. My perspective completely changed as I came to see their perspective on things.
I have had nothing in my life that should be hard to forgive. No one has ever abused me in any way, damaged me, hurt me physically, betrayed me completely or done any of this to my kids. I was discussing with women who have had their husbands cheat on them and divorce them (leaving them and their kids), who have husbands who became addicted to drugs, who have had mothers that were and still are physically and verbally abusive, who have had people harm their children, etc. And those are just the stories I know. I realized what forgiveness means for them compared to me. Once I saw forgiving through their eyes I understood that it is a whole different ball game for some. Their thoughts on forgiving and my understanding of forgiving is so different. It's a heck of a lot bigger and harder for them and I have no idea how they do it. I should be much better at forgiving someone for taking the parking space I wanted.

Too Fast: My heavens, how many times have I heard a woman older than me tell me "Enjoy your kids, they just grow up so fast."? Or tell me a story about when her kids were young and really stress to me how quickly this all goes by and then their children are all grown up? Of course, I believe them, but I never REALLY knew for myself because I hadn't experienced it. And I still haven't completely, but I certainly have a new perspective on how fast our children are growing up. And, yes, it does seem way too fast. I look at Brie who is so tall and big and is heading off to first grade and who can carry on a full, real conversation (for hours and hours until I ask her to please, please be quiet) and I find myself quite surprised. Surprised at how in the world our first little baby, that we were so anxious to see start walking and talking, has already grown into this little lady? I carried Ava to her bed the other night and was shocked at how long her body was and how it's not so easy to carry her to bed anymore. When did that happen? I saw pictures of Zachy as a baby and I barely remember it. He is a walking, talking, wearing underwear little boy now. Crazy.
Because of all this new found "it goes so fast" perspective, you better believe I am eating up every little bit of baby Kate. I know how fast it will go and I want to cherish every bit of those chubby, baby arms and squealing, baby laugh and gummy smile.

Identity: There was a time in my life when I was a college graduated, single, working professional woman living on my own. I was completely that and I often really thought that is what I might always be. I seemed to define myself by that role. That was who I was. My perspective on EVERYTHING was different then. And now, in what feels like a very short amount of time, I am in a role that is so VERY different. I am completely and totally engrossed in motherhood. I am home with kids all day, every day, I greet a husband at the end of the day, I change diapers, clean a house, make dinner for a family, read books, tuck kids into bed at night, etc. etc. I am so in it and usually feel like this is who I am - a busy mother of small children. 
But, this too will change. What I have come to realize is that just because my role in life changes, my own identity does not. I am who I am even when I was a college girl and then a single, working girl and then a wife and then a stay at home mom of four and will be when I am an empty nester grandma. I have new perspectives on things because of new experiences. I need to continually develop and strengthen my ideas, my talents, my character because these roles that I pass through do not define me. I am who I make myself and that is (somewhat) independent of the role I am in.