Instead

Instead of staying a baby, P is growing and (gasp) practically CRAWLING. 

Instead of swapping out clothes that are too small, I keep squeezing her healthy self into them. I mean, those leggings. How can I not?

Instead of letting C's work induced absence make me nuts I am concentrating on looking so forward to heading west soon, and spending weeks and weeks with this lady.

Instead of cleaning the kitchen I watched these two play, while thinking about how yummy the bigger one is.

Instead of wearing pants I put on the most comfortable leggings of my life, picked up C from the airport, and went to this neat park for lunch.

Instead of being nervous about outings on my own with the minions, I take a superhero with me.

Instead of getting sad about a terrible haircut, I swept those blunt bangs to the side, and simply embraced the frizz.

Bedtime Conversations: On Skype

Me: Heeeeey! I can see your face for the first time in daaaays.

C: (not looking at me) Hey beautiful girl.

Me: (waving my hand in front of the camera) Hello? Should I let you go? Is there something going on in there?

C: Oh, sorry. Its just that I haven't seen t.v. in forever!

Me: Excuse me? You haven't seen what in forever (I helped him by circling my face with my finger)? Want to try that again?

Boy, you're lucky I love ya! Its mostly just because you are so scrumptious to look at.

                                              

a how to, including a very funny man with a side sweep hairdo

I am not a stranger to what I call self issues. I doubt and compare myself, and can remember doing it for as long as I can remember being self aware.

I have doubted my intellect, my sense of humor, my coolness (coolness is SO lame Steve Carell sums it up bestly), my attractiveness, my style, my ability to interact with people in general....and it could go on.

I still struggle with self issues, I alwaaaaays will, but I have made some pretty large strides in learning to love myself despite my square feet, non-dainty nose, and lack of conversational skill. I think some of this simply comes with maturity (snort. since I have that and stuff.), but some of it has had to be very deliberate. Otherwise I would get into a really icky spiral of self dislike.

So, here is a way I am learning to deliberately deal with my self issues:

I listen to the people that love me. When my husband gives me a compliment, I am trying to learn to take it as true rather than thinking he says what he knows would make me happy if it were true. (The woman's mind is such a webby, messy place)This applies to looks, tastes, and intellect. He also thinks I am very funny. Bless him.

When my well meaning, but creepy 17 year old brother tells my my hair looks sexy a certain way, I let myself feel pretty, and punch him while telling him you never say that to your sister. Ya idiot.

When my mom says,"you look cute, as usual,"....I don't really believe her because I usually haven't showered within the last day, and know she says it because I am a reflection of her genetics, and she wants to be hopeful. Still working on believing the mom :)

Point: The people who live outside of your head perceive you in a completely different manner than you perceive yourself, and if you let yourself learn their way of perception, you start to see the light a little bit more.

Here's to our lovers and loved ones. Trust their eyes, not yours.

Some new lyrics to a Christmas classic.

I haven't done one of these since 2010, so I figured I might as well do it again. Also, I wish I could copy this post every year, because it is truly how I feel. I always forget how indifferent I am about hot chocolate.

Dear hand-me-down garland,

Since you are are doubling for our tree this year, I am pretty happy about you. You look cute with ornaments hanging on you. However, you will not always have that particular honor, so enjoy it. I am hoping 2014 can bring us our first actual Christmas tree....Also, I apologize for the bunching of lights on one end, and sparsity of them on your other. 

Dear 'Bing Crosby' Pandora station,

Marvelous. I have no complaints other than that you have way too many versions of "Baby, Its Cold Outside" and "Santa Baby". Stop it. Other than that, don't stop it. Play on.

Dear C,

Thank you for loving me enough to give in on your hard and fast 'no Holiday music before Thanksgiving' rule. I am not sure I really knew what real love was before this. Also, you did a pretty good job of meticulously painting my popsicle sticks red. Lets make out later.

Dear Pinterest,

Thank you for allowing me to feel festive with  the aforementioned popsicle sticks and metallic poster board. You truly understand poor people on a budget.  

Dear Christmas,

Come come come come. (read to the beat  of the little drummer boy's rum tum tum tum. Obviously.)

a compromise

Halloween has been on my 'hardly like at all' list for as long as I can remember.

My indifference toward it must have started the year I forgot about costumes until an hour before trick-or-treating, so my mom safety-pinned the lacy piano runner to a white elastic head band, put me in what was probably my little brother's sunday shirt, and called me a bride. Not a pretty bride. A very embarrassed bride.

I also have a distinct memory from another year of driving to a neighborhood with which we were not familiar. Our neighborhood was not the nice one to trick-or-treat, so we went somewhere else. I was too nervous about the scary looking decorations to get out of the car. When my siblings returned with otterpops, I was overcome with jealous distress.

I have had little love for it ever since. 

Mr. Lewis looks on it as quite another matter. Halloween is important. 

Discussing my determination to not dress up, and his determination for me to do the opposite is honestly the closest we have ever been to having a real fight. We have worked it out every year so far with no marital damage.

So, here is to this year's compromises! 


                               

                     

                     

I have always had an overactive imagination

I saw my friend Jess the day before I left Brigham City to come back to Le Sueur. We talked about her upcoming move across the country to where her husband will be going to school. We were only able to chat for about one minute, then I had to take the donuts I was buying out to devour my share to anxiously waiting family. She mentioned our meeting on her (completely awesome) blog, and it got me thinking.

I found myself thinking about moving. Moving across the country, far from what is familiar. It made me remember the anticipation of wondering how it would be, what the people would be like, how I would fit in and find new friends, what color the sky would be. You know. Thinking about how my life would carry on at all.

I remember the first walk I went on by myself in this new little town.  It was January, and just as you might imagine, Minnesota's offerings of pleasant walking weather in January might mean 30 degrees. It was quite cold. I had had a long day alone with the baby, and Ches urged me to get out for a few minutes when he got home from work.

No one else was outside. It was only rows of cold, stoic house fronts, and tightly shut doors. In my mind I imagined the occupants of those silent houses looking out their peep holes, or through their lacy curtains, and shaking their heads,whitened with age and wisdom, that someone who didn't belong in their town was walking down the sidewalk. It all felt very melancholy and dramatic. I believe I even imagined someone opening their door to throw something at me.

It all seems very silly now that I am settled in, and growing familiar with this place, but the images that surfaced in my head as I shuffled down that uneven sidewalk were true to how I was feeling: unknown, a little lost, out of place, and apprehensive.

So Jess, let me tell you something. You'll have your own walk in January. But, let me tell you something else. After you get back inside, and your husband has made you a cup of cocoa, and put chicken nuggets in the oven, so you don't have to cook dinner, life keeps going on. Not only does it keep going on, it starts to feel normal in a way you never anticipated was possible so far from where you had always been before.

Then, at some point, it starts to feel like its own version of home.

                                 

I am in mourning about sex

A question has been on my mind for months now. I can't shake it. I am swallowed with sadness every time I think about it. 


Why is casual intimacy a thing, a very very common thing even? Why is fidelity dying? 

I watch a lot of New Girl. I adore it. Its clever and funny and delightful. However, one thing that has bothered me from the beginning is the casualness with which they talk about sex. They are intimate with people they don't know, and at one point Schmit expresses distress when he realizes he is in love, and now has to have feelings in order to take pleasure in sex. 

I am so sickened. Its not just New Girl. Its EVERY show. ew.

How are we so off the mark as an entire society.

Relationships are not easy. This is not new news. Putting two lives together takes communication and compromise. It always will. 

Good relationships take a good esophagus that is equipped to swallow lots and lots of pride. I have had an awful lot of practice apologizing through gritted teeth because I knew it was what I should do, but far from what my ego wanted me to do. I am not tooting my own horn. I am not perfect. I haven't done the right thing every time. My pride wins out in turns.

I am not a relationship expert, but here is what I think. Teenagers shouldn't be having sex. Twelve year olds should be roller skating, not worrying about being popular or getting a boyfriend or girlfriend. Married couples should stay married, unless divorce is really the best option (Which I acknowledge totally does happen. Abuse of any kind and other kinds of issues of that nature do not apply to my point). 

I don't believe people just fall out of love. That is poop. Forgive my French. At least one of the people in that relationship stopped trying. They stopped doing things for their spouse, they stopped holding hands. They stopped saying 'I love you' every day. They stopped discovering each other. What are relationships without discovery? I am not saying every day of the rest of your life with the same person is never going to seem mundane. It will. But it won't always. 


This whole post is a bit disconnected,and far from my best attempt at prose, but this topic is important. So important.

Lets take a little, or a lot, of the sex out of our media and society, and save it for people who are ready to commit to each other until the end. Save it to be special and precious.

In the mean time, talk, walk, and have adventures to get to know each other instead of taking off clothes. 

How love and belly button lint connect

Lets talk about love for a minute.

I keep seeing things in books, television, and movies, that try to suggest that love and attraction should start as an intense, irresistible chemistry, and that the intensity should never fade. 

Your skin should burn every time his skin touches your skin. Even when his elbow accidentally touches your arm because he is taking way too wide of an eating berth at the table. Smoldery burniness along side ,"please pass the salt". 

Stephanie Meyer tells lies. Hollywood tells lies. Karen Carpenter tells lies.

I love Karen Carpenter as much as anyone, but she sometimes sings untruths with that buttery voice. Lies stolen from Barry Manilow. 

I was singing this song while doing dishes the other day, and realized how awful the lyrics are:

At any moment he'll be walking through that doorBut he won't find me behind it'Cause the feeling is gone and just won't come back any moreI worked so hard to find it
I've been up, down, tryin' to get the feeling againAll around tryin' to get the feeling againThat one that made me shiverMake my knees start to quiver every time he walks in
I've read every book, looked for every meditation and poemJust to bring home that old sweet sensationBut it ain't no use to me to try to get the feelingI wanna get that feeling again

KJ Translates: (ahem) I am going to disappear mysteriously from your life because you aren't exciting anymore. I don't get all melty around you. I miss feeling melty. I haven't really liked you for a while now, so I read a couple meditation books about how to find you exciting again, but they were garbage. Ciao.

 What rubbish!


C and I never had this burning, irresistible chemistry. You may not believe it
when you see this picture from his junior year in high school....who could not feel warm fuzziness in their hearts while looking at that?!

Adorable even underneath that permed mop. I digress, as usual. 

Anyway, we were just two people who got along really well,(after a few months of me grudgingly holding on to an unfounded dislike) gave dating a try, and here we are! Love is vital to my life, and can be so exciting, but it isn't all fireworks and passion (maybe I'm missing out? But it actually sounds exhausing).

Love is eating your own pride for breakfast, and trying to keep it down for the rest of day.  

Love is NOT running when the newness and excitement wears off, and it will. I am not saying that relationships can't start with sparks and that knee quivery feeling, but realize that it wears off! Besides, you would end up with really bad knees, and probably get annoyed if it didn't wear off.  

Love is making yourself hold his hand in the car when you are super mad because you know you can't stay mad too long that way. 

Love is learning to not freak out when he throws is belly button lint into your hair because he knows it freaks you out. He kills the big bugs, so...

*disclaimer for C's benefit. He has done this only one and a half times. It was so traumatic that he will never live it down.

Point: Don't read Stephanie Meyer or watch any movie ever again. Pfff. Yeah right. Watch those delightful romantic comedies. Read those silly, books if you must. Enjoy them while recognizing that they pretty much don't portray any part of reality.

Use them to escape, and don't get too upset when belly button lint floating in front of your face pulls you back into a real and loving reality. 

I am a little bit late

and a little cliché, but if you read me often, you are used to that by now.

This is my daddy:

and this is mi corozón: 

Happy Father's Day. 

Its pretty much a dress

I was probably a lot more excited than was necessary when I received a lava-lava in the mail today. It was a surprise from a friend.

I had instagramed my joy within minutes. You can see it here. Don't mind the slobber on the mirror. Its tasty.

We are a lava lava loving family. The Lewis' love lava-lavas. Oh alliteration (there I go again).  Tying mine on made me think of a post I wrote a while back.

Throw back Thursday is a thing right? Well, I'm throwin it back in honor of the lava-lava.

Click Here

Bedtime Conversations: A Mini - Monologue

Dinner eaten. Bed time stories in progress. C cleaning up dinner after math.

I hear a drawer open. 

"My arch-nemesis. We meet again." 

He really hates the plastic wrap. But I will keep him.

It doesn't really count as deception....

Abilities. Skills, if you will. Yesterday I mentioned that I have some. 

I want to mention one of these skills. I noticed it a couple of weeks ago, and had been building it up and perfecting it for sometime without noticing. I'm good. 

I can spend an entire day making messes in the apartment with M (that isn't the skill, but I am really good at it). We spread toys from one end of the apartment to the other, fill the sink with dishes, unroll the toilet paper, smear food all over the table, etc. At some point in the day I look at the clock and notice it is 4:50. Ches will be home in approximately 20 minutes. 

Skill: I take out the garbage that should have been taken out yesterday, wipe down the table and high chair, throw the toys back in their basket, put the new toilet paper roll on the rod instead of the back of the toilet, wash a sink full of dishes, change the baby out of his pajamas....and voila. I finish JUST in time for that face to walk in the door. To him, it seems that I have been on the ball for an entire day. 

If I had this any more honed I would be slow motion running to him in my heels and pearls welcoming him home to the steak and potatoes that are waiting hot and steamy on the table. 


Also, can you see why I am obsessed with this picture? 

What secret skills do you have?

Bedtime Conversations: On humor and my inability to understand the male mind.

Me: I can't believe television shows are still using the same innuendos and inappropriate contexts to be funny. Its obscene. Haven't all of the nasty jokes been told by now? How do people still think its funny? It is completely unoriginal.

C: Its like watching Home Alone. No matter how many times you watch it it will still make you laugh even though you have seen it a bajillion times. It is still funny.

Me: Did you just compare an endearing holiday classic of our childhoods to unintelligent dirty humor? 

C: Yep. 

*insert my perturbed face

Not to stereotype...

But husband and I recently had a conversation of which the catalyst was this statement:

"I could have been the trench coat kid." 

Let me rewind. We had been on a walk a few weeks earlier into a part of town we hadn't walked before. We didn't see anyone the entire time until we were just around the corner from our street, and about a block ahead of us was a teenage boy in a trench coat that looked like he was carrying a bag of books. There are kids that look just like this in every town, just as surely as there is the kid with the flat brimmed hat, and the really loud bass in his car.

I told Ches that if I was that boy, and there had been people walking behind me for a few blocks, I would totally think that I was being deliberately followed, and was in danger (I may or may not think this when the same car is behind me for more than five minutes on the road). 

As soon as I finished saying the word danger, the kid started running. He kept running. We didn't see him stop running because we turned off on to our own street. I laughed hard, and then I started thinking about the trench coat kid.

We all know the kids in high school that were still into pokemon and anime and twenty book fantasy series. There is nothing wrong with liking anime. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a fantasy book. There is nothing wrong with feeling dapper in a trench coat(I think David Tennant proved that rather successfully). So, where did this whole persona come from? 

This is how the conversation was going. And then I stopped, looked at Chesley, and said,"I could have been the trench coat kid."

I realized that it is all about enjoying imagination and fantasy and other worlds, which we all do to some extent when it comes to entertainment. The trench coat kid happens when their reality is bad enough, that they refuse to completely leave the fantasy world behind. 

Sometimes the negative in their reality is something they see only because they are a teenager. But, most of the time, these kids have it so much rougher than we realize. Home is not a happy place. They have more responsibility than someone their age ever should. There is no way for us to know for sure. 

The only reason I wasn't a trench coat kid is because the reality I came back into after I spent time in these other worlds was good. It grounded me. 

Point, smile kindly at the kid with the trench coat. Try not to make him think that his lovely afternoon walk to return his library books has taken a sour, potentially life threatening turn.

It has ARRIVED

Spring that is. It came! We spent a glorious weekend showing M what grass feels like on the toes, what pickles taste like, and how to spot birds way up in that finally blue sky.

It was so good. 

I mastered the art of walking by very lonely looking yard sales without making eye contact with the people trying to reel me in with their will power to buy their things. Unless you are selling that Sprite that I am having a hankering for, I don't need any of those things at present.

We got to help with a baptism at our church. I have never helped with one that wasn't family, so it was neat! It was two hispanic girls, so the program was bilingual. The speakers did a fantastic job of keeping everyone involved and understanding. It is a wonderful thing to feel the spirit even when you don't understand through language what is being said. It was neat. 

Speaking of church, I went alone for the first time up here. Husband was sick, and I could 't take M and teach my 5 year old primary class. It was an interesting time. My four little boys are..... a handful. Never still. I was wishing with fondness for the Sunday a few weeks back when one of them was kind enough to point out with much surprise and exclamation that I have hair on my arms. A lot apparently.  It seemed that would be easier than pulling them back from walking on all fours in front of all the children with their shoes on their hands. 

We had a lovely rain storm roll in while we were having a cook out with some friends. It smelled gorgeous, and felt gorgeous, and made me forget that I was up in arms about Mav not taking ANY afternoon nap AT ALL. Heathen. 

It really was SO good.

I have this husband

And tonight as I lay in bed sick after he got home from work, I caught him singing show tunes to our baby while making chicken Alfredo.

Apparently the Broadway soundtrack pandora station is stellar. Duly noted.

On Loving Long Distance. Also, in General

So, Hubster and I have been living apart for a ridiculous amount of time now.  Four months will seem like hogswallop to military wives, but is really practically the entire life of our 5 month old little man. Forgive the melodrama, but he has been gone a LIFETIME! ...literally.

Sidenote: I wish people would look up the definition of the word literally before they would use it in an expression such as, "I literally just put my heart out there. There is nothing else I could have done."  I mean, ouch. Not to mention you must be dead, so I don't blame you for being able to do no more.

There is the possibility of Ches being gone for even longer blocks of time in the future, so I wanted to remember how we handled being apart for so long while still trying to build on our relationship, and have our feelings for each other continue to grow. Stagnant love is stinky love I always say...well not always, but I have said it now! But seriously, love takes effort.


Ches and I express love very differently. We took that cheesy, but valid, love language quiz, and came out in completely different categories.

I am a letter writer, and a vocalizer. I don't use the L-bomb lightly, even in my relationship with my spouse.  I love to receive love letters, and things of that nature.  Flowery expressions of love, and a list of things that one loves about me will make me smile, and get that warm, burny feeling in my heart.

Let me show you what a love letter from my husband looks like...

This beaut is from when we were dating.  I spent a week as a counselor for a youth retreat our church does every summer.  He has done this for me since we have been married as well.  As you can see, our levels of expression are quite different, however I have no doubt that had he had the option, King Tut would have been scrambling to solicit these skills to ornament his sarcophagus.

Ches is a server and a gift giver. I never have to mix up my own fry sauce or go to the fridge to grab my own water bottle.  (There was even one night I didn't have to brush my own teeth.) Each occasion that calls for gifts, I get showered upon (not literally).  needless to say, I am spoiled. I am the loser of the world when it comes to giving thoughtful gifts, and I sometimes get so busy letting Ches do things for me, that it doesn't even cross my mind to think of something he needs.

How do we fit together? How do we know that the other loves us?  Especially from so far away??

Number One: Biggest and most useful advice I could give to any couple anywhere under any circumstance is to try and understand the other person's point of view.  Ches knows that I thrive off of romantic expression in word or script, so he tries. His expressions may not be long, or full of beautiful language, but he DOES it! 

I really do try to be thoughtful in the gifts I give, but haven't been very successful yet. I try to blame it on the fact that our anniversary, his birthday, and Christmas are all within a month, one every two weeks, and who in their right mind can be THAT thoughtful in THAT concentrated of a time period ( I mean really, couldn't his parents have thought through their actions a bit more)...but it is just an excuse. To make up for this I have tried to do things like make the non-fun phone calls, and make sure he has a hot breakfast every morning. If you know a Lewis, you know breakfast is a BIG deal.

We both continue to try, and we are learning a lot about each other.

Number Two: Whether you live together, or are apart for reasons out of your control. Talk ALL THE TIME! Sometimes this isn't an option, but luckily it is for us. Sometimes most of a day will pass, and I will realize that I haven't talked to or heard from my husband really at all. Thinking about this made me realize that sometime we will sit in the same room for an entire evening, and barely talk because we are both so into our own things. SADNESS! When our kids are grown and gone, I don't want to discover that I don't know my husband because we didn't just talk often enough.

We have tried to be better.  Don't feel bad if you are not one of those couples that can talk endlessly always. We have those moments, but most of the time converstaion for us takes thought and effort.  So, at night our FaceTime conversations look like this:

In the end this very wordy post is mostly about those two final things. Whether you are trying to resolve something on which you think differently, or simply trying to learn to love each other more greatly and deeply, talk like you aren't going to be able to talk ever again, but every day, and always try to see through the heart of the other. 

I think Ches is on lunch break. I'm going to call him now.

Bedtime Conversations

Me:(singing heartily) "Who wants a twig when you can have the whoooooooooooooole treeeeeee?" (obviously an exerpt from the fabulous show Hairspray) ....Ches....I'm the whole tree!

Ches: No you're not.

Me: Well, I'm not a twig...

Ches: You're more of a weight bearing branch.

pause....

PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Backwards

I have complained muchly that husband and my first year of marriage is documented by a depressingly small number of photographs.  My camera is cheap, and takes soooper low quality pictures.  His camera does not respond when you push its buttons.

Happy Anniversary to me! Husband went and bought me a camera.  Let the documentation of our very weird lives begin.

(I HAD to take the picture of the camera with photobooth...I couldn't quite figure out how to make it take a picture of itself...)

Fuzzy Back Teeth

Just about every night about the time that I a quickly fading away into a drool on my pillow state, I decide I should wash my face and brush my teeth, so as to hygienate  myself in an appropriate manner (do you like my new word?).

A least every other night I ask husband if he wants to brush my teeth for me.

He has always politely declined. I always have the most polite reply of sticking my tongue out at him.

Last night the routine, and I dare say my life, changed.

He was brushing his teeth, and I said, "Can I help you?" and he said..nod nod.  So I got off the couch, and proceeded to brush my husbands teeth.  Getting my fat hands in that little mouth was a little difficult.  I think next time I will have him sit on a stool because I will be able to reach the back better.

Then....

I put toothpaste on my beautiful green toothbrush, handed it to him, opened my very large pie-hole, and....HE BRUSHED MY VERY OWN TEETH!  He missed the back completely, so I had to fix it for him, but I hurried and fixed it while he wasn't looking....well he was looking, but I couldn't have fuzzy back teeth in the morning.

I quickly became glad that we live in a basement apartment where no one walks by our one window.  How odd would it bee to walk by a window, look in, and see two grown people brushing eachother's teeth.  Not odd, I argue, INSPIRING.