Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Since I’m still plugging away at an older Newbery and I didn’t cook dinner tonight (I went out to a pizza buffet with my in-laws–think lots and lots of cousins all eating pizza and playing together), I thought I’d give a little info about me, for any reader out there who might be interested (and not already know).

I’m coming up on 35 this year and my husband and I just celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary a couple of months ago.  He’s from Utah and I’m from Rhode Island (I was born there and everything, although my parents grew up in Utah and my brother was born there before my parents moved to the east coast).  We have three children:  my oldest is 7 1/4, my middle is 4 1/2, and my youngest is almost 20 months.  He’s the only boy and he likes vehicles, books about vehicles, and balls. My two girlies are very, VERY different; my oldest is more of a practical sort–except when she gets past a certain level of upset!–and my middle is passionate and extremely tactile.

Hmmm.

Okay, I give up.  I’m sitting here trying to describe each of them succinctly, and I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about all three.  How DO you describe real, complex, individual beings who bring you love and laughter and a healthy dose of exasperation?  What I can say is that my children (and their father) are the most important people in my life; raising them gives me a sense of eternal purpose I’ve never had in any other pursuit.  I love to read, and I love to make (and eat–especially eat) food, but at the end of the day what matters is whether I’m teaching my children how to be kind, loving, happy, healthy people who leave this earth a slightly better place than they found it.  My faith plays a huge role in this process–I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It’s what keeps me from screaming in terror at 3 o’clock in the morning, every morning, because of the responsibility I have to these little people I helped bring into this world.  Parenthood is scary, parenthood is hard, parenthood is exhausting, and parenthood can be incredibly repetitive.  It is also joyous, fulfilling, and never, ever dull.

Let’s see.  Anything else about me?  I worked at Borders for 10 years–I’m still sad it’s gone–and I taught at Sylvan for 5, but I am currently a stay at home mom.  I also have really awesome in-laws.  We are unlike in many, many ways, but they are fun and loving and nice and not crazy (and believe me, I know people with in-laws who are).  Being unlike means I can learn a lot from them; it also means that my own family (which is awesome in its own right) and my in-laws complement instead of compete with each other.  I am blessed in all of my families, and I am truly grateful for it.

Ok, enough about me.  Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the new muffin recipe I tried–about which I’m currently undecided–and (possibly) other things.  Tonight it is off to bed for me!