I am a Mom

Sure I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a worker, a teacher, a chauffer, a chef, a maid, a laundress, a crafter, a seamstress, a movie fan, a reader, a daughter of God, and more. But the way I actually define myself is by my role as a mother. I have gotten into the habit of thinking of myself as a mother of teenagers with all the relate craziness. We spend alot of time getting kids to activities, making sure homework is done, enforcing curfews, doing tons of laundry, and trying to keep bottomless pits full.

A couple of days ago at work someone was asking me about my kids in a "how big are they now" conversation. The result was a bit of an identity crisis for me. I don't know how it snuck up on me so quickly, but I actually have only two kids in school and two almost "working adult" children. I am not quite sure I am ready to be a Mom to adults. It's definitely time to figure out how to do that though because they aren't going back.

I call them almost working adult children because neither of them are quite all the way to that title. They are in limbo yeasr. Raylee is technically still a full-time student as she completes her internship and doesn't get a full time paycheck but she spends all of her time working. She spends so much time working that she realized it didn't make sense to live in Provo after all, and was not sure that half of the pittance we pay teachers would actually cover rent, ALL the gas required to drive back and forth and still allow her the luxury of food, so she is living back at home instead. It is going to take some adjusting because she is a student and she isn't, she hasn't lived at home for more than the summer since she started college four years ago and wont have the same  freedoms or as much fun as she is used to.

Logan is almost a working adult because he is working full-time but isn't really thinking much beyond the end of the year and doesn't have any bills. He seems to find enough fun activities for 2 or 3 people, so he is seldom home to do more than sleep. He is in play rehearsals for "Hello Dolly" at the Empress, he will share the role of Cornelius, so be sure to check his schedule before buying tickets. He has had a pretty hard year since high school graduation and is also in a state of limbo as he works towards being ready financially, emotionally, spiritually, and in all other ways for a mission. 

Thank goodness Landon and Lucas are actually still filling their assigned role as teenagers. They are both involved in early morning swim team practices and after school play rehearsals. Landon is playing a princely chef named Philipe Alfredo Mignon in a musical adaptation of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale "Twelve Dancing Princesses" and Lucas has just been cast as Troy Bolton in "High School Musical" at Brockbank.  They are both doing their best to stay on top of their school work and get enough sleep. They are always eating, calling for rides and are rarely without their ipods in hand. They are typical teenagers and I am grateful--mostly.

My Comfort Zone Explodes

Earlier this year I had some adventures that really stretched my comfort zone. I went to India to do training for work. I had never been to India, never away from my family for so long, hadn't done any training in over 15 years, never even eaten Indian food, and the list goes on and on. Since then I have had more stretching opportunities in the training arena at work. All my new adventures were just a little bit scary but also exciting and turned out great.

Now my family and I are about to embark on another stretching exercise and it has me more than a little scared and not even a little bit excited. Saturday September 8th at the evening session of Stake Conference it was announced that four of the wards in our Stake would have boundary changes made a week from Sunday and that three of those four wards would have leadership changes as well. Ours was one of the wards that would have both type of change. So I spent the next several days making myself crazy (I do not do well with anticipation) with every possible scenario my brain could think up along with any that my friends and neighbors thought up as well. Tears were never far from the surface. Finally last Sunday night we went to a special meeting where all the changes were officially announced and we were asked to vote to sustain the changes. As I looked around that room I saw many people raising their hands to sustain the changes with tears in their eyes. The changes were necessary but painful for many.

So after 16 years in the same ward in two different houses we are no longer in the Spencer 5th ward. Our entire subdivision has been reassigned to the 4th ward. The Bishop of the 4th ward was and will continue to be Chase Hathaway, the leadership change was that he called new counselors and a new Elders Quorum President. Todd will be making a lateral move to be the 1st counselor in the 4th ward instead of the 5th. The new EQ President is David Ward from our neighborhood, and Josh George will be the Executive Secretary. So the integration has begun. I am sure that there are many wonderful people in the 4th ward that I do not yet know. In the interest of full disclosure I do know several families there already and I really like all of them. I just did not want the change. I don't want to go to another ward right now. Mostly though I am concerned for my sons, the teenage years are not the best time to move and from what we can tell there are not any boys my sons ages in the new ward. All of the teachers and priests in the old ward, except Lucas and Landon, are south of the canal that forms the new boundary. There are apparently several boys a year older than Landon but that's it. Logan is sad to be leaving "his boys", he has enjoyed teaching the 10 and 11 year old boys class in Primary. He also has to start the whole "getting ready to serve a mission" thing with a new Bishop. He is still trying to decide whether that will be in the 4th ward or if this is the right time to switch to the Young Single Adult ward, people his own age might be nice since he hasn't had that in years.

There are so many people in the 5th Ward that I will miss. I have served beside them, lived beside them, they have helped me raise my children, I have become accustomed to seeing them every week and watched their children grow. Yes, I know they are not going anywhere, but it will not be the same. We won't even be in the same building so that we could catch up in passing. My family and Todd's both were a bit nomadic growing up, so we never really lived anywhere very long and Todd and I have lived in three different states ourselves during our marriage. Neither of us has lived anywhere else as long as we have lived in this ward. I  will miss my ward family. I am also a little worried what the original members of the 4th ward will think of me. Anyone who knows me at all knows I cry over everything. What will they think when I sit in Sacrament meeting and cry before things even really get going because I am sitting alone in the wrong chapel missing my ward?

At the beginning of the year I knew that this would be a year that stretched my comfort zones and forced me to move outside it a little but I never imagined this. It feels like my comfort zone has exploded into little pieces. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to gather enough of the little pieces together to feel that the 4th ward is eventually comfortable. I guess that is up to me- I need to find some way to twist this around in my brain so it becomes an adventure. Any ideas??