anna jo and jeff got married!

On September 4, 2011, Anna Jo and Jeffrey Karp got married! I got to be a bridesmaid and witness all the wedding awesomeness firsthand (and really, it was all awesome, which, knowing those two, I had no misconceptions that it would be otherwise).

The night before the wedding, I got to visit with some of my dearest friends and remembered why I became friends with them in the first place 14 years ago. Jeff's mom created the most magical atmosphere under an outdoor tent with twinkly lights and delicious food and rootbeer floats (!!!!) for dessert.

My mom was nice enough to come out and manage the kids with Sam so I got to spend a luxurious day being pampered and enjoying time with some wonderful women. First, we went to the spa and got all dolled up. (These are a mix of my own pictures and those pilfered from facebook. Thanks to everyone else for documenting the day!)

Then we went back to hotel and got dressed, ate lunch (Panera- which never disappoints) and hopped in the limo (with a driver that looked like Santa) to head to Hiram House Camp where Anna Jo and Jeff first met.

(why yes, I am the palest one here...)

Here's where Jeff got his first glimpse of Anna Jo, and the scene was definitely tender. They are so so in love and one of the best parts of the day was just seeing them look at each other.

We hiked all over the camp. I lost an earring, which of course, Anna Jo's dad found, because, well, he's indispensable like that. The incredible photographer kept us all in good humor with his ninja like skills of scaling anything to get just the right shot. I can't wait to see his photos (although I know Anna Jo is nearly dying with anticipation for them).

After pictures, we went to the club where the wedding was and re-primped after the rain at camp. Then Anna Jo and Jeff signed the ketubah, which was really beautiful to witness and hear the blessings given to them as husband and wife.

Next came the coming down the aisle part. This is probably the only time in my life I'll walk down an aisle at a wedding. :)

Don't you just love Jenifer's dress? She looked amazing in all that flowing silver and was just beaming with happiness the whole day.

Anna was a flower girl and hadn't successfully walked down the aisle in any of the rehearsals, so I was nervous about what would happen at the real event. She made it several feet and I was feeling so hopeful when she made a last minute veer towards my mom. With a little prodding and quite a bit of laughter, I coaxed her down the aisle where Sam was waiting off to the side to get her. The girls weren't allowed to drop flower petals in the hall, so they each had flower cookies in their baskets and Sam told me Anna kept whispering to him through the whole ceremony that she wanted to eat them since she'd made it down the aisle, according to our bargain.

The wedding itself was beautiful and moving. I've never been to a Jewish wedding before, but there were definitely some elements of it that reminded me of some of the wording in an LDS ceremony. The Rabbi spoke about some of the things Anna Jo and Jeff had told him they loved about the other person and listening to him, I thought, "It's all true." We love Anna Jo and Jeff for all the same reasons they love each other, for their kindness and humor and trust.

They look happy :)

I got to visit with lots of old friends from Ohio. Here I'm talking with my cross country coach's wife Laura. It was wonderful to see her, though we missed Terry who had an unexpected heart attack the month before. He had a congenital heart defect that had never been detected and his doctor told him his running had kept him alive all those years. He's been an incredible positive influence for so many young women, myself included and he was missed.

Sam and mom really deserve a prize for dealing with the kids all day, including swimming, short naps in the hotel rooms, all while trying to do homework or get double stick tape to fix a bridesmaid dress.

Anna promptly ate all five of the cookies in her basket. Levi and my mom may have had a bite. She looked adorable, but I tried to keep it under control and only included five pictures of her eating cookies here :)

Anna had fun dancing with the other flower girls and their siblings, while Levi hung out in front of the band. At one point, the drummer gave him a brush to play with and he was in heaven.

Here's the beautiful Sara giving a loving toast, and a beautiful Anna Jo basking in sisterly love with a barely visible Justin a few seats down. What an amazing family!

My favorite part of the reception was sitting next to Christine and just talking and relaxing after a long day. We laughed a lot, cried some, hugged, and watched Anna Jo and Jeff greet all their guests instead of eating :)

Hava Nagila!!

cross country girls

The bride and groom!

Thank you so much Anna Jo for letting me be a part of your day! I had such a wonderful day. I love you both so much! Congratulations!!!!

change (part 3)

Part 1, Part 2, and something a little lighter

As I considered the course things seemed to be taking in our home, it made me wonder about the choice I’d made to become a mother. A few very close friends and family members with whom I’d shared some of my struggles had all talked about taking ownership of the choice I had made to become a mother. If I could accept that it was my choice, that would help me deal with the hard times. Though it made some sense to me, it didn’t really bring me any comfort; it certainly didn’t make mothering any easier. Mostly, it made me question my decision-making ability.

When Sam and I had Anna, I certainly felt like I wanted a child. I had spent 23 years thinking only about myself and I was ready for that to change. I like being physically challenged and pregnancy and child-birth seemed like the ultimate extreme sport. I wanted to fit in with the other women at church where I was hoping to find friends. And most importantly, I wanted to have the intensely spiritual and life-changing experience that everyone told me motherhood was.

Though my desire to have a baby was pretty strong, I did seriously consider what I would do if we didn’t (or couldn’t) have a baby. I could keep working, but my two previous jobs had taught me that the kinds of jobs you get with a bachelors degree in psychology are emotionally and physically draining and don’t pay you very much money to compensate for the stress. I could go back to school, but I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to study or do for a career, and getting a masters degree and then either not liking my work or becoming a parent and not using it both seemed like a waste of money. And what would happen if we moved? At that point, Sam was studying for the GMAT and was thinking about going back to business school as early as the coming year. I was also physically ready. I was healthy and strong, young and energetic. My mom had gone back to school when we were kids. I could post-pone an advanced degree and I might have a better idea of what I wanted to do with my life in 10 or 15 years. To me, the only really sensible option was to have children now, and go back to school later when my children weren’t at home all day long.

Fast-forward three years and I was starting to see some of the flaws in my logic. So much of my reasoning to have a baby had been that the other options didn’t seem right. If I hadn’t known how much I really deep down wanted a baby, reasoning aside, I might have said I had one by default. But in my emotionally messed-up state, it was hard for me to connect with that deep spiritual feeling and all I had left were the reasons, reasons which didn’t stand up to either my feminist intellect or my institutional picture of motherhood. I was in a catch-22 where I was neither equipped for a successful career, nor was I having a fulfilled, transcendent mothering experience.

This was another paradox for which I found Reading Women extremely helpful in explaining. Staal quotes Betty Friedan in The Feminine Mystique. "When motherhood, a fulfillment held sacred down the ages, is defined as a total way of life, must women themselves deny the world and future open to them? Or does the denial of that world force them to make motherhood a total way of life? The line between mystique and reality dissolves; real women embody the split in the image." Though I don't agree that Friedan's prediction—get a job, hire domestic help, and you will be happier—is always true, her description of "embody[ing] the split in the image” rings true to me. As mothers, we must always make a careful balance between motherhood as a “total way of life” and giving ourselves space for our own identities to grow and develop, toeing the line between the institution and our own personal experience.

One obvious and often successful way of gaining this space is to work (or volunteer) outside the home. Second wave feminism, which essentially began with the publishing of Friedan’s Mystique, was very much concerned with getting women (upper-middle-class, white women that is) into politics and the workplace with equal pay. An unfortunate side-effect of this goal was the resulting cultural pressure on women to not only be the primary caregiver at home, but also be a primary breadwinner out of it, at the same time. Women were told that in order to prove they were valuable, they had to get a job. As such, we started telling girls, “you can be anything you want” with the cultural-expectation-tagline of “as long as you still take care of the kids.”(I won’t get too sidetracked here by spelling out all the complexity that has arisen around men’s roles in the past 50 years, but I do feel the need to acknowledge it here….Duly acknowledged, let’s move on.)

Staal recounts an exchange between Judith Warner, and Cecile Berry at a panel discussion at Barnard called, "Rewriting Motherhood:"
"'Well, I don't know if we should tell our daughters they have limitless possibilities,’ said Berry. ‘If you want to include a meaningful experience with motherhood in your lives, I don't know if that's possible.'"
(Here Warner's shocked and tries to recover),"'...I think if we can just give girls the ability to remain true to themselves, then that sort of takes care of part of the problem.'
'Yeah, it does break down to what kind of career you want to have,' agreed Berry, 'but that's exactly why I don't want to tell girls, "you have limitless options." I don't know if it's possible to really be a mother who experiences motherhood and at the same time have a dynamic, high-profile career.'"

I wish I could remember what Berry’s career was to get her on the panel, I do remember she gave it up to stay home with her children. What she’s saying here—to a very baffled Judith Warner—is that we need to give realistic messages to our daughters. Berry's pragmatism is a breath of fresh air to me. Yes, girls can do anything, but they need to understand that their experiences working in or out of them home will be changed by whether they devote all their time to one of those pursuits or if pursue career and motherhood at the same time. As with any decision, there are trade-offs, but we should at least try to prepare them for “embody[ing] the split in the image.”

In an ideal world, we’d all just stop judging each other, and ourselves, and we’d support our friends and sisters and daughters in whatever choices they deemed best. That’s what I really wished for as I thought, “What kind of mothering experience do I want to have? What kind of experience do I want for my children? Would not being a stay-at-home parent allow me to enjoy more the fewer mothering experiences I would have, or would it produce more guilt and more anxiety?”

Again, Staal helped me think about this. She writes, “To compare work and motherhood in terms of satisfaction and fulfillment is a similarly specious endeavor, for they are plainly not the same kind of experience. Seeing my name in print cannot possibly be compared with seeing my daughter's dance performance at school—not because one is necessarily better or more important, but because they are so very different and serve such different needs. Any mother knows this, even if some media pundits would seem stubbornly determined not to acknowledge this crucial distinction with their relentless coverage of the Mommy Wars.
"...If Friedan's specter was the 1950's "happy housewife" pictured in glossy magazine advertisements, ours is surely the '80's ‘supermom,’ now lying crumpled on the floor from too much cultural kryptonite. And in her wake enters a decidedly less glamorous antihero: the mother who is always reaching to make ends meet, always harried, always frazzled, and always—always—always—coming up a little short.”

As I read that, I knew I was haunted by that specter. Even without a job, I was feeling harried and frazzled. I thought about Julie Beck’s vision of a “mother who knows.” While some of the wording in that talk irks me, I agree with its spirit, and Sister Beck’s assertion that, “Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.”

I decided I really did want to be at home with my children. Right now, I don’t want to be anywhere else. I decided I was completely willing to make that sacrifice, but I knew I must find a way to be at peace while doing it, or it would be painful for both me and my family. The vision, the idea, the hope of that peace was what gave me strength to do what I did next.

halloween sneak peek

When I asked Anna, sometime in August, what she wanted to be for Halloween, I didn't really expect any answer at all, but she said, "I want to be a ballerina fairy princess with an orange tutu and a crown with a sunshine on it." Mom made this happen with a little tweaking (we couldn't find orange spandex for the leotard). We had our Joy School Halloween party on Thursday. The leotard Mom made came the night before, so this was the first time Anna had on the whole costume. She was crazy excited. This is after the party, so she was a little pictured out. Thanks Mom!

(Levi got in the shot at the last second, but this was the best, face-on, not blurry shot we got of the whole costume)

I slipped ribbons under Anna's feet inside her sparkly shoes so she could have ribbons that tied around her legs like real ballerinas, and there's a pink and orange tutu under her "flower fairy" skirt. There's a book called Lili at the ballet written by an ex-ballerina with beautiful illustrations of children dancing. Anna learned that ballerinas balance at the barre from that book. Lili gets to be the flower fairy at the end of the book, so she was glad Grandma included a flower skirt that she could wear with her ballerina tutu.

This is a good shot of her "princess hair." Those little ringlets in the front are all natural, no curling iron needed.

change (part 2)

Part 1

I can’t even remember now why I added it to my reading list, but I do remember being instantly curious about what Reading Women by Stephanie Staal had to say. The official title is this: Reading Women: How the Great Books of Feminism Changed My Life. The premise is that Stephanie Staal, a young mother who is bewildered by how messed up her life has gotten since having a baby, goes back to her alma mater, Barnard College (a women’s college) in NYC and retakes Introduction to Feminist Texts, in the hopes that she can reconcile her image of herself as a confident, young feminist and her new motherhood.

Starting about my sophomore year of college, I began to identify myself as a “feminist.” Up until then, feminism was simply a group of women who blamed men for everything, but once I really started to learn about it, I realized that while I may not be a radical, militant feminist, I did feel like there were still some cultural and institutional constraints on and beliefs about women that were oppressive, and that I had a responsibility to work towards changing them. Staal’s journey sounded very much like an experience I would have enjoyed, so I picked up Reading Women hoping to live a little vicariously through her and get a better handle on the basic tenants of feminism at the same time.

While reading, I kept putting little post-its at passages that resonated with my own experience. I’ve decided to share some of those passages and my thoughts about them. Reading this brought up more questions for me because I felt like Staal, and the feminist authors she’s quoting, of course, were able to articulate the difficult feelings I’d been having and the paradoxes in which I found myself.

One of the major themes I latched on to was how motherhood and womanhood have been defined for us. Adrienne Rich said she felt alienated by the “institution—not the fact—of motherhood.” Staal summarized the institution of motherhood as “the belief that a mother need no longer feel any ambition, any curiosity, any desire of her own.” Later, I heard another description that was a little more concrete. I heard this on an incredible podcast called “Mormon Matters” just a few weeks ago, long after I’d read Reading Women and had some time to stew it over. (This podcast is entitled “Mormonism's Messages about Motherhood” and I’d highly recommend it to anyone, especially young moms. They did a great job helping me see some of the oppressive (or, for a nicer word, un-helpful) messages about motherhood my culture has given me while at the same time, helping me feel the desire to be a better mother, be kinder to my children, and appreciate my mom. Please listen to it.)

This comes from lesson 8 in the Young Women Manual 1. It says, “…if we believe that life as a wife and mother is routine and boring, it will be. But if we can understand our divine purposes and realize the great potential we have, our role will take on greater meaning than any other task in this world. By cheerfully and enthusiastically supporting our husbands and by bearing, nurturing, and teaching righteous spirits, we can experience the greatest fulfillment.” To me, this is the institution of motherhood: that having children is the most fulfilling thing a woman can do and you just need to have a good attitude about it to be happy. If you are not happy, you are failing in your role as wife and mother. Also, if you are not completely fulfilled by motherhood, you are not trying hard enough.

Now, I think this is an extreme description of motherhood, and I have heard talks from General Authorities in General Conference debunking these very messages, but the fact remains that this is a message I had internalized from girlhood. So every time I felt unhappy or unfulfilled, it meant I was an inadequate mother, an unsupportive wife, and that I probably just wasn’t trying hard enough. I also felt like I couldn’t talk about feeling unhappy or unfulfilled to other moms because they obviously had it together and despite the challenging times of motherhood, they were always cheerful.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. While I was reading the book, I kept Staal’s definition of the institution of motherhood. Here it is again: the belief that a mother need no longer feel any ambition, any curiosity, any desire of her own. Since becoming a mother, and especially since moving to Massachusetts where many more women work, and many of those in very high profile careers, I felt this assumption that my ambitions and skills and talents and anything that made me interesting had stopped existing. I sense this most acutely when Sam and I meet another couple, and they ask what we do. Sam gives his answer and then they turn to me. I say, "I stay at home with our children," (anyone got any ideas on a better way to phrase that?) and the conversation screeches to a halt. I often find myself fumbling something about how it's "fun" or "nice" or "a lot of work, but worth it" while the other couple is trying to back peddle through their own shock and say something polite. It's as if when I said I chose to be a mother full time, it was like admitting I had no other interests, and that I had nothing valuable to say outside of talking about children. I certainly don't think other people mean to make me feel that way, it just seems clear they feel they have absolutely nothing in common with me, and have no idea how to approach our relationship from here.

Realizing this is when I finally got to take my anger and pin point it at something. I was angry at society for telling us the mothers didn’t need anything but motherhood. I was angry at other people for believing that and assuming I wasn’t anything beyond my motherhood. I was angry at my kids for hijacking my identity. I was angry at myself for being angry at my kids because I knew it was my choice that brought them here in the first place, and that I couldn’t just say, “Screw you cultural norms, I’m a good mom and I know it. I’m a smart, interesting, creative woman and I know it. It doesn’t matter what other people think because I know who I am.” The problem was, this anger spilled over into many other aspects of my life.

Stall gives a great description of what an angry mom looks like, “There are the good moments [like when her daughter declares she wants to be a writer like her mom], but there are also the bad ones, and the entire spectrum arching between. Moments when my temper flares, so swift and bright, I scare even myself. Sometimes, feeling overextended, I am prone to snap. Maybe Sylvia refuses to put on her shoes when we're already late for school, and I jam her feet in them a little too roughly. Or she starts whining for a cupcake when she has just had a box of animal crackers, and I lash out in disproportionate anger. Or she accidentally spills a sticky glass of juice across the brand-new dining room table, and I send her to her room in a rage. I can feel this hulking restiveness beneath my skin that I try with all my might to restrain. Parenthood is rife with these little fits of fury, these powerful eruptions of frustration, and to keep them at bay, I constantly search to find the right balance of responsibility to my child and responsibility to myself.”

I remember one afternoon in particular. I can’t remember any details of the day or what had gone wrong to make me so frustrated, but the feeling of “hulking restiveness” is etched clearly in my memory. I know Sam was at school, working late, and I was trying to do something—maybe getting Levi into his pajamas—and a whiny Anna kept getting in the way. Finally, when she came near me, I pushed her. It was a little push, not even hard enough to make her fall down, but the fact that I had been physically aggressive toward my child made me snap back to the moment. As I took in the shock on Anna’s face and the sound of her frightened and angry little voice yelling, “No! No Mommy! We don’t push!” I burst into tears. As I held Anna and rocked her, apologizing over and over again, I felt so lost and so scared. Where had this come from? This wasn’t what I wanted to be. Why can't I control this? What will happen if I don’t?

change (part 1)

Here's something I wanted to put out there publicly. I'm not sure why. Maybe for my own process of changing. Maybe for somebody else who's feeling alone right now. This is a long post, with a lot more to come. I'm not sure when those other pieces will come. But for now, here's part 1.

Today, as I stretched after my kickboxing aerobics class, I felt good. I felt strong. I felt hopeful. I felt confident. I felt at peace with myself. Tears came to my eyes because I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve felt those things. I’ve been taking notes here and there over the last year or so, trying to put into words what I was feeling, in the hopes that naming and knowing what was wrong would give me some direction in how to put it right. And now, now that I can see things coming back into focus, and can feel my burdens being lifted, I’m ready to share some of this story here. It is a story of anger, desperation, sorrow, and hopelessness, but also of will, and support, and most importantly, of grace.

Just for some structure, I’ll give this story a starting point of about a year ago. We had recently moved to Massachusetts and my parents and grandfather came to visit us. I was looking forward to some help with the kids (since two was a lot more overwhelming than one) and I couldn’t wait to see my Grandpa’s excitement at exploring the history of Boston and Concord. Unfortunately, Grandpa didn’t feel very well, and after one beautiful day with him, he entered the hospital.

The next month was filled with ups and downs. Grandpa had surgery for a hernia and seemed to be almost back to normal, but there was a quick turn around and he ended up back in the hospital. My dear mother just had to take it one day at a time, and she and my dad managed to fit in fun and babysitting for us while still spending a lot of time with Grandpa and managing his care. It was during this visit, that I first noticed feelings of anger. I was angry that something had spoiled this grand trip I had envisioned. Then I was angry at myself for having anything but positive thoughts towards my sick Grandpa and my overwhelmed mom. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty even-keeled person, so feeling angry just shocked me, and I’m sad to say that I was less than thoughtful towards my family during a time when they really could have used some support.

After a month of battling, my Grandpa passed away here in Massachusetts, far from his loving brother and sons and grandchildren. I was filled with sadness- for my mom who had very suddenly lost her father in a foreign place, for my uncles who didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, for my own loss, and for the fact that I had harbored resentment in those final days.

I flew to Utah with Levi for the funeral and mourned with my family. When I came home, I expected for things to return to normal, to be able to feel patient and loving again, as I had after my Grandma died. And to a certain extent, they did. We got wrapped up in exploring our new home and library, and I found a lot of joy in my giggly baby boy who was just so good. Then came the holidays and all the attendant magic and happiness. But something nagging still just didn’t feel right, and I met January with a lingering feeling of inadequacy and bewilderment about what to do next.

After returning from Christmas in Texas, we got our first big Boston snow. We played in it and marveled at how deep and white it was. And then it snowed again, with even more snow. How fun! And then it snowed again and again and again. The freezing temperatures (around 0* for a long long time) kept the snow around and the plows didn’t have anywhere to put it. Entire days were lost in dull grayness when the sun didn’t rise till 9, and set at 4, and stayed behind the clouds all day. And we were stuck in our apartment. You’d have to have superpowers not to get depressed and lonely in a winter like that one.

Thankfully, my friend Claire suggested we start Joy School which gave some much needed structure to the kids’ week and gave me something to fill my time. I loved the other women and children who participated, and Anna did too, making her very first real friends. Anna was happy. Levi was still happy and becoming funnier and snugglier by the day. Sam was in the midst of very promising MBA applications and interviews. I was increasingly involved at church and meeting some incredible and inspiring women. So why, with all this good news, did I feel like I didn’t have any friends, like I didn’t have any use or purpose, like I was trapped, and like I was losing myself?

In the midst of all this, a book that had been on my to-read shelf for several months came in at the library. What I was expecting was an interesting memoir, but what I got instead, were the very first insights to answering my questions, and a whole lot more to be angry about.

august

That's right. August. Here's what went down:

The kids cuddled

We packed and moved.



We went to the beach

and got really sandy (but not burned!)

We decided the best use of space in the kids' new tiny room was to shove their beds together. They absolutely love it and entertain each other all morning while I sleep/read/shower.

We went to Hartford, CT and visited the Childrens Museum.

This giant whale was the best part.

Followed closely by riding on one of the oldest carousels in the country.

Our new place is better organized and more fun than our old place in Acton. It's more fun because a huge playground is right outside our back door and more organized because not only did we inherit an awesome Ikea organization unit (thanks LeAnn!) but also, 1/3 of our possessions are in storage. I'm very seriously considering donating everything that's down there. If I don't need it here, why will I ever need it? As such, the kids can find their toys better. They play hard, and sleep hard.

This is our back patio. We love being on the third floor, right in the tree tops. And I get plenty of exercise hauling strollers, Levi, laundry, and groceries up and down each week!