childhood
coming of age (which for me would include high school graduation, junior college, and preparation time for serving my mission. More on that later.)
mission (to the great Massachusetts Boston Mission...Spanish speaking)
college (Go Cougars!)
marriage (to my Caribbean Man)
children (4+2+4)
And that would bring me to my present phase of life. 9 out of 10 kids are in school. My last child will begin kindergarten in the fall. And I find myself contemplating who I am. Me. Meredith. A huge part of my identity for the past 12 years has been my spouse and my children. It's who I am, it's what I do. And I love what I do. But as the toddler years of my children fade away and I've started to experience the last round of potty training, the last year of preschool, no more children sleeping in my room, etc., I have realized that it's time for me to rediscover. Granted, a big chunk of my time will still be devoted to the obvious: cleaning house, doing laundry, grocery shopping, meal preparation, homework helper, field trip attender, volunteer at school, etc. But I also know, I will have "free" time. Will I garden? Will I read? Will I exercise? Will I take a class? Will I serve more? What I do this year, may differ from what I do next year. And the year after that. But this year, I plan to rediscover who I am.
Now, on a different topic, here's what I spent about 3-4 hours doing yesterday:
(because as you all know, when you're a Mom, you never do anything uninterrupted....so sometimes it can be tough to know how much time you spend on a particular task.)
I often get jokes and questions about the amount of laundry I do. Yesterday's task was simply separating! Here's my system: I wash clothes every day. Well, except Sunday. Unless there's the occasional accident, or throw-up that needs to be cleaned up. And I just take the clothes from the dryer, put 'em in a basket, and put 'em in my room. Then on Wednesday & Saturday, I go through and separate the clothes. The 6 older kids put their own clothes away. And I (or sometimes one of my older daughters) puts the 4 little kids clothes away. Works for us.
However, meet my nemesis. My arch nemesis. (I just love that phrase) The Sock Basket!
Imagine, if you will, 12 people with 2 feet each. Add about 5 of my children who will wear more than one pair of socks a day, just because. That's 34 socks a day. That's 238 socks a week. I tire of socks. They rarely get folded and put away. The kids just know to go get their socks out of The Sock Basket. On the rare occasion that I do fold them, I get really irritated by the stray socks left in the bottom of The Sock Basket. Because there are usually, like 20 socks. How hard is it to put both socks in the dirty clothes at the same time? Seriously, just don't even get me started.
And on a final topic: Haiti. You, like me, have probably watched interviews, seen pictures, and wondered at the destruction and loss of life that has taken place. Ever since I was a little kid, I remember feeling my heart wrenched over natural disasters. Mostly feeling pain for children who remain orphans after such an event. And one wonders: what can I do?
This is where I feel so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love that on our tithing slip, we can donate to the "Humanitarian Fund". Our church is almost always one of the first to respond to natural disasters. And I know that by contributing my small part, I am a part of that response. Check here and here to learn more about that. Because I served a spanish speaking mission in Boston, I got to walk in parts of town that otherwise I probably wouldn't have. And I met people of all walks of life. There is a large Haitian-Creole population in Boston. Wonderful, humble, delightful people. I pray that recovery will be swift.
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