Big 1st Grader

Ben started his first day of first grade today. He's been pretty nervous about it for the last couple of weeks. He didn't think he'd like going all day, he didn't want to do harder stuff, and I think he was afraid he wouldn't know where to go.

Last Friday they finally posted the class lists, so Ben and I drove down to the school to see who his teacher would be and who was in his class. He was happy to see that there were quite a few from his kindergarten class in his class with him. His two best friends were in other classes, but he was okay with that.

On Monday they had a meet the teacher night, so we went over to meet his teacher and she let him pick out where he was going to sit today. She wrote his name on a post-it and had him put it on the spot where he wanted to sit. He first put it at a table where no one else had put their names, but when his friend Juan showed up and put his name at a table, Ben moved his to sit across from him. He was happy to know that he'd be sitting by someone he knew.

Last night, Bryce gave Ben a Father's Blessing and told Ben that he wouldn't be apprehensive or nervous, that he would be excited. He said he'd be excited to learn and be able to learn what he needed, that he'd meet up with old friends and make new friends, that he would want to be good and obey his teacher. Ben actually has strong faith when it comes to prayers and blessings. He surprises and impresses me quite often with how strong his faith is. He started feeling a bit better after the blessing, but this morning when he got up, he said he wasn't nervous anymore, that he was just excited. He kept asking when it was time to go and made sure his brothers were up so they wouldn't make him late for the bus. He did get a bit nervous when the bus came and wasn't sure where he wanted to sit, so I had to go help encourage him to sit and that he would be fine, but he was still excited to be going to school.

Here are a couple pictures of Ben ready to go on his first day.

Ben wanted to look grumpy for the first one, mostly because he didn't want me to take his picture because he was afraid it would make him late:


Now he's finally smiling:


Here he's waiting for the morning bus (his first time on this morning bus) with Alex and the other kids:

Chasing tires

Since our dog is very large, he tends to chew through his toys fairly quickly. It almost seems like a waste to get him balls or toys like that because he usually doesn't have them for very long. So last spring, we bought him a tire to play with. At first he wasn't sure what to do with it, but lately he is always carrying it around and chewing on it and wanting us to play tug with him with it. Of course, that's not so fun when I'm trying to mow the back lawn and he thinks the tires on the lawnmower are fair game.

Here are some pictures of Ozzy with his tire:

Just a quick one...

I just thought I'd do a quick update in case you were keeping track and wondered how things were going.

I took Daniel to the doctor today for his follow-up appointment from his last ear infection. Mom and Dad were very nice to watch the rest of the kids and stay a bit longer in the morning so I wouldn't have to take the whole crowd.

They weighed him first, as they always do, and he is now 22 pounds, 4 ounces. The nurses in the office all think Daniel is very cute and one said I'll have to watch him with the girls when he's older.

The doctor came in and looked at his computer to see when he's been seen in the past for those and said, "So this was his 4th infection, right?" I said it was and he said, "Oh, dang." He asked a few more health history questions to make sure his information was current, then looked in Daniel's ears and said they looked perfect. Then we talked a little about the fact that this was his 4th ear infection in 6 months. And with the last one, he had been to the doctor for a follow-up appointment for the previous infection and his ears looked perfect then. So apparently he gets ear infections easily, but he also gets over them easily with the antibiotics. He said we had a couple of options, that we could go ahead and do tubes, we could just keep treating infections and not do tubes (but with Ben in school and bringing home viruses, he didn't think that would be the best option), or we could wait until he has another ear infection and then probably do tubes, hoping that he won't get another one. We decided to go with that last option. So for now, we're not doing tubes, but it is a possibility in the future.

On kind of a side note, he was telling me that now they recommend that all kids do get the flu shot. He said that before it was more of an option, but now it is recommended and encouraged.

Becoming Scattered

Often we talk in church about the scattering of the 12 tribes of Israel. Usually the talk about why the scattering occurred centers around the wickedness of the people. For example, the people were becoming wicked, so the Lord caused them to be cast out of their lands and scattered across the earth. One aspect that we don't often discuss is that yes, a major reason for the scattering was wickedness, but another large part was in order to preserve His people. In the Allegory of the Olive Tree in Jacob 5, the Lord of the vineyard (who we know represents Jesus Christ) takes away many young and tender branches of the olive tree to graft into other trees throughout the vineyard (or the world) in order to "preserve unto myself the natural branches of the tree; and also, that I may lay up fruit thereof against the season, unto myself" (Jacob 5:13).

Bryce's parents are up visiting us for a couple of days and anticipating their coming got me to thinking about the good and bad points of living away from most of our family. Quite often I will see pictures of birthday parties or other family gatherings that we couldn't attend because of where we live and get a twang of jealousy and sadness. I miss being able to spend more time with my family and letting my kids know their cousins better. At times I will feel a bit out of the loop when we have conversations about things going on.

We really don't live all that far away from family, either. It's a relatively easy 5 1/2 hour drive, so it's a trip that can be made with some frequency and without too much trouble. Even so, we miss out on some things that I would like to be able to be around for.

My sister Di has about a 9-11 hour drive (Mom could tell the time better, since she's done it and I haven't) from where she lives to go visit the family, so hers is a little bit harder to do.

And my favorite brother, Brian, just moved his family across the country, so it would take a few days to drive or take as long to fly as it takes me to drive.

And those are just going to where the rest of our family lives, that's not coming here or me going there. So I don't get to see them very often. It makes it a little sad, since I've got a new niece, Savannah, who I have never seen. She was born just a few weeks before Brian and Steph moved their family. I'm hoping that they will start a blog here sometime and post lots of pictures and lots of stories so I can feel like I know their kids a bit better.

So living away from family, being scattered in a sense, does have its bad points. It has its good points too however.

When you move your family away from the support you've grown up depending on, it makes you as a family depend more on each other and you become closer and stronger both as a married couple and as a family unit. I had always heard some people say that the best advice they would give a married couple would be to move at least 300 miles away from their parents, and I never really understood the benefits until I did it. Not that staying close is bad, but for us anyway, we seem to have only grown closer as we've been scattered from our family.

Another good point is that when the families get together and the one kid who was sick ends up getting everyone else sick, we can sit back and be glad that we couldn't make it to that family gathering and aren't throwing up along with everyone else.

One other good point that I've really come to appreciate is that living away from family has made us depend a little more on our ward family. We've become closer to more people than we would otherwise and have had to ask for or accept help from ward members that we probably otherwise wouldn't have. I think it's made us stronger in our faith as we've done so.

It's still nice to know that I have parents and in-laws who would drop everything to come up if I needed them to. I still have that support, even though it's not as close.

So as Brian and Steph start their new life being scattered from the family and the things that have been familiar to them, I hope they will be able to see the positive side of the scattering. They will become closer as a couple and as a family. They will be able to depend on their ward family and make new, lasting friendships. Their faith will increase and they will find that they are stronger than they thought possible.

I hope we will all be able to see that the scattering isn't always bad, but that it does "preserve...the natural branches" and our own families can be stronger because of it. Blessings we may not ever have expected may come because of our being scattered. I know I've received blessings I never before thought of because we've been scattered. And one day, whether in this life or the next, we will come to a time when we are all gathered together forever.

Comfort

I'm sure I won't say this as well as I would like to, but here goes anyway.

As I sit here and write this today, my sister and her husband are sitting in the waiting room at Primary Children's Hospital, waiting to hear how the surgery is going on their 5 day-old son, Dylan. He's got an extremely rare heart defect, truncus along with coarctation of the aorta. It's so rare in fact, that many people don't believe that you can have truncus (truncus itself isn't as rare) along with coarctation. Apparently they're wrong. The surgeon told Cindy and Russ that he's only ever seen it in one other patient. The surgery is supposed to last 5-6 hours, but they were told to expect it to go 7-8 hours.

Cindy, Russ, and Dylan have been on my mind a lot since Dylan was born on Friday. I've felt bad that I couldn't go down to be there with them at this time. I keep telling myself that there's really nothing I could do there anyway.

As I've thought about them, a lot of scriptures have come to my mind. A lot have been the usual scriptures of comfort, like "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you...let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." and "be still and know that I am God." Some scriptures have almost seemed to be forced on me as I've been studying and preparing for my Sunday School lessons. In last week's and this week's lessons especially, it seems as though Alma has constantly been reminding me that the Lord will sustain us in our troubles and trials. For example, in this coming Sunday's lesson, Alma speaks to his sons Helaman and Shiblon and gives them advice and counsel. To Helaman he says, "And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions;..." (Alma 36:27). To Shiblon, he says, "...I would that ye should remember, that as much as ye shall put your trust in God even so much ye shall be delivered out of your trials, and your troubles, and your afflictions, and ye shall be lifted up at the last day" (Alma 38:5). One that particularly stood out to me was when Alma and Amulek were preaching among the Zoramites. Amulek tells them, "But that ye have patience, and bear with those afflictions, with a firm hope that ye shall one day rest from all your afflictions" (Alma 34:41).

We may wish we could never have trials and afflictions, especially as we're going through them, but they're for our good. They help us grow and learn to trust in the Lord. And as we come to realize that God is in charge and knows what He's doing, that he has a plan for us, we can be comforted and supported in our trials. And we can know that the day will come when we can "rest from all (our) afflictions". And won't that be a glorious day?

But today, while I'm waiting to hear news of the surgery, I can realize that even though I can't be there to support Cindy and Russ, the Lord will be. And I will hug my own children a little more often today and hold them longer and feel grateful for my blessings, especially for the knowledge that we have been sealed together for all eternity and will be able to rest from our afflictions.