A Sacrament Meeting in the life of the Pitts

Well, this may include some things before church and during the other meetings, but it all revolves around sacrament meeting.  Sacrament meeting- that wonderful meeting every Sunday where we get to renew our baptismal covenants and, hopefully, feel the spirit, is my own personal refiner's fire.  It's been this way for about 12 years now.  People laugh at me, and I don't understand why, when I tell them that for every child you have just committed yourself to roughly 900 sacrament meetings.  When you have your last child multiply the age of your oldest child by 50 and then add 900 and this will be about how many sacrament meetings you will have gone to with minor children before they all are adults.  For us, that number is 1,500, as in 1,500 chances for our kids to do really embarrasing things.  When I say really embarrasing, I mean REALLY embarrasing.  I am not talking about the typical comments about body fluids.  I'm talking about the time that Reuben, age 2 at the time, gave birth to his stuffed animal from the front pew, pulling it out from the correct part of his body, had he been a girl, and proclaiming loudly, "I birthed Ducky!"  I had no idea I would be a proud grandparent at age 23.  Or the time that Audrey threw up all over my clothes in the middle of the meeting and then again and again as I ran with her out of the chapel, down the hallway, and all the way home.  But, I digress really. Those are not the typical things, but they add to the sacrament-meeting-stress-o-meter. You just never know what will happen. You go to church with the slightly unrighteous desire that someone else will have kids louder and more obnoxious than yours.  Having the most kids in the ward doesn't really help with this hope. 
Now onto today.  I thought the meeting went pretty well.  We had a few minor blips. Audrey sang "I Have a Family Here on Earth" at the top of her lungs during somebody's talk.  Clara and Audrey tried to murder each other over possession of a puny shark puppet.  Clara needed a drink.  And she wanted to go sit with one of the men in the ward with whom she is obsessed.  Emmeline spit her apple juice out all over Reuben's dry clean suit.  Nothing too exciting. After the shark incident I decided Clara was ready for some corner time.  I firmly escorted her out, nodding to all the amused friends who smiled and giggled as we walked by, and planted her in the corner in the Mother's room.  The mother's room in our ward is a well kept secret, at least it seems that way since I have yet to encounter another mother using it to feed a baby.  So, I felt safe in using it as a temporary restraint facility.  Clara obediently stood in the corner.  I reposed in the red padded rocking chair and closed my eyes while listening to the talks over the intercom. The talks were good, but the chair was soothing.  And Clara was quiet.  I admit it.  I fell asleep.  Even though I knew she had found a straight pin.  I did tell her to put it down, but I knew she was threading it through her clothes.  I just didn't really care enough to stop her because she was quiet and I was tired and enjoying the break from the other kids.  Time passed and I heard my baby crying all the way in the chapel.  I got up and asked Clara if she was done being bad.  She said,"No, I'm not finished".  I looked down and saw her creation, made using the straight pin.  She had carved her name and a lovely design into the cabinets under the sink.  So my 5 year old is a mother's room vandal and I am oblivious! I fetched the baby, brought her back and hurried to nurse her so I could spend the next two hours playing piano for the primary.  Judd admitted to falling asleep but waking up as he was ALMOST dropping said baby.  How can I be mad after what happened on my watch? That is the way it goes for us.  Every week.  I suppose I'll be bringing some polish and trying to cover up Clara's masterpiece next week.  Gotta love it.  Some people might ask, "Why do you keep coming?"  We always have a baby and or toddler missing a nap. They are hungry and tired, restless and wired.  And even though I joke about the things that happen, we keep coming because there is a point.  We believe in the things being taught.  We believe that we can partake of the sacrament and renew our baptismal convenants.  We believe that Heavenly Father wants us to come and worship him. We believe in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and we want to be valiant. So we come, no matter how hard it is.  Very little stops us from coming.  The only thing that really stops us is highly contagious illness.  And it's hard. And I keep counting down my mental paper chain.  I'm down to about 868.  868 more chances to develop patience.  868 more times that my kids will probably make somebody laugh.  868 more times to be at church with at least one of my kids.  I'm guessing that, before I get down to zero, I will start to count down with sadness.  I'm guessing that when they are gone, I will look forward to having grandchildren visit and entertain me during Sacrament Meetings.  Once you get past the embarrassment and fatigue, sacrament meeting with the Pitts can be kind of fun.

How We Met

I have about 5,259 posts things I want to talk about.  I adore talking and I think I like writing even better- no interruptions.  So, it was really hard to decide what to post on today, but in the end I have decided on the ever interesting and predictable topic of "How we met".  If my husband dies driving his very dangerous car today, the one that died three times yesterday, the one with the check engine light, the one with unreliable breaks, not the extra van in the garage that is perfectly fine except for a drained battery, no the 15 year old Ford Station Wagon, at least I will have paid tribute to the beginning of us.  Side note: If you are the grammar police, you should stop reading what I write right now.  I like run on sentences and I'm much better at spelling than all those other tricky little rules.  Anyway, back to the point of this post.  Let's go back a few years, all the way back to 1996, which is coincidentally the year his car was born.  I was starting my sophomore year at BYU and Judd was fresh off his mission for his second year at BYU as well.  We both decided to live on campus in the apartment style dorms.  These were one step up in responsibility from DT where we got to eat in the BEST CAFETERIA EVER, the Morris Center, where I lived the year before.  These dorms, Heritage Halls, had kitchens complete with a table and a loveseat.  6 girls, or guys, shared one bathroom with one sink, 3 bedrooms and the lovely kitchen.  4 apartments shared a common area with some couches and a T.V..  It was paradise! As fate would have it, Judd and I ended up living in adjacent buildings and therefore landed ourselves in the same ward comprised of 2 buildings of girls and one building of boys.  I was not about to let this gender disprepancy hinder my dating possibilities and by 2 weeks into school I had already gone on one date with a boy in the ward and was working on charming a few more.  That was when we got callings. In the L.D.S. church the members accept volunteer positions to help the ward, or congregation, function smoothly.  Because our ward had only adults, there were not enough callings for everyone, so the Bishop (leader of the ward), had to make some up and share others.  Judd and I were called to teach adult Sunday school every other week- together! I'm sure it happens, but I've never lived in another ward where two non-related people taught a class together, as in at the same time.  And the honest truth is that I took one look at him name, for I hadn't met him yet, and said to my roomies, "What a hick name!"  I have a thing about names.  There is also this understood unofficial rule at BYU that you don't marry your home teacher ( a calling where 2 guys visit an apartment of girls to make sure they are okay and give them a spiritual message each month).  That would be like marrying your professor at another school. Well, marrying your teaching partner was almost as bad so I wrote him off of the potential dating list before I even met him.  On Judd's side of things, he wasn't even thinking about dating.  He was fresh off his mission by just three weeks and was focused on his education.  He was so focused that we had a hard time finding a time to meet.  He had class until 5 p.m. and after that, I was busy pursuing my goal of 3 dates a week.  Finally, we agreed to meet from 5-6 on a Friday night so I could hurry home to prepare for a date.  I asked, "How will I know who you are? " and he volunteered" I'll wear a post it note on my head".  I didn't think he really would do such a silly thing, but he actually did arrive in the lobby of his building with a yellow post it note on his forehead proclaiming" Hi.  I'm Judd".  It was funny.  And I liked it.  We met a few days later to try and plan our lesson and we had trouble planning it. We couldn't stop talking about other things.  A couple of weeks later, Judd asked me out to a movie, but I said no because I had to draw the moon for a class.  And I had to do it every night at 10:00 P.M. for two weeks.  I thought he was asking as a friend and going with a group.  I didn't realize he had prepurchased tickets and it was a date.  The next day, he showed up outside of my apartment at 10:00 P.M., and when he found me drawing the moon I was "forgiven".  We continued to meet for hours on end to "plan our lessons". My 19th birthday came a few weeks later and my teaching partner gave me an adorable matted paper with my name and the meaning of my name.  He had made a cardboard mat himself and covered it with fabric.  After giving me this thoughtful gift, we went for a moonlit walk through the winding paths of our apartment community, pausing next to the gently stream, and Judd asked me out.   This time I got it.  It was so much clearer to me.  And my heart was a flutter and of course I accepted his invitation.  I went home, where my roommates declared me to be in love.  Collapsing on my bed and admiring the roses they had bought me, I noticed the gift from Judd was peeling up on the edge of the mat.  Curious, I peeled it back some more and noticed writing on the back of the paper.  A secret message!  One that I wasn't meant to discover for some time.  It read, "I love you heaps! -Judd"  Of course this sent me and my roommates into a complete tizzy!  He loved me!  He hardly knew me! But, he loved me! I could tell he was special.  We hadn't even been on date or kissed each other, but he loved me! We went on our first date a few days later and there was pretty much no turning back from that point.  Well, except for time he broke up with me for one day.  But, that's another story.  We met in September.  We were engaged in March and married in July.  This July will be our 14th anniversary.  And I hope that our marriage is in much better shape than the death trap that Judd drove to the court today!

Lost

You know the feeling. You are looking for something very important, and you have either 1) put it in such a safe place that you'll never find it again, or 2) you were careless with it and can't remember where you left it even though it is so important to your life, that your entire day is going to snowball into depression and insanity the longer you search. For mothers, I imagine the panic in your gut that could cause several ulcers comes from misplacing a child. I remember how panicked Becky and I were when our eldest son was missing for twenty minutes, and we were sure he was roadkill somewhere outside the building we were in.

Well, My day started with the "my computer just crashed and all my work was lost" feeling, except it took the form of a missing USB drive. Yeah, the little Toshiba 4 Gb wonder that holds my entire professional life, or at lease the last 24-48 hours of non-backed-up work product. It has a small hole designed into it, suggesting it should attach to my keys, but my keys are the size of Alaska, and I am WAY too lazy to disattach it every time I want to plug it into my laptop, or work computer. I began to immediately imagine the last 48 hours in detail, trying to remember if I actually created really important legal documents that were not e-mailed or printed that were now likely lost forever.

Unbeknownst to me, my adventure started last night, when I had to take off all of my clothes, and empty every pocket, at the Justice Court metal-detector port-of-entry. Normally, I just flash my bar-card and as an attorney, I get in without much hassle. But becuase our legal system makes so much logical sense, I can use this perk for Appellate Court, or even the Utah Supreme Court, or at the Federal Court, where they even let me bring in my active cell phone without even checking to make sure it is not a weapon - counsel are trusted at the hightest levels, because lets face it, lawyers would NEVER do anything insane or harmful, or vengeful like normal nut-jobs. But at the lowest levels of our system - yep, Small claims court, we have to get strip-searched so we don't kill the Pro-tem judge, who is really not a judge at all.

Yeah, I forgot to take the USB drive out of the plastic container at the Court while putting back on my belt, shoes, jacket, watch, and glasses. (If they would just let me shower at court too, I would'nt even bother getting out of my Pajamas on the mornings I have hearings.)

I got home late, was wheedled into three bedtime stories for Clara, Audrey and Reuben (and had to re-read one for Amy, who was begging) and quickly turned my attention to watching San Diego State get "Jimmered" in front of the whole country, and then I realized that my son did not do his homework that was due the next morning. He's asleep. I have to stay up to midnight doing a legal letter - should I wake him up?

Some people have to go to bed, and would rather get up early to do work. Night Owls (definately me) are just getting going after 10 p.m.- So I start searching for the documents he will need to get up early and get his history homework done, but can't find them. I start looking for my USB drive to find the templates he is using for his National History Fair project, but can't find it. I watch an episode of MASH to console myself, certain that enough Hawkeye jokes will make me remember what pants or jacket pocket I left it in. Midnight comes, and I promise myself I'll find in in the morning.

6am comes way too fast, and my eyes still feel like the little girls slithered silently into my room during the night and shoved emery boards up under my eyelids. (We've been battling pink-eye for over a week) My son is up, and staring at the computer in the other room, searching anywhere in his brain for a few of the 250 words he has to write. Luckily, he found his documents on the hard-drive. Unfortunately for me, I spend the next 6 hours looking in all of the "safe" places at the house, in the car, at my office, at the law offices from my yesterday appointments, and finally, at the court.

And now I have "lost" an entire morning of work. Oh well, at least I found Toshiba before noon - I'm really not a morning person anyway!

Posted by Judson, Jan 27th, 2011

It's About Time!

I love to write, even if nobody is reading the things I have to say, which is why I keep a journal and also comment on Facebook almost every day. But, I've been thinking lately that it's about time I created a blog. So, I decided to just dive in and get started. If I wait for the housework to be done, the blog will never get started. A couple of recent articles about Mormon Mommy blogs got me thinking that it's about time for me to join the online community of bloggers. So, here I am. I'm going to have this blog be a joint one for me and my husband, so we will sign our entries.

Have you ever noticed when you have gotten out of the habit of journaling that, when you start up again, you have a desire to write down everything you have neglected to mention since you last wrote? These entries tend to be obnoxiously boring, so I have decided to dive right in and act like I've been doing this my whole life.

My hubby had the flu while the baby was

ferverish, so the cuddled together.

The last few weeks have been unreal for my family. Nothing really bad has happened, but we have been afflicted with some unusual trials and challenges and they just keep coming! Two weeks and one day ago, my baby Emmeline swallowed something that she found on the floor while sitting at my feet. 7 hours later we brought her home from Primary Children's Hospital, exhausted from general anesthesia and the trauma of having a wire lodged in her esophagus for over 5 hours. Little did we know that she brought home an unwelcome souvenir- pink eye. But, this was no ordinary pink eye. This pink eye comes with a runny nose, sore throat, fatigue, and a fever. 6 of the 8 people have caught it so far. It's been 11 days since the baby got sick and her eye is no longer pink, but is still slightly swollen. We have been living in Pink Eye Prison. I finally let the boys make a jailbreak and go back to school after being on drops for 4 days. Whew! On the first day that I drove somewhere in 3 days, because I needed to get awards for the pack meeting I was in charge of, I got the first speeding ticket of my life. After that I decided to stay home longer! Seriously, it's been hard. The pink eye was extremely painful and I wanted to rip my eyeball out at times. But, in the midst of this suffering, I remain grateful for the things we have that we actually want: 6 fairly healthy children, cars, modern appliances, a house, education, the internet, extended family who rallied around us and dropped everything to help us, doctors, food. . . .And why stop there? The few years I spent living in Russia taught me to be grateful for EVERYTHING. I will never stop being grateful for snow plows, peanut butter, root beer, toilet paper, clean air, and people who speak English. I could go on for pages, but the important thing to me is that no matter what happens in life, there is always good that comes out of it if I am willing to look for it. Usually it is things like gratitude, empathy, understanding, patience, the ability to endure, greater strength, and growing closer to God. But, it can be other things too. I might as well make the best of the trials, or they just might get the best of me.