Over the last week since my mind has been awakened I have started to seek these things out again. It’s like I’ve been in a coma for 10 years and am awakening to a whole new world. It’s freaking Scott out because I’m buying red lipstick and fake diamond studded bangles. He feels like I’m changing when in fact, I’m just picking up where I left off. It’s a strange sensation, starting over.

I’m sure for a while I’ll wear too much make up and jewelry and whatever else I can throw on my body but you know, I’ve got to make up for lost time here. I have been in a black hole, a suffocating abyss and now the world is bright and colorful and I want to be bright and colorful too.

I want to wear leather pants and stilettos. I want to know all the latest fashion trends and where I can find knock offs. I want to know which designers I love and which designers are awesome but just not my thing. I want to break out of my box and just go for it. I don’t quite know what *it* is just yet but when I figure it out I want to run for it. Full throttle like I’ve never run at anything before in my life because I’ve been held back by illness.

I’m a little scared because I’m afraid the world will come crashing down on me again but I have hope that this new medicine is it. That this is the answer to ten years worth of prayers and struggling from me and my family. That finally I can live a life worth living. A life of consequence to those I love. A life of passion and desire to replace the agony and despair. And if you know someone who is struggling with Bipolar, Anxiety, Depression or ADHD please feel free to point them my way because boy have a been through a lot and if I can share my experiences with someone who is struggling it would sure make me feel like maybe, by just a little bit, this was all worth it.

P.S. Photo uploading is down so you can’t see me with my bright red lipstick.  Just picture it…blue/purple/teal/dark brown hair, silver eyes and kiss you on the lips red lipstick.

My favorite scenes are Max saying, “Oh the cAmara (with that inflection).  I’m looking at it.”  While standing on his head.  And then at the very end when Tru is following through with what “P” says and pauses dramatically before making the sound.  Oh, man.  Those kids were ridiculous.

Max watched this with me and said, “Truman still does that to me.”  He does.  Thanks for letting me share a little piece of our history.

Nick:  Can you turn the radio down I have a headache.

Me:  I didn’t actually respond to this but what I thought in my head was:  Actually, the radio is up because I have a headache from all the shenanigans you boys are pulling in the car.  I’m trying to drown you out.

I did actually turn down the radio because deep down inside I think I might actually be a nice person and care about how other people feel.

Alec:  Have you heard of e pluribus unum?

Max:  No but I’ve heard of supercalafragalisticexpialadocious.

I love the way Max thinks.  I may not know that but I know this.  He’s such a super smart kid and wether he does it on purpose or not he’s good at painting himself in a good light.  Man, I love that kid.

But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and ^apray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will ^bconsole you in your ^cafflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down ^djustice upon those who seek your destruction.  Jacob 3:1

This is an excerpt from the Book of Jacob in The Book of Mormon.  I love love reading the words of the Prophet Jacob.  He first shows up in the Prophet Nephi’s work as Jacob is Nephi’s brother.  I always love that change of voice as Nephi records Jacob’s teachings.  Jacob is so easy to understand and relate to.  He doesn’t preach anything out of the ordinary, just the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He just does it in a way that makes me want to take a class from him.  I would drive a long way to hear him speak. To just sit and listen. To hear the allegory of the olive tree.

I think the whole Book of Mormon is easy to understand and follow.  I think it’s scripture for every man/woman.  You don’t need a higher education to get what’s being taught in there.  You don’t need to understand the social climate of the time or decipher interesting words.  It’s pretty straightforward.  That being said, and I love all of the Prophets in the Book of Mormon, I get a little thrill every time I read the teachings of Jacob.  It’s like he just gets me.  Down deep inside my soul gets me.

To read more of the Prophet Jacob’s words you can access The Book of Mormon online here.

I immediately knew I wanted to read this post.  I have a deep down to the bottom of my soul fear of having a kid that is anything but 100% normal.  I’m terrified that I’m not the type of mom that could love a child with a major disability.  A disability that would cause me to mother in a very real and hands on way for the rest of my life.  I mean for crying out loud I have this whole bipolar thing going on which takes a lot of my energy.  I wonder if my kids needed more of me in a very serious way if  would be able to give it to them.

The answer is absolutely, without question, with my whole heart, YES.  But I didn’t discover that until I read this post.  Once I realized that it was OK to grieve and feel sorrow over the life that is lost and then recover from that,  I realized I could do it.  I only focused on the pain of losing that ideal child and never thought of getting over it.  But she did.  And quickly too.  I’m sure the grieving and processing time is different for everyone.  Some shorter, some longer but in the end, that beautiful baby is yours.  It’s just like any other baby and only wants your love (and milk and diapering skills but you know what I mean).

I even get scared that if something happens to one of my boys and he becomes seriously disabled that I would break somehow and not be able to love them anymore, but how could that possibly happen?  They’re still my boys.  They’re still my perfect, sweet, loving, got roots deep down into my soul boys.  That’s just doubt and fear that make me think that I couldn’t take care of them.  Doubt and fear have no place in love.

This post changed my life a little.  I’m not dealing with anything like this in my life right now but I have walked past families in town that have a disabled kid and I have cried for them.  I have literally cried in the middle of Target because their situation seems so overwhelming to me.  But not anymore.  That disabled kid is just like any other kid in their family.  They love him/her just as much and love that they are a part of their family. They don’t look at them and see insurmountable work.   I’m not down playing how hard their jobs as mom/dad must be but I will no longer look at those families the same way.  Hopefully it wont scare me anymore but will delight me that a family has so much love one for another.

So it’s probably pretty obvious from this post that I have had little to no interaction with children with disabilities.  I had a friend who had trouble walking but he was awesome and 100% self sufficient so I never even consider him disabled.  I have had no experience with life long, need hands on care disabilities and as far as that goes what I didn’t know, scared me.

Please don’t judge me too harshly.  I was never judgmental of the child or thought anything bad about the child.  It was the responsibility of being that hands on mom for the rest of my life that scared me.  There’s no retirement and just jetting off for the weekend on your own.  There always has to be a caretaker but I would imagine with such a special, well loved child there would be a huge support circle.

Now my post has turned into a novel.  I was just so touched by Nella’s story that I had to share my change of heart.  My awakening to a world of possibilities outside of the realm of “normal”.  The mom’s journey the night of the delivery will stay with me for the rest of my life and give me hope that all pain has an ability to be overcome and life can once again be embraced.  All life.  No matter what.

Here’s video that I love that also helped me understand what it means to parent a special needs child.

Let’s start at the beginning.  In this house that we’re renting we have four bathrooms.  That’s right!  There’s almost one bathroom per person.  Now I know you’re wondering…two are full and two are half baths.  One of each on each floor.

So I have found that no matter where I am in this huge house I will only use my master bathroom.  Doesn’t matter if I’m downstairs and am in the middle of a project.  I’ll traipse all the way upstairs just to use the one I’m most comfortable with.  This is not because the other bathrooms are ugly or outdated.  I just prefer to pee in my own private luxurious space.

So that’s not the weirdest part of our bathroom situation.  We have a bathroom right by the mud room that the kids use when they are playing outside.  Super convenient.  Well they were playing hide and seek the other day and someone was hiding under the sink and broke the pipe so I took some painters tape and taped off the bathroom until it can be fixed.  Ever since then the boys have been using the master bath since it’s located upstairs (really the ground floor).

I was in using my bathroom the other day when Oli came running in.  When he saw I was in there he turned around and ran downstairs.  I assumed he ran downstairs to use one of the two bathrooms down there.  Well, I finished up and went downstairs to get a box of tissue and there was Oli just sitting there on the floor.  He said, “Oh good, you’re done!”  And ran upstairs and used my bathroom.  There were two, count them, two, bathrooms at his disposal and he waited to use mine.

Now the only way I can explain the over use of our one master bathroom is that it is huge.  It’s like a master bedroom all in itself.  It’s got a large stall shower, a huge jetted tub with a shelf all the way around and a major walk in closet, not to mention the double sink area (there’s actually only one sink but there’s ample room for two). (The pic is off the internet.  Believe it or not our bathroom is much bigger than this.  It’s super ridonkulous.)

Now this would be nice if no one ever used any of the other bathrooms.  Then I would only have to clean one but the other ones still seem to get dirty.  I don’t know how it happens when they’re always in my room but it does.

So that’s it.  My bathroom story.  I’ve never in my life had the problem of too many bathrooms and which one to use until now.  I guess it’s a good problem to have!

1.  I don’t really care for most sunsets.  The oranges and the pinks.  Not a big fan.  It’s not like I hate them or think to myself, “God,  Why did you create such an ugly sunset?”  It’s nothing like that.  I just happen to prefer Second Coming sunsets the best.  You know with the billowing white clouds and the white and yellow and blue sky.  The kind that literally look like God could walk out of.  Those are my favorites.  And now that we have huge windows to look out at sunsets from I’m noticing that the Second Coming sunsets are pretty rare, which makes me love them even more. (btw This photo is nothing compared to what I see out my window, but it’s the closest I could find.  It’s not quite as spectacular as what I’m referring to here.)

2.  I do not like snow capped mountains.  I mean for reals.  Either cover them with snow or melt it all away.  I don’t like the half and half.  Make up your  mind already!  Is it Summer or is it Winter?  You tell me.  Green on the bottom, white on the top?  Geesh.  This one I have a firmer opinion on.  I just don’t like it.  I don’t like the indecision.  The middle ground.  One or the other, please. (These are the Wasatch Mountains but not quite the view from my house.  Still though, you get the point right?  White majestic mountains.  C’mon, you can’t tell me it’s not beautiful.)

Now I can’t be the only one on the face of the planet who has these interesting points of view.  Maybe you don’t agree with me.  I’m pretty sure you wont but seriously, is it that strange to like snow covered mountains the best or Second Coming sunsets over the usual, blah, seen it already yesterday sunsets?  I just don’t think so.

I was kind of dreading going because I didn’t know what to expect and they had a whole hour blocked off for it.  It turned out it was just a Kindergarten show with “diplomas” thrown in.  They gave each kid their “diploma” and then the kids sang and recited poems for us.  I will be honest, they sang so many songs and recited so many group poems that I really do wonder if they’ve done any work for the last month.  It was super cute though.  I still think it’s silly but I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Oli recited a poem with two other boys but Oli was the only one at the microphone.  The other boys were behind him so as far as I’m concerned Oli had a solo in the program.  I had my phone set up to record it but I guess I accidentally pressed the button twice and didn’t get but a few seconds of it.

Oli has done so well this year.  He’s a pretty good reader only needing help on the complicated words.  He can add simple math problems in his head.  He has loved school both here and in California.  I feel super lucky to have three boys that love school.

I’m curious, has any one else’s Kindergartner had a graduation “ceremony”?

p.s. There are more photos on facebook of the graduation and our trip to Cali.

I remember being at the Valley Fair Mall in CA and it’s filled with kiosks and every single one of them will try to reel you in to their products.  It’s all about no eye contact when navigating that mall for me.

So I draft this blog post and finish my lunch with Oli and walk back through the mall only to have my attention sought after by vendor after vendor.  Oh well, I thought this new mall was just a lucky mall but it’s the same as all the rest.  I’ll adopt my no eye contact rule next time I go.

How do you get through the mall without being accosted by all of the vendors?

It snowed most of the weekend so we didn’t go out and do much but had fun playing games and hanging out.

Truman was lucky enough to be baptized with his best friend on Saturday.  How often does that happen?  It was Stake (group of congregations) baptism day and Nick and Tru were the only two from our Ward (Congregation) that were being baptized.  They had a nice program and to make it special for the boys they read little questionnaires that the families filled out for each kid.  Favorite color, favorite food, etc.  We got to write a brief family message to him and this is what we wrote:

Truman couldn’t wait to start his life here on earth so he was born in his mom’s car without any doctors or nurses.  Ever since he has been ready to face all life has to offer.  He is a generous, outgoing and fun loving eight year old.  He’s a loving brother and a down right wonderful son.

Truman is the perfect middle child.  He doesn’t let himself get passed over for attention or notice.  Truman just demands your attention in a very subtle way so you don’t even notice that he’s asking for it.  He’s a great student, a great friend, a great brother and a great son.  He really is a sweet, wonderful kid.

p.s.  I put more photos of our great day on facebook.

There are random occasions when I look in the mirror and think, “Wow.  I look good today.”  But do you see that I have limited it to “today”?  About 10 years ago while I was with Kaiser in Sunnyvale one of the Doctors offered a course on Self Esteem.  I was too scared to take it and no joke to this day I regret it.

I just cut my hair and I found a picture I liked, the stylist worked with me to get it exactly like the picture and you know what I thought when it was all done?  ”I’m not cute enough to pull off this haircut.  The cut is too cute for me.”  I honestly think that people will see me and think, “Woah, she can’t pull that off.”  or “Her hair is wearing her.”

I care so much and so deeply about what people think about me.  It drives Scott batty.  He wants me to have clear, concise thinking about myself.  It’s so hard though since I’m bombarded with negativity from my own mind.  I am literally my own worst enemy.  Some days it’s crippling.  I try so hard to be my own individual person because on the whole it makes me happy.  But if I look different than someone or my life choices are different than someone my initial reaction to to think I’m inferior and there is something wrong with me.

I guess moving has brought this to the forefront because I am so very different than the people I am surrounded by.  And at the same time, I’m exactly the same as them.  But I focus on the differences and assume they think I’m weird and strange.  Because that’s what I do.  I make negative assumptions about what people think and feel about me.

But this is really my opportunity to grow.  To open my eyes and see that people do really care about me and genuinely think I’m a good person to be around.  To look at new friendships not as people feeling sorry for the new girl and inviting her to do things but as people really wanting to get to know me, Alisa, and all the wonderful things about me. (Deep down I know there’s more than a couple things about me that people can appreciate.)

Our life in Utah is new in so many ways.  So many things are different here.  So why not me?  Why can’t I be a more positive, confident person?  Make a change.  Shed my self doubt and loathing.  It’s held me down for too long.  Not any more.  Self, did you hear that?  Not any more.  I don’t care if I have to stare at myself in the mirror like on SNL (Stuart Smalley) and tell myself that I’m beautiful and I’m good enough.  Something is going to change.

How have you combatted your negative thoughts and images of yourself?

You know what I don’t understand?  I recently taught almost 8 year old boys in church for a little over a month and they were wiggly but they sat quietly and listened and gave thoughtful answers.  You get a Scout uniform on these kids and it’s like they have super ridiculous powers of chaos.  Truth be told they’ll sit and wiggle and do an activity, but you, as a leader, lose focus for a moment and they are everywhere.  Everywhere.  Faster than the blink of an eye.

I will say though I’ve been in Cub Scouts for about a month now and these boys are rambunctious but they are amazing.  They know the answers to all of the questions, they’re willing to try new things.  They’re patient with me as I struggle each week to teach them.  They’re incredible kids and I’m lucky to get the chance to work with them.  And yes, Tru is in our Den.  Not officially yet.  His birthday is in a couple of weeks and then he’ll get the uniform and everything.  He’s wearing Max’s uniform in this picture.

Here’s the recipe that the lady (I’m embarrassed that I don’t know her name) gave us for the modeling chocolate.  I did not have the experience of mixing it myself but it was really fun to use.

2 pounds white chocolate (preferably white chocolate with some amount of cocoa butter in it, not white candy coating)

1 cup white corn syrup

Melt chocolate slowly in microwave oven, being careful not to overheat.  Chocolate should be just warm to the touch.  Set aside.

Heat corn syrup in microwave for 30 seconds, or until the same temperature as the chocolate.  Pour heated syrup into melted chocolate and mix until combined.  (She said it would look funny and not at all right at this point.)  Pour mixture into a sheet pan lined with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate until set.

Store at room temperature in a resealable bag (she had hers wrapped in plastic wrap in the resealable bag).

To color, knead chocolate until soft and add gel color (Wilton or Americolor).

Anyway, so the cop told me I need to switch my license and registration over to Utah pretty soon.  Just take my birth certificate and my registration and they will take care of me.  Easy.  So I head over to Farmington (three cities away) on Tuesday and it’s snowing.  I think to myself, “Suck it up Alisa.  You live in Utah now.  It snows.”  So I’m driving and I’m being overly cautious and not paying attention to my gps and end up getting lost.  For an hour.  I drove around Farmington for an hour because I was too scared to look at my phone.  I even stopped and looked at it but then I would just get lost again once I set out.

After a grueling hour I make it to the DMV.  Turns out I need my Title to register my car.  OK.  Then it turns out the place to get your license is in another part of town.  So when I get there I don’t have half the things I need to get a license.  Needless to say I was frustrated and cried all the way home.

So I went back Tuesday and stupid me didn’t look at the Title.  My name isn’t on it.  Scott bought the Pilot for me as a gift so I wasn’t there.  So she sends me home with the paperwork to get my name on the Title.  At least I knew where I was going this time so I found the DMV on the first shot.

License was a lot easier.  I did have to take the written test but they gave me the booklet to “cheat” off of.  Oli sat and played the DS the whole time so it couldn’t have gone better.  Until I realized that in Utah kids have to be in car seats until they are 8.  What the heck is going on in this state?  Eight is WAY too old.  But we’ll comply.  Last thing I need is another ticket.