Toppling the Queen

I've recently started reading "Segullah:Mormon women blogging about the peculiar and the treasured" and wanted to share with y'all in case you haven't heard of it (being Mormon not required). The article below is a message for mothers (all women, really). Enjoy.

Toppling The Queen {Segullah}

"With twenty minutes left in a particularly trying sacrament meeting, I mentally consoled myself, “It’s OK, you don’t have a calling anymore. You can skip Sunday School and Relief Society today.”
No sooner had the thought flickered through my brain, when my little girl turned to me and said, “If you go home, I’m coming too!”
In a heartbeat, my youngest son added his plea,”Take me too!”
“I’m not going home,” I whispered across the bench, “we’re all staying.”
I did stay, but I spent the next few hours wondering what expression or body language betrayed my thoughts to my little mind readers. And realizing, once again, the tremendous impact I have on their attitudes and actions.
 ************
Even the most novice chess player recognizes the most powerful piece in the game– not the king, nor the bishops, the leaping knights or the eager pawns– but the elegant, versatile queen. She moves powerfully across the board influencing the moves of every other piece.
My sister recently suggested Satan is working extra hard to discourage me because I am the queen of my household. Not the ‘dripping diamonds, bring me a cake’ sort of ruler, but the ‘my actions shape everyone else’ kind. I’m a believer of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other, perhaps not literally, but in theory. I do believe we are each tempted in unique ways. I consider myself relatively unimportant: I don’t make any money or have important connections, most days I talk to very few people outside my home. In church I’m leading activities for seven Cub Scouts and I’m pretty shy about even updating my Facebook page.
Ask the world, and my influence score is shockingly low. But for my children and the people around me, I DO matter. And I can’t be toppled by those minions whispering, “you’re worthless” “no one needs you here” “why even try?” In fact I’d very much like to be one of those women who when I get up in the morning the devil says, “Oh no! She’s awake again.”
We are all, each of us (mothers or wives or not) more powerful than we believe. I love the concept in Acts describing the Christian missionaries preaching to the ‘chief women’ of the community (17:4). These missionaries understood women as the spiritual barometer of their cities and towns. Yes, men may hold most of the leadership positions in ancient and modern churches but it’s women who sway families, groups of youth, communities.
 Think about it, you probably know several families where the mother still brings her children to church even when spouse isn’t interested, but the reverse is extremely rare. Hmm, maybe that’s why men hold so many leadership positions– because we are needed on the benches!
 My little chess mavens taught me the best way to defeat the queen is to distract her; create all kinds of chaos around her, then take her down. Our world could scarcely contain more distractions for women– beauty secrets, social networks, PTA, Pinterest– we are expected to hide our wrinkles, watch our weight, serve the community, maintain a career (at least a little something on the side), all while nurturing children, making dinner and cultivating a happy marriage. For me, staying on my game means making choices, eliminating too much busyness and shutting out the voices of discouragement.
I’m determined to ignore those minions whispering cruelties in my ear. I’m brushing them off, stomping on their little tails and sweeping them out my back door. I need to live boldly, happily and guide my children along with me. No influence?! Look at these people I’m sending out into the world– honest, smart, good and kind.
No one can take me down; I’m the queen"

Some other articles I really enjoyed:
Having It All 
My Testimony of Satan 

so gentile.

So I decided to take my last post down in case of misunderstanding. I can just imagine one of 'the bereaved' stumbling across it and thinking that I was laughing at the fact that their loved one died, which is not at all what I was laughing at. My amusement was at the callous reaction both me and my brother had. Maybe we've been numbed by years of viewing AFV. So anyway, speaking of blog posts--I've been neglecting this sad little blog for a long time. Mostly on purpose. I don't have the energy to go into the reason for the neglect, as it has been 7 long days since I've eaten a carb and all my energy is currently being routed to blinking and breathing. Seven days without carbs makes one weak. HA! I slay me.
Here is a little recap of the last few (ehrrr eighteen)  months:

Moved to beautiful Ivins, UT

AJ got home from his mission to Alaska.

Cache grew up and got cuter every day.

went on a bunch of hikes

Dew Tour was super fun

Halloween happened.

went to the ranch for Thanksgiving

had a lovely Christmas.

There were a few trips to California, family reunions, a calling to the bishopric and I'm sure a few other important things I'm forgetting. But I can't be bothered to go find pictures of all that. You know, because of the low carbs.

sunday school is boring

Tye and I always pass notes to each other in church to fight off the boredom. I was going thru an old scripture bag and found a couple of notes we wrote a few years ago that made me laugh. I thought I'd share.

First, a request in my handwriting:
"Tye~ please punch me in the head 4 times: once in the eye, once on the lip (aim for the coldsore) once in the throat and once in the ear. Please? it will be less painful than listening to this lesson. Thanks. "

Next up, Doctor Tye the Science Guy:
(angie) Isn't it weird how human babies are huge but are so dumb for a long time? And animals are so tiny but smart by the time they're like two weeks old. Like, I guarantee our tiny new kitten is way smarter than that huge dumb baby over there ---->

(tye) Humans spend most of their first few years of life learning upper brain functions like communication, object manipulation, and social structure, etc. Animals -for the most part- are pre-programmed, kindof 'hard wired' with survival responses so they walk, feed themselves, etc right away. It's kindof like comparing a calculator to a computer. Computers can be built to be many different things and do difficult functions. Most animals have very few diff. on a whole. The higher the brain function of an animal - the longer its dependence of its parents (slow development) IE monkeys, apes, whales, big cats.

(angie) Correct. The judges also would have accepted "Ya but I bet that baby isn't afraid of the vacuum."

What You Missed Today: getting spooned by a cat

Cache isn't feeling great today. The kitten has been very concerned and is trying to be helpful by licking the vomit off my shoe (ughhhh), chewing a hole in a binki (sighhh) and snuggling with Cache at naptime (awwwww).

slideshows

we went out in the yard and took a few pics of The Dude at one month old. Try to ignore my jacked up hair and just focus on how friggin cute Cache is.




After church on his blessing day, we hosted a big lunch with family and took about a million pics of Cache. I painstakingly narrowed it down to 4 or 5. You can tell by the last picture how much he was enjoying it.

birth announcement/blessing invitation

We had to change the blessing date at the last minute so for those of you who received (or will be receiving soon) a card with the wrong date, I apologize. It's this Sunday. We'd love to see you if you can make it.

as promised, all* the gory details

*well, not all

It was a dark and stormy** night, and a full moon had just crested the horizon. **not stormy at all, actually. but it was dark-ish. with the full moon.

At 2 am on June 25 I woke up to a *POPgushhhh* when my water broke. I hung out at home until about 4, then went to the hospital. When we got there I was dilated to a 5 so they hustled me in, got me all set up with drugs and monitors, etc and I think I just went to sleep after that, thanks to the epidural. {if you're just here for the pictures, skip down to the next ***starred section for the much-abbreviated version}

sooo fat. soooo swollen. and sooo sleepy. not my prettiest moment.

I was progressing pretty well up until about 7 am when I stalled. I was dilated to an 8 and stayed there for hours. The nurses (all awesome) broke out the Pitosin to get me laboring and increased it incrementally all day long, but by early evening they had the Pit at maximum dosage and I still wasn't dilated to a 10. When I got to a 9+ they had me push for an hour...with NO progress. The baby would get a little bit closer during the pushing and as soon as I'd relax he'd retreat. Apparently my pelvis is shaped more like a football so the baby was unable to get his head under the pelvic bone. And because he had been in the birth canal for so long his head had gotten really coned so trying to use forceps wasn't an option.
So then I did something called "rest and descend" for an hour and then around 8 pm another hour or so of pushing...still no progress. I'd had a bit of a fever all day and at this point it spiked, so it was time for a C-section. Before I went into labor I was terrified of having a Cesarean but by this point I wasn't feeling fear about getting cut up, I was just totally bummed that I didn't get to do it "the old fashioned way." But C-section was definitely the right thing to do in this situation so while it was a bummer, I'm glad that both Cache and I made it through healthy and happy. Tye watched the surgery and was totally fascinated by it, I think he was reconsidering his career choice.

***So 19 hours after I went into labor, Cache was born at 9:25 pm via C-section.

When Dr. Chalmers (stud) pulled him out, everyone in the operating room broke out in a loud chorus of "Wooooaaaahhhh!" I seriously thought to myself "holy crap! Is it twins?? why is everyone so astonished and why does it feel like they just lifted a 15 pound weight off my spine?" ha ha. Not twins, but he was heavy enough to have been two babies. And his giant conehead was about 2-babies-worth too.

first family photo

proud papa

The next day, Cache went 16 hours without eating, gained a pound and had dry diapers all that day and he wouldn't respond when we would try to wake him. He ended up spending a couple days in the NICU. All the nurses in there were in love with him. They usually get preemies, so to have a big ole 10 pound brute in there was unusual.

first day home from the hospital (6 days old)

Before having a baby I always though I would know if my kid was good looking or ugly. I thought I could be objective. But I'm soooo not. Here are the words I use to describe him: Gorgeous. Perfection. Messiah. (Ok, that last one might be taking it a bit far.) Mostly he still just looks like a generic baby, but I think he is so handsome and Tye and I are both totally smitten.