A Message that Struck a Chord

General Conference was uplifting, as always! I truly feast and crave the spiritual enlightenment that is offered to all of us. The talk that really hit home for me was by Julie B. Beck, entitled “Mothers Who Know”. There is a wonderful message for the mothers of the world – I plan to incorporate ALL of these techniques into my mothering. (Especially simplifying) I feel like we as mothers can get ourselves involved into many good things that distract us from our real purpose as mothers. For me, I am going to be mindful and conscientious about which things I involve myself and my children in. It is not prerequisite that we be the PTO president with five young children, have our children in every extracurricular event, or put pressure on ourselves to have perfect children. The purpose and goal of mothering as I understand it – especially from this talk, is knowing who we are and who we are raising and what our goal is in this lifetime. We should all be more diligent in teaching the ways of the Lord and be worried if our children know those objectives. I truly embrace the words of Sister Beck and hope that I can in some small way, make a difference for good in my children that will in turn make a difference in the world 50 years from now, when they are mothers and fathers.

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OOPS!


I try, and would like, to approach being a parent as all about 50/50 compromises. Admitting readily that most the time I am probably taking more of that percentage, but all in all I have to give Stephen some slack. When you try to meld two different ways of growing up into one type of parenting style it can be tricky. Building a few houses and just plain buckling up in the car can make for a lot of interesting conversations around our house – especially when safety is concerned. For all you Baldwin readers out there you can relate to growing up in a home where we were bandaged up immediately after a small cut and given a treat to help us feel better. My mom was and still is (if not even more) the sympathy queen! Stephen talks about growing up having rock fights with his brother, getting run over by a car, and driving a backhoe at age 8. Don’t get me wrong I’m positive the Parkers were compassionate, but you had to really be hurt or sick to go to the doctor! So now we are parents trying to figure out a happy balance in kid land. So now it seems we have come up with rules – like “You can help shingle the roof (Stephen’s %) if you sit in the designated area (my %)” or “You can use the chop saw, if a grown up is right by you.” I give you the background so that you can understand why I have succumbed to letting my kids help shingle the roof, use large power tools, and most recently standing back to watch Mason drive a TRACTOR! Here is the end result of the latter! Stephen quotes his dad as saying, “Education is not free”. In this case we are just happy is didn’t cost more! And mom, if you’re reading this- Mason didn’t get hurt, just the garage!

Swaniata


Alexis was required to do a project after their class read “Trumpet of the Swan”. We (alexis, stephen, and i) all brainstormed and the swaniata won. You have to admit we are original! The teacher even said that she had never seen it before. We had a lot of fun making and creating this swan – I think Alexis’ popularity rose on the day the pianta was hit. Candy will do that to kids! I wonder if we will have the energy and creativity left to do this by the time child number 5 rolls into the fifth grade?

We’re Back!


I cannot begin to describe to you the amount of stairs we climbed going to and from the Sub Stations! Who knows how far we walked in a day, but Alexis and Mason were awesome – rarely complaining about walking or climbing stairs. They loved riding the Subway! The loved holding onto the poles and swinging around them if there weren’t many people on the subway. Alexis did not love sitting next to strangers so often, but by the end of the trip got used to it. I personally loved being surrounded by the variety of people and thinking about what they do for a living or where they live – typical people watching stuff that I love. I didn’t love riding in the subway being sandwiched between loads of people – my bubble was bursting. Mason says, “New York was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, cool!” Alexis said, “Wicked was awesome!” And Stephen said, “It was a blast!” We lived it up and loved every second, and were totally happy to be back in the presence of Lily and Olivia – whom we missed!

Fifth and Final Day NYC


Monday was our last serious tourist day! We woke up heading straight for Rockefeller Plaza to catch the Today show. We were able to see Al, Anne, and Natalie, but we missed Meredith and Matt. Darnit!! BUT, Stephen and Alexis tried to be seen in a segment through the windows of a set – who knows if anyone actually saw them, but it was fun all in the same. We then went past Radio City Music Hall and then over to American Girl Place. Alexis decided to use her souvenir money to get a photo of her on a magazine. It is so cute! Stephen then really wanted to go over to Yankee Stadium. So we hopped on the subway and transferred between about 3 trains and finally got there. I think the boys thought it was really cool. We also went to the Museum of Natural History today. So many, many things to look at! WOW. We then made our way back to Times Square to eat dinner and after that we called it a day.

Day Four NYC

The next morning we woke up and hit the subway once more, heading to the Manhattan Temple for church. We didn't check the website for directions and got lost for a second. Luckily the ward we went to started at 9:30 instead of 9. It is quite a peculiar thing to see Angel Moroni peering out among high rises in the city, but such a welcome site! It is so cool to be able part of such amazing doctrine and religion. Mason was visually disturbed about going to Primary and Alexis was naive enough to think that they would only speak Spanish in her class. Once we sat with them for a second they realized it was the same Primary that they experience in Sugar City and were fine. Stephen and I participated in a discussion that was talking about unifying the ward. You see, 60% of the members were single and 40% were married. And most of the married were students attending Columbia University. Such lovely people leading such a vastly different life than mine – it was good for me to, if only briefly, think about what it would be like to trade places. After church we went to Central Park and had a picnic of bagels and cream cheese, left over from breakfast. Central Park is very beautiful and a breath of fresh air after the hustle and bustle of city life. We went to the Strawberry Fields area of the park – a tribute to John Lennon and the quest for peace. John Lennon's number one fan was there to share his knowledge and facts about the legend. My nephew Dallen would have enjoyed this- we thought about you! From Central Park we headed back to Times Square and attended Wicked. This play is something I feel everyone should have the chance to experience – from the flying monkeys to the amazing songs you can't be disappointed. Mason and Alexis were in awe. We were so close to the front you could see the perspiration. "Simply Wonderful". After the show we did take time to walk past the Empire State Building, but didn't go up. The day was then finished.

Day Three NYC

We woke up the next day and saw Trump Tower, Tiffanys, Sax Fifth Ave, and went to the Sony Wonder Lab. This was so much fun – if you go to NY and you're with kids it is free and they have a blast. It is like a children's technology museum. They were able to create different things and learn about ultra sounds and oil spills, etc. Stephen liked it too! We were most excited about seeing Les Miserables, and of course it was amazing. "To love another person is to see the face of God" – my personal favorite line. After that we walked around Times Square, saw where Dave Letterman is filmed – saw the Gershwin Theater and the sign to Wicked (wishing we had tickets, they were all sold out when we originally looked). We then ate and went back to our hotel. When we got there, Stephen checked online and found 4 tickets to Wicked in the Orchestra Section, Fifth row back – reasonably priced!!! He got them. We were all excited.

Day Two NYC

We woke up and took a bus to PATH (the New Jersey subway) and it took us right to ground zero. We saw them working on the new Freedom Tower – it is at ground level now. After looking at that we decided to go drop our luggage off at our hotel. We took MTA (the NY subway) to where our hotel was located (20 minutes away). When we hopped off of the subway I was nervous about being on the "wrong side of the tracks" our hotel was brand new, but it was in the middle of low income housing and a taxi rental shop. Considering we were saving ourselves $400 a night by staying there instead of Times Square it was great and we got used to it! We took the subway again to the South Ferry and got on the Ferry to go see the Statue of Liberty. It was as breath taking as the first time I saw her – it brings out all of your patriotism! We walked around and decided to ascend the 168 steps to the balcony up top to catch an amazing view of Manhattan. I have to tell you those steps wore my aching legs right out, but it was well worth the climb! As we were trying to leave we were stopped to wait for a minute. We latter found out that there was a bomb threat and the dogs were out sniffing around. After we were permitted to leave the area we hopped on the ferry again and went over to Ellis Island. To be honest, I think I was personally too tired to really enjoy the history there, but it was neat thinking about all of the ancestry and such that came. We got on the Ferry again and walked through Battery Park. Lex and Mason were anxious to go to Times Square so that's where we went. It is such a rush walking the streets through the myriad of people and watching the bright city lights. Toys'rus was first on the list – they have a ferris wheel in there and giant things built out of Lego's and a huge Barbie house, etc. They loved it! I was the party pooper that called it a night.

Here we go…

We returned home yesterday from NYC. It was quite the adventure and it never stopped until we hit our heads on our pillow last night. We left last Thursday after dropping Lily and Olivia off at Grandpa and Grandma Parker's house. (Many thanks for helping us out with them!) Alexis and Mason were so excited to ride on an airplane until they got on the third and final plane. We arrived in Newark, N.J. at midnight after a long day of sitting. We caught a shuttle to our hotel, which was very interesting to say the least. It seems they must have used several bottles of caulk to patch things up and we couldn't tell which color the grout in the bathroom was supposed to be. Lucky for us we only stayed there one night.