sprite and gummy bear popsicles

A and JRoss, the two spunky seven-year-olds I nanny this week, begged to make popsicles today. And not just any popsicles, mind you. They had to be sprite and gummy bear popsicles. Because that's definitely the first combination that comes to mind when you want a popsicle. Obviously. ;) I would not recommend actually making them because they're not that yummy but hey, go ahead and humor yourself.

Last week, A and JGrant and I went on a bike ride almost every day and every single time JGrant rode down that one steep hill with no hands I about died of a heart attack and I about died of something worse than a heart attack whenever a car drove past him because what if Something happened and....?!?!

And a few weeks ago, A and JGrant and I went downstairs and built a pretty legit blanket fort and threw a lot of pillows in it and watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 on Netflix.

And the very first day of my job, A and I had a girls party for a few hours while JGrant was at his grandma's doing yard work, and we painted nails and blew bubbles and ran around the yard and popped them. A also has a bubble gun and it was awesome

Confession: I miss being a kid.

I remember when I thought weird-sounding combinations of food would be totally awesome and I remember actually making them and feeding them to my dad. And now that I think back on it, Dad probably hated the chocolate-cinnamon drink that I made from scratch that was either always too bitter or way too sweet...but he always had a small sip and I thought I was a genius for coming up with something so brilliant and delicious.

I remember teaching myself how to ride my bike with no hands when I was seven or eight because all the bigger "cool" boys knew how to do it and I was determined to show them that tiny me could do cool things too. #girlpower And so I spent countless hours riding up and down the street outside my house until I had mastered the Art of No Hands and I felt like a bawss. I'm also pretty sure I gave my mom quite a few heart attacks...did I mention I never wore a helmet either? 

I remember making some seriously capital-A awesome blanket forts back in the day with all my siblings. #momentofsilence And all the games we played in the fort: house, boat, pirates, spies, adventurers...

I remember painting my nails bright red one day and thinking I was so grown-up because only grown-up women wore bright red nail polish. And I remember showing my next-door neighbor, Dakota, who was a year older than me, and asking him if he thought I looked super grown up and he told me that yes, he thought I did. And I felt like quite the lady.

Kids are awesome.  I'm reminded every day by the two (sometimes four) children I nanny that it's okay to act on imagination, it's okay to be daring, it's okay to build forts and play "pretend" and it's okay to want to be a grown-up sometimes too....a grown-up who runs around and pops bubbles that is. ;) 

Happy truth: I don't have to stop being a kid.

.....so who wants to build a fort with me and play house? #totallyserious

just want to spend the rest of my life laughing

//tonight it was just me and my mommy and my daddy and my brother and my other brother
//and we were all getting ready for family prayer
//and my dad decided to randomly start doing push-ups and then my brother and my other brother joined in
//I was sitting on my mommy's lap with my arms around her neck like the five-year-old that I really am at heart and I wouldn't get off her lap to do push-ups like my dad wanted me to so she just ended up cradling me like she used to do when I was little
//did I mention I'm eighteen?
//cough
//then somehow I was on the floor and my dad was trying to persuade me to do just TWO push-ups and I was showing him my weak girly arms and protesting loudly in my drama queen voice
//of course, that's just the right thing to trigger my two brothers into  showing off their Much Bigger muscles
//don't tell them, but brother and my other brother are freakin' buff
//like. how. even.
//I'm pretty sure my brothers made me feel their biceps at least five (plus four hundred) times each
//so, not even being able to manage two push-ups pretty much tells you the physical shape I'm in
//brother and other brother were still showing off their muscles at this point in time and also doing more push-ups to show me how much stronger they are than me as if I couldn't already tell
//it was probably right about then-ish that I said something extremely awkward (not unusual)
//which set me, my mommy, brother and other brother into waves of laughter (unusual)
//and not just ha ha ha, but like HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
//like, real deep down belly laughter that's more like gasping for air than anything else
//note: I haven't laughed my real authentic laugh in a long long long long +10 time 
//we were laughing so hard we couldn't say the prayer for another ten minutes and even then...
//I'd just like to say that I'm really glad God has a sense of humor #soyeah
//anyway, that was the last fifteen minutes of my night and I will treasure it forever because within those fifteen minutes I was Real Authentic Me Period. 
//it was one of those life Kodak moments, ya feel?
//I just want to spend the rest of my life laughing...not that fake polite laugh we all do or even the "hahaha that's funny" laugh but the REAL thing...ya know where sometimes you can't breathe or you snort or your turn red? 
//and of course, it'd be with the people I love

common to all

hey so okay. this is gonna be one of those super annoying posts where i don't capitalize anything and maybe have run on sentences and other annoying things like that but just pretend it's like i'm talking and talking and talking and probably rambling and really this is how i talk sometimes. i don't know, it's just one of those subjects where you don't REALLY know what you're saying exactly but you're gonna just spit it out anyway because you need to and it probably won't even make any sense whatsoever. you feel? 

anyway, a few days ago i was reading this talk by the prophet and this quote hit me super hard: 

"Wherever we are in life, there are times when all of us have challenges and struggles. Although they are different for each, they are common to all." -Thomas S. Monson

and actually, it was really the line "they are common to all" that sent me spinning. 

like, think about it. we're all on this earth and as a result of that existence on this globe spinning through space, we are all subject to the pains, trials and hardships of this grand adventure we call life.  no one has a perfect life even though illusions can be pretty darn convincing. especially when we're trekking through some desert wasteland and the mirage of someone else's life looks like an oasis. hah. remember, our lives might look like an oasis to some poor soul trekking through their figurative desert. what a laugh, i know.

anyway, because we're all different, the challenges of life vary from person to person as well as the way we handle those challenges. 

"...although they are different to each, they are common to all." 

everyone has trials. everyone has problems. everyone goes through difficulties. everyone experiences pain. everyone has days when life is terrible and you want to fly to neverland and become a lost boy and fight pirates instead of slugging through each hour doing whatever it is you don't want to do. 

i guess what i'm trying to say is that while the challenges/problems/trials are different for each individual, we all know what it feels like to go through hardships.

feelings are common to all.

which means that you and i should never ever ever compare the trials we have to other people's trials.

like, this is gonna sound blunt, maybe, but i'm just gonna say it and if you're offended then i'm really really sorry but then again sometimes things just need to be said. 

i've thought about this.. and there are actually two ways in which we compare trials.

i) so sometimes we look at our struggles and then look at, say, for example, our friend who has a child undergoing chemo for cancer and then we feel all bad and awful that we're even struggling with our "lesser" problems because Friend With Cancer Child has it waaaaaay worse than we do. and any time we start feeling the pain of our problems we start beating ourselves up or feeling guilty because life, comparatively, is so much better for us than Friend With Cancer Child. 

ii) on the flip side, sometimes we look at others and wonder why in heaven's name they're even having a hard time. like, why is she making SUCH A BIG DEAL out of her friendship problems when i definitely have it harder than her. and why is she even coming to me to talk about it? can't she see i'm having a difficult time with my Real Problem? <-- That's kind of extreme, but it gets the point across. And trust me, we've all been guilty of this at some level or another. or at least, i have, consciously and unconsciously.

either way, let's apply the two-word sermon and "stop it." 

over the years, i've had various friends at different points in my life tell me that i don't know what pain is until i've experienced such-and-such or that i don't know what broken feels like because they've experienced broken and trust them, they know what if feels like and i don't. things like that. and then i've always felt bad that i'm even struggling with things that seem to not be that big of a deal. and then at other times, i'm the one thinking that the other person should get a grip because their issues are not a big deal and do they really know what they're talking about? 

i've been thinking about this subject for a really long time actually, but i'm finally sorting it out into understandable-ish words because i realize now that feelings are common to all. because we can't feel what others are feeling exactly, we have absolutely no way to judge whether or not they really know what pain or brokenness feels like. discounting others' feelings just because it seems like they don't have as big of problems as the next person is actually just really judgmental of us. each of our trials are meant to teach us something and Heavenly Father will never give us anything we can't handle. that means that a friend break-up can be just as difficult for one person as a close relative passing away from cancer can be for another. i've experienced both, so i'm not just flinging words around. it's not because one person's pain tolerance is lower than the other. we all have different trials that we must face and our individual paths are going to be rough for each of us.

we need to stop comparing and realize that everyone hurts inside. and it's not for me to say whether they really know what hurt or pain or brokenness feels like.

this post was definitely more for me than for any of you. it's changed the way i listen to people. and when anyone starts to apologize for "being such a baby because this is not a big deal"... i won't let them. if they're really having a hard time, no matter the problem, then i'll be there for them. it's important to them, therefore, it's important to me. 

let's just treat everyone a little more gently, shall we?