My Mara

Just over 2 years ago, we were a family of 3. Mo was 2 and 2 months when Mara was born, and I wrote this post to commemorate our short time as just the three of us before we became the four of us in September. 

Now here we are, and Mara is about the same age that Mo was when she was born. Well, almost 1 month older, but close enough. Since I've had 2 kids, I feel like I just naturally post less and less on this blog and on social media in general. Maybe Instagram, but not much elsewhere. So many people do not have the privilege of knowing much about little Miss Mara, my perfectly adorable rascally baby girl. This is me attempting to describe her as she is now.  It is difficult to capture anyone's personality well in writing, but I will try.

Mara is a rascal in the best possible way. She is such a good kid, she does listen and behave well, yet she has this impish side that is at time hilarious and frustrating at times. Sometimes the most frustrating thing is trying not to laugh while disciplining her. It's interesting having a second child, to try and figure out how much of her behavior is learned and how much is innate. Mo has always been a bit more dramatic, reacting emotionally, with tears, to small scrapes or bruises (of which she has plenty). Mara is a bit tougher skinned, but still melts into tears at the smallest pain, except as soon as I say to her "Are you okay?" those tears magically disappear. Which leads me to believe this particular behavior is learned from her older sister. 

This is marker

But on her own, Mara is hilarious. Even as a baby, Mara has loved to be funny. She likes when we laugh at her crazy antics. Currently, she is obsessed with changing her clothes. She knows how to dress and undress herself, which is at times great and annoying. It's nice when she can get herself ready to leave the house, but when she is on her fifth dress of the day and the dirty clothes are piling up, I get a bit annoyed. But I pick my battles, and her changing clothes constantly is not hurting anyone or really leading her to do anything she shouldn't. She and Mo are particularly obsessed with their Halloween costumes, where they were both Cinderella, or as Mara says "Cinderelly."

Two Cinderellas, a baby, and Harry Potter

Mara also loves to give and receive compliments. She'll put on a new dress and immediately throw her arms out like "taa daa!" but say, "It's pretty! you like it?" which we of course assure her we do. But she'll also compliment me on random things, like "Mom, I like your booty, it's so pretty." which just makes me laugh. 

She loves to be a princess, and the other day when we found some headbands with crowns attached at the Beehive Bazaar in Provo I bought them for the girls. In the car on the ride home I hear Mo say, "Mara! You don't have to keep your arms up the whole time!" and I turned around to see this:

How else are you supposed to sit when you're fabulous?

Mo and Mara are best friends and it makes my heart so happy. They play so well together, and are mostly great at sharing and taking turns. Of course they fight sometimes, but they are so cute and funny. Mara has never laughed at anything as hard as she laughs at Mo. I'm so grateful that I have both of them.

The best way to explain how Mara talks is that she is earnest about anything and everything. Like right now she's sweeping my kitchen, and she has to come update me and Gramma, "I'll be one minute. I'm sweeping and it's really hard."

She is so smart. I confess I haven't been as dedicated to sitting down with her and working on her letters and numbers as I was with Mo, but she has picked up so much knowledge on her own. She sings all the nursery songs all the time, and can count to about 12 unassisted, although once she hits 12 she starts to repeat 8 9 10 11 over and over. 

She is ridiculously loud. She plays loud and sings loud and even dances loud. She hasn't started dance classes herself yet, but she sees Mo in her dance classes and therefore loves to pretend that she is going to dance class all the time. I'm sure once she starts her own dance class, probably next year, she'll love it. 

Her little voice is so cute. I wish I could record her and Mo talking and laughing all day long. There are hard things. I mean, she is 2. So she is testing boundaries often, and we are both learning how to better deal with the overflow of emotions that come with growing up. But she is one of the best surprises I've ever had, and I am so so blessed to have her and her sister. I love you my Mara. 

How Are You?

When most people ask, they probably don't really want to know. It's just a convention, and automatic response to a greeting. So most of the time I can respond with a simple, "Good how are you?" or on an awkward day, "Nothing" followed by, "oh, uh, i mean good. I'm good." (we've all done this, I know, but I swear it happens to me more often than most.)

For me lately though, it's when people ask me "How are you?" and they are people who I know for a fact genuinely care about how I am that I find myself at a loss with what to say. I mean, I am good. I'm fine. I'm good, maybe not great. But I'm good. Do you believe me yet?

I'm not really struggling other than with myself. I just feel a bit purposeless. I've had this feeling before and it goes away usually but it's kind of lingering lately. I love spending time with my kids, being home is a huge blessing and I'm grateful that I am able to take care of them myself. And yet...

When a person I love asks me how I'm doing, I want to be able to respond and tell them about me. About what is happening in my life. The problem is, there isn't a lot going on in my life. Most of the time, my life is what is happening to my kids' lives. Which is probably true of a lot of parents who stay home with their kids during the day.

It drives me nuts when I feel like people only care about me because of my children. I would like for them to care about my kids, don't get me wrong, but I would also like them to care about me. ME. Lisa. One of the biggest places I experience this is social media. If I post a picture of my kids, I generally get about twice as many responses as I do if I just say something about myself. So I don't post on social media that much because, frankly, I feel like nobody cares. 

So the question is, how am I? 

Well, I wish I had more to do. Maybe a job would be good, although I kind of hate the idea of just working for working's sake. I would love to do something that makes me feel like I am making a contribution to the world. 

My kids do need me. But they need me less and less as they grow. Which is awesome and sad at the same time. 

It's okay. I really don't have any room to complain. My life really is good. Enough about me. How are you?