Letter to the Larsen
Well, I don’t know how its possible, but another week has gone by and here I am again staring at my computer on our sunday night. I wish so much I had more spiritual sumthins’ to share but I’m kinda tapped right now, so an update is all you will get unless I get struck by some inspiration by the end of this thing.... poor you…
this week is school break for the big boys which means i am looking at a full 7 days of all 4 kids, aaaalllll day long. It’s funny how you get used to having them out of the house and so when they are back you wonder to yourself, “what are we gonna do now?!” I know what you are thinking…. you wish so desperately that your kids were back in the house and running under your feet (unless your still in that stage and then it might be otherwise) Its the irony of life that makes us want what we do not have. why does it have to work that way? Yes, I know… growth and gratitude and understanding. How important it is to stop and enjoy life in all its beauty instead of being caught up in the tasks that make it burdensome and sometimes icky.
speaking of icky, we have bugs in our house. and i mean, kind of a lot. not because i have seen all of them, but because you read that when you have seen one there are hundreds of others just waiting in the wings to make their appearance. and it makes me feel itchy.
now i would love to say that its the neighbours that are bringing in the bugs and not us. we are clean, tidy and responsible! Us, have bugs? Never!
but alas, just another lie I like to tell myself. cause I was reading up on cockroaches and such and reevaluated our living space in only terms of “bug attracters” and “bug detractors” and let me tell you, our apartment is a bug MAGNET! so, its been an itchy and icky few days of spring cleaning and promising myself a major declutter session this week. which will be interesting considering the first paragraph of this email… all my boys all day long. and while i want to look at this as a teaching moment, ‘Lets all clean together!” i know that won’t actually happen. I will ask them nicely and then nag them endlessly to help and they will first ignore me, then whine and then cry when i threaten them with lost privileges and then i will yell myself hoarse and I will wish i hadn’t have even start the whole thing in the first place! ah! i can already feel it.. so instead I will just spray those buggers until they are dead and then spring clean when the kids are in bed and pretend that none of it happened in the morning. sound good?
ok, what else.. ronins doing a basketball camp for the next 3 days which he is excited about. there is a tournament at the end that you have to be invited to participate in and he’s hoping he gets to. we all hope he is asked. he loves the game and is a good little player. its fun to see him growing into his talents.
cache had a chance to go out with Patrick for a dad/son movie night with his school. it was only $2 a ticket! I wished so badly we could have all been able to go, but cache was on cloud nine being with just his dad and having all the attention in the world.
ronin was really jealous of course, but cache needs it. we have deemed ronin “raised” and realise that there are other wheels on this bus that don’t necessarily squeak but need to be tended too. its definitely a battle with school, bedtime, patricks work schedule, kids individual needs and the general exhaustion of us as parents, but we see how important one on one time is and we hope to get better at it. cause right now we are horrible at it. in fact there are days i feel like its going to make or break cache. I’m terrified that he will feel left out or shuffled so much that he finds other people outside of family to fill his needs and we all know how bad that can get. Cache is a very sensitive child and needs love and affection but he never asks for it and if he gets too deprived and you try to get close he pushes you away. it feels a bit like a cup with a slow leak. you think you have filled it and it seems fine for awhile until you get back to it and find the whole thing has somehow drained and you need to start all over. makes my heart hurt sometimes.
kai is crazy. thats it. crazy. full stop. nothin' more to say.
levi is growing up way too fast to be just like his brothers. he is showing signs of stubbornness and determination and i think, “Oh no! already!?” i thought i had a bit longer, but we are rounding the corner to age 3 so it is going to start getting intense here fairly soon. i yelled at him this week (uh, did i say it wasn’t the greatest “mom” week?) and I was sad… its the first time I have actually been angry with him. I usually find all his antics cute and funny and i felt a little piece of our special bond fade. oh man, it was not a good week.
i kept having heathers words in my head. her analogy about the tapestry of life. Up close it can be very very ugly. and oh boy, was it ugly this week. i have prayed as much as I dare that somehow my tapestry will find a way to be beautiful despite all of my ugly stitching…. only heaven can help me now.
Patrick had a rough week as well. a few days where I half expected him to walk through the door at noon to tell me he up and quit. Really! I did wonder if it would happen!
Singapore had a way of beating us both down and wearing us both out, which does happen sometimes, but we have never gotten this close to actually pulling the plug.
in fact, we even discussed coming home in april when our house is supposed to be finished with its repairs. Now thats some crazy talk!
In full disclosure, I secretly wished it would happen., for a few days actually. it was just today that I asked patrick, really, are we moving back in april? And he said no. we aren’t. we can make it (meaning, HE will make it through work) We have recommitted to finishing out our 2 year lease and look forward (sort of) to some more growth and learning while being here. mostly i look forward to the trips we can take and will buckle down through the rest of it…
its funny how your mind set can affect your view of life. I have fluctuated, yet again between loving it here to hating it and then back again depending on the day and situation. there is so much to experience here but sometimes you just get tired of the experience. but depending on what you commit to, you can live through it easy or hard. most of the time I think I choose the hard way, and i need to stop. enjoy life for what it is and make the best of things. thats going to be my mantra for the week…it goes a little something like this:
What? I have ants in my cereal and weevils in my rice? pshaaa! I love bugs. they are sooooo cute! What? Crazy Singaporean homework thats well past my level of understanding? Piece of cake! I looooove maths! Seriously? Taxi drivers who don’t speak english and then drop you off at the wrong building with all 4 kids in tow? You silly driver. You are such a funny guy!
I know Im gonna look back on all of this and just laugh and laugh and then I’m gonna pull that tapestry right off the wall and bury my head in it until I cry myself to sleep. cause sometimes thats what I wanna do. you know what Im talking about right?!
ok. onto better things. really, after an entire email of complaining, you should be ready for something better, right?
micheal: i loved your comparison of each of us to the Savior. it is a great talk and your ward is so blessed to have you (as is this family) It really changed my perspective and I’m not even sure how yet. I felt good because its nice to see that maybe your not so far away from being like the Savior as you feel like you are in any daily moment. but then also made me feel bad because I don’t treat myself with the respect and awe that divinity should inspire. I wonder how the Savior feels when he sees how we treat ourselves. whether its because we are hard on ourselves and unforgiving of our mistakes or don’t take care of ourselves spiritually the way we should. how he must view us… with love and devotion but also heartache when he sees us making poor choices. but I’m also going to let it inspire me to see my kids differently this week and maybe I will have more good mom moments than bad. really, after last week, it can only get better from here ; )
Amanda and Jared… we keep praying for you. Even ronin doesn’t forget with each prayer he utters. i hope you can still feel our love and the strength of the spirit lifting you through all the moments of each day no matter how low they get. we love you. so very much.
well, thats all for now. can’t wait to hear about what you are all up to. I hope you have a good week and are able to see the tender mercies of the Lord as He blesses you each day. I got my “blessing goggles" on as of right now.... i hope to use them much more this week.
love you all
p&k
this week is school break for the big boys which means i am looking at a full 7 days of all 4 kids, aaaalllll day long. It’s funny how you get used to having them out of the house and so when they are back you wonder to yourself, “what are we gonna do now?!” I know what you are thinking…. you wish so desperately that your kids were back in the house and running under your feet (unless your still in that stage and then it might be otherwise) Its the irony of life that makes us want what we do not have. why does it have to work that way? Yes, I know… growth and gratitude and understanding. How important it is to stop and enjoy life in all its beauty instead of being caught up in the tasks that make it burdensome and sometimes icky.
speaking of icky, we have bugs in our house. and i mean, kind of a lot. not because i have seen all of them, but because you read that when you have seen one there are hundreds of others just waiting in the wings to make their appearance. and it makes me feel itchy.
now i would love to say that its the neighbours that are bringing in the bugs and not us. we are clean, tidy and responsible! Us, have bugs? Never!
but alas, just another lie I like to tell myself. cause I was reading up on cockroaches and such and reevaluated our living space in only terms of “bug attracters” and “bug detractors” and let me tell you, our apartment is a bug MAGNET! so, its been an itchy and icky few days of spring cleaning and promising myself a major declutter session this week. which will be interesting considering the first paragraph of this email… all my boys all day long. and while i want to look at this as a teaching moment, ‘Lets all clean together!” i know that won’t actually happen. I will ask them nicely and then nag them endlessly to help and they will first ignore me, then whine and then cry when i threaten them with lost privileges and then i will yell myself hoarse and I will wish i hadn’t have even start the whole thing in the first place! ah! i can already feel it.. so instead I will just spray those buggers until they are dead and then spring clean when the kids are in bed and pretend that none of it happened in the morning. sound good?
ok, what else.. ronins doing a basketball camp for the next 3 days which he is excited about. there is a tournament at the end that you have to be invited to participate in and he’s hoping he gets to. we all hope he is asked. he loves the game and is a good little player. its fun to see him growing into his talents.
cache had a chance to go out with Patrick for a dad/son movie night with his school. it was only $2 a ticket! I wished so badly we could have all been able to go, but cache was on cloud nine being with just his dad and having all the attention in the world.
ronin was really jealous of course, but cache needs it. we have deemed ronin “raised” and realise that there are other wheels on this bus that don’t necessarily squeak but need to be tended too. its definitely a battle with school, bedtime, patricks work schedule, kids individual needs and the general exhaustion of us as parents, but we see how important one on one time is and we hope to get better at it. cause right now we are horrible at it. in fact there are days i feel like its going to make or break cache. I’m terrified that he will feel left out or shuffled so much that he finds other people outside of family to fill his needs and we all know how bad that can get. Cache is a very sensitive child and needs love and affection but he never asks for it and if he gets too deprived and you try to get close he pushes you away. it feels a bit like a cup with a slow leak. you think you have filled it and it seems fine for awhile until you get back to it and find the whole thing has somehow drained and you need to start all over. makes my heart hurt sometimes.
kai is crazy. thats it. crazy. full stop. nothin' more to say.
levi is growing up way too fast to be just like his brothers. he is showing signs of stubbornness and determination and i think, “Oh no! already!?” i thought i had a bit longer, but we are rounding the corner to age 3 so it is going to start getting intense here fairly soon. i yelled at him this week (uh, did i say it wasn’t the greatest “mom” week?) and I was sad… its the first time I have actually been angry with him. I usually find all his antics cute and funny and i felt a little piece of our special bond fade. oh man, it was not a good week.
i kept having heathers words in my head. her analogy about the tapestry of life. Up close it can be very very ugly. and oh boy, was it ugly this week. i have prayed as much as I dare that somehow my tapestry will find a way to be beautiful despite all of my ugly stitching…. only heaven can help me now.
Patrick had a rough week as well. a few days where I half expected him to walk through the door at noon to tell me he up and quit. Really! I did wonder if it would happen!
Singapore had a way of beating us both down and wearing us both out, which does happen sometimes, but we have never gotten this close to actually pulling the plug.
in fact, we even discussed coming home in april when our house is supposed to be finished with its repairs. Now thats some crazy talk!
In full disclosure, I secretly wished it would happen., for a few days actually. it was just today that I asked patrick, really, are we moving back in april? And he said no. we aren’t. we can make it (meaning, HE will make it through work) We have recommitted to finishing out our 2 year lease and look forward (sort of) to some more growth and learning while being here. mostly i look forward to the trips we can take and will buckle down through the rest of it…
its funny how your mind set can affect your view of life. I have fluctuated, yet again between loving it here to hating it and then back again depending on the day and situation. there is so much to experience here but sometimes you just get tired of the experience. but depending on what you commit to, you can live through it easy or hard. most of the time I think I choose the hard way, and i need to stop. enjoy life for what it is and make the best of things. thats going to be my mantra for the week…it goes a little something like this:
What? I have ants in my cereal and weevils in my rice? pshaaa! I love bugs. they are sooooo cute! What? Crazy Singaporean homework thats well past my level of understanding? Piece of cake! I looooove maths! Seriously? Taxi drivers who don’t speak english and then drop you off at the wrong building with all 4 kids in tow? You silly driver. You are such a funny guy!
I know Im gonna look back on all of this and just laugh and laugh and then I’m gonna pull that tapestry right off the wall and bury my head in it until I cry myself to sleep. cause sometimes thats what I wanna do. you know what Im talking about right?!
ok. onto better things. really, after an entire email of complaining, you should be ready for something better, right?
micheal: i loved your comparison of each of us to the Savior. it is a great talk and your ward is so blessed to have you (as is this family) It really changed my perspective and I’m not even sure how yet. I felt good because its nice to see that maybe your not so far away from being like the Savior as you feel like you are in any daily moment. but then also made me feel bad because I don’t treat myself with the respect and awe that divinity should inspire. I wonder how the Savior feels when he sees how we treat ourselves. whether its because we are hard on ourselves and unforgiving of our mistakes or don’t take care of ourselves spiritually the way we should. how he must view us… with love and devotion but also heartache when he sees us making poor choices. but I’m also going to let it inspire me to see my kids differently this week and maybe I will have more good mom moments than bad. really, after last week, it can only get better from here ; )
Amanda and Jared… we keep praying for you. Even ronin doesn’t forget with each prayer he utters. i hope you can still feel our love and the strength of the spirit lifting you through all the moments of each day no matter how low they get. we love you. so very much.
well, thats all for now. can’t wait to hear about what you are all up to. I hope you have a good week and are able to see the tender mercies of the Lord as He blesses you each day. I got my “blessing goggles" on as of right now.... i hope to use them much more this week.
love you all
p&k
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