the thing that never happens to laura and often to me, has happened again

i'm sick. i'm not sure if it is an age thing, or a not having a cold for a long time thing, or just this is a real bad cold thing but i don't remember feeling this sick with a cold. and cold fx did NOTHING! i'm beginning to wonder at its efficacy. the day i came down with it i went to bed eary (and by early i mean 10:30 or so--i'm somewhat of an insomniac)but i had a terrible sleep. i woke up around 1:30 and felt like it should be morning--probably because i don't just wake up like that--and my teeth were aching. i thought maybe i was clenching them and so i tried to make an effort to relax my jaw. that was when i realized that i had to have been sleeping with my mouth open or i wouldn't be able to breathe. the night passed tortuously slow and i never partook of the respite that sleep usually is when one has a cold. brent offered to take the van and take the kids to school for me, but seeing as i would have to pick them up at separate times, taking the van didn't seem like much of a help. when i came downstairs he had a cup of licorice tea steeping for me. to add to everything, yesterday was "the get the work done day" at school. book fair, book orders, picture day, and open house. nat got mustard all over her shirt and had to change, mic filled out my cheques for me, and i did hair. i'm pretty sure nat will have a very unnatural smile in hers--but it'll still be cute because it is nat. the girls were both pretty excited to show us around the school. this time we only made it to the classrooms. no music room or computer lab. ms. derbyshire showed us all the pics she had of ave and zach. she told me the story again of how zach gave up being helper to another boy who didn't want to leave the classroom when it was time to go somewhere. nat introduced us and i rudely refused the proffered hand. i felt rude, but i was clutching a used tissue in my hand. would you want to shake hands with someone who was holding that? i did it to both teachers. it's lovely meeting people when you have a red nose. mic's teacher raved about her being a model student. he says she is happy to be there and to do the work and works quietly and independently and is a real pleasure to have in the class. later that night brent told me that he thinks mic will be like him and nat like trina...?!!! no they won't! and i just don't know how he thinks he has always been a good little boy. he just wasn't. and nat is fairly well-behaved too. she is just full of energy all the time and a little fiesty. we have plenty of those genes in the clarke side. it just isn't fair to compare her to mic who is also 3 and 1/2 years older than her. it bugged because i don't think they will be like anyone else.
by the way...a weird thing happened the other day. our hometeachers were over and nat was having a hard time sitting still (that's not the weird part) and so sis. patterson invited her to sit on her lap. nat did her shy face and went to sit on her. nat had her hair pulled back into two little "knobbies" and was wearing a white shirt with a little red and blue flower on it. as i looked at her i suddenly saw this picture of myself with short hair wearing a similar shirt. i'm sitting on a little chair. i think grandpa took it. i've never really thought nat looked like me, but i saw something that night--it was almost eery.
it is friday night and i am bored. brent is working and has the van. i tried to watch a movie, but i've watched all my movies recently. then i remembered the movies brent burned for me. i got out maid in manhattan and settled down at the computer to watch it....wouldn't work. we don't have the codec anymore. not wanting to give up too easily, i thought i'd try the laptop...not here. so i do the only thing left for me to do. i call brent. while i'm complaining to brent and he can't do anything about it i hear deb in the background saying to call matt. so she and brent put together a plan for matt to bring me a greek salad with a chick flick i don't own. my husband is good to me.

"Choose to accept--truly accept--that you are a child of God, that He loves you and that He has the power to help you"

it is a beautiful sunny monday morning and i still feel the glow from my day of spiritual feasting. not that i did anything special. in fact i spent most of the day at the church in meetings. i was there from 10 until 5:30. brent was very irate on the way home and to emphasize his feelings he drove like an idiot--fast acceleration that caused us to fishtail around corners. i sat there in silence knowing he was wrong but not wanting to fight about it. i prayed to know the best way to respond to his temper. and somehow i was able to dispel it and keep my cool. he was able to let go and we had a nice evening.
i reread elder hale's conference talk today. it is such a good talk. (i wish i could be even an little bit as eloquent and wise when i have to give a talk as the general authorities are) as i starting reading it i noticed that it was all marked up, so i asked brent if he had done it. nope--it was me and as i read it again i remembered why. such a good inspiring talk. the point i am focussing on today is the one i used for my title. it is such a fundamental belief. it seems to me that in the church we all know in theory that we are children of God, but maybe we don't necessarily accept it. if we did we would never question our self-worth. when i worked in young women's it seemed that every one of the girls struggled with this. i think it is satan's great tool against women--to lower their self esteem. small children don't have low self esteem. they are confident that they are loved and wonderful and beautiful and good at what they do. they don't question it and they don't feel ashamed for thinking that way. i wish it didn't change. if i could only pass one thing on to my daughters it would be this--that they are beloved daughters of God. and that He has the power to help us. so today i am trying to remember in all that i do, God has the power to help me. that means i can do anything.

9/11

9/11 brings a whole different set of memories and loss for me. when i woke up in the morning of september 11th, 2000, i sensed right away that something wasn't right. my baby did not move and my life changed forever. the next year (september 11th, 2001) people all over suffered loss and the country grieved, but i was already grieving. in some ways though, it was a milestone for me. in 2001, when i woke up, my baby was still moving. in some strange way i felt lighter because she had survived that day--like this time round really would be different. corey died on the 11th but he was born on the 12th. so every year we go out for dinner and get flowers to remember him by. his birth was the first time my house was filled with the powerful smell of lilies and so the flowers we get every year must have lilies in the bouquet. i love them, and the smell no longer brings me back to that time. i miss him. i wish i didn't have to have such a difficult time having babies. this year particularly my luck feels a little run out in that department. that is how it is explained: just bad luck--a fluke--no reason why this should ever happen again. but there was never any apparent reason for it to happen in the first place, so i don't really find the sentiment comforting. yet in spite of all this, i feel at peace with the way things have turned out. i love my family. i love my little girl that came after corey. i love the relationship that she and mic have and i wouldn't have it any other way. every now and then the ache comes back though. i wish i could see him. i wish i knew what he looked like. i wish he were here today.

i feel full of frustration and sadness. potluck was just ruined and i don't feel like going anymore. when i try to say how i feel nobody understands and just puts everything back on me. no one stands up for me or what i'm trying to say. brent is just some incapable bitter idiot according to what they say. no real attempt at looking at it other than to say brent is insufficient. i hate the clarke superiority complex. like asking them to talk about something besides hockey was causing them to lose some of the easiness of being as a family or that it meant "walking on eggshells" for brent. evan can be a jerk and nobody cares. when we're together as a family they shouldn't have to try to make someone else feel welcome--it is too much effort. even though i said something several times to change the subject they just couldn't because it wouldn't be natural. that was really the justification?!! i just feel frustrated because i got emotional and i just couldn't defend myself or my family and it ended up being that brent is a special case and we shouldn't expect such high things of him. and what happened today was wrong! at first it might have been thoughtlessness, but once i brought it to their attention it was indifference and complete self asorption. the schofields are stubborn and bitter and determined to see everything in a bad light. well the clarkes are arrogant and self-centered and only care about numbers and not people. it is not exactly easy being around everyone and their babies. and i am tired about the baby comments to me. no one seems to understands that my pregnancy ended in trauma--so much blood and feeling weak so quickly and so out of control with what happened to my body. getting pregnant again is a scary thing for me. losing corey was terrible--i went to a place so black, so bereft of joy. i don't want to grieve anymore. sorry this is so negative. i just needed to vent.