Rather than post six paragraphs directly to the Westwind Home School group page, I chose to use my blog, simply because I knew that was one means of posting a quick link to LONG information. Please forgive me if that looks like self-promotion, and please forgive my verbosity. (Still working on it!)
Subject to final approval, the 2014 Halloween Party will take place on Halloween afternoon, Friday, October 31, from 1:00 until 3:00 PM (with clean-up from 3:00 until 4:00). I will post regarding that final approval as soon as we receive it!
I invite families to access my Google spreadsheet in order to sign-up to share a pot-luck snack and to volunteer for the party assignment of their choice.
In order to access the Google doc, click the attached link.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ccf1TXzVu640njOtCH3rxX1wkTJ3SD9S2Z_z7QKrA_k/edit?usp=sharing
You should be able to find your preferred assignment and insert your name and information in the corresponding fields. (Ex: If you want to volunteer to clean-up, sign your name and your pot-luck food info in the fields adjacent to a "clean-up" cell.) My darling husband points out that you will have the capability to replace other people's names with your own, enabling you to take over any assignment you choose :-). I trust you're people of integrity who will show more respect than that :-).
This is a work in progress, so feel free to add, delete, or otherwise alter anything I've thrown together, here. So far, in my inexperienced head, the party itinerary looks something like this:
1. Upon arrival, each child will receive a sticker designating which of four rotation groups he or she will participate with. Before we split into groups, however, we'll enjoy a whole-group ice-breaker game that can commence as soon as guests begin arriving.
2. Snacks will be made available throughout the event.
3. Following the ice-breaker activity, children will divide into groups and rotate through four stations, a mix of craft activities and Halloween games. Each rotation will last fifteen minutes, so if you volunteer to run a station, plan accordingly.
4. At the conclusion of the station rotation, we'll turn on some music and conduct a costume parade, followed by an informal dance.
5. We don't have to judge costumes, but it might be fun to award creative, categorical prizes. (This is one of the suggested volunteer assignment fields, if you want it.)
6. We'll wrap things up at 3:00 and have everything cleaned up by 4 PM. Only those who volunteer for a clean-up assignment need stay to assist in that effort.
Feel free to make any additions, suggestions, criticisms, etc via comments to this post on the FB page or using the Google spreadsheet. I'm new at this, and as you're all about to figure out (if you haven't already), I make lots of mistakes!
Thanks so much for your insights and participation! I can't wait to party with all of you!
Monday 20 October 2014
Friday 4 April 2014
Make Lemonade
I was embarrassed last night to be counted among the ranks of parents at the school board's parent meeting.
Granted, my sons have not come home crying after school because of pushing in the hallways or un-monitored encounters at recess. My kindergartner has never run home by himself across Highway 52 or any other major thoroughfare and begged me in tears to home school him. Last night, I felt compassion for parents and children in those challenging circumstances. Logically, I acknowledge that there is certainly potential for improved student outcomes given a smaller student-to-teacher ratio and possibly even greater square footage per student in which to learn each day.
Nevertheless, I was embarrassed to hear parents accuse with such animosity those very public servants who have devoted so much effort to fighting our fights and securing solutions to our problems---solutions, I realised from the truly informative portion of last night's meeting, over which they have limited control. Alberta Education, overseeing the needs of an entire province, allocates the tax dollars that build, modernise, and enlarge Alberta schools. The school board may study, propose, and petition, and it appears evident that they have. As a result, our school will likely receive the best Alberta Education offers any growing community: two additional modular units, a boon we might do better to acknowledge than to resent.
We didn't treat our own administrators any better than we treated our school board. Admittedly, it appeared that parents' justifiably sensitive feelings had been hurt by administrative responses, real or perceived. But as parent after parent railed against our authorities, we rightly remembered to thank our tireless, talented teachers but failed to extend that gratitude to our administration. They are perceptive and capable individuals who dedicate their years of education, experience, and understanding not to griping about our school's growth but to capitalising on it. If our administrators failed to consult us in their problem-solving, perhaps it was because they feared we would respond just as many of us did, magnifying the problems rather than synergising solutions.
I was reminded of my three-year-old, tantrum-ing Wednesday morning that when I cut his waffle, I overturned a few pieces. He didn't thank me for making the waffle or whipping the cream that bedecked it. He zoomed-in on three over-turned pieces and cried so long and so frantically that by the time he settled down, the whipped cream had melted, the waffle was soggy, and he'd traded his breakfast for a breakdown. Last night I had to wonder if the parents of Raymond Elementary School students weren't making the same exchange.
The concerns parents expressed last night are real and valid: no one wants her child to be shoved under the coat hooks in a hallway gone to bedlam. No one wants his child's needs lost in the chaos of over-stuffed classrooms. No one wants his child to lose educational opportunities because limited resources can't stretch sufficiently to sustain a school's burgeoning population. But as real as these problems are, we must ask, "What more can reasonably be done?" and even more importantly, "What can I do to help solve the problem, and what is the most useful manner in which to approach it?" Parents might well ask themselves, "If my child were at last night's meeting, witnessing me, what would my actions have taught him or her about solving problems?" There will always be problems. If we go no further than making demands, we will never make a positive difference.
So much is right in our school and our community! I am so grateful that my kindergarten student has come home every day this week, bursting his buttons to tell me, "Guess what I learned today!" He told me fact after fact about owls and detailed how he had stroked a taxidermied one, demonstrating the proper and improper direction for stroking owls' feathers and explaining why direction even matters. He is one of forty-seven students in the morning kindergarten, and he is a shy one at that; but even (or especially!) in a collaborative classroom with forty-six other pupils and three top-notch, phenomenal teachers---not to mention the attentive, supportive EAs---he has learned about owls and obedience.
He is my fourth kindergartner to attend Raymond Elementary School, and though I sent him to school with greater trepidation that I sent any of my other sons (he is shyer, younger, and less prepared academically than they), he has attached to three marvellous teachers, he has made friends of students he didn't know outside of class, he has faced and worked through adversity, and he has begun to read. When he wet his pants at school, his teachers called me: not to chastise me, but to ask if there were anything they could do to protect his dignity and increase his sense of safety, success, and self-worth. He was not my first son to wet his pants in kindergarten, but his teachers were the first to notice and take action, even with forty-six other students in their care. When I spent the day in the kindergarten classroom, as I have done each time I had a kindergartner, I actually saw greater order, better time-use, more carefully-monitored and individualised learning, and less-frazzled teachers than I had ever seen in kindergarten before. "Satisfied" would understate my respect. I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for the Phoenix our school has engendered from its space-crunch ashes.
My gratitude extends beyond the kindergarten. My sixth-grader shares at dinner each night his enthusiasm for the simulations his teachers have created of governments from Ancient Greece to modern Iroquois. He demonstrates science experiments, teaches us art techniques, initiates family discussion of current events, and looks up You-Tube videos about the James Webb telescope. My third-grader poses the logic challenge his teacher posed to him in a three-person learning group composed of students who needed that extra challenge. He demonstrates the strategies he has learned to solve multiplication equations. His problem-solving rivals mine, and not because I've taught him, but because his teachers have reached him at school. My first-grader participates in a school-sponsored Book Club to enrich the experience of students his age with particular needs. All of my children are eager to start logging their miles for the school's marathon club and the annual Cardston Kids' Marathon. And every one of my four children taught me the "Make Lemonade" song their music teacher taught them for One School, One Book --- an initiative that has brought our family together every afternoon in delightful shared reading, problem-solving, and discussion. These are the parental versions of those moments Mrs. Sue Heggie referenced last night: the moments when you stand back, beam, and exult, "They're learning! They're growing! They're becoming!" For all of these moments, from the depths of my heart, I thank the school board, the administration, the teachers, and the parent council, working in concert not to complain, but to create.
I think it's time to take a page from One School, One Book and Jacqueline Davies's Lemonade Wars. Our school board, administrators, teachers, and parent council have made a lot of lemonade, lately. I will do more good in my family, our school, and our community by joining forces and partnering with them, rather than waging war.
It is time for me to accept responsibility for the education of my children. It is time for me to determine what growth and goodness I can create from challenges my children may encounter at school. It is time for me to change those things over which I have power, beginning with my attitude. My personal response to the challenges (and opportunities!) inherent in our community's growth will have a greater effect for good (or ill) on my children than any other element in this equation.
Granted, my sons have not come home crying after school because of pushing in the hallways or un-monitored encounters at recess. My kindergartner has never run home by himself across Highway 52 or any other major thoroughfare and begged me in tears to home school him. Last night, I felt compassion for parents and children in those challenging circumstances. Logically, I acknowledge that there is certainly potential for improved student outcomes given a smaller student-to-teacher ratio and possibly even greater square footage per student in which to learn each day.
Nevertheless, I was embarrassed to hear parents accuse with such animosity those very public servants who have devoted so much effort to fighting our fights and securing solutions to our problems---solutions, I realised from the truly informative portion of last night's meeting, over which they have limited control. Alberta Education, overseeing the needs of an entire province, allocates the tax dollars that build, modernise, and enlarge Alberta schools. The school board may study, propose, and petition, and it appears evident that they have. As a result, our school will likely receive the best Alberta Education offers any growing community: two additional modular units, a boon we might do better to acknowledge than to resent.
We didn't treat our own administrators any better than we treated our school board. Admittedly, it appeared that parents' justifiably sensitive feelings had been hurt by administrative responses, real or perceived. But as parent after parent railed against our authorities, we rightly remembered to thank our tireless, talented teachers but failed to extend that gratitude to our administration. They are perceptive and capable individuals who dedicate their years of education, experience, and understanding not to griping about our school's growth but to capitalising on it. If our administrators failed to consult us in their problem-solving, perhaps it was because they feared we would respond just as many of us did, magnifying the problems rather than synergising solutions.
I was reminded of my three-year-old, tantrum-ing Wednesday morning that when I cut his waffle, I overturned a few pieces. He didn't thank me for making the waffle or whipping the cream that bedecked it. He zoomed-in on three over-turned pieces and cried so long and so frantically that by the time he settled down, the whipped cream had melted, the waffle was soggy, and he'd traded his breakfast for a breakdown. Last night I had to wonder if the parents of Raymond Elementary School students weren't making the same exchange.
The concerns parents expressed last night are real and valid: no one wants her child to be shoved under the coat hooks in a hallway gone to bedlam. No one wants his child's needs lost in the chaos of over-stuffed classrooms. No one wants his child to lose educational opportunities because limited resources can't stretch sufficiently to sustain a school's burgeoning population. But as real as these problems are, we must ask, "What more can reasonably be done?" and even more importantly, "What can I do to help solve the problem, and what is the most useful manner in which to approach it?" Parents might well ask themselves, "If my child were at last night's meeting, witnessing me, what would my actions have taught him or her about solving problems?" There will always be problems. If we go no further than making demands, we will never make a positive difference.
So much is right in our school and our community! I am so grateful that my kindergarten student has come home every day this week, bursting his buttons to tell me, "Guess what I learned today!" He told me fact after fact about owls and detailed how he had stroked a taxidermied one, demonstrating the proper and improper direction for stroking owls' feathers and explaining why direction even matters. He is one of forty-seven students in the morning kindergarten, and he is a shy one at that; but even (or especially!) in a collaborative classroom with forty-six other pupils and three top-notch, phenomenal teachers---not to mention the attentive, supportive EAs---he has learned about owls and obedience.
He is my fourth kindergartner to attend Raymond Elementary School, and though I sent him to school with greater trepidation that I sent any of my other sons (he is shyer, younger, and less prepared academically than they), he has attached to three marvellous teachers, he has made friends of students he didn't know outside of class, he has faced and worked through adversity, and he has begun to read. When he wet his pants at school, his teachers called me: not to chastise me, but to ask if there were anything they could do to protect his dignity and increase his sense of safety, success, and self-worth. He was not my first son to wet his pants in kindergarten, but his teachers were the first to notice and take action, even with forty-six other students in their care. When I spent the day in the kindergarten classroom, as I have done each time I had a kindergartner, I actually saw greater order, better time-use, more carefully-monitored and individualised learning, and less-frazzled teachers than I had ever seen in kindergarten before. "Satisfied" would understate my respect. I have been overwhelmed with gratitude for the Phoenix our school has engendered from its space-crunch ashes.
My gratitude extends beyond the kindergarten. My sixth-grader shares at dinner each night his enthusiasm for the simulations his teachers have created of governments from Ancient Greece to modern Iroquois. He demonstrates science experiments, teaches us art techniques, initiates family discussion of current events, and looks up You-Tube videos about the James Webb telescope. My third-grader poses the logic challenge his teacher posed to him in a three-person learning group composed of students who needed that extra challenge. He demonstrates the strategies he has learned to solve multiplication equations. His problem-solving rivals mine, and not because I've taught him, but because his teachers have reached him at school. My first-grader participates in a school-sponsored Book Club to enrich the experience of students his age with particular needs. All of my children are eager to start logging their miles for the school's marathon club and the annual Cardston Kids' Marathon. And every one of my four children taught me the "Make Lemonade" song their music teacher taught them for One School, One Book --- an initiative that has brought our family together every afternoon in delightful shared reading, problem-solving, and discussion. These are the parental versions of those moments Mrs. Sue Heggie referenced last night: the moments when you stand back, beam, and exult, "They're learning! They're growing! They're becoming!" For all of these moments, from the depths of my heart, I thank the school board, the administration, the teachers, and the parent council, working in concert not to complain, but to create.
I think it's time to take a page from One School, One Book and Jacqueline Davies's Lemonade Wars. Our school board, administrators, teachers, and parent council have made a lot of lemonade, lately. I will do more good in my family, our school, and our community by joining forces and partnering with them, rather than waging war.
It is time for me to accept responsibility for the education of my children. It is time for me to determine what growth and goodness I can create from challenges my children may encounter at school. It is time for me to change those things over which I have power, beginning with my attitude. My personal response to the challenges (and opportunities!) inherent in our community's growth will have a greater effect for good (or ill) on my children than any other element in this equation.
Thursday 30 January 2014
Resolution 2014: Be Meek
At first glance, you might think this post's an excuse. But it's not. It's a resolution.
I'm a month late, you say. Perhaps. Some things take time to percolate.
I guess that's what my goals have been doing all month. I've been reading like Seth does: ravenously. Somewhere between Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the BYU Studies' personal essay contest instructions, I formulated enough aspirations to run a half-marathon and head a corporation, not to mention spend time outdoors daily (Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods), read all twelve titles on Oliver DeMille's book club list, and finish those five un-sewn jean quilts I never could squeeze into Christmas.
And be meek. Almost as an afterthought.
I listed some of these dreams in Sunday School, pondered others at weeknight Relief Society, then bagged all but one in the bedroom at 2:30 last Saturday morning.
"It's going to be a big week for me at work," Jared mused. Neither of us was sleeping. "The double-blind study comes out on the 30th, and we'll have to work hard to capitalize."
I nodded, but it was dark, so Jared probably lost my affirmation. Especially when I followed it with musings of my own: "I was really hoping for some time this week to work on an essay for a contest. The deadline is Friday, and I haven't begun . . . unless you count outlines for three different essays I can't really write, after all."
Both of us knew what I meant: "Which night this week could I count on your taking the kitchen clean-up and the kids?"
He didn't respond, and I understood his silence. He wanted to be supportive, but he really couldn't spare any evening. In fact, he was asking an evening of me.
I sighed. It was tempting to throw a conniption fit, but I might have awakened Benson. Besides, I was working on that afterthought goal---the only goal, from all that I'd drafted, that I'd been able to clear with my Manager, and conniption fits were in express violation.
So instead, I took the matter up with Him.
At 2:30 Saturday morning, I flopped beside my bed, folded my hands, and lowered my forehead. "Father in Heaven," I whispered, "I want to enter this essay contest. But Jared needs me to support him at home. I think I should give up the contest. Am I getting this right? Is this Thy will?"
I didn't hear a voice or a see a vision. I still knew His answer was, "Yes."
"I feel like I should give up the essay contest," I mumbled, crawling back into bed.
"I will truly appreciate that," Jared breathed in relief.
"I'm just frustrated," I confided. "There are so many goals I want to accomplish. I've been studying. I've been reading. I was so inspired at our Relief Society goal night. I want to achieve, to learn, to create---yet I run it by the Lord, and the only thing He sanctions, the only goal that comes back to me with His seal of approval is this one---just one: be meek."
I lay there for a minute to let the silence underline my disappointment. "Be meek," I repeated, while Jared nodded into the darkness. "That's it. What will I ever accomplish on that?"
Jared proceeded to extol all things worthy about being meek. He congratulated. He philosophized. He even quoted scripture. But my heart wasn't right, so even Mosiah 3 and Moroni 7 didn't soothe me.
"I'll sleep on it," I finally concluded---a wise enough goal itself, at three o' clock Saturday morning.
Turns out, sleep held the answer.
I dreamt we'd arrived with six stir-crazy sons at what we'd thought would be a five-star hotel. We'd driven all day. Anticipation mounted as we lugged boys and baggage to our room. Visions of spacious surroundings, luxurious furnishings, and an in-room jacuzzi lifted the strain of both baby and hockey bag slung across opposite shoulders.
But shock socked the sugarplum daydreams the instant we opened our door. Sea-green walls---a dull, doctor's-office shade of lily-pond---all but swallowed a shabby, rumpled bed. Little more than a body's width cleared the bed's perimeter. The room's only other feature was one more door in the opposite wall.
I held back another conniption fit; we had a vacation to rescue. I refused to let my reaction distress my family.
"We're tired," I reminded them cheerfully, dumping the hockey bag on to the bed. "Let's just go to sleep, and tomorrow, we'll sort everything out."
Everyone grumbled consent.
Our bladders begged for a bathroom. Holding out hope for the jacuzzi, we unlatched the opposite door, thinking washroom---only to find a larger space crammed with multiple families and beds just like ours.
"Where's the washroom?" we asked a lounging dad when at last we'd organized our outrage into intelligible speech.
"It's just a community toilet. You'll have to get in line."
I gawked at Jared and hissed through my teeth, "How much did we pay for this place?"
"Three hundred sixty dollars."
"What?!" my disbelief sputtered, unrestrained. "Well, can't we get it back?! It would be one thing if it were just us, but our children can't live this way. I'm going to speak with the manager."
I did. In a made-over kitchen-office, painted the same sickly green as our room, I confronted a humble manager with simple, dark, shoulder-length hair. She wore nondescript sweater and blue jeans and looked at me softly as I spoke. She may have been thirty. She may have been me.
"I apologize," I insisted unapologetically, surprised by my unprecedented boldness, "but I cannot afford $360 for this kind of service. We don't even have a private bathroom. I cannot keep my family here. I demand a refund."
She didn't reason, refute, or reprimand. She broke down sobbing and made out a check. She reimbursed me ten extra dollars for my trouble. I concealed the compassion tying knots in my gut.
When I woke, it was seven. Benson was crying, refusing my offer to nurse. It took just a moment to come to my senses and realize I no longer felt incensed but subdued.
My heart heard the Manager's message: "Your plans will cost more than they're worth."
Jared helped the boys with my Saturday chores before he took Ammon and his other eleven-year-old Scouts to the Ridge. I hosted a nephew and took the resulting six boys to the library. After claiming our holds, we tromped two blocks to Phillip's Playground. The sun felt more like March than January, and we climbed up the slides and sailed to Hawaii and ate bananas and granola bars until my nephew had to go.
I never once missed the essay contest.
A few days later, I read President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's January 2014 First Presidency Message. "The best time to plant a tree," he quoted the old proverb, "is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."
I could plant trees in my assets column, saving for acres of raw, rugged nature. I could plant trees entering essay contests and maybe whole forests investing my winnings. But what will I say to the Manager when I feel dissatisfied with all my trees' fruit? How much will so many trees matter if I fail to first plant, "Be meek"?
Jared's words came back to me from Saturday morning's heart-to-heart, and this time my heart was meek enough to embrace Mosiah 3, Moroni 7, and God's other word in between:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).
". . . he will beautify the meek with salvation" (Psalm 149:4).
"Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness" (Zephaniah 2:3).
"The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way" Psalm 25:9.
". . . the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit . . . is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:4).
" And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant . . . thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness" (D&C 25:5).
". . . if they will do this in all lowliness of heart, in meekness and humility, and long-suffering, I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that I will provide for their families" (D&C 118:3).
"And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love" (Moroni 8:26).
" . . . walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me" (D&C 19:23).
" . . . learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:29).
". . . blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (3 Nephi 12:5, Matt. 5:5)
"For none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart" (Moroni 7:44).
Someday, I'll sew those unfinished jean quilts, join a book club, and run a marathon. Someday I may run a corporation. Someday, with revenue raised by my assets, I'll purchase a farm house and plant enough trees for my whole family to climb and sail to Hawaii. Today, I dig a foundation---acceptable to God, if not man. A month late? Perhaps, or maybe twenty years. But the second best time to be meek is now. Twenty years from now when I face myself, may the return on today's investment inspire gratitude rather than anguish.
I'm a month late, you say. Perhaps. Some things take time to percolate.
I guess that's what my goals have been doing all month. I've been reading like Seth does: ravenously. Somewhere between Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the BYU Studies' personal essay contest instructions, I formulated enough aspirations to run a half-marathon and head a corporation, not to mention spend time outdoors daily (Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods), read all twelve titles on Oliver DeMille's book club list, and finish those five un-sewn jean quilts I never could squeeze into Christmas.
And be meek. Almost as an afterthought.
I listed some of these dreams in Sunday School, pondered others at weeknight Relief Society, then bagged all but one in the bedroom at 2:30 last Saturday morning.
"It's going to be a big week for me at work," Jared mused. Neither of us was sleeping. "The double-blind study comes out on the 30th, and we'll have to work hard to capitalize."
I nodded, but it was dark, so Jared probably lost my affirmation. Especially when I followed it with musings of my own: "I was really hoping for some time this week to work on an essay for a contest. The deadline is Friday, and I haven't begun . . . unless you count outlines for three different essays I can't really write, after all."
Both of us knew what I meant: "Which night this week could I count on your taking the kitchen clean-up and the kids?"
He didn't respond, and I understood his silence. He wanted to be supportive, but he really couldn't spare any evening. In fact, he was asking an evening of me.
I sighed. It was tempting to throw a conniption fit, but I might have awakened Benson. Besides, I was working on that afterthought goal---the only goal, from all that I'd drafted, that I'd been able to clear with my Manager, and conniption fits were in express violation.
So instead, I took the matter up with Him.
At 2:30 Saturday morning, I flopped beside my bed, folded my hands, and lowered my forehead. "Father in Heaven," I whispered, "I want to enter this essay contest. But Jared needs me to support him at home. I think I should give up the contest. Am I getting this right? Is this Thy will?"
I didn't hear a voice or a see a vision. I still knew His answer was, "Yes."
"I feel like I should give up the essay contest," I mumbled, crawling back into bed.
"I will truly appreciate that," Jared breathed in relief.
"I'm just frustrated," I confided. "There are so many goals I want to accomplish. I've been studying. I've been reading. I was so inspired at our Relief Society goal night. I want to achieve, to learn, to create---yet I run it by the Lord, and the only thing He sanctions, the only goal that comes back to me with His seal of approval is this one---just one: be meek."
I lay there for a minute to let the silence underline my disappointment. "Be meek," I repeated, while Jared nodded into the darkness. "That's it. What will I ever accomplish on that?"
Jared proceeded to extol all things worthy about being meek. He congratulated. He philosophized. He even quoted scripture. But my heart wasn't right, so even Mosiah 3 and Moroni 7 didn't soothe me.
"I'll sleep on it," I finally concluded---a wise enough goal itself, at three o' clock Saturday morning.
Turns out, sleep held the answer.
I dreamt we'd arrived with six stir-crazy sons at what we'd thought would be a five-star hotel. We'd driven all day. Anticipation mounted as we lugged boys and baggage to our room. Visions of spacious surroundings, luxurious furnishings, and an in-room jacuzzi lifted the strain of both baby and hockey bag slung across opposite shoulders.
But shock socked the sugarplum daydreams the instant we opened our door. Sea-green walls---a dull, doctor's-office shade of lily-pond---all but swallowed a shabby, rumpled bed. Little more than a body's width cleared the bed's perimeter. The room's only other feature was one more door in the opposite wall.
I held back another conniption fit; we had a vacation to rescue. I refused to let my reaction distress my family.
"We're tired," I reminded them cheerfully, dumping the hockey bag on to the bed. "Let's just go to sleep, and tomorrow, we'll sort everything out."
Everyone grumbled consent.
Our bladders begged for a bathroom. Holding out hope for the jacuzzi, we unlatched the opposite door, thinking washroom---only to find a larger space crammed with multiple families and beds just like ours.
"Where's the washroom?" we asked a lounging dad when at last we'd organized our outrage into intelligible speech.
"It's just a community toilet. You'll have to get in line."
I gawked at Jared and hissed through my teeth, "How much did we pay for this place?"
"Three hundred sixty dollars."
"What?!" my disbelief sputtered, unrestrained. "Well, can't we get it back?! It would be one thing if it were just us, but our children can't live this way. I'm going to speak with the manager."
I did. In a made-over kitchen-office, painted the same sickly green as our room, I confronted a humble manager with simple, dark, shoulder-length hair. She wore nondescript sweater and blue jeans and looked at me softly as I spoke. She may have been thirty. She may have been me.
"I apologize," I insisted unapologetically, surprised by my unprecedented boldness, "but I cannot afford $360 for this kind of service. We don't even have a private bathroom. I cannot keep my family here. I demand a refund."
She didn't reason, refute, or reprimand. She broke down sobbing and made out a check. She reimbursed me ten extra dollars for my trouble. I concealed the compassion tying knots in my gut.
When I woke, it was seven. Benson was crying, refusing my offer to nurse. It took just a moment to come to my senses and realize I no longer felt incensed but subdued.
My heart heard the Manager's message: "Your plans will cost more than they're worth."
Jared helped the boys with my Saturday chores before he took Ammon and his other eleven-year-old Scouts to the Ridge. I hosted a nephew and took the resulting six boys to the library. After claiming our holds, we tromped two blocks to Phillip's Playground. The sun felt more like March than January, and we climbed up the slides and sailed to Hawaii and ate bananas and granola bars until my nephew had to go.
I never once missed the essay contest.
A few days later, I read President Dieter F. Uchtdorf's January 2014 First Presidency Message. "The best time to plant a tree," he quoted the old proverb, "is twenty years ago. The second best time is now."
I could plant trees in my assets column, saving for acres of raw, rugged nature. I could plant trees entering essay contests and maybe whole forests investing my winnings. But what will I say to the Manager when I feel dissatisfied with all my trees' fruit? How much will so many trees matter if I fail to first plant, "Be meek"?
Jared's words came back to me from Saturday morning's heart-to-heart, and this time my heart was meek enough to embrace Mosiah 3, Moroni 7, and God's other word in between:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father" (Mosiah 3:19).
". . . he will beautify the meek with salvation" (Psalm 149:4).
"Seek ye the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness" (Zephaniah 2:3).
"The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way" Psalm 25:9.
". . . the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit . . . is in the sight of God of great price" (1 Peter 3:4).
" And the office of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant . . . thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling words, in the spirit of meekness" (D&C 25:5).
". . . if they will do this in all lowliness of heart, in meekness and humility, and long-suffering, I, the Lord, give unto them a promise that I will provide for their families" (D&C 118:3).
"And the remission of sins bringeth meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of meekness and lowliness of heart cometh the visitation of the Holy Ghost, which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect love" (Moroni 8:26).
" . . . walk in the meekness of my Spirit, and you shall have peace in me" (D&C 19:23).
" . . . learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls" (Matt. 11:29).
". . . blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth" (3 Nephi 12:5, Matt. 5:5)
"For none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart" (Moroni 7:44).
Someday, I'll sew those unfinished jean quilts, join a book club, and run a marathon. Someday I may run a corporation. Someday, with revenue raised by my assets, I'll purchase a farm house and plant enough trees for my whole family to climb and sail to Hawaii. Today, I dig a foundation---acceptable to God, if not man. A month late? Perhaps, or maybe twenty years. But the second best time to be meek is now. Twenty years from now when I face myself, may the return on today's investment inspire gratitude rather than anguish.
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