Lauren&Hyrum

I took a break from Christmas last year- well, decorating, at least- because last year was rough, and nobody cared if we had a tree or Christmas stockings.  Russ and I got to play Mary and Baby Jesus in our  Kirton family Christmas Pageant, and that was sweet and beautiful enough to fill Christmas with all the merry and all the bright that we needed. This year, we have spent the autumn-to-winter season having the kitchen and "formal dining room" melded to one shining new unit of culinary mediocrity and party hosting virtuosity.  Due to these extenuations, I can't put stuff on our floors, like couches or plastic trees, so I was going to let it go this year, too.  But I have a talker, and she talked the phrase, "We'll have a Christmas tree... someday..." wistfully enough times that I decided to put a plastic Christmas tree on the little patch of carpet where we spend our lives.  I am not a talented decorator.  I ache to be one, yet I remain a f...

Someone asked me this morning about my experience in New York on September 11, 2001, and I referred him to my blog post , written on the 10th anniversary, because that was the first time I had written about it, or even talked about it much for reasons that I included in the post.  But I just went back and read it and its full of lingering pain of which I have been able to let go, so I would like to write another one- just a short addition to what I wrote and couldn't even title at the time. I'll first just say that I have so much gratitude for that period of my life.  Living in New York City as a kid is exactly like it sounds; exciting, incredible, magical, and sometimes scary, but incomparably empowering.  And, let's not forget, I was a kid. I was 18 and Rachel was 23.  We had a helluva lot of fun.  I worked- there's no other way to survive, obviously- but came up short on my half of the rent a few times, and Rachel was always there for me.   We h...

Hi.  I am Lauren, and I have postpartum depression. Wait!  Before you make that face (you know the one with the big dinner-plate puppy eyes and worried sad-mouth)  I'm doing very well. [Drumming my fingers on the key board] c;osdldnlwfgnuiehovnaeoivo...  Where do I begin? How about this:  I know that I have postpartum depression, because one night when Russell was crying and wouldn't stop, and it was hours until morning and it had been hours since I'd slept and weeks since I'd slept more than 3 hours at a time, I lifted him to shake him. That's how I know. It had also been at least a week since I'd slept in my bed at all because Russ wouldn't sleep unless I was holding him so I was sleeping in our Lazyboy.  My neck was all messed up from waking up on my own shoulder, so when I lifted to shake him and simultaneously flipped my hair out of my eyes,  something happened in my neck that felt like I had been electrocuted and paralyzed.  ...

The babies are both sleeping. 90 minutes ago, I couldn't have said that.  90 minutes ago, both of my children were enthusiastically "crying it out".  We are all exhausted, but when they wake up, everybody is going to feel a lot better. Its been a rough month.  I woke up on Thanksgiving with the kind of sore throat that you know isn't kidding around, and I'm... let's see-*sniff, sniff*- yep! breathing clear for the first time since that day.  I got some awful virus and it turned into a nasty sinus infection, and I got everyone else sick.  Heaven help me, I love kisses. But today, ahhhh! today... The babies are asleep.  I've slept a combined 10ish hours in my bed in the last 2+ weeks, and instead have been half-sleeping in our lazy boy while holding Russ.  This brings me back to "crying it out", and my utter bliss that comes from my little ones in peaceful slumber- no matter how forced. We went to Hawaii as a (Kimsey) family, and it was...