Category: Adventurous kids
Quiet Paige is Formidable
As Paige is graduating this week, I thought I’d share one of my essays about her from my memoir project.
Quiet Paige is Formidable
When Paige was four or five years old, she was part of a class of children in church with two darling teachers, Katrina Kuriplach and Lisa Stott. One day during the lesson the children were challenged to pick up a penny without using their thumbs. This task was designed to be impossible, perhaps to point out the amazing design of our bodies. Children took turns coming to the front of the room and tried to pick up the penny with only their fingers, but each failed. Quiet, hesitant Paige surprised them all when she walked up to the penny, brushed it off the book without using her thumbs, and caught it with her other hand when it fell.
When Paige was three, she dressed up for Halloween as Mary Poppins. Our neighbors’ daughter Kaitlyn was her best friend. We went trick-or-treating together as families and watched our little girls run ahead of us to the next house. Kaitlyn’s mother took the opportunity to tell me that Kaitlyn had tried to get Paige to dress in a coordinating costume. Kaitlyn was a blue dog, and she wanted Paige to be the pink dog. (Blue and Magenta from the show, Blues Clues) However, Kaitlyn’s mother said that Paige would have nothing to do with the idea. “Paige is independent and strong-willed,” she told me. I had worried that Paige’s silent nature might mean a life of getting pushed around by others, and this was a welcome insight!
I have learned from having a quiet child and being quiet myself that it’s possible to have strength, resilience, and ingenuity while being quiet. It is an important day when someone will acknowledge that.
At age eight when Paige was interviewed by our bishop for baptism, I received a call from the bishop telling me that he had been impressed by Paige’s answers to his questions about the gospel. He told me that it was a “Charlie Brown” moment in his life. He had become the adult whose words were muddled and unimportant as Paige’s clear and profound answers became the focus and highlight of the conversation. Many years later when we were living in Arizona, this bishop wrote to me,
Paige remains the most amazing baptism interview of my Bishop career…she left an indelible impression of goodness and purpose… Her light reflects her intrinsic beauty, value and a maturity far beyond her mortal years… Her understanding of and her insight into our Father’s Plan of Happiness leaves her untroubled with the ‘Do’s and Don’t’s’ of the commandments… While I may no longer recognize her in a crowd, I will love her forever.
Seminary graduate
Paige graduated from seminary this weekend. She was asked to play a piano solo and she did a beautiful job. She began her seminary journey in Arizona in early morning classes and ended it in a huge high school seminary in the Salt Lake Valley.
Art show and retrospective
Paige has been gracious to let me post these.
We have a winner in the school election at our house! It will be a good thing for Timothy to serve his school next year. He is smart, dependable, and precise. He’s tall, handsome, and adventurous. His best friend returned from his year-long trip around the world, so happy days are here for Tim this summer.
Daniel took off this year in many new directions, from student government to robotics, becoming a fan of English grammar exercises and hosting the first teen parties at our house. Daniel is a good driver, a great friend, and people can count on him to get things done, even if it’s moving 2,000 pounds of Mason jars 6 times for Prom. 🙂
Mark delights me with the things he says. Sometimes brutally honest, always insightful, and very often funny, conversations with him have been a joy. He’s grown so much, his legs no longer having the soft lines of childhood, but the long bones and prominent knees of an older boy. His permanent teeth have grown in this year, and the whistle in his speech is disappearing.
We attended Paige’s senior awards night this week. She was honored for having a 4.0 cumulative GPA and received a scholarship and other awards. Because of our unconventional choice to home school, Paige needed to make up a year’s worth of high school credit if she wished to graduate. Colleges are great about accepting home school students, whether they graduate or not, but she decided to go for the diploma. She did 4 years of high school work in 3 years, 95% of the makeup work being done during her senior year. She has a summer job and is off to BYU in the fall. It’s a time of celebration for Paige this week. We are so very proud of her.
Band concert
Timothy is a member of the school jazz band and beginning band. When he stood up to play an improv solo I felt a flutter of nervousness for him. Silly me, he was fine. Richard’s parents were in town and saw the concert, too. How nice.
Mr. Vought, the middle school band and orchestra teacher whom we love is leaving to work at a high school next year. We are so sad to lose him. He made middle school more bearable. Our boys called him a favorite. Now I know why people write sentimental songs about band leaders. Maybe I need to go listen to some.
Looking back and looking forward
Last night we planned to take down the Boy Scout flags that were up in our neighborhood for Memorial Day, but another family did it for us! We were thankful because Timothy was busy finishing his student body officer campaign video.
We gathered for a quick family home evening lesson and I asked the family to make a list of the top ten events of the school year.
- Timothy became a trombone player.
- Daniel served as a class officer.
- Paige was accepted to three colleges and was offered scholarships, but we are most excited that she will be going to BYU.
- Paige and Daniel played keyboards in the musical, Les Miserables.
- Mark read the Harry Potter series twice.
- Paige will graduate from Jordan High next week.
- Richard and I celebrated 20 years of marriage.
- We participated in the musical, From Cumorah’s Hill.
- Mark was home schooled and worked hard in Cub Scouts.
- The kids memorized pieces to perform for ensemble and solo piano federation events.
We set some summer goals after remembering all the work that has gone into the school year. We don’t want our summer to be wasted. I asked each family member to make two goals: a daily goal and a Sunday goal to work on this summer.
I read some quotes by Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy:
There is no room for average or complacent disciples. Average is the enemy of excellence, and average commitment will prevent you from enduring to the end.
Let me be clear: to “hang in there” is not a principle of the gospel. Enduring to the end means constantly coming unto Christ and being perfected in him.
I look forward to school getting out and having some new areas of focus.
What does it take to have music like that in my home?
Daniel and Paige played piano in public this week. Someone leaned over to me and asked what it takes to have kids play music like that in my home.
I deferred to Paige to tell the woman how long she’s studied piano, and I started thinking about “what it took” to get where we are now. My mind kept going back to the financial aspect of it as I drove away from the event in my 16-year-old van (which I love). Every month, instead of a car payment, we pay a piano teacher. Can a person learn to play piano with a less expensive teacher? Of course! But we wanted the opportunities a professional teacher could offer. We invested in a grand piano in 2007. The kids love this instrument and it is fun to play. This helps them want to practice. Can a person learn to play beautifully on an upright piano? Of course! For our family, having this piano in a music room has been a symbol of our commitment to music and this commitment has become part of our family culture. As for incentives for practicing, we don’t allow media time until the kids have practiced. That’s been a great motivator for the boys.
Besides the financial investment, there is an investment of time. By no means do I resent the money and time we have spent, but I started calculating how much time we have given for music study. Richard taught Paige for two years. I spend one afternoon a week shuttling kids to and from piano lessons. I’ve done that for 10 years. On piano lesson days, I don’t try to do anything that requires focused attention. I’ll fold laundry between lessons or do little projects around the house, but then it’s time to get in the car again. I have no idea how many hours I’ve spent driving. Piano lessons always go over time, so I wait. Waiting 20-30 minutes a week for 10 years means that I’ve spent over 200 hours sitting in the van waiting for the kids to finish piano lessons. Who knows how many hours I’ve spent waiting at ensemble rehearsals, judging events, and recitals. I read while I wait, so it’s nice. And then there is the time that I am home, monitoring practice, or making sure that it happens. I’m grateful that I am home to do this. Is our method the only way to produce great musicians? No! But every hour, every dollar, and every sacrifice is worth it “to have music like that in our home.”
Mark on the Move; Mom on the Floor
Mark is studying energy in science class. The information seeps into everyday conversations and is a new lens through which I see things. I’ll look at a photo and think, that’s a great example of mechanical energy, or, that trampoline has too much potential energy for that group of kids trying to jump on it together. Mark received a rubber band car for his birthday, and Richard pointed out that this would be a great energy experiment. All I could feel was gratitude that I didn’t need to come up with a science lab this week.
Timothy forgot his gym clothes yesterday and by some miracle I noticed it. I ran them down to the school and left them in the office. The receptionist added his name to a LONG list of students who would be called to the office to retrieve their forgotten work. One of the receptionists said that it was an especially “forgetful” day at the school and the office had seen a long stream of parents that morning, and it was only 8:30. It’s no wonder we forget things these days. There’s too much to remember.
HOW many more days until the schools relent on their activities and baseball comes to an end? WHY does the middle school think that it’s a good time to hold student body elections? We have to produce a video… immediately?! I’m trying to peel myself off the floor this morning and face this day. I wish I could handle this busy time, but I can’t. I canceled violin lessons yesterday and read the Bible instead. I couldn’t do another thing. I’m mostly okay with that decision. Mostly. 🙂
First Class
Timothy received his First Class Rank this week. Richard prepared a great slideshow for the Court of Honor showing the activities from the last six months. This is going to be a fun couple of years with Richard and Timothy going on Scout camps together.
Hoover
When Timothy was younger, his coach in Arizona gave him the nickname of “Hoover vacuum cleaner” because he scooped up baseballs so well. He is still a ball-stopping machine as catcher and first baseman. I’ve heard a coach say that he is the best catcher among the city teams. He’s also a great first base player.
He’s also a consistent, strong hitter. More than that, I like to watch Timothy play baseball because he seems to have a good time doing it. He smiles, shakes off rough innings, and keeps a positive attitude. I love that quality in Timothy.
Richard is an assistant coach on Timothy’s team and Mark plays baseball at a different park on the same evenings. I’ve only been able to see Timothy play twice this season, but I’ve been to all of Mark’s games. We blinked and now baseball season is almost over. Wow, it’s been a quick one.
Time is something we can’t slow down, and it’s in the spring that I feel this the most. It’s Timothy’s last spring playing baseball. It’s Paige’s last month of high school. These moments are sifting through my fingers and I try to chase them and hold them down by describing them with words before they wander away on the wind.