A dividing line

Malachi pretending he doesn't like this dog (Poppy)

This post could be about "the line that runs between good and evil in every human heart." But it isn't. It's just I've been thinking about times that happen in our lives where there's a certain hard line which seems like "before" and "after." Before you have a baby and after. Before and after a child turns 3, or 8, or 16.  Before and after Christmas. Before school starts and after it ends. Leading up to those lines of division, you think things like, "Next time I change the sheets on this bed, it will be after I've had the baby." Or "Last time I made brownies, we were still getting ready for school to start." In the days and weeks leading up to us leaving for our sabbatical, it seems like my every thought has been along those lines! "This is the last time I'll do this before we go." "Next time I do this it will be in a new place." 

But it's also strange to think about the befores and afters I can't anticipate. Sometimes they're sad to look back on: "I remember doing this same thing last month. That was before [spiritually life-shaking event] happened. I never knew it was coming." Occasionally they are happier: "Last month at this time I still feared I'd never feel better again. Now I do." But either way it's so strange to think that at any given time, we might be living on either side of a dividing line. Of course that would be clear if someone died! But I'm not even talking about drastic events like that. Just small things like holding hands with one of your kids who then decides he's too big to hold hands. Or getting released from a calling and suddenly not doing the things you've been doing for it every week. You may not even notice things have changed until years later when you look back and think, "Oh yeah! We used to go to the park every Tuesday!" or "That's strange, I had forgotten what Daisy looked like with glasses."

Well anyway. I'm back-dating this post and dumping all the pictures before we left on our sabbatical trip. And, now that the dividing line has passed, it already feels weird to look at them again, even though it was just last month! This little group of pictures has another layer of strangeness because we found a box of my old dresses from high school and college, and I had the girls try them on, and they basically ALL fit them! On this particular Sunday, all three girls happened to wear a dress that used to belong to me! It was so familiar and yet so unfamiliar to see them! Daisy looks the most like me, I think, but I kept looking at all of them and thinking, "Is that how I looked in those dresses? Was that really so long ago?"

It was also funny because I sent these pictures to my mom and she wrote back, "Oh, such cute dresses! Did you sew them? I have some fabric almost like that in my cupboard." I was like "Mom!…YOU sewed these dresses. That's why you still have the fabric." As if I could sew any of these! You would think my mom would know better😄

This dress was my favorite! I loved it so much! I wore it for my senior pictures at Provo High, and for graduation too, I think.

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The kids stayed overnight at my mom's for the 4th (or on the 3rd, I guess) of July. They had fun seeing the hot air balloons and going to the parade. We went and joined them for swimming and dinner and fireworks later in the day.

We got out the American Flag dress and stuffed Clementine into it for one more year, because why not? (Last time one of my daughters wears the flag dress??😥)

Fun to see Gus playing with the little lawnmower Abe and Seb and Malachi used to love so much.

A few days later I was driving home from the store or somewhere and passed by these cuties siting out on the lawn. "We're watching the parade!" they told me.

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Even with me telling him several times that it might be too hard to fit it in, and maybe he should wait until next year, Seb insisted that he wanted to take Ziggy and Gus on an airplane flight before we left for Quebec. Finally, only a few days before we were to leave, he found one that worked with everyone's schedule: a quick flight to Las Vegas and then back a few hours later, getting home around 11 pm. Zig and Gus were out of their minds with excitement! They packed up their little backpacks with snacks and a stuffed animal and set off with Seb. They got to ride Trax to the airport, which just added to the joy of it all.

A couple weeks before this, Seb found these stuffed airplanes (!!!) somewhere and bought one for each boy. They are so funny! Zig's is a UPS plane. And Gus's favorite airplanes are Spirit airplanes (because they are bright yellow, which is a "Caw Color" I guess? I don't know why he didn't choose Southwest, which is all of the Caw Colors, but thus it is) and Spirit was, not coincidentally, also the airline they were going to fly on!

They rode the train to Salt Lake with great excitement. It was a good thing they left early, because the train ended up breaking down and they had to change trains, take a bus to another line, and catch another train to get to the airport! All very exciting for the little boys, but more stressful for the adult who is trying to make the flight on time! They got there with time to spare, though.

Here is their plane coming in to the airport! (They weren't on it yet. But Seb texted me from the airport saying "it's flying over the house!")

Gussie wasn't scared a bit (he told me afterwards). Just purely excited. Zig was a little nervous, but "then I ended up loving it! And now I want to go again so bad!"

Seb said everyone on the airplane was SO nice to the little boys. It probably helped that Gus was proudly carrying his little stuffed Spirit airplane in his arms😄. They got to sit in the cockpit, and the flight attendants talked to them and brought them extra snacks. So fun!

Seb said Ziggy read the in-flight safety card over and over again, wanting to talk it over and ask questions about it and be reassured about each little part. He is SO much like Sebby as a little boy! It's fitting, I guess, for Seb to get to be around him and see what it was like for us when he was little! So cute, so earnest, so interested in how everything works! There's another thing I didn't see the end of before it was suddenly past me. When did Seb stop being that eager, slightly apprehensive, smart little boy? He has parts of him still. But he's become someone else as well.

Gus's favorite part was the take-off. "We went like this!" he laughed joyfully, tilting his hand sideways, as he told me about it. 

Such a fun, memorable trip for these little men. They will never forget this fun day with their big brother Sebastian!

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This beautiful sunrise greeted me when I got up one morning. And an even more welcome sight than the sunrise…

…these little worker bees getting an early start on their weeding. (Last time before we left for Quebec!)

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Here we are cleaning. Always cleaning. We were working SO hard those last few weeks!

Clementine put on Malachi's old Birdie costume, got her stuffed chicken, and then proclaimed delightedly, "We match!" They did.

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Came home from our date night one night to find this going on. The girls had turned on music and told the little ones to dance together while the big kids cleaned the kitchen. They were having quite a merry time!

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Gnomes

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Daisy by our neighbors' daisies

And the girls playing with their friend Cora 

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The actual, very last day before we left, Seb said he wanted to do something with all the little kids. I could tell all month that he was feeling very sad about their upcoming departure, which in itself is a little miracle. And then he kept making such valiant efforts to be kind and make happy memories with them even though he was so busy and working night shifts at the airport every night, which was also amazing. We already had the van all packed to bursting, and I was trying to pre-cook meals for the cooler and clean the last things, but at the last minute I decided to go with Seb to take the kids out for ice cream and to the splash pad. Their swimming suits were packed, so I told them "just get your clothes wet! It will be fine!"

I was glad I took the time to go with Seb. It was the first time in weeks I'd just sat still and watched the kids and enjoyed being with them. Seb was feeling nostalgic and so was I! We were both near tears a few times, sitting there thinking about the past and the future while Zig and Gus pretended to be airplanes and Clementine threw Gus's shoe eagerly into the water over and over again to watch it float.

Some friends in the ward, bless them, had invited our whole family over to dinner that night so we wouldn't have to worry about cooking and cleaning up the night before we left. So eventually we packed up the wet kids and headed home for dinner and last-minute tasks and finally a nervous and excited sleep. Seb left for work at midnight, but not before he woke every single sibling up to give them hugs and say goodbye. And so ended a whole host of good things on that side of the dividing line!