Welcome Home Welcome Mat!!!

Well now, I just don't think you are gonna believe this.

A story for you:

This story begins three days after moving into our new condo when we lovingly placing our welcome mat at our new home entrance. Now this welcome mat, though it may look simple, actually has special value to Tim and I. You see, we couldn't find a welcome mat that we liked for the longest time after we got married. We searched at every store we passed through. One day, there it was. Classy, sophisticated, bushy for good shoe-scraping, and of course the inviting word thereon: Welcome. We loved our welcome mat. Or should we say, we didn't know how much we loved it until it was gone.

One day, three days after moving in, we walked up to our new door and what? Our welcome mat was gone! Where in the world could it be? I felt so violated! I searched the condo wondering if we had been robbed. Alas, nothing was gone but our dear welcome mat.

This needs its own paragraph:

Who takes a welcome mat? Especially one that says "Welcome"?!?

Violated. Unwelcomed.

That did not mean "You are welcome to take me, oh ye who covets this welcome mat."

This violated, and former welcomer, started to do some investigation. The clues unfold.

#1. Tim had noticed that the kiddie corner condo had had the same welcome mat. The kiddie corner people had moved out earlier that day. Had they seen our welcome mat and thought they dropped it at our door and put it in their moving truck? Perhaps so. We try to give people the benefit of the doubt.

We go with that until clue #2 unfolds.

#2. I knock on our "across the breezeway" neighbors door and ask her if she has any ideas. Did she see our welcome mat?

"Oh yeah. That apartment (the kiddie corner apartment) had both mats at their doorstep stacked one on top of the other. The same doormats, two of them. My husband and I were wondering what they needed two doormats for...Yeah. They took your doormat."

...

ROBBED! Full on robbed. By a former university football player that I know you all know, no less. And his beautiful wife that is actually my little brother's best friend's ex-girlfriend. Ha! I guess they wanted to welcome people into their new home from every point of access, with matching welcome mats, at whatever the cost.

I take action. I asked the new women moving in to the kiddie corner apartment if she could ask the people that just moved out if they ended up with an extra doormat. This she did. EIGHT WEEKS AGO.

Eight weeks pass, and let me tell you, I told Tim, at least on a weekly basis, how much I missed our welcome mat. How my front door aura just wasn't the same without the word "Welcome" anywhere in sight. How I had seen some at Pier 1 that were cute...but they weren't our dear welcome mat we searched out for so long as newlyweds. We had put up our industrial doormat there, and Tim kept telling me we didn't "need" another mat. That maybe I "wanted" one, but we didn't "need" one. (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know already! But I need!)

I had given up hope. Yes I had. And this "non-needer" was trying to get used to the commercial doormat we had substituted that makes our condo look like it is a real estate office.

THEN TODAY!!! Oh today. What a beautiful day. Here she comes. The beautiful ex-BYU football player's wife. The ex-girlfriend of my little brother's former best friend, who married my little's brother's ex-girlfriend of three years, which two people were the only non-immediate family at my brother's setting apart of his mission who ended up marrying each other. Oh the triangle/pentagon/quadrangle of love.

I see her carrying up my blessed welcome mat to her old condo's door! "That's mine!," I silently scream.

Had guilt driven her here to return our proverbial and overmissed material possession?

At just the right moment our pathways intertwined.

I watch her place the mat down and walk away.

I go to my mat. It had been battered and abused, but yes, still there it was. And contemplate on whether I steal it back! Or explain the situation so that I too do not become an alleged thief.

I called to her hesitantly. "Ma'am. Did you just place that mat there?"

I'll spare you the details. But I decided to explain. It was awkward. We laughed it off.

...

I can't believe it. I truly cannot believe it.

Welcome home welcome mat! We have a place for you, right here.

Realizations

Aren't you thankful for those moments, those moments of realizations in your life when you can't keep the tears from coming, and you wonder if you are the only one that tears up at 1:21 pm just because you are looking at your offspring and realizing. Today I spent some valuable hours trying to perfect my cookie baking skills. Thanks to my cousin Emily I am a lot closer than I was yesterday. My iPod was on random. Emily ran to tennis practice and I was on my own with my little one. I did way too many dishes, by hand, and the songs on random kept coming. I danced my heart out for my son to Step Up, sang my soul through to a Kenny Loggins lullaby, cried my way through a song I used to listen to on my mission, and pondered throughout a conference talk. My son, my one man audience, thought I was the best dancer, singer, and mother ever. And then the realization. I have a kitchen. Period. Then a kitchen full of so many gadgets it takes three songs to clean them all. A home. Flour and sugar. MUSIC. And my family. I can dance at will, and it is wonderful. I am truly blessed. And that is something to tear up about.

Just Photos

Our dear friends, Brock and Lindsay, welcoming baby Dane.

Trent with Aunt Miranda.

Sitting up.

My motherly instincts are coming out. I have started to bake!

ONE TALL BOY.
We are constantly receiving comments that Trent is one tall boy. For this week's example:
The boy behind Trent is 14 months. Trent is six.

Life As We Know It

Well apparently, life as we know it has changed. This is what "they" say.

Trent has started scooting.

Why is it that my boy has managed to grow up so much faster than a baby should? He came into this world at the speed of light and wants to grow up that way too? The boy's had four haircuts. He was holding his head up from day one, standing on his feet after a month, is now sitting up, and apparently crawling is just a blink away. Babyproof time! Or childproof time I should say, since maybe he's not a baby anymore? The sand in my baby's hourglass has started to fall, too quickly.

I am thankful for photos to treasure the "small" times I can already barely remember.