Applicant #39: Mara Sundwall

First Last is a mom from Snoqualmie.

My video application:

A bit about me:

My name is Mara Sundwall, and I’m the semi-neurotic mother of four children, numerous pets, and sometimes even mother to my husband, who often forgets where dirty clothes go and why we don’t drink out of the milk carton. We live in Snoqualmie, Washington. We're here to stay, it's that amazing.

I was born in Colorado and raised in a rowdy pack of eight children. As a family we traversed the globe, living in such extreme places as Africa, Australia, and (wait for it) even Wyoming. My siblings were blessedly imaginative and very entertaining, which softened the blow of moving every few years. Being uprooted on a regular basis gave me ample opportunity to work my way through social anxieties and introversion, thus rendering me wholly fit to openly and unabashedly share my experiences with complete strangers.

I attended college, lived abroad in South Korea for 18 months, and married at age 22. Two months post-honeymoon we were shocked and awed by the news that we were expecting a baby! Note to reader: birth control does not work for everyone.

Kate’s advent one week prior to our first wedding anniversary opened a floodgate for many things in our family. Specifically, our family was flooded with four children in five years. Tanner, Tucker and Kalli each brought with them much satisfacton, many laughs, a large helping of sleep depravity and mounds of laundry.

Not long after the birth of Kalli (#4), I awoke one morning drenched in sweat, the full realization of what we’d done hanging over my head like Eeyore’s rain cloud. We were officially buried in the trenches of parenthood, and it smelled like dirty diapers. I shook off the rain cloud and got to work.

Now, nine years later, I can happily say that the crazy adventure of motherhood has rendered me wiser, more wrinkly, and most of all, much more capable of laughing off encroaching old-age.

Our family owns a running company which hosts numerous events throughout the year. Our kids are instructed regularly in all things finance and business management, as they each have responsibilities for which they are paid. Owning a family business has been a dream of ours, as we want to provide opportunities for our children to experience the real world of work and money.

Mother to two teenagers, a tweener and a nine-year-old self-proclaimed tree hugger, I feel like the experience I’ve gleaned from all the years in the trenches of parenthood has coached me well in this game called life. Cliché, I know, but there it is.

My blog post:

Life’s Little Lessons

One day last summer my husband Sean and I corralled the kids for “Family Day.” (I put that in quotations because we have to officially name the day in order for the kids to realize it’s a day for just our family and no one else.) We headed out to Remlinger Farms in Carnation, a prime raspberry picking venue. The weather was perfect and the kids were itchin’ to pick.

Sean and the two older kids took on one long row of raspberries while, Tuck, Kalli and I headed down the next one. Inner-family conversation was still possible through the raspberry bushes but we were able to make more efficient progress this way, according to my ever-efficient husband.

As we picked berries, I decided it was a prime opportunity to teach my young brood about the inherent allegory of picking the best things in life. We discussed which raspberries were the best ones to pick, which ones weren’t yet ripe and which ones were diseased and rotten, thus to be avoided.

I then asked them how raspberry picking was like picking our friends. Tucker thought for a moment and then said, “You want to pick friends that are ready to be your friends.” And Kalli threw in, “You pick friends that are sweet.”

Sigh. Parental bliss. Check the big “Teach Your Kid Something Valuable Today” box.

It was at this point that things started to unravel. Tucker perked up and added, “You don’t want to pick friends with diseases. And you don’t want to eat your friends.” And Kalli chimed in, “You don’t want to step on your friends or they’ll squish out blood” (She then effectively mashed a raspberry into the dirt with the toe of her flip flop to drive her point home).

My life lesson for the day was decidedly over, but it was not in vain. I believe that for each life lesson I have attempted to teach my children, the greatest lesson was ultimately learned by me. In this case, it was delivered with a sizable helping of humor served up by two kids. I have learned how to love more deeply, forgive more quickly, try new things and give up old habits. But perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned to appreciate, indeed to cherish, the simplicity of the world around me, as well as how thoroughly entertaining truth can be when presented through the eyes (and mouth!) of a child.

Mara