the mama

Tween!

2012-01-23T18:56:00.000-08:00

It's finally behaving a little like January, what with the snow and ice and such.... so today I threw Henry in the van to pick up Pearl from Kindy-garten. On the drive home I go over the rules for when I go get my hair done. I go to the same lady who's been doing my hair for about nine years now, she's in our congregation at church, and she has a salon in the basement of their split-level home. It has been in this home that all four of my kids have had their first real haircuts.

It so happens that her six year old daughter is in Pearl's Kindy class, and they have been having some great play dates. In the past they mostly just ignored each other or played around each other when I went for a hair appointment, but I could see that now they will probably continue one of their epic LPS games... and Pearl might be invited to range past the playroom and into the upstairs where the rooms are.

"So.. I expect you to stay out of their kitchen. And don't go into her brother's rooms or her sister Myra's room. OK?"

"OK, mama." She pauses, thinking, "Her sister is a teenager, huh, mama?"

"Yes, she is. She would not appreciate you guys messing with her stuff."

"Is Birdie a teenager?"

"No, not yet. She won't be a teenager for three years or so."

"Oh! That's right! Birdie is a..." I'm driving so I cannot actually see her furrowed brow as she searches her memory, but I know she's got that look. "Birdie is a... uh... a TWINKLE!"

The heck? "Oh! You mean a TWEEN!? Technically she'll be a tween when she turns ten."

Huh. I think I like "twinkle" better.

Cake!

2011-12-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

The cakes I have made since last Feb....

Lilac turned seven, she had a Zhu Zhu Pet Party.

Blue and Gold celebration for the Cubs.

Pearl turned six in November, she had a Monster High party.

Henry had himself a Digger Truck party... and turned three. I cheated just a little, and made him a dirt-cake in one of his dump trucks. Those are some darling little orange cone candles and gummy worms. So that sorta makes up for it.

Well HE loved it!

...we had a little Thanksgiving dinner for just our family the day before the usual TG. Mostly so's we could have some leftover turkey and taters. But also to make up for everyone but me having to miss my mom's early TG, due to a whole household worth of the barfs. It's fun to have a formal table every now and again!

Nuts!

2011-12-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

I have been eating gluten free for around a month and a half. The reasons I have gone GF are complicated, medical and sort of boring. And confusing. To my knowledge I am not exactly a Celiac... but I am not exactly not a Celiac. Confusing.

And if you are not me... boring.

If you are me, then it just is a new sort of reality. One that I was not entirely sure was doing me any particular good. Until today.

Backstory: I am not new to the "dietary restriction" world. I have been a little allergic to tree nuts most of my life, and ever since my early twenties, I have been really allergic to raw nuts. Itchy throat and mouth, swelling, mucous, general unpleasantness.

Upon reflection, I now realize that the increased level of tree nut allergy started around the same time as the lactose intolerance. And the arthritis.

Holy peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Even if you are me, this is BORING.

So one of the things people have been assuring me, is that after eating GF for a while, that I will be able to have dairy without the intolerance reaction.... that perhaps even the tree nut allergy will go away.

My response to that? I'd rather have bread than milk any day of the week, so why would I make that trade? I would rather have cookies than ice cream, hands down.

I went GF in the end, because I hoped I could get the arthritis under control and be able to run again. I would trade bread, and cookies, and cake, soups with a roux, and white vinegar to be able to do that. Apparently I will even trade flour tortillas. Y'all. Seriously.

So I have been GF, and the only thing that I have been able to see that has happened is that I had to give up doing Weight Watchers. Between all of my dietary restrictions and the Points Plus counting, that is just tooooo much brain power spent on thinking about food.

For a short time I thought that the arthritis was backing off, so I stopped taking my meds. But it turned out to be just a fluke, or wishing or whatever. I am back on the meds.

Aaaaanyway. Are those tears of boredom I see rolling down your face? You must be family to stick with a post this tedious. I will give you the upshot before you disown me... I haven't tried any milk yet. Pretty scared to, if ya wanna know the truth. But I ate the following this afternoon with NO reaction:

2 raw almond

1 raw filbert

1 raw brazil nut

MORE than enough to have me hacking and clawing my eyes out. Normally. And I had no reaction. Zip. Nada.

Am I thrilled beyond belief that I can eat raw tree nuts now?

Meh. S'ok.

Am I thrilled beyond belief that I am seeing what I now believe is the first of several health benefits? Heck to the YEAH! I am hoping for a cease-fire in the pain department. Please. Oh, please!

Plus, I think I will try this pie crust!

Star

2011-11-30T07:36:00.000-08:00

"My mission president (I never know if that should be capitalized?) once told us missionaries that there are two kinds of people:
Folks who walk into the room with the sense of "Here I am!"
and then there are the folks who walk in to the room with the sense of "THERE you are!"

Then he invited us to decide for ourselves which kind Jesus was.

Also, this most definitely falls under the "just do it till it works" header. If you don't like the "fake it till you make it" saying, then think of it in terms of tithing. I think it was President Hinkley who said if you want a testimony of tithing, first you have to pay the tithing and then the testimony will follow. You have to first do the activities of a "there you are" person, then you become one."

I just left the above as a comment to this post.... and I deeply regret leaving it. Not because it is untrue, but because is comes off as preachy and ass-vicey... and it's incomplete.

The interesting thing is that as the mission president was talking about the latter kind of person, I recalled a friend of mine from back-in-the-day who exemplified this sort of behavior. I didn't just recall him, turns out I flat cannot think about what it means to be a "There you are" person whith out hearkening back to this guy. His name is Mark, and I am actually still in touch with him via FecesBook... only now he is a Karaoke (DJ? MC? Host?) in the Denver bar scene, and he goes by Mark Star-mijo. The man has not been able to run a quick errand in his life, he always knows someone or meets someone everywhere he goes.

You find Christlike attributes where ya find them.

He sees you, and you have his full attention and he wants to know how you have been and what is going on. He wants to figure out what make you you and he somehow communicates that he thinks "you" are great! As far as I could see by watching him in action, that went for pretty much anyone that cropped up on his radar, not just females.

Except when he was drugging hard he was this way and from the sounds of this article, he's back to his amazing "THERE you are" activity.... and I am glad. And as far as his ability to interact with people and SEE them and HEAR them... well... I wanna be like Mark when I grow up.

A Minecraft Birthday!

2011-02-09T11:32:00.001-08:00

So my baby Birdie turned 9 just last week, and she wanted to have a Minecraft themed birthday party. Minecraft is a computer game that is all kinds of fun, her new obsession, and the source of several very important life lessons for her. Maybe, if she gives me permission, I will tell y'all that tale... but suffice it to say, she got a good lesson in giving out info online, Griefers, using her mama's YouTube account without permission, and general Internet safety and protocol. Luckily, no actual damage was done during the experiencing of those lessons, and I am quite frankly glad to have had that lesson so well learned at such a relatively low cost.

Anyways... the Bird-day! First off, the invitations: the top looked like this...

That's a Creeper, one of the monsters that you battle in-game. It hisses, then it blows you up. This is clever, I promise.

The inside of the card said:

My name is Birdie, I am turning 9!

You are invited to my party

being held in a Mine.

We will battle spiders and zombies

and creepers so sneaky

we will eat cake and slime balls

you might think it's geeky

but it's really a

MINECRAFT PARTY!

Next, even though in the game Minecraft, you can actually make a cake that looks like this, what she wanted was a Creeper Cake, so after much planning and research I made one. It took three 9x13 cakes, and two batches of buttercream frosting to do the job... but I did it!

(Pearl loves Creepers too! Especially French Vanilla Creepers!)

I used a can of spray-on food coloring to make the subtle block pattern on the frosting, and a little bit of store bought fondant dyed black for the face and toes. The homemade fondant tastes so much better, but I was already up to my ears in stuff to do.

Next I used some electrical tape to turn our kitchen table into a Minecraft "Crafting Table" where the cake was consumed and also where the kids made their "sword", "pick", and "torch" for using down in the "mine."

(also pictured are an example of a pick and sword)

Let me tell you how the party went.... Yes. You do get the blow-by-blow account because I am excruciatingly proud of this party that was a labor of love by all of us in Chaos, mostly Birdie and I.

First, the guests gathered, and since not every one on the planet knows what the heck Minecraft is (the game is still in it's Beta mode) we let the kids watch a short, introductory clip about how to survive your first night in the game. The clip also was a good explanation for how the party proceeded. First, we had them go into the kitchen where they harvested a block of wood (a piece of brown paper from the "trees" on the wall), which they then took to the crafting table to trade for a packet that included a cardboard pick head, a cardboard sword and four craft sticks.

They covered the pick and sword in foil and then we "crafted" the items using the covered cardboard forms and some of the sticks with tape and leaving one "stick" left over.

Next we went to the "coal" pinata that I had made by filling an empty Costco size Cheerio box with crumpled black paper bits of "coal" and some packs of Poprocks, just for funsies. (Hint: next time I would skip the poprocks! Messy! Garrr!) Since it is February and cold as the dickens out there, we tried to minimise the damage of doing this indoors, and so did not blindfold the kids for this activity!

(the green box is a Zombie Helmet used for Zombie Tag)

Afterward, the kids traded their last stick and their bit of "coal" for a dollarstore flashlight and some batteries. Viola! Torch! And the kids got to use all these items for the party and take them home as well.

Next, we tanked them all up on cake and milk drunk from silver cups (metal minecraft buckets), and green slime balls (scoops of lime sherbet) to replenish all of our energy and "life" before we ventured downstairs to "mine" and "do battle" with the monsters down there.

There was Zombie Tag, Pin the Skull On the Skeleton and Spider Races.

(Birdie made the Skeleton game herself!)

Open gifts.

Lots of leftover cake.

The End.

Except for Lilac's birthday party that is next week. Zhu Zhu Pets. Whuf.

I did it... yes, I did.

2011-01-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

Soooo.... we got a very lovely couch and chair combo. Wanna see 'em?

Second hand. Beautiful. Amazing condition. Priced right...

...and we cannot get the sofa down the stairs to the family room, cannot even fit it through the door at the very top. On the flip-side... we are gonna be needing a couch to replace the one we currently have upstairs, it's a loaner from my folks who will be coming home some time in Aug or Sept. But that's a pretty looong time to live with that many big couches in the front room. But it looks like that's exactly what we are going to do. Yay.

Will I sell the couch and chair? Are you CRAZY!? I love those things!

All of which does nothing to solve the problem of seating in the basement. Sigh. Looks like it's time for us to get comfy on the carpet.

I am considering the cheap leather-ish (bonded leather?) sectional that comes in a couple of pieces so that we could slide them downstairs and put them together and then never move them again. Ever.

Unfortunately "cheap" is still $700. On top of the $450 we just dropped on our early replacement couch (and chair) for upstairs. NO T MADE OF MONEY here, people!

I did the following too, and that's all the segue ya get:

The other night I walked around the corner to the hallway to discover Lilac trying to teach Birdie how to climb the hallway walls by propping her hands and feet spread eagle on each opposing wall. Seriously, the girl can apparently wedge herself all the way up to touch the ceiling.

OBVIOUSLY the thing to do is stop such dangerous and potentially destructive behavior. But I could hear the note in Birdie's voice, and easily see the way she was "trying" to learn to do this climby/wedgie thing. I could see that she didn't trust her own body or ability to learn this. Like she "couldn't" do it, so she was sort of flailing about and getting frantic, and feeling like a failure. This bugged me more than the footprints that Lilac was leaving on my walls, so I ... ahem... well I coached Birdie a little.

Yeah. I encouraged my kid to learn to climb the walls. Whaddah schmuck I am! In any case she DID learn and now I have all kinds of sizes of footie-prints all down the hallway walls.

Whatevs. Better than boogers, and I have wiped more than my fair share off the hallway walls, so I know of whence I speak.

Witty and Newsy (newsy anyhows)

2011-01-18T15:06:00.000-08:00

Well, fiddle-dee-dee! Turns out I was dreaming, and the blog fairy did NOT, in fact, visit my blog with witty and newsy posts!

I could have SWORN that she wrote one about how the very next day after that last post, everything got warmish and huge amounts of that snow melted off, filling up one of our window wells. Was only by dint of some hard and ickky labor by Birdie and myself, combined with much hopping about and yapping like lap-dogs by the rest of the crew that we did not flood out again.

Around about the time that Birdie announced that she couldn't fill, tote or dump one single more bucket of gravel, or help with one more shop-vac full of murky water that one of our Home Teachers knocked on our door with a plate of holiday cookies in his hand. I was pretty bushed too, and I really didn't want to call Dadguy home early because he was struggling at work to finish up some things that HAD to be done before he could take off for Christmas, so I asked poor Brother C to help. I swear though... fifteen to twenty minutes later the well stopped filling, whether the supply had started to freeze up again for the night or whatevs.... just glad it did.

******************************************

Christmas was wonderful, and while I am glad it's over, I am a little perturbed at Santa Clause for not giving me MY wish of the loan of a few dozen of his elves for the clean-up of the holiday decorations and the tree.

Which is still up.

And decorated.

Yeah.

*******************************************

Looking forward to this spring when my little sis moves back to Utah from Baltimore. Yesterday as I was driving I overheard Lilac telling her sisters that she "...can't wait till my Aunt T'Amy comes back 'cause she will twuhhl me all I WANT!"

********************************************

Yesterday all the kids had off of school for MLK day, and I decided to take them and one of Birdie's friends to go to the dollar theater showing of the Owls of Ga'Hoole. On the way to the theater that is a few towns north of us, we got caught in traffic from an accident on the freeway and were already five minutes late when we pulled in to the parking lot and saw the most epic line I have ever seen for tickets. We gave up and decided to hit a Redbox and get the movie to show at home, which was great except the kids wanted to put the couch, which is one of those metal framed futon couch thingees, into the bed position. I told them to wait a sec till I got Henry down for his nap, but by the time I got back downstairs the girls were looking at an almost flattened out futon, baffled as to why it wouldn't lay all the way flat. Yes indeedy, four little girls who couldn't have more than 200 lb combined, had managed to strip the bolts and warp the metal holding the thing together, by trying to shove the back part down in a way it wasn't supposed to go. Can't really get to mad. Piece a crap can't hold up to a couple of scrawny prepubescent girls? Phaugh! Can't really get mad... thing wasn't comfortable or much to look at, but we were hoping to make it last a few more years. Sigh...

Would just go on Craiglist (or rather, KSL.com 'round here) but Dadguy is so VERY allergic to cats and some dog that it limits many of our choices.

Still.

Broke.

Probly will try to get a 2nd hand couch anyways.

And HOLY CRAP is Henry hard on our belongings. Just the other day he salted Pearl's Sea Monkeys that Santa gave her. We tried hard to save 'em by switching out their water, but they were all cooked by the second day anyways.

I swear, he's either breaking it, pooping on it, bleeding on it or flushing it.

Wait... what was I talking about?

Pictorial

2010-12-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

So.... I am chasing after Henry pretty much his entire "awake" time, trying to get him to quit taking off his doobah, or at least make his "wee wee" and "poo poo" into one potty or the other. Kid made wee wee in his potty at least five times yesterday... and once or twice on the floor, which is OK, I guess. His enthusiasm is there, he just has no clue what is going on. The night before last he pooped in one bathtub, got transferred with his sister to the other upstairs tub so I could scrub it out and while I was doing it, he snuck out and pooped all over the girls room floor, then ran down the hallway crying about it with poo all down his legs and on his feet.

There was a lot of scrubbing going on considering it was the Sabbath. Ox in the mire and all that.

Any questions why I insist on having all my kids completely PTed before we get a dog? No? You want to know why the heck I am gonna get a dog at all? Good question. Don't know.

Yeah... Sunday night was a bit of a farce. He ran through six outfits from the time that he got up from his nap at five, to the time he went back down at 8:30 (he gets a late nap on Sundays because of church).

(I should have taken a pic of this before the kids got out there to play. The snow was higher than the swing seats)

Today was supposed to be the last day of school for the girls; Christmas parties and a field trip to the movie theater to see "Beezus and Ramona" and all that fun, but instead we awoke to some pretty epic amounts of snow. The tears over the cancelled parties didn't last long though, when the friends started showing up, with the snow forts, snowball fights, games of snow fairies, snow blower fountain ducking and all the rest of the outdoor fun. Plus one neighbor was giving kids rides around the block by pulling them on a sled tied behind his four runner. Henry didn't get to go on the sled, but he certainly loved his rides on my lap in the passenger seat, cheeks bright red and boogers streaming out behind him.

(For a sense of scale... note the snow shovel stuck in the snow next to the driveway across the street.)

For the adults there was the fun of neighborhood digging out, and I have to say- our snow blower wins the prize for being the heavy hitter. It pretty much ran all morning long between Dadguy, and I and then two of the other guys from the neighborhood. We got everything dug out and y'all? It was FUN! Right now I have a bevvy of thawing little girls and one little dude downstairs watching "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and eating popcorn.

Witness: only a portion of the snowsuit chaos!

What a cozy day; a lost day. A day to make a few loaves of bread and maybe some fudge.

Speaking of making... the other night I made each kid a Christmas pillowcase and let them open it for their advent calendar treat. When we put away the Christmas decorations and books, the pillowcases will go with them, so I wanted the kids to get some use out of them this year. I am VERY proud of them, unreasonably so since they were crazy-easy to make.

Birdie's

Lilac's

Pearl's

Henry's

...and now I have to go do piles of laundry and dishes and, and, and... it's a good thing we are done with Christmas prep aside from a grocery run, 'cause I am snowed under in more ways than one! This is probably it for my Christmas post, sooooooo

Merry Christmas!

Edited to add: the link to a tutorial to make those pillowcases.

The Boy-o Turns Two-o

2010-12-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

By decree from my Mother... I now hereby post something new upon my bloggeth.

I would apologize for my lack of posting, but y'all. I am whipped.

Between my new calling, birthdays, Christmas, family stuff, kid's school stuff and breathing, I am maxed out. Uncomfortably so. I am struggling to adapt to the changes in my work load and responsibilities, and it aint a pretty sight... doing things like losing my temper with the kiddos, to my shame. Unreasonable hollering. Nothing that an apology and a chill-out session cannot fix, but still I am not where I am feeling like I have a handle.

Just like how when we first add a new baby to our family, all of the uglier sides of my "mama traits" seem to get trotted out for display, I cannot get over the irony that now, when I feel like I am supposed to be this super-cool primary lady... I am a freaked out harridan. Guess maybe I will be closer to being that person I think I am supposed be, round about the time I get released from this calling.

Guess that'll have to be OK. Something to work toward anyways.

So Henry had himself that Birthday numero two-o, and we went to Pirate Island since I had purchased a voucher that got us forty dollars worth of food and twenty dollars worth of game tokens for $29.00. He had a GOOD time! As in we could barely talk him into eating a slice of pizza good.

Made him some cupcakes... but um... pictures? Not so much. Really, just the one. I would feel a little more chagrined at the cheesyness of these cupcakes as compared to some of the cakes I have made his for sisters, only he LLLLURVED them so very much, with their "kulls!" and their "shock-wit tanny!" and their electric blue frosting that tickles his soul so very. That guy is a BOY.

So here are a few recent, random shots of the kids...

... a little footage of the Henry-man enjoying his new birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa, and Pearl trying to get her paws on the car to have a go. Oh, a little Henry trivia... he got a great big plush panda bear from his cousin that he has apparently named "Pizza."

AAAAAAAAAAACK!

2010-11-29T21:06:00.000-08:00

Aw crud... Thanksgiving has come and gone and that deserves a post. But it's not gonna get one.

Honestly though... I haven't been posting because for the past week and a half I have been keeping a secret. A pretty BIG flippin' secret that will affect my life in big ways for the next few years probably.

Nope, not goin' back to school... why would I keep that a secret? You are weird.

Nope, not preggers. As IF! I wouldn't keep that secret! I would be sobbing hysterically and shouting my woe from the rooftops!

Naw, and my secret might not make a whole lot of sense to those of you who are not familiar with Mormons... but I got called to be the Primary President for my ward. I had to keep it secret because first they call me, and then I have to come up with the names of a 1st and 2nd counselor and a secretary for my presidency.... then they have to be approved by the Bishop and then accept or decline the call. This takes time, and everyone involved has to keep it quiet for a slew of reasons, mostly to keep hurt feelings and speculation to a minimum. It just works better this way.

So now... now I am in charge of about two hundred kids, their teachers, Scout leaders, Activity Day leaders and Sharing Time and... and ... and...! I do better if I don't try to wrap my head all the way around it just yet! I just have to ease my way into this and trust that everything will work out. Luckily, I have The Uberwymmin for my counselors and secretary, and the Stake Primary President who is one of my good friends a few houses down, has offered to train me. Technically, she train the whole presidency, but um.... I appear to be the only one without a clue or previous experience.

I am so EXCITED! when I don't think about the details (cuz then I freak out). What will I do? What will I learn? Eep!

Non-sequitor: Today Birdie dumped her back-pack out before going to school and I finally got to read a little one pager that she had written from the point of view of a turkey. The turkey ends up faking a cough and yelling out things like "I have CANCER! I have intestine problems! You don't want to eat me, I am not long for this world!" and the suckers on the farm decide to eat ham and potato chip for Thanksgiving instead.

Tonight Henry was yelping out "HELP! YOU! HELP! YOU!" and when I went to investigate, I found him standing on top of his table, looking for some help to get down. He can totally get down, guess he just didn't want to.

Underwater Pearl

2010-11-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

Oh. Huh... has it been a week since the Pearl-girl's birthday and cake? Wow! I really NEED to find our camera! All of our documentation has been happening via iPhone, not bad if it's Dadguy's 4G, but less awesome if it's my 3GS. So yeah. Here is a shot of the girl from September when we made an "adventure trip" to the center of Utah; that manhole cover looking medallion at her feet.

If you are wondering why she is standing with her hands like that, I think she was being a horse at the time. Those are hooves.

Again. I think of these things as an artistic outlet. I research and plan and ponder upon how I am going to create them.... and then the day comes and I have so much "help" that I want to cry a little (or swear a lot). On the one hand, my kids will know how to make and decorate cakes from scratch. On the other, I am going grey. I have an appointment on Wednesday to get my hair done, and that should hide most of the evidence... but I am still a little tense from the experience.

On other news... I bought Henry a little blue potty. His love affair with all things to do with bodily functions continues, though he is 100% clueless about the nuts and bolts of actually making his "wee-wee" into the pot. He sure does love to flush the toilet nowadays though. Dadguy says he's glad that SOMEONE in this house is flushing, but I am feeling like three flushes in a row in each toilet is a bit much.

Also Henry insists on a regular cup at mealtimes, he has effectively used one for nearly a year. But he still has accidents so we give him maybe an inch of beverage at a time. The girls will occasionally ask for a "Henry amount" in their own cup, when they want just a little more.

A Blog Post

2010-11-06T16:28:00.000-07:00

Uhh... so it turns out that Dadguy thought I took the pictures of the Halloween costumes this year. I thought HE took pics, so I didn't bother. Grandma took pictures, so yeah... there is that. But y'all get no Halloween bloggy love.

Birdie was an Undead Pianist, Lilac and Pearl were Snowy Owls that I had made for them for this summer's Harry Potter Party, and Henry dressed up in the same Tiger suit that Lilac and Pearl wore when they were each two years old. We did things a little different this year, we decided that we would not spend any money on costumes this year. All in all, we bought trick 'r treat candy, pumpkins and four dollars worth of paper decorations at the dollar store. This is meager for the Chaos family... and yet, we all had a great time. At least as much fun as any other year. So yay! Budget!

Our tree in the front yard is FINALLY turning! It is usually good and crimson the week before Halloween, but not this year. I keep thinking each day, that it's color it is at it's most lovely, and the next days incarnation proves me wrong. Or indecisive, I guess.

About three weeks ago, a stinking little mouse came squeaking into the family room as Dadguy watched TV. I. HATE. MICE. They make me weep with fury at their existence within my home, and I will beat them to death if it is the fastest way to end it. We figured that it somehow snuck in the door when it was left unattended as it sooooo often was this past fall. Never mind how much I am off about, "not leaving the door open or mice and spiders will move in for the winter. Shut it. Shut the door. Shut the door please. The mice. Please. Shut. The. DOOR!!!! Especially since I had seen no poo or nibbles in our food storage, I assumed we were safe except for Mr. Naughtymouse. SO I got two traps, baited them and waited. And I got two mice. So I emptied and rebaited. Two more mice.

Seven nasty meese later... I am STILL not finding any poo, although the stankers have revealed their love of Ramen Noodles. Here is my completely unsolicited endorsement of this product....

Effective, easy, bloodless, reusable and worth every mouse-a-cide penny.

For Show and Tell to try and make up for the lack of costume photos.... Birdie had her fist piano recital today, almost a year of piano now. I feel like we are gettin' our $$ worth. I yam so proud! Kinda funny though, she sounds quite wooden during the first half of the song, but then it's like someone flipped a switch and she starts playing normal. Hit her stride I guess.

Snapshop of Henry on the Cusp of Two

2010-10-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Henry... he is a little dude of obsessions. When he loves a thing, he LURVES it and sees it everywhere! Luckily, he is not so focused on frogs anymore... he pronounces the word "frog" in the worst possible way. So much so that we had to be supercareful not to bring anything with frogs on it, or in it, to church. I am not interested in collecting one of those embarrassing stories about what Jr hollered out in the middle of the reverent contemplation of the Sacrament!

He has a thing about pumpkins right now. He loves himself some pumpkins, which he pronounces "puntinth" at top volume. So I got him a little sugar pumpkin at the grocery store. He carted the thing around and played with it until it's third trip down the staircase, at which point it fissured down the side, whereupon I turned it and a butternut squash into a couple of pies. He loved that too.

His joy in Halloween and it's many "puntinth" continues unabated. He literally squeals with joy over each and every jack o'lantern and orange orb.

He loves trucks, and can tell trucks from cars and trains... but he has a special love for any sort of construction truck, back hoe, crane or dozer and while he still calls them "trucks," he does it with his "thrill squeal" voice, so you know they are better. Waaaaay better!

He is also got a thing for.... this book:

He wants it read to him about twelve times in a row, five times a day... thankfully we can now press both Birdie and Lilac into service, or I would have lost my mind weeks ago. Even still, our copy of the book is currently hidden on top of the refrigerator. It's the Sabbath, I declare a holiday.

Henry is simply delighted with the picture of the little boy named Joshua in his birthday suit. He loves to point out Joshua's little "pee pee" and gets really charged up about it every time we get to the part about Joshua successfully making "wee wee" and "poo poo" into his little potty that looks like a big white coffee cup. Before YOU guys get all worked up about Henry possibly PTing early.... I cannot go there right now. My poor, poor little heart cannot take getting all hopeful about something that is NOT likely to happen for another year and a half. Sure. He might surprise me. Lets not talk about it right now. Am getting giddy even though I KNOW better. Shame on you for bringing it up.

Yes, I have tried him out on the potty several times. Yes, he grunts and toots a little and squeezes out a few dribbles of the ol' "wee wee," but I know from experience this means little past sad, dashed hopes for me, and diapers for eternity.

Also... he loves anything Dr. Suess. We have several of the classics on the iPad and iPhone, really some delightful apps. Henry pronounces it "Dah-shi-shoosh," and the fish in the car above is one of his favorite pictures. He loves to point out the very front of the car and say "pee pee," and really, is hilariously accurate. Did I tell you that after his birth by c-section, I'd had enough of knives and Dadguy sweetly let me have my way with the not doing the circumcision thing on the boy.

So yeah. The car. Snerk* bahHAhahahahahahaa!!

Here... a video. Is about a month old, but is still fairly representative of his pronunciation.

Snippet Blogging

2010-10-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

I am just not doing the job.

Obviously.

... and it's a crying shame, cuz the fun is going undocumented. For example: today Pearl and Lilac found the stash of paper lunch sacks and started making paperbag puppets. A cat, a dog, a girl, etc... Pearl brings me her masterpiece and tells me that it is a puppet of me... only evil-er.

The girls now demand to be called by the names "Beezus, Ramona and Roberta." Guess what movie I took them to see two weeks ago? Guess what books I am reading to them every night? Now guess who wants to be called what?

(If I were evil-er, and a puppet)

Blog? BLARG!

2010-08-22T22:47:00.000-07:00

So... I guess the only writing that's happening 'round here is to my parents. I am reposting this weeks letter to them.

Dear Elder and Sister Mymaidenname,

Conversations at the dinner table:

Lilac: Mama, why do the cans of chips always have that face on them?

Bon: Well, do you remember when we talked this morning about the picture of the kangaroo on the can of hairspray, how people will know quickly by the picture, what brand the hairspray is, and how the companies who make them want you to to buy their brand so they make more money? It's called a "Logo," and that face there is the Pringles logo.

Dadguy: Yeah, also it used to be that not everybody could read, so they put logos and sometimes they put pictures of things on the cans so you know what you are getting (points to a bottle of ketchup on the table). What's that on that bottle?

Lilac: A TOMATO! So you know that it's tomatos in the ketchup!

Dadguy: And see how there is also a picture of chips on the front of the can of chips?

Lilac: Yeah! And what picture does the mayonnaise have on it?

Pearl: A bow? Why does it have a bow on it?

Dadguy: (disgusted look on his face) That's 'cause you don't WANT to know what's in mayonnaise.

***********************************************************************

Tuesday is the start of school for Birdie and Lilac... it will be Lilac's first time going alllll day long. First grade. Wooo.

I tell ya who's looking forward to school starting... it's PEARL! She's gonna be the big sister every day. She's gonna be the one picking out the movies to watch, the books for Mama to read, the one to get the hotly contended rose plate. And during Henrys naps... it's going to be just Pearl and Mama. I am pretty sure that the best part of that list for the kiddo is the rose plate.

This past week Robbie (my big sis) went to Education Week at BYU, and we kept Ethan (nephew) overnight, not only to facilitate watching him for two days in a row, but because the girls were really wanting to have him over for a sleepover. Had some pretty dang funny conversations and a lot of fun with him over... but the highlight for me is that I finally got a recipe for chocolate zucchini cake that pleases me. Everyone realy loved it, and that's pretty darned impressive when you consider that the sucker is 100% whole wheat and packed with zucchini! I covered it with a cream cheese frosting and some big candy sprinkles, and it got sucked down by all. That's a mighty good thing, cuz boy. Do we EVER have zucchini coming out our ears. I am guessing someone at the store where we bought our starter plants swapped out the little cards poked in the dirt of a flat of summer squash, cuz I have about four more 'cchini plants that I had meant... and not one solitary yellow squash.... dagger sized all the way up to big ol' two handed broadsword size. Seriously... I have a couple of green baseball bats up there on my kitchen counter. I threaten my children with them, that and now finally the cake is just about the only joy I get out of 'em.

I have put zucchini in just about everything... did you know it is virtually undetectable in spaghetti sauce, salad dressing and salsa? Just never, ever try to slide it by in a smoothy. Ain't gonna happen. Ever. Unless... maybe if I cook it down first. Now THERE'S and idea I haven't tried yet!

Thinking about peeling it, boiling it and running it thru the blender in order to sneak it into mashed potatoes. Shhhhhh... don't tell anyone. Hmmm... I have a buddy who hides sweet potatoes in her Kraft Mac 'n Cheese... whddaya think about a little bit o' Zucch in there?

No?

Oh well.

I sure do love you guys... think about ya, and pray for ya too. This morning the girls drew some pictures for you... and since we cannot find our scanner cable, I will be shipping 'em out via snails. In case you can't figure it out when you get the cards and pictures, Pearl drew a picture of our family... if we were a family of evil cats. I get the distinction of being the Evilest. Cat. Everrrrr.

If you were wondering.

Hasta la pasta
-the Mama

Where DID July Go?

2010-08-06T09:33:00.000-07:00

I have started several posts in the past couple of weeks. I have thought about it, really I have. I just get so tired when I try to think about how to actually write the things that I am thinking about. It's just too hard.

So I am gonna give myself permission to be more stream-of-consciousness than I have allowed myself lately, just so's I can get started again. And yep, I am gonna let myself whine and bitch a little too.

I am sad to see some of my ideas go by the wayside, I just can't develop them right now. Four kids, y'all. I am maxed out. Plus there has been the issue of the fact that I have probably spent the past year or so wayyy low on thyroid. I switched doctors a few months back, and I feel like crying when it becomes clear that the last set of docs, or the lab they used, or something in the mix has kept me disastrously low. Man, I trusted those jokers with my health. It took a year of astoundingly poor health, 30 pounds of weight gain, exhaustion, hair loss and depression before I finally gave up on those shmoes. And I am having a hard time not beating myself for figuring it out earlier, for taking such poor care of myself. I know better. I know better.

It is what it is... I just hope I can get enough hair back that I can spend less time on my comb-over strategies to hide my bald spots.

Fact is... some days I just want to run away. But just for a week. Ya know? Or maybe a month. I'd like to get a pedicure, a passport and a ticket to hide out. Faaaar away. Where no one needs me to feed them, or dress them, or clean them or clean up after them. Where I am not having to be on my toes for "teaching opportunities" or asking the right questions or listening to the meandering and halting stories of four year olds. Feel guilty for letting the kids watch yet another episode of Invader Zim on Netflix, for not taking them to the library enough, or yelling at them.

Really, it's been a great summer. I am getting back to normal-ish, and of course that's good.

But, I dream of just being plain old me for a little while.

Nature Walk

2010-06-18T22:18:00.000-07:00

I hadn't much thought about it till we took my SIL and family up to The Land, but while she was there she mentioned how surprised she was at all the trees on the property. The acreage is split almost in half; sage and grass with a sprinkling of juniper being the lower half, and the part that is most often in pictures, and the upper half that has the Nature Walk. The shabin and firepit/pad areas being in the middle and taking advantage of the views.

Most of the photos on this blog don't show the upper half.

Come on a little walk with me...

We have the start of our walk.

Cactus Corner.

Rocky Heights.

Most tree-age consists of Pinon, Juniper and...

Scrub oak.

So pretty.

...and we are back, or... at least this is all the shots I am gonna load tonite. Blogger is feeling sluggish and I am sleepy.

So, am I boring you with all the yap yapping about The Land? Because I am aware that I am starting to really get my geek on about it. Dadguy got us some plant and wildflower books and a bird book too. Truly I am a goof about trying to identify all the bits of flora that are about. Nerdy in the extreme, and I just cannot seem to help it.

Nerdy, and passing it on down the line. There are several deer trails on the property, and I know this is so cuz there is plenty of deer poo too. Birdie gleefully informed her sisters that the proper term for wildlife poo is "scat," and now every time Mei has to go number two she hollers, "Mama! I have to go scat!"

Sunday pic: Hello

2010-06-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

Meet the escape artist. Stinker, I tell ya. This is her bicycle which she refers to as her "pony." She calls her horse "Make Up." You heard me, "Make Up," as in the mascara that she is constantly pinching from me, and smearing all over her face. Make Up.

Here is the stinker in front of our house. Yard like that you might think the folks who live here have it under control, that they have a clue what's going on. They don't and they don't.

Shots of the girls at their respective "end-of-the-year-got-yer-moneys-worth" school programs. I have an almost identical shot of Birdie doing the same thing, standing in almost the same place, singing the same song from four years ago and with Mei's hair pulled up, it almost looks like they are sporting a similar haircut! Sorta not, except the point remains. Time! Flies!

Lilac had a line about springtime for her part in the Kindygardin show... hence the rain gear. That kid is more than ready for the BigTime that is first grade. Having noticed that Lilac likes spicy foods, Dadguy suggested that she and I go on restaurant dates to eat stuff like Mexican food. Lilac instantly perked up and asked, "Thoo-shi? Could we go and eat THOO-shi?!"

And of course my Birdie... who is sitting right next to a Particular Young Man who I will refer to as PYM. Apparently he is the smartest boy in her class, and holy crap if she doesn't have a huge crush on him. I don't want to make too much of the whole kerfuffle, she has had a series of different crushes this year... but we saw PYM and his family at the local ShamsClub on Friday, and when he saw her and waved, stood up, waved again and then sat back down quickly... my girl blushed. You have heard the phraze "blushed from head to toe?" Dude. I didn't actually think that elbows could blush. I am so no not ready for this.

This and That

2010-06-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

So Pearl wants a new nom de blog, she has decided that she wants to be called Mei. Don't know if she actually wants to have it spelled like that, but since she keeps insisting that she wants to be named "May" like the girl in "My Neighbor Totoro," she gets "Mei."

Have you ever seen a Miyazaki film? You really ought to. They are dreamy and beautiful and the girls adore all the ones they have seen. We actually went and saw Ponyo in the theater. Just, wow. So when I finally remembered a month or so back that my brother and his wife had given us a substantial Amerzon-cot-dom gift card for last Christmas, I dropped a goodly chunk of Christmas change on three of our faves: "Totoro," "Spirited Away" and "Ponyo."

Summer has really set in around here, and once again I have all the best of intentions... so we spent a Family Home Evening having a family counsel and coming up with daily schedules and check lists. Basically just stuff that needs to be done before they run off and play or watch a show. Like, how I insist that they put on actual clothes and eat a breakfast. Seriously... you have to put that on a list for a four year old or it won't happen. Eight and six year old's too, apparently. There are other things like chores, piano practice, yard work, art and reading that are on the lists too.

I so understand my mother now. Awesome woman.

So I guess I need to consider purchasing stock in calcium tablets. I go through a bottle in no time at all, and I keep spacing off getting a new bottle. Of course... then I get sick at that special time I always get sick and I kick myself for having run out. I cuss too. The thing is, half of the frakking pills I have to take interfere with half the other pills, and some I can only take on an empty stomach and some I have to take with food. So I have to remember to take pills about four times a day, and that on top of everyone else's meds and guess who's meds are the most likely to get missed? So I am coughing and hacking and feeling run down, as well as bloating and cramping and generally feeling like someone is gonna die. Maybe me, maybe the next kid to whine at me? Who knows?

Winner, winner chicken dinner!

We replaced the window in our darling shabin out to the land. Or maybe it's The Land now. That seems to be it's title; The Land. On Memorial Day we went up and put new boards around the outside and then stained them.... missed the color pretty good, I got Natural Cedar, and I suspect the rest of it had been done in Redwood... but then I didn't even take a shot of it after staining. The heck?

Dadguy has taken the most pictures, his iPhone has a functioning camera (mine took a powder when we replaced the battery and it has not yet decided to fix itself) and I only just thought to take our actual household camera up. STILL didn't even take many pictures! Below you will get to see what I did get...

The supercool bit? Our brother-in-law is one of the head guys in charge of wilderness in the southern part of UT. He's gonna come have a look and do some research and let us know exactly what can be grown up there. We are seriously thinking about taking a chunk of next years tax refund to rent what is called a "Bullhog?" and turn most of our sagebrush and juniper trees into mulch. BIL tells stories of the agency he works for taking bullhogs and doing just that to the junipers in huge tracts of land, and then finding underground springs popping up out of nowhere. Apparently while junipers are really good at getting by with very little water, they will suck down whatever is available, leaving nothing else for anything else. Since he has told us this tale, Dadguy and I have begun to notice land around our spot that has been cleared. There are several places where the owners have cleared out all juniper and sage, leaving only pine. Right now it looks amazing because all the grass is green and it looks like pines out in a meadow, but I want see what it looks like near the end of July. Plus I tend to think that I'd like to leave most of the scrub oak; I like the idea of some color in the fall.

Still thinking and looking. And even though we are pretty well tapped financially, we are keeping our eyes peeled for water shares too. Some day. Some day!

Have y'seff a turrrr of the shabin:

front

standing in the door looking left

back

shelves we put in

the window!

the door! (betcha couldn't tell)

20 X10 pad... maybe home of new, prettier shabin?

firepit

Next up, I'll take y'all on the wee nature hike.

Live Streaming

2010-05-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

So we got the land, and it is every bit as wonderful as we had hoped. We have gone out there and had cookouts, cleared some deadwood, caulked a few holes, went on mini hikes, dug up a few poorly placed cacti and aggressive thistles, removed splinters and cactus spines from three out of four kids, installed a solar light for the shed (which after trying out a few names like "the dog house," "cabin," "shed," "cabin-ette" and the like, I am thinking I want to call it the "shabin." Not a shed, not a cabin, it's a shabin.), practiced our outdoor peeing skills, purchased a porta-potti and dreamed. Mostly we just breathed in the air and reveled in our new ownership of a bit of awesome.

Have we camped there yet? Ummmm, heck NO! Until I get a workable and comfy cot at the very least, I ain't even trying. Dude. 40. Seriously.

Obviously I haven't done a whole bunch of blogging.

I got half the garden in, but then I had to leave off because of going to the Temple with Dadguy(date! whee!), scout training, spending time at the land and the fact that it's too flipping WET to plant anything. Hope I get a chance tomorrow night or Tuesday. This year we are planning on putting in a drip system so perhaps we will actually see some veggies. I hope! I hoooooope!

The fact is that I simply cannot be counted on to water all summer long. I lose my impetus in the heat of late July, so drip lines on a timer are just my speed. I am thinking that if I could just get my whole family on a drip line, this mother gig would be cake!

Wasn't too wet to put in trees though... five hybrid poplars and a purple ash. Growgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrowgrow!

Henry smacked me in the teeth with a rock. Chipped my front tooth. Dang.

Lilac had a pretty rough meet-up with the pavement directly after showing off some of her new biking skills. Fat lip, smashed nose, skinned knee.

Pearl thinks that the bicycle she got from Santa this past Christmas is her ticket to ride. She seems to either be grounded from her bike or is off on it somewhere she is not supposed to be, and we are looking for her.

Birdie... well Birdie is just growing up too dang fast.

Summer break is right at the door, and I think I'm gonna go answer it...

The Not-Post

2010-05-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

I just cannot write.

Sorry, I can't. I have tried again and again but I can't even write about the incident that happened last week when I "lost" Lilac and Pearl for 45 minutes. My neighbor, who's basement they were happily playing in with her son the whole time called it a "Perfect Storm," but I think I'll just go with "Custer Cuss." It's a little closer to my true feelings on the matter. It was just a lining up of the stars and a couple of horrible coincidences that set up to really freak a mama out.

Let's just let it suffice to say that when I did track them down I started sobbing on her doorstep, and spent the rest of the day feeling almost paralyzed.

*******

I got a church calling a few months ago to serve as a den leader for the Bears. It's Boy Scouts of America crap, if you are wondering, and the way I feel about the LDS's relationship with the BSA... well, it's not pretty and it's complicated and while I love the boys and am perfectly happy serving in this capacity on one hand, I have a lot of anger and grief mixed in there as well.

I have to work to make peace with this calling just about on a daily basis. I feel muzzled, in that I don't feel free to write about how I feel and why. I am ashamed to feel the way that I do, but on the flip side I feel entirely justified. Another cluster cuss. I cannot think very hard about it without weeping. More shame.

There. I said it. Maybe that will be enough and now I can just blog.

*******

Life is interesting and mostly good. I saw a silver minivan with metallic charcoal grey tribal flames across the front and down the sides.

*******

We got a family picture taken... but halfway thru, Birdie had a meltdown cuz we kept trying to tease a real smile out of her instead of this.

So we let the kids go run it off for a minute. They ended up in the pond to varying degrees. Even Henry. So that was it for the formal shots... but there were a few really good pics after that.

Note that Pearl's leggings have been hiked up, only they are already soggy and brown. Too little too late. Stinker.

There is a swab of mud on his arm and a bit on his eyelid, but on the other side of his head there is a new ding and he is kinda soggy from falling in a puddle. Stinker.

This one is gonna have to be it by default. Works for me.
Chaos.

Also, we might have some land this time!

Sunday Pic: The Hawk

2010-04-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

When I was younger and wilder I loved (in the way that only really poorly acted, scripted and directed movies can be loved. Cult! Classic!) the movie Suburbia. It had a number of super fun things in it, like Flea. There was also the exchange between two young teen girls who were drinking (if I remember correctly) around a bonfire in the back of the abandoned house they were squatting in. It went like this:

"Guess what?"
"What?"
"Chicken Butt!"
(Gales of wild laughter)

Cinema gold, I tell ya.

Things like this that really played up the fact that here was a bunch of kids who had been essentially abandoned by their loser-angry-controlling-indifferent-abusive parents. I also really loved the fact that they gave the protagonists little brother a great Mohawk.

Fast forward to last summer when there were a few short, but actual factual Mohawks on little boys in my ward at church. It slays me a lot to see squee little two and four year olds sporting the hawk. A lot. At church.

It slays me to have discussions with my daughters about the distinctions between an actual Mohawk and a Faux-hawk (a.k.a. Chicken-hawk). Kids these days! They insist on calling these goofy Rhodesian Ridgeback lines of hair down the front of their heads a Mohawk. My kids will set them straight. Next up for discussion: Stroids, Liberty Spikes and the Chelsea. Homeschoolers have got nothing on the higher learning in the Chaos household.

Lilac actually came up with a new one on me.... a So-hawk. The raised crest of hair done up in the bathtub with shampoo or soap.

Anyhoo, I like the fact that I can get Birdie to give Henry a darling little fauxhawk for church and not feel like I am being too edgy. Plus it gives her something to do while I am dragging a brush through her unruly masses. Cuts down on the whining. Well. Birdies' whining in any case.

I give you the Sunday Pic a day late...

Are these littleboy ties killing you? They are killing me! Picklefaceplace, y'all. Mostly I am dying over the fact that this gal who makes them has several new lines of ties. I want a little tie with stars on it. Stars upon thars!

So close and yet so far! Next time before I put all that time into the painting, I'll check and make sure I have the drawing portion right. Sheesh. Still posting the pic because I am delighted with the paint technique. I had never tried this style before, and I think that the face really works in terms of color and painterly-ness.

This is one of Pearls. Again, I love the technique, but not so in love with the canvas she chose. I do have to give her props for using a water based marker as opposed to a Sharpie, and if I can salvage this with Spray 'n Wash, she may survive her artistic impulses after all.

Sunday Pic: Gearing Up

2010-04-04T20:16:00.000-07:00

Getting a little more serious about writing that children's book... trying to remember how to paint.

Trying out a few different styles.

Oh yeah... I remember now. Using good paper really helps!

Still working on raising those kids too. Good paper only counts when they are potty trained though.

Come on SPRIIIIING! Seriously, all this snow is killing me.

My Mother Was Right

2010-03-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

...yet again.

When I was a kid, my mom kept things like permanent markers and scotch tape, not exactly under lock and key, but we had to ask permission to use them. And I sure thought she was mean. Really, what the heck kinda damage did she think we were gonna do with some clear tape? Not like it's the priciest stuff in the world either. It's not expensive now and it wasn't then. What gives Ma?

Enter my own motherhood. From the outset I was gonna be the cool mom. I bought the good tape dispenser and decided to leave it on the cabinet top next to the pencil sharpener I mounted where the kids could use it. Right next to the stapler, the paper and the crayons. My kids will have access to all these items and learn to use them responsibly. I am not insane... the glue, glitter and paints are hidden in my private stash or up high, but the tape? Puh-leeeze. It's tape.

I never counted on how badly my kids desire to rearrange my world to their own liking. How much they would need to personalise and shift. I never counted on exactly where and how they would make use of tape.

Scotch tape.

Yards long swaths connecting their beds to the dresser, criss-crossing to form spider webs. Clothing taped together to make new fashion. Hangers with the corners taped up solid till they looked like the web feet of ducks. Inch long bits that never made it anywhere (I guess) other than to form an irregular skin upon the tile flooring, the table top, down the legs of chairs.

I expect to awake any morning to find my eyelids taped shut, my arms taped to the bedsheets like some 3M solution to my Gulliver.

It's like web worms in a tree, and my house is the tree. Every extremity and light fixture seems to acquire a scum of scotch tape, every toy is ready for the tape party with teensy little crayoned triangle hats taped on their heads. Anything not tied down is fair game. A Pokemon card taped to the walls in the hallway. The plastic ring that you remove from a new gallon jug of milk, scrounged from the trash and taped just in the entryway to greet our guests. Darling, did you find a wee little key to an impossibly teensy padlock? Tape it to the doorframe. Of course.

All this done while the tape dispenser is not allowed to leave the kitchen where it belongs. There is much scurrying and scuttling about with every new project as they run back and forth to the kitchen for a fresh length to shore up a beavers damn of sleeping bags and Littlest Petshop figurines.

I no longer cut or file my nails, my near constant habit of picking off stray bits of scotchtape off of any surface that is not wet, keeps them manageable.

Yesterday Lilac took a hanky and taped it up to make herself a "Trick or Treat" bag and tried to get me to raid Dadguy's stash of treats that he uses to bribe the Elders in his Quorum. Today as she walked into the house from the van she grabbed an empty ice cream bucket with lid off of the junk pile, and with a plastic spoon she found in the van, created a "Bird Feeder" using copious amounts of.... tape. She taped the lid upside down onto the bottom of the bucket, she used the spoon as wobbly perch with a knob of scotch tape joining it to the rim of the bucket..

She next wanted to go to the store for some bird seed.

If scotch tape was more aggressive I guess I'd end it here and now, but since the main casualty to the encroaching scum of tape is my sanity, as some new and incomprehensible place gains a filmy layer for whoknowsWHAT purpose, I guess I will let the madness continue. It's just sanity. Not like I'm gonna have anything to my soul or reason left at the end of this child-rearing, tape or no tape. I know that in the end they will take me away in a scotch tape straight jacket. It will look like a chrysalis, and when the time comes I will leave my filmy cocoon as a Granny and I will gift all my grandchildren with their own private tape dispensers and many, many rolls of refill.

But there is no doubt in my mind, my Mother was right to limit our tape access.

6. Be Still

2010-03-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

....and know that God is there and listening.

Be still and slow down and have a little faith that your Father in Heaven loves you, wants you to be happy. Wants you to know joy, same as He wants that for the rest of His children. Believe that He is there with blessings innumerable, just for you, if you would but knock.

Be still and listen for the Comforter, pay attention to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit who will lead you to those who have need... of something. Something that you can provide or be. Often when it comes to friendship, so much of what is of value are the things that you do for someone else. So often it is the service you provide another that feeds your heart and stoppers up that hole where the wind blows through your middle.

...And so ends this wee series on being a friend and a neighbor. Good Luck!

Half

2010-03-15T13:07:00.000-07:00

I just want to record this for posterity, for my records... for THE flippin' record in general. I went to the ENT today to see if he thought that I should get my tonsils out.

He didn't.

Turns out that I am one round of tonsillitis/strep shy of the recommended amount to get the old tonsies yanked. So. Yay, I guess. I've heard that getting your tonsils out as an adult it a miserable process. He said if I get either illness in the next three to four months, just to call his office and schedule a tonsil-yanktomy. Medical terminology.

Otherwise we'll just count this past year as the year of bad luck. Y'all. That was a year of buckets of bad luck health-wise. Let's do the math, shall we?

In preparation for this appt, they wanted me to get my doctors records from the year prior... and this is what they said:

Strep throat- three times, and the way I get it, with the ulcers and all, I am one sick puppy for minimum two weeks each time.

Sinus infections- three times. By the time I go to the doctor's office I have been sick a minimum of ten days (they won't even deal with you till then) Then I go on antibiotics and by the time I am up and running again, it's an easy three weeks per episode.

Tonsilitis- same deal, only I didn't wait the full ten days.... so two weeks.

Mastitis- one week

Pneumonia- six weeks (and that's being nice about it)

I also had at least two colds that didn't turn into sinusitis hell- they are a week of feeling crappy each.

Out of the past 52 weeks... I have felt like crap for at least 26 of them. That's half.

I am not sure what to do about this information.

But it does sort of explain the frustration with a generous side order of self-pity that I feel. On the flip side I finally got pissed off enough to find a new doctor. Hope this guy works out a little better. Hope I won't have to look at him again for a looooong time.

5. Be Civil

2010-03-12T10:18:00.000-08:00

Whuf! This series has been a little tougher than I thought it would be. Mostly just because I had that round of so-called Strep, that turned out to be that stupid flesh eating virus that gives me ulcers in my throat. Again. Being sick just eats the color out of my life.

There is also a notable, unbloggable elephant sitting on my keyboard. Stupid elephant has managed to hurt my feel-bads on seven different levels of strange Chinese hells... like the Hell Of Childhood Hurts, the Hell Of An Ungrateful Heart, the Hell of Things That I Don't And Cannot Understand But That's How It Is Anyway, The Hell Of There Goes The Last Of Your Discretionary time, and the Hell Of What The Hell Is My Problem?

Like when you need to just get over a jerk-wad ex-boyfriend, you know you need to let him go, you know you shouldn't care about some dill-weed that treats you bad, and you are going to stay away from whassisdork and all that.... but it still hurts and it's going to just keep hurting till it doesn't anymore. I am waiting for it to stop hurting, only there is no jerk, there is just me and my brains and my traitorous heart.

Not trying to be cryptic, but I do want to acknowledge that I am an angry, hurty person right now, even if I cannot tell you why.

So... Be Civil.

Look, I am more that aware that I am not everyones cup-o-tea. More than one person has taken it upon themselves to point out how Lame I am... and other things besides. I'll tell you a secret, not everyone I meet is my bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper either. Some people just rub me wrong by breathing air near me.

Some people go out of their way to make me miserable. But do I have to let them dictate my behaviour? Heck no. When I react to some random person's nastiness with nasty in kind, I am giving them some of my space and some of my energy. Plus I am helping to grow the problem. Nourishing it. Closing down any useful dialog between us.

Civility is a choice, it is always a choice. It is not capitulation, it is not surrender and it is not validation of anything wrong done to you... it is simply Civility. An attitude, a pro-active choice rather than any kind of reaction. Since it is pro-active, it stands on it's own and has the amazing ability to be a beginning. A do-over. An opportunity to alter what ever negative thing is happening, or keep peaceful whatever disagreement that stands between two people. It is the anti-escalator, and when we adhere to Civility we can find whatever middle ground exists between those that disagree, small though it may be.

Civility means you put on your Big Girl Panties and Use Your Words. Sometimes it means doing things you would rather not, and often it means to have a care with how you say what you think you mean. Sometimes it requires you to listen twice, sometimes it means you just walk away.

It's all the stuff yer mama taught ya. And I'll tell ya, little one year old boys don't know civility from a poopy doobah, so this is all ya get today!

4. Be Quiet

2010-03-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

Seriously, for the love of Pete wouldja just shut-up for a minute or two already?

Do you have any idea what you have just missed, what has sailed right on past you because you were so busy yapping or thinking about what you were going to say or being reminded about something that you could add...

...or even worse, has something awful, or private, or simply unnecessary about another person just slipped from your lips?

What critical thoughts, ungenerous even if true, are you putting words on and letting out into the open, about a friend no less?

Your mouth and your words cannot be too guarded when it comes to friendship. Trust me, I am perfectly aware of the concept "you are as sick as your secrets" and I agree that if you are having difficulties in a relationship that it really ought to be talked out, and some things really do need to be said. In the right forum. Carefully. And I bet you know what I am talking about when I say that most of this stuff is NOT discussed in the right forum. So shut that mouth. Quick!

Now, most all of y'all know me, I have lived a full life and have interesting stories to tell... and I like to tell them. But last year I had something interesting happen to me, a sort of epiphany I s'pose. I was at a family gathering for Dadguy's side and one of his cousins is a cop. A county deputy type I think, and let me tell you, this woman has paid and paid to be where she is. There is a pretty serious Good Ole Boy network in law enforcement in the county where she lives and works, and that network kept her working jail detail for years longer than her male peers. She has to be tougher and harder and smarter than everyone else to be where she is. And like any cop she has stories to tell, stories that normal people listen to with their mouths wide open. Only I was in there "swapping" stories with her, from my junkie days, but it was on the way home from that family picnic that i realized what had really just happened.

I had blown it.

Here was this amazing opportunity to shut my mouth and listen to stories, the likes of which can be told by so very few mouths on this planet. Stories from someone who doesn't tell them often. I was so happy to get in there and yapyapyap, that I used up valuable time that could have been spent quietly. What tales did I miss in my zeal to Share My Great Stories?

I am still kicking myself. To be frank, when I look back on it I still just shake my head at myself and say "Sheesh, what an shmoe I am!" But at least I am a shmoe with a lesson that I (hopefully) won't need to re-learn too many more times. Learn from my shmoe-dom.

Sure, not everyone has amazing County Sherriff Deputy Type stories to tell, but they do have words and stories that only they can give voice to. If you let them. If there is enough space that is not filled up with this need you have to fill every nook of silence with your own self-ity-self.

Shhhhhhhhh. Be quiet.

3. Be Aware

2010-03-10T09:38:00.000-08:00

Huh, well how bout that? This may have been the "Be" that got a little glossed over in the presentation. I seem to have very little written down here for number three, and I think a goodly chunk got used for number one. Plus the more that I look at it, another goodly chunk really ought to get shifted over into number four.

(shiftshiftshift) Here's what's left.

Number three is mostly about being a good neighbor, but it can easily translate into being a good friend, since what the heck kind of friend are you if you are not even aware of what is going on for your friend. I am referring to who are they? What is important to them? Are they OK? Do they have any needs that are going unmet?

I am not exactly talking about being snoopy, especially at the neighborhood level.... but I am not exactly ruling it out either. I know, I know... it's none of your business what is going on across the street and down one. Not exactly anyway. Except for on a human level, it sort of is your business.

Do you breathe? Do you have a heart in working condition? Then you are a line of defense in your neighborhood against starvation, bullying, crime and abuse, and to a certain extent you really are responsible for what is going on next door inasmuch as you turn a blind eye or just cannot be bothered.

Heavy, but it's about being a real person.

So how do you be a decent human being and not turn a blind eye? Guess what, bad news.... you gotta reach out and make the acquaintance, perhaps even make friends with your neighbors before you can be of use to them, and that can be both difficult and problematic. Not everyone wants to be pals, and that's Ok... but you can pay attention to some details. Like if someone's dog gets out, you can let them know you just saw Fido trotting down the street. Like if all of a sudden the older lady who lives next door doesn't seem to be getting visits from her daughter every Tuesday anymore. Is everything OK? Is her daughter OK? Does she need help with anything that her daughter may not be helping her with anymore?

Don't have time to pay attention? Be honest, all it takes is a small bit of your awareness and a willingness to take steps if you see a problem.

That's all I'm a gonna write on this topic, even though I see now that I am giving a pretty broad topic just a little bit of attention. Just think about this for a minute on your own. Who is in your neighborhood? What is your relationship to them? If they got cancer, would you be a person they could rely on for a bit of basic assistance? If not, why not? Is there something that you could realistically change to be of use to another in case of need?

Do you believe that you have a responsibility here? If not, tell me why... maybe I have it wrong.

I just suspect that you kind of agree with me.

2. Be Open

2010-03-06T19:27:00.000-08:00

This particular "Be" could mean "Open Your Heart." It could easily mean you should open your eyes and open your arms to accept others.

But it doesn't.

When I say "Be Open," I am talking about the doors to your house... and in some cases I mean this literally.

I should explain here, while I think that I am a pretty good mama and a nice person, I am a mediocre to middlin' housekeeper. Oh, I mean well enough... but there are always art projects and the park calling to me, to say nothing of good books and then there is that new little Netflix Online thing-gummy. Like most anyone I know, I love to have a clean home... but apparently I don't love it enough to actually do what it takes to have one most of the time. Really, just the whole "food" and "cooking dinner" shtick, along with dishes and clean up of meals sucks down so very much of my soul, there is little left to give a hang about cleaning the Koolaid drips off the baseboards in the kitchen.

That is... until I think about inviting someone else over and allowing them to see the reality of how we live around here. How on earth do I let someone see my messy life? How do I get over the shame of being who I am, a diffident maid and lackadaisical spot-shiner, a silly heart and a dreamer?

At first my answer was to clean the heck out of everything and then invite folks over, and that worked nicely with the bonus of fooling everyone into thinking I had and could do "it all." But I kept having kids. With every addition to the family, the chinks in my facade started to become more apparent, but need for friends grew. What to do?

In the end I got forced into opening my door, even when I wasn't proud of what others were seeing. I opened my door and had lunches and got really grateful for the new tile in the kitchen that hides the heck out of the fact that I haven't mopped in two and a half weeks! I opened my door and realised that this open door policy is kind of a metaphor. Because I had to let people see my messy life as well as my messy house. I got pretty darn real about the fact that while I have some talents and gifts, baby... I don't have it all, and I certainly don't have it all together. And that is just fine.

Turns out I didn't really have anyone fooled anyway.

I am starting to think that I might want to re-title this series of posts into "Something About Bees and Stuff I Learned On My Mission," because here I need to share another fine tidbit I learned while while serving. In order to teach the Gospel effectively, it really helps if the people you are teaching know that you love them. As a Missionary that's the easy part. The love that you have for the people you serve just seems to bubble out of your pores and wake you up at night with the desire to hit your knees and pray for your investigators and the members of the church in the area where you serve, just one more time. But even more profound is what can be taught by the Spirit when the student loves the teacher, but it's a little more problematic to get someone else to love you back. I had an amazing Trainer though, and she taught me a secret, and I am going to share it with you.

The secret to getting others to love you: let them serve you.

You think I jest? Not hardly, y'all. I am absolutely serious. Think about it... do you have a speciality in the kitchen? Something that you make well, and you think tastes darn good? Picture yourself offering a random individual a bit of your... we'll call it Brownie Supreme, and they don't want to put you out and politely refuse your treat out of some misguided sense of manners.

Huh. How do you feel about them?

Now offer it again. Random person takes a bite of Brownie Supreme, and WOW! Sonuvagun! You are right, that is some kind of brownie you have going there! Random individual enjoys every bite and thanks you and now how do you feel about them?

Sure I have simplified the principle, and you never want to overdo the getting served by others. A little goes a long way and all that. What I am trying to say is that it is not only OK to be vulnerable and allow others to help you, in some ways it is absolutely necessary to friendship.

1. Be There

2010-03-04T21:47:00.000-08:00

Oh good, you're here! I am glad you are on time, because I wanted to make sure you got the heads-up on this post... it's a little heavy on the pithy cliches. Such is life, can't be helped, lah-tee-diddly-dah.

The first thing about developing loving friendships is you have to decide that they are valuable. More specifically, that quality relationships with other humans have value to you. I am hoping that my last post established a few reasons why this is so for you, but even if you are not all the way "There" with the "Why I Should Make Friends With Women" thingummy, or even "Why I Need Friends," this really is one of those things that you can take on a fake-it-till-ya-make-it trial basis.

You don't know the fake-it-till-ya-make-it? It means you just suit-up, show-up, shut-up and do what you are told. The proof is in the pudding. You will gain the testimony in the doing. Really. Really-really.

One of the first things about Being There, is being who you are and where you are in the time of your life. Face it, the kinds of friendships that a seventeen year old, senior year in High School you could manage are not the kinds of friendships you will be able to manage as a part-time-work-at home-mother-of-two. Heck, the kinds of friendships you desire will simply be different and the things you have to offer as a friend have changed. But you still need friends, and in some ways you need them more as you get older. Not necessarily more in terms of time, just more in terms of surviving the life experiences coming your way with grace and joy. Or maybe just surviving them. Period. So look at your life, and while being realistic please do carve out some time and energy to developing these sweet relationships.

Be There. Be where you are in space, now look around you with your minds eye. Who are the women who inhabit, or are in some way physically close to your sphere of life. Do you go to the gym, church, work, shop for groceries, take the kid to the park? Who else is there doing the same things? Who lives down the street or the next floor up? Maybe you come up with faces and no names, or names from a PTA roster, but no faces to go with. Perhaps you live out in the sticks, miles from any one else.... even still, open those peepers and look! I am talking about women here... not just women who dress like you, or seem to be about in the same place you are in your life. I am talking about old women, young women, poor women, wealthy women, jocks, fashionistas, artsy farsties. Women. Quit being so incapacitatingly picky! I am not saying you shouldn't be picky about your friends, I am just saying open up those doors to possibility, especially at this part of the process.

There are so many ways of being friends, and so many way we nourish and sustain each other.

When you have the good fortune to interact with these friendship possibilities, or with established friends alike you need to as much as possible, BE There. If it's at all feasible, turn off your phone or screen you calls if you must when visiting. Be there, by letting the kids take turns giving each other pushes on the swing while you take the time to catch up with a friend. Be there by giving some thought every now and then to think of a nice thing you could do for or with a friend. Don't be planning your dinner menu in your head while your friend is talking, be THERE.

Last of all, when I was serving an LDS mission, I had a mission president who explained that there were two main types of people in the world. There were the kinds who, in essence will walk into a room and say "Here I am " in any and all of the ways that short sentence can be said.

HERE I am!
Here I am!
Here I AM!
HERE I AM!

and then there are those who walk into a room and say, in all of it's various ways of being said:

THERE you are!
There YOU are!
There you ARE!
THERE YOU ARE!

Guess which kind the Saviour was?

Love Yer Neighbor

2010-03-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

Six B's of Friendship

There is a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about the agency of humans, specifically as it relates to the fall of Adam, it says the following...

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
2 Nephi 2:22

Women too. Obviously. And yes, we are here to learn to have joy. This scripture isn't talking about being "happy" all the time, not pleasure and not giddiness. When it talks about joy, to my understanding, it is referring to a state of being that a human has to choose. Joy is a state that a person has to foster in themselves and is partly dependent on other choices that they make; because while you can choose what you will, good or ill, you do not get to choose the consequences, and some consequences are harder to live with than others. Some consequences make choosing and experiencing joy harder to do. Harder, but it can be done. And that's a darn good thing, because sometimes we make choices that have consequences that spill onto others, and make it harder for others to have joy.

Why the theological yap-yap-yap? Because I believe that our human relationships are absolutely vital to our progression and our becoming more like our Father. I also believe that when a person is embroiled in a feud with the next door neighbor over where they park their camper, or saying unkind things about a sister, that they are stunting themselves. There is no joy in contention or fear. It's my oh-so-esteemed opinion that since we are all here in this mortal realm for such a short time trying to learn the pro-active art of "having joy" in the midst of heartbreak, hunger, tragedy and sorrow, it would behooves us to foster friendship and kind feelings wherever we can.

Yeah, I know, I kinda suck at it too. But remember, we are practicing progress, not perfection.

Baby, ya need some friends. A little back-up, ya know? But being social and friendly doesn't actually come naturally to everyone, and even for those blessed with the friendshippy gene... it can be easy to let this stuff slip as we become adults and the weight of responsibilities start sitting on our shoulders, and maybe we rely more heavily on our spouse and kids for human interaction and less and less with other women. And hey! I am Mormon, biiig on families right? Big on BIG families and all that, so the more family time the better!?

I think this is a big mistake.

I don't have any scripture or scientific studies to make my point here, but I do have an interesting personal experience to share. Years ago when I was serving a mission in New England, the then Prophet and President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, President Gordon B. Hinckley held a special meeting at a church house that stood on the Joseph Smith Memorial in Sharon Vermont. The meeting was for full time LDS missionaries only, and I prepared carefully for this meeting curious as to what it would be like to be in the presence of a living Prophet. As the day came and the meeting progressed, I was surprised, but then sort of not surprised, that I was feeling the warm feelings of the Holy Ghost in exactly the same way that I experience them during a good Relief Society lesson. I hadn't really thought about it before that moment, but there is a certain peaceful nourishment that comes to me especially clearly in the presence of other women and living Prophets. You can make of that what you will, but I have chosen to make friends with women.

Over the next few posts I will be outlining six points, and as a nod to the late President Hinckley and his Six B's, I have made them into B's as well. The whole exercise is to get you thinking about the friendships and relationships in your own life. Hopefully as you go down this short journey with me in to honeybee-land, you will look at those around you who could be friends and maybe are not yet. Also, I am looking forward to a little discussion along the way, and I will not die if you need to correct me.

Six B's
1. Be There
2. Be Open
3. Be Aware
4. Be Quiet
5. Be Civil
6. Be Still

Freaking Wretched

2010-03-01T20:36:00.000-08:00

Eeep! Retreat! Retreat!

I really do have a series of posts, and the second is even more than half written, but wouldn'tcha know, Friday night I came down with...

drumroll please....

Strep Freaking Wretched Throat.

I feel tonite as though I stand half a chance of recovery, but the rest of my reality? Bruuu-ther! And please, this is NOT to disparage Dadguy's heroic work to keep the household afloat. But the man was pretty darn sick himself, with a mean cold, taking care of kids with mean colds... and all with no milk, bread, low on diapers and other vital necessities.

Only, afloat don't mean running like a well oiled machine, either.

I am thinking it may be a day or two till ya see installment numero two-o. But it's a comin'! And on a happy side of things, HEY! The antibiotics are working this time! Wheeeeeee!

Provenance

2010-02-26T11:15:00.000-08:00

I no longer teach in my church women's group once a month, and as much as I love the turning-eight-year-olds that I teach every Sunday now, I really miss it. So when I got asked to give a short presentation for the Relief Society's mid-week February activity titled "How Do I Love Thee?" I jumped at the chance. There were to be three women speaking, each with a different topic on expressing and growing love in our families, with our husbands, and the topic I got, toward our friends and neighbors.

I worked pretty hard on the presentation, and I wanted to share the meat of it with y'all. First though, I am compelled to give you a bit of back story on how I arrived at my approach to the material. I call it my "provenance" and I when I say I am compelled, it's no joke. I pretty much have to do this or I can't go forward, a little thing I learned about myself and teaching style when I used to teach RS. It's sad that I cling to this teaching conceit, my little crutch, but it appears to be my one nod to the streak of OCD that crops up now and then in my family. So suck it up, ya'll... or I guess you could just skip the following, and check back in tomorrow for the first installment of Love Your Neighbor: The Six B's of Friendship.

But where's the fun in that?

When I said earlier that I "jumped " at the opportunity to teach when I was asked, I am mostly telling the truth. My only reservation was that making friends and being a good friend is an area where I have felt weak most of my life. Starting in grade school when I wished so hard for a good friend, a bosom-buddy-friend-for-life type friendship that I had read about in books. Instead I ended up in friendships that were not satisfying and that were fairly shallow. In High School I became one of those girls who you would often hear talk about how being friends with guys was soooo much better, "cuz girls are just so silly, and they are mean... mnyeah!"

Looking back as I started to prepare, I began to realize that the potential for friendships that were nourishing and fulfilling were always there, I just didn't know how to make those connections. I started looking at what was different about me and my approach to being a friend that made this so, tried to put my finger on what worked.

The first thing that came to mind was my mouth. Seriously. My main focus on being a good friend and neighbor is centered on three activities that are managed by mouth. Eating, talking and shutting my pie-hole (both in terms of letting someone else share for theloveofpete, and refraining from gossip). I have discovered as a mother of young children that I was feeling isolated and lonely, and mostly in the middle of the day. So I started inviting women over for lunch. And when I say lunch, sometimes it's as simple as tuna fish sandwiches and a bag of tortilla chips. I think I have even done PB & J's with a girlfriend in my messy kitchen during a problem stretch of time when I was nursing Pearl. Sometimes I make it a little nicer, trying out a recipe that I know my kids and Dadguy will not be able to choke down but sounds good to me. Mostly though, I have this recipe for vegetable soup that I got from Weight Watchers that is amazing; tastes awesome, is filling, nourishing and I have yet to meet a dieter or non-dieter who does not love it with some buttered whole grain toast. The conversation and confidences that have occurred over bowls of Friendship Soup at my table have enriched my life and quite frankly made it possible to keep going with a cheerful heart, or at least a lessening of the obscenity track that plays in my head. Dadguy can tell the days that I have had one of these lunch dates or something similar, I suspect that I am more bearable and fun to be around, so I can even consider these lunches as helpful to my marriage and family. You know it's true; If Mama ain't happy, NObody's happy!

Obviously these lunches aren't gonna work so well for those of you who are 9 to 5, but then again this is not rocket science, we each have our own style and depending on our lives and even the time of life, we have different needs.

The content that I am gonna be posting for the next few days pretty much assumes that you have opportunities to meet other women (work, church, playgroups, school), and yes.... the "friendship" aspects will contain language that assumes you are a woman, and probably growing friendships with other women. Mostly because as a married woman I find it is prudent to not pursue close friendships with men, but also because I was covering a this material for a fairly narrow audience. I don't see any reason to do otherwise, and you can correct me, but I suspect that you can find your own, or broader applications of these principles if you so desire.

Meantime, I am always looking for suggestions on simple ways of being friends. For instance, I have been thinking about starting Mommy Late Overs. The idea being that once ya get the kiddos down at night, leave your husband in charge and come over to my house for a chick flic and popcorn. Whaddaya think? Simple and fun, yeah? No?

Lilac Turns Six

2010-02-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

So much has been going on in the House of Chaos; some new, some exciting, but really.... most of it mundane.

On Monday my parents went into the MTC in Provo... for all y'all who don't know Mormon lingo, they entered into the Missionary Training Center in advance to heading off for the Washington DC South Mission, where they will serve in various places (mostly VA) for the next 18 months.

They gonna be doing a full-on Proselyting Mission. Dude. My 'rents are hard CORE. I feel something trembling on the cusp of amazing.... something momentous, at their making this commitment. The sight of them in their name tags at the restaurant on Friday night as they had just left the MTC and were yet to begin their drive to the East Coast, I swear that I could see... something. Something not quite of this mortal realm, something of eternity in them, or around them. Was kind of like sitting down to have a steak dinner with my parents, and maybe some angels.

I have a lot more to pray about these days. I have been more regular about saying my personal prayers, and put more of my heart into each prayer than I have in years.

Among other thing, I have a baby sister doing some work overseas right now. In one of those places, those scary places that I will be glad to have her back from. Not directly in harms way, but not far enough away that I rest easy.

I have learned a few things that I had learned before. Guess I will have to relearn them again next month or next year... 'cause apparently I learn like some kind of sieve. One lesson that I want to talk about, but may be redacted later for Birdie's sake:

Lilac's birthday was yesterday, Valentine's Day. But since this year it fell on Sunday, we decided to celebrate it on Saturday. I try to let the kids have a "friend" party on the odd number birthdays, and reserve the evens for "family" parties. Hopefully it keeps them from getting inflated expectations... we'll see. She turned six this year, so it was to be a cousin party. Anyway, I did not entirely have my act together and we had to hit a couple of stores Saturday morning to pick up some last minute items for the party that afternoon. I couldn't leave anyone home because Dadguy is taking every spare minute he can to put into programming an app for the release of Apple's new iPad, so he was long gone working. Birdie was having a rough time of it. Actually, she was being downright ugly about having to come along to the store, about Lilac's birthday, about not being the center of the excitement. Although, to be fair, Birdie really hates going on shopping trips in general.

I got pretty fed up with it pretty fast. She was really raining on Lilacs parade, and I was also feeling pretty outraged that she would be so nasty about someone else getting to have a special day so soon after such a lovely fuss had been made over her. I felt like she was being very ungrateful and very selfish and very shortsighted.

"Why," I thought, "couldn't she just enjoy the moment for someone else? Why couldn't she be happy to think that her sister was about to get lovely gifts that she would probably share with her sisters? She was about to attend a party, eat cake and generally make merry even if the party was not all about her?" I finally got in her face and informed her that I was not about to let her be so nasty about this, not going to allow her to attend the party if she couldn't find a way to turn it around and help make this a special day for Lilac. It is to her credit that it took her maybe three minutes of silence before she chimed in with an idea for the party.

Sigh. Gratitude. How must I offend my Father in Heaven with my shortsightedness and nastiness, my unwillingness to be happy for others having so much. My ingratitude and insistence that being invited to the party is not enough. That I must be the star or I will be ugly about it.

I pray that I can be like my Birdie, that I can turn it around so quickly. Dang, I cringe to think of how I must hurt and offend my God when I turn a blind eye to my blessings.

Anyway... speaking of blessings! Look at this glorious six year old !

And a close-up of the cake. Feast yer eyes, cuz this will the last super-fancy cake I make for quite a while. Took six-seven hours to make all told, I started making it the day before and I was still up against it time-wise at the very last... to say nothing of my helpers "helping." Too much time and too frustrating, and all I can see is how sloppy it looks. I know I know, it's fine, it looks great. But I am thinking that the time investment is not worth it. Really. The kid woulda been thrilled for a bakery cake from Wally World.

Pictorial

2010-02-08T19:42:00.000-08:00

Birdie wanted a Sand Bucket Cake, and she wanted to decorate it herself.

Birdie and Dadguy right before we left for the Church for Birdie's Baptism.

The dress, the girl. Wow!

The Hair, very easy yet dramatic and princess-like.

The Valentines Box for school. Theme for second grade: Love Bugs.

Kindergarten Theme: Nursery Rhymes.

Little Sister Theme: I Am A BigGirl And I Get To

...and, um, Henry. Just cuz.

I'm LOOKING!

2010-02-03T10:47:00.000-08:00

One really good way to cuss up a perfectly good plan is to talk about it. Like that painting idea I had that I mentioned in my last post. Oh, it's still there, and I have some canvas and a plan to have the next-door neighbor guy make up the frame.

But that's about it.

I already knew that my story idea for a book was gonna sit on a shelf, probably for forever... but the painting kinda hurts.

Slow steps. Yeah. I know. Just some days it makes me want to peel my own skin off, this scattered way of living that seems to be the norm with this many small kids, their projects, homework, piano, the distractions and mess; the simple inability I have to finish the dishes, let alone a painting.

Gughk. Wah wah wah. I piss myself off.

Another note... I have been thinking about the homeschooling from last post too, and some of the comments combined with a post by a friend (and the resulting comments) , I remember now some of what I like about sending the kids off to school.

They get more room to become, more room to grow and grow UP. They have a whole new set of people telling them they should be brushing their freakin' teeth and using good manners.

Sometimes I get the feeling that my kids think I make up half the crap that I am trying to teach them as it is, do I really want to take this fight into academia? Seriously.

I want my kids to become self sufficient, to know that they can do stuff without me. Successfully. And I personally got a lot of that sense of "can do" from going to school. Public School. So I am feeling a little easier, with that in mind, easier enough to sit back and wait and see what happens next year. Chillax a bit. Breathe.

On another note. Wow. Hey. The Bird turns eight today. Eight years old. For those of you who are LDS, you know what this means. For those of y'all who aren't, it means she is now at the age of accountability. She is old enough to get baptised and become a member of the LDS church. Old enough to be held accountable for her decisions, old enough to make this covenant to follow Christ. This a very important time, a very sacred time.

I cannot seem to wrap my head around this; my baby is here already. And then again, this Birdie is more than ready. She is strong and whole and prepared, and I am so proud it hurts.

I was thinking the other day about how I used to think of myself as "damaged." I used to, but I haven't even thought about it for years. I used to feel bad that my sweet Dadguy had to get a broken version of me, but I think maybe, if I ever was in fact broken, I am now healed. If there are broken bits left? They are pretty much immaterial, they just don't matter in any way that matters. I love to look at my life and my family and revel in the goodness of it. To feel the love and joy with my whole body, visceral feeling of love. Funny how these moments don't inspire these feeling, but they sure do put them at forefront and grab ya and say "LOOK!"

Out of the Vortex

2010-01-27T10:34:00.000-08:00

As far as I can tell, I coming out of the baby vortex... that's the black hole that all my energy, heart and brains goes into early on in each pregnancy and then continues to go until approximately when the baby starts taking one nap a day (thirteen months old).

I am back!

I guess.

Really, Hen is not doing the one nap bit yet... but I seem to be getting ideas again, so I am calling it good.

ish.

If I seem conflicted, it's because I am. I cannot quite figure it out. I clean forgot how to subtract two digit sums in a column last Saturday, yet I got a screamin' good idea for a book. Seriously. I had an actual vision of a painting two weeks ago, a thing that has not happened for me since I got pregnant with my first baby, yet I am as distracted as ever and cannot seem to finish a sentence using the correct words when I am speaking. The house is only the slightest bit more clean and organized, but I am super-amped about teaching a Color Theory For Kids class this summer. Having fun researching and putting together the lesson plans. Tonight I am headed off to the fourth and final class of the "play piano fast" class that came free with the purchase of a digital piano last year (the girl's are taking piano lesson). I will be playing "How Great Thou Art" in the class recital, top and bottom hands... I am crazy pleased with myself.

Plus I appear to have the extra energy to start freaking out about whether I should homeschool this fall, or just supplement the public schools with some extra stuff at home. Which, yeah, you might think hey! No brainer, chicky! Supplement City, why make life hard on yourself? But every time I volunteer over at Lilac or Birdie's class's I am struck by how much of what is going on is simple herd management. How useful is that? I guess I wouldn't mind the timesuck and the "hurry up and wait" crap, except that it's my understanding that this school really falls apart for advanced kids in the third grade.

As much as I don't want to be "that mom." I fear it less than being the mom who just wasn't paying attention while everything fell to crap for her kid, and this year has been very disheartening for me as far as Birdie goes. Don't get me wrong, things are mostly Ok, and when I talk to moms of special needs kids I feel like a real schmuck for getting in a twist, but her teacher just doesn't get her, has no clue where this little girl is coming from.

Sure, at Parent-Teacher night the conversation seemed to go well at first, with all the things a mama would hope to hear.... top reader in the class, one of the top spellers, great in math, pays attention, participates in class, etc. it was the odd pauses before she continues with a puzzled look on her face that Birdie also really enjoys to write, but how she doesn't write things at all like any of the other kids. How her writing sounds so different, but it is actually pretty good. How she seems to be doing well socially. Like this surprises her. Like she couldn't understand how Birdie could manage to have friends.

Y'all, I got this distinct impression that she thinks my kid is a freak. That she could not understand how this freaky kid has friends. That the things she writes is weird. I guess I am saying that this teacher doesn't much like my kiddo.

Wah.

I guess I should just suck it up, except that this option of homeschooling is there and it is surprisingly within my grasp. The kids would have more time to learn fun stuff because they would have one on one time with a teacher who loves them, and less time would go down the dumper from sheer numbers management.

Dadguy is right. I need to just let this go for now. What if Birdie and Lilac get amazing teachers next year? Supplementing would be optimal in that case.

I just feel like I have been too passive this year as far as Birdie's teacher goes. I kept telling myself that it's going to get better. But maybe it really will get better. Plus there are way worse things that a teacher who does not think the sun rises and sets over my kid. Right? I personally have spent a goodly amount of time with people that don't know what the heck to make of me, and I am undamaged by it. Bleah.

Hey, did I tell you that the girls have given my scissors a name? No joke. Whenever they need large, sharp scissors instead of their blunted safety scissors they ask to use "Straighty Katie." No clue where that comes from, but it slays me every time.

Quick Note

2010-01-26T15:05:00.000-08:00

To Chaos:

I have been asking this of you for several months now, and I will continue to remind, cajole, beg and plead for your assistance in thwarting our budding water sports enthusiast by closing the bathroom door. Just shutting the lid on the toilette not only is no impediment to his nasty splashery, but he is trying to perfect his toilet-brush javelin throw. Shut. That. Door.

Along the same vein, Henry has developed a strong interest in Xtreme Freestyle Stairwell Descent, and that "spring loaded self closing gate" that we have at the top of the stairs? Not so self closing. Help a muthuh out?

Also, I understand that y'all may experience technical difficulties occasionally when "taking care of business" in the bathroom. Happens to the best of us, but let me re-re-reiterate: if you should, by any misfortune, find yourself with bodily functions upon you fingers? The protocol is as follows: Wipe fingers on toilet paper conveniently stationed near the john, then wash hands with soap and water, dry on towel hanging on wall. If you review the previous protocol I am sure you will find that nowhere in there is any mention of the shower curtain. No. Where. Nada. Zip. Not there. So quit it.

And speaking of wiping, let us not forget the many boxes of tissue that I have stationed round the house. Yes, they have been place up a little higher than usual to keep them out of Henry's "she love me she loves me not" plucking range, but they are nonetheless still in your line of sight. For the love of Pete. Use them. The hallway walls, both upstairs and down are lousy tissues and your slug trails are lousy decor.

As you were.

I Am The Mama, Not A Maid

2010-01-16T21:59:00.000-08:00

At the start of this week I observed to Dadguy that I couldn't understand why I don't take the time to clean the basement more often, since the basement stays clean and organized for a longer amount of time than the upstairs; emphasis on the kitchen and the dishes. Sort of a "more bang for your buck" housekeeping realization. Then I put away the Christmas tree and all the holiday decorations that we still had up downstairs. I cleaned, straightened and I vacuumed down there, and today I realized something else:

I lie to myself a lot.

Wall-E Shoes

2010-01-06T22:17:00.000-08:00

Today Lilac was going through a large cardboard box of "boy" toys that our neighbor's tweener son had outgrown and given to Henry; mostly matchbox cars and plastic dinosaurs. She pulls out a small, yellow bulldozer type toy and inspects the tracks (tank tread) and mutters to herself, "Wall-E feet? Shoes?"

She then tuns to me, triumphantly holding aloft the dozer and declares, "This truck has Wall-E shoes!"

Funny Dudes

2010-01-05T18:38:00.000-08:00

Haw Haw Haw!
(she sidles into the room laughing just a shade too jovially)

I was totally going to post something really great. I was! Only there was Christmas, and you know how that goes; the parties, the family, the overeating and the over stimulation! Who writes during Christmas really?

Plus, on Christmas Eve I was making the traditional Chaos Family and Friends Party Soup, (out of TURKEY ya wiseguy) when I zipped a goodly portion of the top of my right thumb off. Just barely getting round to typing again. Right hander thumb's mah spacebar finger, y'all. I was invalid. Gimpy. Hadda use one of those goofy finger condoms just to take a shower.

And, um.... Oh yeah! I got what I wanted for Christmas! The first five books in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera! And four Odd Thomas's (Koontz). And the full, whompin' Pride'n Prejudice Colin Firth whoopty of a disc set. So yeah... I have one book left in the Codex to go, and I have fallen to sleep trying to watch the P&P several times. Plus I have been indulging heavily in season two of Bones.

What?

I got sick again. What else was I s'posed to do? Sick at least twice, though really, it's hard to say exactly. Mighta been two viruses and a bonus sinus infection, or I may be taking a completely gratuitous round of Sulfa antibiotics right now, because the second virus hopped aboard the bandwagon on day six or seven of the first headcold-type thingy, and I went from "improving" to "feeling hellish yet again."

I am still recovering from THAT crap, and the only reason I am still taking the antibiotics, other than a genuine fear of the Antibiotic Police coming to get me, is the fact that the color of my snot went from "day-glo" to significantly less virulent colors within the first thirty six hours. So yeah... sick and.... oh yeah... Mama? Because I keep forgetting to ask, what kind of Calcium tablets are the supergood kinds? I am a stone-cold believer in that cycle/sicko thing you were telling me about. The only month I haven't come down with a barnyard full of feel-like-dirt is the one where I was on the Calcium ya gave me. HALP!

...and lessee...

The KIDS! Yep, they were home all day every day, and friends, and cousins and crime-uh-NIT-ly that's a boatload of kiddos making messes, fighting, crying, laughing manically and thundering up and down the stairs.

And if you needed yet another pathetic excuse for my not having sat down and blogged even just a wee bit, Henry popped a handful of teeth while Birdie had to get one yanked.

She wants me to tell y'all the tale of how it went at the dentists, but I am afraid I haven't the stomach past the basics. Dude. They tried to do a Pulpotomy first (a babytooth root canal) but it wasn't savable. So when the guy yanked... shudder... she has several pieces to hand over to the TF, after she shows 'em off at school. Suffice it say, the kid was brave. We go back to take care of tooth numero-two-o the day before her birthday in Feb. I have already had nightmares involving early morning calls from the dentist saying they can fit her in at six in the morning.

The crying shame of it all, is that the post I had written waaaay back in the day got some great responses, and I guess that Elizasmom wrote some kind of typically thoughtful post linking to what I had said, plus the post that I had linked to myself...I have not responded to anyone or read EM's post and whattheheck? Is? Wrong? With? Me?

That's right, I remember....please see all the above excuse making, plus oh yeah! I suck.

Oh, but before I forget to record it... Henry has been doing his first forays into solo walking. He's clocked in at four consecutive unassisted steps, so long as you don't count over enthusiastic cheerleading, spastic clapping and "cometomama-ing" from some screamy and sort of annoying woman as assistance.

Plus somebody better record for posterity the fact that Pearl calls her panties "funny dudes" every time they come down unexpectedly when she's changing out of her pants or they don't pull up properly when she yanks her pants up after finishing on the potty. This is actually something that happens fairly regularly when one is four years old and still trying to get the hang of business. She always calls them "funny dudes" and laughs, chortles really, and then asks you if you think they are "funny dudes" too.

Y'all, I think they are very funny dudes.

Sacred

2009-12-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

I have a headcold. Bleah!

I had no intention of posting, but then as I was taking a break from cleaning and preparation for the Christmas Eve gathering we are having tonite, I read this post that a friend of mine wrote.

I had to go and Google the term "Festivus." I was never a Seinfeld fan. I think that I didn't have a TV or watch much TV during it's heyday in general.... but I have seen re-runs; and as I mentioned, not a fan. Just doesn't make me laugh much. Smirk occasionally, but not laugh.

All of that aside, in trying to explain some of her beliefs, my friend had used the term "Sacred" and did not seem to be getting any comprehension from the folks she was speaking to. So she asked them what they thought the word meant.

In thinking about the word "sacred" and what it means to modern society overall, I think that my friend really summed it up here:

"Perhaps nothing is sacred anymore, since the very concept of sacredness is becoming foreign. In some circles the idea of sacredness is distasteful–everything should be “equal” and therefore nothing should be ”special”, let alone special to the degree of “sanctity”."

What do you think Sacred means? Does it have any use in your everyday vocab, or is it defunct?

Henry Turns One

2009-12-18T08:17:00.001-08:00

Wait... did we have a birthday around here?
Yep, Henry turned one on the 2nd. I threw together a cake, and it's an OK cake, it's just not the one I'd had in mind. I cannot remember for the life of me the reasons why I didn't do the cool blue and red polkadot fondant bit that I had planned on, but the fact that the kid is one and doesn't really care, and hadn't requested anything in particular eased the decision along, I am quite sure of it.

To be sure... he enjoyed the prep of the cake immensely.

He is such a big boy.

Overheard from Pearl: (breathing out vapors on a frosty morning in the front yard) "Look mama! It's my BRAIN SMOKE!"

Pearl: Age Four

2009-11-11T08:07:00.000-08:00

Ahh! The dangers of FarceBook! I post pictures of Pearls birthday cake and then promptly crossed it off of my list.

Poor, poor neglected bloggy.

Sooooo.... the cake!

Behold my first attempt at covering a cake with fondant!

I learned from my small foray into store bought fondant with Birdie and Lilac's cakes in February; the stuff is only technically edible. As in, you can eat it, it won't hurt you, but it is naaasty! My SIL Gingerbird suggested that I try a homemade recipe for fondant that uses marshmallows and powdered sugar, and the Internets are rife with how-to videos on making it, so I gave it a whirl.

Highly recommend it. The texture and the flavor are more in the realm of "I could eat that" even if it is not quite "I'd like to eat that." Not even the kids could manage much more than a few bites, but then that may be because I went a little too thick with the white cover.

Ya'll, one recipe has a whole bag of powdered sugar, a whole bag of marshmallows and a half cup of shortening. Whuff, that's some challenging eatin' even for the younger set!

So yeah... too thick. Since this was my first ever try at covering a cake, and I was doing it with a bare hour to go before time to leave for Pirate Island for the party, I went thicker since I was afraid if the fondant cracked or tore, I would never get the job done in time. The result was a layer that was soo thick and heavy, it smooshed the whole cake down into a squashy couch cushion sort of a look. Not what I had intended, but it didn't look terrible either. I will do it different next time!

Behold! My four year old! Another area of excessive pride, but for vastly different reasons than the cake.

Grateful

2009-11-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

It has seemed that my world has been washed out and tired the past week and a half; today I am seeing in color again.

I can also eat food with only a minimal assist from a glass of ice water.

To celebrate my new found freedom, I share with y'all the fun activity we are doing here in Chaos this month. We made a tree out of black butcher paper (cuz they didn't have any brown), and we write a thing we are grateful for on each leaf. We kicked it off on Monday evening as a part of Family Home Evening, and we add a leaf per person each evening. I hope that by Thanksgiving the kiddos will have an inkling of why we celebrate it., and I hope that the holiday will be a little more meaningful for them than, "whee! Punkin PIEEEE!"

That remains to be seen.

There is also an empty bird nest and a hole in the tree trunk where a family of owls live. It doesn't correspond with any cool moral lesson or anything, the girls insisted is all.

I have just decided to go and get a new leaf and write "Pirate Island" on it with glitter. Pearl has agreed that going to Pirate Island (the new Chuck E. Cheeze, only with better food) for her birthday will be just the thing. I hope that it will make the day special for her, as I will be hard pressed to do more than make a cake for the kid, and getting the house ready for a party is out of the question for me right now. Zero reserves.

Also there is the awkwardness that she thinks all of Birdies and Lilacs friends are her friends, and should come to her party. She is only just now starting to branch out and make friends of her own age in the hood, and I am not able to get it together enough to find out who she pals around with at pre-school. So yeah... a little "family party" that is extra special yet low-effort, is just the ticket.

Sunday Pic: I Will Survive

2009-11-01T11:05:00.001-08:00

Strep throat? As it turns out, maybe I had strep throat. Sure, I tested positive for strep, but as it turns out a person can be what is called a "carrier" for the strep, without actually having it.

So maybe I am a carrier and didn't have strep throat, instead I had a rather horrific mutant virus that swells a girl's entire soft tissues in the old throat-n-neck-y-o region and puts open ulcers all over her pharyngeal, tonsils, and uvula while also causing huge fevers and general misery.

Or maybe I had the strep and the virus together. Cuz I is spay-shull an' I gits to. No joke! So special, in fact, that I would like to point out, that while I am grateful that no one in this house came down with either said virus nor strep.... I find it highly suspect that no one else in this house came down with said virus nor strep.

The upshot of all of this is that I am still sick, and very likely have three days more to look forward to this; and by "this" I mean the open sores in the back of my mouth and down my throat. The self pity is of a wallowing depth, and I plan on taking a loooooong bath in it.

This also means that I missed Halloween. I missed it, and I have about as much grace about the fact that I had to miss it as any six year old might. For those of you who don't have kids, allow me to translate: tantrum. Good thing for everyone I am the mama... so I kept it a quiet one, but were tears shed? Yes. But it may be because I got mad enough to try to eat a piece of Halloween candy, and the sugar burned the crap out of my ulcers on the way down. The pink polyjuice potion looking crap the doc prescribed for me to gargle with thrice daily so that I can eat something, is really only up for the job of helping me choke down unseasoned soft scrambled eggs, or plain mashed potato and the like. Fun sized Butterfingers bar? Not so very much.

Here is a pic of Lilac and Pearl before they went to school for their parties and parades. I didn't even manage to get one of Birdie's re-vamped costume... I have nothing of Henry's super cute pirate costume and nothing of Dadguys poacher outfit that still makes me snort with laughter. Obviously I skipped a costume of my own, and went straight to for unkempt deathbed sort of a look.

... and I am remembering now that a few years ago when I had the "almost pneumonia" that I now realize was "actual pneumonia," I went through this whole thing of feeling rundown and I kept catching everything that came down the road and made you fell like ya wanted to die. I remember because this new doctor (one at the clinic that I had not ever been to see) wants to start trying to figure out if there is an underlying cause to all the creeping crud, or if maybe I am just lucky. He's starting with Diabetes. Pretty sure I don't have Diabetes, but this is where my last doctor started in the trying to figure what is my malfunction.

Anyway... all I am saying is now I remember: I have been here before, and yet I was able to get to a place where I was running and strong and feeling very, very good. I did it before, I will do it again. It's very possible that there is nothing wrong with me past the damage done from having my Henry boy-o. I know that pregnancy is a big strain on my body, and four pregnancies spaced fairly close together in my mid to late thirties? Perhaps I got off lucky with a little round of the "I-feel-sickies." So yeah, I am gonna wallow for a while, then go back and take a sugar test and then see where to go from there.

Cuz i am sick, but i am not beaten.

Again

2009-10-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have been nearly forty eight hours on a Z-pack, and I am still in a hell of having to screw up the courage to swallow water.

Strep throat, baby.... and I have no clue how people with a painful, terminal illness do it. I want to die, but the only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that if this round of antibiotic doesn't work (as it appears to not be working) despite the repeated assurances from my doctors office that sometimes it just takes a little while to kick in, then I will go back to my @#$% doctor and demand something with a little kick... and some morphine.

It looks a lot more like mumps than it does strep. My neck and throat and, well, all soft tissues therein have gone hard. And rotted. And twice their original size.

I almost didn't write this post because I am so angry that I am so sick. Y'all, Dadguy took Monday and Tuesday off from work to play single-dad-nursie-maid for this family. I have not changed a diaper nor fixed a meal nor wiped a nose other than my own. I KNOW how lucky and blessed I am to have this man and this opportunity to be sick. Just sick. Sick the way that moms never get to be sick, and I am still flailing about and whining, shaking my spoiled fists.

This is why I cannot make more babies. My poor body is wide open to any bacteria or virus that mosey's down the pike, I have no immune system left. I am old.

Holycrap and I'm hungry. I am gonna go try to choke down some soup. Literally.

there is no title for this

2009-10-23T13:35:00.000-07:00

My heart is tender, and although I know that it is not broken, right this minute it almost feels so. All for a thing that I had never thought to mourn, a thing about myself and my life that I have felt joyful, even gleeful about for well over a year.

I am done having babies. I have known well and solidly that I am done, and i won't bore anyone with the various and obvious reasons (and a few personal reasons too) why I am done; because I just felt done. Done and done, and relieved to be so. Able to set about the rest of my mortality with all of that, fertility and timing and fretting about am or am not gone by the wayside, a dance for younger or more energetic women. I have indulged in this running countdown of lasts in my mind, gleefully treasuring up Henry's baby accomplishments. His unhurried pace through his life, the happy and almost senseless whanging around of his little fists all about his little boy person. So very done even before his arrival on earth, that I agreed to a c-section a bit easier than I think I normally might, just so I could have the tubal and have done with all of it, have that door shut for good.

Only earlier this week I realised I was late after a weekend of exhaustion and queasiness, and a suspiciously familiar itchy rash that had started again on my lower stomach two weeks earlier got me feeling a little uneasy. Then a friend from the neighborhood announced she was pregnant and had gotten so on the very same IUD that one of the OB's from the doctors office had tried to talk me into, proclaiming it had the same rate of efficacy as the more final surgical procedure I was asking for. And then somehow the tales of women started in a torrent, women who are right this minute pregnant in impossible circumstance. So I checked with Dr. Google, and sure enough, tubals done in conjunction with a c-section have a higher fail rate than the usual 1%. And then there is that 1% in normal circumstances.

And I have been waiting. On the one hand quite sure that I have just been put off schedule by the past month of pneumonia and colds, and on the other hand discovering...

...discovering to my shock and dismay, that there was a familiar flutter of hope.

damn.

As it turns out, I do have to mourn the passing of this time in my life; regret, after all, that there will be no more. I know, I know... I honestly suspect that my body might break irreparably if called on to create another life. I would be forty one. I know.

There are reasons and logic and knowledge... and then there is my heart, and of course I am not pregnant. This afternoon saw the start of the end of that brief hope. There is my astonishingly fickle heart, and there, this little crack in it.

Who's Geekin' NOW, Baby!

2009-10-20T22:43:00.000-07:00

We have been getting ready for Halloween; decorating and such. I thought I was going the extra mile for Birdie's costume, you know... the Jedi thing. But then I realized that I had stepped over the line when I started calling the brown criss-crossed thingies of her costume, the "tabards." And then I had to un-criss-cross them. With a seam ripper. Because they were not authentic.

The kid was pleased as punch with 'em, and yet I HAD to fix 'em anyway. And an "obi", I had to make her an "obi," otherwise known as a fabric under-the-belt thingummy, not because she wanted them, but because I had to. Oh yeah... and I got a "gi" or Tae Kwando tunic (five bucks at the secondhand shop) , and then I had to dye it so it was not so very stark white, so it matched the tabards and obi better. But because I am a Mormon housewife, I had no tea or coffee to dye it off-white. So yeah.... I don't know for sure if it was the baking cocoa powder or the Pero or the Orange Zest Herbal tea or the vanilla extract that did the job, but I suspect it was the cocoa. Don't try this at home y'all... it smelled like someone vomited in a large dish of potpourri and then cooked it. Dadguy still shudders.

The deed is done, but there will be no costume preview this time. I may have sucked the fun out of the Jedi. All Birdie cares about is the robe, the lightsaber and a hook to hang it on. She will wear the whole she-bang for the festivities, and I'll get pictures then, but I am not gonna chivvy the poor girl back into the whole get-up one more extra time... not even for posterity. Unless she wants to! And then WHEEEEE! I am so proud and yet so ashamed all at the same time.

As a consolation prize to the two younger girls I made them each a new skirt from the fabric of their choosing. This is Lilac's. Those are little kittens wearing scarves on her skirt. Unfortunately I didn't catch Pearl's skirt as it went through the wash though.... the fabric had millions of little sequin sparkly things all over that apparently were stuck on with some sort of adhesive that lets go in the heat of the dryer cycle. I will be both picking wee magenta sparkles out of the laundry from here to eternity and making a new skirt for the kid. Sorry Pearl.

What do ya think? Shall I whip together an "Uncle Fester" robe for the guy?

Interior Design: Three Year Old Version

2009-10-20T22:36:00.000-07:00

Saaaaay, thanks Pearl, I needed a Q-Tip right there. Brilliant move sticking it on with BubbleMint Toothpaste!

Henry

2009-10-15T15:37:00.000-07:00

So the kid is hitting his milestones more or less. Not exactly winning the old "developmental derby" I guess you could say, but he's been crawling and pincer grasping and all that sort of stuff.

Except for eating. He's really good at eating.

Advanced even!

Sunday Pic: Halloween Preview

2009-10-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

I finished Birdie's costume this weekend. I must admit to being excessively proud of that which I have wrought. Bird is pretty thrilled too, although you'd have a bit of a time telling from her expression on most of the shots I took to document the final product.

She already had the pants, shoes, and the brown t-shirt, so I used an old bedsheet to make up the criss-crossed portions. Technically this whole thing would be much more accurate if we had a karate gi (the shirt part of the uniform) to go over the t-shirt but under the criss-crossed parts. If I happen to find a used gi at a second hand shop, then "yay!" but I am not holding my breath, and I am not putting much more $$ toward this outfit than the thirty odd bucks that we already have. In any case, she is in love with it already.

I made the boot toppers and the belt out of some pleather sort of stuff that I got at Wallyworld for about five bucks. The robe fabric was the big score though; I got three yards for a grand total of seven dollars. The fabric is very thick and soft.
A couple of bucks for some hooks that I used for the robe clasp, and on the belt to hold the saber, little bit of velcro for the backs of the boot toppers and "cha-CHING!" there ya go. It is amazing what can be done via the awesome advice and how-to Youtube videos that are available on the Internets.

...and yes, yes I am aware that her light saber is the wrong color for a Jedi. Just ask yourself how big of a geek you must be to point that detail out to a happy little seven year old girl.

Really.
Geek.

List

2009-10-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

1. I am changing LaLa's blog name at her request. She will further more, and henceforth be known as Lilac.

2. Lilac, Pearl and the next-door-neighbor-girl made some glittery dance-contest award ribbons for the All-Girl-Super-Fun-Dance-Party and there seems to be no end to the stray flecks of glitter. Henry seems to always be sporting at least on bit of glitter on his head at any given time. The girl's refer to it as his "Pet Sparkle." I have know idea why.

3. I no-longer feel like hot buckets of raw sewage. I merely feel like poo. YAY!

4. We had a bumper crop of grapes this year, and since my mama moved into a town just a 45 minute drive away, I thought I'd con her into teaching me how to can grape juice. She came and we put away approximately two dozen quarts of grayish greenish juice. I am veeeery proud and pleased, and very put-out with the dough-heads that I live with who have declared they don't like it.

5. Am up for suggestions and recipes to slide this stuff past the picky palettes of my kids.

6. My chest no longer sounds wheezy and gurgly. The sound that is makes is now describable only when I liken it to the sound of Pop Rocks. Dadguy does not find this sound to be a turn on. Whatever.

Satisfaction. Sort Of.

2009-09-21T08:33:00.001-07:00

Obviously I am not happy to be sick. Obviously. It sucks, and it takes a while to be clear of this kind of yuck.

But I cannot deny a certain satisfaction with the diagnosis. It's good to put a name on feeling like hot buckets of raw sewage. It was also particularly satisfying at the doctors office, in a third grade mocking "faaaace!' sort of a way. Too bad I have to have pneumonia to have that sort of "satisfaction."

And I hate to play the weight card, but I have to wonder as I look back on my experience, if I had not had one of those "fat hating" health care providers that I have heard about but never encountered. Really though, there is no telling. I have heard on the occasion that I rub folks wrong, and my daddy says that I do not suffer fools well. Perhaps she was just a lousy nurse, or a nurse having a lousy day. Who knows, but here is what happened:

Nurse calls my name and I walk back to the exam rooms with her. She indicates that I should get on the scales and then ushers me back to the room. Looking back on it now, I realize she has skipped the part where she is supposed to take my temperature. But if I noticed at the time I wouldn't have cared much. I never run a fever... as a matter of fact, my regular temp is exactly 97.5 and has been since my early twenties, so I never worry about it. I get strep and don't burn y'all... I just don't.

She takes my blood pressure and it's a little high. Then she sits down with the lap top to start taking notes.

"So, how long have you had this cold?"

"Oh, it's not a cold. I just started with a wheezing and a gurgling sound in my chest last Saturday, then I started feeling achy, supersensitive skin, and fatigued and sore joints yesterday."

"Ok... so you've had symptoms for five days?" She begins typing in.

"Nooooo.... it's been longer than five days."

She looks up and narrows her eyes, "you started with this cold last Saturday?"

"Yes, that's when it started, but it's not a cold. A cold comes with feeling like I have a cold."

"So five days." Resumes typing.

"Um, isn't today Friday?"

"Yes"

"So how is that five days?"

She holds up her hand like she is explaining math to a four year old.... yet again. "Well, you came down with symptoms on Saturday, so that's Sunday," holds up a finger, "Monday," another finger goes up. She continues counting till she get to six and then grudgingly says, "OK. Six then."

I really should let this drop, but I feel like crap and want to be taken seriously. Besides, why the heck is she trying to minimize my symptoms? Why won't she just listen to what I am saying? "So, if I started with symptoms on Saturday, don't you count Saturday?"

"Yes. I counted Saturday."

"Then that's seven days isn't it?" I watched her count again in her head. Her fingers twitch as she goes.

"Fine. Seven." She isn't even pretending to be nice nursie now.

"Yeah. Seven days. But I felt fine until yesterday."

She tippity taps for a few minutes, and then announces that the Doctor will be in in a minute, and leaves.

Y'all, I felt really sick and a little scared. I wasn't watching closely, so I am not sure what was going on with this woman... it could be that I pissed her off in a personal way. Who knows. But the nurse comes in with the doctor ten minutes later and the doc sits down with the lap top and asks the room in general "OK! What is going on with Mrs Chaos here?"

Nurse pipes up from the corner "she has had a cold for seven days."

I know myself well enough to guess that any "polite face" I may have had until that point is gone. I think she is an idiot and I am pretty sure it shows. "This is NOT a cold. I know what a cold is, this is something different."

More discussion and I am getting frustrated. I start to suspect that the doctor believes his nurse over his patient as he asks yet again if I am having any nasal congestion.

Finally he looks in my ears and down my throat and sees nothing. Listens to my lungs and now he starts to engage a little. "OK, well I am definitely hearing somemedicalterm in your left lung. What was her temperature nurse?"

"Um. I didn't take her temp."

"Please do that now," he snaps.

She jumps and the better part of 102 degrees later the doc is ordering influenza tests and a lung xray. This is the last I see of this nurse, and that's GOOD thing, because her replacement is the one who puts the shot in my caboose, and I am betting that could have gone worse than it did.

And now that I have written this whole post, I see how laughable I am. I am an easy target, and my daddy is sooooo right about me! MWahahahahahahaaaaaaa!

All-Girl-Super-Fun-Dance-Party.

2009-09-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Saturday I got a funny gurgle in my chest, but other than that I felt fine.

Sunday I got a wild hair and decided it would be fun to throw a dance party for the girls, so I took aim at Thursday and we got to planning. We hand made some invitations, got some prizes at the dollar store, some treats, a couple packages of balloons and broke out the Christmas lights. Planning and preparing for the party was really fun, but I always forget how much work goes into the simplest of gigs. So Thursday found LaLa, Pearl, the next door neighbor girl and I blowing up balloons downstairs after morning Kindergarten. We put the final touches on the party but I was starting to feel just a little funky.

I had had a hard time blowing up balloons, and actually had to put the smaller ones aside because I couldn't even get them started. During the party I started to sweat profusely, but I chalked that up to dancing around in the basement with a bunch of sweaty little girls. They tended to dance a little crazy and smack each other around like a good old fashioned mosh pit if not given a little direction.

"NOW let's dance the pogo!" demonstrate.
"NOW let's do the twist!" demonstrate.
"NOW a Congo line!" You get the picture.

Then they took turns picking the style of dance as I jiggled Henry on my hip, and then everyone got a turn doing a solo dance for the admiring crowd. A half an hour after the last girlee left I was barely able to stand. I washed the dishes, and tried to think up a dinner but when Dadguy got home he took one look at the mess that was me, and sent me to bed.

Two x-rays and a couple of shots in the caboose later, turns out I have pneumonia. Dang guys, I HATE pneumonia.

At least it isn't H1N1. I woulda felt all kinds of lousy about throwing an inadvertent Swine Flu party.

Whee!

And Yet Some More Pictures

2009-09-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

It appears that all I am good for these days are pictures.

But what lovely pictures they are!

On Labor Day we went with Grandpa and a cousin to a little carnival that was a couple of towns away, and we dropped a small fortune on some rickety looking rides. After wandering through the various stalls of other ways to spend $$ we decided to just go home and make some popcorn and snow cones and get some homemade face painting done. Between the four girls getting butterflies on their faces and treats for their tummies, I am betting we saved more than forty bucks. It was do that or hit the ATM, and I feel comfortable with our choice.

Oh... and treats for the adults! Make that around $50 to $60!

She looks pretty comfortable with our choice too.

To say nothing of being downright, stinkin' CUTE!

The cousin looked great too.... but I don't know how her mama feels about her pic being on the internets... so ya get the Bird! Ta DA!

Last but not least, Tuesday was Pearls first day of her first year of Preschool. She picked this outfit at the store herself, and I think she did great. I think this is the first year I have taken pictures of the kids "first day of school" outfits... what a great way to mark the passage of time. Don't know why it took me so long to start doing it too. Am shmoe.

Redneck Too-tor-yul

2009-08-30T22:44:00.001-07:00

Now, I b'lieve I promised y'all some foe-toe-bloggery. Guess now's a good-a time uz inny to give y'all a too-tor-yul on th'care an' maintenance of a ring stacker whatsit.

First off... y'all gotta take iss business perty serious-like, no jackin' round. You screw the pooch on iss baby, ain't NO stackin' goan be happenin', and that jiss ain't FUN.

Getcher self a grip on th' whatsit. Now some folks think y'all kin be jiss grabbin' atcher toys all willy-nilly in a one hander grip. M'self I don't recommend it. Naw. Y'all gonna wanna give this step some real consideration.

Jiss one thangs fer sure... Not. Like. Iss.
Take a good look y'all, this is what's known in th' business as "bass-ack-ward." Ain't nuthin' goan stack on a tumped over bit o' crazy like iss bad-boy here, and on top uh that? The yaller stick part come half unscrewed from the base of the whatsit, ever time ya grip it like iss.

Don't do it.

Now, if ya'll have loosened up yer yaller stick part from the base, jiss grab that sucker like iss and give 'er a righty-tighty. Don't be stingy with the torque now. I'll wait while ya git 'er done.

Once ya git that yaller stick all snug as a bug, ya shift yer grip and shaZAM! Y'all are good to go!

An at's whatcha call ring stack ready! This yere's my fav-rit grip, the two handed straight-up-n-down! And yer ready to stack.

An' that's what ya call a redneck too-tor-yul.
Yee-haw!

LaLa Goes To Kindy-garten

2009-08-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

So wow, yeah... LaLa is at her first day (half day?) of Kindergarten right now. I dropped her off at school and then took Henry and Pearl in the double stroller for a walk. Finally.

It is so liberating to just have the two. I can just walk. And here I am, posting on the old bloggy; Pearl is downstairs getting reacquainted with Diego, and Henry is visiting the Sandman. And I am glad for these small mercies, but today they just underscore how low my standards have sunk. How little I expect from myself or for myself outside of the realm of motherhood and wifery.

A few of my favorite bloggers have posted recently and I find that I cannot even comment on their posts because everything I have to say is self-pity slop. And envy; envy when I know better than to compare my reality with the teeny slice of reality that I see of another's life.

I also recently read this really stupid feminist rant about an equally stupid anti-feminist article and the parts of it that stuck out to me (other than the fact that both sets of folks were giving us all a good view of their posteriors) was a bit about how babies give their mommies a sort of narcotic high. Oxytocin I believe was what the more scientific-minded called it. While I am as google-headed as the next mommy over my fat friar of a Henry-boy... I think I am getting gypped in the contact high department.

Have you seen Phoebe in Wonderland? It's a beautiful movie, thoughtful and well done, and well acted... there is a part though, that resonated in me so much that it hurt. The mom and the father are talking while raking leaves, and the mom character is explaining that she is angry that she isn't writing, and how she is afraid that when she is 70 that she will be going on endlessly about her children because she won't have anything else, because she won't have done anything important. And then she is mad because sometimes she isn't scared of that at all, because her children make her live.

Only my children don't make me live. I don't think so anyway.

I find myself with this carrot of "in six years" dangling in front of my mental nose... like some holy grail of motherhood. This "when they are all in school" fantasy that I will be able to do creative things again. That I will be able to write then. I tell myself that I cannot write now because I am so tired and distracted... that perhaps if I had the energy of a younger mother I could do it.

Sorry LaLa... don't mean to steal your thunder. I am so very proud of you, and you are so ready for this time in your life.

Just that some days I wish that I was ready for this time in my life.

Photobloggery?

2009-08-20T20:53:00.000-07:00

Naw... this jist filler til the REAL photobloggin' starts. Purely infer-mational.

First off... TLC 9:00 PM on Sunday August 30th, for the "Your Kid Ate What?" thingy. Again, while I must be fair in stating that the story of what happened with the Pearl-girl really was pretty convoluted... what you will see has couple of facts glaringly wrong, so wrong in fact, that they (the production company) cannot even change them KNOWING that they are wrong. As in the footage is shot and cobbled together and they can't really tweak anything they have to fit the truth. Apparently they make heavy use of actors doing dramatizations of what happened. I can only surmise that the people who wrote the script, never got within five feet of my blog, any of the endless footage that I sent, OR the hours of taped interview of both Dadguy and myself re-hashing the details ad nauseum.

Whatever.

We never had an ambulance come to our house.

And not that it matters (though obviously it matters to me)... you will never hear the phrase "Thank God" out of my mouth. As in, "everything turned out OK, thank God!" I am not saying there is anything wrong with saying it, only I am super, super careful about how I use the name of Deity. Is a personal choice that I have made, fueled by the many years that I was very care-LESS about what I said or how, and I just want to make that clear. Kinda like in the Book of Mormon how there was that batch of Lamanites who, when they were converted to Christianity and realized that murder was so wrong they buried their weapons of war and vowed never to take them up again... and then they didn't. Not even to defend their own lives, to the point of kneeling before those who would slay them and offering their lives, and then being slaughtered until not even their enemies could stomach it any longer. Like they went super extreme the other way. So yeah, it's kind of like that only not as dedicated, or meaningful or cool or anything.

Anyway, it's just this thing I have... and they have the gal who plays me say it at one point, and I would never say that.

I know, I know... get over it already woman!

Look at my beautiful Bird on her first day of second grade!

She is LOVING the Potter.
(I edited out her RL name that she had originally put into this drawing)

Grandpa sent the girls a book on How To Draw Baby Animals... this is LaLa's baby bunny. These kids! They KILL me!

This is pure Pearl... and if I know her, this bug is named either "Twilight" or "Sara-tee."

*Edited to add: I just asked Pearl what the human bugs name was, she floored me by replying "Eee-ook." There is a new name in town.

The Bag

2009-08-16T20:51:00.000-07:00

Walking home from the school playground this evening, Birdie and LaLa have ridden their two-wheelers on ahead and are waiting for us on the front lawn. I am pushing Henry and Pearl in the double stroller as Pearl and I chat companionably about the things we see. Pearl does a sharp intake of breath and turns around in the stroller to look me in the eye and says, "Mama! Today is the day that the earth worms DIE!"

"They die?"
"Yes, they die and then they go up to worm heaven!"
"Worm heaven, huh? Is that a beautiful place for worms to go?"
"Yes. But the bad-guy worms... they go in the bag."

Seriously though, check this out

and then look over here.

Stuff

2009-08-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

With four kids, one of them a baby, ya own a lot of stuff.

Correction: We own a lot of stuff.

There are clothes, and toys, sparkly stickers, and dishes, and food of all the various sorts that all the various and bizarre eaters eat in this house. And then since we are LDS, there is also the food storage and 72 hour emergency kits. There are DVD's, bandaids, computers, tools, magazines and books. Artwork, pencils, rubber bands, papers, mail, bills, ribbons, documents, bedding, toiletries, cleaners, laundry, boxes, furniture...

THINGS.

And the incomprehensible little people of this house moving these things, all of these things all of the time, around in inexplicable patterns and for no knowable reasons. Things that it would never occur to my adult brain to do or to move or to use to play a rousing game of Power Puff Petshop Potter Menace.

It is this aspect, the stuff-management part of my job description; this aspect of being a mother of four children that is sitting on my brain and making my chutzpah scream "uncle!" Today I took LaLa and Pearl to the local department store sale to choose a new backpack each. Later this evening after enjoying being in the audience of our own "pajama/backpack fashion show," complete with catwalk soundtrack and much swishing and posing by three little girls, I gathered together the three backpacks in one place and looked around my front room for a good place to put them. These packs will, after all, be in play nearly every day this up coming school year. But they are pretty darn big, the backpacks... and I already have valuable space taken up by the coat rack and the shoe basket that will also be getting lots of action come cold weather and (gulp) the snow. Plus the paperwork; the blizzards of papers and art projects and flashcards and memos that I can count on from a second grader, a kindergartner and a pre-schooler, these storms of paperstuffs that are soon to grace this home.

Then it dawned on me... in three short years (and the years are getting shorter and shorter lemme TELL you!) I will have four backpacks to shuffle. Holy permission slips Batman, I am feeling dizzy.

S'cuze me a minute...

Endeavors

2009-07-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

For some reason I am lacking in gumption these days. Perhaps all of it has evaporated in the summer heat, I dunno... but by golly I am gonna fake it for a while. I would tell you that in the interest of faking it, I am writing this post. Only that would be a big, fat lie. In the interest of avoiding a bunch of smelly, dirty dishes I am writing this post.

What? YOU can't smell them from that side of the computer screen. So hush.

So... we've done a few things this summer, and this is show and tell day. First off, LaLa has this thing for instructive video clips on the D!sney version of y0utube. She gets ideas for cake decorating and crafts, and then she wants to do them. I have caved on a few projects and treats. The flipflops were one of them. I thought to myself... "some cheep flip flops and a little frippary, how much can that cost?"

I'll tell ya. Plenty.

The flip flops set me back a total of four fifty total, for the three of them. The frippary, on the other hand, cost a titch over twenty five bucks. Geesh!

Birdie's flops

Pearl's flops.

LaLa's flops.

There has also been some artwork happening... and sadly, LaLa is gonna get short shrift here. Most of her stuff has actual Chaos Names embedded IN the pictures themselves, and I forgot where my image editor has gone. Is probly on Dadguy's laptop, but if I try and get all particular right now, this post will never get writ. Besides... Henry's gonna get slid on by in the artwork department altogether, as his creations are of a "treasure rock" variety, and nobody wants to see THAT!

Birdie kinda knocked my socks off with this one.

This one too! We are on a Star Wars kick lately. She wants to be Qui Gon Jinn for Halloween. I am delighted with her costume choice once again.

This is LaLa's rendition of Aipom, a Pokemon... would be a little more impressive if I could find the picture she referenced when she painted it. Still, I love that she is another artist!

Here... found this at least.

Pearl expresses herself with a paint brush, and honestly, I cannot fathom how she manages to get such lovely and vivid colors out of her scabby and muddy box of overmixed pans of watercolors.

And she expresses herself with some of my lip gloss... most of my lip gloss.

I draw some too, mostly for the amusement and instruction of the kids, but still...

Henry mostly just works on being dang cute.

...and we all of us just sing our way through the days. Some of us louder than others. Poor Henry. Welcome to your childhood with three older sisters.

And lastly, Dadguy has been working on another iPhone app... this time a little game that is already a huge hit in the Chaos household. Is called Meeps... check it!

Oh-Kaaaaay Maaamaaaaaaah

2009-07-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

It's a fact... Dadguy has written five posts to his iPhone developer blog since my last post. And five to his new "Meeps" blog. This is wrong on soooo many levels. Not that he is posting to his blogs... but that I am not.

School starts in three weeks, and I am very excited for this, but I think that I have begun to put everything off till that time.

Sighhhh. This is not working so well for me. I feel out of control.

Because. Oh yeah. I AM out of control.

Still, there is fun stuff happening and the kids are growing and going and doing. The Art work, for instance. It's a little unnerving the quality of the creations around here. Like I'll be fixing dinner and the kids will be drawing at the table and I take a glance over a shoulder and I'll have to stop and pick my jaw up off the floor. That good! Sadly I have lost track of the example of the "Power Pup Girls" that LaLa drew... but I will be posting a gallery of various masterpieces. Soon.

At this rate? Expect it next year.

And reading. Birdie is off and reading the first Harry Potter book. I started reading it with her, but I guess I am just not fast enough.

LaLa is so ready for school. She will be reading pretty fluently by the end of Kindygarten... I can tell. In most ways she is farther along than Birdie was.

Pearl. She reads too. But to her, everything reads as follows: "Dear, dear, dear Pearl!" Ask her. She'll tell you!

Home

2009-06-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

So about that last post? It's hormonal. I remember now that I get super-freaky-hormonal when I quit nursing and start mensing. This time I was caught off guard by the "panic" aspect that my personal brand of freak-out took, but in the end, it's just more of the same. Perhaps because I am mensing and nursing? Nevertheless...

It's hormonal, and progesterone cream takes care of it.

So yesterday was pretty landmarkish for me. Only the signposts I was passing were subtle, and I am not sure if I understood what they said. Or where I am.

Perhaps I am in Belgium. But no... the chocolate would be better in Belgium, don't you think?

Yesterday Dadguy and I went in to Orem to sign the papers for our refinance. We are moving from a 30 year FHA to a 15 year conventional loan. I find this strangely titillating. That too must be my currently unbalanced hormones.

huh.

Anyways, the gal who was doling out papers to sign pointed out that my driver's license had expired on my birthday, a week or so back. Did I tell mention that I turned forty on the twelfth? No joke! I did! Forty! Perhaps THAT'S why everything seems so strangish and new. Maybe I am now dwelling in FORTYLAND; home of the mid-life crisis and shifting hormonal balances!

But I digress... since all the kiddos were at home with a babysitter, I took the opportunity to run by the DL Renewal office on my way home to get a new one. Thankfully, I had actually put on make-up that morning; I don't always. But I had not wanted to go into some posh financial institution with the normal glob of spit-up-on-the-shoulder and snot-wiped-on-the-pants-leg look that I usually sport nowadays. The picture of the lady on the new card was a lovely representation of forty years old. With make-up.

That was when I noticed that the address on my old license is my current address. Another landmark right there. Since the day that I started driving and toting around a card with my picture on it that says I get to... this was the first time that had ever happened to me. Heck... I have now lived at my current home for longer than I have ever lived anywhere, either before or after the advent of my license to scare the crap out of my parents and send their insurance premiums soaring.

All four of my children have come home from the hospital to this house.

This is the little house, that when Dadguy and I discovered we were pregnant with Birdie... we chose the lot and picked the floor plan, colors and carpets for this house. We caused this house to be built, and then we put in landscaping, fencing and finished the basement over the past eight-years-this-Thanksgiving.

And now, we have just refinanced, digging in for the next umpteen years. I spent the better part of my thirties living in this house, I could conceivably spend the entirety of my forties here. It feels like this means something... but I have no idea what.

There is some sort of meaning at a tectonic level here; that I have surpassed even my childhood in terms of stability, and I had a stable and good childhood. Not that simply not moving from apartment, to house, to house means "stability," only in this case, to my heart, it sort of does. It is some sort of metaphor for my life as a wife to Dadguy and a mother to his children.

Like it is a physical manifestation of the haven that we are building for the Chaos family. How interesting. I think it is no coincidence that this Sunday I teach a lesson based on the talk "Sacred Homes, Sacred Temples" in Relief Society.

And isn't it great, this "blogging" thing. After having written this post I think I can now start to decipher the signs and markers of yesterday that stirred me so. Home. Progression. Thriving. Growing. Nurturing.

Panic In The Streets

2009-06-15T20:28:00.000-07:00

Well.

Something has happened to me. Is happening to me?

I am afraid that if I write about it... what? It will be real, finally? I will have to do something about it? Somehow, that writing about it will make it into a big fat fuss when it's really nothing? Will it offend people who suffer from panic attacks to read my recounting of a couple of episodes of I-don't-know-what-but-it-might-be-panic-attacks, because really, I am just being a schmo?

I have probably not been having panic attacks. But I have been having... something. I have had a bit of tightly wound something that has been noticeable since I went into the mission field (I served a stateside LDS mission in my late 20's). Tightly wound. And that's the nice way of putting it.

The summer after Pearl got out of the hospital I got a little taste of an all new something though; a something that has hit me rather hard the past few weeks. I remember that Pearl still had her g-tube in, so it was probably in June, and we were at an amusement park just North of Salt Lake City, they have this big Ferris wheel that had extra-large, round baskets that easily held our whole family. A person would have to try really hard to get hurt on this thing, and we were there to have fun, and while I don't love heights, Ferris wheels seem pretty tame to me. But I fully freaked out on the ride.

I had my kids there, so I didn't get all screamy and outwardly freaked, but my heart was pounding, I was sweating, gallons of adrenaline were being dumped into my system and I cried steadily and quietly for most of the ride.

I'll buy that it was just some PTSD from the whole experience of the close call with Pearl, followed by her grueling recovery, and I hadn't much worried about it; till now.

This past spring we took the whole family plus my eighteen year old niece to Denver to visit my sister and her family. It was around the middle of April, so when my sister called the morning were we leaving to make the drive, to express her concerns about us making it through Vail Pass safely, I took it seriously, only sort of not. How bad can it get in April?

I'll tell you.... bad. Really, really, really bad.

And we were in our brand new (to us... it's a 2008) van. A Kia Sedona, that for as nice as it is, has this feature called ESC... a sort of equalizing traction thingy that is it's default mode. A default mode that, while I am sure it is great for keeping you from hydroplaning or slipping in a patch of sand on the highway, has the unfortunate side effect of undermining the power the van needed to make it up an icy, snow covered mountain road. We know that this feature is called ESC now, because after 20 minutes of slipping about and physically pushing the van up the mountain a few inches at a time in the dark, with other vehicles slewing about past us... we pushed the button that said "ESC off" out of desperation (inspiration?).

It must be stated here that, as we were driving off the lot with our new van, we spent over 15 minutes pouring over the owner's manual and pushing that button trying to figure out what it did to no avail.

Now we know.

Once we were finally to a safer place, my hands started to shake and I started to cry. I don't mean a tremble in my hands, I mean I would not have been able to hold a glass with a half inch of water in the bottom of it without giving myself a shower. Which, you might just think that this was perhaps a warranted reaction to what we had just been through... I would like to point out that no one else was having this kind of reaction. Just me, and it took every last bit of my will and determination to not make a big scene out of it. I think that I should also say, I am not having visions of disasters replaying in my head while this is happening. I am not obsessing myself into freak-out. This is a physical thing and it's pissing me off.

Most recently, Dadguy and I have been looking at some mountain lots for possible purchase. We want to eventually have a cabin, and Dadguy has stumbled onto this area that has what we want... and we can actually afford some of it.

Only it's been really rainy lately. And apparently I have developed a "thing" about muddy dirt roads as well as icy roads. Because really... y'all... I have been stuck in the mud before and it is not the end of the flippin' WORLD!

And I mean really stuck, in some world-class, mud-season mud in Vermont's puckerbrush back of nowhere, in what the truly erudite would call "bee-eff-ee." Solidly stuck in the snow in New Hampshire in a whole bunch of places. I have been spectacularly high-centered in a sandy wash in the tooley-bops outside of Farmpit, New Mexico in the middle of the night, and I, those who were with me, and the vehicles involved in each case, survived. This is not a Zombie Apocalypse we are talking about here.

But lately the adrenaline starts coursing, my hands start shaking and I get this note in my voice that I cannot stop.

I cannot stop.

And I hate this. I cannot stop it from happening, and it sucks down vast portions of my energy and personal reserves. Leaves me feeling wrung out and weepy.

I am not excited about being this way. I am not this way. Dadguy says that this is uncharacteristic of me, and frankly, he's only seeing the bit that is slipping through the cracks. The rest is a slavering, rabid dog tearing huge chunks of my insides out. But I am not really sure what to do. These episodes are so spread out, I'd hate to spend all of my regular non-panicking life being medicated for these relatively isolated instances. And really, I am still moving and sort of functioning while it's happening.

Only I have had two in the past two weeks, and this scares me.

...And By "We," I Mean "Me"

2009-06-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

So here are some pictures of the tile in the kitchen/entryway. The tiles are 16"x16" Montagne Belluno tiles from Home Depot. The grout is Mapei brand in "Chamois."

Do I love it? Why, yes... yes, I do.

When we put tile in the bathrooms- more Belluno in the main bath, and slate in the master bath- we discovered that the sink vanities no longer fit. The things were not high-quality, and I have never loved them, so when it came time to decide if we were gonna pay to have them fitted in, leave them skee-whompus-but-functional or replace; we decided to replace, especially since the one in the main bathroom had water damage, both at the base and in the counter top. We are trying to manage our pennies, so I hit the local Craigslist type website and found a gorgeous hardwood and granite, vessel style sink/vanity that I loved. I talked the lady down $200... and went and picked it up for a measly $450 (kof kof!).

And then I realised that I needed to cut down the top to make it fit, my pretty counter top that I had measured over, and over, and over again. It wouldn't fit because where the hot water came out of the wall. So another $75 to get it cut and the edges refinished... and here I will put in an unsolicited plug for a great company in Orem called "Marble and Granite Solutions." They rock, har har har! Seriously though... they took the time for a teensy job like mine without once rolling their eyes or making me feel dumb. Kudos, guys! You will get my business if I can ever afford the lovely counter tops you make!

Then the drainpipe wouldn't fit... so some pretty chrome plumbing... $30. My next door neighbor, the guy we hired to do the tile work got it installed snugly and pretty (involved saws, chisels, drills and the like to make it tight): $100.

And then it became apparent that we needed to paint before all this went in. Can of paint, Ralph Lauren in a pretty grey called "Polaris." Approximately $30.

Yeah... I managed our pennies right into brokesville, thank-you-very-much. But it looks really pretty.

Still needs some shelving above the toilet, and something like this for the bottom shelf (as Dadguy will point out, the only shelf )of the vanity. But I think we will just love what we have for a while.

This next week I hope to get around to painting the main bath and taking pictures of my farrrrr more reasonably priced solution in there. Stay tuned.

Henry's Hamburgers

2009-06-03T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took the girls and myself down the street to our hairstylist to get gussied up for our TV appearances. The TV folks were great, the interviews ok... but I am left with the regret of having said too much and not enough at once.

Yep, it's a little like blogging in that way. That oversharing sort of a way. Only I cannot go back in and edit any of it. That's a crying shame too... because at the last, when I they asked me if I could go back in and handle any of it differently, I responded in a way that I wish I had tempered with more gratitude for the awesome, dedicated and concerned doctors that we had along the way in figuring out what was up with Pearl. I am hoping they edit in such a way that I come off as less of a harridan.

Back to the hair. My friend who does my hair has a little girl who is just a month older than Pearl, but far more articulate. No one seems to know where she got it, but she started calling Henry's fat rolls on his thighs, his "hamburger's," a term I find screamingly apt. They LOOK like the fat and delicious layers of sandwich that make a good hamburger.

My friends, I invite you to enjoy....

HAMBURGERS!

And how's about a yummy serving of the whole thing!

Beauty

2009-05-31T09:45:00.000-07:00

"Mama, I am going to be really beautiful when I grow up, aren't I?" Birdie asks as she is brushing her hair for church.

"Ummm, well yeah. You are going to be beautiful." I say, because she will be.

"Most girls are beautiful, you know. Because they want to be, huh." She adds thoughtfully.

Oh baby, that's truer that you know. We are beautiful when we want to be.

repentance

2009-05-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

I was talking today to one of the producers for a TV show about kids who swallow funky things, she was asking about "why did we do such and such," and "what was the timeline for..." and I was able to answer her questions coherently because I could just refer back to the bloggy and whup! there it is. No having to thump my noodle trying to come up with what I thought might have been going on at the time.

How sad that I have not been blogging worth a hoot lately. Eeeesh. What has disappeared into the morass of my mushy head and mushier memory?

I repent here and now, I repent of blog-sloth.

So.... this coming Tuesday there will be a television crew out here to interview us and get some footage of Pearl for that TLC show about kids and the ghastly ways they age their parents by eating awful stuff. A half a week away. A time that is NOT GOOD to be caught up in the middle of a remodel; and yet, here we are.

What started out as Dadguy coming home one day and announcing that right now would be a really good time to upgrade and buy a new house, has turned into us deciding to stay put and save our money. Only we were already replacing our floors in preparation to sell. And now, for various reasons, our old bathroom vanities don't fit very well without investing more money to make them fit. Only I don't want to invest more money in these vanities because I don't like them to start with, and the one in the girl's bath has water damage. And getting all this stuff out of the bathrooms really showcases how badly they need some paint.

Oh, it goes on and on. All I can say is that it all made sense at the time. And now I have a film crew coming in the middle of my chaos. I could just DIE, and now, on top of it all I realize that I have been depriving y'all of some sweet, sweet home-improvement porn.

Er, am I the only one who gets a thrill to watch a room take on new prettiness?

Wait till I tell the tale of a second hand pedestal sink for the kids bathroom, and a repurposed section of a high end modern vanity and a granite counter top for the master bath. Green glass vessel sink. Ooooooooo!

The kitchen floor is pretty much done. Just tonight I finished sealing the grout, but the carpet still has to be restretched and secured. We decided to move the book case/cabinet to the end of the hallway in the basement where it fits beautifully. The thing just collected and clutter and was messing with my tile-floor-racetrack-curve-feng-shui. Later when I get everything put back and prettied up I'll post some more shots. But now it's late. Sleep good.

Sunday Pic: Everything

2009-05-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

The yard work has begun in earnest.

Henry in all his chubby glory.

Before pic: the floor in the kitchen and entryway. We are getting the linoleum ripped out and tile put in.

Birdie in her usual spot.

Pretty soon they will all weigh about the same. Like maybe next week.
(Plus, do you want this chair Lins?)

The book case that sucked down my life for about a week. Hello Ikea!

Did I promise you guys some pics?

Last week?

Oh. Here they are.

Price

2009-05-10T00:51:00.000-07:00

Creation comes with a price. The cooler the creation, the steeper the price usually. For the boys reading, y'all can just skip the following till ya hit the asterisks; is gryll talk.

I started my monthlies again today. I think it's the solid foods that Henry started on about a month ago. He's a big fan of the spoon, and his nummie intake must have dropped below the specified hormonal level... cuz umm, yeah.

For some reason this surprised me. The visit from Aunt Flo and all. I knew it was coming eventually, but after my snip-snip I had just written off all things "procreation" except, umm.. for the recreational parts. Belatedly, I am reminded that I will have this reminder until I hit the "change." And while a bit of cramping and PMS is no great shakes when compared to the living hell of actually being pregs, it is still uncomfortable and inconvenient. I still think that it is bizarre that over half the human race will not ever carry and bear a baby.

I think that it is due more to the PMS than impending Mothers Day, that I keep thinking about all the things that I have done as a mother (sleep deprivation, privacy deprivation, clean-up on aisle 12, etc...) and all the things I cannot do anymore, at least for the time being.

***

So in case anyone was wondering... we are maxxed out over here in Chaos-land. Four is for shore the magic number for me. The number four and the number forty.

Four kids.

woooo.

I promise... I will post some pics in a few days. Kids, new shelves, flowers WEEEEE! Spring is really starting to pop 'round here.

Attack of the Kids

2009-04-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

It is late, the kids are all finally asleep. I walk through the house admiring the mess, but too tired to do much of anything about it. On my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water and inspect the dishes that I will not wash until tomorrow, I see a funny flesh-colored-something stuck to the far living room wall.

"The heck?" I mutter, "is that a band aid stuck on the wall? Why the heck would they stick a ..."

I reach out a hand to touch the mass. Gum. Freaking pink bubble gum. Well craaaap.

Catch My Breath...

2009-04-14T21:03:00.000-07:00

Pearl pronounces the word volcano as "puh-kay-no," she calls DVD's, "DV-doh's." Like, a cross between a DVD and a Video.

LaLa this morning came in to the kitchen while I was eating my breakfast and told me, "Mama, you are the bossiest person in the whole world. Why are you soooo bossy?" Pffft. She should get a load of MY mom in full swing.

Birdie. She is killing me. She tries so flipping hard to be the best good-girl she can, I would worry she will blow a gasket... only she does have her little outlets. Tonight for instance, about one minute after her daddy went downstairs she crept into our room to play "My Little Pony" internet games with the sound off. The only reason we know this is that Dadguy had been downloading some files that stopped when she closed out his user and opened her own. This, when she was supposed to be asleep in bed. The stinker.

Henry. He is still a baby, and oh mah CRAP that boy is a chubba. No joke, I should prolly take some pictures.

Last night I went through a boatload of videotape footage from back when Pearl was having her strider (loud breathing) from the sequin stuck in her throat. Holy CRAP, my kids are loud, and they never shut up. Ever. Birdie even talks in her sleep. I was trying to find a clear representation of the sound she used to make, but you can barely hear it in between the shrieks, squawks and singing of her older sisters. Relentless.

I don't think I will ever get any sufficiently representative video footage of the "Bacon Shakin'?" shtick that the girls give Henry. There is a reason they have developed this activity; I am busy doing something else and cannot get to the kid to help him be happy, let alone shoot some footage. It is to the point that if he starts screaming while I am cooking dinner, I might distractedly ask LaLa to "go ask Henry about his bacon." Works darn near every time. I am still 100% in the dark about it's origins.

Duuuuuude!

2009-04-08T08:56:00.000-07:00

I think the word "dude" is pretty funny.... a lot funnier than it is in reality. Like, my use of the word has lost it's irony, and now I just use it. All. The . Freakin'. Time.

Fact is, I think that swear words are even funnier. But I have been putting lots of effort into not swearing now-a-days... so that just leaves "dude."

Think about it. I now have a boy to call "dude"!

Cutie Patootie Dude. Little Dude. Doodster. Dude-icus Rex. The Dude Man. Round Dude. There is some unapologetic overuse going on over here.

Back when we had no kids, Dadguy and I went to see "Dude, Where's My Car" at the dollar movies. Have you seen it? Whoah, was that a baaaaad movie, but, whoah, we laughed our cans off! One particular line has made it into our all-time family in-jokes.... the old Chinese lady saying "...and theeeeeeeeeen?" Last night Dadguy pulled out that old-moldy at the dinner table for the first time in a while... using a gravelly voice and really drawing out the "theeeeen."

It's one of those bits that has been there for long enough that I wasn't 100% where it came from and had to ask if that was from the movie, and all Pearl heard in between bites of dinner was the title. So she laughed and said "mama! It's in the garage!"

Enjoy!

Ten Things and a Few Pics

2009-03-07T20:20:00.000-08:00

1. One of the main problems with posting so infrequently is there is so MUCH to post that I don't post anything... then there is even MORE to post and I don't post that either. Today you will get ten cheesy summary bits and we will reset this blog.

2. I have strep throat, and have now been on antibiotics for almost ten hours. Other than my throat being gross and hurty I don't see much difference in the way that I feel right now (headache, body aches, tired and generally like crap) and the way that I feel when I am pregnant. Actually I feel better than when I am pregs, I do not regret getting myself nuetered.

3. The girls LOVE to sit in front of Henry and say over and over again with large amounts of inflection..."What's your BACON shakin'?!" They will say it to him until he tires of it, and it takes a very long time before he tires of it. As a matter of fact he will coo and grin and laugh out loud when they do it.

4. I need to just get used to he idea that until the warmer weather hits, a sick baby is actually the default setting. He's got a new cold and a sore throat.

5. It's not like being sick is setting him back any though.... he packed on a whopping four pounds this past month. This puts him into his 6-9 month outfits, and a size three diaper. He is 17 pounds y'all. That's an awful lot of baby to lug around.

6. My parents called and asked what Birdie and LaLa would like for their birthdays a little over a month ago... I told them that if they would like to be the hero's they could get them a "My Meebas." They had reaaaally wanted a "My Meebas" for Christmas, but not even Santa could stomach the idea of shelling out twenty bucks a pop for these insipid things. Apparently grandparents don't mind. The folks sent them, and although they girls were THRILLED to get them, they left them on the shelf for a few weeks until Birdie finally figured out how to play the various LCD screen video games and "evolve " her Meeba enough to get the tube thingy to pop open, and get her amazingly cheap and dumb looking Meeba out.

7. LaLa got hers to it's next-to-the-last evolution, got frustrated and then just used a butter knife to spring hers. Same diff.

8. Those awful things are truly the toys du jour, every single du jour ever since. LaLa was just the other day bemoaning the fact that she had no My Meebas coloring book. Hmph! Coloring book, shmoloring book... have you seen those dreadful things? They are freaking amoebas, I think I can draw an amoeba with eyeballs and a grin. I got out a marker and made a slew of coloring pages for the girls. I just wish I had made copies before they got colored in and then cut out.

9. Poor Pearl was feeling left out, and even though Birdie generously gave her permission to play with her Meebas every day while she was at school, that left all the rest of the day and the weekends. I figured I could make her one, same as I made some color sheets... so I did. For the "tube" I used and old facial cleansing sheet box. This thing is every bit as loved as the real thing.

10 Obeseve: the "Mommy Bas."

Sunday Pic: The Cookies

2009-02-22T11:50:00.001-08:00

Two and a half months, birthday cake and numerous cookies do a chub-ola baby make.

She Turned Five

2009-02-19T12:01:00.001-08:00

This once a week posting is for the birds, but I have been excessively busy, so suck it up and eat birdseed my friend.

Seriously... another birthday and party, Valentines Day, Pearl with her usual double ear-infection plus sinusitis, Birdie and Henry down with RSV, all the attending doctors appointments, meds, and love and care for the sickies, a trip down south to St. George for the weekend, and now with the serious focus on potty training for the Pearl-girl... lucky any post of any kind is comin'! And oh yeah, the computer bought the farm and this post is coming to ya via the laptop; stupid Safari and blogger don't play well together, and I don't know how to mediate.

If anyone ever tries to tell you that there is no significant difference between three and seven kids, take your thumb and forefinger and flick them soundly upon the nose for me. They are lying to you. Is load of crap.

Lala wanted a "Littlest Pet Shop" themed birthday party for her fifth birthday, so I planned a cake and drew a cat poster which the girls color in the day before the party, a day that turned out to be a sick day for everyone anyway (ref: the RSV and ear crud and nose crud) . Then I drew some tails on papers so the guests could color and cut out their own tails for the game.... an activity in itself.

The poster turned out better than my Turtle debacle.

Cake was great, and the kiddo was happy too.

The thing that really slays me though... with all of my generous eating of birthday cake, Valentines chocolate and cookies, and the vacation crap food extravaganza, I have lost three pounds. This mysterious loss of weight baffled me until I looked over and realized that somebody now has cheeks that bear an uncanny resemblance to cookies, and there are a few thigh rolls that I swear look like buttercream frosting. Doesn't he just look like a white chocolate bonbon, all wrapped up in a Sunday suitie?! I promise you...that little button up shirt under the sweater vest really does have a collar.

Happy Bird-day!

2009-02-08T14:53:00.000-08:00

huh.... this is my 400th post.

These days the Chaos family is exploring the realm of "good 'nuff." Nothing is getting any elaborate treatment, nothing is 100%, nothing is perfect... but it sure works OK, and we have a good time balancing a larger family. Mostly.

My days of spending hours decorating a cake (or writing a post for that matter) are over, but in my opinion, the cakes that are resulting are still fun and cool. The kids dig 'em so... even if they weren't and aren't, big whoop-tee-do.

Birdie wanted a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle birthday party, so we got the invitations, a few TMNT themed party goods, and went on a search for a good cake; as per usual we found a great, do-able cake on this site, truly a website filled with the coolest amateur cakes you have ever clapped eyes on. Birdie hit on the one that I was interested in trying, a cake that used some fondant, but not enough to cover the whole cake.

I had never worked with fondant before, but it was much like working with a sticky Sculpey or Fimo. As far as taste? I think it is accurate to call it "chewy frosting," kinda gross, but it looks cool. Plus Birdie had the TMNT mini's that she had gotten for Christmas, so it was kinda a no-brainer to try it.

Two very satisfying comments/squeals from guests: "Look! It's two cakes STACKED UP!" and "Look! There is FROSTING in the middle!"

The part where the balancing act collapsed was in the party-games department. I figured with the extra time used in eating pizza as well as the cake, we would only have time for a few short games. So Birdie came up with a Duck-Duck-Goose game called Turtle-Turtle-Ninja, and as she was running out the door for school the day of the party, she asked me to come up with a "pin-the-tail-on-the-Turtle" game. I was running short on time, so when I finally grabbed up a magic marker, paper, and one of those Ninja Turtle minis and saw that they had no tails... I just decided to add one and call it good.

Y'all... there is a reason that the creators of the TMNT franchise did not give them tails.

Observe.

...and I am here to tell you that when we added the little green construction paper tails that LaLa designed for the project, things did not look any better. I did not get a photo of that bit of risque business, just suffice it to say that it was in no way my finest hour or judgment call. Really, I didn't realize what I had wrought until I was taping the stupid poster up the the wall, and by then I had zero time and just hoped for the best. Luckily, most of the guests were of the seven year old girl variety and if anyone saw anything to comment on, at least no one did.

Happy Birthday little Bird!

Snuck Up On Me

2009-02-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

This has been a busy week... Saturday morning a beloved nephew was Baptised, followed by a family gathering. Sunday morning at church Dadguy gave Henry a name and a blessing, followed by a family gathering (at OUR house no less). Monday Henry had his two month old doctor's visit and immunizations, followed by Tylenol and exacerbated by all the snot and misery he and I are sharing; A cold to beat out all colds.

No. Really. I am SURE that my misery far exceeds your misery.

Good news is, he's up to 13 pounds and is hitting all the milestones that he should. Bad news is... there still isn't a cure for the common, wretched cold.

Then on Tuesday was Birdie's seventh birthday with the cake and attendant party to accomplish... an event that I promise to cover in a post tomorrow. Ish. Tomorrow-ish, unless all hell breaks loose... and it may.

All of this with my head so full of snot it feels like... choose your own @%$# metaphor, simile or otherwise... whatever.

I am concerning myself with the blessing of the boy-o in this post. Three things have occurred to me, with this blessing of my last child, and they came upon me in this order.

1. There is a Catch 22 in preparing a house for a big event that will take place first thing in the morning when that house is inhabited by a number of the small minions. It is as follows... it is useless to clean any earlier than after the kiddos go to bed, the night before the event. However. If you WAIT till the night before said event... at least ONE of said minions will wake up a-puking, thereby foiling your cleaning. Catch 22, sux 2 B-U.

2. While I am perfectly aware, and have been, obviously, that I have a boy baby as opposed to my myriad girl babies, it has been just that in my mind... my boy baby. We call him boy, and I refer to him as a boy, kiddo, brother or baby, but Sunday night it occurred to me that we have a son. For some reason the semantics make a difference. I now have a son.

3. Don't know why, but I have been completely without sentimentality in viewing the ending of my procreative period. Rather than any feelings of grief or sorrow at the end of any portion of my gestation or giving birth my feelings have been more along the lines of "good CRAP! Thank heavens I will never have to do THAT ever again!" and "if I can just gut my way through this, it'll be the last time... I can do it just this last time." I have been wondering if I am especially cold hearted or callow as I have watched these many "lasts" with glee. Then late Tuesday night as I was pulling Henry's freshly laundered blessing suit, that had been provided by my MIL, out of the dryer and placed it carefully with the exquisite blessing dresses that my MIL had hand made for each one of my daughters. I was thinking to myself where I could purchase archival quality boxes or bags to keep these treasures in, until each child would be ready to claim them when they were old enough (read: married and having a child of their own).

...and then it hit me. This is my last.

oh, wow.

I am going to be that mother who is crying as she sends her "baby" off to school.

Sleep Sucking Death

2009-01-22T10:13:00.000-08:00

This is why I haven't been blogging. I am tired, and tired-brain equals stupid brain... and annoyingly, pathetically WHINY brain. I get started with a post and I cannot get farther than two sentences because I want to put myself in time out, I am SOOOOO wah-wah-wah-everything-sucks-I-need-sleep. Only I really just want to punch myself in the face... but we are trying to use our words and our problem solving skills aren't we?

Which is funny, because I never mind it when I read other people's blogs about the sleep deprivation. Maybe it because I have to hear my own unfiltered whining in my self-pitying brain rather than experience it in it's cleaned up format on a blog. Maybe it's because of that funny thing about how even when your own life sucks, you wouldn't trade with anyone else... 'cause you know the suck that you live with and it seems more live-withable than someone elses suck. I have that in spades, I HAVE lived someone elses life before, I have lived another version of suck and I am more aware than many, just how good my suckitude really is. Because in some ways I have it all. All of it that really matters to me anyway.

I would tell you the specifics about how good I have it... but it would just come off like bragging, or else you would just look at what I think is so great and think "wow... she thinks that's so great and I think that's just more of the suck that she lives with!" Just trust me when I say that most everything is going my way and translate that statement to the things that YOU would think are great.

Didja do it?

Good. Now picture yourself sniveling about some small hitch in one aspect of your truly awesome life, possibly a hitch that is part and parcel of that aspect. Like being bitter about the security checks you have to go through to get on the plane for your two month long dream vacation to the Bahamas. Perhaps you get frustrated to tears with the Paparazzi trailing you every where cuz you are such a famous, sexy thang and you are dating whoever it is you happen to think is the uber-hottie celeb.

That's me with the sleep deprivation that comes along with the behbehs. Except for the small fact that sleep deprivation is it's own little world of misery. It is a multiplier of misery. It, by it's very nature, causes every irritation and sorrow to appear to increase and deepen in the mind of the sufferer. Seriously, I thought that I had re-jacked my knee, it hurt so bad... then I realized that everything hurt. My head hurt. My back hurt. My hands hurts. My heart hurt a little.

Henry is mostly a good baby... he just didn't sleep so good at night for five nights straight, and I don't get naps. I had to abandon my work-outs this week, and that is annoying AND humbling because I know many women who woulda gone anyway. But I guess it comes down to me knowing myself, and I had to scale back.

and you would get more of the pissing and moaning except HEY! He's awake again and I either click the publish button now, or give up and post a stupid blurb on Fecesbook.

TA DAAAAHHH!

edited to add... Meredith... I am gonna answer your question, and everyone else? Don't blame me when I do, cuz she asked!

Square One

2009-01-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

.... only not.

Today was day one for me going back to the twice a week workout group, lovingly referred to by it's victims as "Bootcamp." I was there in the genesis; as a matter of fact I was the one who gave the instructor (also my hairdresser) the last push into teaching it. Is brutal. Her cop husband, a former BYU football player came once, tried it, and proclaimed all of us insane and hasn't been back since.

I knew it would be tough going back after almost seven months of doing nothing more physically taxing than toting a ginormous belly around. It was. Plus Pearl spent the entire first hour prostrate on the floor at whatever station I was at, sobbing her face off. Henry was less than pleased as well, so I packed it in before the end run. But I was pleased that the warm-up run was not as evil as I thought it would be. Strangely I seem to still have a bit of wind left in my lungs... well, enough wind for me to do a very slow, test jog without panting.

Trust me, after a brutal pregnancy, c-section and jacked up MCL... I am being careful.

I am delighted to find that my memory of being sore after a workout is not a fantasy. Hurts, but it feels good too, in a weird sort of a way. Of course, I may be whining a different tune tomorrow. The worst part? The worst was being the slowest, weakest, and wussiest of the group. Apparently I have enough pride that I am bugged by this, but not enough pride to be kept away by this fact.

Nine months out and nine months back: This is my mantra. I have a number months to get bad a@@ again.

On an unrelated note, and not likely to mean much to those of you without a working knowledge of the LDS church, I forgot to mention that shortly before Henry was born Dadguy was released from his church calling as Executive Secretary to the Bishop. We were thrilled. I cannot stress how thrilled were were to hear this, and then delighted that he had gone so long without a new calling. Was like a little vacation. Only not, since his extra time was sucked into Christmas stuff, baby stuff and oh yeah... World of Warcrack released an expansion in November.

Vacation's over now... he's now first counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency. A fairly time intensive calling like his last, but now that we are used to it (now that I am used to it) it doesn't seem so daunting. Sez the wife, who doesn't have to do the calling! Am now nervously eyeing my own calling as Relief Society teacher... it's been over two years for me doing the Teaching For Our Times bit, and a recent change in RS presidency. I suspect that I am soon to be ousted from my comfort zone into a new calling. Ah well.

Sunday pic:Henry and the Dresses

2009-01-04T19:04:00.001-08:00

What? You need words after that?

Blog?

2009-01-01T12:59:00.000-08:00

Did I have a blog around here somewhere? Cannot quite remember, and it's not just the new addition to the Chaos around here, though Henry certainly keeps me hopping. It's not just the shiny, new toy of Facebook (the memories, the schizo nature of it and the occasional train wreck you can witness)... although it IS a proven fact that I only have so much writing in me per diem, and a little blurb about what I am doing/thinking on FB, apparently passes for a whole blog-post worth of writing nowadays.

Part of it is that "Blog" is almost a language. When I am in the groove I actually think in Blog as well as English. I am living my life, but I am also storing up tidbits and seeing events through a lens of blogability.

Haven't been doing that lately.... thinking like that.

My only regret is that the funny, exasperating and milestone-ish things that are happening around here are sliding by and slipping away. Like the fact that Pearl is a HOOLIGAN these days. My sweet little baby girlie that was so angelic I feared for her life; some beings are too sweet to live on this earth very long. Well, I don't worry so much anymore. She is a beast.

Example? Last night she nipped me on the arm, cracked her baby brother on the head with Birdies new little digital camera and then promptly ran upstairs and emptied an entire box of breakfast cereal on the kitchen floor. Right in front of Dadguy, on purpose. And the sad thing is that we are breaking our backs to make sure she is getting as much attention as we can manage. I am thinking that our best is simply not enough, and so she is spending half her days in time out.

Fibblety crap-sticks.

I suspect that Dadguy had the right of it when he observed that four is just too many. "We have more than we can handle here, but hopefully we might be able to grow into it." Crossing my fingers, and thinking that maybe we will grow into the new dimensions of the fam. Something hurts anyway, so I am praying that it's growing pains.

Speaking of something hurting.... guess what Yours Truly did to ring in the New Year? Did you guess "drag her sorry butt into the ER?" Cuz if you did, go ahead and award yourself the "I Am a Freakin' Psychic" button, and pin that bit of flair on your vest.

Before you worry too much, let me esplain. After doing a little too much, I will sometimes feel extra-sensitive on my incision site the next day. But last night after wracking my brains and being unable to recall any lifting or heavy duty activity that would account for my increased tenderness, I decided to check. Without going into the TMI details here... let's just say that a portion of my incision had become infected, something I wasn't aware could happen after the outside had healed and was sealed off. By the time I checked, it was after nine o'clock and a simple office-visit-worthy problem had become a trip to the ER, simply because nothing else was open or would be open until Friday. The on-call physician was pretty adamant that this could not wait. "Blah-blah-blah septic blah." So I rang in 2009 with some double strength Bactrim. Whee.

And hoo-rah... tape on the girl-parts revisited, cuz you can never have enough of that action.

And, umm.. Oh yeah. HAPPY NEW YEARS!

A Name

2008-12-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

Nope, not gonna post it.... but if you are on FaceBook you can find out... or you can email me and ask. There doesn't seem to be a password protected function on Blogger, so for the purposes of this bloggity, he will be known henceforth as Henry.

Wow... this whole experience has kicked my trash from here to kingdom come, and while I feel svelte and slender post-c-sec-baby, apparently I look as preggo as ever. I kid you not. Everybody says so, at least those that haven't had a heads-up that the baby is already sucking oxygen.

My MCL is stable and undamaged, but the rehab of my knee and whole freaking body is gonna have to wait, and will be a long, careful process. So I will get to stay looking pregnant for the next couple of months. Yay.

And what the shmellman kind of sadist doctor thinks that shaving a girls nether regions, slicing her open and then using TAPE to patch her up is a good idea? Stubble and tape... down there? This is the real reason ya need the good drugs post-op... not so much the pain, just the agony of the re-growth enhanced with tape. Am deeply regretting my poor reactions to virtually all the "good drugs," Motrin is not cutting it.

Tape. Sheesh.

New baby

2008-12-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

8 lbs, 10 oz, 21 inches.

Still no name. Some of the more popular name candidates are Dexter, Morgon, Marcus, Riker, Matthias, and Ezra. (Wish us luck on that one!)

Enjoy!

Tomorrow

2008-12-01T12:18:00.000-08:00

Well... ain't life a hoot? We had ourselves a big fake-out in the wee hours of Sunday morning; starting at a little after midnight I was getting some good and hard contractions that kept getting closer and closer together... and laying on my side actually made them stronger. By two in the morning the contractions were every three to five minutes so we went to the hospital, but on the twenty minute drive there they started to peter out.

Went in anyway and stayed till about five am at which point my "labor" was over and I was peeved and a little chagrined. A little pissy as well. But I learned that I am very afraid for the safety of this baby. Something feels off, and he cannot turn properly and I am done messing with all of this.

Tomorrow I go in around noon for a c-section, and we will have a baby. The end.

In my book, I am trading an easier recovery and a higher hospital bill for a guarantee (or close to it) of safety for this little guy.... and frankly, I have a sneaking suspicion that this would all end up on a table with a knife anyway. My options are not stellar.

...at least I get the more predictable outcome and the tubal ligation two-fer. I am trying to find the happy in all of this.

Now we just have to figure out a name for the squirt.

Update

2008-11-25T12:32:00.000-08:00

So no baby yet... and as he is back in the transverse position, and the other doctor is the one who is doing appointments last week and this week, and he doesn't seem to give much of a flying one way or another...

all bets are off. They will not induce if the kid is transverse, so the second or third of December is out. Maybe a c-section? Donno, and the other doctor is one of those that knows better what you need than you do. Which yeah... he's a doctor etc... but when I talked to him about getting a tubal ligation he informed me that what I really needed was a certain kind of IUD.

The crap?

I think that if I wanted an IUD, I would ask for one. I am 39 years old, and so VERY done having kids, I think I am well within my rights to have my tubes tied. There is no reason whatsoever that I take a less permanent option. He wants me to do this IUD because it has some sort of progesterone blah-dee-blah and, here's where the guy pissed me off... "because of my weight putting me at very high risk of endometrial cancer...."

What? Scare tactics for the fat lady? I have been fat for how long, and this is the first I have heard from any doctor just how dire my situation is? Please... do NOT go there with this woman. He started in on progesterone, and I had to stop him to inform him that I well aware of my needs there, and I am already taking care of myself. I don't need an IUD to give me a constant dose. I don't want an IUD to give me a constant dose; I prefer control, and using the creams cyclically.

Frustrating. I really dislike doctors using scare tactics to get their product kickbacks or whatever is this guys incentive for pushing this brand of IUD off on a woman asking for a tubal ligation. It's not like IUDs are any kind of risk-free item, no matter how a proponent of them might like to gloss over it.

Dang. Still grumpy I guess.

Still not dilating.

still...

grumpgrumpgrump

2008-11-20T09:09:00.000-08:00

Sheeeesh. Here's another link to today's Junkfood Science, it's much shorter and much less unpleasant than that last one. I just cannot resist sharing this post, as it touches on my hometown AND one of my hot buttons; government telling us what we can and cannot do... because they know better. Dude... POSOLE! I could really USE SOME POSOLE right now!

grumpgrumpgrump
Still knocked up and pissy, thankyouverymuch.

Dadguy's iPhone is working again after a few days spent in a ziplock bag filled with uncooked white rice. But the antibiotics are only half working, so this is either the UBERCOLD that ATE MANHATTAN, or it is Cold 2.3, and I am taking antibiotics for nothin'. But I don't dare stop, because "what if they just prescribed me a weeney little bit of antibiotics, they just need more time to work?"

grumpgrumpgrump
Still knocked up and pissy, thankyouverymuch.

This kid is no longer Transverse. I am pretty darn sure of this as I now must go pee every five to ten minutes... if I don't I am sure to wet my pants during one of my uncontrollable hacking sessions, or when I suffer one of my explosive sneezes.

That fact combined with almost complete blockage of my, erm... other waste needs, and a few boots to the ribs? Pretty sure we are good to go. Did you catch that young man? GOOD TO GO! That's pregnantese for GET OUT!

Yup, he's about as obedient as the rest of Chaos.

grumpgrumpgrump
Still knocked up and pissy, thankyouverymuch.