random observations

Last weekend (my birthday) Tanner wanted to go mini-golfing. After doing some other things we finally acquiesced and drove to Golfland. It was crazy busy there with everyone and their red-headed uncle from out of town wanting to hit the greens. We decided we would not have an optimal experience and decided to give Tanner a rain check. His reaction "You are ruining my day". Heidi earlier in the day had expressed some frustration with the plans (we went to a baptism). When Reed asked if we should respect the fact that it was my birthday the answer was a definitive, "That doesn't matter." I think as a mom having your birthday on a Saturday is bogus, because you still have to be a mom and keep everyone happy, and invariably that means sacrificing your own happiness on the very day you don't want to do that. On a positive note, my parents went above and beyond this year. My mom brought over a huge apple blueberry crumb cake which we ate off of for three days. They sent a bouquet of 41 balloons and gave me a gift card to Target. At the end of the day I went alone with my gift card and bought myself something to wear (I picked up some Christmas presents too).

Last night was our ward Christmas party. All was well. I was watching the parents of little kids trying to keep them corraled and thought-this is getting so much easier. That was bad ju-ju. During the eating of desserts Tanner ate half of a peanut butter cookie that send him into fits of alternately spitting and gagging which ultimately led to him throwing up. Oh what fun.

Today Heidi was reaching into a cupboard to retrieve the syrup and knocked over a bottle of vinegar which fell to the floor and crashed into a million pieces as it made contact with the tile floor. It was balsamic vinegar which was brown and smelly and sticky and oh so fun to clean up. This was after choir practice. Shortly before choir practice Zoe had a meltdown (tired on a fast sunday=recipe for disaster) claiming that I was ruining her life and she would rather be an orphan living on the streets that have to deal with all of us on a daily basis. Very few things push my puttons like a complete lack of gratitude. I should have let it go and had a mutual cool down (time out anyone?) but I didn't and I kept pushing her and she kept yelling and I went to choir practice and felt the whole time reproved by the spirit for the course of action I had taken. Parenting is extra hard because I am human.

Last thought. We made it through the birthday season. Christmas is coming and I am longing for a simpler time, or at least a personal shopper. Or a maid. Or both. I haven't recovered yet from Thanksgiving, but maybe next week?

good intentions

Tonight Reed intended on taking the kids to see the Diamondbacks using tickets the kids earned from reading over the summer from the library. They left early with the hope of getting a bobble head doll. I headed to the General RS broadcast. When I got home they were here watching a movie. Turns out that since the Diamondbacks are doing well this season (they clinched the pennant on Friday night) their fan base has expanded. Reed and the kids hiked from neverland to avoid paying the parking lot pirates (the place we usually park is $5, tonight it was $20). When they got to the ticket window they were informed that the tickets associated with the library were all sold out. Reed could have bought tickets for he kids, but that defeats the purpose of the free game. The kids were dejected. Zoe became very bitter at the scalpers who she was convinced had usurped her ability to go to a game because they had bought blocks of tickets where she was supposed to be. Molly was good and acknowledged that just being together was the most important thing. They got back to the car, loaded up and came home via little ceasars and Redbox. Sometimes life doesn't turn out the way you planned. Good times.

first week of kindergarten

Tanner's preschool teacher Miss Teddie sent an e-mail asking how the first week of kindergarten was going. This was my response. I thought it was worth remembering.

You are so sweet to inquire about how Tanner is doing. He likes it and is having a lot of fun and he is completely exhausted at the end of the day- he can barely keep his eyes open during dinner. I don't have a lot of feedback on preparedness-other than I should have had him stay for more lunch bunch because most of our problems this week have been with lunchboxes-putting half drunk pouchdrinks, half eaten go-gurt, and containers without lids back in the lunch box. His lunch box was so soggy the first day it came home in a plastic bag. I have had to wash the whole thing down and hang it
out to dry twice this week. Fortunately it dries really fast outside right
now.

What my kids thought was funny

Last night my kids wanted me to tell stories about me when I was a little girl. I don't know if it was because the stories are actually funny or if it is because they were all tired, but they were all in stitches.

First story:

My cousin Cristin and I used to pretend that we were great bakers and would mix together concoctions with flour, water, sugar and whatever else we could find in the kitchen. We would put them in the pans from my easy bake oven and then put them in the sun to bake. One time we decided that we would put them on the back of the toilet to bake. We chose the downstairs bathroom (we lived in split level and the downstairs consisted of a bathroom, washer and dryer and the garage). The pans were later discovered by my dad who who of course brought the pans back upstairs wanting to know who was responsible for the mess. I think this was our last outing into the baking world.

Second Story:

One time while I was sleeping over at Cristin's house we decided that because the dirt behind her house was red, it was probably the same kind of dirt that they made pottery out of and that we should try and make pottery. There was a lot of disappointment when we realized that all we could make was red mud pies. Our disappointment was short lived because Cristin had just received a transistor radio (I think for her birthday) and we felt so hip staying up late listening to the radio (I had to do a lot of explaining to my kids about the days before ipods-in fact I even said this was before the walkman, but I drew blank stares with that reference as well). Transistor radios were not great, especially if you had a bedroom in the basement (another split level, it was the 70's). We held the radio up to the window to get better reception and I am sure we fell asleep with tired arms.

Third story-a request for a story about donuts:

My mom (grandma Chris) would go shopping in Idaho Falls (my kids were excited to confirm that they know Grandma Chris loves to shop) and one of her usual haunts was the Hostess bakery outlet. She would stock the freezer in the garage with bread and buns and donuts. When friends would come over to play we would sneak into the garage and have a frozen donut. We would eat them frozen because 1-we didn't want to get caught and 2-there was not microwaves to quickly defrost a donut (there were, just not at our house).

This led to the fourth story-the hot dogger

One of our favorite appliances as kids was the Presto Hot Dogger. It consisted of metal spikes that you would place hot dogs on (up to six) and then you would plug it in and the dogs would get electrocuted until they were warmed up. I remember eating a lot of hot dogs because we could do it ourselves. We would sit on the kitchen floor, plug it in and wait for the lid to get steamy-that was the sign that they were hot.

Fifth story-advent of the microwave in our home:

We moved into a new house and it had a microwave. My kids didn't know this, but there is a learning curve to using a microwave that we all had to go through. One day I decided that I wanted to make toast in the microwave. I watched the microwave and it did not get toasty. I put it in for longer. I must have walked away and when I came back there was smoke pouring out of the microwave. I had cooked that piece of bread for 5 minutes and it was black and smoking and it set of the fire alarm. I took it to the back yard where it made the back yard stinky. I don't remember throwing it away. Our backyard was dirt at the time, I probably just left it outside for the critters or my mom to clean up.

My other microwave mishap happened when I tried to boil an egg in the microwave. I didn't know this was a bad idea. I think I put the egg in a cup of water and then put it in the microwave. After a time I pulled it out and went to run the egg under cold water so it would be easier to peel (I did know some things). I am standing at the sink and all of the sudden my egg explodes and showers the ceiling above (vaulted ceiling with exposed tongue and groove wood) me with egg shrapnel. Egg shrapnel that stained the ceiling of a new house. That was an ever present reminder that eggs were not to be cooked in the microwave.

Last story-request for a story about flowers:

Every year we had to plant annuals around our yard. We had a big yard. I don't remember it being a huge production (perhaps the college girls my mom hired did the job), but one year my mom bought petunias, a lot of petunias. I don't know how she got them all home, they covered the entire floor of the third garage bay in our garage. We were all dreading planting all those petunias. At the time we had a dog and at some point between purchase and planting the dog got into the garage and peed on those petunias. The ones that had been peed on died-probably about 1/3. As we were planting the remainder we would remove the dead ones. For some reason we decided to call them "warm". Don't plant this one, it is "warm". The presence of "warm" petunias made planting the ones that had survived that much more entertaining.

the morning after

Last night, after I got the kids in bed, I stayed up late to finish reading "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society". It was delightful. I did not sweep the kitchen, I did not do the dishes. They were all waiting for me this morning. It is time to kick my kids off the Wii and give them their list for the day-it will include kitchen clean up. :)

evening swim

After enduring a day indoors and eating a somewhat civil meal my kids all jumped in the swimming pool. 7pm. The sun was beginning to set. I read a book on the patio while my kids doused themselves in chlorinated water for the next two hours. They asked me if it was time to get out. Finally I said it was "time" which signaled them to all break down because they were all so tired they could barely function. This is what I remember about summer as a kid. Staying up way later than bedtime, lapping up every ounce of life the day had to offer before dropping exhausted into bed. I hope they remember this time. It doesn't get much better.

Where are we?

So we are in the car in our hometown of Phoenix, driving by all our usual haunts when Tanner asks, "are you sure we are not in China?"

When we were in Las Vegas driving by the Luxor and he asked "Are we in Egypt?" I could understand where he was coming from.

Traces of China in Phoenix? not so much (we were not close to any Chinese buffet).

Zoe's Haiku

Alien rocket balloon

zooms through the sidewalks

knocking people down

Zoe didn't realize she had written a haiku, she was just writing a description of a picture she had drawn. She has an extensive collection of pictures she has drawn of aliens and monsters.

plumbing

I cleaned out bathroom drains on Friday. Three of them. It was really gross. The smell reminded me of the perms I used to get in the 70's. We had to do them outside because the smell was so strong. Who knew that the combination of water, hair, soap and spit could create such nastiness. As gross as it is it is nice to be able to turn on the water and have it flow through the system without getting backed up.

This of course made me think on my sweet Zoe who has been struggling with painful constipation for the past two weeks. She has missed a lot of school, shed a lot of tears, spent a lot of time on the couch-and on the piano since I wouldn't let her watch TV while she was out of school. We weren't sure what it was, but an x-ray (and to be quite honest her smell) after 10 days confirmed that she had non-obstructive impacted bowels. Good Times. Zoe has been on some heavy duty laxatives for the past 5 days-which create their own form of abdominal pain. She gets to take them for the next month to get everything flowing normally through the system.

Problems like plumbing make you realize how grateful you are that everything works and even more grateful that you have the tools to fix it when things don't work. It also reminds you how much maintenance is required to keep everything in our lives working smoothly.

Like that ever happens...