Already???

Well, it's happened. Dylan asked me what sex was. I guess I should have asked him where he heard the word, but really, when you think about how much the word is on TV, even innocently ("You should refrain from sexual activity until you know how such-and-such a drug affects you...", etc.), I guess I shouldn't be surprised or even shocked, really.

I remember, when I was about Dylan's age, we had little alphabet letter magnets on our fridge, and I spelled out the word "sex." And I got into huge trouble! I didn't even know what it was! I just knew is was risque. :)

So anyways, in a panic, I did the old "I'll talk to you about it when you're older" line. Such a cop-out. I just needed some time! So I told Ben about it, and we decided to tell Dylan what it is and what it entails. Ben did all the talking, and he actually did a good job. Dylan looked like he didn't believe one word Ben was telling him (This is probably because Ben is always telling Dylan crap, seeing if Dylan will believe it. Dylan doesn't know if Ben is telling the truth, half the time), so we'll see if it even sunk in. But Ben was very tactful, very scientific, and very careful. And he made sure to tell Dylan that you only do it when you are married and want to have a kid (we're not going to tell him it's pleasurable yet).

Maybe you are all totally appalled that we told Dylan how it works, but I'd rather him learn it from us than from someone else. I think it's important to de-mystify things like this. We'll probably have to have the talk again someday, but for now, I'm proud of Ben for being brave. I'll have to tackle the whole period and tampon thing with Sadie someday, so I figure that Ben should have his share of uncomfortable parental moments. :)

Unrealistic Expectations

I found this "piece of flair" on Facebook a couple of months ago, and it made me laugh:

Because really, who has hair like the Disney girls? No one! As I thought about it, I've decided that certain books, T.V. shows, and movies have possibly given me unrealistic expectations about life. Take the book and movie, Sense and Sensibility, for example:

The girls have no inheritance, and they are oh, so poor... so they are forced to move to... gasp! A two-story house in the country, instead of living in their mansion!! Ahhhhh! The horror! The horror! And they have to go from having 25 servants to... wait for it... only ONE!! Oh, how WILL they survive??? So, poor = having only one servant and living in a two-story house. Realistic? No. Poor is... well, not being able to afford shoes that fit your daughter's feet. Or worrying about how to afford coats that fit your kids. Now that's what it's like to be poor.

P.S. A little factoid about the movie, Sense and Sensibility - they actually permed the sheeps' hair in that movie, so they would look cute and fluffy. Funny, huh?

Anyways, I digress... Second example. Friends:

Can a struggling chef and a cafe waitress make enough money to afford the rent for a two-bedroom Greenwich apartment? Uh, NO. Not realistic.

Third example: 101 Dalmations (Yes, our copy of 101 Dalmations is still lost in the Black Hole which is our house. Sigh.):

Could a composer, who has never had a hit song, and his wife, who does... well, you never really learn what it is that she does... afford a full-time maid? Nope.

So there you have it. Examples from pop culture that give you unrealistic expectations.

Sadie's Kitchen

Sadie loves to play with my tupperware and utensils. The weirder the utensils, the more she likes 'em. So she loves to play with, like, the garlic press and the pastry blender, stuff like that. She doesn't really play with any normal toys - just mommy's kitchen stuff. Case in point - in the following picture, she is using my basting brush as her "witch's broom":

The tupperware is in a little hutch (because we have no cupboard space) that is just her size. She treats it like her own little toy box:

Now that the microwave is on top of that hutch, she will open it and store things in there. She'll put in a cup full of Light Bright pieces (She doesn't play Light Bright normally. She puts the small pieces into different cups and organizes them), or she'll put her best friend - her stuffed frog - in there "to tate [take] a nap." She's a funny, busy little girl.

Obsessive

Um, anyone that knows me knows that I get onto these little obsessive kicks. My sister, Nat, is the same way. I'll never forget the summer when I was 19, and Nat was 17. We went to Lake Tahoe on a family vacation, and both of us were freaking out the whole time, because we were each obsessing about a problem we perceived we had.

My obsession - I thought I was growing a moustache. I had some peach fuzz on my upper lip, and I was getting pretty tan, and the hairs looked really blonde and totally stood out. So whenever we passed any kind of reflective surface, I would pause and say something like, "You see that? Do you SEE that? I'm getting a moustache. I'm totally getting a moustache. That is disgusting. What am I going to do???"

Nat's obsession was her feet. She swore up and down that she was developing flat feet: "Look at me walk. Do you see my arches? Are my arches falling? Are my feet flat, in your opinion??" It was funny.

I had an obsessed-filled couple of days last week. I was talking to a lady in my ward, who was saying that she has a tongue thrust, which means she shoves her tongue into her teeth when she swallows, when apparently, you are supposed to press your tongue into the roof of your mouth when you swallow. Tongue-thrusting results in your teeth moving out and needing braces often. Well, I've had braces three times, and I was like, Oh my gosh! That's why I've had braces three times!! I have a tongue thrust!!

So for the next couple of days, it's all I could think about, swallowing correctly. And it was really hard! And I could actually feel my teeth moving out. I actually, literally, started habitually pushing them in with my finger throughout the day, resulting in them being a little bit loose, resulting me in thinking "Holy crap! They're moving out! I'm going to have to get braces AGAIN! How am I going to afford that??" After a couple of days, I had to force myself to think about different stuff, because I was going insane. And now I feel better. I still think I might have a thrust, but I'm trying not to think about my tongue or my teeth at all. I will go crazy if I think about it any more.

Can of Worms

Sadie goes to Headstart, which is basically Preschool for Poor People. That's just what they should call it. That should be on the sign that hangs on the building. :) Anyways, I love Headstart - Dylan was in it for two years, and it is a fantastic program. (By the way, Barack Obama wants to triple funding for Headstart, which would enable so many more kids to have access to free preschool. I'm a fan of that idea.) They not only begin to teach letters, numbers, etc., but they also teach about feelings, and sharing, and using words instead of fists. Stuff like that. The teacher meets with each parent, like, three times a year, and they formulate goals especially for that kid. Then the teacher specifically carries out plans to reach these goals, keeping meticulous track of what she has done to implement these goals and the results. They also give the kids at least one meal per day (Sadie goes in the morning, and she has both breakfast and lunch there, for free), check their heads for lice once a week, check their hearing, check their teeth, check their vision, and have an on-site psychologist to make sure the kids are doing alright. It's awesome. I couldn't be more pleased with it, and I'm so grateful that Sadie got in.

Anyways, because it's a governmental program, there are all kinds of requirements, and one of them is to get your child a well-child check at his doctor's office and a well-teeth check at his dentist's office. You have to take forms to each of these people, and they fill them out, and then you return them to the Headstart center. If you don't get these done within 45 days of the first day of school, your child is mercilessly kicked out of Headstart. Most people whose kids are in Headstart are on Medicaid, but we are in that weird bracket between Headstart monetary requirements and Medicaid monetary requirements, so Headstart is really nice and pays for these exams.

So we went to the well-child check last week, and I was absolutely confident that there would be nothing wrong, because Sadie has been sick maybe once in her entire life. With the flu. And that's it. She is sooo healthy.

Well... it didn't go so well. Apparently there was protein in her pee (?), so the doctor told me I had to get another pee sample, this time from her first pee in the morning. I obviously had to collect both pee samples, meaning that Sadie peed all over my hand while I was trying to catch some in cups. Luckily, the second pee sample showed no protein, so we were good. Phew.

Well, then her blood sample showed that she was anemic (we went through this with Dylan). So I had to take her to the hospital to get two huge vials of blood taken from the inside of her elbow to see if she truly was anemic. There were a few days between the well-child visit and the blood draw, so I made sure she took her vitamins, just to help with the whole iron-in-the-blood factor. She was very, very upset about getting her blood drawn, obviously, but they made her feel better when they gave her a sucker and then a teddy bear which was, ironically, a blood-red color. Weird. And a bit macabre. And funny. Well, the vitamins did their job. Turns out she's not anemic after all. So we were good with that. Phew.

Well, then the doctor looked at her eyes with one of those little light pointer things, and he said that one of her eyes was moving independently of the other, like a weird lazy-eye thing. He asked me if I had ever seen her eyes cross, and I can honestly say, no. So he's all, "Well, I can't sign off on this well-child form until you take Sadie to an opthomologist and get her eyes checked." Sheesh. Luckily, Headstart offered to pay for the opthomologist, and I'm so grateful, because I was trying to figure out how I was going to pay for it, since we have no vision in our insurance.

So her appointment is next week, and I am justifiably nervous. What if she has some kind of weird lazy eye problem? What if she has to wear glasses? I'm getting an anxiety attack just thinking about it. My sister, Beads, and I have this conversation all the time. Invariably, in grade school, Glasses = Nerd. The end. Yet I can't expect a three-year old to wear contact lenses. And the thought of her getting made fun of all during grade school is enough to make me want to throw up. And yet, I wonder if being the Glasses Girl, and therefore, a nerd, all throughout grade school, made me into the person who I am now. And I like that person okay. I think it probably made me more compassionate and kind. So maybe it's a good thing? I just don't want to see my daughter suffer. Yet she will have to suffer, in different ways, all through her life, because that's just the way life is. I can't shelter her from suffering. So I don't know. I know I'm probably all worried for nothing - chances are, the opthomologist won't find any problems. But I still think about it a lot.

So I'm a little bitter that a teeny, tiny well-child exam turned up all sorts of extra visits and tests and pains in the butt. A huge can of worms.

Mama, Let Me Tell You Something...

I'm such a mean mom.

The thing is, Dylan repeats himself a lot. We have the same conversations all day long, every day. Him saying that he wants something, or wants to do something. Me saying no. Him arguing about why he should do the thing. Me telling him why I think he shouldn't do the thing. Him ignoring me, and then starting the cycle over again by telling me for the umpteenth time the thing he wants to do.

So sometimes, I cut him off.

I know. Mean.

Here's an example:

Dylan: Mom, I want to go play with my neighbors.

Me: You can't, honey, because we have to leave in five minutes to go pick up Sadie from preschool.

Dylan: But I really, really want to play with my neighbors!

Me: I know, but you can't right now. We have to pick up Sadie from preschool.

Dylan: But I really-

Me: NO! YOU CANNOT! WE HAVE TO PICK UP SADIE FROM PRESCHOOL!!

See? Cutting him off. Heartless, but can you blame me??

Here is where the title of this blog comes in to play. When I cut him off, he pauses for a moment, and then always says, "Mama, let me tell you something..." And then he starts the argument all over again: "I want to go and play with my neighbors right now." You think, when you hear, "Mama, let me tell you something..." that it's going to be a ground-breaking revelation, like, "My neighbors are going to move, and I want to say goodbye [Don't I wish??]." Or maybe some different line of persuasion in his case for playing with the neighbors, like, "I just want to give them a toy they left here yesterday," or "I need to get my shoes from their backyard," but nope. It is always just a way to start the argument again.

Hmph!

Apparently, the above is an artist's rendering of a famous cartoon character named Hmph. Who knew.

Sadie, like I said, is mad at me most of the time, and when she's mad, she invariably says, "Hmph!"

I think that's so funny. I've read a lot of books in my day, and in the books where a character would say, "Hmph!" I would chuckle to myself and say, "Who says that? Hmph? I've never heard anyone say that in real life." I thought it was the same as "Er..." I don't know one person who, when he is at a loss for words, or can't think straight, says, "Er..." He says, "Um..." Or "Uh..." Not "Er..."

But "Hmph!" comes out very clearly from my little speech-impedimented girl whenever she is mad. Which is about fifty thousand times per day.

My Grateful Little Girl

Sadie can be soooooo rude sometimes. She is sassy and gives me attitude, and I can't stand it. However, there have been a few moments in the past few months that have warmed my heart and made me think, "Aw, she's so sweeeeeet..."



Sade is very good about thanking people. And with her little speech impediment, it sounds so cute: "Dee doo!!" The other night, Ben asked Sadie to say the dinner prayer, which she is always so excited about. She loves to pray, and it is so dang cute. After she said "Amen," she turned to Ben and said, sincerely, "Dee doo so muts!" [Thank you so much!] How cute is that? Thanking him for asking her to say the prayer? I wish Dylan was so willing. It's like pulling teeth to get that kid to pray.



Sadie has been constipating herself, again. Sigh. We went through this when we first started potty-training her, in the spring. She was scared to poop, so she somehow constipated herself, making her miserable, and all of the rest of us miserable, too. Well, she's suffered some kind of scared-of-pooping relapse, so now we're in constipation land again. Every few days, Ben and I get so sick of hearing how her bum-bum hurts, us suggesting that Sadie go potty, and her saying no, that we talk her into having us give her a little toddler suppository. Poor girl. Like I said before, she is probably the only three-year-old in the world who knows what a suppository is. And it's not fun for her to get one, obviously. And it's not fun for us, either, because it's gross, and it hurts her and freaks her out. But you gotta do what you gotta do. So the other day, I was giving her a suppository, and through her tears, she said, sincerely, "Dee doo, Mommy." The girl was thanking me for putting an object into her butt! It broke my heart into a million pieces.



I really hope she gets over her relapse soon. Poor thing.

My College Job

Okay, I'll tell you about my job that I referred to below. It was the coolest job ever. It was at a press clipping service.

Companies, or famous people sometimes, want to know what's being said about them in the press. So they sign on with a press clipping service. The service clips any articles they find and mails them to the client.

I was assigned all of the newspapers in Washington. I would scan these newspapers, looking for key words. Good ones were any names of over-the-counter of prescription drugs, anyone famous, any company name, or a name of an association. If I suspected that a key word belonged to one of our clients, I would type it into my computer. So, let's say that I came across the name "Axl Rose." I would go, "Hmm. I wonder..." and I would type his name into my computer. (Actually, Axl Rose really was one of our clients!) And the computer would say whether he was a client, and if so, what kinds of clippings he wanted - whether from larger cities or all cities, whether from the newspapers in the west or the east, sometimes if he wanted clippings on just one topic, etc. So, I would read the article more carefully, and if it fell under Axl Rose's criteria, I would mark it and send it to the clipping department. I got paid minimum wage, plus extra for every clipping above, like, twelve per hour. So if I got 12 clippings in an hour, I just got paid my minimum wage. But if I found ten extra, I got paid more per clipping. Like 30 cents, or something. I don't remember.

Eventually, I got promoted into the big time - magazines. You make tons more money in magazines, for some reason. It was hard to get promoted when I was working Washington, because you can't get as many clips in Washington as you can in a California newspaper. California readers always got promoted quickly. But I managed to do it, but then I was on the low section of the magazine totem-pole: the random, random, random magazines. Like I said in the post below - Wire Rope News. Shopping Cart Weekly. Mailbox-Makers Monthly. The craziest stuff. Kay, I made up the mailbox magazine. But the other two definitely existed. So it was hard to get clips in those mags, but I eventually got promoted from Random Magazines to Food Magazines. It was much easier to get clips in those. Once, I accidentally got a wine magazine put into my box, and I thought, oh, okay, wine goes with food... and I scanned it and got like a million and one clips. I was so excited! It turns out that there is a wine magazine reader, and boy, was he mad at me. I explained that I didn't realize there was a wine magazine reader, and that it had been put in my box. He eventually forgave me for making like five bucks off his mag.

It was the greatest job ever, because you could make your own hours. As long as I got 20 hours in per week, I could come in whenever. So it worked great around my busy college schedule. And the company had a killer Christmas party. :) So that was my cool job. Except for the kid who sat in the next cubicle over. All he did was hock loogeys into his garbage can. I'm not kidding. He did that all day. I seriously couldn't figure out why. And it made me want to throw up. I should have written him a note, like, "Stop hocking loogeys! Just swallow them! Or go see a doctor! Or get on Mucinex!"

Bad Karma

Nat and I always talk about this - we both have what we like to call Bad Customer Service Karma. She and I are always the ones that the receptionist will ignore, even if she or I are like two feet away from said receptionist. I'm always the one whose order of one limeade from Sonic takes an hour to be made for me. (And then the "limeade" ends up being Sprite! What's up with that???) The one whose green salad at Texas Roadhouse takes an hour to be brought out to me. I'm the one whose order at Arby's is always messed up.

Once, when I was pregnant with Sadie, Ben and I were running errands all over the huge expanse of the Salt Lake Valley, and I was, of course, starving, so we saw an Arby's and went to the drive-through. (This was back when we could afford Arby's.) I ordered my favorite - mozzarella sticks - and we drove away. I open my box, bite into the first stick, and... no cheese. There was no cheese inside. Somehow, the cheese had slid out of the breaded crusty layer and landed... who knows where. Nowhere in my sack. Miffed, I grab a different mozzarella stick. No cheese. My entire order of mozzarella sticks was mozzarella-less! I was so upset that I wanted to cry, and we were on our way to an appointment, so we didn't have time to turn around and demand new mozzarella sticks. So I just starved for a couple of hours, which is like an eternity for a pregnant woman.

Another area in my bad karma curse is the Wal-Mart shopping experience. Without fail, I always select the jacked-up shopping cart. The one that you have to pull with all your might to turn in one direction. The one that always tries to go to the right when you just want to go straight. The one with the two wheels that are stuck in place. And I never discover that the shopping cart is jacked-up until I've already gone way far into the store and gotten one or two items already. And then, when it's time to check out, I always pick the line with the elderly lady who takes about ten years to fill out a check to pay, and then the middle-aged lady behind her wants to argue about the prices of every single item with the cashier, and the cashier is new, or really chatty and taking forever talking up the customers. I always pick that line, and then sigh as I watch the other cashiers quickly and quietly ringing up everyone else, people who were comparatively three or four people behind me when I chose my ill-fated line.

Just bad karma. I've learned to live with it. :) But here's my question: Don't you have to do something bad in order to have bad karma revisited upon you? If so, what I have isn't karma. It's something else. I don't know what. Because I've never been one of those jerks who yells at waitresses. I would rather die than do that. I've never, like, I don't know... put a little stick into a wheel of a shopping cart to jam it for the next person. And I haven't stolen a shopping cart. (Did you know that shopping carts are really expensive to make? They're, like, worth a thousand dollars each, or something crazy. There is a national Prevent Shopping Cart Theft week, encouraging people not to steal them, because they are so expensive. I learned this in my days as a newspaper reader for a press-clipping service. I was the person who got stuck reading Shopping Cart Weekly and Wire Rope News. All the magazines that didn't have good clips in them. I'll have to post about that another time. What an interesting and crazy job!) I don't write checks in the check- out line. In fact, I'm one of those nice people who, upon seeing a guy behind me with just a loaf of bread, ask him to go ahead of me. I never argue about a price with a cashier. Come to think of it, I spent an entire horrible summer working as a cashier at Shopko, which alone should ensure me against bad check-out line karma, don't you think??

Aw, shucks...

How sweeeeeeeeeeet. Nat nominated me for an "I Love Your Blog" award.



Hey, LOOK!! I just made a link! Holy cow! I'm so proud of myself! I've been putting off learning how to do that forever! (And it wasn't that hard! I'm like my mom in this way - I get overwhelmed, so I put off learning something until I'm absolutely compelled to learn it. I just recently found out that my Gramps is the same way. He's learned how to scan a picture, save it to his computer, and send the picture in an e-mail about three times, and he has the instructions that three different people have written down for him, yet he gets so overwhelmed that he has me come over and just do it for him.)

Okay, so here is what you do. I'm too lazy to type this into my own words, so I'm just copying and pasting Nat's instructions here:



1. The winner (whoever I nominate) gets to put this same little sticker thingy on their blog. It's like the cool club or something.
2. Link back to me, because it's all about internet traffic and about getting more visits to your own blog and to other's. A giving tree of sorts.
3. Nominate 7 other blogs. (This part is going to be hard for me because there are so many stinking good ones out there that I read.)
4. Link up to said awesome blogs.
5. Leave a message on those blogs so they can get all flustered and butterfly-ey and blushy like I did when Kristy left a comment saying she nominated me.

Okay, now for the tough part - picking whose blogs to nominate:

Nat: Hey, look! I did it again! I am a genius!!! :) Okay. I nominate Nat, plus my other two sisters, and not only because they are my sisters. Because I am genuinely excited when I see they have posted. I like Nat's blog because it is chock-full of pop culture references. It's almost like an extended version of the game we like to play with each other: "Name that movie!!" For instance, in her most recent post, she was talking about how she actually got some good professional photographs of two of her kids (her kids have a major phobia of getting their pictures taken. It's almost Mommy-Hair-ish in calibur), and she proclaimed, "Wonder of wonder! Miracle of miracles!!" I knew, immediately upon reading those sentences, that she was quoting Fiddler on the Roof, when Tevya gives Sidel permission to marry the man she chooses, instead of the butcher, Lazerwolf.

Beads: I'm really getting the hang of this skill. Go me. Alright. I nominate my sister, Beads, because when you read her blog, you really, really get a sense of who she is. She doesn't put a happy/fakey facade on, you know, like, "I am perfect, and my life is perfect, and my dogs are perfect..." I kind of hate blogs like that. When she responds to personality tags, she isn't afraid to put herself out there - her fears, her insecurities, the things that truly make her happy and why... Reading her blog is like reading her journal. It's such a treat when someone opens herself up like that. Sometimes, Spencer (Beads' husband) posts to the same blog, and he cracks me up so much. Spence is pretty quiet in person, but when he writes, he is soooo freakin' funny.

Lex: I nominate Lex because she does the coolest thing for her post titles - they are all lines from very obscure songs. Lex is a big-time music lover, and she especially loves music that not a lot of people have discovered yet. So she will pick out, in her memory, a line from a song, or a song title, that has to do with what she's posting about. I love that. And she is really, really whitty. Or is it spelled "witty"? Hm. Too lazy to look that one up. It's looking like "witty" to me. Anyways. She has the funniest way of expressing herself, and I just love it. Instead of saying something like, "I heard that Micah has a doctor's appointment tomorrow," she will say, "Word on the street is that Micah has a doctor's appointment tomorrow." One day, when she picked me up at 5:45 in the freaking morning to jog, it was a Wednesday, and when I got in the car, she was wearing a do-rag, and she yelled, "Happy Wangsta Wednesday!!" She is so funny. And she types like she talks.

Mindy: Spencer's sister. I just recently discovered her blog, and whenever I see that she has recently posted, I go, "Yeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!" and click right on it. She writes about the funniest things. And she is a fantastic writer. And she is so, so neat. Such a neat person. She teaches 7th graders (what my English department head used to call Sewer Snoids), and I can tell they love her so much. She is so creative. She posts the funniest pictures to go along with her stories. I wonder if she has a tri-pod, because she posts lots of pictures of herself. She'll say something like, "and then I fell asleep..." and there will be a picture of herself, pretending to be asleep on the couch. She recently tried a dessert that I had mentioned on my blog, and she wrote about it, and when I saw she had written about little old me, I was so flattered!!!!

Lish: Lish is the Seinfeld of the blogging world. She points out little things and just makes you laugh and laugh. Once she posted about a lady who inappropriately wore a plunging neckline to work. Today's post is about a fridge thief (or is it "theif"? I'm having such a hard time today!) at her office. And she is very clever. On yesterday's post, she was talking about this friend who says the rudest things to her, and then wrote some ideas she had for loving this friend, and then at the end of the post, she revealed that the mean friend was herself. Deep thoughts by Lish.

Pete: Pete doesn't really deserve this award, because he doesn't post enough, but I'm hoping my nominating him will shame him into posting more, because when he posts, I laugh and laugh. Pete is Nat's hubby. And he is a writer. So why he doesn't write more on his blog mystifies me. Anyways, my favorite post of his was when he was talking about how he has a poor mental idea of himself. He says he sees himself as David Beckham, when other people see him as looking like Steve Buscemi. Funny, funny, funny. Write more, Pete! Please???

Aaron: This is my friend, Michelle's, husband. His blog is almost entirely devoted to doughnuts. Or donuts. I think either spelling is acceptable. Thank goodness. Anyways, this man writes like donuts as if they were... works of art. Or literary masterpieces. He goes all around the San Diego area, trying every single donut shop he can find. He sometimes drives an hour each way, in order to try an assortment of their donuts and comment on them. Aaron is extremely smart - he went to Harvard Law School - and he's a lawyer, so he is, of course, an amazing writer. Very eloquent. And very funny.

Alright. That was hard to choose. Sorry if I gave you internal frowny-faces if I didn't nominate you. That was pretty tough. So, yay for blogs that I love to read.

Courtney Love

Sometimes, when I have time to do my makeup (this hardly ever happens, unfortunately), Sadie will ask me to put makeup on her, too. And I oblige, because it's fun to put on makeup when you're a little girl. And I love how dang long her eyelashes look when they have mascara on them. So about a month ago, Sade asked for makeup, and I did it for her:

Cute, huh? Not so cute post-nap:

She looks very Courtney Love-ish:

Okay, maybe not that bad...

Tag from Ash

I usually: am cleaning my kitchen. I swear that's all I do, all day long. :)



I search: for cute ideas for my young women's class in old FHE manuals.



I wonder: what my kids will turn out like.



I regret: missing Dylan's best friend's birthday party. I totally forgot about it, and just remembered it, right now! Ooops...



I love: my hubby, my kids, and my "natal family." :)



I care: about making good, healthy food for my family. It's a huge priority to me. I get grumpy when we are poor and have to have stupid Ramen noodles. I might as well feed my children cardboard for dinner.



I always: eat too many cookies when I make them. I should just stop making them!



I worry: about not teaching my kids enough of the gospel in the home.



I am not: as skinny as I would like to be.



I remember: always singing cheesy songs from musicals with Natalie (in our underwear) as we got ready for school in the mornings. If the rest of the family was asleep, we probably woke them up!



I believe: that Heavenly Father loves me.



I dance: a lot, a lot, a lot. I car dance quite a bit. :) I dance while I make dinner - something I inherited from my mommy.



I sing: off-key when I hear a song on the radio that I hate. I think it's really funny to do that (I think I'm probably the only one that thinks that's funny).



I don't always: say my bedtime prayers. I'm trying to be better...



I argue: with Dylan all day long. He always starts it. When I prove that I'm right, I yell, "Who was right? Who was right?" until he admits that I was right.



I write: blogs in my head as I go throughout my day.



I win: smiles from Micah almost every time I look at him. I think he's a big fan of me.



I lose: my keys, my purse, my shoes, etc. almost daily. I really wish I had some kind of a paging system attached to each of those things, and I could push a button and find them when I inevitably lost them.



I wish: I could buy some jackets for my kids. :(



I listen: to the TV shows my kids watch (while I'm running around the house, doing chores) and sing along. I know all the theme songs - the one to The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, the one to Chowder, the one to SpongeBob Squarepants, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, George of the Jungle, Wow Wow Wubzy, etc.



I don't understand: people who aren't like me.



I can usually be found: when not doing dishes, usually wiping up some spill on my floor with 409.



I am scared of: tornadoes.



I need: to be told how much I'm loved.



I am happy: when it's quiet in my house. And when I've slept enough. Hmmm. So maybe I'm not happy very often??? Yikes. Bikes.

The Flowers are Naughty

I was typing up my grandma's memoirs last year, and she told the cutest story about my youngest sister, Lexi. Sometimes, when Grams would baby-sit Lex, they would be out in the garden, weeding and such, and they would sing the Primary song, "In the Leafy Treetops." There is a verse in that song that goes:

In my mother's garden,
The flowers are nodding.
How do you do? they say,
How do you do today?
In my mother's garden,
The flowers are nodding.

Lexi thought it said, "In my mother's garden, the flowers are naughty." Soooo cute. I love that story. Grandma had the best memory for stories like that. I have to write stories like that down, or they are gone forever.

Anyways, this summer was the first summer that I have ever had a flower garden. It's not much, because I have limited fundage, but my mom helped me a lot in that department, bless her heart. And I was so proud of my flowers - I took lots of pictures. Flowers just make me so happy. My mom said, and I concur, "Flowers just make life worth living." When I'm having a hard day, all I have to do is look at my flowers, and I feel a little bit better about life.

Here are my two dianthas. They survived last summer, which was so hot. Not only that, but they didn't get watered all summer, because the previous owner moved at the beginning of the summer, and we didn't move in until the end of summer. This year, they have been blooming and blooming and so happy:

These are some annuals I planted this year - African daisies. They close up at night and open up in the day. They are so beautiful. I love that their centers are purple:

These are some more annuals. They're called "lavenders," but I don't think they are lavender, the nice-smelling kinds. They are really interesting. Half of them have continued blooming and being very pretty all summer, but half of them only bloomed once, and then looked like weird cacti without the thorns. Really ugly. I just barely pulled the cacti-looking ones out. I'd rather have bare spots on the ground than these weird bare cacti things. I'm not doing these again next year, no matter how much I like purple. I'll just have to find a different purple flower:

And I can't take credit for this next one. During the week after I had Micah, I was so sick, and this elderly lady in my ward, Enid, brought some food over. The next week, I still hadn't returned her dishes, or anyone else's, for that matter, because I was so overwhelmed and tired and sick, and she came over and brought me this huge vase just overflowing with lilacs, my favorite flower of all time. And then she took all the dishes back to all of their owners. This lady is, like, in her eighties, and she walks so slowly and carefully and hunched over, yet she did that service for me, and it meant so much to me. Even though there are decades and decades of difference in our ages, I count her as one of my dear friends in this ward. The gorgeous lilacs:

I have got to plant some lilacs next year. I think I want to put them on the east side of my house, which is absolutely bare.

Micah - Just Pictures

Here are just some random shots of Micah that we took throughout the summer. He is so stinkin' cute:

And here are some videos.

This first one is the 3rd of July, at my Aunt Marilyn's house. I was an idiot and accidentally videotaped it sideways. Ben found a good way to get difficult bubbles out of Micah. I love this - his little, skinny legs swinging back and forth:

And this is a video of Micah sleeping - I love how newborns smile and frown and laugh and roll their eyes when they're sleeping. It's so cute. Unfortunately, it's a short video, because my dang loud other kids woke him up:

Green Tomatoes

About a month ago, my mom gave me some green tomatoes from her garden. I actually fried them - I've always wanted to try that, ever since I read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, and they turned out really good!!! Anywho, when Dylan saw this particular green tomato, he goes, "Mom, this tomato looks like a butt. Or boobs." I don't know to whose boobs he is referring, because my boobs certainly don't look like that! I've never had a cleavage in my life! And I'd like to think that mine aren't misshapen, like the tomato boobs in the above picture - one pointing down and one of them trying to run in the opposite direction.

High School Tag

1. Did you date someone from your High School? Yes - my junior year, I dated Tim H. for about two weeks. Then, starting at the end of my junior year, and ending after high school, I dated Jeremy H. Different H last names! They weren't brothers or anything! :)


2. What kind of car did you drive? I'm pasting this answer straight from Nat's blog, because we shared this car: A 1983 Honda Accord-the Ocean Car! We named it that because of the color, and the tape player would make the sound all wavy. The head rests got stolen, so then we got some brown ones spray-painted blue to put in it, so they were all crunchy. It was the coolest car ever.

3. What was the most embarrassing moment of High School for you? It was St. Patrick's Day, and I decided it would be fun to wear fake, bright green, sparkly eyelashes. I could hardly see anything all day, because they were soooo long. They seriously impaired my vision. And I was opening the art door, and I walked right into the edge of the door. I hit it so hard that I started crying! I felt really dumb.


4. Were you a party animal? Not in a naughty way. But I was always, always, always playing.


5. Were you considered a flirt? No, I don't think so.


6. Were you in Band, Orchestra, or Choir? None of the above! I did drama and student government.


7. Were you a nerd? Definitely. I had the dumbest clothes and hair ever. I really wish I could airbrush some different hair and clothes on my senior picture. :)


8. Were you on any Varsity teams? Yeah, softball. I was, like, third string catcher.


9. Did you ever get suspended/expelled? Nope.

10. Can you still sing the fight song? Oh my goodness, yes!! Dear old I.F. High we are with you...

11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mr. Hatch was my ultimate favorite. He looked like a walrus, and he was so easygoing and incredibly smart. He taught me so much about how to write.


12. Where did you sit during lunch? Inside of Fiesta Ole!!


13. What was your school's full name?Idaho Falls High School


14. School mascot?Tiger

15. Did you go to Homecoming? With whom? Let's see. I wasn't sixteen yet my sophomore year. My junior year, I went with Tim H., and my senior year, I went with Jeremy H.


16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Definitely. I would relax more and just enjoy myself more without all the hyperness. And I wouldn't date anyone seriously.


17. What do you remember most about graduation? I remember singing the homecoming song that some guys from our class wrote and just bawling and bawling. "For we are following our STAR... and keeping feet... on the ground..."


18. Where did you go Senior Skip Day? I missed Senior Skip Day! I was in Hawaii with my parents. If there's a choice between Senior Skip Day and Hawaii, I'll take Hawaii any day of the week!!


19. Were you in any clubs? Oh, yes. Um, drama club, honor society (is that a club?), Renaissance Club (I can't remember the difference between that and Honor Society), ski club (we went, like, once, my sophomore year), and Peer Counseling - that club was soooooooo fun.


20. Have you gained some weight since then? Oh yeah.


21. Who was your Prom Date? My sophomore year (I was finally sixteen) - Jared S. My junior year, Jeremy H. My senior year, Jeremy H.


22. 10 year Reunion? Are you planning on going? I went! Will I go to my 20-year reunion? Maybe. I've heard it's more fun than 10-year. I won't have to make that decision for awhile!


23. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Once again, don't date one person seriously. I would have had sooo much more fun.





I tag whoever wants to do this!

Flickr Tag

This tag was a total blast!!

Directions: Type the answer to each of the following questions into Flickr Search. Pick an image that comes up - it has to be on the first page of results. Then post the pictures with each question and answer. Here are the crazy, cool pictures that I found on Flickr:

1. First name: Karlenn. I'm guessing this girl's name is Karlenn?? (One of the 15 or fewer in the U.S....?)

2. Favorite Food: Bean Burritos. I thought this picture was hilarious:

3. High school I went to: Idaho Falls High School. In all of its slushy glory:

4. Favorite color: Purple. I love this picture:

5. Celeb crush: Shia LaBoeuf. He's so goofy. I love it:

6. Favorite drink: Coke. Apparently these are vintage Coke bottles:

7. Dream vacation: Hawaii. These are plumerias, one of my favorite things about Hawaii:

8. Favorite dessert: Buttermilk pie. I can't believe other people know about this and make it! I wondered if my family was the only one that knew about it. It's the best:

9. What I want to be when I grow up: college professor. But I obviously wouldn't teach German. :)

10. What I love most in life: Ben, my hubby. This picture is of Big Ben, in London, one of my favorite places in the world. The picture reminds me of that scene in Mary Poppins, when they are looking above "the rooftops of London... coh! What a sight..."

11. One word to describe myself: artistic. I liked this picture. This was how Dylan tried to get away with doing his coloring homework the other night - in a big bunch, scribbling on the page. I was like, uh-uh-uh...:

Okay, I tag whoever wants to do it!

Dylan's Summer Uniform

This is what Dylan wore every single day this summer - his swimming trunks and his bike helmet. And he usually wore a steady stream of yellow snot running down from his nose, as well. What the neighbors must think of me!! (P.S. We finally are taking Dylan to an ENT in a couple of weeks to figure out what on earth he has had for the past year to warrant constant thick boogers. We've tried two rounds of antibiotics, to no avail, and allergy pills also don't seem to make a difference. Hopefully we can solve the mystery soon.)

The great thing is that Dylan wore the helmet, bike or not. If he was just running around, sans bike, he kept that helmet on. Always. It's so funny. What can I say? We are officially a white trash family. :)

Sadie's Birthday

Oops! Totally forgot to post about this! I was convinced that I already had, but nope. Sadie turned 3 on August 31. Such a cutie. She adores our Garfield movies (the ones that mix a digital Garfield with "real" people and dogs), so I wanted to make her a Garfield cake, but I couldn't find any Garfield cake tins, except ones on eBay for a million dollars from the 80's. I called all the local bakeries, to no avail. And then I tried Baskin Robbins, just as a last-ditch effort, and whaddaya know?? They had a Garfield kit. This picture is funny to me - it looks like she's eating Garfield's head:

Wow. I'm having a heck of a time moving my uploaded pictures around today. Not sure why. So I'm just going to type about the rest and attach a slideshow. Annoying...

My sister, Nat, and her family were there, and obviously Dylan was there, so there were a lot of manic kids who were very anxious for Sadie to open her toys, quickly, and she was soooo funny. She kept saying, soothingly, "Otay, otay..."

I was proud of my gifts for her - the movie, 101 Dalmations, and the coolest little nightlight - a moon that hangs on the wall, and it phases from a sliver clear to a full moon, changing every minute or so. Sadie is obsessed with the moon, and she just loves this gift so much. It also has a remote control, so you can change the phases if you want by hand.

The kids lost the movie less than a week later. I can't find it anywhere. Sigh.

Slideshow:

Tag from Cec

Well, technically, apparently, I sent this one to Cec, and she answered and sent it back to me, but I can't find it on my blog anywhere, nor on my e-mail anywhere. So I'm subjecting you to my answers! Mwahahahah!!

1. Where were you 3 hours ago? Here at home, making some lunch.


2. Who are you in love with? My hubby-hubster. (And Edward from Twilight. It's sad, really.)


3. Have you ever eaten a crayon? Um, no. Ew.

4. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? Yep, some pink "kid scissors." I just had to take two pairs away from Dylan and Sadie - they were having a "scissor fight." Nice.


5. When is the last time you went to the mall? Oh jeez. A billion trillion years... I seriously can't even remember when. Sad. I miss it. I miss shopping. And retail therapy. I'm too poor for retail therapy!


6. Are you wearing socks right now?Nope

7. Do you have a car worth over $2,000? That is a really good question. I actually need to figure out how much our cars are worth, as part of my Medicaid application. Gonna have to get on that today.


8. When was the last time you drove out of town? Um, a month ago, to go to Yellowstone for Ben's fam's reunion.

9. Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days? Nope.

10. Are you hot? Nope. I just woke up from a nap, and I was warm then, but now I'm all better. As far as a hot-tie... um, no.


11. What was the last thing you had to drink? Guava strawberry juice.


12. What are you wearing right now? White cargo pants and a grey t-shirt. I can't figure out if this is a good outfit or not. I've had doubts about it since I put the two together. Grey and white work together, right? I just feel sooo bland...

13. Do you wash your car or let the car wash do it? Neither. :) Too poor for car washes. There was a free car wash in the Albertson's parking lot about a month ago, so I took advantage of that.


14. Last food that you ate? Biscuits and gravy and canteloupe. We always have breakfast for lunch on Sunday. A little tradition.


15. Where were you last week at this time? Here at home! I love lazy Sunday afternoons.


16. Have you bought any clothing items in the last week? Actually, I was naughty. I bought some new running shoes on super-sale at Shopko. My old ones (which weren't real running shoes) were giving me some major blisters at the ends of my toes. My feet have grown a little since being prego with Micah. I'm so glad I got these new shoes. They feel heavenly. Like I'm running on clouds!!


17. When is the last time you ran? As a matter of fact, yesterday! I did my first 5K. Completed it in 35 minutes, which I was really pleased about.


18. What's the last sporting event you watched? Olympics. I think I was watching the men's beach volleyball tourney.


19. What is your favorite animal? Dogs, for sure. I just am too OCD to let them poop all over my house. It's sad. I really do love dogs.


20. Your dream vacation? Back to Hawaii, baby.


21. Last person's house you were in? Mom's. I was making cards with her.


22. Worst injury you've ever had? When I broke my wrist when I was seven. That hurt sooo badly.

23. Have you been in love? Definitely. And I still am.

24. Do you miss anyone right now? Beads.

25. Last play you saw? White Star.


26. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex? Hahahaha!! That's funny. Well, before I met Ben, hmmm. I wasn't a "luring" kind of a gal. I just tried to be myself and have fun.


27. What are your plans for tonight? Work on writing those thank-you cards for gifts people sent for Micah.


28. Who is the last person you sent a facebook message or comment? Angela. She asked me if reading Midnight Sun was worth it, and I said, definitely. I wish I could read the whole thing. Sigh. I wish Stephenie Meyer would change her mind about that...


29. Next trip you are going to take? Ben and I would like to go to St. George to visit his dad and stepmom for Thanksgiving - I'm not sure if we'll really do it or not. Tim and Brenda aren't even sure they'll be there.


30. Ever go to camp? Yes! Darby Girl's Camp.

31. Were you an honor roll student in school? Yes

32. What do you want to know about the future? If we're having another kid?


33. Are you wearing any perfume or cologne? No

34. Are you due sometime this year for a doctor's visit? Yeah, I have to get a dang pap smear in a month or so.


35. Where is your best friend? Salt Lake.


36. How is your best friend? She's sad, and I don't blame her. But she is strong. And she still has a sense of humor.


37. Do you have a tan? Nope.

38. What are you listening to right now? Ben just changed the channel. Now he's watching the documentary, "The Girl With Eight Limbs."

39. Do you collect anything? No. Dust!

40. Who is the biggest gossiper you know? A lady in my old ward.


41. Last time you got stopped by a cop or pulled over? A year ago. They changed the speed limit on a street I've driven my whole life, so I wasn't even checking the speed limit signs, because I knew what the speed limit was, you know? I totally got a ticket and started bawling.


42. Have you ever drunk your soda from a straw? What a weird question! Um, yeah...


43. What does your last text message say? I texted Lexi that I finished my first 5K.


44. Do you like hot sauce? Nope. Mild sauce, for sure.

45. Last time you took a shower? This morning at 6 a.m. I have to get up at 6 on Sundays (and on weekdays) in order to get everyone ready on time. Sigh.


46. Do you need to do laundry? Oh yes. But I'm proud of myself - I washed my couch cushion covers last night, and they look and smell fabulous.


47. What is your heritage? Norwegian and Cherokee.

48. Are you someone's best friend? Yep, I'm Pooh's. :)

49. Are you rich? That's a good one.


50. What were you doing at 12AM last night? Sleeping. Love to sleep.

Haircut

I took this picture a month ago or so. I thought it was pretty cute. Dylan's hair grows soooooo fast. I just cut it again a couple of weeks ago, and it's looking like it needs another trim soon.

Mommy Hair, Part 3

Well, the saga continues. I think Sadie's obsession with my shed hairs has become a full-blown phobia. Seriously. She won't walk into the bathroom to go potty unless I check for stray hairs on the bathroom floor. Same goes for getting into the bathtub at night. If she sees an errant hair while she's in the tub, she stands up and screams bloody murder. Sigh. Such a silly phobia. Like the hairs could do anything to her. Like they have a mind of their own, or something.

Speaking of silly phobias, I was reading in People Magazine the other day, and they had a really funny article about interesting phobias. One lady has bananaphobia. You guessed it - fear of bananas!! She said it stemmed from her experience as a kid in elementary school. She described the disgusting smell at lunch when kids would pull their bruised bananas out of their lunch bags and eat them, and the phobia grew from there. She can't touch them or get near them. A dude has siderodromophobia. I won't make you guess that one - fear of railroads and train travel. His phobia stemmed from an unlikely source - he and a friend, as kids, were playing by the railroad tracks with a BB gun. The gun went off, the BB hit a railroad tie, ricocheted off the tie, and hit this guy in the face. And so his phobia began. You would think he would be scared of, I don't know... BB guns??? But no. Railroads. Here's another one that a lady has - gephyrophobia - fear of crossing bridges. A little girl had a phobia (they didn't have a term for it) of mascots, costumes, and even painted faces. She told the magazine that she was scared the costumed people would "torture her." Hmmm. I guess I have a little twinge of fear whenever I see clowns, now, thanks to Stephen King's It. But mascots? Painted faces? No.

Here are some phobias of famous people (the magazine didn't mention what made these people scared of the following things):

Aretha Franklin - flying
Matthew McConaughey - revolving doors
Madonna - thunder
Billy Bob Thornton - antiques
Christina Ricci - houseplants

Crazy, huh? I can see the fear behind each of these, actually. Flying is a little intimidating - let's face it. Revolving doors are a little scary, too. I'm always worried I'll go too slow or too fast and get my feet pinched, or something. Thunder? That scares some people. I just think it's cool. I can see fear of antiques, just based on their smell. Have you ever been inside an antique shop? Pew. And houseplants - I guess little spiders could be lurking in there, or something...

I wonder if there is a name for the fear of shed hair... Just looked it up: trichopathophobia. That's what Sadie has. For sure.