Just Another Day

Today was a fairly happy, peaceful day. And I'm not being sarcastic as I write that. It was a nice, laid-back, fairly normal day. There are lots of lovely, happy and interesting things that happen to me-- things like reading a good book, searching for great choral music and eating delicious cupcakes-- I just don't choose to write about them on my blog. Instead I write about poop. If I ever become a freelance writer and write a book, it will probably be called "Flush: Close Encounters with Poop" or maybe just "A Narrative History of Poop and Diapering." Haven't you always wondered how people dealt with diapers in the 1800's? If you lived in a one-room cabin and it was freezing cold outside, how on earth did you dry your laundry? The answer is you probably didn't wash it in the first place. But what if you had diapers? They would have to be washed. How would you dry them? On a clothesline in the cabin? What if they froze first? Would you duck under the clothesline to set the table? But now I digress. Back to my happy day.

Addy had playgroup today. It was at a house in our neighborhood, so I walked her over. Jackson and I came back just in time for me to rehearse with someone I am accompanying for a musical number. Toward the end of the rehearsal my phone rang, but I ignored it-- I was in a rehearsal and trying to concentrate. Then my cell phone rang. I ignored it too. My phone rang again; my cell phone rang again. After several rounds of this, I decided whoever it was really wanted to talk to me, so I picked up the phone. It was the mom from playgroup. Addy was really fussy and pulling at her ear. So I ended my rehearsal, went to pick Addy up and took her to the doctor.

Sure enough, Addy had an ear infection. The doctor wrote a prescription for an antibiotic and I went to Target to get it filled. I drove through Taco Bell to get Jackson and Addy lunch, made a list in the Target parking lot while they ate it, and felt quite pleased with myself and my high level of organization.

We went to Target, procured the necessary items (as well as several more, as typically happens at Target) and started to make our way toward the checkout. Jackson was looking at some Legos and started to dance around a bit.I should have made him stop and taken him to the bathroom right then and there, but we only had one item left (night-time diapers, ironically enough). We went to get the last item and I got distracted looking at shirts for Addy. At this point Jackson realized he needed to go and told me he needed to use the potty. So we made a beeline to the front of the store to the bathrooms.

Jackson insisted he could go potty by himself and wanted me to stay outside. I'm all for fostering independence, but for the sake of safety went into the bathroom with him and let him go in the stall by himself. A minute later peeked under the door to see how he was doing. There was a puddle in front of the toilet and a teeny bit of poop on the floor that he was about to step in. I opened the door and saw poop smeared on the potty, in his underwear, on his pants, on the floor and even on the bottom of his shoes. He still didn't want me to help, but that wasn't an option at this point. So I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning up poop and pee from his shoes and the bathroom stall.

As I finally restored Jackson to some semblance of cleanliness, I pondered my options. I had a full cart of groceries and household items I still needed to pay for sitting outside the bathroom. I had left the diaper bag in the car. Jackson's underwear and pants he had been wearing were now reasonably clean and poop-free but completely wet. Somewhere in the new mommy introduction class i took at the hospital they skipped the part when they reviewed your options for checking out of Target with a half-naked four-year-old. Should I leave him in the bathroom and go buy a pair of undies and pants so I could finish my shopping? I didn't really feel comfortable sticking 'naked boy' in the cart, but it would be a bit awkward walking around Target with a boy who was only wearing tennis shoes from the waist down. The diaper bag was in the car, so I decided my best option was to take him out and get him some clean underwear. We marched out to the car with Jackson buck naked from the waist down except for his tennis shoes. Getting to the car was a laborious process because he kept trying to hide (so people wouldn't see him naked).

We got to the car, got clean underwear but found that the diaper bag did not have a clean pair of pants. I was sorely tempted to just leave (even with an hour's worth of Target stuff in our cart back in the store), but I remembered that Addy's prescription was still in the cart and we had already opened a box of fruit snacks we were going to buy and eaten a few packs (all by me, of course-- love those fruit snacks). :) So I got a new cart, sat Jackson in the cart basket and set his jacket over his legs so people wouldn't see that he was only in his undies. We went in, took our cart through the checkout and then left. Although I never did manage to get those night-time diapers.

And I managed to stay quite calm and composed through the entire thing, with nary a curse word muttered under my breath. Acceptance, right? "There is nowhere I should be or anything I should be doing besides exactly what I'm doing right now. I am right where I need to be." Even if that is trying to figure out how to get poop off of 4T sweatpants in the Target bathroom.

Did I mention that we got a dog? At least she is housebroken-- well, mostly-- which is more than I can say for Jackson.

Conference Weekend

Last weekend was General Conference. While it is always nice to have a break from teaching Sunbeams, getting the kids ready for church, getting Jackson and Addy to stay quiet during Sacrament Meeting and just generally being gone for 3 hours at church on Sunday, the weekend was a mix for us. I used to look forward to Conference weekend. What's not to like? Watch church in your PJ's on the couch while eating treats. When we lived in Utah sometimes we got to attend in person-- which was awesome. And then we had kids. I guess kids actually weren't responsible for the demise of my enjoyment of conference. I think it actually happened somewhere when I thought my kids were starting to get older and I started having expectations that they would act differently than wild goats.

Wouldn't this be enough to bribe you to be quiet?

 We started out well-- complete with real homemade Cinnamon Rolls during the Saturday Morning. My slacker conference tradition is to make Cinnamon Sugar Bread with canned biscuits so this was a big step up for me-- thanks to my attempt at no-knead refrigerator Challah dough (which was super-easy by the way... next Brioche!). But despite my sugaring up of the kids and printing out cute Conference Packets for them, it took us almost four hours to watch that first two-hour session of conference. Even though we started watching it live, between pushing pause to break up wrestling matches, rewinding to hear what that word was that was drowned out by screaming and pausing to roll out the rolls and put them in the oven, it turned into quite a marathon.

Wild goats in action.

We took a short break to eat lunch and then began the second session. Addy was down for her nap and Jackson was happily playing so I started to again entertain the unreasonable expectation that at least two of my children were capable of being in the same room as the broadcast without turning into raving hyenas. I made a valiant effort, but between Jared and Camryn teasing each other and wrestling, Jackson screeching at the top of his lungs and me feeling a sudden uncontrollable desire to bean someone, break something or scream, I thought it would be best for everyone if we adjourned conference and mom locked herself in her room to cry for a while. After a requisite period of solitude (I told the kids not to bug me unless there was blood or fire) I started getting notes under the door asking me when I was going to come out, so I piled the kids into the car to go to the park.

A really cute wild goat.

As soon as we got out of the car at the park it started to rain, so we piled everyone back into the car. Instead we drove to Michael's, where I stocked up on crafts for the kids to do during conference on Sunday. Who knew that $30 could buy me one session of relative peace and quiet?

Fun at Michael's

After a semi-harrowing stop at Baja Fresh for dinner to use a Groupon I had bought-- did I ever mention how much it bugs me when I spend $4 for a kids meal and a certain child (cough, cough, ahem, Jackson, cough, cough) drinks the juice and doesn't eat a single bite of anything else?-- we headed home. We survived Sunday conference quite well, completing our typical session-and-a-quarter before giving up again. We then turned to Animated Heroes from the Bible's "Joseph in Egypt" for our the religious educational value of the day and peace was restored.

Jared took this photo as a surprise for me.

Played Out: Why I Never Practice Piano Any More

People sometimes ask me if I "keep up" with my piano and "Do I practice anymore?" The answer is yes and no. Yes, I still play the piano. Do I "keep up" with it? I have two degrees in Piano Performance and spent 6 consecutive years of my life practicing between 4-7 hours a day on the piano (depending on what time in my schooling). So the first answer is "no," there is no way to "keep up" with that unless you a) do it for a career, b) have no life, c) have no children, or d) all of the above.

These pictures are from a different incident, but accurately represent my difficulty with piano practice at this stage of life.

Being a piano major in a former life presents problems though. Everyone that finds this out exclaims, "Oh, you should play something for me!" And I should. Except that the major pieces I have memorized and under my fingers right now are "Jumbo Elephant" and "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam." It's also troublesome because once you have learned how to really play and do a piece justice, it is very difficult to play in a way that is "half-baked" and doesn't really represent how the piece should or could be played (assuming that you devoted the time necessary to play it in such a manner).

Note the expression of relaxation and enjoyment on all-- well at least one-- of our faces.

I had a friend has been bugging me to audition for a local talent contest (yes, I got your email, Sarah) that even has cash prizes so I have been throwing around whether there is anything I could "pull up" for this. It then presents a dilemma: Do you try to scrounge up time to practice something and seize on an opportunity to perform again? Do you publicly play at a level that does not accurately represent your best? Or do you remember that you have children and 5 baskets of unfolded laundry upstairs and scrap the idea altogether?

Yesterday morning I had the brilliant thought that I should play the piano for a while for fun, as a form of "self-care" or "me" time. I waited until Addy and Jackson were sitting up eating breakfast and then I started to play a Mozart slow movement. Jackson immediately left his cereal to go soggy and took this perfect opportunity to climb on me and add a duet part. Recently I have been working with this er, rather, um, challenging child on being firm and sticking with boundaries, so I gently pulled him off my lap and told him that he needed to wait. He didn't like this ("But mahhhhhm, I want you!") but he was going to have to live with it. He climbed on me again and, yet again, I gently pulled him down and said he would have to wait.

The ideal way to practice....

 I pulled out the Schumann-Liszt "Widmung" and started to play through it. Jackson climbed up on the back of me and then held on to my neck and swung from there, laughing at what great fun this was. Again, I stuck to my boundaries and calmly set him down to the side and told him that he needed to wait. Finally, seeing that half-measures were not working, Jackson took a giant plastic sand shovel that I bought the other day and used it to knock my music down off the music stand and knock the piano lid closed. (Exactly how he did this I am not sure....) At that point, all calmness and boundaries flew out the window. I stopped playing and bellowed, "NO JACKSON!!!! NO! NO! DON'T DO THAT!!! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!! No toys on the piano!!!!!" After about ten seconds of bellowing "NO" and scrambling to contain myself, I calmly took him to time out as he sobbed giant tears. At this point, after liberally berating myself for losing my temper, I tried to remind myself that I am not a perfect mom and anyone has their breaking point-- especially when a giant plastic sand shovel is applied to the music rack of your piano.

I think I see simultaneously why I don't practice the piano very much anymore and why the successful Venezualan concert pianist Teresa Carreno (who had six children) reportedly kept a loaded gun on the piano. Um, yeah. That might work. I guess that explains a lot.


"I'm not a perfect person, 
there's many things I wish I didn't do. 
But I continue learning..." -Hoobastank

Pictures for "Perspective" or The Big Spill

The big spill.... OK, fine. It's not such a big deal compared to that spill. But this came on the same day that Jared was doing an "experiment" in the kitchen sink involving yeast. He had Camryn put the yeast away for him and she didn't close the ziploc bag all the way, so all of the contents of the lower half of our freezer had a lovely coating of yeast sprinkles. They had a lovely argument over who was responsible for the mess, Jared for getting out the yeast or Camryn for putting it away wrong.

Here is our most-of-a-gallon milk mess.

This was a full unopened gallon of milk....

One bright spot. I sent Camryn to her bed since she was only hindering the clean up and she apparently took me bursting into laughter upon the milk carton breaking to mean that this wasn't such a big deal. After drenching two bath towels, I went to rinse them out in the bathtub. When I came back, Jared was doing his best to clean up the remaining mess with a dish towel. He gave me a hug and said, "It's not fair that you always have to clean up the messes while we play, mom."

As I write this, the kids are all finally asleep. Last of all, Addy in a sweaty but happy post-nursing nap on my lap.

Perspective. Um, Yeah.

Nothing ruins your perspective like having your 7-year-old drop an entire gallon of milk on the floor and have it explode open. (Don't blame her...she was holding the gallon on her head to bring it in from the garage fridge.)

Just sayin'.

The Finale to "Some Days" or "How Not to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying"

So the day after my last whiny pathetic post I made yet another stab at getting Adelyn's picture taken, this time with success. I also learned a valuable lesson on how to successfully drive a business into the ground. Next time I have the urge to buy a quickie-kids-photo-where-they-run-the-camera-like-a-cash-register franchise, I'll remember it.

I returned to Kiddie Kandids on Friday, but this time I made an appointment. Despite all attempts at promptness, I hit traffic, construction and Jackson's willpower and ended up being late. I tried 3 or 4 times to call the studio to let them know I would be a few minutes behind, but got a busy signal every single time. I apologized when I got there and the photographer (that seems generous, I think "camera operator" is probably more appropriate term) said that "she was on the phone with her superior." Does "superior" translate into "boyfriend" in any English-related dialects? No matter. She was still finishing up someone else's photos when I arrived, so I didn't feel so very bad for being late.

We got down to pictures and, all in all, they went pretty well. Except that Jackson thought it looked like great fun, so he climbed down from the shopping cart and attempted to get in the picture with Addy. And distracted her so she looked at him instead of the camera. And generally interrupted the process however possible.

When I made the appointment, they informed me that the studio was under new ownership and a few things had changed. For one thing, they didn't print out your photos immediately any more: you had to wait two weeks and come back. That was definitely sad news, but hey, it still beat having to park at the mall, find the elevator at JCPenney's and wait 45 minutes when you had an appointment, right? I still got to pick out the photos on the spot. The difficulty was that there was someone with an appointment for pictures immediately after me and the other girl who was supposed to be working that morning hadn't shown up yet. So the camera operator asked if I could come back in 15 minutes to pick out the photos. Addy was getting fussy and wanted to nurse, so that actually worked out rather well. I went and nursed Addy in the mother's room (at least one plus for being in a Babies'R'Us store) and then went back. And waited. And waited. And waited. It was at least 30 minutes after I got back from nursing Addy that I waited just to get a chance to look through my pictures to pick which ones I wanted. You can imagine how patient and obedient Jackson was by the time we had puttered around a store for 45 minutes.

Finally, camera operator #2 showed up and she was able to help me look at my pictures. With only a quick "Sorry, I was detained," for my 45 minutes of confinement in a store with a two-year-old and a baby, we went on to the pleasant process of selecting pictures with a whiny two-year-old who refused to stay near me. "Just wait a moment please, while I put together some collages for you. Typically we do this during the 15 minutes while you are waiting," she added. I internally retorted, "I don't need to pay extra for fancy writing and a cheesy border. Just show me my pictures already. Finally we got to it.

"Let me show you our Premiere package," she began. "Actually," I interrupted her, "I just want four 8x10s please." She stared in disbelief, like I had just turned down a chance to purchase a Picasso for pennies and then proceeded with her spiel, adding only, "Well, just in case, let me show you our packages anyway." Translation: I am forced to try to sell this to you. It is my job. I don't care that you have a fussy baby and a whiny two-year-old, of whose whereabouts you are now uncertain. So I sat while she patiently explained that while the Premiere package was $999.99, it was on sale for only $459.99 and with the special discounts running right now it was a bargain at $429.99. She finally got to the last package and emphasized that this was the last package that included the CD with the digital images and rights to the photos. If you opted out of the wall portrait, it was only $199.99! I earned myself another shocked stare when I turned this opportunity down without a second thought. "But what if you want them someday?" she protested. Hmmm... maybe I'll take that money and use it on a real photographer?

I finally got to the photos themselves. I asked if there was any way to compare two photos side by side. There wasn't. So back and forth we went. I tried to go as quickly as I could in between breaks to race off and drag Jackson back from whatever part of the store he had wandered off to or lure him back with a toy. As I sorted past photos I didn't like, she would interject, "I really like that one. It's so cute." Or she would randomly butt in and say, "I think you should get this one with the fluorescent green border. It really brightens it up!" Well I don't, OK?

I tried to keep Jackson in the near vicinity by grabbing some toys or the floor model of a tricycle for him to play with and the camera operator had the gall to scold him at one point, "You need to be careful! This isn't a playground!" Well, he wouldn't be at the end of his rope already if we hadn't been waiting for 45 minutes (through the middle of his lunchtime) for you to show up for work! By the time we finished we had been there for two and half hours. With no lunch.

I finally got my four 8x10s, as predicted, along with a sheet of 5x7s and a free collage. That is, I got them ordered. I still have to go back and pick them up. So, how is that for being more convenient than JCPenney? I had to make an appointment, I had to wait around forever, I have to come back and pick the pictures up later. Well, at least I didn't have to go up an elevator....

More on "Some Days"

So my day wasn't really over yet with that last post, I was just tired of writing in present-tense. (It gets annoying really fast.)

After re-realizing yet again why it is that I don't usually attempt arduous tasks like folding laundry, I piled Addy and Jackson into the car to run errands. When Camryn came down this morning she said, "Mom, I need $16.69 or I don't get a class party." It turns out what she really meant was that she couldn't find her library book and unless she returned it or brought replacement money they wouldn't get a class party. I asked if she'd looked for it and she said, "Yes. I've looked everywhere." So I told her to eat her breakfast and I raced around the house, looking behind Camryn's bed and in the toy bins, but to no avail. Two minutes after Camryn had left for the bus, I saw her lunch sitting on the counter and I looked in a pile of papers on the paper-stacker where we put homework. Book found. Lovely. So basically that was a really long way of explaining why my first errand was to the school.

At this point Jackson was hungry, so I drove through Taco Bell and got him a cheese roll-up to eat while I sat in the parking lot preparing a bank deposit. When I checked to see how much he'd eaten, I saw a small stump of cheese roll-up by his feet and the rest was gone. Upon further examination I found that he had fed most of his cheese roll-up to Addy, who looked like she had enjoyed it immensely. After I drove through the bank, I pulled into a parking space to take a break to nurse Addy, who was starting to fuss. She had a stinky diaper... which had leaked onto her clothes. Which wouldn't be a problem except that I had 6 Jackson-sized diapers in the diaper bag and not a single one for Addy. After some creative folding, I got her changed and nursed her in the scenic parking lot.

Meanwhile, Jackson started to get fussy. He seemed hungry-- maybe that was because he fed his lunch to his 8-month-old sister. Baby back in seat, drive back to house, dump dirty clothes and diaper, get correct-sized diapers for Addy and milk cup for Jackson and off again.

In our family we wait to take baby pictures until the baby can sit up by herself. But Addy has been able to sit for a while now and is now 8 months old --and I still haven't gotten a studio picture of her taken. Even though it's been at the top of my list for over a week it still hasn't happened, so today, I determined, would be the day. We drove off to Babies'R'Us because they have a KiddieKandids that doesn't require an appointment. (I used to go to JCPenney but after enough experiences of waiting for an hour after my appointment before we got our pictures taken I just gave up.)

I got to Babies'R'Us and dinked around for a few minutes to see if they had an outfit there that was cuter than the one I brought. Jackson was still hungry (shocker, after how much of his lunch he fed to Addy) and was starting to whine for snacks, so I went to the back of the store and got a bag of baby cookies so he had something to snack on. Hopefully this would bribe Jackson to stay in the cart long enough to get Adelyn's picture taken.

I finally got up to the Kiddie Kandids desk and asked when their next appointment was. The lady cheerfully replied, "We have one at 3:00 pm." It was 1:42.... When I asked if there was anything earlier, she said, "I'm taking this customer at 1:45 and then we close for lunch from 2-3." Really... that's intuitive. I'm sure glad that wasn't posted on their website when I checked. The reasonable part of me realized that this was my fault. I should have called and made an appointment. I should have gotten an "appointment" as soon as I walked in the store. Honestly, I had been there before and never required an appointment or had them close from 2-3. But the unreasonable part of my was spitting mad. Did they realize that I drove 20 minutes through construction with a two-year-old and a baby just to come get her picture taken, not to mention wrestling Jackson through the store, trying to keep him in the cart? And I had to be home by 2:30 for the older kids to get home from school?

I wandered through the store, ready to punch somebody or at least put a two-year-old up for sale. At this point Jackson was trying to climb out of the cart seat and into the basket. He was putting a cookie in his mouth just long enough to get slobber on it and then spitting it out into the cart, where it was landing on the cute dress that I brought for Addy to wear in her picture. I don't believe in corporal punishment, but I had an overwhelming urge to smack that kid until he sat down in that cart and did what I said, but self-control prevailed at least in part and I contented my self with growling threats through clenched teeth. I got the handful of other things I needed and went to check out. By this time both children were upset and fussy. I imagine I didn't look very friendly. The checker asked, "Rough day?" Yeah. You could say that.

I wish I could say it got better. I got home and Camryn was a pill. We did her piano lesson and she had checked the box on her assignment sheet twice for a worksheet that she never did at all. During Jared's lesson we had weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth because I had the gall to ask him to play the right hand alone, "forte" like it was marked. And I asked him to practice slow!!!!!!! (Sob! The indignity of it all! The tragic, tragic horrible-ness....) "Mom," he explained in a cross between a growl and a sob, "how am I supposed to play it fast when I've practiced it slow?" "Jared," I responded in what was just plain a growl, "which one of us studied piano for 20 years (including studying just piano in college) and has taken lessons with famous teachers who are experts in the field just so she could know the best way to practice? I don't think it was you. So why are you trying to tell me the best way to do it?" (It turns out he was just expecting to pass off his piece right away and once he passed off one of his pieces on the first try he was happy as a lark.)

Grand illusions of cooking a beautiful, nutritious meal for dinner evolved into a plan to cook the corn on the cob before it went bad to supplement leftover mac and cheese. I sat Jackson up to eat, but he ate a few bites and then started chucking his food to the floor. I took away his high chair tray but then made multiple attempts to get him to eat more, to no avail. After dinner, the kids started building a fort out of chair cushions and Jackson's slide and a few minutes later Camryn erupted into a cacophony of savage screams, "Jared ruined my invention before I even got to try it!" By this point I had had enough. I sent Camryn and Jared to bed for the night at 7:00 pm followed by putting Jackson to bed. At this point, Jackson realized he was hungry. But I was not in the mood to be merciful, having spent 20 minutes trying to get him to eat that only resulted in him throwing food on my newly-mopped floor. So his sobs of, "My milk! My milk!" (as if maybe his milk would show compassion on him, now that his horrible mother wouldn't) fell on deaf ears. Sorry buddy, if you won't eat every time I sit you up, you feed all of your lunch to your sister and you've already had 5 cups of milk today that's what you're going to get.

Such was my day. The mother with the "lovely smile" who "cooks watermelon" that Camryn immortalized in her Mother's Day poem had turned into the wicked, evil stepmother. I guess I'll go buy a broom.

Some Days

Today I decided to make a redoubled attempt to just get done what needs to get done. No more of this beating around the bush and getting distracted. If you just give enough ooomph to something you can make it happen. "So let it be written. So let it be done." (Somebody watched "The Ten Commandments" too many times as a "Sunday movie" as a kid.)

A.M.
Get Jackson dressed: check. (The "Want Jammies, No pants!!" tantrum only lasted about 3 minutes today. Woohoo!) Sit Jackson up with his breakfast: check. Start loading the huge pile of dishes from the night before, squish the ant that is exploring the drippings on our counter, shoo Jackson away from the dishwasher, refill Jackson's milk cup, give Addy a new toy to play with, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, the dishwasher. Back to the dishwasher. Jackson starts crawling on the counters and getting into stuff. I get him down. Did I remember to eat breakfast? No... so I put a piece of bread in the toaster. I get Jackson back onto the bar stool, making sure there aren't any crayons or pens in his reach. What was I doing again? Dishwasher, that's right. Back to the dishes. But there was something else I needed... what was it? Toast! Dangit, it's cold already. Put it back in for a second, get Jackson to sit up with his food, pop it out before it burns (phew), put on some Nutella. Now Jackson says, "Tella! Tella!" so I get him some on his piece of toast. Wasn't I doing something? Oh yes, the dishes. I take a bite of toast and go back to the dishes.

After a few dishes I turn to check on Jackson and he is down from the bar stool smearing brown Nutella hands on some object. I pull him back, wipe him up and decide maybe he is done. I grab Addy and we go up stairs. Laundry. Give Addy toys, Jackson a book; attempt to fold laundry: Jackson climbs on my lap. "Awwww. How sweet." I keep folding but after a few minutes my arms get tired and he starts grabbing at the laundry. Addy starts to fuss. "Wait, I forgot to feed Addy breakfast." We all go back downstairs, I sit her up and start scooping baby food in her mouth. "Wasn't there something I left down here? My toast, wait I only took two bites of it. I need to eat." I go across the room, pick up my toast and take a bite. While I'm gone for 5 seconds, Jackson picks up Addy's spoon and starts shoveling food in her mouth. He has also figured out how to take the lid of the new-fangled rice cereal container (I thought maybe a screw-top lid would keep him out. Nope.) and is licking the pour-spout and peeking inside.

Maybe we should just can this whole thing and go somewhere. But there was something I needed to do first... what was it? Oh yeah, the dishes.

Why Dogged Determination is Not Always a Good Thing...

A while ago I was teaching Camryn her piano lesson. Jackson came up and started climbing on me. But I was not to be deterred from my purpose, so I let him be and continued our lesson. He continued climbing on me, rubbing my back and playing with my shirt, but I refused to be distracted. I continued the lesson, proud of myself, how I was pressing forward in the name of art and the continuation of Western culture, ignoring any petty distraction that might get thrown in my way. When we finally finished the lesson, I realized that Jackson was indeed rubbing my back... with a green marker. Maybe I should have paid more attention....

Trading Spaces Back

It's funny how things work... a few weeks ago my mom wrote about how she never felt a need to blog until she was left alone with four kids for the weekend. For the past few weeks I have had other things occupying me besides blogging. Dave and I went on a trip to Maui for our 10th anniversary and then I was caught up in the whirlwind of concert preparations. Aside from being too busy to write about it all, I honestly didn't really feel much of a need to blog about my life: I was happily occupied in lots of things and while writing about it would have been nice, it was an easy enough thing to get sent downward on the list of "to-dos". But real life will intrude itself and suddenly blogging is looking like a good sanity break again.

The Cantico concert went very, very well. I was so happy with it and enjoyed the process immensely. It was a lot of work, but it was very satisfying, fulfilling work. My sister, Alisa, came out from Utah to play the organ for our concert. My mom and dad and two good family friends came from California for the concert and my mother-in-law flew out from Utah to be there for it as well. It was a great week, filled with family fun, beautiful music and good times all around. As I drove my mother-in-law to the airport on Tuesday, I had a conversation with her about how happy and grateful I was to be doing what I am doing, to have the opportunities I have and so forth. I also commented that despite Dave's crazy work hours, we've been able to find a routine that seems to work for us and I just feel like I've really gotten into the rhythm of being a mom and I enjoy what I do and just enjoy life. [Warning, warning...obvious signs of post-concert and family visit high... warning, warning, high wear-off is imminent, look out below....] So I drove home from the airport, secure in my feelings that I finally had this mom/music/life balance thing figured out.

Starting on Tuesday night, the high started to wear off. By Tuesday morning it was a full-fledged, drop-off-of-a-cliff straight shot into the dumps. Jackson was being a stinker, tantrum-thrower and mess-maker; the house went from pristine to completely trashed in less than 24 hours; Jared and Camryn were fighting like cats and dogs; Dave stayed at work until 10:00 pm for the umpteenth night in a row; Addy wanted to be held constantly and Jackson discovered the water in the kitchen sink (Jackson + water = wet hardwood floor and mad mommy. This was after he dumped half a can of formula the night before, making a very sticky, expensive mess).

But the clincher was when I saw a picture of me from that weekend that someone had posted on Facebook. I had no idea I was that fat in real life! What was I thinking going out in public looking that chubby? I had finally decided that I was OK with my remaining post-baby weight and while I was not super-skinny, was at least at a reasonable, healthy, moderately-attractive weight and I would worry about the rest at some point in the future. I also thought I had reconciled with myself that while it is important to be healthy, your whole life can't and shouldn't be about looking perfect, trying to stay the weight you were when you were 18 and going to the gym. I was wrong on all counts. How could I be so stupid and blissfully unaware that that was how I looked to other people? Oh horror!

My life had quickly transformed from a peaceful haven of love and beauty to a black abysmal pit of misery and despair. So what had precipitated this sudden fall? Aside from the fact that my fun concert was over, my family had gone home, I was on my own watching all the kids again, my house was a mess, Dave's work is crazy and the 24 series finale was disappointing with no closure.... :) On Tuesday night I read a facebook blurb about an upcoming concert featuring violinist Jenny Oaks Baker (who is amazing, by the way) and ended up internet-hopping and reading about her. Not only did she graduate from the Curtis Institute and Juilliard and play first-chair violin for the National Symphony for a bunch of years, she has multiple best-selling albums, tours the country playing concerts... oh and she's skinny and beautiful and has four children in the midst of all this.

But the nail in the coffin was how she wrote about how she performs with her two older children and practices with them for 90 minutes and 45-60 minutes a day, respectively. So now, not only does my fantastic concert not seem quite so fantastic anymore, enter severe mommy-guilt that I have skipped piano lessons and enforcing piano practice with my kids for the past 2-3 weeks as a result of being wrapped up in concert preparations. And even on my best days I can't get myself to sit and practice for 2 1/2 hours daily with my children. (Usually enforcing no Wii or TV until practicing is done is the best I can muster....) See, not only am I an artistic and musical failure, I'm a mommy-ing failure as well, stunting the future musical growth of my children by my lack of discipline! And I can't even keep my house clean to boot!

In retrospect, I should have recalled the wise advice of my college roommate Becki, who, when I contemplated calling and break up with Dave at 2:30 am one night for a stupid reason offered the following sage council, "Eat some Oreos and go to bed. If you still feel that way in the morning, then you can call Dave and break up." Problem solved.  But as I didn't have Becki to offer sage advice, I wallowed in my misery and failure for about a day and a half, I had a low-fat ice cream banana split with Dave (whose day at work had been equally miserable-- maybe my subconscious remembered Becki's advice after all), called my mom and talked to a friend or two to complain about my sad, sorry state and how HARD life can be and then perked up and had a perfectly cheerful day once my cleaning fairy arrived on Thursday to work her magic on my disastrous house.

Joking aside, the bad couple of days were very real and difficult. I struggle with the tendency to compare myself negatively to other people. To focus on my weaknesses and ignore the good things I do. To get overwhelmed with the demands of life and trying to figure out what the most important things to spend my limited time and energy on are.... And I tend to get guilty and down on myself because I know that I don't have a HARD life... my life is so easy in some ways, compared to the pioneers, compared to the homeless people in Portland, compared to any number of people, and yet I still manage to have a hard time of it sometimes. But regardless of whether it is "challenging" in any abstract sense, it is challenging to me.

I try to remember that life is meant to be a challenge and we will all have ups and downs, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, where you live or whatever. But this up and down experience is exacerbated when you are the kind of person that gets caught up in an idea, project, an ideal or goal and it propels you along until suddenly at some point reality whacks you over the head with a thunk again.

It kind of reminds me of "Anne of Green Gables":
Marilla Cuthbert: You set your heart too much on frivolous things and then crash down into despair when you don't get them. [Or, for me, even when I do get them but the experience is over.]
Anne Shirley: I know. I can't help flying up on the wings of anticipation. It's as glorious as soaring through a sunset... almost pays for the thud.
Marilla Cuthbert: Well, maybe it does. But I'd rather walk calmly along and do without flying AND thud. 

I'm definitely a "flying and thud", not a "walk calmly along" type of person. And I pay for that. But I think the flying is worth the thud. Or the whack on the head.

How's that for a long ramble? Welcome back to my blog....

It's a Hard-Knock Life

Last Saturday... where to begin. I was trying to steer this blog away from being a series of child-related disaster stories. But since I'm still trying to keep this blog in the "non-fiction" category, yet another child-related disaster is coming your way. Consider yourself forewarned.

Saturday was the first day of April General Conference. In case any of my 5 blog readers aren't members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, twice a year we cancel regular three-hour Sunday meetings and spend a whole weekend watching General Conference: eight hours of satellite broadcasts to the whole church (make that ten if you're a guy) over a two-day period. And you thought three hours was a lot of church, huh? :) Joking aside, I love General Conference. The prophet, the 12 apostles and other church leaders (including the leaders of the women's and Young Women's organizations) speak to us about what they feel is relevant for us to hear right now. It's also a nice chance to spend the weekend at home with the family.

We have a couple of Conference traditions: we print out a Conference activity book for the kids and we make "Monkey Bread": a caramel-y concoction of canned refrigerator biscuits, melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. (I know a lot of people who make homemade Cinnamon Rolls for their special "Conference treat" but after my last post I'm not comparing any more, okay? Besides, I baked it in a fancy bundt pan this year. That's totally as good as homemade.)

Having kids running around makes it a little bit harder to focus on the talks --and even with our best efforts we only made it through two of the four sessions over the actual weekend. (Hooray for DVRs!) But so far my favorite talks were Elder Uchdorf's talk on how we need to show more love and kindness to those around us-- even to people who are different than we are-- and judge others less. I also enjoyed the talks about mothers and daughters and the importance of a mother;s teaching in the home. But now I digress....

On Saturday afternoon, Dave left to go to the Priesthood session of Conference (for all the men 12 and up) and then had to go in to work after that. Not wanting to be stuck at home by myself with all of the kids on a Saturday, I decided to go out and kill some time hanging out at the local toy store and picking up a few things for the kids' Easter baskets. Except that by the time I figured out what I wanted and got it up to the counter to check out, the kids decided that the toys on display near the front were the most interesting and I had to casually wait for another 20 minutes before I could slyly get the presents paid for and to the car without them noticing.

I had plans to take Jared and Camryn to see a community production of "Annie" that night, so we drove through Taco Bell and then raced Jackson and Addy to the friend who was going to watch them for us. I must have been really hungry (I think I skipped lunch) because on the way back to go to the play, I impulsively decided that I absolutely HAD to have another Gordita to be able to make it through the play. So I drove through Taco Bell again (yes, the lady in the drive-through recognized me... that was kinda embarrassing), got my Gordita and we were off to the play with a whole three minutes to spare. So imagine how irked I was when I pulled out my Gordita and found a Chalupa in its place! Instead of soft yummy flatbread goodness (okay, 'flatbread goodness' is a little bit strong for Taco Bell, but remember-- I skipped lunch so I was STARVING), I found super-fried grease-o-rama. I didn't have time (or gall) enough to drive through the drive-through a third time. I took two bites and gave up.

Because of my drive-through shenanigans, we got to "Annie" one minute before it started. We parked and set off at a run for the entrance, inciting piercing shrieks from Camryn of "I can't run, Mom! It makes my stomach hurt!" (Don't you love six-year-olds?) We did manage to slip into some seats on the end of a row just as the overture started and I even got Jared to run to concessions to get some Junior Mints and Skittles to tide me over through the play.

The play was really cute and having learned my lesson after chasing Jackson around the back of "The Music Man" last summer before giving up at the end of the first act, I was really enjoying the play in Jackson's absence. But after the first act Camryn started to get really tired and cranky. I tried to get her to lay her head on my lap to go to sleep, but she didn't want to. She ended up curling up toward the back of her chair, so I went back to watching the show.

Then suddenly there was a noise-- like something spilling-- some people on the row behind us startled and a girl behind us reached for something by her shoe. In the dark it took me a few seconds to connect all the dots; I thought maybe Camryn had spilled a box of candy or something. So it wasn't until there was another burst of the "spilling" sound from Camryn's direction a second later that I realized it was not a box of Junior Mints but throw-up that was landing on the shoes of the poor couple behind us. Dots now connected, I snapped into action, grabbed Camryn and tried to furtively head for the back towards the bathroom. Our attempt at a quiet escape down the exit aisle was thwarted by a loud burst of projectile vomit that spectacularly sprayed in every direction from Camryn's lips. So much for trying to be subtle.

This probably sounds horrible, but I had to try really hard not to laugh. You know how in movies they have those stupid fake special-effects where barf sprays everywhere, totally unrealistically? That is exactly what it looked like, except it was real. (And if I thought too hard about the poor people behind us trying to wipe barf off of their shoes I would probably have burst into tears, so best not to go there for now). After a few remarkable bursts of barf, we made it safely to the bathroom, only to have Camryn let loose another spray all over the toilet stall. I'll spare you the remaining gory details of cleanup (although I have never been more annoyed with those stupid hands-free paper-towel dispensers that only give you 5 inches of paper towel at a time) and how the staff had to set up cones down most of the aisle to keep people from stepping in the mess/cleanup attempts and close down the entire bathroom (I have to hand it to the staff- they were incredibly gracious given the mess that we made).

The play was almost over at this point, so Cam and I decided to hang out and watch from the back by the bathroom door so Jared could finish the whole thing. (She felt much better at this point- who could blame her?). She turned to me and said, "Mom, I guess I probably ruined everything for you, huh?""Of course not, honey. Things like this just happen sometimes." And so they do.

The good news is that Camryn felt better after that and didn't throw up again. Nobody else in the whole house got sick or threw up. (Honestly, I wasn't trying to take a sick child to a community event to spread germs around.) Maybe it was just too many Skittles in one sitting. I'll never know. But I know we had one performance that we'll never forget.

Soapbox Moment

This post was initially inspired by the fact that in one day I had several different friends who commented via blog or FB on how they had been "blog-hopping" and ended up feeling bad about themselves. Kept it in my "holding tank" for a while because I didn't want to sound like I'm on one (I'm really not) but hey, we can stir the pot a little, can't we?
...

Why do women get so creative in finding ways to feel bad about themselves? This is a rhetorical question and yes, I am as bad as any other woman, but sometimes I even surprise myself with what I find to feel bad about. So I am going to step up on my soapbox and say it: Most of the things that women use to incessantly lower their self-esteem are silly when you really think about it-- or even if you don't think too hard. More than a handful of these things are counter to any common sense, if not completely illogical. Not that they aren't still effective when you want to give yourself an instant downer day --but, hey-- now at least you can add "I'm unrealistic and illogical" to your list of self-tirades. ;) In all seriousness, I don't think women are illogical and silly, I just think we are too quick to feel bad about ourselves without seeing how certain expectations (even if they are culturally prevalent) are inherently unrealistic and flawed. Here goes:

"I don't look like I did when I was 20." -- Since when are you supposed to be able to freeze dry yourself at a certain age and stay looking like that forever? Um, you will stop looking like you are 20 when you are, oh, around 21. Unless of course you want to undergo massive Botox and plastification and then you can look like a scary human zombie of a 60-year-old that bears an eerie resemblance to what a 20-year-old might look like if they had been coated in a semi-solid amorphous material.

"I've put on a few pounds since I had kids." -- There are a few models, marathon runners and mutants out there who manage to escape post-baby weight and look fantastic, but these are the exception, not the rule. (I know quite a few of them and what really stinks is that they are really nice people too so you can't hate them.) ;) For those of you out there who aren't entirely familiar with the childbirth process, a woman's body expands and adapts to accommodate an entire (albeit small) human being, which she manages to feed, shelter and nurture inside her own body for 9 months, despite nausea, discomfort and a large awkward shape. After delivering the baby she spends another 6 months minimum of extremely intense care, involving frequent feedings (often from her own, yet again changing, body), night wakings and nearly incessant needs. The incessant needs for care eventually diminishes but doesn't completely go away for about 18 years. There are those out there who manage to focus on "getting their old body back" during this time. I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for eating healthy, exercising and taking care of yourself. But how many of us really are motivated to lose weight more by a desire to be healthy and less by a desire to look great in a swimsuit?

"I'm not as cute or fashionable as I was before I had kids." -- Not to say that you want to abandon all goals of cuteness or fashion, but please see above paragraph. But really, being cute and fashionable is all that really matters anyway. That said, it's hard to be excited about cuteness and fashion when whatever fashion you attempt may be assailed by random spit-up, drool or boogers or probably won't fit in six months because of pregnancy/nursing/weight gain/weight loss or child-pushing-buttons-on-the-dryer-induced shrinkage.

"My house is a mess." -- Just so you know, this one is completely your fault. While your children are working their rear ends off, trying to keep things tidy, clean and sanitized, you are sitting on the couch watching cartoons and playing with toys, making messes for them to clean up. Shame on you! Enough said.

I know. This is an old rant. I've probably visited it on my blog two-hundred-bajillion times before. But it still is irritating that so often we/people/society give lip service to things that are really important (spending time with your kids, eating healthy, being there for other people, thinking about more than yourself or appearances) but so much of our culture is really tied up in appearances and the form rather than the substance of things (looking skinny vs. actually being healthy or being "free" to be objectified for your appearance or exploit your body for money vs. true equality for women). I really wonder if the problem of women having low self-esteem is worsened by the messages our culture promotes about women. Our "modern society" talks about promoting equality for women when so often what is really promoted is women used as objects of seduction to sell products. I know. It's all said like a women who resents losing her swimsuit body and would rather whine about it than get on a treadmill. OK, there may be some truth in that. =] But there's truth in my half of the argument too.

I believe in equality for women. But I also believe in respect for "womanly" [Can you even use that term?] characteristics such as tenderness, compassion, nurturing and giving of yourself for others (regardless of what gender the person is who is exhibiting those characteristics). Is it possible to have equal respect for a woman (or man) who chooses to raise children, care for elderly parents or serve in the community rather than pursuing money or fame? Is it possible for a woman to be "beautiful" who may not have a great body, but spends her time with compassion and caring for others? Is the only way for a woman to be equal for her to become more like a "man" (meaning obsessed with self, money, career, power, sex-- although I would argue that a true "man" doesn't exhibit these characteristics either)?

OK. Enough of my rant for the day. I'm really not as on one as I sound from this post. I suppose the problem is that really I wish I could have it all: care for others, raise children, lucrative career, impressive hobbies, perfect body. It's possible, right? All I have to do is buy the right products.... (After all, I'm worth it!)

 (By the way, does anyone buy soap in a box anymore? I'm assuming the term doesn't refer to bar soap-- box too small. Laundry soap might work, but I get it in a plastic container with a spout that would be tricky to stand on for too long.)

A Morning O'Fun

Just in case my 6 blog readers haven't gotten tired of posts about Jackson and his larger-than-life antics, here is another one.

Yesterday morning I was racking my brain as to what I could do to get Jackson out of the house that didn't involve me spending large quantities of money as a by-product. I had tried clothes shopping with Jackson and although sheer willpower and desperation on my part made it possible, the thought of another morning spent with Jackson crawling under dressing room doors wasn't ringing any bells for me.

[Did I ever mention how strange it is that I actually look skinnier in Ross dressing room mirrors than in Nordstrom dressing room mirrors? Maybe it's the fact that there isn't the strategically placed extra mirror to show your backside or maybe it's because I can justify buying more than one thing at Ross. Or maybe all the skinny, fashionably dressed salesladies at Nordstrom just make you feel bigger. You would think that a store like Nordstrom that gets so much right with customer service could invent mirrors that make you feel smaller. But I digress...]

Only moments later I got a call from a friend inviting me to go to preschool playtime at the indoor field house. Brilliant! For only $2 I got two hours of Jackson running around on a large, fully enclosed field. This was perfect. At 10:00 am I packed snacks, piled the kiddos into the car and was off for a fully fantastic morning involving room for Jackson to run, other moms to talk to and getting out of the house. Except Jackson was involved so things couldn't go exactly according to plan.

As I drove in the direction of the field house, Jackson was happy and  excited, but only until we turned off onto a street that wasn't in the direction of Ranell's house. Then he started screaming, "Yell's house! Yell's house!" I tried to explain that we were going somewhere fun and we were going to play with friends and toys, but he wasn't buying it. It was all-out tantrum time. When we got to the field house I finally got Jackson out of the car and in the door of the place. Then it finally clicked with him that we weren't going to another clothes store. And so we relaxed and settled in for our morning o'fun. Until Jackson decided he was hungry.

It was still a little early for lunch when we left at 10:00, but I did have the foresight to pack some snacks. Unfortunately Jackson, being the efficiency buff that he is, didn't see the need to stop playing and exit the field to eat the raisins he found in the diaper bag. But the rules said "No food on the field," so I took him out to eat his raisins. Which was fine for a minute or two. But, apparently Jackson thought it was obvious to any thinking human (even a two-year-old) that there was no reason to stop everything to eat raisins when you could just as easily eat raisins while you were climbing the slide and hucking toys at other children. But he couldn't find any way to get this self-evident fact across to his dense, efficiency-challenged mother. And so a tantrum ensued.

After much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, I finally managed to convey the fact that though efficiency-challenged I might be, Jackson was NOT going to get the raisins at the same time that he was on the field and he went back to running and playing on the field in our morning o'fun. But apparently, having an entire soccer field with toys to play on was not enough for Jackson. He figured out how to unlatch the enclosure to the field and spent the rest of the time we were there outside the field, crawling up and down the benches and trying to sneak his way behind the receptionist's desk.

Alas, our morning o'fun soon came to an end and we were back at home, engaged in our normal occupations --Jackson: poking Addy in the eyes; Me: dropping whatever I had started to rescue her from her brother's "love". (I would be curious to find the ratio in my life of items started vs. items finished.... but I digress.)
 

Whining

I don't mean to whine, but my Saturday just got ruined. I am accompanying five auditions for high-school singers (SOOOOO much fun to begin with...) at a high school that is 25 minutes away. The auditions themselves are 5-10 minutes each. I just got the audition times today and yesterday and my schedule is as follows:

8:20 am, 10:20 am, 1:40 pm, 3:10 pm, 4:50 pm.

It doesn't get much crappier than that.

Add this to the fact that Dave worked for a day, a night, and a day straight without coming home to rest starting on Wednesday (yes, it was one of those days again) . Then after coming home last night, eating dinner and crashing, he was back at work at 8:00 this morning. And I found out today he has a business trip next week. More joy. Add my lovely audition schedule and I won't get to see him this weekend either. If I'm really, really lucky, Dave will have to work tomorrow and I'll end up paying out all the money I earn tomorrow to a babysitter.

I know I shouldn't whine. I am grateful in these tough economic times that Dave has a job and earns a living for our family. I am grateful that I have skills that allow me to earn money as well. But sometimes I just need to have a good grumble. Couldn' t the auditions have been 30 minutes apart? Then it would have taken about 3 hours instead of my ENTIRE day. I know, somewhere, you hear the sound of a small, sad, sad violin. Poor Karen.

Warning: Rant Ahead!

I don't want to let this blog turn into a mammoth grouching session, but the goal of being more positive will have to wait for another day (yes, this is going to mess up my goal of not procrastinating, but just ignore that for a moment).

This last week was seriously insane. Granted, a great deal of that was self-imposed (as usual, I know) but that doesn't change the fact that it was really stressful. On Tuesday night, we had rehearsal for the choir that I co-direct. At the end of the rehearsal, one of the board members brought up that she really thought we should change our name. She had a couple of decent reasons for this, but I personally like our name, had already finished designing our publicity materials a couple of weeks before, and didn't really relish the idea of redoing everything- especially because our first performance of the season was going to be on Friday night (yes, three days later).

Too make a long story short, after a day and half of intense negotiation I was overruled. Our name changed. Which was fine... the new name isn't bad- I actually like it, except that it basically blew my entire week. The new name for our group had an entirely different length and fit on the page. After all of the time spent in intense negotiations, I had exactly 24 hours in which to redesign and print our publicity materials so they would be ready to hand out at our first performance. I know I'm ranting here, but people who haven't done graphic design don't realize exactly how time-intensive it is. Even after I finished redesigning it, it took an additional 2-3 hours just to adjust technical things so it would print correctly (adjusting the margins, resizing for the smaller flier, saving in different formats, test printing, etc.).

When I finally finished it I got a "Hey, that looks really good." Which would be lovely... except that I just wasted my entire week (the week that Dave had off, no less!) on this stupid name/flier/printing drama which could have been entirely avoided if we had stuck with the old name. Doesn't that merit a little bit above and beyond your normal validation for good work?

I suppose a fair amount of my irritation might actually be due to the fact that while Dave "had the week off" with forced a shutdown, he basically worked from home 6 hours a day. Between the two, we didn't get any big projects done, we didn't go anywhere exciting... we just saw a little bit more of Dave than usual. (I know, I shouldn't complain-- that in itself is a good thing. Besides, these days, the fact that he has a job at all is a thing to be grateful for, right?) But it's hard not to lament the uneventful passing of a full week of "paid time off"...

So, here is the famous flier which ate a week of my time. Now would be a good time for validation. Feel free to insert comments about how amazing, beautiful and professional-looking it is and how great I am for saving the group so much money by doing it myself. Any comments about how I really just made it harder for myself by being a control freak about it and not delegating you can just keep to yourself. ;) If you really want brownie points, tell me that you are definitely going to come and see the concert and you've got to have tickets, based solely, of course, on how fabulous our flier looks.