oops, there goes another notch in the mommy pedestal

Yesterday, two completely amazing things happened.  I'm just kidding, actually two very mundane things happened -- two of the many unremarkable things that added together comprise my full and, dare I say, intoxicating life.  I've often thought of what it would be like if my life was on t.v. like a season of '24.'  Now she's ironing; putting in a load of laundry; ooh, now she's starting dinner -- what will it be?  The suspense!  It would be very compelling I'm sure.


So the first thing was that I forgot to go somewhere.  I know!  I never do things like that because my mind is like a steel trap and I remember everything.  I don't even have to write things down on my calendar -- the one I especially bought to keep everyone's schedule in order, with special color coded labels for each person, the usually completely empty one -- because my most very special talent is keeping track of time.  Oh, except for last week when I forgot to take Charles to the orthodontist, to make up an appointment from January (which we also missed, but in my defense, I didn't forget that one -- I called the school and his #$@! teacher didn't give him the hall pass and let him out so I was waiting helplessly in the parking lot for way too long) and now they can't see him until March 17th (they're obviously way overbooked!) so his teeth aren't reaching their ultimate straight conclusion for at least two months longer than might have been necessary.  The orthodontist office even e-mailed and called me with reminders and I still didn't make it.  What do they have to do?  Or like Thursday evening dance class which I forget every single week, but then remember at the very last minute (if it counts as remembering that little girls yell "Mom, don't we have dance right now?" and we rush over and fortunately Miss Janet consistently starts class 15 minutes late -- like clockwork).  Let's not dwell on what I have forgotten in the past and just talk about the latest faux pas.  So I knew going in that my schedule would be a little different because my friend asked me to watch her son and then go to her house afterward for lunch and the thing I needed to remember was to go to Lulu's school and help conduct a reading group at 12:50 -- which I have done for the last few weeks.  I was so worried about the change in my routine that I even told my friend a few days ago and she very kindly put it on her own calendar to help remind me, which I thought was going a little overboard, actually writing it down and everything.  As Lucy left for school, she called, "Mom, don't forget to come!"  Hah.  Why is she telling me that?  Did I forget the other weeks?  No.  I reassured her that I would never do such a thing and sent her off.  Well, I had woken up with a terrible headache and my friend said she would find another babysitter, but not before saying, "And don't forget to go to the school at 12:50."  Ha, ha -- thanks, I won't forget.  My day had suddenly changed course so Phin and I puttered around, did some yoga, had lunch with my husband, checked my e-mail -- and the phone rang.  I looked at the number and didn't recognize it, but decided to bite the bullet and just answer it.   This is a new thing for me.  In the past, I only liked to answer the phone if I knew who it was, but since I got my new calling so many people call me, and if I don't answer I have to actually call them back, so I have now limited the calls I don't answer to unrecognized numbers with different area codes.  Just think, when we were young we never knew who was going to be on the end of the line and we just answered the phone cold -- so bold, so brave -- like pioneers heading into unchartered territory!  So I picked up the phone and I hear this sweet little voice, "Mom?  Are you coming?"  Ack!  It was 1:00 already and I.had.forgotten.  I was wearing funny yoga clothes so I ripped them off and pulled on something more suitable, grabbed the boy, and ran to the school to arrive at 1:08.  We still had 20 minutes to scramble and  try to repair my tarnished reputation in the eyes of a 10 year old.  I'm so lame.


Well, that riveting tale took up so much space that I will have to save the other thing for tomorrow.  That way you can give it the attention it deserves.

slip sliding away

It's warming up around here -- I think it is up to 35˚ already -- ooh, balmy!  Outside it is all drip, drip, dripping with the occasional CRASH! as it avalanches off of the roof.  Warning of the day:  Don't stand too close to the house.  It has been above freezing for a few days so it is quite amazing how much snow there still is.  Our alley is an exciting place for a two year old boy as he jumps from puddle, to ice chunk, to raging rivulet, then back for a few more stomps in the puddle for good measure.  My main worry at this point is that the ice and snow being contained on our patio like a swimming pool will decide to drain itself right into our basement since the ground is probably too frozen to be very accommodating and absorbing.  I feel good times ahead.


So a fun result of all the melting is the ice that subsists in the early morning.  Ella drove to seminary this morning, but then came home and asked me to take them to school.  I said no, because then I would also have to pick her up.  I'm efficient and forward thinking like that.  She said it was slippery and she didn't want to.  No, I said again.  Finally, she slowly admitted that she had hit another car on her way home from the church.  They were stopped at a stop light and she just slid right into them.  Well, of course she now had my full attention and I could totally understand why she didn't feel like driving anywhere else.  Fortunately the guy she had hit got out of his car and said he couldn't see anything so it will end there.  She also hit a car in a parking lot on Saturday, but it was not scraped or dented, merely scuffed so I think we'll be okay.  She left my phone number, but I haven't heard from anyone.  The worst part, since our already lofty priced insurance won't be increasing, is that she is now even more freaked out about driving than she already was.  She hates to drive!  How weird is that?  When I turned 16 I couldn't wait to be out on the open road and rushed to the DMV on my birthday.  Ella just hmmmed and hawed and finally six months after her birthday I announced, "I'm taking you to get your license this afternoon."  She screamed and claimed I hadn't given her enough warning, so two hours later I suggested we go then.  "No way!  I have to be prepared for this."  "Okay," I calmly replied, "Let's go next Friday right after school."  Well, that turned out to be not very smart since apparently Friday is the busiest day at the place that, at the best of times, seems to be a lacking in the efficiency department.  So we waited.  Got called up to talk to people who are trained to be disinterested and unfriendly (no smiling!  focus on your face having as little expression as possible!).  Wait some more.  Take a little test.  Finally it is time to have the driving test and the most grumpy looking woman I have ever in my long life encountered walks from the back room.  This is her last test of the day and she looks ready for it all to be over.  "Good luck!"  I call and then add, "To both of you!  ha, ha, hmmm."  Okay, not even a crack at a smile.  I wait.  Ella comes back and says, "Let's go now."  "Did you pass?"  I ask as we rush out the door.  "No, I told you I would fail." Oops, I had assured her that she was a good driver and there was no way she wouldn't pass, but given the traffic around the DMV and the state of the tester, I wasn't really surprised.  I didn't know how I was going to get her to try again, but then someone suggested I take her out to a little town about 35 miles away where the small town folk are friendly and there is no traffic to speak of.  I whisked her up from school the next day and we had a nice journey out into the corn fields.  We had virtually no wait, a perfectly agreeable woman took her out for the driving test, and it was all over in less than twenty minutes.  When I asked how the test went Ella said, "There were no other cars, no people, and not even one stop light."  Perfect.  So now we have another driver, but she doesn't like to, purposely doesn't bring her license with her so she won't have to, and is now a little spooked.  


Phin has been very quiet while I write and then just brought down some of Ibby's Valentine candy so I had better go investigate.

baby it's cold outside!

Ooowhee, it is cold here!  Brrrrrrr!  But it has been very sunny so that is something.   As long as you don't ever have to get out of your cozy bed.  Hmmm, wouldn't that be loverly!  And completely unrealistic for those of us who don't have a permanent staff to do all of the things that must be done.  


So the blizzard did hit us last week and we had three snow days in a row.  I cannot help it, and you can call me crazy, but I love snow days!  I love having the kids home; I love making comforting, warm food; I love having everything cancelled so that we can pretend that the outside world has come to a standstill for a little while; I love looking outside and seeing only animal tracks -- even down the middle of our road; I love having the wind howling and the snowflakes actually covering our second story windows, as we sit inside and stream too many things off of netflix (is that even possible); I love that our electricity didn't go out so we stayed warm and snug in our little haven; I love that my kids got along the whole time and didn't even turn on a video game until the afternoon of the third day, and even then it was only one stir crazy boy who, understandably, really wasn't all that interested in making up plays with the stuffed animals, being 14 and all; I even loved shoveling the snow... wait, no, that was the very, very bad part.


::my driveway is incredibly long -- can you see Lulu down there?  I suppose there is a price to pay for being able to drive in one way and out the other...

::but the kids helped

 ::and our neighbors eventually took pity on us and brought over their snow plow -- not when Matthew was out there, only when the pregnant lady decided to have a go

::Phin couldn't stop eating the snow, but it looked pretty clean and fresh

 ::and they had such a great time creating forts and other magical places

But now I'm ready for spring; 

Or for it to be at least 22˚, that would work, too.

no use crying over spilled milk -- but I really want to!

Complete and utter disaster just struck my house, I must have looked too bored or something.  Someone had left some milk on the table so kitty cat tipped it over to get a little drink.  Ooh, how maddening (said with sarcastic foreshadowing).  So Ella wiped that up for me.  Not two minutes later I opened the refrigerator and saw that there was some juice that didn't need refrigerating on the milk shelf so I decided to put it in the pantry.  It was packed in there with two unopened bottles of milk that was just delivered this morning and as I hefted it out the entire shelf decided to disengage itself from the door.  I was left holding the plastic bottle of juice as two half gallon glass bottles of milk shattered into bajillions of pieces onto the kitchen floor.  That really is a lot of milk -- more than I ever realized.  I looked over at Ella and said (screamed), "I don't even know where to start to clean this up!"  She calmly replied, "Why don't you start with the big pieces of glass."  Okay.  I grabbed a plastic bag and tried to slosh through the milk to find all of the glass, but then I heard a lot of dripping.  I turned with dismay as I realized that the milk was streaming under the bottom of the refrigerator and down the back stair onto all of our shoes!!!  It seemed impossible that the situation could get worse, but it was looking that way.  Our fridge is in a nook that used to be stairs and behind it sits three steps on which I put almost every single pair of shoes in our house.  It seemed like a safe place once upon a time.  The other girls got home from school right about then and wondered why there was milk going down the basement stairs.  I didn't know it was.  I grabbed some sponges and the three girls and I began to sop, sop, sop.  I only got one little gash from glass, and no one else did.  We got all the milk up first and then worked on wiping down all the shoes.  Most of it got in Charles' basketball and running shoes.  Nice!  Everyone disappeared as I worked on the final touches down by the washing machine and under all the food storage, but then I felt something hitting my head.  I looked up and saw that there was milk dripping through the drop ceiling above the laundry room.  I don't even know how it got there, but it must be because there is so much milk under the refrigerator.  But I can't move it and Matthew is teaching a class tonight.  I just gave up to gain some solace from my imac.  I love it.  I should name it.  I can't wait to see what my house smells like next summer.  It already has a nice 90 year old house aroma so this should just enhance it all the more.

The big storm has already started and I hear tales of all the stores being out of milk.  I realize that this was my punishment for feeling so smug and prepared.  Humility always strikes me swift and sure so I should have known.

portals

You know the phrase, "When God closes a door, He opens a window."   Well, my friend posted something about that on Facebook today so it got me thinking.  (I know!  What is that?)  My concluding deep thought was: (drumroll) Certainly, you can have a lovely view through a window, but it is pretty difficult to actually get anywhere (you could fall on your head as you try to maneuver your way out, for example).  Really what you need is for the door to open again or an alternate entrance.  Okay, I really should stop thinking, because now that I've actually typed it out I can't really see how that was helpful.  I read The Geography of Bliss and concluded that not thinking was really the way to go, so I'll try that from here on out.


Since as of this moment I've given up cogitation, I will avail myself of a list of pros and cons I found yesterday that we had drawn up a few months ago when considering whether to add another child to our family.   You may notice that the pros list is considerably shorter than the cons.


Pros

1. Heavenly Father told me
2. People will think we are going the extra mile (like 3 people)
3. A new person to love -- babies are pretty cute
4. I get to find a name -- my absolute most favorite part
5. Buy baby stuff
6. Not have to be RS president (ha!)
7. Spend the winter in bed (ha, ha, ha!)

Cons

1. Don't want to gain weight and have to lose it again -- the eternal struggle
2. People will think we are crazy -- um, yeah
3. I would have to actually be pregnant
4. I will have to go through labor again (I know I teach natural childbirth classes -- I'm a complete fraud)
5. Our house is already too small
6. We'll need a bigger car
7. Our sanity will be compromised
8. Diapers (even though I love cloth, no diapers is still superior in every way)
9. Have to potty train someone again!
10. No sleep -- I really like to sleep
11. Have to get a baby to sleep through the night again!
12. I'm getting too old
13. Nursing again -- I just figured out that I have breastfed for almost eight entire years of my life!  Hopefully I will be more excited when I'm actually holding the baby because it seems a little unreal at this point
14. Pushing our luck -- we have five healthy beautiful children already
15. Drawing out our parenting by three more years -- we had figured out that with Phin we already had 17 years of early morning seminary and that number has now been pushed to 20 -- it's enough to almost make one consider moving to Zion!
16. Going out with a bang -- my last two have been pretty mellow and I just don't know if I could handle an extremely fussy baby again -- it is quite troubling to contemplate

That was the list I compiled in a few short minutes one day during lunch.  If I wanted to actually think again, I imagine I could come up with one even more comprehensive and detailed.  I'm not normally a list maker, but you can see that this one was particularly helpful indeed.  It made all the difference.  Now can someone help me out this window, because I don't think I'm going to fit.

the circle of life

My oh my!  Things just seem so crazy lately and I also tend to "lose time" since I often find myself sitting in a chair staring off in to space -- how did I get here?  And how long have I been here?  Perhaps I should move.  The two major things that happened last week were that I had my first doctor's appointment and my first funeral.  I will start with the latter.


While we were in D.C. I received a phone call that a woman in our ward had cancer and not long to live.  They hadn't told anyone that she was sick so everyone was surprised and she only lived less than three more weeks.  I would have preferred having the first funeral I was kind in charge of being someone I didn't know very well because I felt not only very overwhelmed last week, but very emotional.  She was a wonderful woman who I had known ever since we moved here over seven years ago -- very smart and insightful, so pretty and graceful, very proper and dignified, and very private so of course she didn't want anyone seeing her as she became more sick.  My husband and I did a special dance with twelve other couples for a stake ball in November, I don't think I blogged about it, but it was a really fun experience and also funny when, as I was newly pregnant, my dress took about 20 minutes to zip up and I began to panic that I would be dancing with my underwear showing and also laughing at myself because when I had first bought the dress my "ever optimistic about my future weight loss" self had thought it would be too loose by the time of the dance... I am very good at digressing... anyhow, it was she and her husband who choreographed, taught, and led the dance.  He taught dance at ISU for years and they first met when he was directing BYU folk dancers and she was one of the dancers.  I am so grateful that we had that extra time to get to know each other better and I felt more equipped to offer some comfort to her husband because of that.  One of my favorite chats that I had with her was after we got back from France last year and she was dishing to me about how fashionable the french are and how when she would go on tour and had to travel very light she always felt so dowdy compared to them -- I could totally relate!  Same sturdy black shoes, day after day... It was a perfect example of how she always liked to look nice.  I had so much help from so many very willing people, it was just hard being the one in charge -- I don't like that!!!  Which I'm sure would make my siblings, husband, and children laugh since I tend to be rather bossy, but that is where I would like my stewardship to end thank you very much.  We made it through the funeral which was particularly lovely, and even managed to sing blotchy faced, and serve a luncheon.  My friend Joy posted a lovely tribute to her here.


In other news, I went to the midwife for the first time.  I really like her and am so happy with the choice, even though she is under a doctor I do not like - AT ALL, but I made sure to ask when I made the appointment if I ever had to see the doctor and they said no.  Superb.  They did an ultrasound so that was what I was most anxious about because I am so big.  And I'm not just being sensitive.  Everyone noticed.  Charles had taken to calling me octo-mom and then even nova-mom, even though I repeatedly assured him that more than five has never happened naturally.  She started the scan and I hurriedly asked if there was only one baby in there.  "Yes, I have looked all over and I only see one.  Are you disappointed?"  Big sigh, no, not disappointed at all.  I think that would've pushed me right  over the proverbial edge.  And next (you can see how worried I was about multiples given my priority here) I was so relieved to see that the baby looked healthy and well formed -- two arms and two legs already wriggling away.  It amazes me!!!!  Every time, I cannot believe how they're already completely formed by 12 weeks.  I kept having dreams I was bleeding so this was all a huge relief.  And for poor Matthew it made it all seem like much too much of a reality.  He kept muttering all the rest of the day about how there really is a baby in there.  I know!

Ella is still quite insistent that there is more than one -- that there are five girls performing an aquacade, who will all stay in formation, perfectly synced, until birth and won't we be surprised!  Yes, yes that would be putting it mildly.

holidays

I was just sitting down at my dining dream table dreamily thumbing through the latest House Beautiful whilst sipping some egg nog when along came my adorable and playful kitty cat who proceeded to first, sit directly in the middle of my magazine, and second, after I tenderly shoved her away, daintily dip her paw in my glass and coldly tipple the whole thing over!  I had just barely put a fresh tablecloth on, too!  I suddenly had something pressing to do and took it as a sign that I should change my activity and not be so lazy.  So after changing the cloth, wiping down the floor, chair, and table legs, and starting a load of laundry I'm here being industrious at the computer.  Maybe I'm singing different words, but it is pretty much the same tune, I'm afraid.

We had a wonderful Christmas and I hope that all of you did, too!  My kids always are so pleasant on the actual day and then this year we left early the next morning to drive to Washington D.C.  I can't believe how good everyone was in the car -- we even went one six hour stretch in the middle of the afternoon without stopping!  I really had some pressing needs, but with everyone else content I wasn't about to rock the boat so I suffered through it.  It did snow most of the way, but the roads were fine and we made it in good time.  Coming home was the same, just long, but no one too miserable.  Once again, my camera battery was always dead when I wanted to use it, but I did get some pictures from the last couple of days.

::Philo standing in front of the Philo

 ::listening intently to the very good tour guide.  I used to conduct tours of the capitol building when I was an intern, but now the security is so tight that you can't just walk around by yourself.

 ::I took this picture while I was waiting for people in the car.  Isn't the sunset colored capitol pretty?  I spent a lot of time on this day waiting, so one time I decided to charge my phone and camera while I waited.  I turned on the car to plug in my chargers and didn't realize the lights were also on so the next time I tried to start my car... it didn't.  I then asked a very nice man from Ghana to help me and he turned his car around on a one way street to help me jump my car.  So nice.

 ::after plenty of museum-ing the kids skated on a rink in the sculpture garden of the National Gallery

 ::a new (to me) memorial to FDR that was very nice and fun to play on

 ::Ella was cold and tired -- there were of course very cold temperatures in D.C. during our visit, with Illinois enjoying unseasonably warm weather -- we call it the Smith curse.

 ::Phin LOVED playing with his cousins.  I am quite sure that he wouldn't have noticed if we just left him there at their house forever.

 ::Doesn't it look grand?

 ::more romping

 ::Ella and Charles made it around the construction at the Jefferson Memorial long before the rest of us.  Can you see them?  The whole time we were there I kept insisting that Matthew imagine the cherry blossoms and he obliged.  I don't know if his imagination is very good, though.

 ::the horse riding police were a hit

 ::this time Phin didn't want his picture taken -- a change

 ::we kept noticing so many Charles' at the Vietnam Memorial and then we saw a Charles M. Smith

 ::being irreverent -- sorry!  he is not very containable -- Rebecca was so nice and kept him at home most days that we went into the city.

 ::another new memorial -- this one for the Korean War.  Everyone agreed that it was a little creepy, but in a good way -- it was very poignant

 ::waiting for the dad's to come get us.  They walked in the wrong direction, which I knew, but no one would listen to me so we played while we waited.

 ::lights at the Washington D.C. temple

 ::and a fun free concert which I didn't see the end of because of mr. wiggly pants

There you go.  And Happy New Year!  My goal for the year is to not completely lose it.  I have made more lofty goals in the past, but that doesn't make this  one more attainable necessarily.  What are your resolutions for the coming year?