gathering chips for wood

You know how in that song "Whenever I Think About Pioneers" it says "I would like to have been a child then?" What a bunch of baloney. I'm so glad I wasn't a child then, or a youth or an adult, for that matter. Do you know anyone who would have liked to have been a child then? I bet not. I'm going to trick Chrome by announcing new paragraphs in the text, rather than returning. NEW PARAGRAPH: Grant has continuous evil-smelling drainage from his ears. I blame the Huff genes. Emmett is healthy. Ike is healthy. Willa has an ear infection and strep throat. I blame the Huff genes. Thankfully the Huff genes also make them artistic and super loud.

it looks . . . not good

I had to give a talk in church today. I hate speaking in church, because most of the time my mind goes blank and I just spout off a bunch of nonsensical gibberish. But I was sweating about this all week, and I prepared the crap out of it. So it went much better than usual.

Tonight we had a priesthood preview meeting for Grant, since he'll be turning twelve next year. He is an incredible kid, and I wish I could freeze him right now. Smart, hard-working, largely obedient, eager to please . . . what an absolute joy to be around. I want to distil this time into a little vial, and then when he's sixteen and being all glum and sullen, lurking in the basement and refusing to talk to any of us I can uncap the vial and smell what life used to be like. He practices basketball every second he gets, he's reading The Book of Three, and my mom loves having him in her class.

Emmett is excelling in school. He enjoys the days he gets to go out to Garland for his gifted and talented program, and he likes to come home and give a full report. This month they had a mock legislature, and he was amazed by how few bills got passed during the session, "But the ones that passed were good bills." Ah, youth. He plays the piano obsessively. I know he should have a real teacher, because my total lack of theory instruction is holding him back. I hope that he can get a spot with my former piano teacher when school starts next year, because she's terrific and can do more to further his talent than I can. He's reading The Moral Compass, which is weird and gratifying.

I volunteer in Ike's class, which gives him an opportunity to hug me five or six times during the time I'm there. He really craves affection--it's a good thing that John's family taught me how to hug, because Ike is basically a puppy. Also I think he has pica, because he ate his reminder card that said he needs to say the scripture in Primary next week. But he's bright and happy and sweet and I guess a little wood pulp won't kill him. He must be deficient in some mineral. We're reading The Dragons of Blueland to him, and he just finished reading Frog and Toad are Friends.

Willa is such a dear little friend to me. We like going to the pet store together to watch the dogs get their haircuts. I will miss her when she goes to school every day. She loves school, loves playing outside, loves helping me, and loves playing with dolls. I brought her with me while I was up at the unpark helping assemble the new playground equipment, and she was so well-behaved and delightful she charmed all of the guys who were there working. She's reading the American Girl doll catalog.

John was elected to be on the city council next year. He is sort of ambivalent about it. He's glad he didn't lose, because that would be embarrassing, but he doesn't want another iron in the fire very much. He just finished reading Drive and has recommended it to me.

If anybody could tell me why Chrome and IE always make the first paragraph double spaced and the following paragraphs single spaced, or better yet, if they could stop Chrome and IE from doing that, it would be just peachy. Because I super duper hate how they format the text of my blog posts and I am ready to crack some heads.

you just said happy birthday in duck

For some reason whenever Ike prays lately he always says, "and please bless the sick and afflicted ones."

We have a lot of sick and afflicted ones in our family, but he blesses them all separately, so I'm not sure who he's talking about. Maybe he's trying to do a catch-all for everyone he doesn't know.

Willa had to go to bed at seven tonight because she is a hateful monster. There was a lot of screaming, but there was going to be even more, by more people, if she stayed up any longer. When confronted with bratty behavior I first assume sleep deprivation, and if that isn't it I assume they need to have a bowel movement. Gross, but surprisingly accurate.

you're already the voice inside my head

John and I went to San Francisco for a few days last week. We asked Emily and Matthew to help watch Willa and Ike, but unbeknownst to us Matthew had to be in China last week. So Emily got two extra kids and no help! We are awesome family. We bought her some nice chocolates, but I don't think it worked. Willa and Ava are sometimes not really great at being friends, and I think Emily was a tad overwhelmed. Hopefully we can repay her soon.

Willa says that Emily taught her to say please and to not suck her fingers.

We bought Willa a Chinese dress, Ike a panda hat, and Grant and Emmett t-shirts. Emmett's has a cool scary tiger, and Grant's has a cool scary dragon. Emmett likes his shirt and Grant hates his. What can you do? I told them on the phone that their presents weren't cool, but evidently Grant thought I was sandbagging. I wasn't.

Next week is fall break, and we're trying to think of somewhere fun and cheap to take the kids. They want to camp out in John's parents' back yard. I think that's a bad idea.

crazy 'bout elvis, loves horses

Ever since I started blogging I've been terrible at keeping up on my journal. I kept a journal in spurts while I was growing up, only recording memorable experiences like the first time I bobbed my hair, or the first youth dance I attended, where I danced with an older boy from my ward (a quote from that entry: ". . . and I think I am falling for him in a big way"--horrors!). But when I graduated from high school I started dating a boy who was, quite honestly, above my pay grade. He was ambitious and responsible and funny, and when he left for his mission he gave me a journal. After that I wrote in a journal every day until I got married and had kids and then it all went down the crapper. But then blogging came along, and I've been doing that, but it's not journal-ey stuff. I feel kind of bad about that.

Grant is adjusting so much better to big kid school than I did. I spent six years in a constant state of anxiety about lockers and friends and P.E. He is in my mom's class, being smart, making new friends, enjoying the cachet of being a locker user, and generally being the best he's been since he was born, I think. I always want a well-adjusted eleven-year-old at my house.

Emmett is gifted, LIKE YOU DIDN'T ALREADY KNOW THAT, sometimes practices the piano, and knows all the Value Tales backwards and front. I'm hoping he'll learn compassion and empathy, since currently he has all the signs of a Bond villain in the making. He is very happy, but he is the smartest bear in any given room.

Ike is motivated by positive reinforcement. When he wants to do something he begs and pleads and pesters like a dog with a bone. He will not shut up about it even when we make ridiculous threats, like "If you ask me one more time if you can play with a friend today, you will never have another friend over ever again.!" He has finally figured out syllables, which were just about the death of both him and me last year.

Willa loves school, and so far has only had to sit on the Naughty Chair once. There is a Power Pillow, which I remember from when Ike was there, but evidently Mrs. Jones has added the Naughty Chair--for especially egregious offenses, I guess. She sucks her fingers all the time, so I've started in with the Prince Charles technique (patent pending). It goes like this: "If you keep sucking your fingers you'll look like Prince Charles when you grow up." It worked like a charm to get Ike to stop sucking his thumb.

planning ahead

Willa: "Mom, will you sign me up to ride a sheep at the county fair?"

Me: "Sure."

Willa: "Okay. I might need a hat, so the sheep doesn't stomp on my head."

and under the steak is a scabby bandaid

Once while teaching a RS lesson I was trying to say that it's unfair to marry someone who can't take you to the temple, and then move the goal posts on him and expect him to change into a faithful member of the LDS church. What seemed to come out instead, according to the heated responses I got in class, was "if you marry someone who can't take you to the temple he'll never change and you'll never be happy." It was a real mess. I still feel awful about the whole thing.

The Sunday before last we had a surprise stake conference. We were stoked, because what if they were telling us to pack up and head to Missouri? We'd get all the good houses, score! What if the prophet came? Or at the very least, an apostle? The YW second counselor and I told our Beehives to be sure to go to stake conference, and Ellen said it would be an experience they'd never forget. Well, we got a couple of seventies. They gave good talks, as did a girl from Honeyville First Ward, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was a bit of a letdown. I felt bad that we oversold it to the Beehives so bad. Oh well, at least they didn't group-excommunicate our stake.

I wish moms would stop buying skanky clothes for their daughters.

The end.

baby ride your firebolt

At the beginning of the summer I was a little worried. Last summer went really well, and I enjoyed the time with my kids so much that I wasn't even counting the moments until they went back to school and left me the hell alone. It seemed too much to hope, too greedy, that this summer would be equally pleasant.

But maybe what they say about attitude determining your altitude which gives you the latitude of verisimilitude blah blah blah . . . how does that go? Anyway, maybe if you have a good attitude you have more fun, because I have been pretty happy this summer. It helps that Grant is old enough to keep an eye on everybody for a little while here and there if I need to step out, so I don't have the albatross of four children to take on every single errand into every single store with me, because that is a big old drag.

We've gone here and there and had vacations and family reunions and drive-in movies and water parks and cookouts and fun with cousins and productive time spent weeding and doing chores, and it's all been pretty great. They get so useful as they age! Plus kind of fun to be with, and not in a "I'm their mom, so I love them" kind of way, but as actual companions, people you'd purposely choose to spend time with! I'm sorry to have to go back to emptying and refilling the dishwasher on my own again. I'm sorry to have to start making sack lunches again. I'm sorry to return to the punishing schedule of school and extracurricular activities. I'm sorry I'll have to resume detoxing their brains and spirits at the end of each corrosive day in our public school system.

But onward and upward, I suppose.

we sing with one accord

This weekend at our family reunion we were doing some reflecting.

Normally for the Herd reunion we go camping in the semi-wilderness, with no shade, no grass, and no indoor plumbing. I was brought up this way, and have used many a fallen log as a makeshift toilet, and many a leaf of mullein or lamb's ear as toilet paper. We used to sleep in tents, even. Paleolithic! But nowadays everybody has trailers (except us, because: poor) and portable stoves, so it's really not even camping. We have become so coddled, in fact, that we complain about the amount of dirt at our usual reunions. But you have to understand: the dirt in question is that fine, soft, silty stuff that gets everywhere, and with which you become one on a molecular level.

So this year, when we got to spread out all over my aunt Lorraine's acre of backyard grass, was a marked improvement. I want to always have our reunions there. Everyone else agreed, except maybe my grandpa, who is embarrassed by how soft we are. We talked about how important it is to us to have nearby running water, and plumbing, and shade and grass. We are used to these things, and we don't care to go without them, even whilst camping.

This is the fault of the pioneers. If they hadn't sacrificed, and worked themselves raw trying to create a better world for their children, often dying in the effort, we'd be sweating and struggling in primitive conditions, and we'd probably be better people for it.

I just feel disappointed that they robbed me of my chance to be a good person.

the drum beats on two notes and only on two notes

I was going to post photos of our Yellowstone trip, and maybe someday I will. But that day is not today. My remorse is minimal.

We have done a lot of stuff so far this summer. I can't even remember it all right now, but there was a family reunion in there, which was fun. We've gone swimming to Cherry Hill and Seven Peaks. We completed our first session of swimming lessons. Everyone did well, even Grant with his curly, infection-prone Eustachian tubes. Those little rubbery earplugs that look like tiny Christmas trees were the ticket.

Willa might be our best child. She is surprisingly helpful, and often really obedient. I don't know what's going on there.

Ike knows how to ride a bike, which he often does barefoot or wearing irrigating boots.

Emmett is a champion hair grower, and likes to ride his bike with Ike. He wears irrigating boots, too.

Grant has taken over his piano instruction and is progressing rapidly.

I have been amazing at taking care of our goats and weeding the garden with the kids. It's a watershed year.

John's heart may or may not be exploding. He's downplaying it. Other than that he's doing a lot of singing and letting me talk him into running for city council.

And that's all the muck that's fit to rake for right now.

suddenly the wheels are in motion

Yesterday I gave the boys haircuts. When I started cutting Ike's hair he asked me not to buzz it, and I said "I'm just going to give you the same haircut as Dad." He said, "Okay, but don't do the hole in it (pointing to the top of his head). Don't do the hole right here that Dad has."

ojos, orejas, boca y nariz

Well, Travis Sorenson Day was a blessed event. It was probably the best one we've ever had, because the weather was perfection. Plus! We had a Travis Sorenson Day miracle! Because Travis himself attended! It was very fun. I made ribs, and I'll say it out loud: they were really good. I hope next year can live up to it.

We visited some graves over the weekend, too. Uncle Alt and Auntie Lois, my dad's grandparents, and Phil. It was nice to reminisce about them. Uncle Alt was a horse trader, and once he had a palomino horse that my parents were going to buy for me, but they chickened out. I think it was for the best, otherwise I'd probably have ended up a hair farmer.

Today we watched Emmett's music program and Ike's graduation (by the way, kindergarten graduation is a dumb invention). Emmett was very insistent that I come to the program, but I don't know why. He just sat up there stone-faced, mumbling the words and refusing to do the actions "because they are ridiculous." Ike did his actions with military precision, and really rubbed it in Emmett's face, but Emmett is immune to mocking and peer pressure. The more you explain that he is wrong the stupider he thinks you are. I think that tenacity and bullheadedness will serve him well in life.

All of the kids got stellar marks in school and I'm so proud of them I could bust. This has been head, shoulders, knees and toes above any other school year. I don't think I've cried in frustrated despair at all!

travis sorenson day 2011

Travis Sorenson Day is this Saturday! It's one of my favorite holidays. Everybody come!

The chickens broke open a bale of straw and spread it all over our patio, so we're thinking we might do a hoedown kind of thing, with barbecueish food. Brisket? Or ribs? Not sure yet. But I fully intend to make those orange drop doughnuts from year before last, because they are goo-ood.

There will be Chicken Poop Dodging, Egg Gathering, Bee Observing, Goat Wrangling, Cat Finding, and (weather permitting) Outdoor Watery Diversions.

So, to sum up:

Travis Sorenson Day

Saturday, May 28th, 3:00 PM

meat and doughnuts provided

entertainment

indoor toilets

bring a side dish or dessert and join us in the fun

TRAVIS WOULD WANT IT THAT WAY

RSVP with the number in your party so we know how much meat to buy

eveybody's gonna stamp their feet, everybody's gonna feel the beat

Last weekend we went to Lehi to sing at a farewell for one of John's former scouts. Normally that sort of thing--bringing in outside talent, if you will--is frowned upon, but we were going to the farewell anyway, and since our friend Jenny is the ward music chairhuman she thought it would be cool if John and I and she and Richard sang an awesome arrangement of "If You Could Hie to Kolob" that I had shown her when they were up here for Easter. So we took advantage of Sandi and Kerry's hospitality and slept over the night before. It was a great visit, and I think we exhausted everyone. John walked all ten children--everybody but Kate--to church on Sunday, so they all smelled like puppies for church.

I can't speak objectively to the goodness or badness of the musical number, since I was part of it, but it certainly felt good. It's one of those wacky Mormon hymns that would have men of science throwing up their hands and exclaiming in dismay, "Creationists! They're impossible!" But it's a rad song and it was so nice to sing with Richard and Jenny again. Here's a secret, promise not to tell: for fun on Saturday night we were singing through "I See the Light" from Tangled--yes, the Disney cartoon--and I cried just a little bit. You guys, what can I say? I am a mess. I just really like singing with them. It's like we have a mindmeld.

Plus the ward is wonderful, and we have so many happy memories of living there. Such a great little place, Lehi. They have animal rights, and maybe they wouldn't put a factory by my house. I don't know. I'd move there tomorrow if it didn't mean we had to leave our families. But I've grown accustomed to being close to John's parents and my parents and our brothers and sisters, and having my mom be able to do our animal chores when we're out of town. It would be a wrench to leave that all behind.

a person bright and lovely is my mother dear

Emmett is home sick with croup today. Croup always sounds so impressive, it makes me feel better about keeping him home. Usually when you keep a child home from school they're at death's door until the bus leaves and fine the rest of the day. But Emmett is still barking like a sea lion, so good for him. He was able to blow out all of his candles in one breath yesterday, so it turns out being a constant talking windbag has a somewhat practical application. I'm just glad that he's able to communicate with those of us who are on a lower intellectual plane than he is. I think he might be able to bend bars with his mind.

The kids really outdid themselves for Mother's Day. Grant brought me breakfast in bed, which I dont' think I've ever had, and he did a fantastic job on the eggs. They were done perfectly and I was proud to know him. Emmett gave me a photo album and a recipe card holder which I used yesterday when I made his birthday cake. Ike made me a lot of cards with drawings of hearts on them. Willa came up on the stand and made me hold her while I was singing with the choir.

John bought me a new phone, since mine is possessed. I have loved it, but it has a mind of its own and I think it plots my destruction.

they picked it like a chicken bone

Willa informs me that her babies are special, but I may hold them.

a short play about the force

Ike: "HEY!"
Willa: "I didn't poke you in the eye. That didn't hurt."

eyes without a face

Grant went on a scout camping trip on Friday night. Technically John was supposed to go with him since he's just eleven, but you know how we love stomping on social norms. John had to coach two soccer games on Saturday, so we put Grant in the capable hands of our neighbor and sent him off with much pomp and ceremony. They went to a topaz mine and he brought home some nice ones. I'm going to see if he'll get one of them made into a cool old lady ring for me. He ate garbage almost exclusively, to the extent that he didn't even open the trail mix and pick out the M&Ms, because he was too busy devouring TEN DOLLARS worth of the hard stuff like pop and Skittles. Part of growing up, to see how much candy you can eat before you vomit, I guess.

I can't believe how quickly Emmett is progressing on the piano. He doesn't really sit down and do official practice, but I bet he spends about an hour on the piano most days, because he plunks out three or four songs every time he walks past.

I almost murdered Ike last week because he will not learn the number twelve. He calls it twenty-one all the time, even when I've barely told him it's twelve. Like, "What number is this?"
"Twenty-one?"
"No, twelve. What number is this?"
"Twenty-one?"
"No, twelve! What number is this?"
"Uhh . . . I don't know."
"TWELVE!"

Twelve is a funny word. It looks weird.

Willa keeps telling me that I'm the best mom in the world, and her favorite mom. It is very sweet of her, and I'm going to look back fondly on this time when she learns about other moms and issues a retraction.

you're my pride and joy, etcetera

I think I can say definitively that Willa is successfully potty-trained. All we had to do was give her an enema and hold her on the potty chair until the strain of withholding became too much. I don't recommend our method, even though it worked. But she has always been so weird about pooping that enemas were nothing new, and I think that takes the trauma factor down a notch or two, doesn't it? She has been a champ, and I am mildly giddy about being done with diapers. I am really into a new phase of motherhood now, and it's exciting to contemplate what the future holds!

Grant and Emmett and Ike are all in soccer right now, and I keep forgetting that spring soccer is a death march.

Grant got his Arrow of Light at pack meeting the other night, and notwithstanding our screaming (me) and sulking (him) match the next day about him stuffing his face with candy instead of cleaning up the chairs, I am proud of him for working so hard to achieve a goal. He's been on fire about basketball ever since he got Jimmer Fever, and it's good to see him pair effort with passion. His behavior in school is always acceptable, and usually great.

Emmett is wonderful and I almost never have to worry about him at school (recess is the problem), and I think his only struggle currently is his lack of integrity when gathering the eggs. We're going to have to really clamp down!

Ike does not apply himself in school, but his tolerance for homework is gradually increasing. He is so sweet and so loving, and most of the time he is very happy. You should see him with the cats and Aggie and the baby goats. I predict he will become an animal hoarder.

something deep down in my soul said cry, girl

My sister-in-law Emily had a great idea for potty-training Willa, The Child Too Smart to Poop, and I think I'm going to implement it. Once we finally have our upstairs toilet hooked back up I'm going to throw away all the diapers, set a basket of underpants by the toilet, and say, "Good luck!"

She changes her own diapers. I walked in on her last week, supine on the changing table, fixing the tabs on her new, clean diaper. How is this okay? IT'S NOT.

Beware, Willa. The bell tolls for thee.

well the good old days weren't always good

Tonight when Ike saw me in my denim trench coat, he asked incredulously, "Why is your coat made out of pants?"

In the car Grant said, "Oh, I'd hate to fart if I were a dog, 'cause their noses are so good!"

to keep (shoo-wop) your pre- (shoo-wop) cious loooooove

The kids and I went to the Krazy Daze (I do not approve of this novelty spelling) sale at R&R, and like every trip with all of the kids it took years off my life. But everybody got some glorious piece of crap that they were excited about. It's the American way! Ike bought a cheap little flashlight with his own money, and he was tickled pink. He was so cute and excited about getting change back that I just wanted to pinch him. I like when he's happy, because a lot of the time he isn't. I don't know what happened--he was such a smiley, laughy baby. Maybe he has cirrhosis.

I bought Grant a Leatherman for his birthday a month early at the sale. He was pretty jazzed, as well he should be, because it was the most money we're going to spend on him until the next time he needs sixty bucks. He wants to take it for Show & Tell, but I think we all know how well that would go over in our new wussified Zero Tolerance world. I ask you, what is a grade-school education without witnessing at least one knife fight? What is this world coming to?

Emmett planned and helped cook the meals today to pass off some requirement for Scouts. He did a good job, too. He is very useful in the kitchen, and I was even able to offload some of the mushroom slicing, since he was champing at the bit to use his new Old Timer knife (also Krazy Daze).

Willa is sort of terrible all day long, with occasional spurts of being not awful, but story time is the golden hour. She is happy and engaged in the story and basically makes up for every rotten thing she's done that day by being thoroughly charming. Tonight it was that Richard Scarry word book, and I think everyone should have a chance to listen to her say "bear." It's turrible cute.

mud, mud, glorious mud

This past weekend we went to watch John be in The Music Man. He did an excellent job, of course, because I don't know if you knew this, but he is in a promising local band. The two leads were great, but in the kissing part they seemed really, really into it, if you know what I mean. Like, in a Not Acting kind of way. It was quite uncomfortable, and it just went on and on.

Emmett almost had to stay home from school today, because he didn't like how his yogurt looked. LOOKED, not tasted, because he refused to even try it. I gave him some chores to get started on, since he was choosing to stay home and be a servant rather than eat his breakfast and be educated, and he went downstairs and sulked for a while while he "cleaned" the bathroom. Then he came upstairs and respectfully asked for some fruit and yogurt without sucanat in it, so I gave him plain, unsweetened yogurt and fruit, which is of course healthier, and he pridefully pretended to like it better, but it was sour as can be and I know he was faking. But because he ate it he was able to go to school after all and not miss St. Valentine's Day.

but you are, blanche! you are in that chair!

I'm reading The Glass Castle right now, and it is utterly horrifying. Among other things it is the reason I vacuumed this morning.

I worry sometimes that my kids are going to write a tell-all book about me and how the laundry was never, ever put away, and they had to claw through overflowing baskets to find their clean clothes. Or how I bought all of our furniture secondhand because I didn't want them ruining anything expensive. The scary thing to me is that I have all these high-falutin' ideas about how decent people should behave, but I don't mop my floor, and maybe I'm just like the mother in The Glass Castle. The kids couldn't chew gum because it was a low, disgusting habit, but they ate food from garbage cans because the parents refused to work.

It scares me.

I should have fought them off better, but the kids were insistent that they wanted to buy their valentines. So we bought them, and they put them all together and left them in shopping bags lying around the house, and now Willa has stolen an undetermined number of Jolly Ranchers off of Ike's valentines.

spaceman says everybody look down

Last night we finally watched the new Karate Kid movie. Grant has been earning a DS (120 days of good behavior) and movies with John and me (every 10 days of good behavior), and ladies and gents, it has been worth every single penny. Every other year of school has been a nightmarish hellscape up until Christmas, with pink slips and phone calls and conferences with his teachers, and privileges revoked, and essays being written about What He Did Wrong and How He Should Change, and nosy neighbors who volunteer at the school telling my parents with great relish how bad Grant is, and me spending a lot of time sobbing on my knees. It's been a real party.

So at the beginning of the school year we devised this solution and discussed with Grant how we would like to be purveyors of carrots, instead of sticks. He had a couple of roughish days right out of the gate, before we added the interim movie rewards, but ever since then he's been fantastic. Focused, dedicated, all that jazz. It has been surprising to me how well it's gone. I think part of it is due to him being older, but I think we also finally discovered a currency that matters to him. Of course, once he gets the DS it will no longer matter, but I hope by then that his good habits are internalized and he'll be in the habit of behaving well. If not we can at least take away the DS and smash it in front of him to show him how he has brought shame and dishonor to the family.

Speaking of which, I wasn't expecting to like The Karate Kid, but I did. It was much better than I anticipated. Nothing beats watching little kids kick each other in the head.

I've been a clean livin' boy, I promise you

I cut the boys' hair tonight. They hate it and complain endlessly when I cut their hair, because for some reason I guess it's not a horribly itchy living nightmare at the salon? Like official "hairstylists" have magic powers or something? Bull. They just like to make me sad. But I couldn't put up with their raggedy selves any longer. Emmett looked like an actual, living cat had taken up residence on his head, Ike looked like a toothless redneck, and Grant just needed to not think he was better than the other two. I appeased them by letting everybody watch Spongebob during the haircuts. Spongebob solves many problems.

Ike and Willa and I ate lunch at the Bombay Grill with Aleece and Lucy today. I put on a good show, but I didn't like my food as much as I usually do. Ever since I smashed my brainpan food hasn't sounded or tasted good to me. This is an alarming development that I hope is temporary. I've lost five pounds since Thursday, so I'm basically like a waif/model now, but I'd rather have lamb saagwala taste good again. I didn't even want to eat Lucky Charms at John's parents' house this weekend. Oh, it is distressing to me.

I used to live alone before I knew you

I just got a message from the school that was nothing more than a fuzzy recording of the principal's announcements over the PA, and random kids in the background telling the secretary about another kid who's always being a jerk to them. But because I have a Mother Heart I was able to deduce that the message was from Emmett, and he's calling to let me know that he left his lunch on the dining table and wants me to bring it to him.

Because I am headed out to do errands I am going to take it to him. Otherwise, tough nuts. Did I mention the Mother Heart?

UPDATE
Another message. This one goes:
Emmett: ". . . or Willa probably stole it." (Disgruntled breathing.) (Slamming the phone down.)

I think he started talking before the voicemail started recording.

possession is nine-tenths

This morning I was reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Pinga, and I was only trying to use it to open a dialogue about accepted behavioral norms regarding trespassing and owner's rights, but Pinga was not on board.

Pinga: "Mom, don't say that. Don't say, 'Naughty. She shouldn't have done that.'"

I like the version of the story where Goldilocks gets eaten.