it'll leave you breathless, or with a nasty scar

Emmett came home from school on Monday just fit to be tied about all the homework he had--hours and hours it was going to take him, all day and all night it was going to take him, and could he please stay home from piano?  No, says I.  So about 7:00 that night he was done, even with the hour-plus errand of piano lessons.  I think he's just so tense about making sure everything gets done that it seems much more overwhelming than it is. 

Grant has his first real basketball game today.  Should be a party.  I'm just glad I had time to cut everybody's hair on Monday, because I didn't want him to look like a caveman for his first game. 

Two different people have commented lately on how well-behaved my kids are, which those of you who have been traveling down this road with us will agree is a gratifying surprise.  I think people have usually liked our kids pretty well, but they could have been accurately described as "challenging."  To be honest, Willa is still pretty naughty--there is a lot of whining and pouting--and Ike is very sweet but also a little bit rascally, so they're hitching on Grant and Emmett's coattails.  But I am certain that great things are in store for them as well. 

Last night was our ward Christmas party, and the Young Women were in charge of decorations, which is SO UNCOOL of them to do to us.  I don't do cutesy decorating things, nor do I wish to, but thankfully I have wonderful counselors and advisers and a good handful of girls even showed up to help, and it turned out really nice.  I hate to say this, but the meat was substandard.  The same guy did it who always does, and he makes the best brisket and ribs, but some genius, I don't know if it was him or not, had the idea to do prime rib last night.  Big mistake.  Prime rib is not something you do for a crowd of 150+ people.  Also the Young Men were in charge of dessert, and that never materialized, so grr to them.  But the funeral potatoes--bereavement potatoes, as a great old lady in our ward calls them--were top-notch.  And at the end of the day, I didn't have to figure out what to cook for dinner, so it's a win, even without dessert. 

major undeserved award

There is a bird refuge near here, and every year the kids in the local elementary schools draw a picture of a bird and submit it for the chance to do a big version on a street banner.  Grant got to do it when he was young, and both Emmett and Ike got chosen this year, which I am stoked about.  A few days before they drew their pictures I had this conversation with Ike:
Ike:  "I'm going to draw a toucan for my bird picture."
Me:  "Well, I guess you can draw a toucan, but you're supposed to draw birds that live in Utah."
Ike:  "I don't care.  I want a toucan."
Me:  "Okay, but you won't get picked."

Weeks pass, and we get the letters that say Ike and Emmett both get to go draw bird banners.  We went for the party yesterday, and they were having a little bit of trouble finding Ike's original picture.  He didn't remember what the bird's name was, but he remembered that it was black and red and yellow, so of course we all thought, "Oh, a red-winged blackbird," but Ike said, "No, it definitely wasn't that.  I don't remember what it was called, but I'd know it if I saw it."  We had to go through the folder three times before we found his picture, and darn if that little rascal hadn't drawn a toucan, but then written "Lazuli Bunting" at the bottom of the paper.  And I was like, "Nope.  We're drawing the real bird."  The Bunting turned out pretty nice, but Ike did have to threaten to fire me if I didn't stop trying to draw it for him.  Emmett drew a Belted Kingfisher, which he has drawn every year, and he finally won.  The posters go up on June 16th, so if you're in the area keep your eyes peeled for ours.

Willa got her tonsils out last month, and the doctor said they were so huge that if she'd gotten sick it would have been life-threatening.  She was a great patient and only missed a week of school.  She hardly ate any popsicles or ice cream, mostly she just wanted chicken and stars soup.  Stars are the best noodle shape when you're sick.  I can't remember where I bought them and now I am sad because we've eaten the whole package.

say, you think santa likes gumbo?

This morning when I got up I started a load of darks, and then twenty minutes later when Ike finally dragged himself upstairs he looked at the washer and said, "Well, now I don't have a way to have my legs not freeze!"  You see, he had been keeping all of his jeans in the dirty clothes basket, and they weren't dirty.  I asked him why he was keeping his clean pants in the dirty clothes basket instead of in the drawer with the other clean clothes, but he was past reason.  He spent the rest of the morning sulking and stomping and decrying the unfairness of it all--the unfairness, let us not forget, of me washing the pants he'd put into the dirty clothes basket.  Finally, as the bus was making the stop right before ours he decided he would rather wear a pair of pants one size up than wait for the dirty clean pants to finish washing and drying and pay me three dollars to drive him to school.  Then I got to drive Grant to school ($5) because he waited until his bus was coming down the hill to tell me that the goats were out of water, and p.s. he hadn't eaten breakfast or brushed his teeth or washed his face or combed his hair.  But it's not HIS fault he feels like crap in the morning (I'm sure it has nothing to do with refusing to ever go to bed on time).  So it was a party, is what I'm trying to say.

We had a delightful Thanksgiving, and are now becoming ever more agitated in our anticipation of Christmas.  I think I bought too many presents this year.  I feel gross.  And although it's hard to backpedal on an arms race, or for the president to give back powers that he has previously enjoyed, next year I am going to do just that--one present, one book.  So get ready to be deprived, children.  I don't need to be raising superconsumers.

John went to New York last week for work and went up to the Statue of Liberty's crown.  He saw Newsies.  He looked at a bunch of buildings.  He did not eat a cronut, because it would probably make him die of diverticulitis or something.

a short conversation about lite brite

Layne:  "I was over at the neighbors' house today and Jay was there playing Lite-Brite with Hadley.  Cameron says they got the Lite Brite for a buck fifty at the D.I.  Cameron knows a different Lite-Brite song that's not the one I know and not the one you know!" 

John:  "What's the one you know again?" 

Layne:  (singing) "I'm making things with light, Lite-Brite makes them glow so bright." 
John:  "Oh yeah!" 

Layne:  "And the one you know is (singing) 'Lite-Brite, making things with light, making things with bright light." 

John:  "I'm so happy to have that confirmed by an outside source!" 

Layne:  "I'm not confirming it!  I've never heard that song, it's just the song you always sing." 

John:  "No, somebody else.  Was it Dave? (thinking)"

Layne:  "No, Dave's younger than me.  He wouldn't know it." 

John:  "No!  It was Jenny!  Remember?  She sang the song independently." 

Layne:  "Well she's younger than me too.  That's weird.  Anyway, Cameron knows a Lite-Brite song that is neither one of those." 

John:  "Whoa!" 

every handout in every town

This is probably going to come out wrong, but:  sometimes my children are incredibly stupid.

They refuse to wear coats in even the coldest weather.  I bought Emmett a brand-new coat last night, and he made a big fuss about how comfortable it was, and then this morning he threw on his ratty old hoodie with the sleeves coming apart and trounced out in the single-digit temperatures.  He  won't wear the coat to wait for the bus because then he'll either have to cram the coat into his backpack, or leave it on and sweat.  Who can sweat in this weather?  I've been on buses, and toasty they ain't!

Similarly, Grant had plenty of time to put on his body spray/man perfume this morning, but not enough time to notice that he hadn't brought in his backpack from the car or to pack his lunch.  He left his lunch home yesterday, too.  Either he's embarrassed about the lunches or he's a space cadet.

I screamed something fierce at Ike this afternoon because there are only so many times you can be lied to about the rabbits being fed and watered when they really haven't before you sort of come . . . unglued . . . and there is yelling through gritted teeth and prophecies of blame, like such as the "Those bunnies are going to die, and when they die it's going to be your fault.  You are the one who will have killed them because you were too lazy to give them food and water."

Willa spends a lot of time in her room, waiting until she's ready to stop whining and talk like a normal person.

even cameron said he stepped on the line

We had a spirited discussion in YW yesterday, not about pants or gender equality, but about how I refused to make them sandwiches with Miracle Whip.  It offends me to even type Miracle Whip, I hate it so much.  I would rather eat a dry sandwich or no sandwich at all than a sandwich befouled by that demon pretender to the condiment throne.

We got out our Playmobil nativity set last night, and just in time, because the children were running out of stupid things to fight about.  For a while they pretended to be doctors examining imaginary stool samples from the wise men, then they moved all the capes and hair and beards around and had a lovely time making Mary into a bearded lady.  I used to get more upset about this kind of thing, because I felt like maybe it was sacrilegious, but now eh.  I think there's space between the actual Holy Family and plastic toy incarnations of them.

Grant lost his handball game today and is sad.

Emmett has a piano Master Class today and is happy.

Ike is being a melodramatic wuss about his minor cough, and is happy about the attention.

Willa got to play Super Mario on the DS and is happy.

wherein I vainly brag about my family's ability to feed ourselves

On Saturday night we had a dinner to celebrate John's parents' 50th wedding anniversary.  The food was not that great, to be honest.  We are some pretty talented cooks in John's family, and so we were not impressed by the breaded chicken cutlets topped with deli ham and congealed Swiss cheese, the Hollandaise sauce that tasted like it had been made with Miracle Whip, the grocery-store rolls, and the dry, bland chocolate cake with frosting that tasted like it also had been made with Miracle Whip, sitting in an ill-considered puddle of half-heartedly smashed strawberries.  The beef was okay, if a little tough and Gravy Trainlike in appearance.

But the mediocrity of the food ensured that we didn't sit around making indecent grunts with our mouths filled with food, exclaiming thickly, "Oh, this is so good" (as would usually be the case), so that we were free to focus on the purpose for the gathering, which was to celebrate my in-laws' marriage.  Daniel and Sarah had put together a video of pictures from their lives, and we watched as they grew up, got married, and proceeded to have eight difficult, exhausting, brilliant and ultimately fantastic and delightful children.  They are incredible people and I'm so thankful to know them and to have been welcomed into their family--our family.  I've told this story countless times, but the first time I saw John's dad was in my college choir.  He was the assistant director at the time, and I looked at him and thought, "What a handsome grandpa.  I need to be in his family."  I looked around and saw John and thought, "Okay.  This will work."  They are the other half of my family I didn't know I was looking for, and I can't imagine life without the whole shouting, laughing, pontificating lot of them.

We went to church together on Sunday in their ward, and the guy who gave the closing prayer in Sunday School was killing me.  I was elbowing John like, "Are you listening to this guy?" First of all, it was so long, more like a talk than a prayer, and then he was using it as a forum for airing of grievances.  Like, he actually said, in the prayer, that we are thankful to not be like "those other so-called Christians" who don't understand things like "individual responsibility."  As Daniel pointed out, we barely finished reading about the Zoramites' Rameumptom prayer, and talk about an apt object lesson.  Then there was a lady whose toddler was a hellion and was running up and down the rows screaming and shouting and it was impossible to hear anything that was going on (except the conceited prayer, obv), and the mother just sat there and beamed at him and tickled him until he guffawed whenever he passed her.  I told myself that she'd struggled with infertility and it took forever to conceive him, so every noise he makes is a jewel to her.  That's how I kept from pointedly glaring at her with my eyes bugging out with annoyance.  Look, my kids are loud.  You know that.  I don't care if a kid is loud, as long as you participate in the charade that you are trying to subdue them somewhat.  You have to at least pretend.  It's part of the social contract.

but said she this butter's bitter

Emmett got what may or may not have been strep throat on Saturday. He's such a gigantic drama queen anytime he gets sick ("It feels like my neck is being chopped with an axe!"), who can say what was wrong with him? He was just on an antibiotic for strep a month ago, and I was not going to take him in again. But he refuses to take the home remedies we usually use for this, because he doesn't like the taste of garlic and honey and cayenne pepper mixed together. Baby. The outlook wasn't good, but with creative cooking, juicing, and judicious application of Satan's plan we were able to get a bunch of the necessary things into him, and he woke up fine this morning. Even so he's still going to want to go to Lee's Mongolian for dinner tonight, because he has blind, trusting faith in the curative properties of the Mongolian stir-fry.

Last Friday the PTA provided a luncheon and took the classes for a half hour so the teachers could have a leisurely meal all together. I took Emmett's class, and there was this crazy kid who was saying to his friend, "Your argument is clearly based on conjecture." He was not quoting, that's just the way he talks. I only had them for five minutes after they came back from art and before they went to lunch, but it was exhausting. Fourth-graders are old enough to smell blood in the water when there's a substitute, and they were just this side of mutiny until I made them say tongue twisters, which didn't start out as a vanity project, but became one when I blew the doors off the joint with my flawless rendition of "Betty Botta."

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.

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!

a short play about the force

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

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.

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 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.

am I the only good parent around here?

I just wish people would stop giving their kids so many sweets.
Don't they even care?