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.

like a stumbling ghost I haunt these halls

We got a new couch for the parlor, and Ike was so distressed at the idea that we would get rid of our other one that he begged to take it downstairs into the toy room.  We should just drop the pretense and call it what it is, which is a Lego, garbage, and dirty clothes room.  They are seriously so piggish.  Thank goodness for basements.

It's a new trimester and Grant and Emmett liked their first day of classes.  Emmett is relieved that the middle school installed--just last week--some kind of curtain dividery things in the P.E. showers so he doesn't have to shower with a bunch of other people.  He was so sicked out by that concept, and rightly so.  I don't know how we, as a modern, developed society, have tolerated such a bizarre practice for so long. "Just go ahead and take off all your clothes and join your friends in the shower."  Pass.

Grant likes at least one of his teachers this trimester, which sadly is good odds.

Ike draws on his assignments and sometimes when he's feeling mouthy he writes in huge letters I DON'T KNOW in response to worksheet questions.

Willa is doing so much better with her new teacher.  I was there helping yesterday and the energy of the class is much calmer.  She's enough of a hyper dingbat in regular life; she doesn't need reinforcement of it at school.

hey this is nothing new; I've got more than enough for you

Emmett is ripped because he was just displaced as first chair percussion by the kid who used to be FOURTH CHAIR.  Oh snap!  The shame!  He says it must be because the teacher wanted the kid to feel better, and as soon as break was over Emmett challenged him and says he's going to destroy him tomorrow because the other kid stinks at everything to do with percussion.  Ha, I love seeing Emmett get competitive like this, even if it is only about making noise with sticks. 

try something fresher, something pleasant!

On a whim John and I decided we'd take our family to Mexico for our fall vacation.  Thanks to Voice Male we get a week of vacation in a time share every other year, and one of the places is in a town just south of Tijuana called Rosarito.  It's been really wonderful.  Anytime I go on vacation I start feeling like I want to move to that place, and Rosarito is no different.  I could do it.  It would take me a minute to remember how to speak Spanish, but even now I can get by all right.  I know how to buy food anyway, and that's supposedly one of the important things. 

A briefish recap for record-keeping purposes: 

Last Friday we picked the kids up from school and started on our way.  When we got to Willard I remembered that our passports were at home on my nightstand, so we got to backtrack for that.  Then Willa was carsick and we had to pull over for her to throw up three or four times.  We got to our hotel in Las Vegas after midnight.  Breakfast Saturday morning was pretty good for a free hotel breakfast buffet.  We considered for a moment going to M&M World or Coke World, but then we remembered that that was a dumb idea.  Then we saddled up and drove the rest of the way to Rosarito, with a stop in Tijuana for fish tacos.  We grabbed some groceries for Sunday at the Comercial Mexicana, and I was in heaven because foreign grocery shopping is my favorite thing. 

On Sunday we went beachcombing in the morning.  There are so many sand dollars around here; they are just scattered around the beach like cookies--big, nice ones that haven't been smashed to pieces yet.  It's amazing how quickly you acclimate, because the first one we found that had only a small hole was like a miracle, and a half hour later, when we had a stack of six or seven, only the most perfect, unblemished specimens could even capture our attention.  Later we went to church in the Spanish branch in Rosarito.  We pulled a Nate and only went to Sacrament meeting because:  Espanol.  I got the main gist of the testimonies, but going to class would have been a total mare's nest.  We had omelets for dinner. 

Monday we took some food to an orphanage that John's friends had told him about.  They were all jazzed about it and said to mention their name, since they go there all the time, but the people we talked to were a little bit like "Who?"  They seem like they are so strapped, and they have so many charities coming in and out all the time, and so many kids to take care of--fifty in one house and forty-five in the other--that they don't really have the deep connection to any particular benefactor that the benefactor might hope for.  It's a great big mess, pretty much, but the kids were all smiling and friendly and seemed as happy as could be expected.  We ate some carne asada and tacos al pastor at Tacos la Gloria, and then we went and got two cocos.  I was hoping my children would have the same magical experience I did, watching the guy chop off the top of the coconut with a machete and then be able to drink the coconut water, but they all seemed kind of underwhelmed.  Oh well, more for me. 

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday at the beach and the pool.  I was not present while the meth-heads were scraping all the sea stars off the rocks and trying to sell them, but all the same it's a good thing I didn't have my smiting powers that day. 

Thursday we drove down to Ensenada to see La Bufadora (The Blowhole, a geological marvel, not to be confused with Blowhole the whale from that one episode of The Tick).  We were hounded by vendors and bought some marvelous things:  Willa one of those faux peasant outfits, Ike a luchador mask, John a wide-brimmed cowboy hat for irrigating, and me a painted terra cotta skull and a skull necklace.  I'm into skulls I guess.  I'm pretty goth. 

Friday we bought candies and food from our favorite vendors and took one last look at the tide pools during low tide.  All of the days we watched a lot of futbol with occasional Jeopardy and Price is Right and movies. 

Saturday we got up and out of there as quickly as we could and spent two hours in the line to cross the border back into the U.S.  Let's just make Canada, America and Mexico into one big country, shall we?  We ate lunch at a gas station where we were mistaken for Europeans, I guess because none of us were wearing white socks or sneakers and two of my kids were wearing soccer jerseys.  Then we surprised the kids by taking them to LEGOLAND, which we will not be going back to ever again if I have anything to say about it.  The models are amazing, and the kids liked the Mindstorm robot thing, but other than that it's a turd convention.  We only made it as far as Henderson that night. 

Sunday we got up and ate and left and were able to make it to Washington for church in what turned out to be a singles ward, and the lady who sat in front of us turned around and scolded my kids for kicking her bench.  She told us afterward that we had nice voices, probably because she felt bad and is trying to buy her way back into heaven.  We ate at the Mired Ox (Café Rio) with all the other Mormons on their way home from California.  Willa barfed I think three times on the way home.  I read Harry Potter OotP for seven hours.  We got home and had a beautiful reunion with the cats. 

I loved this vacation so much.  I want to go back to Mexico.  I want to move there!  I hope my kids remember it as fondly as I remember the trips I took with my family. 

when I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide

A couple of kids in our ward are in the Mandarin immersion program at a nearby school, and I thought for a while about putting Willa in it, but then I despaired at the thought of having to run her back and forth every day for the next five years.  I am a lazy mom.  But also one of the moms is a giant drag and I don't want to have the forced intimacy of a carpool schedule with her.  Besides, I think that Spanish is as much the Language of the Future as Mandarin, and I can actually converse haltingly in elementary Spanish, so I think I'll just buy some textbooks and teach the kids a Spanish class once a week or something. 

Grant got on the basketball team he wanted, he is surviving middle school and getting excellent grades despite some of the teachers doing all they can to squash his love of learning, he is sometimes a jerk to his siblings, he doesn't practice his trumpet, he has been doing slightly better at getting up on time and feeding and watering the goats.  So, a mixed bag.  We take what we can get. 

Emmett loves school and life and is almost always happy except when I am making him eat cream of mushroom soup.  He does a slapdash job on his chores and incurs frequent fines for letting the chickens run out of water.  But because money actually matters to him, when we showed him the hole the fines had dug into his savings he got very wide-eyed and repentant. 

Ike is a child of contrasts.  Monday he was a turd and getting him to practice his piano was infuriating.  He sulked the entire afternoon.  Tuesday he came home and did his chores and practiced his piano right away without any nagging.  This morning he took 45 minutes to put on a shirt and barely caught the bus.  His two settings are happy and angry.  Hey--he must be my son! 

Willa is getting her claws out this afternoon.  I think we've finally succeeded with her.  It took a long time of wearing the mitten at night, but I think she's cured.  It helps that she's busy at school all day--it's when she gets bored that things get ugly.  I wonder how she'll do on our long drive to Mexico, since the car is like the most boring place you can be, and that's always been her hardest fight. 

John interviewed for and was offered a job at a different company but ended up not taking it.  It would have been fun, but there really are some very nice work/life balance benefits to working for the church.  Plus I like him working downtown--who wants to go out to lunch in West Jordan or whatever?  Not me. 

I love not being the PTA president.  It's nice to have only YW to worry about, because that is plenty of worry by itself.  Thankfully my Laurels are bright and inquisitive and happily engage in discussions during the lessons.  A couple of them are planning on serving missions, which is an exciting prospect.  I'm interested to see how the role of women in the institutional dealings of the church is going to evolve over the next little while.  My advisor Wendy and I do our best to disabuse them of incorrect notions regarding doctrine vs. custom, and hopefully it will help them find a space in the church that they can be comfortable and faithful in. 

keep smiling until then

We said hasta la vista to my sister tonight.  She's headed off on her mission for the next eighteen months, and we will miss her something fierce.  She's the first missionary out of all my sisters and me, partly because she's the first one to have the juevos to do it.  She made enough money to pay for her whole mission by selling cinnamon rolls every summer for the last nine years.  She came out of the womb just plain better than most people, and I am proud to know her. 

I can't show you any of the pictures with me in them, because I looked vomitrocious tonight.  But believe me, I was there.  Right before we went to the airport we stopped at the Rancho Market, which is a glorious wonderland of Mexican groceries, and we bought some stale chicharrones, a chocolate concha, and a weird ball-shaped thing covered in butter and sugar and filled with some kind of goop.   

 

We saw those guys who got flash-mob engaged in Home Depot last week and wondered if they were heading somewhere to get married.  I just want to make sure you all know that I disapprove of flash mobs to the utmost.  It seems like everyone in the video is part of the flash mob, so I'm wondering, who are they performing this for?  The only one that does not earn my undying ire (by which I mean it makes me cry) is that one where they play Peer Gynt on the train. 

 

Justine and Cannon brought cookies from Paradise Bakery, which were delicious.  Everybody took one, and there was just an oatmeal raisin one left, and someone asked, "Does anyone like oatmeal raisin?" and I pointed to my mom, and she said, "Oh, I thought everyone liked oatmeal raisin."  No, mom.  Just you.  Because oatmeal raisin is the worst cookie.  Can you even think of a cookie worse than oatmeal raisin?  A real cookie, not something made up like a barf cookie with poop frosting?  I don't think I can. 

we both found what we were looking for

Ugh, what is up with teenagers wanting to stay up all night?  It's a real problem.  Grant is really settling into the traces of his messed up teenage circadian rhythms and that in turn is going to mess up MY circadian rhythms, because mommy needs a certain amount of awake time after her children go to sleep to restore her sanity.  When else am I going to watch Bob's Burgers except during the day when they're all at school? 

John and I were going to have to sing at what we were fondly referring to as a Troubled Marriage Retreat, but we've been pardoned.  Pity, because we were going to rock on "Ben," the Michael Jackson song about that rat who eats people.  Kidding!  Or am I?  Now you'll never know, because the event was cancelled.  But I'll say this:  our rat costume, that John and I bought for private reasons, was going to come in super handy. 

All the children are playing sports and musical instruments of one kind or another.  They all enjoy school.  Neon is back in a big way, so they all hurt my eyes when they get dressed in the morning.