teach Susan a reading lesson.

go to Sally’s school to record her presentation.

listen intently to Tom talk about work for more than three minutes.

make bread, yogurt, and strawberry jam in the same day.

write a post.

read a book.

go for my walk.

Your turn: “I feel super accomplished when I . . . “

Four days later I was making my bed upstairs, listening to the girls in the backyard through the open window. Their happy squeals as they jumped on the trampoline turned to tears (on Spot’s part) and protestations of innocence (on Susan’s part) and then I heard the sliding glass door open and close, rushed sobbing across the living room and up the stairs, and then she was in my arms, choking out a moving tale of bonked heads and owwie faces. Her eyes were streaming with tears, and so was her nose.

A smallish pink button slid right out on a trail of snot, and I was cheered in the midst of sorrow.

—–

We’re born loving stories. When I was a kid we couldn’t watch regular tv or movies on Sunday, so we watched old home videos, windy tapes my dad took while driving down the highway in Okinawa during his six-month tour there, windy tapes of us at the Oakland temple with the Meyers, windy tapes of me singing into Grandma Belle’s four-footed cane. When I got older we watched the Hank movie over and over, with Mom doing her wheeze-laugh that she can’t stop and Marcy and Brad discovering they’re not meant for the Actor’s Studio, and me yelling at Ryan (and Mom) to please take it more seriously, I have to reply to my prom invitation sometime this year. Two of my good friends are on that tape too, but then they were almost part of the family.

I read blogs for the stories, I watch movies for the stories, and I read my favorite books over and over for the stories. In Dead Poet’s Society (I don’t know if I’d remember this, but someone printed it out and put it with the New Eras from 1987 in the downstairs bathroom reading material at my mom’s house), Professor Keating says (insert “stories” for “poetry”):

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?

We need stories like we need water, food, and shelter. More than we need clothes. Except in winter, maybe.

—–

The Timpanogos Storytelling Festival is this weekend. Actually it starts on September 3rd (Thursday). It’s my first festival and I can’t wait. Mr. Bennet and I are getting a babysitter, and we’re going to get inspired and moved and motivated and filled up on stories. I know about it this year (their 20th anniversary) because I went to an event put on by Cherish Bound a few months ago. It was a fabulous evening, and if you ever have a chance to hear Wendy Gourley tell a story, it’s worth a missed appointment with George Clooney. (Okay, maybe not really George Clooney, but Wendy is such a storyteller that maybe she’ll be my answer when people ask, “Who would you love to have dinner with someday?”)

Cherish Bound gave us gift certificates to make story books. I was excited, because I’ve wanted to make a book out of my family-centered blog posts ever since Tara did a blurb book. But I’ll be honest with you: you need more patience than I have to get their software to work for you, but that probably says more about me than it does about Cherish Bound, because I am not known for my computer-related patience. (Please ignore Sally piping up that I’m not patient about other things too.)

I love the idea behind Cherish Bound — that creating, preserving, publishing our stories is of utmost importance. Amen. That whole “picture is worth a thousand words” has always bothered me just a little because I’m a slightly more competent storyteller than photographer, and usually I feel like if I could only express it right, my words should be able to say more than a photo, especially if I’m recording that Susan refers to a recent trip I took as “when you went to San Francisco to get our presents.” How do you get that certainty of center-of-the-universe-ness in a photograph?

—–

Moral of the story: Go to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival if you’re in Utah, write and create your personal stories (for yourself, your children, and you country), and never assume a child doesn’t know what she’s talking about if she comes to you with a tale of a button up her nose.

Would she smile for our family picture? No, she would not.

Love in the (Sunday) Afternoon

And Dick is sleeping with someone new.

Sorry! Did my flashing wake you up?

Guess I need to learn some new tricks.

Twice a year, at Christmas and for birthdays, Aunty Liz sends cute clothes to Sally, Susan, and Spot. It’s like a fashionable missionary barrel. (Remember those dresses Pollyanna was so happy with?)

The fashion shows that result reassure me that my girls are, above all, perfectly normal.

Jane

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Last night Sally wrote invitations and delivered them in the snow to two of her friends on our street. Her grandparents and aunts, uncle, and cousins were already coming over to help celebrate her birthday, but Sally is old enough to consider friends a party necessity. She also decorated the house, hanging up the banner she made at Grandma’s house with permanent markers on vinyl, and three limp ribbons taped to the inside of the front door.

Sally requested a strawberry-flavored butterfly cake, pigs-in-a-blanket, peas and corn, and fruit salad. I had to remind her a couple times to include her cousin in the big-girl giggling, but overall I’m confident that Sally is shaping up to be someone I’ll enjoy taking to chick flicks when she’s a few years older.

For eight years I’ve been lamenting the inability of my kids to keep drinks that you tip (regular cups, sippy cups, etc) and drinks that you keep vertical, er, straight. They tip the straw drinks as religiously as the non-straw drinks, and that makes my laundry-burdened self sad.

Then I heard Chrysanthemum reminding her kids (ages 2 and 4) to keep their drinks “On your tummy” (or “belly,” I can’t actually remember how anatomically correct she was).

And it works. Probably works better the younger you start training ‘em, but telling your kids to keep their straw drinks “on your belly” works for me.

I'd never REALLY let Spot drink my Mountain Dew. She might backwash.

Jane

Susan blames this on Spot, but then she has a history of fingering Spot for things for which Spot has an unassailable alibi.

Who am I kidding, there's no probably about it: Spot has a bright future as a manicurist.

Spot came to me early in the morning a few weeks ago, crying that she needed a new diaper: “New dah-per, Mommy, new dah-per.” I unzipped her and was assaulted by the smell of the poop that had escaped her diaper and onesie; it was all over inside her footie pajamas. I zipped her back up and carried her to our special hazardous waste containment room. (How I wish sometimes I had a room like that.)

I stripped her in the tub. She was wearing this same long-sleeved rainbow onesie, a onesie with lots of stretch but no snaps at the neckline. It was a hairy few moments, but finally she was all clean.

And I had material for a haiku about New Year’s Resolutions and new beginnings:

‘Poop in my hair,’ she
cries, ‘Mama, help!’ Kid, things can
only get better.

Jane

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

9:06 am

3:49 pm

Sally is now missing three of her teeth. That crooked incisor (eye-tooth?) on the right fell out the day after the top one. Sally’s teeth have a way of disappearing after they fall out. I’ll give her a ziploc bag with reminders to keep the tooth safe for the tooth fairy, but she can’t resist taking the tooth out to show Susan and Daddy and the mailman, and before bedtime, it’s gone. One tooth went down the drain at Grandma’s house.

Unfortunately the tooth fairy has a policy against reimbursing for missing teeth, even if there’s a hand-drawn picture of the tooth. Dick thinks the tooth fairy is pretty mean, but he also thinks we should take the special two-dollar bill out of my old scrapbook to put under her pillow. Sally asked me what the tooth fairy brings, and I said I had no idea. What does she think the tooth fairy should bring?

“More than 10,” she said. Cents? She thought a bit longer, “No, more than 20 cents.” I think the tooth fairy might be able to cover that, but I warned Sally that she has to be patient with the tooth fairy, who is a bit absent-minded and also forgetful.

Last night I found this taped to my pillow:

I think Sally has experience with absent-minded and also forgetful people.

We tried Pioneer Woman’s Cake Balls last week. Here’s Chrysanthemum’s son getting ready for some serious work with green sparkle gel frosting.

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Jane

The first thing we do is take the kids to our local Deseret Industries (like Salvation Army) and let them each choose one toy. The soft toys go in the washing machine, and the hard toys in the dishwasher. Then we wrap ‘em and surprise the kids on birthdays/Christmas/Saturday. They love the toys, and when they’ve tired of them in two weeks, it’s not devastating for anyone.

The other thing we do is let them choose a lesson, class, sport, or interest to pursue for a year or a month. Sally picks dance class every time, and Susan likes swimming. This kills about seven stones with one bird.

1) We want them to participate in enriching activities, but they can be expensive, so if they can count as a gift, Mom’s happy.

2) We want them to not be over-scheduled or over-pressured, so so far they only do one activity at a time. When I was a kid my parents chose my “have-to” activity (usually piano, ugh) and as long as I did my best at that, they paid for my “fun” activity (gymnastics, basketball, etc). We’ll probably do that when the girls are older than seven, but for now one at a time is enough.

And 3) I think it’s good for the kids to appreciate these activites and not take them for granted. Having them associated with a special occasion or milestone makes them more significant, and not just something we do as a matter of course.

I’m always looking for cheap meaningful and double-duty gifts. What works for you?

Jane

Jane

Happy WW!

Entering this in the Prego Fun with Food Contest.

No mixed feelings about moving, here.

Jane

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday.

I’m glad Sally is quite independent and knows how to read well. Otherwise I’d be concerned that she has both second and third graders in her classroom, and that her main teacher wears a lapel mic that makes it hard for her to hear the student-teacher when they are divided into their separate curriculums, which is often, because they are, after all, in different grades. Remind me again why I can’t imagine homeschooling? Oh right, because stultifying public school is better than a dead mommy. Right.

Sally said second grade was much harder than she expected because there was a lot of handwriting (not her strong point. Wonder where she gets that?). This morning (her second day), she said that she doesn’t like school because it doesn’t give her enough time to play with Susan and Spot. She just comes home and then Daddy comes home 15 minutes later, and then it’s bedtime. Except it’s 10:34 right now, and I hear her and Susan in their room whispering to each other.

Wordless Wednesday — I know, wasn’t wordless at all, but  . . . well. Hmmm.

I have hereditary itchy back. There’s this one spot, right in the middle middle, where normally your bra strap fastens, if you were to wear a bra on a regular basis. I know this itch is hereditary because I’ve seen both my mom and my dad walk over to a corner or door jamb, back up to the protruding part and shift side-to-side. Sometimes this is really discreet, and other times vaguely strip-club-ish. Not that I’d know anything about that, except what was on the House season finale.

Tara was so impressed that I’d post a picture of my bum on the internet, I thought I’d show you how I look in a swimsuit. At first I was upset about the mud, but then Sally started rubbing it into that one spot in the middle middle, and all I can say is that Dick was a happy man that night.

Because he didn’t have to spend 10 minutes scratching my back.

.

Spot’s concentrating on the pour, Sally’s pondering the nature of the hydrogen bonds that keep it all together. And Susan? She knows there’s a camera trained on her.

I’m entering this in 5 Minutes for Mom’s Summer Fun Photo Contest. Wish I could enter seven thousand more. Dick got a call from a modeling agency the other day. We have no idea how they got his name or number, or why they thought he’d be interested in that (or, um . . . suited for modeling). He asked if they meant they were interested in his kids, but there was no mistake — they wanted him. Probably to pay a bunch of money for headshots or something. Like we’re dumb enough to fall for that. But if someone said our kids could be models. Well. You could probably fool us into thinking you were serious.

Deadline on the Nora Roberts/Joan Wickersham giveaway is midnight Wednesday.

When I went away to college my parents heaved a big sigh of relief. Maybe now, they thought, our second child can find a spotlight. I don’t see Susan waiting till Sally’s gone to grab center stage, though (despite this picture), and if they gang up on Spot and dress her like a princess, it won’t be nearly as traumatizing as it was for my brother.

In a few years I’ll probably have to tell Sally what my dad once told me: Someday you’ll actually choose to spend time with your sisters instead of your friends. And maybe someday, though I hope not, someday you’ll wish you could give your sister a kidney, or a lung, or anything, if only you could do something to help.

Sally, Susan, and Spot: I’ve already given you the best thing a mother could ever give a daughter, and someday you’ll believe me.

Deadline on the Nora Roberts/Joan Wickersham giveaway is midnight Wednesday.

Wordless Wednesday