I leave it to you to guess which pieces she insisted on and which pieces Mom gently persuaded her into.

I plan to assert myself when it actually snows, though. She WILL wear socks with those flipflops, if it’s the last thing I do.

Jane

p.s. Dick was thinking to himself this morning (early, as he leaves the house at 5:30) and he realized that the camera is an important part of my blogging, and that since he’s missed seeing pictures in my last few posts, he would have one more look-see in the cushions of the couch for the missing camera (last seen the night I cut my hair). I’d told him it had to be in the couch, but apparently we hadn’t delved far enough into the couch’s innards over the weekend. So Dick went couch-diving this morning, which is much too similar to dumpster-diving at this house, and he FOUND THE CAMERA. So here is a picture post just for you, Dick. Thank you for taking the time this morning to use your Daddy eyes.

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

I’m not talking about the obvious (and unfortunately ineffectual) abuse that’s so embarrassing at the Walmart. You know, the parents who whack their kids while shouting, “Stop hitting your sister” or “I told you not to use the #@%& word, @#%$-it!” And I’m not talking about those who speak to anyone under the age of 10 as though they’re braindead, either. Because let’s face it, my children are often in a sugar-/TV-/breathing- induced coma reminiscent of brain-dead-ism.

And I’m not even talking about people who treat their friends’ or strangers’ kids differently than their own. Those conscientious parents who’ll go out of their way to answer a question or offer condolence to someone else’s kid while their own flesh and blood howls for a half-hearted nod of acknowledgement. (I do this one ALL THE TIME.)

No, those are all posts for another time.

I’m talking about how we handle kid-sized interruptions when we’re lucky enough to be engaged in witty bantering and sparkling repartee with another actual adult human (where witty bantering and sparkling repartee too often equal hammering out the logistics of our next playdate).

What do you do when little Addison/Aidan interrupts a real conversation?

Do you immediately stop your selfish adults-only talk and turn your body so you’re open to your child and generally treat her as though the President-elect himself has asked for a minute of your time?

Or do you swat them aside vaguely, pretending you can’t really hear that screeching coming from the hordes now writhing on the floor?

Too much or too little? What do you think?

1) Children should be seen and not heard

2) Children are my reason for B.E.I.N.G.

3) What Children?

Jane

Comment of the day from Paula:

I think the best way to handle this is to give your attention to the child long enough to take care of anything truly urgent, or to remind them not to interrupt and promise they will have your full attention in a few moments. Then don’t forget to give them your attention at the appropriate time. I’m not in the “children should mold their lives around the expectations/needs of adults” camp, but age-appropriate expectations of politeness are in line.

That being said, most of the time my kids have to be pretty persistent in trying to get my attention before I even notice they are there, LOL.

In case you think I sound like I’m twelve years old, the following video should remove all doubt. And also provide some clues as to why our home life is just one big, shiny rainbow.

decorating birthday cake from jane on Vimeo.

But last week she was positively loquacious on the subject of what she would be missing if we were late. (I don’t know where she gets this compulsion to be on time for things).

If we were late, she’d miss DOL and weather and calendar and jobs. Jobs is especially important, because everyone has a job to do to make the classroom work, and it changes every day.

What kind of jobs? I asked (because I’m an interested parent).  Sally said the jobs are like messenger, eraser, line leader, Yurelli’s Buddy, librarian, lunch count. I asked which was her favorite (because I’m also an involved parent). And then I said, Wait. What’s Yurelli’s Buddy?

Well, she said, Yurelli doesn’t speak English, so if you’re her buddy then you sit by her all day and explain everything to her and if you get your work done early, you can take her around the classroom and point things out to her. Miss Thompson put labels on the “door” and “cabinet” and “rug,” and you can teach Yurelli how to say those things.

But you don’t speak Spanish, I said. How do you explain things to her if you don’t speak Spanish and she doesn’t speak English?

Sally couldn’t really explain how this language exchange works, and apparently Yurelli is still struggling with English, but the kids in the class like getting the Yurelli’s Buddy assignment, and Sally likes it when Eurelli plays with her posse on the playground.

Probably the whole class should be learning Spanish (and German and French and Chinese). And maybe Yurelli should be in a special bilingual program that celebrates her unique heritage, blah blah blah, but I think it’s kind of cool that Yurelli gets a new buddy every day and that the kids enjoy touring around the classroom with her.

If we ever move to Italy or Argentina or Tasmania, I imagine there would be tons of kids lining up to be Sally’s Buddy, if only so she can teach them how to draw a pegicornasus.

Jane

No mixed feelings about moving, here.

Jane

Happy Wordless Wednesday!

A few years ago, Angela from New York sent us the children’s book Hurry, Hurry, Mary Dear by N. M. Bodecker and Eric Blegvad. It’s a poem about a woman in New England who has chores galore before winter comes. “Stack the stove wood, string the beans, up the storms and down the screens.” Round and round and in and out she whirls, while Hubs lolls in bed and then waits for his tea in his rocking chair.

Dick isn’t that bad, we live in an apartment, and if ignoring your children were an Olympic sport I’d be the Shawn Johnson of mothering. (Finally a gold in something!). So other than the adequately-helpful husband, easy access to mass-manufactured canned goods, and kids happy to watch movie after movie, my life is exactly the same as the under-appreciated, over-worked Mary Dear.

That’s my excuse for not blogging, anyway. Of course, probably you managed to find other means of entertainment in my absence (Just kidding! — of course you sat and moped while I slumped and Michael Phelps won yet another gold medal. I mean, after awhile, doesn’t all that winning and breaking world records and million dollar bonuses from Visa get just a bit . . . old?).

Have you noticed how many sports have four events or four strokes, or how much better baseball would be if there were only four innings? So I tried to think up four categories for my blogging break, but there’s a reason I’m not an Olympic athlete, despite doing my best to eat as close to 12,000 calories a day as possible. So I fell back on pros and cons:

Seven Pros and Cons of the Blogging Break

(1) Pro: Fun Outings with the kids (pools, dinosaur museums, parks)

Con: Since Susan (turning 4 in October) will not start kindergarten for 734 days, there are more pools, dinosaur museums, parks and McDonald play places in my immediate future than June Cleaver ever imagined.

(2) Pro: All this swimming = best tan of my life.

Con: All this no-routine-in-general, not-going-to-the gym-in-specific = flabbiest stomach since Spot vacated the premises.

(3) Pro: Gorgeous Utah weather — it’s getting chilly after dark now, and we’ve been stopping at parks on our way home.

Con: That’s on our way home from seeing every single (cheap) house, townhome, and condo in a thirty-mile radius. Apparently we are poor, picky, poor, and soon-to-be homeless.

(4) Pro: Quality reading time.

Con: Spending the better part of two days reading Breaking Dawn = “quality” might be a stretch. (That’s nothing time-wasting-wise though — I read Scarlett, arguably the worst book ever, in 18 hours straight).

(5) Pro: More time for “real life.”

Con: The house is still a mess anyway. “Real life” should not include “clean house.”

(6) Pro: Time with good friends from high school and my sister.

Con: Real-life problems like complicated pregnancies and lousy husbands are much harder to cope with that quirky servers and mean Stumblers and feelings of raging blogging-inadequacy.

(7) Pro: If you don’t post, turning on the computer is much less “what-if-no-one-commented-on-my-last-post” angst-ridden.

Con: If you don’t post, getting fewer comments is almost for sure. (Although I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the emails, tweets, and IRL comments; my acknowledgments page is all ready in case I ever write anything real).

If you wrote a great post while I’ve been gone, let me know. I hate it when people say that. Duh, all my posts are great, and if you weren’t such a loser, you’d know that and whenever you come back from a break you’d be camped out at my blog catching up. Right? Well, let me know if I missed your epic/ramble/etc. I’ll stumble it for you! Seriously. Unless you’d rather I didn’t, in which case tell me why, ’cause I’m planning a post on Adventures in Stumbling.

We’re going to my dad’s family’s reunion tonight; back late Thursday. Had to promise Dick I’d do all the laundry this week in exchange for him getting to go on the funnest camping trip ever with the coolest people ever. ! So if you send me a post url after 3 pm today, I’ll stumble it early Friday. I’d really like to read your post, stumble it, and then get some feedback from you as to what sort of response/traffic you get from the experience. Like a focus group, only better.

I’m not ready for another kid, and so I talked it over with my good friend Tara, because open communication is important in any marriage. One reason I’m reluctant is that I feel extremely lucky to have three perfectly healthy kids. Why push it? Do you know how many things can go wrong? The odds on having four normal kids seem almost astronomical.

Here’s my baby, Spot. Not such a baby anymore. We first noticed something ‘off’ with her eyes at six months. She’d outgrown the usual newborn cross-eyedness, but her right eye was often not tracking with the left. We hoped she’d outgrow that, along with those strange grunting noises and the diaper-wetting.

At nine months I took her to a pediatric ophthalmologist who couldn’t get her to do her eye trick. Like a recalcitrant car that insists on running smoothly the second you take it into the shop. The cross-eye doctor said her eye muscles were all equally developed and that it was probably just a baby thing that would resolve itself. Don’t you love doctor-speak?

Dick thought we should get her a patch, but I couldn’t imagine her keeping it on. Plus, the doctor hadn’t actually recommended the pirate look.

So now she’s 21 months old, and the mysterious eye thing is not resolved. It comes and goes and I call her cross-eyed baby sometimes. Today we saw a different pediatric ophthalmologist. It took his assistant approximately 46 seconds to diagnose Duane Syndrome. Okay. Can we not call things “syndromes” unless they’re seriously life-changing/threatening/coma-inducing? Also, could we not name syndromes after your beer-drinking uncle who likes to watch NASCAR?

Avoidance? Huh? Anyway, Duane Syndrome means that in the 6th week of pregnancy, her 6th cranial nerve didn’t hook up with the 6th eye muscle that it’s supposed to control. Her left eye cannot turn out past the midline. It’s completely untreatable and means (to Dick) that she will never be great at basketball and (to me) that she will never be a fighter pilot.

To Tara, it’s a good reason to have a fourth kid because, as she pointed out, we no longer have three perfectly normal children anyway.

On the one hand (more like ninety-nine out of a hundred hands), I’m grateful beyond expressing that it’s not something worse. Spot has the most common, least complicated type (I) of Duane Syndrome, and she seems to be compensating well for it. DS is more common in girls than boys (3:2) and not hereditary and usually doesn’t affect quality of life.

Unless you wanted to be a fighter pilot.

When do you tell your kids that they can’t become something when they grow up? Do you ever tell them? Do you take your son aside and tell him he’s tone deaf before he tries out for American Idol? Do you tell your daughter that the tallest ballerinas are only 5’7″ and that since she’ll most likely grow to 5’10″, she might want to pick a different dream?

When do I tell Spot she can’t be a fighter pilot?

So I was talking to my friend who taught fourth grade. She has read practically every YA book, and especially every single fantasy-type book. This is my friend Tracey who, with our friend Melinda, I used to sit around on Friday nights reading books in high school. You know, when we weren’t out being extremely sought-after at parties.

Tracey loves Harry Potter — I think she said book five is her favorite, but the whole series is smashing! And I bragged casually mentioned how my soon-to-be second grader (Sally) was almost done with that one.

Oh, but with book six and seven, she said, you can definitely tell they’re not for kids anymore. Because the characters are growing up, they start swearing some, and Harry isn’t even really going to school, he’s fighting the bad guy, so it’s pretty scary.

Sally just showed me on the dust jacket of The Half-Blood Prince: “Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love,” hand over her mouth, smirking and rolling of eyes. So it seems Tracey was right about the kissing, too.

What to do? I know this is only the first in a long line of books, movies, songs, clothes, etc that I’m going to have to allow or disallow. Clothes are easy. They’re modest or they’re not. Music is harder because I like a few songs that have questionable lyrics (but really good melodies!). Movies are pretty easy so far, even though Dick periodically tries to convince me that Sally can watch a a PG-13 movie with him. (She can’t. I’m in charge. The End.)

But books? What if my mom had not allowed me to read Wuthering Heights or Phantom of the Opera at 12? It wasn’t until a month ago that I watched the Gerard Butler Phantom and realized he was old enough to be Christine’s father, and just how disturbing that is. And Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged at 13? (though anyone who can get through John Galt’s speechifying deserves a few romantic encounters).

Compared to what most kids see on TV, this probably seems like a really silly question. But, my kids aren’t most kids.

The best answer, dang it, is for me to read the books first, right? Please don’t say that. How about I watch the movies? Is the last movie coming out soon?

What would you do? Have you read books six and seven? Have your kids? Will they give Sally nightmares or scar her for life?

Did you wash your hands?

No spitting!

WHY are you taking off your shirt?

Blow. With your nose.

Put your shoes back on!

When’s your father going to be home?

Just eat it!

No!

This is the LAST book!

WHERE did you learn that?

Life ISN’T fair.

I’m sorry you feel that way. I could never never hate you.

Don’t throw that!

Do you WANT to spend all day in time-out?

You can have dessert AFTER you eat your dinner.

Stop!

Quit stabbing your sister with the toothbrush!

Who wants to play Sorry!?

No biting!

I saw that!

Get back in bed. Lay down. Close your eyes.

No more snacks! We’ll eat tons tomorrow.

—

And, when you can’t hear me:

What is WRONG with you? / Where did I go wrong?

It’s lucky you’re adorable and sweet-smelling after a bath. Because. Otherwise?

—

And, when you’re sleeping, and you really can’t hear me:

I could watch you for hours, and not even feel silly for crying about how inconceivably, stupendously, over-every-top-there-ever-was much I love you.

Oh, did I forget to say that when you were awake? Sorry.

I love you!

This weekend’s Things That Must Go features a $50 Giveaway from Hanes! (More Underwear + Socks = Less Frequent Laundry Loads!). Go share your Things That Must Go to enter the contest.

Sorry about the background. I must have been asleep during film-making school.

I fed Spot and Susan leftover macaroni and cheese after church. I was at the computer (which I rarely am on weekends), suffering from a little post-traumatic stress disorder. Not to belittle those who get PSD from war: sometimes, church IS war. Spot ate most of her noodles and then found some cereal from breakfast. Probably Sally’s bowl, because Bunny is still perched vigilantly.

Wordless Wednesday

The good news is that Warm Biscuit is sponsoring this weekend’s Things That Must Go Giveaway by offering a $50 gift certificate.

It’s a good thing I don’t like to shop or sigh over cute stuff when I’m already over-budget for the month year, because I haven’t had this much fun browsing through an online store since I discovered Pottery Barn Kids. Warm Biscuit is just as fun and homey-elegant as PBK, and, well, their prices are more reasonable.

Warm Biscuit’s got lots of fun summer gadgets to entertain the kids, in addition to their regular cute, vintage bedding, curtains, furniture, jewelry, and more. They are all about encouraging kids to use their imaginations rather than rely on the demon electronics.

Here in Utah we’ve got “ox elder” bugs, as Susan calls them. Sally and Susan walk through the living room at least once a day with their hands cupped tightly over a glass, to release some insect outside our apartment. (Maybe if they stopped snacking in their room there wouldn’t be so much wildlife indoors?) Think how much more fun their mission of mercy would be with this stylish bug catcher. 

If you’re really brave, or want to get back at a friend with kids, consider the drum set.

And if your husband happened to get you, say, a carpet steam cleaner for Mother’s Day (again, and I love it! Honey!), Warm Biscuit has gifts just for mom, like this beautiful personalized bracelet (do I sound like Vanna White, or is it just me?) But really? I would totally wear this:

 
To be eligible to win the $50 gift certificate, simply leave a comment about your Things That Must Go. Deadline is Sunday at 10 pm, and I’ll announce a winner (and any other spectacular entries) on Monday. Warm Biscuit also has free shipping on any order over $45 right now (enter the code: wbblogging4148). 

My Things That Must Go

The bad news is I can think of about seven Things That Must Go. But a few of them are rather unmentionable. I’d say this period that is worse than any period I’ve had in thirteen years must go, but I don’t want to alienate my three male readers (Hi guys! Sorry!).

I’d also say that men with tongue piercings must go, but really, if I can’t see yours, then it’s fine. It’s when you’re walking across the street and sticking your tongue out to play with it that I have a problem.

My real Things That Must Go are:

1) People who say things like, “I’m really not happy unless I’m always learning something new.” Right. If I’m not studyin’ up on them esoteric Chinese horticultures, I’m just sick. Sick.

2) Taking life too seriously. A friend sent me a link to the hilarious blog Seriously, So Blessed. The best satire is that which almost sounds like it’s for real, like Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Seriously, So Blessed isn’t quite believable (although some of the commenters have been fooled), but if you’ve got a couple minutes to kill, head over for some laughs. Only, don’t forget to come back and share your Things That Must Go!

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These things include listening to classical music, buying a new hardbound book (the kind with the thick, carefully-but-unevenly-cut pages), and sharing a Happy Meal with my kids as we grocery shop. Like a pedicure for the soul, these things make me feel pampered and indulged.

Another thing that makes me feel spectacularly spoiled, especially after having lived in Egypt, is taking my kids to the pediatric dentist. That all this equipment and education and attention is lavished on the teeth of my little ones overwhelms me.

Sally has been going regularly to the dentist since she was four. The ADA is recommending kids go as early as two-years old, but I think they just want to make more money. As long as everything looks good to the pediatrician, and you are a conscientious mom, serving the flouridated tap water and ensuring brushing and flossing on a monthly basis (kidding — at least weekly!), I think four is a good age to visit the dentist for the first time.

We started this summer off right — with a 6-month 9-month cleaning and checkup for Sally, and a first-ever visit for Susan. I made a couple of mistakes, and did a few things right, and naturally, as I sat in the waiting room, I thought, This would be a great Works-for-Me Wednesday topic, plus, hopefully I’ll remember to re-read it when it’s time for Spot’s first visit.

Tips For Making a First Dental Visit a Success

1) Start the Brainwashing Early. If you can train your three-year old to cry “Mommy, I’m not safe!” when you forget to buckle her seatbelt, you can convince her that going to the dentist is better than Disneyland, and that it will help her to be “just like Sally.”

2) Write Down the Appointment. On a calendar in case your computer breaks, and on the computer in case your calendar gets drowned in the kitchen sink. If you somehow manage to forget entirely the day, time, or in fact the name or phone number of the dentist, start calling possible dentists early on the first day of Summer. You might get lucky and call the right one exactly one hour before the appointment.

3) Practice Some Useful Phrases. For example: “I like to brush my teeth in the morning, but Mommy helps me at night.” “Daddy lets me use his flossers if I’m a good girl.” “We never eat suckers or fruit snack or sugar of any kind at home, Mr. Dentist.”

4) Do Not Let Your Daughter Wear A Dress That Comes To Her Knees. When she lies on the dentist chair, it will ride up and show her panties no matter what you do. I guess there are worse things in life, but I spend way too much of my time fretting over panties showing.

5) Brush Your Kids’ Teeth Right Before the Appointment. Right.

Actually, considering how cavalier I am about teeth hygiene, it’s a miracle the kids are still cavity-free. Right before I got married (when I was still on my parent’s insurance), I had 16 cavities. Had to go back twice to get each side of my mouth done. I’m still a flossing-slacker. Dick must have some good teeth genes.

I love a good pediatric dentist. The best part is having the dentist tell your kids they need to brush and floss. Somehow it sounds a lot more serious coming from someone who wields instruments of oral torture. But there are a few other things to look for in a pediatric dental practice:

Things to Look for in a Pediatric Dental Practice

1) TV Screens on the Ceiling, with a good selection of movies.

2) Goody bags to take home. Probably not with actual candy in them.

3) Fun prizes to take home. Not to be confused with the oral hygiene goody bag, which should include a toothbrush of their choice and toothpaste/floss samples. The fun prize should be something they can choose out of a good Dollar Store range of toys. Susan chose Trick Gum, and after we finally convinced her it wasn’t real gum, she loved ‘getting’ Mom with the cockroach that snapped out each time.

4) A Bathroom Close to the Exam Rooms. Something about all that swishing and drilling makes kids have to pee. Trust me.

5) Like, um Credentials, or something (you can check the ADA). Oh, and hygienists and dentists who actually know how to talk to kids.

In case it’s going to be awhile before you get to the dentist (and to jog my own memory), here are a few tips the dentist gave us:

Mean Rules That Help Your Teeth

1) Limit the Juice and Chocolate Milk. I ask you: Limit the MILK? Apparently chocolate milk has lots of sugar (NO!) and ruins regular milk for kids. But I asked, and the occasional treat chocolate milk is okay. It’s just bad if you buy it for your refrigerator. Because your refrigerator has feelings, too.

2) Until kids are eight or nine, Mom or Dad should take a turn at the evening brushing/flossing. Kids can handle the morning one on their own.

3) Nah, that’s all I got. How about you?

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This weekend’s Things That Must Go Giveaway is for a $50 gift certificate to a cool online store.

Mama Bear, on the other hand, is shown as the fount of all wisdom and motherly goodness, which I have no problem with, in theory. But her Politeness Plan goes against everything learned from behavior modification studies, being a system of punishments for bad manners with no reward for good manners. (Good manners are their own reward.)

So it’s no surprise that a sound Theory of Teaching Manners is based not on the parental units, but on the actions of Brother and Sister Bear, who scheme to subvert the Politeness Plan by being overly polite, hoping this will irritate Mama into scrapping it altogether. Instead, as Brother and Sister enjoy the happier, sunnier, all-around celestial harmony that is greater politeness, they gradually forget to be overly polite, and, of course, the over-politeness never bothered Mama in the first place.

Game Plan: Overly Polite

It’s really quite easy to teach manners. Simply model good language. For example:

“Please, Sally dearest, say May I have a glass of milk, Mommy dearest? or you won’t get anything to drink all day.”

or

“Please, Susan dearest, put your freakin’ boots in the closet right this second or I’m throwing them away.”

or

“Please, Spot dearest, sit your tookey down before I come whack it so hard.”

Simple.

Take it to the Next Level: Thank You

After you’ve taught your kids to say “please, xxxx dearest,” you’re ready to move on to possibly the most important phrase in any language: Thank you. Learning and using “thank you” in a foreign country is the best thing you can do to promote cross-cultural understanding and world peace. That and “I’m sorry”/”Excuse me”/”I’m just a clumsy tourist; please don’t judge all Americans by my cluelessness.” In Japan, for example, we used “sumimasen” liberally, to great effect.

Imitation: the Easiest Form of Parental Abuse

The Overly Polite Politeness Plan is highly effective. Sally, Susan, and Spot now often say “Please, Mommy dearest.” However, we’re still working on the “Thank you, Mommy dearest.” Here’s how it comes out as of today:

Sally (7): “Thank you, Mommy dearest” (snark, smirk, eye roll).

Susan (3): “Gank you, Mommy dearest” (sweet smile, syrupy singsong).

Spot (1): “dat do” (get the video camera: SPOT CAN TALK!).

Teaching manners by the book is what works for me this week. Head over to Shannon’s for the most amazing list of every tip you ever needed, and many you never could have imagined.

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Ireland

Yesterday we joined my family’s yearly Memorial Day camping pilgrimage. We used to go every year to the cemetery where Aunt Jodi and Uncle Kurt are buried. I’m sure my grandparents and Mom went today. We had insane temper-tantrum kids this morning; sometimes all you can do is strap them in their carseats and turn the radio up really loud. And think to yourself, as you pass the turnoff to the cemetery, that Aunt Jodi would understand, and we’ll try to make it next year.

Washington State

As we drove up the canyon, I kept nagging imploring Dick to look out the window. I pointed out the green fields, and those mountains that are brown ninety percent of the year. I love it when you can see seven different shades of green, from sage to myrtle. Dick said (smug, impatient voice) “I grew up in Washington State. This is nothing. This is crappy.” (I might be exaggerating a tiny bit). So, we are not in Ireland, or even Washington State, but right now, this is as beautiful as Utah ever gets. Enjoy it.

Utah

Top 10 Reasons to Live in Utah

10. Fry Sauce. I heard someone ask a new transplant if they’d gotten “used to” fry sauce yet. What? “Used to”? Fry sauce is to French Fries as hot fudge sauce is to vanilla ice cream. Start with ketchup or barbecue sauce, then throw in some mayo and maybe go wild with a drop or two of liquid smoke (only on the ketchup-based one, I’d think). Or I could send you Some Dude’s Fry Sauce.

9. Caffeine-free Mountain Dew (C-F MD). I was extolling the virtues of C-F MD to a new transplant (see above) and other Utahns chimed in to say, “What’s the point of that?” Which is a valid concern. Mountain Dew is glorious for its efficient caffeine-delivery system. Yet there are times (late at night, say), when a caffeine-free version is preferable. Oh, said my new friends, That’s what beer is for. But since A) beer is not an option for me and B) I don’t believe you get a sugar high from beer, I just don’t think it would be the same.

8. Dooce. Everyday trips to the grocery store for edamame are exponentially enlivened by the possibility of running into a mom who, though she acts as though having one kid is as hard as having a million, or, say, three, gets that letting your daughter watch Cinderella seven times in a row is completely healthy. (I have no idea what Edamame is).

7. Grandparental babysitters. So Dick and I can go enjoy nature.

Taken just last week 10 years ago.

6. Young-skewing population growth. I could probably have a playdate every single day for my girls, if I were so masochistically-inclined.

5. Utah Geek Bloggers group. There were probably geeks and/or bloggers in the other places we lived, but I didn’t meet them, and I doubt any of them could be any nicer than those we’ve met here. Laura Moncur is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, but that’s another story. I love talking with blogger people, even if they are “getting used” to fry sauce and think that beer could ever substitute for Mountain Dew.

4. Speaking of beer, Rootbeer on tap almost everywhere. If I ever won the lottery, I’d have a soda fountain installed in my family room with Coke — Mountain Dew — Cranberry Ginger Ale — Mug Rootbeer — Sprite (for the kids) — Caffeine-Free Mountain Dew — Apple Slice — Code Red Mountain Dew — Squirt. Not that I like carbonated beverages or anything. Do you know what a can of Coke can do to a rusty nail in four seconds?

3. Grandparents who like to babysit.

2. National Parks and Monuments. Sure, the Great Salt Lake may be pretty shallow, and salty, but Utah is gorgeous. I went on a week-long survival trip to Southern Utah as a senior in high school. I don’t know that it changed my life, but I’d spend time in Escalante National Monument any day.

Calf Creek

1. It’s where some of our dead are buried, even if our living childrens sometime prevent us from visiting them or otherwise living normal lives.

It’s fortunate that we have found something even better than seatbelts for containment.

—

I’ve linked this to We are THAT Family’s ‘Fro me to you. Thought my Snow White/Superman photo was humiliating enough to qualify!

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I don’t always love books and my kids at the same time, especially if it involves reading the same book to the same kid over and over. Susan and Spot’s favorite lately? Susan calls it the toilet book; you may know it as Love You Forever.

If I have to sing-sing I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always; as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be one more time . . .

Now that I think about it, that book should probably be banned for the guerilla tactics it promotes. Though I do love the section on teenagers: they have strange friends, strange clothes, and listen to strange music.

Spot brought me the toilet book today as I hid out elegantly reclined in my bedroom boudoir. Her sleeves were soaked, and had been for a while. Her arms were chilled and her nose was runny.

I stripped her and tucked her up with me and submitted to the usual enquiring fingers.

Translation: poke in the eye=I’m so happy to see you; fingers in the mouth=I love you. Maybe there’s something to this baby sign language after all.

Then I wondered how she’d gotten wet. Sally’s in charge when mom abdicates, and she had no idea.

Then I saw the toilet bowl, smirking at me from the bathroom.

And I thought Susan’s lipstick incident this morning was bad:

I think the Terracotta Rose Bronze Shimmer shade goes especially well with the green snot.

Dick came home and folded the laundry that has been slouching towards the ceiling for days. And set the table, without being asked. The remains of our dinner are still sitting there, near the sink full of dishes, like sullen reminders of behinded-ness.

He did put the kids to bed, saving me at least one reading of that toilet book. I’ve spent the time well, composing a Valentine’s ode to my sweetheart, exactly ten years after our first date.

I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you when you remember to take out the trash; as long as I’m living, my baby, honey, sweetheart, lover, partner, companion, joy, friend, second self you’ll be.

__________

I’ve entered this post in Scribbit’s (A blog about motherhood in Alaska) Write-Away contest. I’m trying to think when’s the last time I entered a writing contest. Oh, I remember. BYU, Founder’s Day contest. Dick got second place or something and we went to a nice award dinner. The judges misplaced or misunderstood my entry, I think. Ah well, ’tis the burden of genuis to be misunderstood, right? Preemptively I-didn’t-want-to-win-anyway much?

You should enter too! First prize is an Alaskan cruise. I wish.