Snapshot of Life - March 7, 2007

5:30 - I wake up from a bad dream, the kind of dream you don't even want to talk about for fear it will come true. I concentrated on some better thoughts and fell back asleep.

7:00 - #3 comes in for a cup of milk. Thing is, though, we're out of milk, and we're out of juice, so he has nothing to bring me. Well, that's not entirely true - I stopped at the gas station last night after my photography class to buy a gallon of milk at typical gas station prices, but they were out of gallons so I bought a quart. It's just in an unrecognizable bottle, so #3 doesn't know it's milk. I don't know if I'd pour it in bed again anyhow since on Monday I was pouring a cup of apple juice without my glasses on and ended up pouring juice all over myself. I was planning on washing the sheets, duvet cover, pillow, and pajamas that day anyhow, so no loss. So I send #3 back downstairs for the cup of milk that is already poured and in the fridge.

7:15ish - He's back and won't leave me alone. I am totally wiped out and tell him to go wake up Dad, who wears earplugs to bed and won't be bothered like I am. #3 tries for a while and then leaves.

7:25 - Alarm clock goes off, snooze button goes on.

7:34 - Alarm clock goes off again, DH is awake too and convinces me to get out of bed too.

7:50 - Boy #1 leaves for school wearing shorts with a sweatshirt. He claims it is nice outside, just a little chilly, and I don't honestly care. It is supposed to be 54 degrees today, which after this cold winter, feels positively balmy. I want it to be spring as much as he does, and he's old enough that if he showed up in his pajamas no one would think it's my fault.

8-8:45 - I eat breakfast and then do some homework with Boy #2, who is in an excellent mood today. Very cooperative and gets all the work done that I ask him to without complaining.

8:45-9 - I shower, then DH takes #2 off to school and then takes the car to work. I don't have anywhere to go today and if I had the car, I'd probably just end up spending money. I do need to buy milk at some point, and my laptop keyboard is past the point of needing to be repaired. The J button fell off weeks ago, but that was okay because there was still this plastic nub underneath that made it useable. But #1 was playing a game on it the other morning and when I reclaimed my laptop the nub was ripped off. So the letter J takes some real effort to push down and I need to take the computer in to be fixed. It's almost easier to avoid using J-words, but we do a lot of jumping, juice drinking, and jeering and I want to be able to report on all of those things, just in case.

9-10 - DH has left me a "to do" list for the second day in a row, which I'm trying hard not to take badly. They are just work things that we have discussed that I knew I had to do and he was reminding me about it, which is fine, but somehow entitling it a "to do" list makes it sound like an assignment, and there's a certain level of pride that makes me not want to do it just for that reason. If it was entitled "Hey, would you mind doing these things?" or "just a reminder, here's that stuff we talked about yesterday" or something like that, more of a request or suggestion or helpful reminder, it'd be easier to take. Regardless, I do all of the things on the list in like 5 minutes, and I've spent way more time than that dwelling on it. Is there some cure for the disease of not taking orders well? How about not taking criticism or correction well? That hasn't happened today, but it's another thing that I have a hard time with, which I shouldn't.

I'm watching the Price is Right and there's this guy with the kind of hair that looks like it's been shaved into a pattern of some sort, very gang-ish I'd guess, but the guy squeals like a girl when he wins something. What a contradiction! Cracks me up. The squealer passed a showcase with a car to the other player and when his showcase had a trip to New Zealand, I swear, he sounded like he was a 13-year-old girl who just saw Brad Pitt (or whoever 13 year old's think are cute nowadays, for me it was Tom Cruise, in his pre-couch-jumping-scientology-depressed-mother-bashing-nose-job days). The squealer lost, by the way - trips to New Zealand must be more expensive than I thought, or maybe it was the lovely living room set. I always peg the furniture at about $5,000.

I try to take some pictures for my photography class, but either my camera can't do what he was teaching (like usual) or I've got to change something because it's not turning out. I'm going to try taking some outside pictures later, maybe they'll work better.

10 - My friend comes over to return my ipod wall charger which I lent her along with my ipod mini. She's still got the ipod but bought her own charger so I could keep using mine. Now that I've got a new ipod, I loaded my old one with a pile of audiobooks which otherwise I can't share, and have lent the ipod out to very responsible people who like audiobooks as much as I do. It kind of bugs me that if I bought an actual book I'd have no problem loaning it to a dozen people but for the same price I've got an audio book that I can't share even if I love it. And books are fun, but they are more fun when you've got someone to talk to about it. So that's the thing I came up with, lend the old ipod. The battery will only last for about 3 hours and won't hold a charge so your 3 hours starts from the time you unplug it. I figure that's kind of a deterrent from people keeping my ipod forever, no one really wants it that badly!

#3 has knocked my giant white board off the wall while banging on it with a marker, and now the nail hole is too big and won't hold the white board up. It's probably better this way, I've put it on the floor up against the wall so at least #3 doesn't have to stand on the faux leather spinning desk chair to try to draw. Although now that it is off the wall, I see all of the places around where the board used to be that are covered in marker. It's almost a border drawn in marker, as if to say, the white board goes here.

What started out as a cute thing #3 does has turned so annoying I can barely stand it. He says "please" in a really begging voice with his hands clasped as if he is on bended knee, asking for whatever it is he wants. The problem is, he doesn't take no for an answer, and keeps saying "please" over and over, whinier and whinier, until he is just about crying. And sometimes I don't know what it is he is asking for but once he gets into please mode he won't say anything else.

I watch some Alias and read some consumerist.com articles, write this blog entry, and basically waste time. Last night I looked at my planner and the whole day today was blank. As was most of the rest of the week, and the insert on which I write my weekly goals that are to be broken down into daily tasks. I'm pretty uninspired and unambitious right now, which totally depresses me. DH and I talked about it for a while last night and he was really good about reminding me that this isn't who I am, it's just because I'm pregnant and once that is over I bounce right back. Although this discussion is probably what made him think I could use a to-do list.

12:20-2 - A friend who is 19 weeks pregnant (I'm 27) calls and we commiserate about the woes of pregnancy, weight gain (I'm up to 40 pounds already, although she very nicely said that I don't look like I've gained that much at all - there's really no other response, though), maternity clothes, having another kid when you already feel like a rotten parent to the ones you've got, etc. It might sound like a depressing phone call but it actually made me feel better. It's one of those things that kills me - I feel rotten and don't want to interact with anyone, but the only thing that will make me feel better is interacting with someone. Thank goodness I have good friends.

Oh, she mentioned that I was a subject of discussion at last night's enrichment activity, which I missed because I was at my photography class. Earlier that evening was Mother/Son night for the boys' school at the skating rink. So of course we had to go, and when I got there I wanted to be a good mom and actually skate with them. Otherwise I may as well have dropped them off and waited in the car or something. Here's the problem, though, I haven't skated in years and it's not actually like riding a bike - it doesn't come back nearly as fast. So #2 and I got some skates on and stood up - he fell, stood up, fell, stood up, and fell, and said he didn't want to skate after all. This rink is cool because the kids can ride their scooters if they want to. But I still wanted to participate and I didn't think jogging alongside them counted. So I kept my skates on and grabbed Boy #1 and we started out around the rink.

I was pretty wobbly and frankly, not very good. About halfway around the rink I fell and caught myself with my left wrist, which I immediately knew was hurt somehow. My goodness, falling can really hurt! My kids do it all the time and they never seem to have a problem. So I decided that I wasn't cut out for this so much, and I took off my skates. Well, fortunately, about 6 ward members and various other PTA members that I know saw me fall. I got some sympathy from one mom, a friend of mine, who asked if I was okay, because of course everyone's big concern here is the fact that I am 6 months pregnant. I'm fine, I tell her, just embarrassed, and walk back to my seat, whereupon I was accosted by a woman, who is older than me, maybe mid-40's, who I would also consider a friend, but she totally read me the riot act. I wonder if I wasn't pregnant would people make me feel this bad, or stupid, for not being able to roller skate? It's not like I was doing it for fun, I was doing it to participate with my kids. Ended up that I just sat there while the boys skated, wishing I had brought a book since it was kind of too loud for my ipod. I've got a 2 inch by 1 inch bruise on my wrist but otherwise I'm fine. Maybe my stupid test from yesterday doesn't count towards practical applications.

2:30 - #1 is home and we need to work on some Cub scout stuff that he needs for today, a pedigree chart and family history story. So I have him call his grandparents to get the info, I figure they will be more accurate and also might enjoy hearing from him. I make the rounds of the internet again, and turn on Judge Judy at 3. At 3:30, the People's Court is interrupted by #3 walking downstairs with his stomach covered in peanut butter.


I wish I knew how to post a photo to this blog, because sometimes I think I need to prove that I'm not making my life up!

4-6 - #1 leaves for cubs and on the way out tells me I ought to go outside because there are lots of kids and parents out there. I send an email to my neighbor who has done my taxes for the last couple of years to see about doing them again. I head outside and sure enough, there are plenty of kids for #3 to play with and I sit with a neighbor and shoot the breeze for a couple of hours.

6-7 - DH comes home from work, of course there's no dinner ready because I've been out with friends for two hours, which I think he agrees is probably more important to me right now than cooking dinner. He eats a frozen dinner and #2 has a hot dog. We are totally out of milk at this point so I take a fairly grouchy #2 with me to Albertson's to pick up milk and whatever else I want. DH gives him a quarter for the candy machines and the grouchiness goes right out of him. I am hungry when I go shopping, which means that magically my cart ends up with a Kit Kat bar, some chocolate covered pretzels, and a pint of Ben & Jerry's. Apparently I'm in the mood for chocolate.

7 - DH is off to YM and #1 cooks himself a couple of frozen pot pies for dinner. I pop in a tape for American Idol to watch when DH gets home and #3, who sounds like he's starting to get a cold, gets excited when I throw a pair of pajamas down the stairs to change him later, so I decide to do it now, and he is totally gung-ho for bed. I honestly think he is the easiest kid to put to bed that I've ever had, which is why it baffles me when a baby-sitter can't do it. Maybe they just need to take a stronger hand with him, but seriously, this kid has been known to ask to go to bed.

7:30 - I round up the 2 awake boys and we do scriptures, a mercifully short 4 verses in tonight's assignment. I said one of the weirdest sentences of the day, the kind of sentence you don't really expect to hear: "Don't play with your gun while we're reading scriptures!" Maybe if we lived a little further south... #2 goes down to play some Lego Star Wars before bed.

8:00 - I tell #2 it's time for bed and he flips out, starts yelling and whining and complaining. But he goes upstairs and gets in bed, stomping and complaining the whole time, I say a prayer with him and leave. He spends the next 25 minutes in his room yelling and banging around, I go up to investigate, ask if he needs something from me, but he won't answer so I leave. Frankly, he is staying in his room, and I'm sure #3 will sleep through it, so I don't care. I'm wiped out and just want to veg in front of the tv. #1 wants me to play Uno with him, and I tell him no, which makes me feel horrible and like a bad parent, but I feel like I just don't want to deal with kids anymore. He lays on the floor of the family room and doesn't move for a while, so I ask if he is going to find something to do. He says "I can't do the one thing I want so I'd rather do nothing." I tell him that's his choice, and he lays on the floor until 8:30, when I send him down to his room to read. He goes down and decides he'd rather just go to bed early than stay up to read.

8:40 - DH comes home from YM and we tell each other how our evenings went while he does the dishes and eats a snack of frozen waffles. (When they are cooked, they smell like sugar cookies, and he likes that!) I eat some Ben & Jerry's while I watch a really stupid new show, The Wedding Bells - good concept but ends up being just a lot of whining people.

9:00 - DH tells me that he wants the 45 minutes of his life back that we spent on Sunday night talking about how great our financial outlook was because of our great sales. Since that discussion, sales have plummeted, and today was the worst - we actually haven't had a sale all day today, the first day in months that we have gone a whole day without even making $10. We've always called working for ourselves a roller coaster, but this was the equivalent of that great big climb up the hill at the beginning and the plunge right afterwards. Dramatic and extreme and scary. I've never been a fan of roller coasters, and frankly, this one doesn't feel like that much fun either! Maybe we just needed the "don't count your chickens before they've hatched" lesson one more time, we were counting our chickens before they had even laid eggs!

9:15 - 10- We watch American Idol that we taped from earlier. Here's my opinion on that show - it is very clear the group of a few people that have a chance at actually winning, but we have to drag the season out for weeks and weeks and whittle it down. I could see it during the auditions that there were people that they let through to the Hollywood round that they knew had no chance to actually win, but how entertaining would the show be if they only let the 6 actually great people from all the audition rounds come on the show? People give Simon a lot of flak but you've got to believe that he knew from day one of the hollywood round who actually had a chance to win and then just rounded out the group to fill spots.

10-10:30 - Upstairs for scriptures and bedtime. I've given the humidifier to #3 because he really sounds congested and gross, and I forgot to buy more Breathe Right strips, so I hope I can breathe while I sleep and don't snore like crazy. I would have Breathe Right strips implanted in my nose if I could, I love those things so much. When I went into labor with #3 it was first thing in the morning (like 6:30) and I wore it to the hospital. DH thought I was nuts but I figured if there was ever a time to put comfort over fashion, it is when I'm giving birth.

How Chuck E. Cheese's is Similar to a Las Vegas Casino

I spent some time yesterday afternoon at Chuck E. Cheese's at the kids request (well, that's obvious, I rarely ask to go there!) And while I was staring idly at my kids running around like maniacs, I started making some comparisons between two popular places: Chuck E. Cheese's and a Las Vegas Casino.

1. No clock - although Chuckie time goes slower than Vegas time.
2. Lots of loud beeping noises, plenty of blinking lights. Leads to sensory overload.
3. "Live" stage shows, although Chuck and his friends wear more clothes, it is about the same level of sub-par talent.
4. Packed on the weekends, but you can tell the real die-hards because they are there at 11 am on a Wednesday.
5. Easy to spend more than you planned, especially with easy access to ATM/token machines.
6. Odds favor the house. I mean, seriously, a decent game of Skee-ball only nets 2 tickets?!?
7. Slot machines, yes they have the equivalent at Chuck's. Boy #1 and #2 would stand and feed their tokens into a machine that would randomly spit out tickets. #1 went through most of his alloted 20 tokens and then spent $5 of his own money doing this! They just need to add some bingo cards for the bored parents, and we've got ourselves a violation of Utah law!
8. When the money runs out, the heartbreak begins.

To be fair, here's some ways that Chuck E. Cheese is different than a Las Vegas Casino:
1. Not smoky, thank goodness. You can still get a headache there, though.
2. The clientele is much more attractive, and anyone with no teeth most likely just got $1 from the tooth fairy.
3. The food at Chuck E's is overpriced and tastes horrible. You'd never go just for the good deal on the food.
4. If you make a new friend at Chuckie's, you probably wouldn't be embarrassed to let them meet your mom.

Looks Like I'm Not Too Stupid After All!

I rarely click on these things (that's what they all say!) but I was intrigued by this test to see if I'm stupid. And turns out I'm not! The guy who posted it on Digg said he was 21% stupid, so I figured the test was pretty tough if he was proud of that score.





Check it out here: http://www.stupidtester.com/

Snapshot of Life - March 4, 2007

5:19 - I wake up and go to the bathroom, and spend a few minutes in bed pondering my latest weird dream, in which my oldest brother is on a mission and is being send to India, but my parents are worried that he won't be able to make his connecting flight so they ask my parents-in-law to meet him at the airport. My in-laws call me and say they don't know where he is supposed to go either, so I fly to India and find them and get my brother to his connection on time. Odd things about this dream: 1- that my brother who is 28, in the Army, and already served a mission, would be doing it again. Do we even have missionaries in India? 2- that my parents would call my in-laws for help, when geographically, England is closer to India than the U.S. 3- That I can somehow alter the space/time continuum to get to India immediately (although I would say that if the space/time continuum could be altered, it would be in an airport, but not to make time go faster, if you know what I mean). I eventually fall back asleep.

7:00 - Boy #2 wakes me up to give me a token so he can play lego star wars.

7:22 - Boy #3 comes in and asks for a cup of juice (with the gallon of juice but no cup). I tell him to go get a cup and he leaves.

7:50 - Boy #3 comes back and asks again for a cup of juice, I tell him to go get a cup and this time he comes back with yesterdays cup of orange juice. But the gallon I have is apple juice. I tell him to go find a cup of apple juice and he leaves. He comes back up saying, over and over, Boy #3 found it! Boy #3 found it! (Of course, he refers to himself by his first name, Elmo-style) And sure enough, it is yesterday's cup of apple juice. I pour new juice in the old cup, which I promise I would never do with milk, and he leaves.

8:00 - Boy #1 comes in asking for a go-gurt. Yes, and leave me alone.

8:30 - DH gets out of bed and closes the door quietly, so as to let me sleep longer. Of course I haven't been asleep in forever, but that's really nice of him.

8:50 - I go downstairs to hear the morning Battle of the Breakfasts (which is never as entertaining as your standard Battle of the Bands, but what it lacks in music it makes up for in frequency). I ask Boy #2 if he would like scrambled eggs and he eventually says yes and I say, Well, I'm going to need a helper, and he happily volunteers. I am waiting for someone to pin the "Mother of the Year" badge on my pajama shirt as I let him crack 10 eggs in a bowl.

9-9:25 - We are all, mostly, eating breakfast. Boy #1 has a few bites, but I think he went to town on the go-gurts so isn't too hungry. Boy #2 eats all the eggs on his plate and asks if there are more. I scoop my eggs onto his plate, and start to eat Boy #3's eggs. He is busy waving his bacon like a flag so I don't think he'll notice. He does notice and gives me his best scowly face and says "Mommy! No!" So I put some eggs on his fork and offer it to him and he says "Yucky" so I take another bite, and he again scowls and says no. The rest of us are laughing at him at this point. Boy #2 finishes my eggs as asks for more. Happy to oblige, I scoop Boy #3's eggs onto #2's plate and Boy #3, really incensed this time, grabs a handful of eggs off of #2's plate and plops them back on his own. He still refuses to eat any. I give Boy #2 Boy #1's leftovers but Boy #2 really is full by this point so breakfast is over.

9:30 - The boys are all playing nicely with toys together, and DH calls me over to look. The two younger kids have cars on a track and Boy #1 has an At-At thing from Star Wars (I'm sure that's not what it technically is but I'm not such a big nerd as to know exactly what it's called) smashing the cars as they come by. DH tells me to go get the video camera but I don't and sure enough 30 seconds later they are fighting. DH leaves to get in the shower and I see the YM coming to pick up our fast offering so I go and write a check for them. I didn't even know that some wards did that until we lived in california.

9:45 - the playing has deteriorated severely and it's time to separate the kids. Boy #1 goes down to get dressed and Boy #2 kicks Boy #3's toy so I haul him up to his room to chill.

10:00 - Status: 2 dressed, 3 not dressed. I go to take a shower, DH goes to deal with Boy #2 in his room.

10:20 - Status: 5 dressed, church bag packed, last minute snacks being eaten.

10:30 - Status: 4 dressed, Boy #3 choked on his last-minute snack and threw up all over his clothes. DH cleans and I re-dress.

10:45 - Status: 5 dressed, again, heading out to the car. I say out loud that we are going to be on time today, and DH shushes me because I'm tempting fate.

10:55 - We are, in fact, on time and DH drops me off at the front door so I can go in and grab a pew. I get waylaid by the ward executive secretary but I make him wait a second so I can throw my bag down on one of the last available pews. A girl has to have priorities, after all.

11-12:05 - Sacrament meeting. By the time I am able to sit and listen without distractions from my kids, I think my attention span will be completely shot. As it is, I spend the hour picking up dropped crayons, handing out fruit snacks, stopping Boy #3 from dropping cars on the floor on purpose (the main reason why we want to sit in a pew - it's over carpet and much quieter), realizing that I left something for Primary at home which I had made a special trip out last night to buy, getting my feet stepped on by the lead-and-nail soled shoes that Boy #3 wears, etc. It's testimony meeting and Boy #1 tells me to go up there, and I would if I felt even one iota of the spirit, which I really don't. DH is equally busy with Boy #2 on the other side of the pew, but at least the two of us can sit together in the middle.

12:15 - 2:00 - Primary. Junior primary is loud and and difficult to keep their attention, and we've got a member of the bishopric doing sharing time today. He does an admirable job but sits down looking as beat as I always feel when I do sharing time to this group. Senior primary comes in and is so reverent and obedient that we all relax and enjoy the last hour.

2:10 - We're home and Boy #3 throws a fit because he sees a neighbor girl outside and he wants to go play with her. DH puts him in his room.

2:30 - Boy #2 is slightly tempermental but refuses to eat lunch so I send him into the backyard to play with Boy #1.

2:31 - Boy #2 comes in screaming because while they were playing Boy #1 kicked a ball and it hit him in the face. Boy #1 comes in and says "I didn't do it on purpose" which I tell him does not, in fact, count as an apology, but he claims he apologized to Boy #2 outside.

2:40 - I tell Boy #2 he can't play Lego Star Wars until he eats some lunch and the discussion goes like this:

#2: I don't want any lunch!
Me: You have to eat something if you want to play your game.
#2: I don't know what I want!
Me: There's a bowl of soup in the fridge ...
#2: No!!! I don't want that!!!
Me: (angry voice) If you want me to tell you what you can eat for lunch, then you better not yell at me.
#2: Okay.
Me: There's a bowl of soup in the fridge we can reheat, or you can have a hot dog, or there's some popcorn on the table, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
#2: (pouty) Soup.

2:45 - Boy #2 decides not to eat the soup, DH makes him a sandwich and he eats about half. DH leaves for a temple recommend interview, and Boy #3 comes back downstairs.

3-4:15 - The boys play various things while I read the newspaper. DH joins me when he comes home, and then goes down to play Lego Star Wars with the boys, he likes the podrace part and it's fun to watch the boys do it together. I finish the paper and head over to my new favorite website, www.consumerist.com to read about companies who rip people off and other bad customer service issues. Love that site and could read it all day.

4:15-5:30 - We've invited our neighbors over for dessert and Uno, so Boy #1 comes into the kitchen to help me cook dinner and dessert. For the first time, having a kid help cook dinner actually made the cooking process go faster, it was almost like having a sous-chef (whatever that is) or a team on a cooking show to help prep and clean up while I do the hard, impressive part. He was a great sport and did everything I said, I chopped the fruit and he put it all together for the fruit salad. I cooked the ground beef and noodles, he added the cheeses and the sauce and stirred the lazy lasagna. (which he called crazy lasagna) He got stuff out, put stuff away, measured and poured, it was great. And his attitude was perfect, it could not have gone better.

5:30 - We sit down to dinner and Boy #1 is pretty excited to eat. Boy #2, on the other hand, is not, which is no surprise. Boy #3 is oblivious. Boy #2 needs to be coerced into eating and after many protestations of how yucky everything in the world is, he eats almost all of the lasagna and won't touch the fruit. Boy #1 eats all of his dinner and has like fourths of the fruit. I ask him if he enjoys that everyone likes the food he made and he said yes, so I asked how he would feel if everyone sat and complained about how yucky his food is, and you could see the wheels turning in his head as he sheepishly said, I'm sorry about that mom. I told him I wasn't trying to make him feel bad, I just thought he would know how it felt from my point of view now.

5:40-6 - Well, no matter how good dinner is, it still is over pretty quickly, and we are straightening up the house for our visitors. The best part is, when they go home tonight we'll have a pretty clean house, and that's great.

6:00-8:15 - Our neighbors come over and we shoot the breeze for a little while and then break out the Uno cards. Boy #2 can totally keep up with the grown-ups, Boy #1 needs reminding about whose turn it is, and most kids who play with us aren't very good. We play with the kids for a while and then kick them out so the real Uno playing can begin. We play until the kids start being way too rambunctious and it's time for them to go to bed. This was a really good distraction and made our Sunday so much better.

8:15 - Boy #3 is already in bed, Boy #2 goes up pretty nicely, and at about 8:45 Boy #1 goes down to read. I check our email and see that we've had yet another order, which spurs a discussion about how good our sales have been, especially since we made an inadvertent change last week that apparently made all the difference, what our savings priorities ought to be, and how long this can possibly last. I have this feeling that this little "bonanza" is in preparation for some major unexpected expense that we'll have to pay for, because otherwise it is too good to be true. DH thinks that is really pessimistic (a role reversal!) and couldn't this just be an example of how the windows of heaven open and pour out blessings so much that they can't be numbered? I think it would be easier to accept if it had been gradual, but it feels too sudden. There is probably something bad about being suspicious of a bounty like this. Well, the only thing to make me feel better is that as I write this on Monday morning, we have yet to make a single sale. So maybe it was a fluke :)

10:30 -11- We finally wrap up our financial meeting and read our scriptures and head off to bed. I intended this record of my day to show a typical Sabbath, with lots of fighting and very little of the spirit, but we've had a better day than normal. Maybe all it takes is knowing I'm going to record it for Satan to leave us alone on the Lord's day. Whatever the reason, I'm grateful to have had a peaceful sunday.

Bath Time Cha-Cha-Cha

The following is an edited version of tonight's Bath Time Cha-Cha-Cha, edited only for brevity. The same dance can be done to any activity that needs to be done one child at a time, for example, getting a haircut.


DH: (to all children) It's bath night! #2, when your timer goes off it's time to take a bath, you've got 4 minutes.
#2: Okay, I'm done now, #1, do you want to finish my game?
#1: Yes!
DH: That's great #2 let's go get in the tub!
#2: No, (whiny) I want to finish my frosty first. (It's in the freezer from yesterday.)
DH: Okay, as soon as you are done will you take a bath?
#2: No.
#3: I want to take a bath!
DH: No, it's #2's turn for a bath.
#2: I don't want to take a bath!
DH: If I let #3 take a bath will you take a bath when he is done and be happy?
#2: No.
DH: Let me ask that question again, that wasn't the right answer. If I let #3 take a bath, will you take a bath when he is done and be happy?
#2: Yes.
DH: Okay, #3, let's go take a bath!
#3: No, I don't want to take a bath.
DH: It's bath time, let's go take a bath.
#3: No.
#1: No one asked me if I want to take a bath!
DH: (walking upstairs to bathroom) Okay, I'm turning on the water! I'm putting in the Thomas bubbles!
#3: No! I'm playing with my ship.
#2: Okay, I'll take a bath.
#3: It's bath time!
(Both boys head upstairs to the bathroom.)
#2: All right, I'll let him take a bath first.
DH, who was a model of wonderful patient parenting thoughout, takes a bow as #3 gets in the tub.

Highlights and Random Thoughts - March 1, 2007

Highlights from today:

I was trying to get #3 to decide on what kind of cereal he wants for breakfast. It goes like this:

Me: (holding up a bag of cereal) This one?
#3: No.
Me: (holding up a different bag) This one?
#3: No.
Me: (Reaching for yet another bag, knocks over open bag of salad macaroni, which is a small cylindrical pasta about 1/4 inch high and 1/4 around, which falls to the floor making a spectacular crashing sound as most of the pasta leaves the bag, and due to it's roundness and the fact that we have wood floors, bounces and rolls every conceivable direction. I heard them skittering down the stairs and I wouldn't be surprised if some bounced up the stairs as well just to increase the mess. The family, sitting at the kitchen table, watches this silently.)
DH: That's going to make a great story.


I need to apologize to the Qwest company for lampooning their DSL service, because, as it turns out, DH made some changes to our spam filter, which when he reset those changes, my email magically worked again. I guess the spam filter must have thought I was sending spam or something and was protecting me from the rest of the world. Well, I've been unleashed on the world again, so world, brace yourself for my spam.


I put #3 down for a nap at 1pm like usual, and by 2 he was still playing, jumping, banging around like a herd of elephants, clearly not sleeping. But I wasn't too eager to go get him either, and he won't leave his room until I come get him, so I just let him hang out in there a little while longer. #1 came home from school, slammed the door and I yelled up to him to go get his brother. #1 bounded up the stair, shouting the whole time, threw the door to the room open and told #3 it was time to get up. #1 came back down and told me he was awake. Well, he never came downstairs, so at about 2:30 I went up to check and there he was, fast asleep on the floor, with the light on and the "curtain" (a sheet thrown over the curtain rod - I've got to buy a real curtain one of these days) on the floor. So maybe I'll start putting him to bed later or leaving him in longer.


I called DH on the iChat to talk to him about work, had a question or something. In the middle of our discussion, the dvd player on my computer starts playing, really loud, the theme song to Alias, which completely blew my cover of being hard at work! I couldn't stop laughing but I don't think he was quite as amused.


This morning the First National Simmons Bank was open for business. The boys have TV Tokens that they receive every week, every token (poker chip) is worth 30 minutes of playing video games, watching tv, or 25 cents. This was an effort to control the inordinate amount of time they were spending playing Lego Star Wars when #2 got it for his birthday at the end of January. Boy #1 was the worst offender, he could easily never leave the chair in front of the computer, but the token system has worked miracles. Turns out #1 would rather have money than play computer games, and neither of them use their tokens to watch tv, ever. So today was the day to turn in leftover tokens from last week and collect new ones. #1 started with $7 worth of tokens and collected $4.25 today. #2 started out with $10.50 worth of tokens (because I love him more - just kidding!! He's in kindergarten and is home an extra 3 hours every day) and had none leftover. #3 doesn't participate, obviously. So #1 collected his money, paid his tithing but didn't have exact change so I gave him change, then he brought up some other coins and traded them for pennies so he could fill a 50-cent penny roll, then he handed me the penny roll and 50 cents but I was out of dollars, so he found a $5 in the car and I traded the $5 for 5 ones, then traded the change for a one. When it was all over, I had this feeling like I've been shorted somewhere but I don't think so - #1 is just practicing his scam on me before he tries it at a store with a $20. I wanted to make a comment about moneychangers, but all the ones I could think of were sacreligious so I figure I just won't go there. You can fill in the inappropriate joke here.

It wasn't until 6pm today that #1 realized that he doesn't get as many tokens as #2, and no matter how many times I tried to explain the situation to him, he just won't buy it. "It's not fair!" is his pre-teen mantra, if he can be considered a pre-teen at age 9. "No, it's not equal, but it is fair" was my response, which he basically ignored. I remember similar not-fair things happening to me as a child, and the not-fairness being a huge deal to me. I don't know if my brothers felt it the same way, or if it has something to do with being a firstborn, which is my guess. I remember being absolutely outraged in the singles ward when we had a road rally - my team came in on time and had the highest points, but a team who came back way late had higher points so the guy in charge said they won, when they should have been disqualified because they weren't back by the specified time. After all, if the time limit didn't matter, my team and the other teams would have stayed out later to do the high-point things that this team did. Anyhow, I was quite vocal about the unfairness of the situation, which even though I was right, frankly made me look like the bad guy. I doubt I would have gotten so bent out of shape if we hadn't been the team that should have won, if we were a distant 3rd anyhow then the battle for first may not have caused me to get quite so worked up. I don't handle losing particularly well, although I do work on that. The point being that I understand that feeling of injustice, of being hard done by, even when, as in Boy #1's case, it's not like I'm taking tokens away from him and giving them to #2, so the amount that one has doesn't affect the amount that the other has. I'm open to opinions on this one, just not from Boy #1.


Sometimes doing something nice for the kids doesn't garner the rewards that one feels entitled to. Last night we were all just sitting around, #1 was moping about the unfairness mentioned above, so DH took him upstairs to spend some time together playing a game I never played with my dad (wherein DH tells #1 what to draw, like the Easter Bunny's head, or Harry Potter on a broomstick) while DH folded some laundry. #2 wanted some attention as well, so I sat at the kitchen table and he kicked my butt at 4 or 5 rounds of Uno. He's okay when he loses, which is rarely, because the loser gets to go first, my mom really taught him well. Anyhow, I decided, just on the spur of the moment, to go out to Wendy's and get some frostys for everyone. A special treat, since barely anyone ate my dinner, which was so tasty and delicious that DH stood at the kitchen counter eating every bite that the kids rejected. So #1 and I went out and picked up the frosties and we all sat around the kitchen table eating them watching the American Idol results show. (If there was ever a show to be taped and watched in fast-forward, it's that. An hour to tell 4 people they are no good? And then the pain of listening to people whose dreams have just been crushed in front of 32 million viewers sing one last time. hello, earth to A.I. producers - we didn't vote for them because we don't want to hear them sing anymore!) Well, I'm not going to go into the details, but over the next 30 minutes or so, we wanted to kick all of our kids off the Simmons show because they were so - argumentative, whiny, bickering, annoying, etc. The piece de resistance was at scripture time, when we all troop up to the living room and grab our scriptures, #1 sits on the piano bench facing the piano and #3 comes over to sit with him, so #1 wisely closes the keyboard and #3 throws the biggest fit of the day. I wish I had gotten out the video camera, not that anyone wants to watch that over and over again, but because he was so incredibly melodramatic about the whole thing - #3 is sitting on the piano bench, wailing, rocking back and forth and occasionally resting his head on the closed keyboard and crying. Like a true sensitive artiste who has just had his heart broken. Boys #1 and #2 and I could not stop laughing, while DH sat on the couch with his baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, you could tell he wanted to cover his ears and run out of the room, but he stuck it out. Top all that off with another tantrum later over putting on #3's pj's and more sulking by #1 who wasn't allowed to stay up to watch tv wtih us, and all in all the evening kind of stunk. But the frosties were good. Oh, and for the record, the new vanilla frosties have the exact same flavor as a McDonald's ice cream cone, so I'll stick with the chocolate ones.

Snapshot of Life - Feb. 28, 2007

5:39 - My arm has fallen more asleep than the rest of my body, which wakes me up. Strange how that happens, isn't it? So I get up to go to the bathroom, and notice that the light is already on, a sure sign that someone in the house is awake already. I'm not wearing my glasses so I walk carefully downstairs and lo and behold, I find Boy #3 on the couch, watching Fox News, with his blankie over his face fast asleep. The fact that he is asleep down here means that he got up hours ago, and I am puzzled as to why I did not hear him. I'm a fairly light sleeper, as my dad said I usually wake up when I feel the first molecule of air disturbed by Boy #3's eyes opening, but today I slept through him opening and closing his door, opening and closing the bathroom door (the reason for the bathroom stop was to pick up the stepstool we keep in there), trudging down the stairs with the stool, turning on the light in the kitchen, going downstairs to watch tv. I'm baffled by this, but pretty awake so I grab my camera from my purse where I left it after my photography class last night and take a couple of pictures of him asleep on the couch. I carry him back upstairs, turning lights and tv off as I go, and get back into bed where I'm preoccupied by thoughts of what a good story this is going to make and the fact that it was so dark in the room when I took the picture, what did that do for my shutter speed and how could I have compensated for it?

7:35-8 - I'm up for real this time, get boy #1 off to school, and have some breakfast. Boy #3 stumbles down at 7:45 to join Boy #2 in front of the tv. DH comes down at about the same time and asks me how many orders we've had today. I reply that I haven't checked yet, and he asks, "Where are your priorities, woman?" I show him the picture of Boy #3 and tell him what happened at 5:30 this morning. He's excited because he just put up a new training course on our site, a big ticket item that we think is going to sell pretty well - and when we checked we had sold one this morning, so that's a great way to start the morning. We sit reading email while we eat some breakfast. Boys #2 and #3 start a fight over who gets the red blanket that is downstairs, and DH says "I'm not going to handle this" which is the grown-up version of "Not It" a fun kids game that has really lost it's appeal as I've gotten older. So I say I'm not going to handle it either, figuring that I can outlast him in tolerance of listening to children fighting. I recognize that the whole situation is stupid at this point - we've got two kids in a screaming, grabbing fight over a blanket, and two adults in a silent battle of wills over the same issue. DH proves that he's really not going to handle it by getting in the shower, I debate letting the kids fight devolve into bloodshed - the blanket is red, after all, the bloodstains won't be noticeable - but the grown-up in me realizes that she has lost the "Not It" game and takes the blanket away from both kids and out of the room. I'm guessing there was a better way to handle the adult end of the fight, but I'm not sure what at this point.

8-9 - Peace in the house as Boys #2 and 3 settle down in front of Curious George on PBS and all is forgiven. DH showers then I shower, everyone is dressed ready to go. There is some bickering as to who is going to do what in terms of laundry. The good/bad of having a very involved, loving husband is that the division of labor is very strict. And when one person tries to modify/interfere/remind the other of their duties, it is a very sticky situation for both parties. Let's just leave it at that. Which reminds me that I need to go switch the laundry.

9:05 - Pick up Ammon, take boys to school, take DH to work, swing back home to grab the forgotten Box Tops that I need to mail. Get to the post office but it doesn't open for 10 minutes, so Boy #3 and I head next door for a couple of smoothies. By the time they are ready, the post office is open and I go in to mail the Box Tops. Next #3 gets dropped off at a friends house to be baby-sat while I go to the doctor.

10 - My appointment at 10 is with a plastic surgeon who is notorious for making me wait literally hours for my appointment, and as this is considered a "pre-op" appointment, I have no idea how long this whole thing is going to take. The nurse on the phone said no longer than an hour, but does that include the waiting time? I don't know, but I've got my ipod and an actual book on paper to read in the meantime.

10:10 - I am back in the car, on the way to pick up #3 from sitter because the "appointment" consisted of me signing 3 pieces of paper and paying a $500 deposit. What a complete waste of a baby-sitting favor! Oh, I did also ask the nurse to take out the stitches from my biopsy 3 weeks ago. She said the doctor doesn't normally take the stitches out because he's just going to cut that whole piece of my face off anyhow, but I'd rather not go 6 weeks total with a dead fly attached to the side of my face. (I had originally compared my stitches to daddy-long-legs legs, but DH said dead fly was a more apt description.)

10:15 - My baby-sitting friend is hosting playgroup today, so #3 and I stay to chat with the other moms in the ward. Here is the list of what we discussed:

1. B feels like she is failing at everything she is doing - parenting, marriage, calling, job, etc. She can't stay on top of all of it and ends up doing a bad job of all of it. We all commiserate, because we all have been there.
2. R has had a cold for 2 weeks and is miserable.
3. There are general complaints about the weather and the fact that we haven't left the house in forever.
4. S comes in late and says that she feels she is failing at everything she is doing. We rehash this discussion and commiserate again.
5. M has scheduled the defense of her dissertation which she has been working on for years.
6. I say that I can't decide if my lethargy is due to my lingering cold or the fact that I'm entering my 3rd trimester. I mention that I actually bought two books (gasp!) a few weeks ago at Costco (books that aren't available at audible and are new so it'll take forever to get at the library, besides the fact that they weren't too expensive and I was in a bad mood while shopping and thought it would make me feel better). Anyhow, I haven't read either yet, which is so unlike me. I tell them about when I was pregnant with #3 and picked up a Reader's Digest, but just couldn't read it because the articles were too long to keep my attention. This from the person who has read the unabridged Les Miserables more than once. So I think I'm hitting that phase and I'm bummed about it.
7. We had a very interesting discussion about poverty and excess. A house my father-in-law did some work to was just sold during the Parade of Homes for $1.6 million. The house is like 6200 square feet, and the family that bought it has 6 children. Problem is, the house is just too small for them, especially the home theater, so they are going to live in this house for a year while they build a development in the area which will include a new house for them. FIL might design the new theater, which will be two stories with a balcony, the size of an actual movie theater. So we had an interesting discussion about judging people for the way they spend their money, the way poor people might look at us for the way we spend our money (as we are all home-owners and financially stable), the fact that we don't know how much money these people spend on charity etc, B's experience of living in an upscale neighborhood and the things people there discussed that sound ludicrous to regular people, but that brings us back to the way poor people might feel about the discussions we have - which preschool to send our kids to, the sale on clothes at a nice store at the mall, where we go on vacation etc. Someone brought up a quote possibly by Brigham Young who said that church members will be judged by what they do with their riches. This discussion came on the heels of R mentioning that she is listening to Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (don't know if I got that name right) in which she spends some amount of time living as a working poor trying to make ends meet. Fascinating if a little left-wing-agenda-ed at some points.

Everyone at playgroup is very kind not to point out that #3 is acting like a complete jerk - yanking toys out of other kids hands and throwing fits when they touch something that he might have considered playing with once. When it is time to go, he runs upstairs ahead of me, which isn't a problem, but by the time I get up there he has left the house and is standing next to the van, which is a problem, as this house is on an incredibly busy road. My daily and nightly prayers for the safety of my children are certainly not in vain, and it makes me want to cry when I think about it. I hate being pregnant and so emotional.

12:15 - I leave playgroup and come home to meet #2 coming home from school. His friend stays for lunch and they play Lego Star Wars for a while.

1:00 - #3 obviously needs a nap, his night schedule was atrocious last night, so I put him down in his bed. I go into the craft room to watch my judge shows while I reply to work emails. My email account will only receive, not send, my mail, so I have to send everything through my gmail account. For the 4,000th time, I curse Qwest and their horrible DSL service.

2:00 - It's been an hour and #3 shows no signs of sleeping, so I send #2 up to get him out of his room. #3 comes downstairs and announces to me so proudly, "Mom, I took a nap!" Yeah, right. I tell him that Caillou is on, easily the worst children's show ever created, and he shouts "Yay! Caillou! Caillou!" If Barney was the show to scorn when I was younger, Caillou has certainly eclipsed Barney as most annoying children's show, at least in this home.

2:25 - #1 is home from school and comes in to talk to me. I am interrogating him about his homework (apparently done at school due to a substitute teacher) and while I'm talking he picks up the newspaper that is sitting on a chair. Reading the front page, he points to it and in his best 40-year-old imitation says, "Oh, UVSC is excited to become a university" with the sound of an intellectual discussing the current events of the day. I look up at him and we both crack up.

2:30 - #1 and #2 get into a fight because #2 has called #1 a "fussy pus" which I can't really decide if it's a bad word or not, but when #1 comes into petition me to stop #2 from calling him that, it just reinforces the fakeness of the newspaper reader of 5 minutes ago. He's now joined #3 on the couch to watch Thomas the Tank Engine, which he won't admit to, but it's one of his favorite shows. As big and old as he gets, he's still the 2 year old who loves trains and fire trucks in his heart.

2:30-3 - I call DH on our iChat on the computer. I told him about my appointment this morning, about the interview with on the radio this morning with a semi-famous person he was friends with as a teenager, and we had a nice discussion about faux famous people in Utah. It seems that anyone with any screen time at all is counted as a famous person. I asked DH who he thought the most famous person I had ever met was, and he said "Me" at the same time as #1 chimed in "Dad" from the other room. I lamented that I didn't think this post was going to be as entertaining as the other ones were, and that maybe I was a two-hit-wonder. DH laughed at that so I figured I'd write that down, so that maybe I'd get at least one laugh from this post. I told DH that he must have some work to get back to, and that Judge Judy was about to start so I better go. He wished me luck in law school and hung up. We're a riot sometimes.

3-4:30 - Watch the Judge and People's Court and the beginning of Ellen while I read the newspaper and answer emails and also have an episode of Alias on the laptop. Oh, there is also some child-monitoring but not so much as they are fairly contained by Lego Star Wars. I both love and hate that computer game.

4:30- There's a cookbook out at Harmon's grocery stores that I read a review of in the newspaper today so I want to go over there and pick it up. Which means of course that our store won't have it, but I'll end up buying dinner while I'm there because my head is killing me and I don't want to cook.

5:30-6 - Hey, it's a miracle, they actually had the book, I picked up DH and got home before Boy #2 needed to come home from his friend's house. Dinner is rotisserie chicken and rolls, although #2 ate at his friend's house and #3 found a box of fruit snacks, which he at least ate off of his dinner plate.

6 - 7 - It's DH's turn to do the dishes and the kids need bathing. Bathing isn't usually too hard, #1 is totally self-sufficient, #2 needs coaxing which can be painful, but #3 has gotten a serious aversion to getting his hair washed, so the person who bathes him ends up with some real hearing damage. I've often thought about the people who complain about noise living by an airport, say, or working in a factory or something, claiming that the decibel level is so high that they could be doing actual damage. I think someone ought to do a study on potential on-the-job injuries suffered by stay at home moms. I mean honestly, a two year old in an echo-y bathroom is easily as loud as a Boeing 747 taking off. Maybe we can get some legislation passed, or sue the bathroom makers for not making bathrooms sound-absorbent and therefore are to blame for my hearing loss. That could explain how I slept through #3's nocturnal activities this morning.

So anyhow, DH goes up to get #3 in the tub and while I'm waiting for him to come down and tell me to go and bathe #3 I start the dishes for him. And in a stroke of mutual benevolence, he ends up bathing all the kids and I do all the dishes and wipe down the counter too. We both couldn't have thought the other guy could be nicer.

7 - 8:30 We watch American Idol as a family, mostly. #3 announces at 6:55 that "I'm tired. It's bedtime." I'm skeptical, but I follow him upstairs, he has been known to do this in the past. But today he takes three steps into his room and starts complaining and pointing to the hallway, like I tricked him somehow. So we left and went back downstairs. By 7:30 he was ready for real, #2 needed some real coaxing for his bath, and then he kind of laid on the floor whining that he wanted to do something fun. I ask him if he's hungry and he says yes, so I take him upstairs for a bedtime snack. We do scriptures and only miss one singer on American Idol (not that we rushed for that reason, we rush for many other reasons) and I take #2 up to bed.

8:30- We kick Brad out of the room to go down and read while we watch Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? (The short answer for me: yes) It's an interesting concept, the questions actually test real knowledge not just random trivia so I think it's harder than it looks in some ways. The questions deal with such basic stuff that you assume you just know it but then you second guess yourself. Well, I should say, the contestants seem to feel that way. Generally, I know these answers well enough that I don't feel the need to shout them out to prove anything to whoever might be listening. Biggest problem with the show is that it is incredibly slow - they get through about 6 questions in the whole half and hour, with a lot of hemming and hawing on the part of the contestant, although I think they are hamming it up just for the show. Some of the questions:

1. What color do you get if you mix red and yellow?
2. How many sides does a trapezoid have?
3. Who was the first president to be impeached? (the first guy lost on that one)
4. What ship did the Pilgrims arrive at Plymouth in?
5. If a triangle has an area of 16 inches and a base of 8 inches, how tall is the ...er... okay I can't remember the whole question, but the answer was 4 and I got it right.
6. What does REM stand for in sleep terms?
7. What star is closest to the earth?
8. How many decades are in two millenia? (the second person left instead of answering that question)

Well, that was basically the two episodes we watched over yesterday and today. It's got to pick up the pace or I just won't be able to hack it. #1 likes this show because he is a 4th grader and wants to see if he knows as much as a 5th grader, but we can just recite the questions back to him at bedtime and save him the 30 minutes of pain listening to Jeff Foxworthy insult (deservingly) these contestants.

9:00 - All the kids are asleep and DH and I are both pretty beat, so neither of us moves off the couch even though the only thing that is on is a rerun of the King of Queens. By 9:30 we flip over to Lost which we haven't watched since the middle of last season when we gave up in disgust, and while I doubt the plot has progressed much in the year since, we don't have the patience to try it. Thank goodness for a show like Heroes in which things actually happen every week! So by 9:38 we head upstairs to read scriptures and are asleep by 10:15 ish.