Words To Impress People At Parties

Ryan made up a new word yesterday, a new word so interesting and provocative and fun to say that I need to come up with more reasons to throw it around.  Sadly, though, I am afraid that it is a word that might shock those with weaker constitutions, namely people who don't handle children and their many bodily functions on a daily basis.  For us active moms and dads, this word might just fill a need you never knew you had.

Ready for it?  Here it is:

Peepee aftersmell

Yes, that's right, pee pee aftersmell.  I'm waiting for Webster's to come knocking on my door, asking for permission to use this one in the very next edition of the dictionary, because there is truly not another word in the english language just like it.

What is a pee pee aftersmell, you ask?  Let me explain its origin and possibly use it in a sentence.  I bought a new brand of cleaning spray, a version of Lysol 4-in-1 cleaner that is blue liquid in a clear bottle.  I had been sent to the store to buy Windex, but this was cheaper, and once we got it home we found out why.  The stuff absolutely cannot clean mirrors - every time I look through that hazy mess I take off my glasses and clean them, only to discover that the haze isn't going away.  Some people complain about looking through the net at a baseball game - this is like putting your makeup on while looking through gauze.  Streaky gauze, at that.

To make matters worse, the stuff stinks.  It might not stink on its own, but combined with whatever lethal bacteria live in my bathroom, the resulting scent is absolutely disgusting.  Ryan was commenting on this awful smell when he described it as being having a "pee pee aftersmell."

I think the idea he was going for was comparing it to an aftertaste, where it's not the flavor of the food when you eat it, it's the lingering taste in your mouth.  This is an aftersmell - not necessarily the scent that the cleaner is when it's sprayed, but the smell that lingers in the bathroom afterwards.  An aftersmell.  

Pee pee, of course, is a word that needs no introduction, especially to those of us for whom bodies and their functions need to be broken down to the lowest common denominator.  One of the things that no one tells you before you have kids is that you need a whole separate language in order to talk to your kids.  Yes, yes, I know that the politically correct thing to do is to teach your kids the proper words for body part, and I do, mostly.  But trust me, you back off of the whole truth and nothing but the truth the first time your three year old announces anything in public having to do with his penis.  I'm sure one day I'll make sure all of my kids know the word "urinate" and "toilet" and "bowel movement" but for now, let's just make this as gentle as possible, for the sake of the listening public.

So, to sum up, pee pee aftersmell would be anything that has a secondary smell that is vaguely reminiscent of pee.  I think it is the perfect word to describe the smell that hits you when you remove a baby's wet diaper - even after they've been cleaned up, sometimes they need a good soak in the tub to remove that pee pee aftersmell.  Those are really the only two specific usages I have come up with, the smell of baby bottoms post-diaper change and Lysol 4-in-1 cleaner.  

But a word that good can't go to waste, though, so I've decided on another usage:  it would make a fantastic band name!  Listen to it:

"Okay, opening for Limp Bizkit tonight, give it up for Pee Pee Aftersmell!"  

Oh yeah, I totally would go to a Pee Pee Aftersmell concert, any day of the week.  You couldn't help but have a rockin' time.

And here's my other brilliant idea:  it would make the best username on message boards and chat rooms and whatnot.  You could even go with initials, to make it a little more name-y:  P.P. Aftersmell.  Or make it French - Pepe Aftersmell.  

Go ahead, use our new word, make it your own!  I'd love to hear what other things have a pee pee aftersmell, or if now that you have a word for that smell, you all of a sudden start smelling things in a different light.  Most importantly, though, try to use this new word to others.  Spread it around, because the peepee aftersmell train is leaving the station, and you don't want to miss the next big word to hit town!  Excuse me, the phone is ringing, I think it must be Webster's!

A Moral Dilemma

I finished my college semester yesterday, and I wish I was happier about it.  On the one hand, it is so nice to have these two classes off my plate (and my mind) and yards and yards of free time ahead of me.  Additionally, I did very well in my online Oceanography class - the exams are graded on a curve, and at one point I had a 102% in the class.  I take too much pride in educational success, and this just stoked the flames.  On the other hand, though, my Microeconomics class was utterly disappointing and has left me with a moral dilemma.

The teacher, first of all, is young.  He's finishing his doctorate program, so however long it takes to do all of college through to a doctorate without stopping for anything, that's how old he is.  He is so arrogant and such a know-it-all - in Brian Regan's terminology, he is a total Me-Monster.  I kind of wonder how he can think he knows so much when he hasn't done too much other than go to school?  

That would be irritating, but acceptable, if it were not for his biggest flaw:  he's lazy.  He never prepared a lesson plan, just read to us from out of the textbook.  He gave us homework to do, but also gave us the answers to it.  So the second time we turned homework in, every single person in the class (except for yours truly) got wise to his deal and just printed out his answers and wrote their name on top.  My homework was the only one handwritten on torn out notebook paper, because we had to do a bunch of graphs and charts that would be hard to do on a word document.  He didn't even check to make sure it was right, or even all there, because by the time I went to bed at night, he had already posted a grade for the assignment, and there's no way he could have actually graded anything. 

The thing that has me in a dilemma, though, is the three tests he's given.  They were taken online at home, and they were open book, open note, open whatever.  The first one was hard, but I had studied the chapters and knew where to find all of the answers, so I got a 98%.  The second test, though, covered the bulk of the semester, and was just about impossible.  I studied for days and spent almost every minute of the 2 hours allotted to take the test.  In the end, I got a 78%, and boy was I ticked off.  The questions were not what he had covered in class, and the only reason I did as well as I had was because I searched every answer out of the book.  

Can I just take this minute to say, I really don't like doing badly on tests, especially when I've actually prepared for it.  Really, really, really don't.  I paced around the kitchen for 10 minutes after getting a C, and had a very hard time winding down that night, I was so frustrated.  It'd be different if this was a hard class, or a hard topic, but it's not.

So last week, after our final class (where our sum total preparation for the final was "know the definitions from these three chapters") I was talking to another woman about the teacher.  I told her how I didn't think he was very good, and she said this was the third class of his she's taken, because he's so easy and once you know how he operates it's easy to get an A in his class.  She went on to tell me that he takes every single test question right out of the textbook's website practice quizzes, so all you have to do is take the practice quizzes, save the answers, and you've got the entire test.  She had done that on the second test, and gotten a 98%.  

I was floored.  Is this okay to do?  It seems so much like cheating, but can it really be cheating when the teacher sets it up that way?  It's not like I had gotten a copy of the test from someone who had taken it last year, or some other type of subterfuge.  The questions were available on the student website, a resource that we are supposed to be able to consult as part of the class!  Should we be faulted for using the best resource available to take the test?  It's not like the teacher cares - if he cared, he would have spent some time to make up his own questions, like every other teacher I've ever had in my life.  And if he wanted the tests to be right from the text, then assign us the chapters to read, so we could be prepared.

Most likely, he is doing for us what he wishes a teacher had done for him.  He would have loved for a class to be easy, so he could skate through it and be done.  Why make us do more work than the absolute minimum, right?  And if we are smart enough to figure out the most efficient way to pass the class, then he's done his job.  (Efficiency is an economics topic, see I did learn something!)

But to me, it still feels like cheating.  I wrote a scathing teacher evaluation, which I have never done before, and no doubt it will be the only one saying anything negative.  Then I started preparing for the final, and I just about lost it.  There was almost nothing from our lectures that even sounded vaguely familiar compared to the chapters in the book.  I knew that if I took the exam, I would fail.  So, I tossed my ethics out the window, went to the student website, got the questions for the chapters, and then took the test.  

Thirty of the 50 questions were on the student website.  The other 20 he actually made up himself from some articles he had covered in class.  If I hadn't looked up the questions, I would have gotten literally all 30 wrong.  They weren't even the slightest bit familiar.  I ended up with  98% on the test.

But I'm not happy.  While I think the teacher wouldn't care that I (and the rest of the class) did this, I care.  I feel like a hypocrite, taking the easy way out, when I should have read the chapters, studied on my own, and prepared for the test the way I thought it should be done.  But is that rational?  What makes a certain behavior wrong?  Is it wrong when the person in charge says it's wrong?  Or do you go by your gut to know the difference between right and wrong?  Either way has a lot of room for error - get an evil person in charge or an evil person making the choice, and their determination of right and wrong is going to be backwards.  (I'm not calling my teacher evil, obviously I'm just making a point.)  If you were to go by the rule of law, you'd have to say that the teacher specifically made the test open book, open note, online at home, so there's no way he could have a rule that we couldn't look up answers online.  Unless he called the honor code into it, which he didn't.  

So, that's where I am right now.  I did the right thing in the eyes of the teacher and the other students, but I feel wrong about it.  Ryan, in attempting to talk me down from the ledge, reminded me about being in Malaysia.  The rule there is that you don't tip the waiters.  But for us, not tipping is something we just don't do - when you are at a restaurant, you tip, and that's the way it is.  For us.  But not for them.  In fact, the first several times we left a tip, we got funny looks and pointing and whispering by the waiters, until we finally asked someone who clued us in.  Then we stopped tipping and the status quo resumed.  I think I'm in the same situation now - I'm in a foreign country, where everyone is trying to get through this class with as little effort as possible, and I'm throwing a fit over not being worked hard enough.  When in Rome, do as the Romans, right?  In this case, when in Microeconomics, do as the Microeconomists, I guess.

My Reality

Here's my dirty little secret:  I love reality shows.  And I'm going to announce that proudly, without a hint of the shame and embarrassment that I occasionally feel from enjoying something so worldly, so lowbrow, so unimportant as watching regular people do things that I may or may not ever be able to do myself.  It's almost as bad, although maybe not quite, as the stigma around liking McDonald's.  Sheesh, after Supersize Me came out I felt like I needed to put my quarter pounder with cheese in a Whole Foods Market bag so no one would know that I don't mind eating processed foods.  

There are a few things I like about reality shows.  It's nice to see a different reality than the one that I'm currently in.  Not that I don't like my life;  I do, mostly, but there's not nearly as much adventure and excitement as in your standard reality show.  When's the last time I was required to bungee jump off a bridge, for example, or rappel down the side of a building?  Never, that's when!  Not that I particularly want to do those things, but my point is that my life doesn't require a lot of adrenaline for me.

I love watching people using their talents in an extreme way.  I've watched American Idol, but my favorite talent reality show is So You Think You Can Dance, mostly because I've always wanted to be able to dance.  These are some gifted people, and I love watching them use their talents.  I'm not so crazy about them being scorned by judges for not doing well enough, but at least on SYTYCD they aren't quite as brutal as Simon can be.  

I think by far my favorite part of reality shows is the competition factor.  I love contests of skill and could probably get emotionally involved in a snail race if there was money for the winner.  There is something about seeing people's true colors come out when the pressure's on that is really telling about their personality.  Nowhere is that more apparent than on my favorite reality show, The Amazing Race.  These are the ultimate regular people - they don't need to have an iron will (and stomach) like the Fear Factor contestants, or ruthless ambition and a need to dominate like Survivorites.  Amazing Racers are just people who think it would be fun to do crazy challenges while they travel around the world.  The excitement on their faces when they find out where they are going next is the closest to kinship that I'll ever feel with a reality show contestant.

But it's the other behavior of those contestants that keeps me from being on that show.  When the chips are down, some of those people get ugly with a capital ug.  I've told Ryan that there's no way I'd subject my marriage to that kind of laboratory experiment - some couples end up completely falling apart and while I'd like to think that we'd be mature enough to handle the stresses of the game, I would never take the chance of putting our worst arguments on national television.  

Here is a list of reality shows that I've enjoyed:

The Biggest Loser

The Amazing Race

Project Runway

Survivor

Iron Chef

Top Chef

The Next Food Network Star

The Next Iron Chef (can you tell, I really like cooking reality shows?)

So You Think You Can Dance

The Apprentice, in the early seasons

Most of these shows is pure fluff, nothing but entertainment, but every so often I learn something.  Like the other day I was at the gym and struggling to run longer than I have before.  I could hear Jillian (from the Biggest Loser) screaming at me to keep going, and while in person I would have hated being yelled at, being yelled at by a voice in my head was somehow motivating, and I ran for a whole mile.  (I know, that's nothing to get excited about, but I don't know that I've ever run a mile before.)  And the cooking shows motivate me to try new techniques in the kitchen, and learn how to chop onions faster. 

So, judge me if you will, America, for my love of reality shows.  But if you're going to judge me, make sure you call and place your vote for me, Emily, as The Next Big Reality Show Lover!  

March Madness

Well, it's March again, folks, which must mean it's time for us to take away a giant backyard toy because it is "dangerous" and replace it with something which may or may not be safer. Yes, the Simmons' own version of March Madness. If you recall, last years match-up was Evil Trampoline vs. Traditional Wooden Swingset. The Swingset was a sure bet. After all, it hearkened back to good, old-fashioned family values, you know, with kids using their imaginations and the whole thing being built out of wood, just like the pioneers build their kids' swingsets, not this new-fangled steel-and-rubber pain machine that you just know Laura Ingalls Wilder never would have tolerated. Plus, we had the added bonus of sacrificing real dollars for our kids' safety - the swingset was like $800, but there's nothing too good for our kids, right?

This year, the Traditional Wooden Swingset is going head-to-head with Sturdy Metal Swingset, and while the odds are about even, it looks like the Sturdy Metal Swingset might come out the winner. I honestly thought the Traditional Wooden Swingset would be the Champion For Life, like we'd have to retire the whole sport of Backyard Play Equipment due to its infalliability. I thought this would be the swingset our grandchildren would come over and swing on, and there would be a grown-up Brad and Noah telling the story to their kids about how originally they didn't want to see the trampoline go, but how they had come to love this swingset. Yes, there we'd be, sipping our lemonades on the porch while the boys recount their glory days on the ol' set while watching the young'uns swing on the very same swings they once did. It looks like the story is going to be a different one than I had hoped.

We knew there was a problem with the swingset pretty much as soon as it was finished, not only because on Day 1 the blood started flowing from various children's bodies after they proved the swingset-is-safer fallacy. No, the problem was that the whole contraption swayed from side to side when anyone swung on it. It made Ryan sick to his stomach to see just how not sturdy the thing he had spent 20 hours or more building was. But how do you return something like this? Do you take it apart, throw all the pieces in the back of the van, and haul it all back to Toys R Us? I suppose we had that option in the beginning, but it seemed ridiculous to do that.

It seems less ridiculous now, a year later, when the swaying problem didn't magically fix itself. I don't know what I was expecting, that a year out in the elements would toughen it up a little? Like once the swingset knew that weakness would not be tolerated here it would brace itself for the storm that is a neighborhood full of kids? Well, here's a news flash - if you ignore a problem for a year, the problem is just a year older, not a year better. It turns out that I am pretty good at ignoring problems, I think it comes with being an optimist. I'm not an extreme optimist, like my friend Kathy who could see the bright side of the sun imploding, but definitely try to look for the good in things. There are some problems that are minor enough that if you ignore them, it eventually doesn't bother you. Swingsets are not one of those things.

Now that the snow has melted and we are venturing out of our caves again, we see the swingset problem in full bloom. And it's worse. At last count, we've got four separate pieces that have broken off, one of which (a monkey bar) left a giant screw sticking out of it, which Noah cut himself on last fall. I called Toys R Us at the time to complain about the thing breaking, and they couldn't have cared less. I suppose if it had been made in China and dipped in lead, then we could have had a discussion, but simply falling apart is not nearly as bad. I tried to call the manufacturer, Adventure Playsets, but it was on a weekend, and by the time they were open again I had forgotten. And now, naturally, it's out of warranty (except for defects in the wood).

Ryan approached me today with his concerns. Well, "concerns" is putting it mildly - he has resented this $800 wooden intrusion into our lives since it first started wobbling. Today he very nicely asked me if he could take a sledgehammer and destroy the thing, and replace it with a metal swingset. No, I said, it's here and it's staying. I am not throwing away $800! He said that it had gotten worse, and I should take a look - we don't want it seriously hurting someone before we decide to get rid of it.

I wanted to blow him off about this, but after he left to go see his grandparents for their birthday (I stayed home with sick kids) I watched Brad swinging. And Ryan's right, as much as I hate to admit it. Something is going to go seriously wrong. Not only is the swaying worse, but one of the arms that holds a swing bows dangerously when Brad swings on it. Not just a little, either, it bows by several inches. I had to tell him not to swing on that side at all. Plus, two of the giant screws that hold the monkey bar assembly onto the playhouse structure have popped out.

So now the question is, what do we do? Do we call it an $800 loss and start over with something else? Do we rent a backhoe and level a piece of ground, and move the swingset? It's my opinion that the problems are caused (or at least, exacerbated) by the ground not being level, although Ryan is pinning the problems on cheap wood. Both are probably true. But do we toss this one, or try to salvage it? Are wooden swingsets really disposable? Or at least, recyclable?

It would be an easier decision if the original swingset hadn't been so stinkin' expensive. If it had been, say, a $300 swingset, this would be an easier decision. Ryan and I keep a mental list of the stupidest things we've ever wasted money on, the worst financial decisions, and so far $500 is the most we've blown at one time. When Brad was about 6 months old, we got suckered into a uniquely Los Angeles scam, where we paid $500 for the privilege of a company called FlashCast Kids to try to get Brad cast in a commercial or something. What can I say, he was awfully cute and they were awfully sure he could be successful. Dave Ramsey (a radio financial guy) calls this kind of thing, where you waste money, a "Stupid Tax." We still regret those $500 (and the stupid decision it represents.) Will this wooden swingset replace FlashCast Kids as the phrase that one of us utters to remind the other about how stupid we can be?

My current position, which I am only tenuously holding onto, is that I'd like to repair this swingset before we toss it completely. Ryan's position, which is substantially firmer than the swingset itself, is that the wood was too crappy to be salvaged, and as the one who built the whole thing with his bare hands, he has an intimate knowledge of the wood in question. Why waste the time and money on something that was substandard to begin with?

Ryan's vote in the Traditional Wooden Swingset vs. Sturdy Metal Swingset is the metal one. The boys spend almost all of their time swinging or sitting on top of the monkey bars - they rarely slide or play in the playhouse, so all they need are swings. Ryan also votes for getting the crew of Mythbusters in to blow the thing up, he thinks that would be a fitting end to the whole situation. Me, I'm still on the fence. Which is a safer place to be than on the swingset.

Parenting On Parade

I think something in the cosmos knows when I haven't blogged enough, and so throws an event in my path that the only way I can recover from it is to write it for the world to see.  I've been thinking recently that I just haven't had much to say, but yesterday solved that for me.

Parenting is hard enough in the privacy of your own home.  Going out in public with the kids is like putting your parenting skills on a leash and trotting them around the Westminster Kennel Show stage, with all of the judges marking each misstep on their clipboards.  On yesterday's trip to Costco, not only did I trip and drop the leash, but that puppy pooped all over the stage.  My parenting skills took a serious dive in the scoring, I believe.

It started innocently enough.  Brad and Noah had some allowance money burning a hole in their pocket, and I needed some milk and (in all honesty) a churro, so I loaded the four kids in the minivan and headed to Costco.  The two older boys headed for the candy aisle, while I pushed Zack and Darcey in the cart, loading up with groceries.  They were both sitting in the front seat, and Zack would randomly announce which thing he had to have as we walked past.  

We were heading to the dairy section when we walked past a large display.  "I want one of those!"  Zack said.  

"A kayak?  Where do you plan to use a kayak, the bathtub?  We're not exactly a kayaking family."  I said this as I rounded the corner and passed a sample lady, setting out her display.  She must have kids herself, because she caught my eye and we both smiled at each other.  Kids, right?

As our cart passed her down the dairy aisle, Zack, whose back had been to her, sees the sample lady and in his loudest outside voice said "Hey!  Look at that big guy!  That guy is really big!"  He's pointing straight at the sample lady.  I go into shush-overdrive as I try to get him to shut the heck up, but naturally, it just makes him talk all that much louder to be heard over my shushing.  "Look at that big guy, mom!  That's a really big guy!"

May I take this moment to remind you that she was, in fact, a woman.  

Alarm sirens in my head are wailing as I try to get this situation under control.  I want to run out of there as fast as possible, and I want to mitigate the damage as much as I can.  I am in mental torment.  I end up quickly walking down the aisle just to try to get Zack out of the woman's earshot, or at least give him the chance to be distracted by something else.  And then I pull over and give Zack The Lecture.

This is the same lecture I had to give Noah a couple of years ago, strangely enough, also at Costco.  He had been staring at a 5 year old boy with an eyepatch (not the piratey kind, the medical problem kind).  I tried to distract him but Noah wouldn't stop staring.  Finally, the kid started crying and told his mom, "That boy is staring at me!"  Which was completely true, of course.  I apologized and left before I could start crying myself.

This is also the same lecture that I had to give Brad 4 years ago, shortly after we moved to this neighborhood.  I was big and pregnant with Zack at the time and while we were outside chatting with a neighbor who happened to carry her extra weight around the middle.  I was hoping a hole in the earth would open up and swallow us all when he asked her "Do you have a baby in your tummy too?"

The lecture goes something like this:  Don't say someone is really big.  It hurts their feelings.  Okay?  Don't say someone is big, it's not nice to say it.  Okay?

Naturally, this lecture is completely adaptable to any embarrassing situation that a kid might put you in - Don't stare at the kid with one eye, Don't ask our 45 year old neighbor if she's pregnant, etc.  And the kids' responses are all pretty uniform too:  But she is really big!  He only has one eye!!!  But how do you teach tact to a 3 or 4 year old?  It starts here, with the lesson that not all truths need to be announced at the top of your lungs in a warehouse store.

I gave Zack The Lecture while we were in the same aisle as the woman, so that hopefully she saw that I was taking his comment seriously and trying to teach him some manners.  And then I had to get some milk from the case where we were standing.  But I only grabbed one instead of two to speed things up, and then I slunk out of there just as fast as I could slink.

I felt horrible.  I was so embarrassed.  Mortified.  The last thing in the whole world I wanted to do was make eye contact with that woman again.  So I stuck to the backs of the aisles as I walked through the store and found the older boys in the candy aisle.  They both had decided on gigantic bags of candy which on any other day I might have tried to bargain them out of, but not today.  No, today's goal was get the heck out of there as fast as possible.  

I left without confronting my shame, which I think is probably the natural response.  I harbor a microscopic hope that somehow she didn't hear his comment, or thought he was talking about some big "guy" which couldn't possibly have been her.  Or maybe she is good-hearted enough to keep the kids-say-the-darndest-things attitude that she showed about the kayak and apply it to something personal.  

Whatever the case, let me just throw out a blanket apology - I'm sorry, world, for all of the things that I haven't thought to forbid my children from saying.  Let me apologize for the future wrongs against society, too - for when my kids are teenagers and don't leave a tip for the waitress at Denny's, or think it's okay to talk to their friends in a movie theater, or make fun of the fat kid in the pee-wee football game, until the kid finishes the game and ends up sitting with his parents one row in front of them, who must have heard every word.  (True story, but not mine thank goodness.)  For picking flowers for their mom from someone's flower garden.  Kids are kids, they don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings - they are just now figuring out that other people have feelings.  And if we don't train them to be out in public, can you imagine the havoc they'd wreak when they are adults and haven't learned these things?  For now, though, maybe I'll keep a shorter leash on Zack.  And carry a pooper-scooper to Costco.

One Year Older, and Wiser Too

We're coming up on our one year anniversary here on the parenting front line, and to commemorate I'm going to, basically, do nothing.  I'd throw a party for all eight of my readers, but since only about two of you are in the same city, the logistics are just too complicated.  But let me just say for the record, thank you for listening to my incessant ramblings for the last year, for giving me an outlet for my frustrations and my amusing anecdotes, because otherwise they would just sit inside me and ferment like old apple juice or a can of peaches with botulism.  

I thought it might be fun to do another day in my life, just to see how things have changed, and how things are sadly the same since a year ago.  Naturally, we need to start in the middle of the night.

3:42 a.m. - Zack wakes me up, asking for help pouring his cup of milk.  I am at once grateful that he didn't try pouring from the full gallon and cause me to clean up his mess in the middle of the night, and also frustrated because the tv was on, and it looked like he'd been camped out downstairs for quite some time.  He threw a minor (though loud) tantrum as I turned off the tube and carried him upstairs, but it petered out after a minute or two.  I went back to bed.

6:59 - Darcey is awake and crying, but it's Ryan's turn to get up with the kids this morning, so I wake him up and he stumbles off to feed her a bottle.  I shut off the alarm and try to get some more sleep, but I stink at sleeping in.  Still, I'm not one to quit without giving it a real college try.

8:30-10:30 - I attempt to make myself a bowl of cereal and end up knocking the container of frosted mini-wheats off the counter, covering the floor with shredded goodness.  Ryan tries to convince me it's still edible, and while I am a firm believer in the 5-second rule, I refuse to eat anything that has been swept up with a broom.  I settle for the last little bit of Special K with Berries for breakfast instead, which is pretty good if you can let go of the fact that you are eating strawberry-flavored styrofoam bits.  The morning continues without much happening.

10:30 - Ryan drops something loud on the floor in the kitchen and coincidentally, Darcey wakes up and starts crying.  At the very same second.  Even I have a hard time blaming Ryan for that, I mean, she was a whole floor away with the door closed.  But since she's awake, I decide it's time to go to Costco.  

11:00 - Zack decides it's not time to go to Costco.  He is very busy playing pbskids.org and screams at me when I attempt to pry his fingers off the keyboard.  If he were, say, an abusive teenager with a hangover, I would expect this kind of screaming.  But I am completely out of energy for dealing with this, so I let him keep playing and I work on some homework for my Microeconomics class.

11:30 - Ryan's got a bad situation at his office, and he's called on the big guns to deal with it - me.  The office park where he rents an office has this bad habit of moving him randomly to new offices whenever someone wants the room he's in.  The owner told him last week that they'd need to move him again (this is the 4th office in two years) but didn't give him any details about when or where.  He told them about our travel plans (we were gone from Thursday until Monday night) and was very cooperative.  Allen (the owner) kept mentioning how sorry they were to have to move him again, since one time they needed to move him was while we were in Malaysia last year and I ended up bringing my dad (and several kids) with me to move all of his stuff.  I don't think I was rude or anything, but I wanted them to know that this was not convenient and I wasn't going to pretend it was.

Naturally, no one gets back to Ryan about the move, even though people keep walking in on him, surprised to find anyone still in that room, so the day before we leave he leaves messages for everyone involved, reminding them about his travel plans and taping a note to the doorknob saying "Please don't rekey the door."  When we get back on Monday, there are three or four messages from the head security guy asking Ryan to please move his stuff out, and could he have it out by Friday, or Saturday at the latest?  Circus monkeys could be trained to run this place better.

Our big mistake comes on Monday night, when Ryan moves his stuff out of his office, without having secured a new place.  Now that there's no big obstacle in their way, no one cares at all where Ryan goes.  We lost our bargaining chip, and I feel stupid for letting that happen.  Ryan spends the week calling, leaving messages, and working from home.  He gets a false start when someone directs him to a room in Building B, but before he could move in the security guy says, No, that's the wrong room.  (That was actually welcome news, because the room was a total dive, with a hole in the ceiling for the thermostat, which is dangling from wires overhead.)

So long story short (yeah right) it is now Friday and Ryan is still at home, in the craft room, when he finally decides it's time for me to call and raise Cain.  I ask him if he feels emasculated by having his wife call to get this done, and he says it's no secret that I'm the one in charge here.  I feel the need to let him know that he is wrong about this, but doubt that I'd be able to make my point, especially since in some ways it's true, and in some ways, he likes having me available to do his dirty work.  I guess it would be stupid to pretend I'm some kind of shrinking violet that would feel faint if I had to stand up for myself., although I wish I was dainty and demure like that.  

I call Allen and leave a message.  Then I call Marie, who had given Ryan the Building B room, gave her the lowdown, and she told me to talk to the security guy.  Here's where the backbone comes in handy - I tell her that he had said to talk to Allen, and Allen is not around, and then I just waited and let her be the next one to say something.  She told me she'd call Allen and get the information for me, and when I gave her my phone number I also asked her to tell Allen that we needed to be credited for this week's rent since we've been out of our office for 4 days.  

Within an hour, Allen called back - he approved the week's rent credit and the room that Ryan's going to be in is $50 cheaper a month than the current place.  So it's all good in my book.  And I was nothing but polite the entire time, I swear.

1-2:30 p.m. - I finally go to Costco with a shopping list of about 4 things, which naturally ends up costing $165.  Granted, that includes a $40 box of diapers and a $27 can of formula, but the rest was all extras.  I have a love/hate relationship with that store.

2:30-4:00 - The boys are home, and it's homework time.  This month the school is doing a reading contest so the boys are supposed to read an hour a day.  It's fine for Brad, he can read on his own, but this means that I have to read to Noah for an hour.  In the ideal world that I'd like to live in would be part of our day anyhow, right before piano lessons and after the family sing-along, but in my real life it is exacting a toll on me.

I brought home churros from Costco for the boys, and I sat at the table with Noah while he ate and watched tv and I read my textbook.  We weren't talking to each other at all, and out of nowhere here is the conversation that Noah and I had.

Noah:  It's a good thing we're safe in winter.

Me:  Safe from what?

Noah:  Bears.  Except not polar bears.  Cause they are around all the time.  Except when they're dead.

(pause)

Noah:  Are there bears in heaven?

Me:  I think so, probably.

Noah:  Oh, shoot, I'm gonna die!

Me:  Well, you'd be dead already.

Noah:  Oh yeah, right.

This is the reason, folks.  It is conversational gems like this that keep me a stay-at-home mom - you can "quality time" me all you want, but you can't schedule this kind of spontaneity.

4-5:00 - The boys scatter to the four, well, three winds and Darcey contentedly eats a cracker and plays on the floor while I write this blog entry.  She can really move now, and while her form is pathetic (total army crawl, using her toes to propel her on her stomach across the floor) she can get anywhere she wants.  And some places she doesn't want, too.  I looked over right as she grabbed the fake potted plant in the corner, and tipped it over on her head, burying her in layers of dusty leaves.  She didn't cry, in fact she didn't even move, as if she was so surprised at this turn of events.  Who knew that pulling over that basket would end up landing this small tree on her head?  

5-8:00 - I leave for my Microeconomics class, which I am habitually late for, no matter how hard I try.  The topic of the class is interesting, but it's gotten very math-y and the teacher just isn't that great.  I wonder how much better my education would be if I was taught by actual professors instead of adjunct faculty who are teaching classes that they aren't even getting their advanced degrees in.  I like the small class sizes at UVSC but I think I might learn more from BYU.  I doubt that this summer, when UVSC becomes Utah Valley University, I will magically get more professors instead of adjunct teaching my classes.

8:15 - I get home, we do scriptures as a family, and Ryan thinks it's a good idea to show the kids the first 10 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark.  It's not.  

9:00 - Ryan is leaving to move his stuff into his new office.  Brad is on his way to bed, and I'm going to watch some tv while I work on some digital scrapbook stuff, so I think the rest of my evening should be uneventful.  Tomorrow we're going skiing as a family (Darcey and Zack are getting a babysitter) and I've asked the kids to take pity on me and help me down the hill.  I'll be sure to report if anything interesting happens.  But in the meantime, thanks for being around this year.  It's been good for me, I hope it has been for you too.

Three Year Olds Expound On Theology

Zack and his friend Jonathan were eating their lunch while singing the First Article of Faith (which are the tenets of the LDS faith) and then had a discussion on the nature of the Holy Ghost.  I wanted to add subtitles, because you have to be fluent in three-year-old-speak to understand it all, but give it a shot anyhow.