Threespeak

Three-year-olds don't quite speak English fluently.

Some of them fake it so well that we can be tricked into thinking they do, but the more you interact, the more you realize there are subtle differences between English and what I dub "threespeak" that can cause a bit of confusion.

Every three-year-old will have their own version of threespeak, but here is a list that covers a lot of our particular dialect.

Help (as used in the phrase "I want to help!"): To gently place your hand on the hand of your parent as she makes a sandwich, puts clothes in the washing machine, puts flour in the mixing bowl, or other such activities. 

No (as used in the phrase "No, we're not doing that today."): A mean word. "We don't say that word in our family."

Not tired: a state of being in which you want to put your head on the couch or on the ground and do nothing, but under no conditions do you want to put your head on a pillow.

Hungry: To have an appetite for one particular thing. One can be hungry only for treats and not for dinner.

Lunch/Snack: A type of meal less determined by the time of day it is eaten and more determined by its contents and who is present. For example, if the three-year-old determines it is lunch time, then Daddy shouldn't be there for that meal, even if it's at 6 pm.

Seed: An abomination. A texture that is not smooth which tarnishes foods such as rice, oatmeal, many fruits, and whole-wheat anything. Occasionally refers to the white part of an orange. If a food has a smooth texture but still has the appearance of a seed, it may still be unacceptable.

Bigger: Best explained here:

Never: having not occurred in the past 5 minutes. See here:

Favorite: Anything a three-year-old likes. For example, if a parents says that a child does not need to share a favorite toy when friends come to play, the child will gather up all of his sports cars and hide them.

Based on these examples, it seems that one who wishes fluency in threespeak should become proficient in hyperbole.

Such as: This is my favorite blog post ever and I'm never writing one again.

What we want out of life

"Graduating is like falling off a cliff. It's pretty traumatic," my dad said once.

Since Kevin's on track to finish his PhD in August, we're starting to feel the edge of that cliff. Sometimes we look at each other and ask, "what do we want out of life?" and we shrug our shoulders, and then apply for 10 more jobs.

But the truth is, I know exactly what I want out of life. I have already decided the ideal house size and age, yard size, trees and flowers to plant, proximity to important places (gas station, church, work, library, schools, grandparents, mountains), which friends should also buy houses in our subdivision (if you are reading this, you are probably included), range of how many kids we want, hobbies, potential part-time jobs, vacations to take, humanitarian work to be involved in, trials to grow from (preferably easy ones), books to read, callings to have, and so on.

All that's missing is an actual job and corresponding location to go with it.

She's cheer captain

The other day, I read an article about how Taylor Swift transformed herself from being one of the most hated celebrities to one of the most loved. It's not really worth linking here, but the basic gist I got out of it was that a large part of her success was due to a change in narrative. She used to write songs where "other women" were the enemy, stealing boyfriends and whatnot. But now, both her songs and her personal life suggest that women can be friends.

It's pretty simple logic, actually. If you are alienating your fan base because they are, by definition, "other women," then they probably won't connect to you (despite them connecting to your songs and thus giving you lots of money). But if you act like women are your friends, then we're all friends with Taylor Swift, which makes us feel great!

It made me think of two friends of mine.

Friend 1 had some incredibly negative experiences with girls early on which have haunted her ever since. Growing up was one long string of being deliberately not invited to parties, being teased by the people she wanted most to be her friends, and struggling to relate to the girls her age. She had different interests than most everyone around her, and it was hard to find girls who cared about the same things. In college she would write journal entries about how terribly lonely she was, and how she wished she were part of a cohesive group of friends. Now that she is grown, she feels like she stumbles her way through many social interactions and sometimes leaves activities feeling frustrated and awkward. She often finds herself sitting by herself in Relief Society, not knowing what to do about it.

And then there's Friend 2. Friend 2 is fun. She has always had tons of friends including some lifelong close friends. Ever since she was young, she's loved going to and throwing parties, and she always wishes she could invite more people (the main thing that holds her back is lack of space). She loves hanging out with other women in the neighborhood common areas, at book groups, girls nights, and Relief Society activities, and she usually has an easy time finding common ground with others there. In college she became close friends with many people, and those friendships have lasted for years. Wherever she's lived she's found friends that she can typically count on to hang out with. She loves getting to sit by new people in Relief Society and is always amazed by what other women have to say there.

Given the level of detail about both of these friends, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that they both describe me. Sometimes I have felt like both Friend 1 and Friend 2 within the same hour.

But let's be honest . . . who sounds like a happier person, and one you'd rather hang out with? Although a sense of pity might win me over to Friend 1, I would rather be with Friend 2.

Friend 1 might be incredibly empathetic, thoughtful, compassionate, and loyal (she probably writes better music, too), but I'd feel defensive if someone defined herself like that. "Wait. You don't connect well with women? Women have been unkind to you? Am I going to have a hard time connecting to you? Am I going to be someone who is unkind to you? I don't want to put either of us through that!!!"

Still, it is tempting to define oneself as Friend 1. We all want to be interesting, and unhappy people are more interesting than happy people. We don't want to be shallow or unsympathetic, so it might be tempting to reach down and find some pain we've been carrying around to have some contribute to the pot.

But that's not really what people want or need. For the sake of others, we need to be positive. For our own sakes, we desperately need to see ourselves as happy, friendly people. This doesn't mean we should gloss over our problems, but we can't define ourselves that way. Especially when we define ourselves out of close friendships that we so desperately need.

As Bonnie Oscarson said,

"We just need to relax and rejoice in our divine differences . . . The fact of the matter is, we really and truly need each other. Women naturally seek friendship, support, and companionship. We have so much to learn from one another, and we often let self-imposed barriers keep us from enjoying associations which could be among the greatest blessings in our lives . . . If there are barriers, it is because we ourselves have created them. We must stop concentrating on our differences and look for what we have in common; then we can begin to realize our greatest potential and achieve the greatest good in this world."

And it's worth it. It's worth it to have to constantly forgive ourselves and others for shortcomings in order to be close to them. It's worth it to cast off superiority or inferiority complexes, to assume that people like you, to brush off the slights you receive, whether intentional or unintentional. All of these hard, hard things are worth it when they result in a real connection to another human being.

So, if January has got you feeling down and lonely and Friend 1-ish, take the advice of Taylor and . .



(You know I'm going to say shake it off. I don't know what else to say.)




Shake it off!

The flame shall not hurt thee

On December 16th, 2010, we along with some of our neighbors were out delivering secret Santa presents to families in another part of Provo. (5 years is a good statute of limitations for admitting something like this, right?) As we drove down University Avenue, we saw a few large vans by Center Street with people unloading equipment into the Provo Tabernacle, presumably for a concert.

The next morning, the tabernacle was engulfed in flames.

It was unbelievable. I had gone there a few times for concerts and stake conferences, and now it was gone. The fire was so huge that we went to a wedding reception in Mendon, went to a wedding in Manti, and drove back to Provo on the Center Street exit that night, and we could still see the lapping flames through what used to be the windows. The whole city was in mourning.

This story has a happy ending. It began when President Monson announced that the tabernacle would be rebuilt as a temple. My heart has been happy seeing the pictures of the exterior and interior, and I imagine President Kimball is at peace in heaven knowing that there is a beautiful temple in Provo now. (I do love the old Provo temple, but it had to grow on me.)

But even before the story had the happy ending, even before we knew what would become of the building, there were little miracles here and there to comfort us.

One of them was from an email forward. I generally roll my eyes at anything that gets forwarded (or sounds like an email forward on Facebook), but this one was different. Someone in my aunt's extended family was a firefighter who helped clean up the tabernacle, and he and the other firefighters came across this picture.

Much as I've wanted to dismiss this under the "see someone holy in a knot of wood or potato chip" category (because, you know, anything that smells faith-promoting must surely be hokey), the fact is it's stuck with me for more than 5 years now.

I don't really know how the part depicting the Savior avoided getting charred along with the rest of it. I have my guesses of course (admittedly, none of them fall in the "coincidence" category), but I don't really know. And, in the long run, we don't place our faith in pictures.

But I really, really like the message that this picture speaks to me. It seems to say, "Natural disasters happen. People, even bad ones, have their agency and do horrible, horrible things. Everything is not awesome. Everything is not all right.

"But the story isn't over. And I will be with you til the end."

And that, to me, is the theme of the gospel. It's why we have the gift of the Holy Ghost -- to always have Him near. It's why we are commanded to love each other and nourish each other -- to be His hands. It's even a theme of the temple -- when we have been cast out of His presence (or His tabernacle, in this case), we can still have a reminder of Him with us always, covering and protecting us from the fiery darts of the adversary.

And if we turn to Christ, there will always eventually be a happy ending.

Watch

Last night was the sort of toss and turn to relieve sinus pressure, feed the sick baby a lot, only breathe through your mouth, fill the trash can with tissues sort of night that you know has to happen every now and then because we live in a fallen world. I had hoped we all could make it a month without catching another cold, but it was not to be.

Combining that with temperatures in the teens means today is the sort of day where we stay inside and do nothing. So far Joseph has watched Cars and is 10 minutes into Monsters Inc. He'll probably watch at least one more thing, especially if I finally feel up to napping.

In the meantime . . . all this watching has made me think of all the wonderful made up words we have made up in our family from the word "watch."

The first one came before I was married as I was trying to figure out the male analog to a chick flick since I thought "guy flick" sounded dumb.

What about . . . macho watcho! It was brilliant!

I told that to Kevin, and all was silent.

"What's a watcho?" he said after several seconds.

"It's . . . something you watch. While . . . eating nachos."

"It sounds dumb."

"That's kind of the point."

He has not yet adopted the term into his vocabulary, but I have faith he eventually will. It's really the most logical way to describe movies with lots of explosions.

The next watch word is from Joseph, who is good at telling us his feelings. Sometimes on days unlike today when I don't let him watch things for hours on end, he stamps his foot and tells me, "When you talk like that it makes me feel watchy!"

"What does watchy mean?"

"It means I need to watch stuff."

He still doesn't get his way, but he gets points for creativity.

The last one isn't a watch word, but it still applies. Joseph just informed me that "watching stuff makes me feel lotty."

"What does lotty mean?"

"It means I need a lot of food."

So now he is down there eating "watching food" (carrots) while watching Mike and Sully.

Oh! I just remembered one more story. One time my sister wanted to boil some water so she found an older sibling and asked "is this a watch pot?"

Wait for it. You'll get the joke in a minute.

In the meantime, I'm going to try and get that nap.

Cheerful Giver

It's a new year!!!

I don't really think you should make resolutions when it's below freezing (especially running resolutions), but I wanted to take a moment to reflect on last year's goals and where I want to go from there.

The word of the year that would pop into my head sometimes was "enjoy." And honestly, 2015 was pretty kind to me, so I was able to enjoy it a lot. I mean, this year had more screaming than I was used to (labor can do that to you) and more yelling than I was used to (three-year-olds can do that to you) but overall things were good. Good health, good friends, good baby, good trips, etc. So while the word "enjoy" wasn't a hard one to obey, it was a nice reminder to let the contentment soak in a little deeper. I'm not planning on things being crazy hard this year, but if they are I'll appreciate the happy deposits from 2015.

(Oh, and speaking of the year, I made a family newsletter. I forgot to put our last names and ages on so it's very safe privacy wise.)

Another goal I had was to recognize a bit better how to recognize the Holy Ghost in my life. One thing I figured is that God is most likely to give you revelation when it involves others, because He cares about His children being taken care of. To be honest, I had at least one time where I thought, "well, that was one generous thought that should have been suppressed," but that's okay. I finally realized this past week that perhaps one way I receive inspiration is through stories. They're not very elaborate stories, just the kind where I'm washing dishes and think, "Do you remember the time you forgot to start the dishwasher and the next morning you didn't have clean dishes?" and then if I pay attention to the story I start the dishwasher and if I don't then the story comes true. I don't think that counts as full-blown revelation, but the more I've thought about it the more I've recognized that, sure, the Holy Ghost can remind me to start the dishwasher, especially if it means that I am learning to recognize inspiration for bigger things (which has happened too, also through stories).

Similarly, sometimes I tell stories to myself to convince myself why my opinion is right, and I feel little tugs here and there telling me, "you can't believe that part of the story. No matter what that's still wrong." Given that I like to tell stories (it's my favorite type of blog post), it makes sense that stories are part of how I can be reached.

So, those were my two main goals. Now onto 2016 goals!

The main one can probably be summed up in two words: cheerful giver.

For more than two years now, I've had this weirdness about accompanying people. There was a little while in high school where I really struggled with accompanying people, but that basically went away for all of college and at least the first few months of living here. Then I got called to be Primary pianist and started getting asked to accompany all the time and for some reason I started to mind. A lot. You throw in a few miscarriages, feeling disconnected and terribly isolated from most everyone (even in Primary), and a complicated desire to be valued more for my singing or teaching than my playing, and . . . well, at the end of 2014 I almost hated the piano.

But that was a year ago, and a lot of those issues have resolved (reminding myself to enjoy the piano was part of that). Even so, I still spent a good chunk of 2015 working through my resentment, and I had a bit of a flare-up with Christmas (even though I only did 2 musical numbers per week in Sacrament Meeting, plus a little subbing). As I've tried to pin down what exactly I don't like about accompanying (is it feeling isolated or like a commodity? nah, I've got friends. is it that I don't get to serve in ways I would prefer? that used to be true, but now it's fine. is it that the songs are too hard? nah. never. is it that other pianists could do it instead? nah, they're busy too. is it having to be at church early to practice? nah, it means we get better seats. is it that I want to sing instead? sure, but first I want a better voice [or convince myself it's fine as it is]) I've concluded that sometimes I just plain don't want to serve.

Which, of course, also explains my hesitation in accepting babysitting requests, giving people rides, signing up to bring food, etc. I do all those things frequently enough. but they feel like isolated acts of service rather than an overall mindset.

And I know it's important to set healthy boundaries and say no occasionally, but I feel like most times I've said no, I've realized in retrospect that my "no" had less to do with healthy boundaries and more to do with a temporary desire to be obstinate. (Would it really have been hard to accompany one more musical number? Would it really have killed me to watch five boys for two hours once every five weeks? I do it unofficially all the time.)

And so this year, I'm hoping to change my mindset to be a cheerful giver. On the outside I might not do any more service or accompanying than I do now, but on the inside I will be more grateful for the opportunities given. I still think it's fair to assess if I'm getting anything out of the service, but I will do more to actively get something out of the service, if that makes sense.

On the left: the isolated acts of service I perform represented as green dots. On the right: the acts of service I perform, filled in by gratitude and grace. Cheerful giving has less to do with the number of dots and more to do with the overall mindset. (though more dots doesn't hurt)

I feel like this will take the rest of my life to achieve (even as I write this, I am filled with trepidation at all the accompanying that awaits me). But hopefully by the end of the year I will be in a spot where I don't carry around irrational dread about accompanying or babysitting anymore. Chances are, I will probably get to do a lot of both, so I may as well enjoy it!





. . . any advice?