Harkness Tower

The first time I played a carillon was when I was 13. I was visiting my grandparents in Kansas, and a member of the ward was a carillonneur for the bell tower at KU, so she invited us to try it out.

Since then, I've been in a few bell towers here and there. I went back to that bell tower when I was 18, took a carillon class at BYU when I was 19 during spring term, and went back to the bell tower in Kansas with my mom, aunt, and 2-year-old Joseph. (That was the time I played lots of Primary songs for Joseph as well as the song "Royals" in honor of the MLB championship that day.)

Interestingly, I never ended up playing either of the bell towers at the University of Michigan even though I had plenty of time to do it. So, when I heard from a member of my ward here that I could request a tour of the Yale bell tower, I knew I had to jump on the opportunity before I let it slip away like I had in Michigan.

The first time I emailed, I never got a response. So instead we went to a park and attempted to fly a kite.

The second time I used Kevin's email address hoping that somehow it would work better. And it did! Friday night he got a response so we planned our Saturday around making it happen.

This, of course, was the Saturday when we went to lots of splash pads that weren't on and Matthew locked us out of the house for almost an hour. But even with those adventures, we still had enough time to give the boys baths, eat dinner, and then head downtown.

Now tomatillo hasn't always been this glam 

As we walked, we heard the bells. Kevin told me that they were playing for a wedding. "Apparently they wanted Game of Thrones." Because nothing signifies the start of a healthy relationship like Game of Thrones, I guess. When we got to the college, we found out that the wedding was happening right there, and we weren't allowed in at all. Luckily, once Game of Thrones was done, our tour guide came down from the Harkness Tower and let us and the rest of the group in amidst stern warnings from the security guard to go nowhere near the reception.

Once in, we headed up the stairs. I had been hoping for an elevator like the KU bell tower, but we all managed the stairs okay. Our first stop was a room with an old carillon with only a few chimes and a full practice carillon that Joseph was happy to try out.

I only briefly tested it out by pushing middle C. Out came the sound of a B.

"It's a half step flat!" I cried out in dismay as everyone around me laughed. The KU carillon was a half step flat, which I had adjusted to fine, but I had still hoped for a carillon that matched the same pitches as a piano when we got around to playing the real one.

And then up another set of stairs we went, and I did my best to ignore the Braxton Hicks. After passing another practice carillon and walking up even more steps, we made it to the real carillon! After admiring the bells for a minute,

our tour guide and his friend played a fun duet for us. Joseph danced along, and I was pretty excited. True, there were about 10 other people in the tour who wanted a chance to play the bells, but I was sure I would get a chance too, especially since I had printed of "Come, Come Ye Saints" to pay homage to BYU. However, right as they finished their duet, the tour guide got a text.

"It says, 'Okay, you can stop now.' What do you think that means?" They replied to the text, and while we were waiting to see what it meant we walked around other parts of the bell tower. Did this mean I wouldn't get to play it after all? Raindrops made their way in through the top of the tower and landed on my head, mirroring the despair I felt. All that walking, and I wouldn't even get to play it?

We headed back into the room with the carillon and they confirmed that the reception had its own music so the bells had to stop. We headed back down, stopping on balconies on our way out to see the pretty rooftops of New Haven.

When we got to a practice room, the two carillonneurs played "You've Got a Friend in Me," which my kids appreciated. I liked it too, but I was in no mood to appreciate it. First the splash pads, then getting locked out, and now this? I was too sad to even ask if I could play the practice carillon. When we got to the college courtyard, the reception was still going on but the security guard was gone. That meant we were locked in from the inside. We had gotten enough dire warnings from the security guard that we didn't want to go anywhere near the reception, but it looked like we might have to. Luckily, we found another sidewalk that led to another door, though it was also locked. But the handicapped button opened the gate, so we were finally free. We headed back to the car and went home, receiving discouraging texts on the way to make sure we felt good about life. And then, to finish off the evening, Kevin asked, "Did you know you have a hole in the back of your shorts?"

Wins all around.

After a few days of mourning, I figured that there was nothing really stopping me from trying again. And since we didn't have any plans for the next Saturday (I know, these are probably the weekends we should go to beaches or New Hampshire or Maine before the baby comes, but I am tired) we tried again!

This time, we were the only people on the tour, and it went much quicker.  I got to spend as much time on the practice carillon as I liked, until I felt confident playing "Come Come Ye Saints" in A flat despite it sounding like the key of G (because, of course, it had to be in the right key).

Several stairs later, we were again at the real carillon. I sat down and grinned. Every day, every hour, the bell tower at BYU had played "Come, Come Ye Saints." Now was my chance to play it at Yale!

 . . . And, I messed up. Just a little. So I had to do it again!

. . . And, I started before the phone camera was ready. But, that's okay. It's mostly there.



After letting the boys and Kevin try the bells,


I considered playing something else I had learned 8 years ago in my class. But I felt like I had lost a lot of technique in those 8 years, and we hadn't quite put enough quarters in the parking meter to feel comfortable staying forever. So we headed back down, stopping at different balconies to admire the view again (and to imagine our children falling through the unprotected gaps since these balconies didn't have the netting that the balconies the week before had had).

There were 216 steps to the very, very top, but probably only around 100 to the carillon. Still plenty.

Since there was no reception this week, we were able to stop in the courtyard long enough to get a few pictures while Matthew ran in circles.

And that is the story of how I finally got to play my third carillon. I think it was worth it.

Acceptapple, part 2

We have been all about kindergarten readiness lately. Not so much the reading and writing stuff -- what Joseph doesn't already know he'll learn at school. Rather, we've been trying to make sure that the practical aspects of day to day living will go smoothly once he's there. Can we find peanut butter-free lunches that he will like? Will we stop having assigned superhero clothes? Which manners do we still need to practice?

It's going well, though we still run into plenty of hiccups along the way. 5 is the easiest age yet, but there are still plenty of meltdowns when things don't go right.  Plenty, plenty, plenty. And yet . . . Joseph can do and say things that astonish me, such as reading the back of the cereal box ("Send a free box to someone you love. Why does 'o' make an 'uh' sound in "someone" and "love"?) or remarking, "I think I like coloring better than watching" (which is probably a goal we should all have). So, each day is still full of surprises, good and bad.

Today I had another surprise that I have been looking forward to for years. I cut up some apple slices to take to the park, and when we got there he would pull them out, examine them, and eat them.

Even though they had the peel. All of it.

For years Kevin and I have always had to take off the tiniest bit of peel in order for him to eat the apple slices. It made no sense, but it's how things had to be. And finally, finally, finally, after a lot of explanations and after linking it to kindergarten readiness, it clicked.

Next up, bread crusts.

People at the library

Today I went to the library with the boys. We stopped by the DVD section so Joseph could choose a movie. He usually wants to check out several, but he was having a hard time today finding even one he wanted.

"What about Dolphin Tale 2?" I suggested. "You like the first one."

He looked unsure, as we probably all do when confronted with a sequel. He ultimately settled on a Sesame Street DVD while Matthew provided loud commentary on all the other DVDs he saw ("that's cool!" he would say for each one as he put it back in the wrong spot). A woman came up to me and told me my kids were very sweet and cute. "And now are you having a girl now?"

"Nope, another boy!" I said. She congratulated me and told me that boys were the best. She wished me luck and then went off to check out her books.

As I thought about it, this is the reaction I typically get when people see I'm pregnant. Every now and then I get the response, "Wow you're brave," usually from moms of 1-year-olds or "You sure will have your hands full" from men at the grocery store, but everyone else is unfailingly positive.

For some reason, it always surprises me. When I get together with other moms, we sometimes talk about the strange things people ask or tell us when they see us out with our kids. And I do have a few stories up my sleeve too. I will probably never forget my 23rd birthday when an older man approached Joseph and me at the library and asked gruffly if I was married, and if so, was my husband employed. "Good. He better be," he said as he stomped off.

A few minutes later, after I stopped standing there like Taylor Swift at the VMAs in 2009, I had an arsenal of comebacks ready to use the next time. And I still have them ready for the next time someone says something that disparaging.

And, four years later, I still haven't had to use them.

As it turns out, to my continual surprise, rudeness is the exception rather than the rule. And while I can still remember each time someone was rude to me, those incidents pale in comparison to the normal politeness and even kindness I've experienced in public.

I know this isn't the case for everyone. Many people deal with emotional abuse that wears them down each day. Many people have employers, neighbors, family members, and in-laws that are intent on finding fault. Some people just have worse luck running into busybodies at the store who can't help but comment on your child's tantrum.

But I'm grateful that overall, most people really are nice. Some are tactless and some are rude, but most really are decent people who like little kids and their moms. Especially the people you run into at the library.

Locks and Chips

So far, it had been a pretty good Saturday. I no longer had any signs of the stomach bug that had kept me up all Thursday night throwing up and rendered me mostly useless Friday while Kevin was in New York. Joseph seemed to be mostly over his cold. We were able to find everything we wanted at Aldi for the first time in a few weeks, finished the laundry in a timely manner, and got some good naps in for most of us. Now it was about 3 o' clock, and we had the rest of the day planned: go to a nearby splash pad for a little while, take baths, eat dinner, and then go on a tour to see and play the Yale carillon.

We all piled into the car and headed to the closest splash pad. The parking lot was full, and there were tons of people on the field and the playground, but the splash pad was off.

"That's weird," we thought. The sign had said it was open beginning Memorial Day, and this hot, sunny day seemed like a really good day to have it on, but no luck. Oh well. We knew of other splash pads within a 5 minute drive, so we decided to check them both out. Nope and nope. I figured that the splash pads at beaches would work, but they were relatively far away and our schedule was tight enough that we just headed home. Joseph was severely disappointed, but he felt better when I said we would have Otter Pops. As soon as we got in I pulled some out of the freezer and sent the boys outside with Kevin to eat them.

Meanwhile, I looked up when splash pads were supposed to open. There was nothing definitive for this year, but in years past there had been articles about them being open in early June. While I was reading, Matthew came back in needing some help with his Otter Pop. Once it was all gone and the sticky spots were mopped up, I went outside to tell Kevin about what I had read, closing the screen door behind me. I figured Matthew would follow soon, and sure enough within a minute he headed toward the door. But instead of coming out of it he pushed a little button on the screen door I had never paid attention to until earlier this week.

That was the day that Joseph had asked what the button was for, and I told him it locked the screen door. "Maybe we should lock that one at night, too!" he suggested. I told him that locking the main door was good enough. We never needed to lock the screen door.

But now, we certainly needed to unlock the screen door.

"More chips!" Matthew demanded, indicating what he had found during the minute I had left him alone in the house.

"Can you unlock it please?" I asked. He responded by singing various parts of "Let's go fly a kite" and wandering off until I got him to come back.

"Do you want to unlock the door just like Joseph does?" I asked. He grinned and said "Maybe," then tried pushing the doorknob of the screen door. When that was unsuccessful, he began to demand more chips again.

Then it was Kevin's turn. "Can you try twisting the lock?" he asked. Matthew responded by pushing on the lock, demanding that we open it. I ran to the back door to see if maybe it was somehow unlocked, knowing full well I had just locked it 5 minutes earlier for some inscrutable reason. I came back to the front door with a sigh.

"Well," said Kevin, "I guess we have to call the landlord." He pulled out his phone that he had put in his pocket 5 minutes earlier (apparently he had heeded the promptings of the Holy Ghost the same time I had heeded the promptings of Satan) and gave her a call. She said she would come right over. Now we just needed to spend the next 20 minutes keeping Matthew alive without being able to access him.

Matthew wandered over to the kitchen again to find more chips. I rushed to the back door so I could keep an eye on him while he was there. I knocked and rang the doorbell until he noticed me. There was a small gap in the blinds on the door where he could see me, and I again tried to get him to unlock the door. He insisted that I open the door, and I responded by showing him a YouTube video of someone unlocking a door from the inside.

He got bored quickly and tried to drag a chair over to the pantry to reach the chips. It got a little stuck between the dining room and kitchen, and I began to worry that if he pulled hard enough the chair would land on him. So I got his attention again by turning on a YouTube clip of "Let's Go Fly a Kite." He hurried back to the door to watch it, staring through the cracks in the blinds with expectant eyes as the song played. When it finished the second time, he got upset again so I pulled up "You're Welcome" from Moana. Again, he was happy to just stand there and watch. The phone automatically switched to "Shiny," but before it began there was an ad. "Not this one!" he wailed as I pressed "Skip ad" as quickly as I could. Halfway through the song, our landlord showed up. As I paused the song to say hi to her, Matthew again got upset about his show being interrupted.

"Has he been crying long?" she asked as she handed me the keys.

"Just a few seconds," I said. I unlocked the door and picked him up. Now that we were reunited, Matthew seemed to understand better that he had been separated from the rest of the family and cried even harder once I was holding him. Luckily, he calmed down quickly enough to even smile at the landlord as we thanked her profusely for coming, and then we all headed inside to start baths and disable the locks on the screen doors.

Come to think of it, he never did get more chips.