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.
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Sunday, June 11, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
What I did in kindergarten all day
Today, I visited the school Joseph is mostly likely going to go to if the odds work out in our favor. I felt pretty reassured by my visit -- it seems like a cute place with reasonable policies (a whole half hour for recess after a half hour lunch, for example). As we saw the halls filled with 100th day of school pictures and Dr. Seuss birthday decorations and Valentines and shamrocks, I got really, really excited about him going there. (If the lottery works out :D)
This whole process has given me lots of flashbacks from my kindergarten days. As far as I can remember, it was just 180 days of nonstop fun with my energetic teacher, Mrs. Cooley. As I recall snippets about Thanksgiving plays and Valentine teas and chicks in incubators, I think, "Oh, I hope my kids get to do this fun stuff too!"
Although I can't remember all the specifics (I couldn't say, for example, if we did 90 minutes of literacy and 60 minutes of math, like these kids will), I have definitely held onto the most important elements of what we did in kindergarten all day. For example:
This whole process has given me lots of flashbacks from my kindergarten days. As far as I can remember, it was just 180 days of nonstop fun with my energetic teacher, Mrs. Cooley. As I recall snippets about Thanksgiving plays and Valentine teas and chicks in incubators, I think, "Oh, I hope my kids get to do this fun stuff too!"
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| My kindergarten picture. Still not sure where it falls on the spectrum between darling and creepy doll. |
Although I can't remember all the specifics (I couldn't say, for example, if we did 90 minutes of literacy and 60 minutes of math, like these kids will), I have definitely held onto the most important elements of what we did in kindergarten all day. For example:
"If your brain stopped working, you would just freeze in place. Like this!" And he would demonstrate. The argument commenced about whether you would die or just freeze, and I really didn't know the answer. (Apparently you die.)
He also taught us the cool way to count to 100. "One, two, skip a few, 99, 100." I kind of liked the real way better, the way with all the numbers on the chart with all the great patterns. But he did seem really cool when he counted like that.
So I wanted to be cool back. One time he and a few other boys were talking about football because somehow even 5 year olds can be fairly knowledgeable about the NFL. I decided to interject.
"My uncle plays football. Maybe you've heard of him." I knew that my mom had mentioned that he played football in high school, so maybe he was kind of famous.
"What's his name?"
"Erik Rytting."
The boy paused for a moment, looked thoughtful, and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah. I think I have heard of him!" I felt a glow of pride to be related to someone so famous.
I learned lots from other kids too. One boy started always saying, "I don't like you. I love you," to me and everyone else all the time. Then he explained. "Since we are all children of Heavenly Father, that means we're all brothers and sisters. So we all love each other! That's why I love you.
I thought that was a pretty good explanation, and I also felt flattered that he loved me. Maybe it meant we would get married someday.
2. Recess was a pretty important 15 or so minutes of the day. We cycled through various parts of the playground different days depending on the weather. In the early fall and late spring, the big south-facing metal slide was way too hot to go on, but in the winter it was a coveted piece of real estate to lie down on, basking in the heat it provided. We also used it for some weird game called "crocodile" where I think kids at the bottom were the crocodiles that tried to drag kids down the slide, and other kids at the top would help rescue them. Although I don't remember any dislocated arms or other injuries, the slide was gone by the time I finished elementary school so someone somewhere must have recognized it as a safety hazard.
Except for the one boy who was shorter than me in both kindergarten and first grade, I was probably the smallest kid on the playground, and it was intimidating being out there with all the big kids, especially the 5th graders. One time a bossy 5th grader wouldn't let us go on the twisty slide, and our teacher got mad at her. I was grateful for her intervention, but I was also just in awe that a person could be as old as that 5th grader. Somehow I knew that even when I was a 5th grader I wouldn't be as old as her. It's been almost 22 years, and I'm still not as old as her.
Although I usually stuck close to my friends Rebecca and Brittany (we were dubbed the Three Musketeers), one day they must have been gone and I was playing mostly by myself. Then I looked around and realized I was playing even more by myself than I thought -- I couldn't find any of my classmates! Where had they gone? I frantically ran all around the playground again and again and again. Surely someone was still out there! I saw a neighbor boy in 1st grade playing and ran up to him, eager to see a friendly face. "Maybe they went inside," he said. Then his whistle blew and he said he had to go. "See ya," he said, leaving me alone.
In what felt like a matter of seconds, whistle after whistle blew, and all the kids hurried in. I stood there in horror. I was the last kid on the playground.
I saw the last teacher heading inside, and in a panic I asked her where my class went. She took me to my classroom and found my teacher. The rest of my class had gone to some assembly with a clown, so for the next little while it was just me and my teacher there. I sipped my milk (I was way too late to get the chocolate milk that day) and ate my graham cracker and she just sort of chatted with me. Cleaned up some milk that spilled on the ground. It was sort of a surreal experience being there with a teacher like that. Before too long, the rest of the class was back, and no one seemed to care at all about my traumatizing experience on the playground. But that was okay -- it was less embarrassing that way.
3. There were plenty of other times I was traumatized, come to think of it. We learned a lot about fire safety, especially since it had just been a few years since the school had caught on fire, and I spent days following those lessons wondering when my house was going to catch on fire. And what was I supposed to do? I had just moved down to a bedroom in the basement, and all we learned about was how to leave upper-story bedrooms. My parents reassured me it would be really easy to climb out of my basement, but it was still really troubling to think about.
Worse though was the poison assembly. It wasn't a normal assembly in the gym. Instead it was in a smaller room so we could be up close for the horrors that ensued. They acted out scenario after scenario in which kids made unwise decisions about dangerous chemicals, and then they would freeze. A woman dressed up like Raggedy Ann would press play on the tape recorder and sing, "Some things are No-No's! No-No's! Stop before you do!" or some other melody that seared itself into my hippocampus and left nightmares for weeks afterwards about poisons.
Then, of course, there was the time there was a substitute. I think we had one very occasionally, and most of the time it was really fine. But then one time it was just this strange, strange man named Dr. Cool. He had funny glasses, short golden curly hair, and a bowtie, and he seemed oddly familiar in an unsettling way.
"Who is that?" we whispered to each other. "Maybe it's Mr. Cooley," I suggested. We knew there was something unnatural enough about Dr. Cool to be some kind of joke, but who was playing it?
"Who is that?" we whispered to each other. "Maybe it's Mr. Cooley," I suggested. We knew there was something unnatural enough about Dr. Cool to be some kind of joke, but who was playing it?
After recess, we were all relieved to find out Mrs. Cooley was back. And, lo and behold, she had been Dr. Cool all along! Then she promised us to never tell our younger siblings so she could play the same trick on them in a few years.
What wasn't so traumatizing though was her classroom. It was more cool than scary to have a pet tarantula in the class, and once you got used to the mounted deer head on the wall during Christmas time, that was kind of cool too. We learned pretty early on that tarantulas, snakes, and mounted deer were not real threats, but fires and poisons were. So I guess in that sense I learned what I really needed to from kindergarten.
4. Utah turned 100 years old about halfway through kindergarten, so that of course meant lots of celebrations and assemblies.
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| I was in the black, doing my usual strange smile. |
Perhaps the most exciting part was how we got to learn all the songs for the centennial assembly. Of course, only the 5th graders got to sing the best song about iron wheels a-rolling and meeting up at Promontory Point, but we still had the tape so we could sing it at home. And, of course, dance to it.
In addition to the assembly, we had lots of assignments having to do with Utah turning 100 -- birthday cakes, prompts, and pictures to draw. As you can see, I clearly took advantage of everything Utah had to offer.
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| although, I enjoyed croquet less once I learned about poison |
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| of course I did. there were free samples. |
5. Somehow in the midst of all this we found time to learn our letters and numbers. Each week we had an assignment to find a few pictures that started with the letter we were learning about and glue them into our workbook. I recently talked to my mom about this, and this was the first time I found out it was just supposed to be 3 pictures per letter. I had thought we needed to fill the entire two pages. So each week I would come in with all sorts of pictures from all sorts of ads and magazines glued in, often overlapping each other because there wasn't space for all of them. It was hard work, but it sure was satisfying to see that my book could barely close right for all the glue and pictures in it.
We also spent a lot of time coloring, which I really enjoyed. One time though we had an assignment to draw a bus. I looked around and everyone reached for the yellow and black crayons to draw the school bus. I frowned. I didn't ride the bus to school, and I had never even been on one. I knew what they looked like well enough, but that didn't mean I wanted to draw it.
But I still drew a bus. The city bus. Not that I had been on that either, but at least it was not as ugly as a school bus.
Although my defiant streak didn't manifest very often, I guess it showed up when I colored. One time my teacher told me that rainbows and fireworks would never happen at the same time. So when I got home, I decided to draw my own picture that she would never see. It had rainbows, fireworks, and even candy falling from the sky for good measure.
And that defiance served me well on the last day of school. As Leslie and I walked home, some boys came out with their squirt guns and began to spray us in a last-day-of-school kind of exuberance.
I immediately stuck my hands in the irrigation ditch and waved the droplets at the boys. "We don't need you to spray us! We're already wet, see? SEE?" Leslie dragged me away, telling me that would only encourage them. She didn't understand that I had probably just saved her life, but it was okay. Kindergarten had been a triumphant year of my life, and I had just ended it in victory.
But I still drew a bus. The city bus. Not that I had been on that either, but at least it was not as ugly as a school bus.
Although my defiant streak didn't manifest very often, I guess it showed up when I colored. One time my teacher told me that rainbows and fireworks would never happen at the same time. So when I got home, I decided to draw my own picture that she would never see. It had rainbows, fireworks, and even candy falling from the sky for good measure.
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| I am pretty sure I kept that picture on my wall for like 6 years. |
And that defiance served me well on the last day of school. As Leslie and I walked home, some boys came out with their squirt guns and began to spray us in a last-day-of-school kind of exuberance.
I immediately stuck my hands in the irrigation ditch and waved the droplets at the boys. "We don't need you to spray us! We're already wet, see? SEE?" Leslie dragged me away, telling me that would only encourage them. She didn't understand that I had probably just saved her life, but it was okay. Kindergarten had been a triumphant year of my life, and I had just ended it in victory.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Eastward Ho
It's been three weeks now since we up and left Michigan, so it's time to talk about the move! (And hopefully this will be the last mammoth post for a little while.)
Whew. That move. Every day I would think about other moves -- the time we moved with a newborn and Kevin spent 3 days at a conference right when I was packing, the time we moved when I just had found out I was pregnant and was dealing with morning sickness and the stress of a Christmas concert/creche exhibit, and . . . it was kind of funny. I had plenty of help with babysitting, Kevin was done with his PhD, and it was still by far the hardest move yet.
Of course, this time there was the combination of a horrible humid heat wave, mild stomach bugs we kept passing back and forth to each other, a laptop that kept crashing and showing the blue screen of death (only a year after the previous one had done so), headaches, Matthew teething (of course), sleep deprivation, constant butterflies in my stomach due to stress and anxiety, expensive car repairs (looking at you, brakes), Kevin being helpful in a myriad of ways but none of them involving packing boxes (his stuff was harder and extremely important, but it wasn't as visible so I had to remind myself he was working hard too), and above all, being oh so sad so much of the time. No crying, but I would go to parties and just feel sad about missing people already, and then I would feel guilty for not having fun. Fun times!
But, everything worked out. We all got better from our various ailments (including the computer and car), and we stopped being so sad and anxious once we were out the door. It was kind of like being 41 weeks pregnant -- it's not necessarily going to be easier once the baby is born or once you've moved, but the anticipation and heaviness is just plain miserable. And anyone who deals with chronic illness or fatigue or depression or anxiety, I salute you! A week or two of it is bad enough!
After packing up on a muggy Saturday evening that turned into a stormy Saturday evening that left me drenched (but none of our stuff, thankfully), "sleeping" two nights on an air mattress, and scrubbing and sweeping with the help of some kind friends, we were on our way! Except we had to drive around the circle one last time so I could get one last picture.
Our first stop was the Johnson farm that we never went to when we went to Kirtland last year. Matthew was a little bit more opinionated this time compared to the time he was 5 weeks old, so the missionary rushed through a few parts and I left still not really knowing why Joseph Smith was ever there. (He did manage to tell the whole horrible tale of Joseph's tar and feathering to my sweet Joseph, who stood there with wide eyes. It didn't really seem to faze him, though.) When Matthew acted hungry, the tour basically ended. Haha! (In actuality, there were some really cool parts, especially seeing the room where Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith had the vision of the celestial kingdom.) We left without taking a picture and headed on our way.
We've always wanted to cross West Virginia off our states list, so we grazed a corner of it and spent a wonderful 2 or so miles in it. And it was dark. So I don't know if we should count it. We drove past Pittsburgh and spent the night in a pretty good hotel.
We spent a bit of the next morning at the hotel watching Olympics and Daniel Tiger, and Kevin took Joseph to the pool.
We then spent the next few hours driving through beautiful Pennsylvania while surviving Scripture Scouts and Three Doors Down (Joseph's new favorite song is "Kryptonite") before arriving at my dad's place near Princeton, New Jersey where he worked this summer. Man, they sure make up a lot of crazy driving rules to make it impossible to correct your mistakes if you happen to miss your turn. After dinner, we headed over to campus to admire the buildings. There were definitely a lot of beautiful buildings at University of Michigan, but this was a whole different scale of castles.
After we finished walking around, I wanted to go see our old house in Hopewell Township, so we drove there. My family has stayed in contact with our former next door neighbor who is probably in her eighties by now, and she invited us in for a chat. She reminded me of how she would watch us ride bikes and play and how every morning she would open her window so she could hear us practice the piano. I am so grateful those are the memories she's held onto because I feel like all I ever journaled about back then were our fights. I spent a minute looking at our old house, remembering the musty old basement that we got used to, watching Babysitters Club and putting on shows, the old brick driveway, the stuffed animals taped to the broom that Kaylie and I tapped on the window the time Leslie wouldn't let us hang out with her and her friend, and the days I spent cross-stitching bear after bear after bear. There were lots of great memories in that little old house.
We had promised Joseph some ice cream, so even though it was late by then he stayed awake to get his just desserts. After a little bit of Olympics, we headed to bed.
The next morning, we all went to Philadelphia to see the temple open house. Before we left, we were discussing how nice it was to have family on the East Coast since Kaylie's here too now. "Well, I guess Mom has a cousin over here, too, but we probably won't run into her." But as fate (or providence) would have it, after dutifully following instructions to head over to the church to watch the intro video that we've all seen at least twice at various open houses, we were richly rewarded with "You're my cousin!" My mom's cousin was our usher! (And the video was good, as it always is. I love the narrator!)
And the temple was beautiful! We kept Joseph's attention by counting the pictures of Christ on the walls (I think we got 33), and there were just such lovely vases and designs throughout. (See here.) After the tour, we chatted with my mom's cousin and my second cousin a bit and then got some lunch.
We had also considered going to Independence Hall, but when we got there we couldn't find parking. Not that we looked super hard. We were tired.
"I've been here before," Kevin said.
"I've been here before," I said.
"The Liberty Bell is just a bell that doesn't do anything," my dad said.
Joseph and Matthew wouldn't have cared either way. So, I didn't channel my inner Aaron Burr and we did not go in the room where it happened.
We did, however, stop by Washington Crossing State Park. The boys were asleep, so my dad stayed with them in the car while Kevin and I walked around. I have been really interested in the Revolutionary War lately, so it was really neat to be there. I felt like this was sacred ground in its own way, and as we walked I peppered Kevin with trivia. "The Hessians were German mercenaries, so they celebrated Christmas. Americans really didn't celebrate Christmas til the mid 19th century. They had the 4th of July and Washington's birthday, and they thought that was enough holidays so they didn't celebrate Christmas." (though . . . that doesn't explain why they didn't celebrate Christmas in the 18th century, since neither of those mattered in 1776.) I imagined Washington and his ragtag army crossing the Delaware that cold night and felt such a sense of gratitude for their bravery.
We drove past my old middle school and grocery store, saw where my brother-in-law almost won BYU 50, and then went for a brief walk along the canal.
We swung by the old church,
drove past some funny power lines,
and then headed back to the hotel for dinner, swimming with friendly kids, Olympics, and Disney Channel.
The next morning, we met up with Kaylie at a park
and then we were finally off to our new home in Connecticut!
And thus began our next big adventure.
Whew. That move. Every day I would think about other moves -- the time we moved with a newborn and Kevin spent 3 days at a conference right when I was packing, the time we moved when I just had found out I was pregnant and was dealing with morning sickness and the stress of a Christmas concert/creche exhibit, and . . . it was kind of funny. I had plenty of help with babysitting, Kevin was done with his PhD, and it was still by far the hardest move yet.
Of course, this time there was the combination of a horrible humid heat wave, mild stomach bugs we kept passing back and forth to each other, a laptop that kept crashing and showing the blue screen of death (only a year after the previous one had done so), headaches, Matthew teething (of course), sleep deprivation, constant butterflies in my stomach due to stress and anxiety, expensive car repairs (looking at you, brakes), Kevin being helpful in a myriad of ways but none of them involving packing boxes (his stuff was harder and extremely important, but it wasn't as visible so I had to remind myself he was working hard too), and above all, being oh so sad so much of the time. No crying, but I would go to parties and just feel sad about missing people already, and then I would feel guilty for not having fun. Fun times!
But, everything worked out. We all got better from our various ailments (including the computer and car), and we stopped being so sad and anxious once we were out the door. It was kind of like being 41 weeks pregnant -- it's not necessarily going to be easier once the baby is born or once you've moved, but the anticipation and heaviness is just plain miserable. And anyone who deals with chronic illness or fatigue or depression or anxiety, I salute you! A week or two of it is bad enough!
After packing up on a muggy Saturday evening that turned into a stormy Saturday evening that left me drenched (but none of our stuff, thankfully), "sleeping" two nights on an air mattress, and scrubbing and sweeping with the help of some kind friends, we were on our way! Except we had to drive around the circle one last time so I could get one last picture.
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| Those flowers are probably not doing so hot now. |
Our first stop was the Johnson farm that we never went to when we went to Kirtland last year. Matthew was a little bit more opinionated this time compared to the time he was 5 weeks old, so the missionary rushed through a few parts and I left still not really knowing why Joseph Smith was ever there. (He did manage to tell the whole horrible tale of Joseph's tar and feathering to my sweet Joseph, who stood there with wide eyes. It didn't really seem to faze him, though.) When Matthew acted hungry, the tour basically ended. Haha! (In actuality, there were some really cool parts, especially seeing the room where Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith had the vision of the celestial kingdom.) We left without taking a picture and headed on our way.
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| I've shared this before, but it still makes me laugh. He had to hold every credit card this trip! |
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| The sign you can't read says Moon, Pennsylvania. We considered it. |
We spent a bit of the next morning at the hotel watching Olympics and Daniel Tiger, and Kevin took Joseph to the pool.
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| Enthralled. |
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| So many great archways! |
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| This was probably used for some scene in Harry Potter |
After we finished walking around, I wanted to go see our old house in Hopewell Township, so we drove there. My family has stayed in contact with our former next door neighbor who is probably in her eighties by now, and she invited us in for a chat. She reminded me of how she would watch us ride bikes and play and how every morning she would open her window so she could hear us practice the piano. I am so grateful those are the memories she's held onto because I feel like all I ever journaled about back then were our fights. I spent a minute looking at our old house, remembering the musty old basement that we got used to, watching Babysitters Club and putting on shows, the old brick driveway, the stuffed animals taped to the broom that Kaylie and I tapped on the window the time Leslie wouldn't let us hang out with her and her friend, and the days I spent cross-stitching bear after bear after bear. There were lots of great memories in that little old house.
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| (I forgot to take a picture of the house. But here is a picture in the house.) |
The next morning, we all went to Philadelphia to see the temple open house. Before we left, we were discussing how nice it was to have family on the East Coast since Kaylie's here too now. "Well, I guess Mom has a cousin over here, too, but we probably won't run into her." But as fate (or providence) would have it, after dutifully following instructions to head over to the church to watch the intro video that we've all seen at least twice at various open houses, we were richly rewarded with "You're my cousin!" My mom's cousin was our usher! (And the video was good, as it always is. I love the narrator!)
And the temple was beautiful! We kept Joseph's attention by counting the pictures of Christ on the walls (I think we got 33), and there were just such lovely vases and designs throughout. (See here.) After the tour, we chatted with my mom's cousin and my second cousin a bit and then got some lunch.
 |
| My phone never took a picture, but luckily she shared her picture with me! |
We had also considered going to Independence Hall, but when we got there we couldn't find parking. Not that we looked super hard. We were tired.
"I've been here before," Kevin said.
"I've been here before," I said.
"The Liberty Bell is just a bell that doesn't do anything," my dad said.
Joseph and Matthew wouldn't have cared either way. So, I didn't channel my inner Aaron Burr and we did not go in the room where it happened.
We did, however, stop by Washington Crossing State Park. The boys were asleep, so my dad stayed with them in the car while Kevin and I walked around. I have been really interested in the Revolutionary War lately, so it was really neat to be there. I felt like this was sacred ground in its own way, and as we walked I peppered Kevin with trivia. "The Hessians were German mercenaries, so they celebrated Christmas. Americans really didn't celebrate Christmas til the mid 19th century. They had the 4th of July and Washington's birthday, and they thought that was enough holidays so they didn't celebrate Christmas." (though . . . that doesn't explain why they didn't celebrate Christmas in the 18th century, since neither of those mattered in 1776.) I imagined Washington and his ragtag army crossing the Delaware that cold night and felt such a sense of gratitude for their bravery.
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| Where Washington's boat crossed the river. |
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| Boats from that time. |
We drove past my old middle school and grocery store, saw where my brother-in-law almost won BYU 50, and then went for a brief walk along the canal.
We swung by the old church,
drove past some funny power lines,
 |
| There's definitely some reason those are there, |
The next morning, we met up with Kaylie at a park
and then we were finally off to our new home in Connecticut!
And thus began our next big adventure.
Thursday, June 23, 2016
The summer I was 13
When I was putting up Joseph's birthday decorations (which still haven't come down, because the rule is that decorations never come down), I had to take down a quilt that I had put up a few months earlier as sort of a winter quilt.
As I folded it up, I saw what I had written on the back years ago:
2003! Wow! That was 13 years ago! I've lived half my life since then!
Since then, I've thought a bit about that summer. In some ways, I think it was the most productive summer of my life.
I started the summer off with a fresh new journal (in WordPerfect, of course), with these goals:
1. Finish making my quilt.
2. Doing my dad’s book.
3. Keeping in contact with my friends
4. Learning to do my own hair (I know it sounds pathetic but the only things I can do with my hair are brush it, part it, and put into a ponytail and I want to learn to braid it.)
5. Working on my garden.
6. Reading Every Living Thing, All Creatures Great and Small, My Name is Asher Lev, Emma, Watership Down, Girl of Limberlost, Crystal Cave, and The Delmark (sp) Quartet.
7. Getting lots of personal progress marked off.
8. Seeing my friends a lot.
9. Cross-stitch
10. Learn to bake bread
11. Pull off a play/write a story
12. Mow the lawn adequately
13. Get taller
14. Finish Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants
15. Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day
Well, fifteen goals are enough.
It's also sobering to realize how much of that list still hasn't been accomplished. I have not really gotten any better at doing my hair than the few tricks I learned when I was 13. The books I didn't cross off that list have never been crossed off. (Side note: I did read a lot of other books that summer, and I had read the Book of Mormon on my own before then, so it wasn't like I was totally illiterate.) I have yet to pull off a play or write a story.
As I folded it up, I saw what I had written on the back years ago:
2003! Wow! That was 13 years ago! I've lived half my life since then!
 |
Since then, I've thought a bit about that summer. In some ways, I think it was the most productive summer of my life.
I started the summer off with a fresh new journal (in WordPerfect, of course), with these goals:
1. Finish making my quilt.
2. Doing my dad’s book.
3. Keeping in contact with my friends
4. Learning to do my own hair (I know it sounds pathetic but the only things I can do with my hair are brush it, part it, and put into a ponytail and I want to learn to braid it.)
5. Working on my garden.
6. Reading Every Living Thing, All Creatures Great and Small, My Name is Asher Lev, Emma, Watership Down, Girl of Limberlost, Crystal Cave, and The Delmark (sp) Quartet.
7. Getting lots of personal progress marked off.
8. Seeing my friends a lot.
9. Cross-stitch
10. Learn to bake bread
11. Pull off a play/write a story
12. Mow the lawn adequately
13. Get taller
14. Finish Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants
15. Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day
Well, fifteen goals are enough.
By the end of the summer, here's how well I did:
1. Finish making my quilt. (Yep)
2. Doing my dad’s book. (Nope. Got to chapter 10 and am still working on it)
3. Keeping in contact with my friends (until these past two weeks)
4. Learning to do my own hair (I know it sounds pathetic but the only things I can do with my hair are brush it, part it, and put into a ponytail and I want to learn to braid it.) (Kind of but I lost my skill over the summer)
5. Working on my garden. (Uh huh)
6. Reading Every Living Thing, All Creatures Great and Small, My Name is Asher Lev, Emma, Watership Down, Girl of Limberlost, Crystal Cave, and The Delmark Quartet. (I know I must have been joking when I said that.)
7. Getting lots of personal progress marked off. (Yeah)
8. Seeing my friends a lot. (No)
9. Cross-stitch (You mean that dull thing where you play with a needle. Knitting hats is enough.)
10. Learn to bake bread (no but I did make rolls)
11. Pull off a play/write a story (uh uh didn’t work)
12. Mow the lawn adequately (whatever adequately means I guess I kind of made that goal)
13. Get taller (not exactly a goal as much as aspiration, wish, dream. I think I did)
14. Finish Book of Mormon or Doctrine and Covenants (never started)
15. Eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day (once my choice and accountability project started I did but I haven’t really done it since. Not today even.)
Even though I didn’t get most of my goals, I still had a great time. I went to parties, went to Kansas, went to Bryce, went to a quilt show, went to the bathroom (sorry that’s not funny I’m just sick of went) learned a lot, had a relatively good temper the whole summer (I think), saw a meteor shower, went to Yellowstone, and all over had a fabulous, fantastic, fun, and superlative summer. (So it’s not an alliteration, but if you have a lisp it might be).
 |
| About to embark on a hike with my friends. Not 100% sure how I both kept in contact with my friends but didn't see my friends a lot (based on my goal list.) |
 |
| In Bryce Canyon |
 |
| In Kansas |
I admit that I haven't read the whole journal of what happened in between. After reading about a few fights with my sisters I decided it was too painful and embarrassing to continue. (Noteworthy entry: "If I die and this diary is discovered like Anne Frank’s was then maybe Kaylie will appreciate me more and will strive to be a better person.")
But even without reading all the entries that happened between the beginning and end of summer, it's clear I was quite productive.
It's also sobering to realize how much of that list still hasn't been accomplished. I have not really gotten any better at doing my hair than the few tricks I learned when I was 13. The books I didn't cross off that list have never been crossed off. (Side note: I did read a lot of other books that summer, and I had read the Book of Mormon on my own before then, so it wasn't like I was totally illiterate.) I have yet to pull off a play or write a story.
And I know that I have lots of life ahead of me still to learn all the things I'd like, but I don't foresee a time in the near future when I'll just be able to throw myself into every project the way I could back then. So I'm grateful I took advantage of it to some extent, and just wish I had done more!
So I guess this is the advice I have to adolescents -- learn as much as you can now! Imagine yourself 13 years from now. Maybe you will be a stay-at-home mom looking for healthy outlets. Would you want to become a Zumba instructor? Seamstress extraordinaire? Pinterest-worthy chef? Master gardener? Get started now! Don't wait til you're older -- you will be busy with high school and then college and then work and maybe babies and you will have a lot more inertia then than now. If you dive into hobbies while you are young, you will never regret it.
And for those who are 13+ years older than an adolescent? You've still got a lot of life ahead of you! It's never too late to learn how to braid.
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Remembering Granddaddy
Last night, my grandpa passed away after a stroke. He was 83.
Over the past day as I've tried to absorb this unexpected news, I've spent a lot of time pulling out my memories with him. Most of them are sort of silly stories. It's hard to tell a story of a warm hug or a tender smile or the goodness that someone radiates . . . so I'm left telling the silly ones, though there are many others worth sharing.
How do you have a first memory of someone you've known your whole life? As I think of Granddaddy, I think of General Conference and Thanksgiving in the fall, of Christmas parties and Christmas afternoons in the winter, of Easter and yard work in the spring, and of many, many summer events and parties, especially when we celebrated Pioneer Day and his birthday. There were lots of visits both directions, and I remember many, many conversations we had together.
So it's hard to narrow down what my first memory is. However, I do remember an argument we had when I was about 4, which is a bit of a surprise because it's the only one I really remember. He was watching me one time, and he pulled out a book he wanted to read me. It was some book about some boy in the jungle (all I remember is it wasn't the Jungle Book).
"My dad reads me The Secret Garden."
"I want to read you this book."
"I want you to read me The Secret Garden."
"I want to read this to you."
I really don't know what he ended up reading me. Maybe my parents came before he started to read.
***
Another time, he and Grandma (everyone else called her Mima, but I was a slow adopter) were watching us while my parents were gone. It was lunch time and he was looking through the fridge.
"Do you have any mayonnaise? I can't find any."
"Oh! I know where it is," I exclaimed and pulled out a jar of white stuff.
"That's miracle whip."
"I thought Miracle Whip was the brand name of mayonnaise," I responded.
"No, Kraft is the brand name of Miracle Whip. See? Kraft. Miracle Whip," he said as he pointed to the labels.
I didn't really see the big deal. They were both white, so what else mattered?
Now I know.
***
There are many things I inherited from Granddaddy. We both love music, literature, writing autobiographically, languages, and theology. I feel like his example influenced me to choose to read the best books, even the ones that weren't engineering textbooks.
However, in a few areas, he and I had differing tastes, at least initially.
For example, he hated the song "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel." He even brought it up in a Sacrament Meeting talk. I couldn't understand it. Our chorister loved loved loved it and even paused us in the middle if we weren't singing it with enough gusto. And of course, for the final chorus, we went at half-speed. How could Granddaddy not like a song like that? (I mostly agree with him now.)
He also liked Irish tenors. One time, he picked me up from piano lessons and began to sing in an Irish tenor voice. After he finished a few phrases, he said, "Let's listen to someone who can do this for real."
He then turned on a tape in his car, and there was a man warbling up in the notes that I thought belonged to girls. I didn't tell him this, but I thought he actually sounded better than the man on the tape.
And of course, there was the drive to New Jersey for my dad's sabbatical. Since we were taking both cars, Mima kept my mom company and Granddaddy went with my dad. We kids took turns in the different cars. While it was fun hanging out with my dad and grandpa, the fact was they liked really boring books on tape. On the bright side, I guess I did learn a lot about Rachel Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson. (In all honesty, I loved being in the car with him and my dad. When they weren't listening to the tapes, the conversations were incredible, and I grew really close to him.)
Differing tastes aside, these stories illustrate how involved he was in serving our family. It's only been in recent years where we've lived away from family that it's hit me. Oh! That's what families do! They help each other with moves and babysitting and support each other in church events. I was so used to it I didn't even realize that it was happening.
***
Summers were prime grandparent time. There were so many weekends we would make the 2-hour trek down to Orem to spend the night with them or with cousins. We would go to parades, light fireworks, eat popsicles, decorate cupcakes, and sit out on their back deck enjoying everyone's company.
I also remember Granddaddy going out pretty often with some salt. "Time to get rid of some snails," he would say as he went to work.
But when I was a teenager, my younger cousins decided that was no longer okay. They grabbed a box, stuffed some grass in it, and went around rescuing snails from a shriveled fate. As they found more and more, they got excited.
"They can have snail babies now!" and did all they could to encourage the snails. As they made bigger and bolder plans, I looked over at Granddaddy. I could see in his grimace what he wouldn't say out loud -- he didn't want his yard to be a snail wildlife refuge.
I don't remember what happened, but after that day the snail rescue plans were discarded. Poor snails.
***
Grandaddy taught Spanish at BYU for years, so he and Mima still attended many of the events. If I went to a concert, there was a good chance they were there too. I might happen to run into them at the BYU bookstore. Or, as I excitedly pointed out to everyone else at freshman orientation, I could see him in the video where he played Karl G. Maeser in the history of BYU video shown there. Each time, it was exciting, and I was proud that my grandparents were cool enough to walk around BYU.
I confess there was one place I always felt silly running into him. Many morning when I went running on the track, there he was too, jogging along slowly with other elderly men. I would say hi, but what was I supposed to do? They were going too slow for me to stay with them, and they probably wanted to have their own conversation. But it felt strange to lap them and say a quick hi as I went past. But that was the best option, so that's what I would do.
***
Even if I didn't run into him on campus, I would run into people who did all the time. One time he asked what classes I was taking. When I mentioned an English class, he asked who the professor was. When I said his name, he grinned brightly.
"He lived here for a little while back in 1975! He needed a place to stay so we put him in that room over there."
I felt strange all of the sudden. Teachers and grandparents were not supposed to mix. But I wasn't surprised, either. So many people had stayed with my grandparents -- all sorts of relatives, exchange students, and professors. We even had video evidence of it from my first birthday -- on the couch next to my grandparents was an exchange student joining in the celebrations.
A few weeks before this conversation, I had heard my mom call my grandma up to see if our good friend Brother Griffin could stay there on the weekdays while they waited for their house to sell. Of course he could, and so he did. As he learned of the many, many people who had lived temporarily with my grandparents (I believe he had counted 37), he dubbed their home a Statue of Liberty of sorts, welcoming the masses in and caring for them once they were there.
***
Granddaddy took to Kevin quickly. A few weeks after we started dating, Kevin and I went over for dinner. When they heard his name, they asked, "Which wife are you from?"
After they figured out the genealogy and after Granddaddy had lent him a book he had written about Henry Moon, the next question was, "Where did you serve your mission?" Puebla? Granddaddy had been to Puebla, and had written about it in a journal. He went to his office and pulled it out for Kevin to read. Although Kevin was a little overwhelmed with this welcome (and the corresponding reading material), he appreciated the sentiment, and he felt the love.
***
Granddaddy was kind, wise, eloquent, loving, and good. He was a good conversationalist and a great listener. He had a strong testimony and a deep love for his family, all the way down to the great-great-grandchildren. We will miss him, and I look forward to seeing him again.
Over the past day as I've tried to absorb this unexpected news, I've spent a lot of time pulling out my memories with him. Most of them are sort of silly stories. It's hard to tell a story of a warm hug or a tender smile or the goodness that someone radiates . . . so I'm left telling the silly ones, though there are many others worth sharing.
How do you have a first memory of someone you've known your whole life? As I think of Granddaddy, I think of General Conference and Thanksgiving in the fall, of Christmas parties and Christmas afternoons in the winter, of Easter and yard work in the spring, and of many, many summer events and parties, especially when we celebrated Pioneer Day and his birthday. There were lots of visits both directions, and I remember many, many conversations we had together.
So it's hard to narrow down what my first memory is. However, I do remember an argument we had when I was about 4, which is a bit of a surprise because it's the only one I really remember. He was watching me one time, and he pulled out a book he wanted to read me. It was some book about some boy in the jungle (all I remember is it wasn't the Jungle Book).
"My dad reads me The Secret Garden."
"I want to read you this book."
"I want you to read me The Secret Garden."
"I want to read this to you."
I really don't know what he ended up reading me. Maybe my parents came before he started to read.
***
Another time, he and Grandma (everyone else called her Mima, but I was a slow adopter) were watching us while my parents were gone. It was lunch time and he was looking through the fridge.
"Do you have any mayonnaise? I can't find any."
"Oh! I know where it is," I exclaimed and pulled out a jar of white stuff.
"That's miracle whip."
"I thought Miracle Whip was the brand name of mayonnaise," I responded.
"No, Kraft is the brand name of Miracle Whip. See? Kraft. Miracle Whip," he said as he pointed to the labels.
I didn't really see the big deal. They were both white, so what else mattered?
Now I know.
***
There are many things I inherited from Granddaddy. We both love music, literature, writing autobiographically, languages, and theology. I feel like his example influenced me to choose to read the best books, even the ones that weren't engineering textbooks.
However, in a few areas, he and I had differing tastes, at least initially.
For example, he hated the song "Put Your Shoulder to the Wheel." He even brought it up in a Sacrament Meeting talk. I couldn't understand it. Our chorister loved loved loved it and even paused us in the middle if we weren't singing it with enough gusto. And of course, for the final chorus, we went at half-speed. How could Granddaddy not like a song like that? (I mostly agree with him now.)
He also liked Irish tenors. One time, he picked me up from piano lessons and began to sing in an Irish tenor voice. After he finished a few phrases, he said, "Let's listen to someone who can do this for real."
He then turned on a tape in his car, and there was a man warbling up in the notes that I thought belonged to girls. I didn't tell him this, but I thought he actually sounded better than the man on the tape.
And of course, there was the drive to New Jersey for my dad's sabbatical. Since we were taking both cars, Mima kept my mom company and Granddaddy went with my dad. We kids took turns in the different cars. While it was fun hanging out with my dad and grandpa, the fact was they liked really boring books on tape. On the bright side, I guess I did learn a lot about Rachel Jackson, the wife of Andrew Jackson. (In all honesty, I loved being in the car with him and my dad. When they weren't listening to the tapes, the conversations were incredible, and I grew really close to him.)
Differing tastes aside, these stories illustrate how involved he was in serving our family. It's only been in recent years where we've lived away from family that it's hit me. Oh! That's what families do! They help each other with moves and babysitting and support each other in church events. I was so used to it I didn't even realize that it was happening.
***
Summers were prime grandparent time. There were so many weekends we would make the 2-hour trek down to Orem to spend the night with them or with cousins. We would go to parades, light fireworks, eat popsicles, decorate cupcakes, and sit out on their back deck enjoying everyone's company.
I also remember Granddaddy going out pretty often with some salt. "Time to get rid of some snails," he would say as he went to work.
But when I was a teenager, my younger cousins decided that was no longer okay. They grabbed a box, stuffed some grass in it, and went around rescuing snails from a shriveled fate. As they found more and more, they got excited.
"They can have snail babies now!" and did all they could to encourage the snails. As they made bigger and bolder plans, I looked over at Granddaddy. I could see in his grimace what he wouldn't say out loud -- he didn't want his yard to be a snail wildlife refuge.
I don't remember what happened, but after that day the snail rescue plans were discarded. Poor snails.
***
Grandaddy taught Spanish at BYU for years, so he and Mima still attended many of the events. If I went to a concert, there was a good chance they were there too. I might happen to run into them at the BYU bookstore. Or, as I excitedly pointed out to everyone else at freshman orientation, I could see him in the video where he played Karl G. Maeser in the history of BYU video shown there. Each time, it was exciting, and I was proud that my grandparents were cool enough to walk around BYU.
I confess there was one place I always felt silly running into him. Many morning when I went running on the track, there he was too, jogging along slowly with other elderly men. I would say hi, but what was I supposed to do? They were going too slow for me to stay with them, and they probably wanted to have their own conversation. But it felt strange to lap them and say a quick hi as I went past. But that was the best option, so that's what I would do.
***
Even if I didn't run into him on campus, I would run into people who did all the time. One time he asked what classes I was taking. When I mentioned an English class, he asked who the professor was. When I said his name, he grinned brightly.
"He lived here for a little while back in 1975! He needed a place to stay so we put him in that room over there."
I felt strange all of the sudden. Teachers and grandparents were not supposed to mix. But I wasn't surprised, either. So many people had stayed with my grandparents -- all sorts of relatives, exchange students, and professors. We even had video evidence of it from my first birthday -- on the couch next to my grandparents was an exchange student joining in the celebrations.
A few weeks before this conversation, I had heard my mom call my grandma up to see if our good friend Brother Griffin could stay there on the weekdays while they waited for their house to sell. Of course he could, and so he did. As he learned of the many, many people who had lived temporarily with my grandparents (I believe he had counted 37), he dubbed their home a Statue of Liberty of sorts, welcoming the masses in and caring for them once they were there.
***
Granddaddy took to Kevin quickly. A few weeks after we started dating, Kevin and I went over for dinner. When they heard his name, they asked, "Which wife are you from?"
After they figured out the genealogy and after Granddaddy had lent him a book he had written about Henry Moon, the next question was, "Where did you serve your mission?" Puebla? Granddaddy had been to Puebla, and had written about it in a journal. He went to his office and pulled it out for Kevin to read. Although Kevin was a little overwhelmed with this welcome (and the corresponding reading material), he appreciated the sentiment, and he felt the love.
***
Granddaddy was kind, wise, eloquent, loving, and good. He was a good conversationalist and a great listener. He had a strong testimony and a deep love for his family, all the way down to the great-great-grandchildren. We will miss him, and I look forward to seeing him again.
 |
| At my wedding |
 |
| Meeting Joseph |
 |
| Meeting Matthew |
Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Another 5th grade cowtastrophe
While it's still on my mind, here's another 5th grade cow story. Pardon all the puns.
We changed seats pretty regularly in my class. One day soon after a seat change I happened to notice the back of my faded yellow chair and saw the word "cow" written medium-small with a black sharpie.
I bristled with annoyance. Why was the word "cow" on a chair? Why did I have the bad luck to be stuck with that chair? It wasn't any more broken than the other chairs, and my hair didn't catch on the screws any more than for other chairs, but still. No one wants to be stuck with a "cow" chair. I think I tried to surreptitiously switch chairs with someone else.
While I can't remember if it worked or not, I know the "cow" chair became a thing in class, and I don't think anyone particularly wanted that chair. Worst of all, though it made the rounds, someone always steered it back to me.
Every day at the end of school, we would crawl around on the floor picking up scraps of paper and other crumbs. But before we did this, we had to put our chairs up on the table so we could reach things better. When I was partially under the table, someone (maybe me) bumped the table, and a chair fell off, grazing my head.
As I blinked back tears (5th graders definitely can't ever cry, though I could have milked it for all it was worth) and my friends ran over to comfort me, one boy examined the chair. "It's the cow chair!" he said with excitement.
"Hey!" he continued. "The cow jumped over the moon!" The boys in the class began to bust up.
As I marched toward the door with my head throbbing, I almost wanted to chuck something at him. That was, quite possibly, the least funny thing I had ever heard.
On the bright side, I rarely had to sit in the cow chair after that.
We changed seats pretty regularly in my class. One day soon after a seat change I happened to notice the back of my faded yellow chair and saw the word "cow" written medium-small with a black sharpie.
I bristled with annoyance. Why was the word "cow" on a chair? Why did I have the bad luck to be stuck with that chair? It wasn't any more broken than the other chairs, and my hair didn't catch on the screws any more than for other chairs, but still. No one wants to be stuck with a "cow" chair. I think I tried to surreptitiously switch chairs with someone else.
While I can't remember if it worked or not, I know the "cow" chair became a thing in class, and I don't think anyone particularly wanted that chair. Worst of all, though it made the rounds, someone always steered it back to me.
Every day at the end of school, we would crawl around on the floor picking up scraps of paper and other crumbs. But before we did this, we had to put our chairs up on the table so we could reach things better. When I was partially under the table, someone (maybe me) bumped the table, and a chair fell off, grazing my head.
As I blinked back tears (5th graders definitely can't ever cry, though I could have milked it for all it was worth) and my friends ran over to comfort me, one boy examined the chair. "It's the cow chair!" he said with excitement.
"Hey!" he continued. "The cow jumped over the moon!" The boys in the class began to bust up.
As I marched toward the door with my head throbbing, I almost wanted to chuck something at him. That was, quite possibly, the least funny thing I had ever heard.
On the bright side, I rarely had to sit in the cow chair after that.
A Bovine Valentine
Valentines were a really big deal in 5th grade. We not only still made the Valentine's boxes as in years past to be filled with cartoon cards and cheap candy, but there could now be potentially hidden meaning in the Valentines we distributed.
So I proceeded with caution as I signed my cards. My mom had bought some animal themed Valentines, among others. Some of the animals were cute, like the chicks or cats. But there was also a hideous looking cow with its face plastered at the front of the card saying, "I hope you have an udderly awesome Valentine's Day!" Yuck.
I carefully selected the prettiest Valentines for my best friends and signed my name with gold ink for the boy I liked (and then signed a few more with gold ink to throw him off the trail). Now for that cow one.
And then I knew who that card would be perfect for! There was a boy who just . . . talked about cows a lot. He thought they were hilarious. So I signed his name and my name on that card and called it a night.
The next afternoon, after we had passed around our cards, I examined my haul. As I opened my card from cow-boy, I gasped and immediately tossed it down.
He had given me the same ugly cow Valentine.
What could this mean? Why had he given this to me? Was it fate that we had given each other the same ugly cow Valentine? He didn't like me, did he? He didn't hate me, did he?
Turns out it was none of that, at least as far as I could tell. If there was any hidden meaning in the Valentines, it was only from the girls' end.
. . . I think that's pretty much the story of all Valentines ever.
So I proceeded with caution as I signed my cards. My mom had bought some animal themed Valentines, among others. Some of the animals were cute, like the chicks or cats. But there was also a hideous looking cow with its face plastered at the front of the card saying, "I hope you have an udderly awesome Valentine's Day!" Yuck.
I carefully selected the prettiest Valentines for my best friends and signed my name with gold ink for the boy I liked (and then signed a few more with gold ink to throw him off the trail). Now for that cow one.
And then I knew who that card would be perfect for! There was a boy who just . . . talked about cows a lot. He thought they were hilarious. So I signed his name and my name on that card and called it a night.
The next afternoon, after we had passed around our cards, I examined my haul. As I opened my card from cow-boy, I gasped and immediately tossed it down.
He had given me the same ugly cow Valentine.
What could this mean? Why had he given this to me? Was it fate that we had given each other the same ugly cow Valentine? He didn't like me, did he? He didn't hate me, did he?
Turns out it was none of that, at least as far as I could tell. If there was any hidden meaning in the Valentines, it was only from the girls' end.
. . . I think that's pretty much the story of all Valentines ever.
Monday, January 11, 2016
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.
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.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Christmas Traditions, Part 2
As I recently mentioned, it turns out my family did have Christmas traditions!
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| source |
I loved it when my mom hung up the snowflake made of 6-pack rings. I loved it when she brought out the basket of Christmas books. I loved it when we got to make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers. I loved dancing to Christmas music, especially the musicological journey through the 12 days of Christmas. I loved getting a new ornament every year in my stocking. I loved seeing the wall get plastered with Christmas cards and newsletters from friends, and I loved even more seeing what my parents wrote about us each year in our newsletter.
But, it's more interesting to talk more about funny memories than sweet traditions. So here instead are the top 10 unsentimental memories from Christmas time.
10. Gathering my mom's side of the family together at the age of 4 on Christmas to let them know it was no longer okay for them to call me "Kyra Bagheera." To their credit, they respected my wishes. I appreciate that.
9. Writing a letter to my dad at the age of 6 or 7 which stated, "Dear Mister Moon, I do not think you should get any Christmas presents this year. From, your daughter," leaving it in the office for him to find, hiding in the nearby bathroom to witness his response, and hearing him laugh. I had wanted to provoke him into apologizing for getting mad at me earlier, so I was infuriated that he laughed.
8. Spending Christmas Eve with my cousins in Lindon, then driving back up to Logan and expecting to go out to eat. Everything was closed as far as we could see. As we drove around in hunger I thought of ancient Jews searching for a place to eat and sleep. Then suddenly, there was standing before us an open store -- Little Caesar's! And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a pizza from Little Caesar's, and all the family was taxed. (Sales taxed, that is.)
7. Matching pajamas.
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| But you had to have the right color hair to get them, I guess. |
6. Not going caroling to the fire station along with my mom, sisters, and other relatives one Christmas in Kansas because I wanted to be difficult. The next day, there was a picture in the newspaper of the group caroling. All I wanted in life at that age was to make it into the newspaper someday, so I was terribly disappointed. Naturally, I think I blamed my mom for not making me come.
5. Making the best of an unseasonably warm Christmas. The Christmas after Kevin and I got married, it was in the upper 40s, possibly even warmer. After we all opened presents, my mom pointed out one last present on the patio -- a new fire pit.
"Instead of ham for our Christmas dinner, we can do hot dogs!" my mom said. After a few hours of trying to start a fire with winter-wet wood, we brought them in and cooked them in an oven. I could see the disappointment in Kevin's face as we ate -- we gave up ham for this!
4. Spending all the fall writing my American Girl spinoff series novel "Hello Kristie," hiding it in with other presents, and watching my confused relatives open it. "It says it's from Santa." "I think I saw it come in with Barbara's presents." Finally I couldn't bear it any more.
"I wrote it! It's my story!" They all sat down and read it. I have no clue how they kept straight faces. (Find the first two chapters here.)
3. More matching pajamas.
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| We didn't much care for dogs, actually. |
2. Giving and getting Christmas treats from the neighbors. In particular, in 2004, our family went without candy from the beginning of January until Christmas morning. It wasn't that hard, really -- we had all gorged ourselves on candy on our drive back from our grandparents in Kansas, so for the first few weeks we were just grossed out by the thought of candy.
And then after that, we just never bought it, and we just got used to life without it. And, like, things weren't too strict -- we could still have chocolate chips as long as they were in cookies, and we could still have ice cream and other treats, so it really wasn't that bad. Sometime in the fall, Kaylie was the youth speaker and talked about what we had learned from the experience.
After that, the whole ward knew that we weren't eating candy, and it affected the treats we got that year for Christmas. "I heard you guys weren't doing sweets this year, so I brought something else!" one neighbor told us cheerfully as he handed us a jar and left.
It was sauerkraut.
It was bad enough that we had to live with the smell of sauerkraut 3 days every fall while our town celebrated it in Providence Sauerkraut Days. Now it had been brought into our house!
"And the year was almost over, anyway!" my mom exclaimed as she sent us to take the jar somewhere far far away from her. I think my dad ended up eating it.
1. Bringing good tidings of great joy unto all people.
Or something like that.
Or something like that.
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