Big

For the past few months, I've been quietly singing "because I'm big, I'm big, you know it" to the tune of Michael Jackson's "Bad." I decided that the rest of the song needed to be written, so a few weeks ago I wrote a parody. It actually follows Divine Comedy's "Good" parody more than Michael Jackson's original, but there are a few differences (including not as funny, but it's hard to beat Divine Comedy).

Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

The secret’s out

I’m a gaining weight

There’s a baby here

Growing at fast rate

My skin is tight

My middle’s full

This future soccer

player’s on a roll

They say that all the husbands

wanted slim wives in the past

But with this baby comes new curves

So that’s changing really fast

Because I’m big

I’m big

You know it

because I’m big

I’m big

you know it, you know

All the neighbors in the ward don’t know

Let’s announce it once again

I’m big!

I used to fit

In lots of things

Like tight places

and skinny jeans

But now I've got

Some extra pounds

Stick figure me

s’now nice and round

And when I get real hungry

I just go ahead and eat

If it don’t go to my middle

then it’s going to my feet!

Because I’m big

I’m big

You know it

because I’m big

I’m big

you know it, you know

because I’m big

I’m big

you know it, ya!

I’m the biggest, baddest, pregnant-est one

Let me tell you once again

I’m big!

And here is its inspiration (with a few insertions and deletions here and there):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_23tAp4Gg8

Now, if anyone wants to make a music video of pregnant women dancing to this, be my guest. Personally, I'm not ready to be part of an internet sensation. But if you are, then go for it!

The stories we say

You know what one of my favorite things about being married is? Having a captive audience. Turns out I like to talk quite a bit, and Kevin gets to hear most of it (though Leslie gets to read a lot of it via gchat).

And you know what one of my favorite conversation topics is? Me! I like to think that deep down that's everybody's favorite conversation topic (themselves, that is, not me personally).

Anyway, one of the interesting things about opening up and sharing so much about myself is how it helps me remember other stories about myself. For several years, I think my favorite conversation topic was boys. Yeah, I was one of those boy-crazy teenage girls. I don't think I actually knowingly flirted very much (not suave enough for that haha), but I think I spent a lot of time talking to and thinking about boys.

And that's fine and normal, but once you get married it's kind of a boring conversation topic. The big stories are still good stories, like the date to a funeral which also involved an emergency trip to the hospital and a ride in a tow truck, or the time I answered for senior ball with a word search that managed to have some unintentional innuendo in it, but most everything else I just don't care about anymore.

So that meant I had to dig deeper and start remembering stories from before I was a teenager. Turns out I remember quite a bit from back then, no thanks to my journal of course. The journal I used from age 8 to 11 has about one type of entry in it, each spaced a few months apart:

"Mom/Dad sent me to my room! They are so mean to me!!! I bet they're not even my real parents! My life is the worst!!!"

So it's basically only good for helping me keep track of how often I was sent to my room.

Despite that, by talking to Kevin, I've managed to unearth quite a few stories from the way back when. Like how Leslie and I used to grab pillows and put them behind our heads to dance to the Triss-Trass Polka. Or how the green Jello-Jigglers I brought for St. Patrick's day in 1st grade were stolen by some leprechaun (translation: 4th grader) and scattered across the playground.

And in return, I've learned lots of wonderful things about Kevin. Like his fascination with Davy Crockett, complete with the coonskin cap. Or how in high school his friends spent their time carving out a cinderblock from a wall of the soon-to-be-demolished school (during concurrent enrollment classes, of course). Or how he tormented his younger sister by dropping her stuffed animals off the landing at the top of the stairs because they had nothing to live for anymore.

I think the main reason I love hearing stories from our pasts is that it helps me understand both of us much better. There's a connection we get from learning that we had the same opinion about a lot of things growing up (like hating sports in gym class). And even the things we didn't agree on (e.g. he thought movie musicals were boring because there was too much dancing whereas I liked them) has helped us gain a better understanding of each other and where we're coming from. It's like each story is another puzzle piece that helps complete the picture of the person I've chosen to love and spend eternity with.

I think Vienna Teng sums it up just right in "Eric's Song" (my favorite love song):

And with each passing day

The stories we say

Draw us tighter into our addiction

Confirm our conviction

That some kind of miracle

Passed on our heads

Spaghetti

The other night we made some delicious spaghetti and spaghetti sauce. (Recipe: brown some ground beef with onions and garlic. Once cooked, stir generic traditional spaghetti sauce in. Add Italian seasoning and red pepper at will.) I don't know what it was about it that made it special (probably hunger), but it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten.  As I was eating, the thought came to me, "This is so good! Why did we never have stuff like this when I was growing up?"

And then I remembered. My mom made spaghetti and spaghetti sauce all the time. But I was never brave enough to actually try the spaghetti sauce because it was, I dunno, red. So I would instead just eat the spaghetti with a little bit of parmesan cheese on top. That sounds really nasty now.

Sometimes I wish I could be a kid again just so I could take advantage of all those missed opportunities like spaghetti sauce.

The Dilemma of the CES

Wow, pregnancy has really made me have opinions on everything lately! My latest opinions are thanks to the recent article in which Randy Bott said some . . . interesting things. His remarks reminded me of a great feeling of frustration I felt with seminary and religion teachers late last year.

Don't get me wrong. The CES is a wonderful system and has really changed the lives of many many young people in the church. And most everything I learned in seminary and religion classes was good and true and appropriate.

But of course, the things that weren't good or true or appropriate are unfortunately what stick.
What is my main classification for things that fit into those categories? Things that aren't official Church doctrine.

There was the time where we were learning about the Plan of Salvation and had the promise of being able to create any kind of planet we wanted if we were good ("I'm going for a snowboarding planet," our teacher said.) There was the teacher who handed out a paper with various statements and asked us to guess if those were things the prophet had said. Turned out all of the items on the list were things prophets had said . . . some of them incredibly dated or said before they were even the prophet. (For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure BYU would not have birth control available at the Health Center if it were blatantly against church policy.) There was the time when I went straight from AP Biology where I learned about evolution and it seemed reasonable and fascinating and true to a seminary class where evolution was set up to be a dirty, horrible lie. And then there were the Mormon rumor mill stories such as sightings of Moroni.

And the problem didn't go away when I went to BYU. It was there I learned that the last appropriate Disney movie was Pinocchio, that UFOs visited Earth to visit the place where Christ lived, and . . . well, I won't go into everything Brother Robinson said (though I still like his book). Furthermore, there was a kind of confidence many professors exuded that seemed to imply "I am a smart professor so I know all the answers to every hard question in the gospel."

So, I've been a little bugged about CES since I remembered all of those grievances. Is it entirely possible that when we go to heaven we get to have a snowboarding planet? Yes! Is it probably a good motivation for bored teenagers to pay a little bit more attention in seminary? Yes! But does that mean it should be taught? I'm not so sure about that. It seems like the media attaches itself to our more "obscure" doctrines, the ones that sound weird without context. To spend a lot of time teaching them only aggravates the problem. The reason this bothers me is because there are good people who would want to hear more about the Church but are turned off by the "weird" things they hear about us out of context.

I think what bothers me the most is that the CES has such an influence on what members believe. Teenagers just don't pay attention in Sunday School, so the only time you can catch them is in seminary. Once you get to college, Sunday School is full of comments such as, "My teacher in New Testament said . . . " Once you get to a family ward and go to normal adult Sunday School, well, there are so many out there things that people say that you have to have a good understanding of the gospel to not get wrapped around the axle. Essentially, a lot of people's understanding of the gospel comes from seminary, institute, and religion teachers.

In addition to this huge responsibility, there's also the added requirement that seminary and religion teachers answer the "hard questions." General Authorities have said that they only answer the general questions, but for young people that's often not enough. So, they turn to their seminary teachers or to Brother Bott to get the specific answers and explanations.

And therein lies the root of the problem which was made manifest this week. When you are expected to answer a lot of hard questions and you answer a lot of them quite well, you may not notice when you are completely wrong about something.

Take blacks and the priesthood, for instance. I recognized what Brother Bott said about race because it was based on what Bruce R. McConkie said in "Mormon Doctrine." I remember pulling that old cream book off the shelf when I was 14 or so and happening to open up to that page. "That's really weird," I remember thinking. Then I checked the copyright page where it said "This is not an official publication of the Church" and life made sense again. My suspicion is that Elder McConkie was trying to explain why blacks couldn't have the priesthood based purely on scripture rather than looking at the history and seeing how the policy crept into the Church. And then Brother Bott used his ideas and let them become his own opinion, and then made the mistake of sharing them with the press, especially without approval. (Now for my unauthorized opinion: I personally have met so many valiant black people that I have trouble believing that they were somehow less faithful during the premortal existence. I think race is a function of how close to the equator people lived, not a punishment or reward, and definitely not a punishment for something Ham did way back when.)

What am I getting at? I think I'll end with a plea. Please, current and future seminary, institute, and religion teachers, please don't delve into speculation. The Church has spent so much effort trying to bring us back into the core doctrines (think 2 years of "Gospel Principles" in RS/EQ) and I don't want it to be in vain. Please realize that you have a huge responsibility and that the youth of the church will remember and believe what you say. Please teach by the Spirit rather than teaching what sounds cool. Above all, please remember this quote by Joseph Smith:
The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.

Nurturing

I just got back from visiting teaching. The lesson was entitled "Guardians of the Hearth" and it discussed nurturing. One of the quotes was from President Hinckley where he said,
 “You are the bearers of the children. You are they who nurture them and establish within them the habits of their lives. No other work reaches so close to divinity as does the nurturing of the sons and daughters of God.”

Quotes like this have sometimes troubled me for a variety of reasons. The first reason is the huge amount of responsibility I feel when I read about nurturing. You see, I may have a slight phobia of babies. I like them, but I've never been one to go out of my way to pick them up or play with them. While some of my friends became aunts or uncles when they were about 8 years old, I was 8 years old the last time I really spent much time with a little baby (my youngest brother). I didn't do too much babysitting, and even when I babysat younger cousins or nieces or nephews I never felt like I was the primary one taking care of the babies.

So, to hear that I have the divine role of nurturing feels like a great burden. Especially with a little baby boy coming in about 3 months.

And goodness knows that I'm not the only woman who feels this way. I think there are a lot of women in the Church who get almost annoyed when they hear that they're "supposed" to be good at nurturing. "But what about the rest of  my skill set?" they wonder. "Why do 75-year-old men feel like they can pigeonhole me into a corner with what my personality and skills are supposed to be?"

To some extent, I've sort of felt that way. But I said something while I was visiting teaching that surprised me. I said, "What President Hinckley's saying is that nurturing is part of our divine role, even if it's not part of our personality."

Thing is, there are lots and lots of things we are asked to do that we just plain aren't good at. Many men don't feel like they're cut out to be Young Men's President because they don't feel fun enough. Many women don't feel charitable enough to be Relief Society President. And then there are the less temporary callings, like being a parent, which no one is actually qualified for.

But the point is, if God calls us to do something, then He will give us the capability to accomplish it. Furthermore, sometimes He tells us we are good at something or that we're supposed to do something, not because we're actually good at it, but because we can become good at it.

So even though I'm scared about taking on a new responsibility of nurturing my own children, I can have the confidence that I'll be prepared for it because it is my divine role.

Pregnant Ponderings, Part . . . Two?

Lately, life's been good. Lots of school, lots of homework, lots of working on thesis, lots of old Arthur episodes, lots of graduate schools accepting Kevin for his PhD . . . just busy and good.

There's not a whole lot to report on, but here's a list of some mildly interesting things:

~Environmental or Economical?: A few weeks ago I talked to a professor about some homework points, and before we got very far into the discussion, he said, "I notice that you and your husband like to use as few sheets of paper as possible. Is this environmental or economical?"
Actually, it's neither. It's probably a habit I've developed over 16 years of school, coupled with a strong dislike of wastefulness (not necessarily environmentally driven). So I didn't quite know how to respond to him. I stuttered out, "I think it's laziness . . . no, I don't need paper . . . no, I just bought a ream not that long ago . . ." (And since then I've used more paper per assignment.)
Then, a few days ago, I got homework back for another class. This required a printout of a plot which was mostly black. Since the printer I usually use doesn't do a good job with black, I inverted the image so that it was mostly white. I put a little note on the printout saying, "I inverted this to save ink." When I got the assignment back, I had full points, but he had underlined where I wrote "to save ink" and said, "Wow! Nice. Either environmentally conscious or budget conscious -> both admirable." I guess some professors are more a fan of the "environmental or economical" than others.

~Liken the Scriptures: I have a goal to read the Old Testament this year, and right now I'm smack dab in the middle of Leviticus. It's been . . . difficult. I know there's lots of wonderful symbolism in the Law of Moses, but it's just not all that interesting to read. The Institute manual I've been using has helped a lot, but still. I just don't care about the dimensions of the tabernacle or the Church Handbook in 1500 B.C. Worst part is, sometimes there are unmet expectations. Like when you think of Exodus, you think, "Oh! Story of Moses! That story rocks!" and it does. And then you get into the wilderness, and Exodus goes downhill from there in terms of storytelling. (Again, it's full of wonderful symbolism, but the story is just not there.) Like, I knew Leviticus and Numbers would be tedious, but Exodus?
It's like driving to eastern Kansas on I-70. The first part of the trip is like Genesis. It's interesting. Especially there at the end when you're going through all the red rock. Then you get to western Colorado and it's still exciting and interesting and full of tunnels (I love tunnels). And similarly, the beginning of Exodus still has a great story.
But then comes east of Denver. And nothing against Colorado, but eastern Colorado just isn't that great to look at. I mean, people give Kansas a hard time for being flat, but there's plenty of Colorado which is just as flat as western Kansas. In fact, once you hit Hays or Salina, Kansas isn't flat at all!
So where am I going with this analogy? Eastern Colorado = 2nd half of Exodus (definitely not living up to its name, either the state or the book). Western Kansas = Leviticus (long and flat and painful, but you were expecting it). Eastern Kansas = Numbers (interesting again). I mean, I think Numbers is more interesting than Leviticus. Doesn't it have the story about people eating so much quail that they throw it up through their noses?
I'm pretty sure that's not what they mean when they say liken the scriptures, but hey. There's a lot in Leviticus that I don't plan on likening to myself. Like not eating pork.

Here's a picture for good measure:

Either eastern Colorado or western Kansas. Pretty, but flat.

(speaking of Colorado and Kansas . . . it's been way too long since we visited family out there. We'll stop by this summer. Probably when we drive to wherever we're going for grad school.)

~Baby update: My belly button popped out. Yup.

And there you have it. My deepest thoughts from the past few weeks. :)

Kicking

Baby Moon has been kicking for a little while now, and it's been loads of fun. One night I was thinking about the phrase "I bet he's going to be a soccer player when he grows up!" that I occasionally hear, and have started to agree with. Then I wondered if David Beckham's mom ever said that.

Come to think of it, soccer's probably the only sport our boy has got a shot at. 5'4 mom + 5'5 dad = no chance in the NBA. Or football or baseball or basically any sport.