The story of a bear; or love defined

In the beginning there was a little girl

and the girl found a bear.
The girl loved the bearan took the bear everywhere she went


and the girl was happy
The bear got dirty
The bear got washed
The girl grew

The bear stayed her best friend
The bear lost a leg

The bear had his leg sown back on



The bear returned from whence he came
To see his grown up friends
He stayed with the girland the girl was happy

Isaac's 5th birthday party

Let me start by saying that Isaac is five, and it is great. I think he finally got what birthdays are all about and why they are associated with numbers.
Also we had Shane from "Scales and Tails of Utah" come to the party and he could not have been better. I almost feel like persuading Kaitlyn to have a snake party also.
That said, there was a hiccup in the event this year. Isaac is child number one, so he gets all the experiments. The experiment this year was a friend birthday party. Isaac was in preschool all of last year and is a very social guy, he always told me stories about all of his friends when he came home. I have always thrown family parties for him, but I figured now was his chance to have all of his five year old friends over. We gave out invitations with brightly colored snakes in them on the last day of school a month ago to all 17 kids in his class.
Not one of them came.
Why?
Is it because his birthday is in July or is it because all but two of the kids in his class were Mexican? I am not being derogatory when I say Mexican, I could say the US census word "hispanic," but as everyone of those kids was from Mexico I don't see the point.

I'll be honest, I'm hurt. I've defended this little elementary school all year saying that these little folks from Mexico were doing the best anybody could, that their parents were focusing on their educations and that they were well cared for and polite and that Isaac was in no way suffering from having an entire class of kids that were different than him.
Apparently different to them meant they couldn't be friends.
I've tried to be good and be tolerant and not care that my neighbors aren't legal and they eat goats, but I also want my son to have friends. I guess when the Mexicans live in a community with so many other that are the same as them they don't have to be friends with the one white family on the West side of Salt Lake, but what are we supposed to do?
Luckily when the snake guy put the scorpion inside his mouth Isaac forgot that none of his friends came.
I realize that probably a lot of this is my fault because I am not very good at making friends, it takes me about three years to be friends with someone. Even if all of those ladies that waited outside the preschool door with me had spoken English I doubt that we would have talked much more. I waved to Jennifer's mom at Walmart once, I thought we were making headway.
At least Isaac still had a great party, once Shane, the snake guy, realized Isaac got shorted on the friends he pulled out all the stops with a scorpion, a lizard, and a tarantula. Plus Isaac and Kaitlyn got to hold all the snake they could handle.

And then my brain fell out: or, Why I love text messaging

I wonder if I'm the only one who does this..






Do you know the moment in sappy movies when someone says “Penny for your thoughts” or “What are you thinking right now?” Invariably the response is some deep and romantic thought. I live in fear of these moments. At least my husband has realized my secret. At any given moment there is nothing going through my head. Absolutely nothing. It’s worse if I hear a song, then I can’t even try to think of something else. I admit there are a few times when my mind wanders into really bizarre territory, but this is not very often. I believe this is one of the reasons I’m not a very good driver, or gardener, or pick my son up from school-er.

Leaving a message on an answering machine is a particularly obvious instance of this. If you’ve ever gotten a message from me, you understand what I’m talking about. This is how it goes:

• I think of a reason to talk to someone long enough to get the phone in my hand.
• (if I can’t find the phone or I have a wrong number, I completely stop the process and probably never try again, also explaining why some people who should have gotten messages from me never did.)
• I find the number in my phone and dial, contemplating any weird spellings or funny patterned numbers. If, at this point, I don’t start chanting the reason I am calling, all is lost.
• (if, however, I text at this moment-hallelujah-I sound like an intelligent person)
• (chant reason in head, i.e. babysitter at 3, babysitter at 3, babysitter at 3, babysitter, that’s a funny word, why don’t they say baby watcher, or baby holder, or...)
• The phone begins to ring, I count the rings, don’t ask me why, I don’t know, I must count. I like it when the rings are multiples of four, but it never is.
• I listen to the greeting message, I wonder if I need to leave my number, I wonder if the person knows what they sound like on the phone, I wonder a lot of things and at this point my mind is completely blank
• I am always surprised by the beep, I forgot it was coming.
• stunned silence, I can’t remember why on earth I have made this phone call.
• I stammer, I say something about calling me back and possibly needing a favor as fast as I can, I remember to say my name and I think I say my number, but at this point, it could be anyone’s number, then if I piece anything together I am cut off by the answering machine.
• Mission accomplished.

I like to think of myself as a pretty rational individual, I can usually make intelligent comments in my classes at the U--not Sunday School, however, I can never read scriptures in church because I am always on the wrong one. My attention is always captured by dust motes or a dirty mark on the back of a chair between when I hear the scripture reference and when I get around to raising my hand. When I actually focus, I manage to write coherent sentences, finish the dishes, and change the laundry before it mildews. I like to think that most days I manage a respectable amount of focus, but I know there are times when my mind just falls out, takes a personal day, leaves me like the scarecrow stuck on a pole. The worst days are those days when Spencer comes home and asks me what I did all day and it’s a blank. I try to remember, but the best I come up with is a lot of giggling and cereal stuck to my socks.

Kaitlyn saying "chocolate"

I promise that's what she's saying. We have to avoid certain aisles in the grocery store...

Youtube of Isaac skiing

Isaac's primary talk

Isaac had his first ever primary talk today. He got to talk about how the priesthood blesses his family, this is the talk:

I am going to talk about the Priesthood.

In James chapter 5 verse 14 it says
14 Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord:

This means when people are sick or hurt they can ask for a priesthood blessing to get better.

In the Friend this month there was a story about President Monson when he was young. Pres. Monson was on a boat in the Navy when one of his friends got sick. The sick man asked Pres. Monson to give him a priesthood blessing to help him feel better. Pres. Monson gave him a blessing and in the morning he felt better.

This is a picture of my daddy and he got really sick last week. Our friend Josh Davies came to give him a priesthood blessing and now daddy is getting better.

I’m glad we have the priesthood to help us, and that my daddy can give me a blessing if I get sick or hurt.

He got to hold up the picture of Pres. Monson from the Friend and I also printed this picture of Spencer and him for him to hold. He did really great, he spoke very clearly into the microphone and everything. He did have to breath heavily into the microphone every chance he got, but I think that sort of adds to the effect of the four year old talk.

Kaitlyn's big girl room

This Kaitlyn's new big girl bed that she is very excited about. Lots of fluffy covers and pillows.
She's a little bit swallowed up, but she still has managed to fall out of the bed twice since she's had it.
It's a trundle bed with drawers so she is actually on two mattresses-in case she has sleepovers, but then after we built the bed in her room we realized you can't pull the trundle out unless you shut the doors, and Kaitlyn is not quite big enough to get the trundle ready all by herself.
This is her flower night light, it's actually her favorite part of the room, and of course the princess decals.
Her new big girl dresser.
And sort of a whole room view, it's a very small room, but she is a very small girl. So there you go.

I have called a retreat and am waving the white flag...

So Kaitlyn and I have been in a battle, there have been casualties on either side and I am conceding a temporary defeat so that she will cease fire. It began on a Monday morning just over four weeks ago with a great quantity of princess panties and a tiny toilet. Now my background is from Isaac who potty trained in about three weeks when he was two years and seven months old. We were in daycare then and I saw all of these three year olds who refused to be potty trained and were cognizant of the power they had over their parents. Not me, I vowed, I would potty train before the child was old enough to realize that his or her parents were desperate, I would get them early.

It was a cold morning when Kaitlyn was two years and three months of age, and I figuring that girls learn earlier than boys, thought we had as good a shot as any. For four weeks it came in fits and starts with really good days and abismally bad days, Kaitlyn telling me she needed to go potty every 10 minutes whenever we were out, especially at Ikea where the labrynthian store made sure I walked at least four miles that day, and me living in fear of carrying her on my shoulders. Oh sure, we made progress, but then like Hansel and Gretle of old I could find my way back to her room by a trail of pebbles that no pigeon would eat.

Until her final and unbeatable strategy came as the clock struck one and a half yesterday. She had done well early on waking up dry until after I took Isaac to pre-school at 11:15AM, there is no mistaking that bowlegged walk and the smell that follows as she tried to sneak away undetected, but I rallied, #2 is hard to manage, it took Isaac the longest, so we suited up with new pants and an explanation of the benefit plan where a glorious assortment of raisins and stickers could be hers if she just stayed clean and dry. We continued an hour later, an urgent cry of "Mommy!" had me running, but sadly too late. More of the scat, a nigh unthinkable amount of the brown ruiner of destinies packed down the sides of her pants. This almost brought me down, I have killed a dog over lesser evils (alas a story for a different post, not entirely on purpose, but it was my hand that signed the release). Anyway, to return, I cleaned her off and set her on the potty, shutting the door of the bathroom so that she might ponder what she had done. I took a 15 minute break to shower and get a cool head about me, when I returned to the incarcerated I realized I had made some critical error because there was laughter and singing on the other side of the bathroom door, not sounds of penitent remorse. I creaked open the cell door and saw red, quite literally, the entire bathroom and it's occupant were redecorated with red dry erase marker. I need to now buy stock in the company that makes "magic eraser." My tiny terrorist was covered with war markings on her face and completely colored-in legs and feet. I could see it was not the time to hold grudges any longer so we made up, I clad her in her last pair of shorts and we danced to my bathroom where she helped me apply my war paint. Newly refreshed and bonded I was sure the worst of the day was over, we reconvened to the living room, not even 10 minutes later she delivered her final Machiavellian maneuver and uttered the words "uh oh, poop." She did not run to the bathroom as I urged and I was almost relieved that she had misspoke, for it was only pee, but then I watched in horror as the stream of liquid ran down her red legs and off her red feet and dyed the carpet. That's when I threw in the towel and a lot of "kids n' pets."

well, anyway...

I have really meant to make a post for awhile now, but whatever. Since January I am in school, Isaac is in school, and Spencer is in school. Kaitlyn is potty training and it is not going well, thanks for asking. Isaac is on a basketball team, both of the kids are in swimming lessons, and I have committed to being at the gym 4-6 times a week. Inherent in that list are the bulk of my goals and resolutions for the coming year, I'll let you know how it works out. I am hoping on this blog to post things that would be helpful to others, like a list of my favorite cookbooks, or how the battle between Kaitlyn and I about the potty is going, we'll see--I'm just not sure I can customize it to do what I want. Also I have some killer video of the kids that I have been collecting with our new digital video camera so hopefully when I figure out iDVD my posts are going to be awesome. That's it for now, just wanted to post something before I forgot about it again.