What is Motherhood?

It's wading through snow half way up your shins so your precious little girl, who is actually wearing snow boots, can walk on the patted down stuff.

That's motherhood.

Or it's stupidity. I'm pretty sure they go hand in hand.

boys will be...destructive

In the last 15 hours, Tyler has slept for 12 hours and still manage to...

-break my lamp
-drench half the couch in milk
-throw several major crying fits and
-drink shampoo

Is it time to go play outside yet?

tagged

I normally don't like to do stuff like this, but I guess I'm in a different sort of mood today. Also I'm afraid Tiffany won't be my friend anymore if I don't...and since she's pretty much the only one that comments on my blog I can't afford to lose her. So here goes.

A: The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B: Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C: At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

10 Years Ago: I was half way through my sophomore year of high school, probably soaking wet from walking home in the rain, and obsessing over whoever was my current crush.

On My To-Do List: Today it's to buy more diapers so tomorrow when the storm hits I won't have to resort to tying kitchen towels around Tyler's bum. But in the future it's to: take a vacation touring all the church history sites, become a professional quilter (I don't know exactly what that is, I just want to be better at it), possibly get my teaching certificate to teach special education; take my kids to Disneyland; have my very own pool and hot tub.

5 places that I've lived: Sacramento, CA; Lake Oswego, OR; Provo, UT; Lehi, UT. That's not five, so I'll make one up. Baton Rogue, LA.

5 jobs I have had: Library shelver; respite care provider; warehouse worker @ emergency essentials; another job working with handicapped adults that I have no idea what my title was; mom

What I would do if I became a billionaire: I would buy my brother Aaron. Then I would turn him into my personal: slave/lawyer/cook/record keeper/shoe polisher/laundry folder/channel changer/do whatever I say-er. I figure that would only cost about $13,896, so with the rest...
-give large portions to the church (after tithing)
-buy my dad a sailboat (and a life jacket)
-buy the rest of mine and Jeremy's family members whatever they want
-save for college
-pay someone to come clean my house
-buy Jeremy 4x4's, but not snowmobiles
-buy Alexis 40 million barbies
-buy Tyler 40 million balls (oh wait, he already has that)
-buy myself a Nissan Maxima
and then I would get a whole bunch of $100 bills and start passing them out everywhere I go, just to see people's reactions.

Bad habits: picking my split ends; wasting time; procrastinating!; cracking my knuckles (I know, I'm going to give myself arthritis)

Things I enjoy: the SUN! my family; reading; quilting; water; being in nature; indoor rock climbing.

Things people don't know about me: that I hate American Idol; that the only guy I've ever kissed is my husband; that I work with Webelos scouts and LOVE it; I'm fairly obsessive about counting things, like the buttons on my remote control--there are 48. I've counted at least 1000 times; that I'm really boring and have no secrets.

I am now tagging: Shelise, Melanie, Giselle, Jessica, Karly

they'll gather no moss

Sorry for the absence of a few days, nothing to say I guess. Plus, Jeremy's out of town so I've been too depressed to move. Not really, but I do hate it when he's gone. I'm such a sissy. Jeremy travels for work like once a year, if that, yet I can't handle it. I hardly left his side the night before he left and I think I actually even snuggled with him before falling asleep--without him making me! Sorry if that's too much information for my younger readers...or anyone who doesn't like mushy stuff like that. Anyway, I've missed him but he should be landing as I type, so hopefully he'll be here soon.

Tyler and Alexis were rolling around on the floor playing with each other, so I got the camera out. Of course I missed most of the good stuff, but this is still pretty cute. It was right before bed and they were both just being goofy. Remember that heart puddle I referred to in my last post? Watching them play together and make each other laugh melts me every time. And I'm very fortunate because it happens pretty often.



Tomorrow Alexis gets to give the scripture in primary at the "big black microphone" that she's been asking to talk into for the past two months. It should be cute, and also a little scary because who knows what the power of the microphone might unleash in her. I just hope she doesn't start talking about her Dora underwear or any one's "special body parts". I'd be okay with her mentioning that she wants to marry her brother or her dad though, because I like her standards.

oh, the pain!

Kids can do funny things to your heart. They can make it swell 1000 times its normal size, they can melt it into a huge old puddle on the floor, and they can break it in a million pieces. Alexis did the latter today. I thought they weren't supposed to say stuff like this until they were teenagers!


Alexis: Mom, why does Tarzan have a monkey mother?

Me: Because his mom and dad died and the monkey found him so she became his new mother.

(Long pause while she contemplates all the ways she can hurt me)

A: Oh, I want to get a new mom too, cause you're going to died later so I'll have a new mommy and it won't be you.


I hope her new mother has a heart of steel.

why I've stopped listening to the weather report

I think I'm a little backward. I completely ignore all weather reports in the winter and only pay attention to them in the summer. Which makes very little sense because in the summer this is all they say, "It's going to be hot today. Don't leave your house or you will end up like Lisa's pop tarts". But I guess I like hearing that because I have very easy access to a swimming pool, so the hotter the better. But in the winter when it would be useful to know the weather predictions for any given day I just don't care. Because had I known it would look like this when I got up this morning,I probably would have stayed in bed. But I didn't find out about it until I was already up, dressed, and outside.

So I cancelled things I had planned and we had a snow day. We stayed in, had a neighbor over, ran around the living room (literally), and cleaned up a little bit. It was nice. Then later we made dessert out of snow. Here's a recipe my mom gave me:

Large bowl full of fresh, clean snow
1 cup of whole milk
1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
1/2 cup of sugar

Mix milk, vanilla, and sugar until dissolved. Add to snow, stir until consistency is thick and creamy. Serve immediately.

I just set the bowl on the ground, gave every one a spoon and we dug in. I'm going to state the now-obvious-to-me here: don't use metal spoons.
Follow that big bowl of sugary snow with a warm bath and you've got a great afternoon!

a tale of two sisters

Once upon a time in a beautiful far away place called the West Coast, there lived a family with two little girls. The older one was named Lisa, and the younger they called Rachel (I swear, I just made up these names). Lisa loved to play with dolls, especially Barbie's. She would dress Barbie up, fix her hair, and send her out shopping with her friends, or occasionally on a date with Ken. And while she would braid Barbie's hair or put it in pretty ponytails, she never once cut it. She understood that it wouldn't grow back, and she was uncomfortable with making that sort of permanent change. But as Lisa grew older she started to outgrow her dolls, so her younger sister Rachel got to play with them. Rachel, to put it kindly, was a mutilator. Not only did she like to cut Barbie's hair, and rarely clothe her, she also applied "make-up" and "tattoo's" with pen that doesn't wash off! That saddened Lisa, but it was bearable. What happened next was not as easy for Lisa to forget. See this cute doll that looks like she swallowed a cassette player?

That's Cricket. Lisa adored her! She talked, and had pretty blond hair and blue eyes, just like Lisa. She even almost weighed as much as Lisa. Lisa would sit Cricket in her chair, with her legs together since she was wearing a skirt, and listen to her stories, even though she always told the same ones. Lisa always took very good care of Cricket... but then Rachel got her hands on her and I think we all know what happened. Cricket went from sweet, preppy, tennis playing Cricket, to short haired, tattooed, rock and roll loving Cricket. Lisa never fully recovered from it.

What spurred this memory and lament?

Today Alexis asks, while playing with her naked Barbie , "Mom, can I have my scissors to cut Barbie's pony tail?"

Sounds like we better hide the scissors next time Aunt Rachel comes over.


*if you want to learn more about the Cricket doll, or see more of her clothing options, visit here.
*Lisa loves her sister Rachel and means all of this in fun.

do these things come with an off switch?

Often times I'll look at Jeremy and ask, "what are you thinking?" His reply is usually an astoundingly casual "nothing". It amazes me every time because I can't remember a time when I thought "nothing"--my brain is always moving. I'm not saying that in a taunting 5 year-old "nay-neh, nay-neh, nay-neh, I'm smarter than you are" way. Because I'm not, he's my better half and that includes the brains. We're just different personalities, I'm too much of an analyzer, and he's more relaxed. I wish I were more like him though, because then I could fall asleep in a matter of seconds rather than the agonizingly long time it usually takes me.

No matter how exhausted I am, it always always ALWAYS takes me a long time to fall asleep because my brain just won't shut up and shut down. The really annoying thing about it is that I come up with some of my worst ideas ever at night, which always sound really great until light of day hits. Example. When I was in 6th grade I had a crush on a boy who I knew, but not very well. I decided that the next time I passed him at recess and he was with his friends and I was with mine, I would wink at him. A little token from me to him, that no one else would notice, but would get him thinking about me. Yeah, a wink would be perfect. I was so excited about my plan, I stayed up for hours thinking about it and lost some much needed sanity-restoring sleep.

Then morning came and reality struck. It was a horrible plan, for many many reasons.
One. I'm a terrible winker. I can't do it without moving my mouth and half closing my other eye. He probably would have thought I was having a seizure rather than winking.
Two. What eleven year old boy at RECESS is going to notice some dumb girl winking at him? A seizure maybe, but probably not a wink.
Three. What if he did notice and decided to act on my very alluring wink?! I wasn't allowed to date. And...
Four. I was still scared of boys despite what my crazy night mind tried to believe otherwise.

Fortunately my alter ego of the morning saved me from that disastrous situation, and many others like it. So seriously. Before I concoct another assortment of ways to embarrass myself, can I please get some sleep? Who's got the NyQuil?

ack!

I just watched this video I made just before Tyler turned one because I haven't watched it since I made it, and...

...it made me baby hungry. Just the teensiest bit.

No one tell Jeremy. I'll go lie down and think of the pee I just had to clean off the carpet in Alexis' room and the feeling will pass. And if it doesn't it sure will when Jeremy reads this and then proceeds to remind me of all the reasons I gave him during the first 9 months of Tyler's life about why I'd never have another baby.

But everyone knows you should never listen to a post-partum woman.

jeremy says weird things

J and I were just watching a news story about a wild moose wandering around town. While talking about it Jeremy said "something something something meese". Yes. Meese. As in, more than one moose is meese. Now I don't really mean to embarrass him but I was laughing so hard that I just had to share this. I kept asking him, "are you joking? Do you really think the plural of moose is meese?" He was laughing too, but he really does think the plural of moose is meese. If you are confused at this point, let me just tell you the plural of moose is MOOSE. Not meese, not mooses, just moose. It's one of the few words in the english language that doesn't change in plural form. He said his dad taught him that so either Mike needs to read this or else he was playing one of those mean parenting tricks where you teach the kid the wrong word because it's funny, and then he never corrected him.

Jeremy also says "squoozed"--I'm not even sure how you would spell that. For the past tense of squeeze, instead of saying squeezed, he says squoozed. And what's funny about that is that if you are doing it for the past tense, than it should just be squooze, if it really were a word. But he adds the unnecessary "ed" and says "squoozed". And what's even funnier is that I've heard several other people say it too. Geesh.

Also, instead of saying "let's pants him" he says, "let's depants him". Which I think is very weird, because I say pants. But I looked that one up and I think he might be right. I'll put up a few polls and see what people think about all this.

And if anyone out there is feeling like a bad person, here's proof that I'm worse.
I put Tyler's hair in a pony tail. And liked it. And took several pictures of it. And told him he looked pretty. And left it in all night. And I want to do it again!

the worst word in the english language

Any guesses? If you have a toddler you might know.

Why

*groan*
Now you are going to ask it: "Why?"
Really? Couldn't you have said, "how come", or "please explain yourself"?

I am going insane.

Why?

Because Alexis is going through a phase and says that horrible word A LOT.

Why?

Because she's three and she's curious.

Oh, like George is curious. Why is she curious and why is George curious?

Because he likes to learn about everything he sees, and so does Alexis.

Why is he a monkey and Alexis is a girl?

Because that's how he was born.

Why is Alexis a girl?

Because that's how she was born.

Why?

Because Heavenly Father made her that way.

Why?

Because he knew she'd be a good girl.

Why is she a good girl?

Because she eats all her dinner and she never asks her mom why again.

Why?

Because mom is tired of using her brain.

Why?

Because she is getting old and it can't keep up with the constant stream of chatter and rapid fire questions.

Why?

BECAUSE! Now, quick, go find your brother.

Why?

If you love me, send me some pop tarts

I got out of bed this morning very reluctantly. I didn't sleep well last night--Tyler woke up a quadrazillion times and I had a bad dream that I was being eaten by a cougar. Actually Alexis was being eaten by a cougar, which is way worse. And I'm feeling slightly under the weather, which is bad because the weather right now is pretty crappy. But I got up looking forward to one thing: brown sugar and cinnamon pop tarts. The best pop tart EVER made. I was especially excited because yesterday I was fasting so I didn't get to have them, the biggest sacrifice of the day. So I came downstairs, grabbed a package of pop tarts, and counted the remaining packages. 1, 2, 3, and a 1/2. 3 more good mornings this week, unless I have to share with Tyler. I put the pop tarts in the toaster, turned it up slightly, and ran upstairs to get a few things. I was overcome with joy at the smell of the cooking pop tart as I came down the stairs. But as soon as I saw the streams of smoke coming from the toaster I let out a terror stricken "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!". I had burnt my pop tarts.

Fine. I wasn't going to let it ruin my morning. I went to the pantry, got another package, counted, 1, 2 and a 1/2, that's not so bad. I put another set in, turned down the toaster, and got on the computer to finish up some things for Alexis' school today. After a few minutes the smell of burnt pop tarts hit my nose. I thought I couldn't have done it again, it's just a lingering smell, but I turned around and realized I was wrong. I had burnt 4 pop tarts this morning! Not just any 4, but 4 BROWN SUGAR & CINNAMON POP TARTS.

And that's how my days have been lately. Hopefully things will turn around soon.

But not likely. I just went back to the toaster because I had left the second set of pop tarts in the toaster, leaning against the side the way they do, and they fused themselves to the toaster. Looks like I'll be needing a new one of those too.