Life on the highway

I’ve noticed a difference in the way Mark and I describe certain things. Maybe it’s because I’m an optimist and Mark’s a pessimist. Or maybe I like to make certain things sound more glamorous. Here’s an example. If you ask Mark where he went to law school, he’ll tell you “South Bend.” If you ask me where he went to law school, I’ll say “Notre Dame.” If you ask Mark where he works, he’ll say he works at a not-for-profit organization doing immigration law. I’d say he’s an immigration lawyer.

So, if I were to describe our weekend trip, I’d say that the girls and I tagged along with Mark on his business trip to southern Utah. On the other hand, a few days before the trip, I overheard Mark telling a friend on the phone that this weekend he was going on a road trip with a nun. We’re both telling the truth, but I like how my version sounds better.

Wednesday we hit the road with Mark’s boss, who is, indeed, a nun. Mark had a moment of concern when he called the hotel and found out they had only reserved one room for him and his female boss (yep, the nun). It was then that Mark extended a firm invitation (request) that we come with him on his “road trip.” The promise of a free hotel and swimming pool and breakfast buffet was too much for me to resist, so we packed up and left on Wednesday.

When you jam two kids and a largely pregnant mommy in the backseat, with a nun/boss (who has never had kids) driving and daddy/professional colleague in the passenger seat, a few awkward moments are bound to arise. And they did.

Like, an hour down the road, when Sage decided she urgently had to go #2, and we were at a near-dead standstill in freeway construction, with the nearest exit a mile away. (To put this in perspective, it took us an hour to drive twelve miles. During which time we crawled past sixteen hundred orange cones and eventually saw eight total men pretending to be productive construction workers. And Sage worked up a bowel movement to celebrate. And also enlightened us with commentary about the tar smell like "This does not smell like flowers" and "I think the stinky smell is coming from those orange cones.")

Other awkward moments included (but certainly were not limited to):

1. When I realized, around dinnertime, that Eliza’s diaper hadn’t been changed all day, and the damage had been done.

2. When I had to use the bathroom for the third time in our five hour car trip.

3. When I assured Mark’s boss multiple times that Eliza would definitely sleep on the 5-hour trip. Unfortunately, it appears that a steady diet of Cheetos and Bug Bites puts all normal habits of a 2-year-old out of whack.

4. When I fell asleep for 20 minutes and Sage colored green marker stripes up her entire arm.

5. When I realized that the reason Mark asked me to pick up his prescription before we left is so that he could have it on the trip. Oops.

6. When Mark’s boss wanted to head home thirty minutes before the breakfast buffet opened on the final day. I had to put my foot down. I hope she doesn’t fire him on Monday. But those eight pieces of French toast I packed in were delicious.

7. When I offered to take the car to vacuum it after our trip and Mark's boss accepted, explaining that no one is supposed to eat in the car at all.

I don’t know when Mark’s next out-of-town clinic is, but I don’t know that the girls and I will be invited. [Mark would probably say that they don't want us to come.]

And maybe that's just fine.

P.S. It turns out Mark's boss did request two rooms, but the hotel made a mistake. Luckily for us (and especially for Mark's boss) , they gave us another room.

Photo Phobia

In honor of yesterday marking the 6-week countdown to delivery of baby #3, (and in honor of me having fixed my hair and put on makeup in the same 12-hour period) I thought I'd post a picture of myself. I must warn you--"large with child" is a good description, I think--though the largeness may be more due to my current obsession with fresh peaches on ice cream than the four pound fetus inside me.

The process of getting a picture for this post was no small feat. A little self-diagnosis would reveal that I have a major complex about having my picture taken. Last night, I waited until Mark was gone and the kids were in bed, then I closed all the blinds and pulled out the camera. I started the automatic timer, then rushed to the other side of the room and tried to look calm and composed as I smiled benevolently at the blinking red light which—of course—failed to snap until I risked a quick blink or unintentionally flared my nostrils. I took half a dozen pictures and deleted most of them on the spot, turning a little red as I thought of the audacity I had to stage this secret photo shoot.

I gave up before I was happy with the result, but vowed that this would mark the day of a new phase of picture confidence in me. The end result, to my dismay today, is a picture taken at just the right angle to capture a massive love handle and what looks like a little belly. I think I should label the bottom of the picture with the disclaimer: "Objects in picture are larger than they appear--except the love handles, which couldn’t possibly be bigger than they appear." Perhaps this is my punishment for making fun of Sarah Menet's picture on the back of her book.

This picture phobia was not inherited by many of my sisters. Last month I borrowed a great book from my mom’s bookshelf, and tucked inside I found this (classic) picture of two of my sisters that my mom was either using as a bookmark or a reminder of how much work she has left to do.

The funny thing is, these two anonymous sisters are among the most photogenic and beautiful girls I know (see here and here). Maybe that's why they are confident enough to take, and print, pictures of themselves like this.

My qualms about pictures of me include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Documentation of the number of days I wear my hair in a ponytail
2. Documentation of the number of zits I have
3. Documentation of those extra pounds of chub I’d like to drop
4. If I post a picture of myself, that’s like making the claim that I think I look great in the picture. And what if other people think I don’t? But, if I take/keep/post a picture of myself with my kids, it’s obvious that I was not pointing to how great I think I look in the picture, but actually how cute my kids are, right? So I can still be humble? (Even though I will never post a picture of ugly me and cute kids.)
5. What if no one wants to see me with the same look in every single picture? (I always try to have the exact same fake smile in each.)
6. I don’t think I’m ugly, but I am always a little offended at what truly candid pictures reveal of what I look like candidly throughout the day.

In summary, I think I may need counseling.

But now that I’ve stalled long enough, here’s the picture I've talked up way too much. It's kind of anticlimactic. No kids in sight. And no mustache.)

Or maybe, as an alternative to counseling, I could consider hiring a living, breathing photographer with a healthy proficiency in Photoshop.

A year's supply of chocolate chips

Mark's cousin recently recommended (with 7 stars, where 5 are possible) a book for us to read and even brought us her copy. This memoir was about a lady who had committed suicide, and then been sent back to life, but not, she claimed, before seeing life on the other side as well as many past and future events. I try not to judge books by their covers, but is it ok to judge a book by its author? As in, the author’s photo on the back cover? Call me really prejudiced and mean and snotty, but I instantly formed a bit of a bias when I saw Peter Pan, I mean, Sarah Menet’s picture on the back of her highly celebrated (by at least one person) book.

After giggling about Menet's hair for a while, I opened the book and read the thing. Menet, the self-proclaimed expert on end-of-the-world affairs was very doomsday-ish, and that turned me off. But perhaps the one thing I could relate to in the book was her recommendation to have a supply of food stored in case of emergency [or, in her opinion, the end of peace and stability...due to happen tomorrow, if not sooner.]

I admit that as Mark commuted 2 hours a day over the past year, it has been unsettling to me to watch the economy’s depression—beginning with gas prices, and moving on into many other areas that hit much closer to home than rumors of destruction and despair in far off countries.

However, the idea of storing food is not news to members of my church, although it sometimes seems like a herculean task little suited to the transient life of students. Recognizing that I can no longer hide under the "starving student" banner with respect to food storage, I knuckled down and checked out an amazing website published by my church, ProvidentLiving.org. I was prepared to be bogged down with details about storing a year's supply of powdered milk (although right now, my year’s supply would come to about 3 cups, thanks to one great rolls recipe). In reality, the website was very different. It helped put preparedness in logical and even simple terms, and provided many resources and tips for managing finances and home storage (both general ideas and specifics). I was inspired and encouraged. I felt a little fire light up under me in the way that only comes when I hear truth and consciously choose to make the necessary changes to be obedient.

Since two local stores had major caselot sales this week, Mark and I made the decision to return a semi-expensive (for us) piece of furniture we recently bought and use the funds to invest in a storage of food, beginning the with the essentials (chocolate chips) and moving on down to the canned veggies and meats, flour and sugar. Now there is more food under my bed than you would believe!—a trick I learned from my mom. (She deprived us of hiding places for our dirty clothes and toys by keeping gigantic bags of powdered milk, flour, and wheat under each bed, because we were so limited on space.)

Incidentally, our kids have already benefited from our preparedness fest. Eliza absolutely loved our purchase of empty 5 gallon buckets for storing flour, sugar, and oats. (Which, according to my calculations, should make at least 6 months worth of oatmeal cookies.) Eliza adopted two of the large buckets and used them to tote around her four stuffed lambs for a week--until I stole them back while she was sleeping. Both girls (all kids, perhaps?) find it impossible to resist dunking their hands in a big bucket of flour, oats, sugar, wheat, beans, or anything else that might be contaminable by little toddler hands, arms, elbows, noses and tongues. And as for me, I can definitely rest easier at night knowing a year’s supply of cake mixes and chocolate chips are safely tucked in directly below me.

It feels good to get prepared, and for the right reasons. I refuse to be scared into action by doomsayers, but I am grateful for the timely reminder of what our church leaders have been encouraging us to do for years.

It may be a while before I can convert over to whole-wheat/powdered-milk/egg-substitute chocolate chip cookies. But I'm doing my best on this preparedness thing. Next task on my list is figuring out where to store a year's supply of diapers, wipes, and potty treats. And a year's supply of ice cream. And how to pick the year's supply of tomatoes that are dropping off our garden of 45 tomato plants as we speak.

Yoga pants and fashion

One of the best things I’ve noticed this week about having moved and living in a new area is that I feel much more freedom to wear whatever I want.

When I don’t know my neighbors from Adam, I assume they won’t recognize me either. I realize this may be a mistaken philosophy. In fact, our family has some rather distinctive habits: I’m not aware of anyone else in our complex who plays ABBA songs and the Wicked soundtrack at all hours; I haven’t noticed any other two year olds that have to lug four stuffed lambs and a handful of freshly picked dandelions to the car every time we go somewhere; I haven’t seen any other large pregnant women who are constantly threatening to count to three—followed by a sobbing four year old jumping off her bike and charging angrily up the stairs.

However, the anonymity I feel, whether real or imagined, is enough to convince me that it is a great idea to wear yoga pants every day. Now that it’s fall, I have retired one pair of basketball shorts and broken out the yoga pants. And, happy day, I have THREE pairs of yoga pants—thanks, in part, to my sister, Danielle, who shares my love of comfortable clothes, and who loaned me her good black maternity yoga pants. That is true love.

But these days, I’m not the only one in our house adhering to strange fashion principles. Sage has also imposed a fashion code of her own, which requires that she and Eliza always have to be dressed like twins. The obvious implications of this are that 2/3 of both girls’ clothes have become unusable, since they don’t have a counterpart in size 2T or 5T. The less obvious implications are that if I inadvertently fix Eliza’s hair with two ponytails, and Sage’s with one, I have to find somewhere to add in a second on Sage’s head. If I dress Eliza in pink PJ’s that are short sleeved with pants, and Sage only has pink short sleeved with shorts, I either have to start digging in the dirty clothes, or strip Eliza down and start over.

If one girl slips on crocs, Sage will require that the other have crocs before leaving the house. Since Sage has to wear a preschool uniform twice a week, Eliza has also been wearing a lot of pink, green, and brown. Occasionally, the “twins” must even use the bathroom at the same time—whether both need to go or not.

Eliza is oblivious to most of this matching game that Sage plays day and night. I, on the other hand, know that it takes less work and energy to just comply with Sage’s fashion idiosyncrasies than to fight them. (Though I refused to change Sage's ribbons in the picture below--in spite of Sage's pleading.)

I can already anticipate my family’s unfeeling responses to this blog. They’re going to say I deserve a four-year-old with strong opinions on fashion, because of my own elementary school obsessions—for which I still suffer much teasing, I’ll have you know.

All I have to say is that I didn’t require that anyone else match me back then (although I couldn't understand why they didn't want to). However, I probably exercised undue influence over my just-younger-sister Danielle in the realms of fashion, for better or worse. And, here she is, blessing my life with black yoga pants. We really have come full circle. And if I could, I wouldn't change a thing. Except maybe the big bangs.

We've moved

Does moving get any easier with practice? Last month, Mark and I completed our sixth move in the last four years (something probably not atypical of college students). We had TONS of help from my family (who undoubtedly got burnt out from moving, since every single person but one in my family of ten moved during the month of August). Our family's kind of like the moving company Two Men and a Truck...only better described as Four Men, Six Women, Four Kids, A Van, A Truck, and Two Trailers. Not quite as catchy, but probably more efficient. And cheaper. And exploitable.

For this move, since we would be unpacking as little as six hours after we packed some boxes, I didn’t pay as much attention to keeping like things together, instead going for the ideal weight per box. This resulted, to Mark’s amusement, in one box that was packed with underwear, lingerie and bags of brown sugar. Mark amused me by trying to pack things according to the former labels on the boxes. [What are the chances that I would have remembered that the wok and the rice cooker snuggle up perfectly in that long box? Good thing I got my mom's obsessive labeling gene.]

There were a few casualties in the move. Our desk fell apart on the way out the door. One box, containing chocolate chips, sat in the sun for a little too long, and morphed into bricks of chocolate. [I have no doubt those will make AWESOME chocolate chip—I mean brick--cookies. A half a bar per cookie should be about right.]

When I showed up with the kids at our new apartment (an hour or so after Mark and my family members had begun unloading), I found an unknown guy with black hair and blue bangs working in the living room. My heart sank, thinking this was our new landlord. Fortunately, he was just the internet guy. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to install our internet. Being webless for a few days made me feel vulnerable...and rather productive!

Eliza wasted no time in breaking in our new carpet in her own special potty-training way. But it didn’t set us too far back, since there is an omnipresent, lingering scent of cat urine in our living room. The girls started calling this apartment “the kitty house” when we first visited it, and we found the managers cats were living here. (I still want to know how much they were paying for kitty rent.) Unfortunately, in spite of two carpet cleanings, we still have Scent of Cat Excretion issues. It drives Mark crazy, but I have to smile secretly and count myself lucky. In my quest to decrease Mark’s love of everything feline, I think more progress has been made in the last three weeks than in the other six years of our marriage.

The canine kingdom seems to be well represented in our new neighborhood—something you don’t see much in a college neighborhood like the one we moved from. One evening, we went for a walk, and Eliza noticed a pile of dog poop sitting on the sidewalk. She looked at me with confusion and said, “That’s a poo poo chunk!” Then her tone changed to one of reprimand, and she said “We DON’T do poo poo chunks on the sidewalk, Mommy.” Oh, thank you, wise two-year-old.

The best part about moving was our first morning in our new house, when Mark left for work FOUR MINUTES before he needed to be there. And he made it there early!!! I can’t wait to see what we don’t have to pay in gasoline bills this month.

So if anyone's passing through Salt Lake, and needs a place to stay, bring your noseplugs and come visit us. We'd love to have you. If you're lucky, we might even take you down to the city council building to meet our mayor.

Five new food groups

Today I had a premonition about baby #3. For the ease of referring to baby #3, shall we call her, say, Lily? [Shhh. Don’t tell Mark.]

Granted, I would have bet, and lost money, on my last premonition, that little Lily was a boy. This time, I think I have even better proof to back up my intuition. And remember what they say about mother’s intuition?

So here’s my hypothesis: I think that little Lily has a[n idiomatic] sweet tooth. How do I know? All day long, my tummy calls for sweets. In the morning, my former routine of raisin bran isn’t good enough. Lily wants Cinnamon Toast Crunch (or, Cereal Crunchies, as Eliza calls it).

After lunch, when I’m ready to settle down with a nice fresh peach, Lily wants ice cream with it. For a snack, Lily wants hot fudge sauce (no ice cream, since we’ve already had ice cream today and it’s only 2pm). The nerve. I convince her we should slice some bananas into it, and add some nice, healthy milk. I’ll take the calcium and potassium and she can have all the fat and calories from the chocolate sauce When I contemplate what to do with the seven zucchinis I brought back from my Provo garden, Lily thinks we should make chocolate zucchini cake. I could definitely be persuaded on that one.

Good thing I’M in control here, though. Lily would have me rewrite the pregnancy food pyramid to include the five basic groups of glucose, sucrose, fructose, high-fructose corn syrup, and chocolate (constituting the base—approximately 35% of daily caloric consumption). Maybe she’s related to Buddy the Elf?

Should I let the doctor know? Just in case he’s wondering why I’m gaining so much weight. Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll just contemplate exactly how I’ll break the news to him over a chocolate chip cookie…AND milk, of course.

Icons important to a 2-year-old

Yesterday I was counting some cash for a deposit for my dad. I wondered, in this day of credit and debit cards, if Eliza would recognize paper money that doesn’t come from Monopoly Jr. I held out a $50 bill and asked her “What’s this, Eliza?”

Eliza looked up from her toy and, without missing a beat, said, “Um, Jesus.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or call and promptly enroll Eliza in Bible School. Besides having a beard, how does green Ulysses S. Grant look like Jesus? We have plenty of pictures around of Jesus looking much more friendly, colorful, and definitely more skinny than the honorable President Grant.

On the other hand, I was shocked the other day when Eliza identified Hannah Montana on one of the 3 million pieces of merchandise at Walmart that bear her face.

Where did I go wrong in my parenting? Do I just spend too much time at Walmart? And not enough time perusing the history section of the library, chatting with my children about the Civil War?

So much to do, and so little energy. This is the curse of pregnancy, is it not? And perhaps motherhood? Maybe just life in general.

Preschool for mommies

I had heard, and come to expect, that dropping off my oldest daughter for her first day of preschool would be an emotional experience for me. Well, in case you don't know any pregnant women, emotions aren't hard to come by for us--even without a rite of passage like sending our babies off to the big bad world of four-year-olds and blocks and puzzles and play kitchens.

The emotions began on preschool day bright and early when the alarm rang for me to get up at 7:15am. And the name of the emotion was irritation at having to get up so early! What about my leisurely morning activities of munching Cinnamon Toast Crunch while checking blogs? Am I ready to give this up, all for my 4 year old’s happiness? Uh….I guess the answer should be a ready yes. Ask me again tomorrow.

The next emotion came when Sage absolutely insisted on picking her own outfit. Doesn’t she know the mother who is funding her two-days-a-week Happy Time gets to choose what she wears, and how many ponytails she gets to have that day? (Sage won on the outfit—a too-long shirt with a knee-length skirt. I won on the hair—3 ponytails instead of five.)

Emotions were flying when I hit northbound to SL traffic, and couldn’t even squeeze over to make great use of the carpool lane. Grrr. (Why did I just move to a big city, again? Oh yes, to learn patience behind the wheel.)

It was probably a blessing that I didn’t have time to get emotional or wax photographic about Sage heading into the front door of her new school, as we were already 7 minutes late.

I continued feeling emotional when we HAD to stop for drinks for both girls at the “tiny” drinking fountain on the way to class. And when we had to stop and point out every Dora or Diego backpack that we passed on the way. And, since this is a bilingual school, there were a LOT of Doras and Diegos. Perhaps they are the school mascots?

When we arrived at her classroom, Sage dove right in, leaving me feeling emotions I hadn’t expected. Doesn’t she want to hold my hand shyly in the corner for a few minutes? Doesn’t she want to beg me to stay, or at least come back soon? My pity party was short lived, as the teacher invited Eliza and me to stay for a while. Eliza was in heaven, and headed straight for the pile of stuffed animals in the reading corner, where she made herself at home more quickly than Sage did.

I felt uncharitable feelings when another mother tried to talk to me about fundraising for the school. I just wanted to watch how my baby (who apparently grew up when I wasn’t looking) was interacting in a bilingual preschool on her first day with strangers, not think about who would want to buy thousand-dollar paintings at an auction.

There was even time for embarrassment when I realized my Eliza was the one who was repeatedly beeping a toy during the circle song time. And then again when I found her stripping in the bathroom in front of the tiny urinal that stood about 3 inches off the ground. She threw a tantrum worthy of any 2-year-old when I insisted that she use the normal potty, and not the extremely accessible toilet that was just her size and right on her level and oh-so-inviting.

I was a proud mother hen when Sage put on her bravest face and initiated conversation with her teacher in Spanish. Once.

I was amused when Sage avoided the class bully that was stealing toys, but Eliza defied him and demanded that he stop taking her kitchen equipment.

I was an irritated pregnant woman when Eliza refused to leave (after an hour of joining in the festivities not intended for her for another year or two), and I got to repeat that emotion when we came back for Sage an hour later.

When the longest 3 hours of my life were over, on the drive home, I asked Sage about her day. She glowed as she made her report. “Mom, we got to play in the playground that’s only for preschoolers!” I told her that was great, and asked what the teachers taught her. “Stuff. And when we were on the playground, the boys got on the hippo with the big mouth, but the girls got on the caterpillar!” Wow. Did you speak Spanish to any kids? “Yeah. And I loved all those slides…”

Which left me wondering why I am paying for preschool, and enduring all this emotional constipation, when it appears all Sage needs is a good public park to make her day?

Well, probably because I’m the one who needs the schooling in Emotions 101. Do they offer support groups, or even preschools for mothers with separation anxiety? Because after preschool, there’s kindergarten. And then middle school. And high school. And college. And let’s just hope they all have great playgrounds, and offer parental counseling.