The Emily's New Clothes

What is it about new clothing? Is Emily the only kid who feels that a brand new shirt or pair of pants is merely a blank canvas for her to express herself? Whatever the reason, it seems as if the most dangerous time for clothing is the first wearing.

Emily got some lovely new shorts from her grandparents last weekend. Yesterday was a nice hot day and the perfect time to try out said new shorts. It also seemed to be the perfect time to discover a forgotten wet erase marker and destroy the shorts.

I threw everything I had at that stain: Spot Shot, rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, carpet cleaner, bleach, bleach and more bleach. It wasn't budging. I even tried yelling and screaming. That didn't work either and it just made me feel worse.

Time for a band-aid.

No, it doesn't match perfectly, but it makes them once again wearable. Next time Emily ruins something (that will most likely be later today) I am going to try to tell myself, "It's probably not so bad that it can't be fixed. And even if it is, it's not worth yelling". If I say it enough times, maybe it will stick.

Or perhaps I will just be one of those women who are under the impression that I somehow gained complete mastery over my anger right about the time my children left home. Then I will tell all the young mothers that the little things aren't worth getting angry over and they will miss these days. But part of me will always remember that yelling and motherhood are as inseparable as Emily and destruction.

Why No One was Hungry for Dinner

I'm still not sure what happened last night. I don't think I ever will be. The facts, as seen through my eyes are these:

I was fixing dinner. Emily said she was starving. I gave her some fruit snacks to get her out of my hair (I don't normally give her snacks before dinner, but it was either that or make the family eat cold cereal for dinner - she wasn't about to leave me alone.) Emily sees a bird outside. She goes outside after it.  I am happy for the break. I keep an eye on her out the window. She yells back, "Mom! I'm trying to feed the bird fruit snacks!". Okay, whatever. Every time she gets within five feet of the bird she runs away screaming. I am unconcerned. 

More running. More screaming. And then, "Mom! Come quick! The bird is dead!". And there, by our porch, this is what I saw:

And so two great mysteries begin. 1) How did it die and, 2) Did Emily touch it?

She assured me time and time again that she never touched it either before or after it took the great voyage into the beyond. She had lots to say about how it died.

1) It got sick and fell down, down, down from the sky.

2) It flew into the porch/house/chair/playhouse.

3) I hit it with June. (June is a doll. Please oh please don't let this be true).

4) I did NOT hit it with June. It died from hopping.

5) I don't know.

6) It is not dead. It is napping.

Obviously absent from this list is the possibility that the bird choked on a fruit snack. We will never know how the bird died, but I am reasonably certain that if Emily took part in its demise it was unintentional. I am also reasonably certain that she didn't touch it. Or maybe I'm just lying to myself because I can't deal with the alternative.

Sick of Sick

I haven't blogged in awhile. There's a good reason for that. We have been sick. Then sicker. Then a little better. Then sick again. Followed by really sick. And now (knock on wood) we are finally getting less sick. I hope it will stay that way. Rather than take you through the saga of colds, assorted infections and the accompanying antibiotics that have been our lives lately, I think I will blog about the good things that happened between the sicknesses.

First, I got to go to Denver for the day all by myself. I never thought I would want to just be alone for a day, but it really is wonderful to not have to worry about who has to pee and who is sick of shopping and who doesn't like the apple slices you ordered instead of french fries. A day out of town with kids sucks. A day out of town alone is glorious.

That weekend we also had the first smores of the season. Always an occasion for celebration.


And then... sick, sick and more sick. Skip to this past week.

We love the Children's Garden. It is, perhaps my kids' favorite place on the planet. I'm pretty sure I could take up permanent residence in the Children's Garden.

I suspect there must be some kind of magnetic or geothermal anomaly at the Children's Garden because my kids throw 98% less fits per minute within its walls then without.

On the other hand, I was totally sure that taking Emily to the dentist for the first time would result in a huge fit. That's why I put it off til she was 4. It turns out that not only did I have nothing to worry about, she said she LOVED it. Really? Yes. I am not lying.

Hurrah for dentists who cater to kids! Hurrah for the Children's Garden. Hurrah for antibiotics and hurrah for the priesthood blessing that finally helped Jane start to be Jane again!

Where is the ME in Mommy? Guest Blog

Today is a landmark day. Someone else actually let me scribble all over their piece of cyberspace. My friend, Reagan, maintains a wonderful blog replete with advice on motherhood, cleaning and fashion. Today I am her guest blogger. Check it out here.

(Almost) Bridging the Gap

Is everyone sufficiently sick of pedestrian bridge abutments? Yes? Well, then stop reading because you've stumbled into another post about the two glorious chunks of concrete that represent the pinnacle of my post baby career.

I went to go watch the bridge being set last week. It is 73'6'' which is a respectable length for a pedestrian bridge. It was a cold miserable day but I was determined to catch the whole beautiful process on film. Fortunately for you, Blogger takes a long time to load photos so you are now seeing the Cliff's Notes version.

You will notice my stunning abutments at stage right and stage left, bearing up the mighty bridge. (I won't think about the fact that the contractor made an error that caused a gap across the traveled way between the bridge and the backwall of the abutment. From this distance, it looks perfect.)

Once the approach slab is finished, punk kids will no longer have to ride their trick bikes with the tiny wheels and their skateboards with those weird hinges in the middle across the paved section of the channel slightly downstream to get across the ever formidable Dry Creek. Although they probably will. Because it's cooler and more dangerous. I don't need them on my abutments anyway. 

Really, what more is there to say? Please, feel free to admire.

You've Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

Has it really been four years since that memorable day in May when Chris and I went from being a couple to a full blown family? Apparently it has. And we had the blowout extravaganza celebration to prove it.

Emily selected a "Little Einstein's" theme.

This is the cake:

This particular cake may have taken a professional decorator 15 minutes, but it took me and my skills 5 hours to do. I am recording the amount of time here so that in the future when Emily doesn't call me in the nursing home on my birthday, I will have adequate basis for a huge guilt trip.

For her party, we invited her sunbeams class and I had a brilliant idea of letting 7 small children paint conducting batons. I don't recommend this particular practice, but no permanent damage was done and I learned a valuable lesson. (yes, folks - those are garbage bags we put over the kids' heads)

The rest of the party went pretty well and I believe a good time was had by all. My mom and dad were able to join us for the day and Emily loved having them there.

I am thankful Emily is part of our family. She brings a great deal of joy into our lives and she amazes us every day with her ability to figure things out. She is able to express herself with the typical 4 year old humor and wit reminding us that some of the greatest pleasures in life can also be the simplest. Happy Birthday, Emily! We love you!

Black Magic Woman

I am cursed when it comes to borrowing Chris' car. His cars only break when I'm driving them. Back when he had his Hyundai, I came home from grocery shopping and announced the dash lights had gone completely dark. This began a saga that eventually ended in the car not functioning at all, a small electrical fire and thousands of dollars of (thank goodness) warranty work. I hope the new owner is having better luck with it.

The Subaru never gave us a moment's worry when it was mine but this winter, after Chris inherited it, it started to smell distinctly gassy. At first I thought it was just the lingering aroma of Chris. After another grocery shopping trip, I realized this was not so. The car had a leak. This led to a month of tightening, tinkering, returning of gas smell and repeat. On a really cold day, it still smells like an Exxon station.

This past week, I had big plans. I've started to try to shop with coupons which requires trips to multiple grocery stores. I hit Safeway and came away with two months' supply of fruit cups, apple juice and the heady feeling that can only come from getting as close to stealing something as I ever will. Next stop: Albertson's. The coupon game didn't work so great there. I had been out for a couple hours at that point and it had gotten dark and windy and cold and had started to snow just a little.

That's when I saw it: the flat tire. I'm a modern woman. I can change my own tire. That's what I told myself as I started to get out the spare and dialed Chris, coolly telling him I had some flat tire business to attend to and I would be home a bit late. He said he was coming to change it for me. I protested. He insisted. Conversation ended.

(This, by the way is not it, but I wish the weather was like this in my story.) 

I would show him. I would change the tire before he could get there. I leaned the spare up against the car and tried not to let anyone see I was reading the owner's manual to find out where the jack was. Jack located. Tugging to no avail. Owner's manual consulted. Frozen fingers prying at nut to no avail. Screwdriver located. Leverage obtained. Jack finally freed. Hands are painfully red but blissful numb begins to set in. Chris arrives. Task gratefully surrendered. I get in the other car with the kids and drive away, happy that I'm not in a dark, cold parking lot changing a flat tire. I'm convinced I have some kind of bad voodoo when it comes to my husband's car. Perhaps it stems from my hatred of his first car. Or perhaps not.

All I know is that I am getting ample payback for being so unreasonable in college about B's incident when she was borrowing my truck. If it means anything now, I wish I would have let you guys borrow my truck more often and I now realize what a jerk I was. Accidents happen... and well do I know it now.