A Conversation With Austin, Age 7 1/2

I was in the kitchen doing the dinner dishes and Austin was on the computer, looking at magic wands on Etsy.

Austin, calling from the other room:  "Mom, did you know you can buy wands for wedding favors?"
Me:  "No, how much?"
Austin:  "Eight hundred seventy-five."
Me:  "Wands?  That's a lot of wedding guests."
Austin:  "No, dollars."
Me:  "For how many?"
Austin:  "Seventy-five."
Me:  "Wow, that is really expensive."
Austin:  "But totally worth it."

Hope his future bride feels the same way.

Worst Meal Plan EVER

So, I found out about 3 weeks ago that I am allergic to:  (wait for it....)

Wheat (all parts)
Rye
Sesame
Spelt

Whey

Casein
(So, pretty much milk)
Yogurt
Cottage Cheese
and other cheeses (Mozzarella, my favorite,  was the least reactive, but still enough that I should avoid it.)

etc.
etc.
(oh, and cranberries too.)

And eggs got a little bit of a reaction.

And I'm  probably allergic to a lot more things that I wasn't tested for.
(Like, I'm highly allergic to pigweed, which is related to quinoa.  So, does that mean I can't eat quinoa, which is supposed to be pretty low on the allergen scale?)


So basically, I'm on a dairy and gluten-free diet.

Blech.

I've tried about every recipe I can find for  dairy and gluten free brownies.  Some are actually pretty tasty.  Some, not so much!  (Yes you, Black Bean Brownies!)  And, I've found some quite yummy store bought cookies.  ($5.00 for 9 cookies.  So yeah, I don't share!)

On the plus side:

I'm itching a TINY bit less.

A Fun Baby Shower Game......

I saw someone last week that I hadn't seen for many years.  It was Morgan's first piano teacher.

She reminded me that I threw a baby shower for her when her first daughter was born.  (The one and only baby shower I remember throwing.  I'm not a great party thrower, they stress me out.  I'm more of an informal "Hey, why don't we just head over to my house right now - and since I wasn't planning on it, I guess you won't mind if the house is messy." kind of girl.)

We did do one thing that was kind of funny.  I can't remember if we had any other formal games, but my sister-in-law Jayne had told me about something they had done at a shower over in Tremonton.  It sounded like a fun idea and we decided that probably nobody in our neighborhood had heard of doing this, so I talked my other sister-in-law, Monica, into showing up at the shower about a half hour late, frazzled and carrying a diaper bag.

When she got there, I pretended like I didn't know her.   She walked in, apologizing for being late.  I acted polite, but started asking people (discreetly) if they knew who she was.  Nobody did, so I pulled Jenny out and asked her if she was a relative of hers.  Jenny said she had no idea who she was.  It was funny watching people act polite to Monica and wondering who she was and why she was there.  Finally I came out and said, "How do you know Jenny?" 

"Jenny?"  she said, "Who is Jenny?  I'm here for Natalie's shower?"  "Natalie who?"  I asked.  "Natalie Jenkins."  she said (or some other made up name, I can't remember what it was).

So then she started acting embarrassed, like she had suddenly realized that she was at the wrong house.  I asked the address of where she was supposed to be, so she said she had the invitation in her diaper bag.  She started rummaging frantically in the bag, eventually dumping it on the floor.  I then helped her pick things up and then we told people that it was a game and  handed out paper and pencils and had people write down anything they could remember that was in her diaper bag.  And that was the game.

It was funny to see peoples' reactions.  You can't get anything past Joyce Johnson.  She yelled out, "Is this a setup?" when Monica dumped the bag.  The girls (we had invited the Young Women too) were really confused.  It made me laugh.  I did like the comment someone else made.  They said, "I was so embarrassed for her when she dumped the bag that I tried on purpose not to look at what was in there."

Anyway, kind of a funny game, but you need to make sure and have someone do it that wouldn't be recognized by anyone else at the party.

One Proud/Happy/Relieved/Sad Mama

Well, it happened.  I can now breathe a big sigh of relief.  One burden has been lifted.  (One more to go, but I'm not really at liberty to talk about the other thing just yet.)

Morgan just found out today that she received the Thomas S. Monson Presidential Scholarship to BYU, her first choice college.

I am so proud of her and all her hard work.  She really has earned it.  I have no doubt that she will do well in school because she has been taking college level and AP classes since she was a sophomore.  She has earned a 5 on every AP test so far and scored a 35 on the ACT.  (I'm bragging here, because it's not really the type of thing you can just trumpet all over facebook.  I'll assume anyone reading this here will be happy for us.)

I am happy because I know she is a good girl and will fit in really well at BYU.  To be honest, I don't know if I would have fit in there.  I'm not really known for my "sweet spirit", but she fits what I think of when I think of the type of girl who does well at BYU.  (And yes, she does read her scriptures regularly.  I would have failed on that count alone.)

I am definitely relieved because we have really been sweating, waiting to hear if she would get any sort of financial aid.  She got a full ride to USU, so it would have been hard to send her to BYU, paying for housing, food AND tuition.  Definitely a big weight off my shoulders.

And finally, I am sad.  I am so sad  that she will be leaving our home so soon.  She has been  fun to have around, but she has been so busy taking all those classes (4 AP classes this year alone) that I feel like I have been cheated out of her company for the last few years.  She has been so busy getting herself to this point that  I had really been looking forward to her living at home for college, coming home for lunch, or after some early classes to just hang out with ME.  Morgan is the most like me of anyone else in the family, so I will miss my little mini-me.  (Well, let me qualify, Morgan has more of my "good" qualities.  Ally, unfortunately, ended up with my, how do you say this politely?, "naughtier" qualities.  Ally likes to see how much she can get away with without actually breaking the rules.  Let's  just leave it at that, shall we?)

Anyway, this has been a day of very strong, mixed emotions.  I couldn't hide the tears as we read the scholarship e-mail.  Happy tears.  Sad tears.  Tears of relief.

Where did my little girl go?  (Sniff, sniff.)

Wake Up Call.....

Well, the last couple of  years I have started having dreams that seemed real.  Not like scary real, but just every day real.  Sometimes after waking up, I have a hard time figuring out if something that happened in my dream really happened or not. 

I've even had to ask Hal some embarrassing questions like, "Did we invite your mom over for dinner tonight?", or "Did I really talk to my aunt on the phone yesterday?" 

Things that don't really matter, (well, I guess it would matter if I'd invited my mother-in-law over for dinner, but couldn't remember for sure and didn't make enough food!)  but I just wanted to verify what was real and what was not.

Well, Friday morning, my dreams crossed a line.  The line that kind of borders on sleepwalking, which (to my knowledge) I have never done.

I was awakened from a dead sleep by our neighbor, who drops his daughter off at our house in the mornings, about an hour and a half before she and my son need to leave for the bus.  He usually knocks 4 times, quite loud.  (He used to ring the bell, but we finally dared ask him NOT to ring the door bell at 6:50 in the morning.) 

This neighbor works at Pepperidge Farms and had picked up some cookies that we used for a community event that Morgan and I had helped with the night before.  I hadn't paid him yet for the cookies, but I had the money by the front door in an envelope and I was worried that if Hal answered the door he might forget to give him the money.  (Like it was a big deal - he lives next door.  I'm sure I would have seen him very soon - like even the next day.  But, I didn't want him to think that I had forgotten to pay him.  I hate it when people owe me money and conveniently forget.)

So, back to my story:  I heard the knock on the door, sprang out of bed and raced to the front door.  I hurried and turned on the porch light because it seemed darker than usual.  Something else seemed off, though I didn't figure it out for a while.  I threw the door open and they weren't there. 

Since it had taken me a minute to get to the door (like I said, I had been fast asleep) I figured they had gone back to their house, thinking we weren't home for some reason.  I quietly called out to them, calling them by name and saying, "Hey, we're home."  I walked halfway to their house, but they had already gone in, so I didn't catch them in time.

So the next logical thing to do would be to call them.  I knew their home phone number, so I found a phone and dialed the number.  About the time it started ringing, it started to dawn on me a little more what was wrong in my house.  Not only was it darker than usual for that time of day, there was nobody around.  Hal sometimes goes running in the morning so I figured that was where he was, but neither of my girls were up either.  It didn't make sense for them both to have slept in.  (Unless they were both sick, but I knew I would have known about it if that were the case.)

I finally glanced at the clock.  5:45.  As in  5:45 a.m., much too early for them to be coming over.  The phone had started ringing by then, so I quickly hung it up, still trying to figure out what was going on. 

I went back into my bedroom, where Hal had been in bed, fast asleep, the whole time.  I wondered how I had climbed over him (because it seemed like I had rolled across the bed and gotten out of his side) without noticing he was still in bed, and also without waking him up.  He did wake up when I got back in bed and asked me what in the world I was doing.  I said, "I thought I heard  Bruce knock on the door." and tried to go back to sleep, sorely needing that last hour of sleep.  Sadly, it never came.

When Bruce and Madelyn did show up (right on schedule) I asked him if I had awakened them when I called his house at 5:45.  He said he had heard something, but he didn't know what it was.

So, the only thing I can think is that I had dreamed up that knock on the door.  I must have been so worried about him getting the money I owed him that I had a dream about it.  I had also gotten some wasp spray in my face the day before, when I helped Bruce's son spray for wasps in the metal pipes of their basketball hoop.  They had a couple of big nests with lots of active wasps.  I didn't want him to spray it and get it all over himself and when I sprayed it, a wind kicked up the wrong way and it went right in my face.  I think the pesticide attacks the wasps' nervous systems, because that is exactly how it felt.  And I was already a nervous wreck to begin with.  The wasp spray certainly hasn't improved my situation any, that's for sure.

Anyway, my kids thought that was a very funny story.  Not sure how I feel about it quite yet, but I guess I'll get over it eventually. 

I always do.

The Day Our Printer Was Possessed

At one point we thought our printer was "possessed". 

One day Austin had a friend over to play.  They were on the computer and at one point Peter, his friend, fell against our printer.  It started making strange noises.

Now our printer has not worked well for quite a while, I think there is a short in something somewhere in it, so it has been known to turn on repeatedly by itself, and also make sounds like it is regenerating something on the  inside.  

So when Peter bumped into it, I thought that was probably the end of the printer, which frankly, isn't that old so I was a little annoyed (with the printer, not Peter).  I went over to check out what was going on.  That's when I noticed that the strange sounds were actual WORDS.  That's when it started to creep me out.  After a while I started deciphering what the printer was saying because it sounded vaguely familiar.  

It was saying "We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other!" in a low, slow and CREEPY voice - over and over.  At one point it started to get faster and higher, but it was definitely muffled as if someone was actually stuck in our printer.   I finally recognized the saying from the old Madeline shows my girls used to watch, but couldn't figure out why in the HECK my printer was saying it. 

I called the girls in from the other room to witness what was going on, so I wouldn't get hauled away and locked up if I told this story to anyone else who was half sane.

I FINALLY figured out that there was a toy in a bag on top of the printer.  Austin's friend had fallen onto the printer, jostling the bag and activating the toy.  It was a little Darth Vader head (borrowed from another friend)  that recorded sounds and then played them back either faster and higher, normally,  or lower and slower (and creepier).  Austin himself had recorded the phrase a while before and had forgotten about it.  (Because he was pretty creeped out too.)

I was glad when that particular mystery was solved, but I have to say, I was a little sad when we had to return the toy to his other friend.  It was kind of a fun one to play with.  (Not that I would know, wink wink.)

Let The Season Begin....

 Here are a couple photos from the Nativity scenes the kids at our church did for the Christmas party on Saturday.

Here is the cute little Joseph.   He looks kind of familiar, doesn't he?

Joseph, Mary and the donkey.

 A nice, quiet little Nativity. 

If only Christmas could go back to being that simple again.

Merry Christmas!

Worst Mom EVER (Christmas Edition)

Well, this holiday season has started off just like the last few..........with Austin being very, very NAUGHTY!

I have been trying to figure out when to take him to see Santa, but I really, really want him to be good, even if it is just for ONE day, before we go.

Here are just A FEW of the things he has been doing lately:

He has found - and eaten - more than his weight in candy, almost every single day.  I don't know how he always manages to sniff out where I have been hiding the treats, but he does.  Since he has been eating so much junk, he is not eating the healthy stuff, making him mean and very, very  unreasonable.

He won't clean his room, he won't do his homework, he won't go to bed on time, he won't brush his teeth, etc., etc.

And another thing, he has now earned the code name "raccoon" because of his penchant for "borrowing" things.  Little, shiny things.  (Remember the  jewelry incident from last spring?)  He actually came home from the live Nativity that our little town puts on with two little LED candles in his pockets.  He swiped them from the luminaries they had, lighting the pathway there.  I have also found many of the fake coins they use in school to learn how to count out money.  I don't dare take him anywhere, because I'm afraid of what he may pick up "accidently".

Austin has been so naughty that our elf,  Nutmeg Jim, has even come and gone home already.  Nutmeg Jim even brought Austin a lump of coal instead of a present, which Austin was able to trade in for a book when he got his room clean, with a LOT of help from yours truly.  Once Austin earned the book, he kept saying "A book.  I got a book."  (Like, what was he expecting, a million dollars?)  Funny thing, it was a book he had asked for (I think there was even some crying involved) a month or so ago.  I told him to give the book a chance for 10 minutes and he LOVES the book.  He was just being a pill.

Anyway, I have just had it with him.  I am so DONE with him and his attitude.  I THOUGHT I had it under control until last night.  Earlier in the day, I had found what was a brand new bag of marshmallows in the family room.  There was about a third of the bag left.  I'm pretty sure I could figure out who had eaten them.   Then last night Ally asked if she could have some marshmallows in her hot chocolate.  We found the bag, EMPTY.  Austin, of course, said "I didn't do it."

I blew my top and said those fateful words that I will NEVER, EVER be able to take back:


"When you see Santa I bet he will take you off his lap and throw you on  the ground and JUMP on you!


Yes, I actually said "jump".  Not  something llike "accidently step" or "tiptoe around".  Ally swears I threw the word "kick" in there too.  I didn't know I had such violent tendencies hidden so deep inside of me.  I wonder if I need counseling.  (Actually I wonder if AUSTIN will need counseling.)

In reply, Austin ran BAWLING from the room.  (Which is actually the same reaction he had when he got the lump of coal.)  I was HORRIFIED!  I didn't mean to say that at all.  I really am not a mean mom.  I'm probably in the situation that I am in with Austin being so naughty because I am too nice of a mom.

So, I've pretty much squashed any holiday spirit we were still hanging onto around here.  Austin seems to have forgiven me this morning, but I still feel terrible.

(On the upside, I'm pretty sure that he still believes in Santa Claus, because I didn't know for sure until he got so upset.)

Two Great Quotes:

I have recently run across a couple of worthwhile quotes.  They are too great not to copy and share:

1.    "What if you woke up today with only the things you thanked God for yesterday?" (from Sophia's blog.)

2.  “Real friends are those who, when you’ve made a fool of yourself, don’t feel that you’ve done a permanent job.”  Erwin T. Randall      (from Taffy's facebook page.)

One More Confession From My Life Of Crime, Newport Edition

I shoplifted.  Yep, I did it. I confess. 

I was an adult too.  I even made my 12 year old daughter act as lookout.

Now before you decide to "unfriend" me.  Let me explain:

I've mentioned before that one of my most brilliant ideas is the "12 year old trip".  It actually came about because around the time Morgan turned 12, I needed a vacation.  In a big way.  Austin was turning 2 and I had been home with one kid or another (or pregnant and too sick to do anything worthwhile) for 12 years straight. 

I needed a vacation that was REALLY a vacation.  Not a family trip.  Not a vacation that involved sippy cups in any way.   And, especially a vacation where I could call the shots;  eat where I wanted, do what I wanted and, most importantly, RELAX.  You get the idea.  (For the record, I don't think my husband knows the meaning of the word relax.  I've needed a vacation to recover from about every other vacation we've been on together.  I'm not complaining, we've gone on some pretty great trips together.  It's just that none of them involved hanging out and doing nothing for any stretch of time.)

I tried to figure out who might be the perfect candidate for my vacation and it dawned on me that Morgan was at a  pretty good age to travel.  She was old enough to be a fun companion, we liked to do lots of the same things AND was still young enough that I could sway her to like my ideas for what was fun.  And I was excited to get some quality one-on-one time together.

So, I proposed the idea of a 12 year old trip to the family.  Once each of the kids turned 12, I would take them on a trip, just the two of us.  Morgan was thrilled with the idea, Hal was nice enough to play along and Ally wasn't so thrilled, even though I promised her I'd take her on a similar trip in 3 years.  (She ended up going to New York City, lucky girl.)

For our trip, Morgan and I picked Newport, Rhode Island.   Well, to be totally honest, I picked Newport.  She went along with it and seemed pretty happy when I explained about the mansions we'd see, and everything else we would do. 

When Morgan was a baby, Hal and I had driven with some friends of ours, the Trettes, from Boston to Newport.  They showed us the mansions and Hal and I had walked along the cliff walk quite a ways and then back while the Trettes stayed in the car with Morgan.  We didn't get to actually go into any of the mansions, just look at them.  I had been dying to go back ever since then, but didn't think Hal would ever really want to go on a trip and do just that.  So it worked out great.

Morgan and I had a ball, staying in a fun bed and breakfast with the best food, touring the mansions, etc.  We also hung out at the beach one afternoon so she could swim in the ocean, which was a little chilly, but we were able to collect some shells for souvenirs.  We just had an all-around good time. 

The day before we left, Morgan and I checked out the little shopping area down by the wharf.  We bought some fun souvenirs and ended up at a t-shirt shop.  We found Morgan a Newport t-shirt and then we saw a navy blue hoodie that she liked.  I liked it too.  It only came in adult sizes, and the smallest one was a medium.  It was the only one that size.  The rest were large or bigger. We decided to buy it anyway, since it would fit me and she would grow into it in a year or two.

We picked up the hoodie and the only medium left didn't have a string.  I really didn't think it was a big deal because that's when all the news stories were coming out about taking the strings out of your little kids' hoodies so they wouldn't get hung up on them on the playground.  I can't remember Morgan being too upset about the string either, so I'm not sure why I decided that we needed to have a string in our hoodie.  I asked the girl at the counter if we could just take a string out of one of the other hoodies and she told me no.

I don't know why I was so surprised that she said no, but I guess it made me more determined that we needed that string.  I was  paying for a whole hoodie and by darn, that included a string.  She told me it was either buy that one without a string or buy a different size with a string.  No discout for the one without a string either.

Well, I guess I just needed that string more than I needed to be honest, so after talking to Morgan I decided that I was going to get a string for that hoodie, one way or another.  So, you guessed it, with Morgan acting as lookout, I stole a string out of one of the other hoodies. 

Now before you think I go around stealing things on a regular basis, let me assure you  that is not the case.  I'm so nervous about anyone even thinking I might shoplift that if I need to get something out of my purse in a store I will go right up to an employee and say "I need to get something out of my  purse, so I want you to watch me so you know I'm not putting something in it from the store."  Of course now that I think about it, that seems much more suspicious than just unzipping my purse to get my shopping list out of it.

Anyway, I felt so nervous the whole time I was paying for the hoodie and t-shirt.  I can't remember where exactly I stuffed the string, if I put it in a pocket or up my sleeve or just what I did.  I do know I was just sure they had a hidden camera watching and that they were going to follow me out of that store and arrest me with my impressionable 12 year old daughter watching the whole thing.  As soon as we were far enough away from the store, I stuffed that string in the hoodie as fast as I could, to hide the evidence. 

Let me just say if I were going to start committing any sort of crime, it wouldn't be shoplifting.  I don't know how people do it.  I just felt sick the whole time.  I had a boyfriend once, and it was a pretty long term relationship, that I caught shoplifting.  We were in Kmart  for some reason and I turned to say something and thumped him in the chest and my finger hit something hard and it rattled.  It took me a minute to realize that he had shoplifted a cassette tape.  That was pretty much the end of the relationship. 

So back to the hoodie.  Morgan wore it in good health for many years.  She finally gave it up,  probably because she is pretty much fully grown and it's still too big for her.  So now it belongs to me. 

String and all.



(On a much more positive note, I am going back to the scene of the crime in a month or so.  I am so excited!  This time I am going with one friend to visit another friend who lives in Connecticut.  AND we are going back to Newport one of the days.  After our family roadtrip a few weeks ago, I have sorely needed a real vacation.  Looks like I'll be getting one.  Yay, a girl trip!)