Sunday, July 05, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
The Playgroup
missing some (about half!) of our dear friends who were sick today!
missing some (about half!) of our dear friends who were sick today!
I have always counted one of my biggest blessings to be my friends. I swear I end up meeting and making friends with the best people in the world. If you're one of the best and I haven't met you yet--I will. Somehow I will.
Some of these dear ones, I've known and loved since Elementary school. Once, while I was 7 months pregnant with Parley, my friend Emily invited me to her house for lunch for her birthday. When I got to the door, she gasped because she had no idea I was pregnant. That was a sad day for us both, as we realized how ridiculous it was that we hadn't kept in better touch. So, with Lori's great help, we organized the playgroup. And we have been getting together every Friday since then. And not a pregnancy since (and there have been many) has gone unknown. We have such a wonderful time together! I love these girls because they are so down-to-earth and real. Very accepting and kind. And good heavens they're talented. But they keep inviting me back! That's the good of these friends.
So, today, we switched playgroup days, since Friday is sort of a holiday, (I told you, we're consistent!) and we, at the last moment, chose to come here. My house was a mess, but these friends don't care. Emily brought a huge bouncy water slide and we ate sandwiches and chips and salsa on my back porch (which is also a total mess). Kids always fight for the capri-sun drinks that someone inevitably brings, so we always give tastes. Someone likely brings popsicles, as that buys us more free time together, and we probably changed 7 or more messy diapers between us. But our kids know--and really love each other. And that makes me so happy.
We're always looking for recruits, so, if you know me, and you like me (pretty important), and you don't care about messy houses or patios, you're nice and accepting, like chips and salsa, and don't mind sharing capri-suns, you're invited. See you next Friday!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Well How Many Emails Are in Your Inbox?
I recently told my mom and sister, and then on another occasion, two friends, that I had 1,500 emails in my inbox. That was a big mistake. Did you know your very character could be judged by the number of emails you have in your inbox?
See, all of these ladies, with whom I frequently visit, admire, and hope to find my name in their wills, have twenty or less emails in their inbox. I know what you're thinking. Organized, efficient, on-the-ball ladies. And I wish I could say you were wrong, but you are, indeed, right.
So, by simply sharing that I had 1,500 emails in my inbox, I was outing myself. You could see it in their faces--1,500 emails? The nightmare! The horror! 1,500 emails, and in their eyes I could see my name being scratched from the wills, their children being entrusted with another, more worthy recipient.
But maybe, (just pretend) I have a real reason behind keeping all these emails. Maybe every email that is sent to me is filled with precious, kind words from dear friends and I can't get bear to throw them into the cyber-trash. Maybe, (keep it down) I have so many important emails including how to take over wealthy companies, what to bring when NASA sends me into space, or what gift to bestow when visiting foreign dignitaries in the near future. You just never know. You can't judge a person by the amount of emails in her inbox. You just can't.
But guess what? As of today, I only have 713.
You know, I just wrote some of that important stuff down from those 787 trashed emails. Not like I was just lazy previously or anything.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Look What I Did!
What? Oh that? I just keep a camera under my kitchen table, so when I make picture perfect meals I can take pictures of them.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Oh that Jayne! Always making fancy meals and keeping her cupboards organized! What will it take to get her down!
(I get that all the time!)
Well, the meal was terrible! Just terrible! So boring and bland! It was a good thing it was only my kids and me who ate it. And that is why I posted it. Terrible!
And, I know what you're thinking. Is that a Christmas bowl Jayne?
Yes. Yes it is.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Now We Are Six
(extra credit for anyone who can identify that collection of poems...)
Today is our Hazel's sixth birthday. And to celebrate I'm posting a few clips from Jed's letter to her over the years we've known her. For those of you just joining us: Jed has been writing open letters to the kids as they grow, offering a perspective they might have missed. I've posted bits and pieces here as I've seen fit.
Settle in, because this may take a while. But I hope you find it's worth it.
August 2005
You growled today in church. You do that sometimes when you want to show real contempt for something. In this case it was a coloring book. When you are beyond Christian patience and you have tolerated this life just long enough, you arch your tiny back, projecting your pelvis and lowering your chin, and you scream with all the passion you can wring out of your lungs. You don’t close your eyes; you look hard at your target (whatever or whomever has tried you so), loading your stare with death. To really drive it home, you thrust you arms out in front of you, just above your waist, and you open your hands. You stretch your little fingers and far as they allow you to. Were the cosmos to cooperate, lightening would surely shoot from under your nails.
I know you think you look like the devil when you do this, armed with all the angst of a two-year-old. I imagine that you can’t see anybody refusing your wishes when you demand them with such vibrato. You think the planet stops rotating to redress its wrong as you smolder there, sustaining your threatening gaze. But I think it’s the cutest thing in the whole world. Mom and I usually jump to deal some threat or another to prevent your ever screaming like that again, but secretly I wish I could see you do it one more time.
I love the person you are right now. I love putting out your tiny fires. Getting you things, letting you go outside, putting you to sleep, skipping the doorknob part in Alice in Wonderland. I even like to get up in the middle of the night and take you into the couch for juice. I complain about the sleep, but you are so sweet while we sit there together. Temporally, it is a bother sometimes answering your every fancy and fuss. But just under the skin, I love waiting on you. I relish your inability to reason out the dilemmas of your everyday, and your subsequent need for us to help you through them. Maybe I love it so much because I know it won’t last.
As I watched you growling in church today it occurred to me for the millionth time that you’ll grow out of this sooner than I want you to. If things keep going at this rate, you’ll be a young woman before I can acquaint myself with who you are right now. Soon you’ll stop growling and start asking for things. You won’t spread your fingers and scream anymore, you’ll articulate your concerns with rationality and calm. You’ll know how to get your own juice, so you won’t have to come ask me and I won’t make you say please and thank you. And when you can’t sleep, you won’t cry until I come and take you to the couch. We won’t sit quietly in the dark together. And then you won’t fall asleep on my lap.
Christmas 2005
We took you to Temple Square to see the pretty lights just before Christmas. It was pouring rain. We were not the only family in the world that thought of looking at pretty lights that night and the place was teaming with umbrellas and galoshes. I held you in my arms the whole night; I didn’t want you to miss it all down around our knees. Somehow you weren’t very heavy and I liked having your little face near mine. It changed colors as we passed under the different trees and the rain made your cheeks twinkle. I couldn’t keep your hood on and your hair became dark and matted around your eyes. You didn’t seem to notice the rain. You gazed at a million lights and cooed to yourself. It was like you didn’t know what the rain was. Sometimes you looked down at me to smile or to call my attention to a color you had spotted.
We stopped to watch the presentation of the Nativity. I thought you might like to look at the sheepies and the cow. But I followed your eye-line past the animals into the stable where Mary and Joseph knelt by the manger. I asked if you could see Jesus and you nodded, but I tried to get closer to give you a better view. You stared quietly at the scene, listening to the narration. I started to explain it to you but quit after a while, as you seemed to make sense of it yourself. Somehow I wasn’t surprised when it appeared that you were following the whole story. You sat with half a grin and let the rain tap at your forehead, eyes fixed on the baby in the manger. I studied your little face. There was a calm that descended on you, and a distinct maturity-- beyond your age-- composed your features. The size of that moment wanted to knock me over, but I stood my ground. I clamored to understand the role I played as I held you in the rain; your soul reconnected with something that you knew made sense, something familiar and close, and it seemed it was my job to hold it there.
It was all so much bigger than myself, bigger than you and me and the discomfort of wet clothes. I watched you there, blurry now and twinkling, and I begged in my heart for a way to talk to you—- to really converse. I know that you are still privy to some things that I am not. There is a window yet open to you for I don’t know how long. For a few minutes it seemed that you knew more than I will ever be able to teach you, and it makes my laugh out loud to think that someone is going to let me try. I think it ridiculous but sweet that someone trusts me enough to carry your soul around in my arms and try to protect it from the rain.
July 2008
Tonight we visited the Halls where you were lucky enough to secure two fresh eggs from the chicken coupe. They were still warm in your hands when you brought them to me. You placed them in two plastic cups and remained close to them the rest of the evening. I think if your frame had allowed it, you would have settled down and sat on them until they hatched.
It was late when we got home. Too late to do anything but go straight to bed. But you had already decided that you would have your eggs before bed and that I would help you do it. You had made up your mind to boil them, and I know too well what that means.
It would have been one thing had you wanted to scramble them. I would have refused and taken you to bed right then. But boiling eggs is something you and I do together. It’s one of our special things. So when you play a card like that, I will always fold.
So I boiled those eggs and I timed their extraction so that the yokes would be just right. You bustled around my knees offering suggestions and recounting past boiled egg success stories. Most of them had to do with running really, really cold water over them to cool them down. When it came to peeling and eating, you were surprised when I declined to eat with you. I said that I wasn’t hungry. And you asked if I would save it until tomorrow. And I said maybe I would. I said maybe, if you felt like you wanted it in the morning, you could eat it instead. And you were genuinely pleased that I would offer your own egg to you.
We chipped away at the brown shell protecting your treasure and we listened to Bach. You hummed the bits you knew and talked during the bits you didn’t. I held a dash of Kosher salt in my palm for you to pinch and sprinkle on your egg. You did so several times, and I waited with my open, cupped hand at the ready. You looked up at me with each bite and I asked if it was good. You nodded your head vigorously while I stroked your braids with my free hand. The window over the kitchen sink held our faint reflection behind the open blinds. Your little head barely made the frame.
I watched you grow in that window. I saw you as a sixteen-year-old, rising to my shoulder, talking through some issue with me over a hard-boiled egg. You didn’t need your blue foot stool anymore and you peeled your own egg. But I still held the salt. In my open palm, waiting for you to return to me as needed.
I tried to get a good look at your adolescent self in our reflection, but the blinds hampered my view. And when I turned to look at your actual person, you were grinning up at me with golden yoke on your nose. And your vast, chestnut eyes shattered everything but the sweet glory of the present.
(extra credit for anyone who can identify that collection of poems...)
Today is our Hazel's sixth birthday. And to celebrate I'm posting a few clips from Jed's letter to her over the years we've known her. For those of you just joining us: Jed has been writing open letters to the kids as they grow, offering a perspective they might have missed. I've posted bits and pieces here as I've seen fit.
Settle in, because this may take a while. But I hope you find it's worth it.
August 2005
You growled today in church. You do that sometimes when you want to show real contempt for something. In this case it was a coloring book. When you are beyond Christian patience and you have tolerated this life just long enough, you arch your tiny back, projecting your pelvis and lowering your chin, and you scream with all the passion you can wring out of your lungs. You don’t close your eyes; you look hard at your target (whatever or whomever has tried you so), loading your stare with death. To really drive it home, you thrust you arms out in front of you, just above your waist, and you open your hands. You stretch your little fingers and far as they allow you to. Were the cosmos to cooperate, lightening would surely shoot from under your nails.
I know you think you look like the devil when you do this, armed with all the angst of a two-year-old. I imagine that you can’t see anybody refusing your wishes when you demand them with such vibrato. You think the planet stops rotating to redress its wrong as you smolder there, sustaining your threatening gaze. But I think it’s the cutest thing in the whole world. Mom and I usually jump to deal some threat or another to prevent your ever screaming like that again, but secretly I wish I could see you do it one more time.
I love the person you are right now. I love putting out your tiny fires. Getting you things, letting you go outside, putting you to sleep, skipping the doorknob part in Alice in Wonderland. I even like to get up in the middle of the night and take you into the couch for juice. I complain about the sleep, but you are so sweet while we sit there together. Temporally, it is a bother sometimes answering your every fancy and fuss. But just under the skin, I love waiting on you. I relish your inability to reason out the dilemmas of your everyday, and your subsequent need for us to help you through them. Maybe I love it so much because I know it won’t last.
As I watched you growling in church today it occurred to me for the millionth time that you’ll grow out of this sooner than I want you to. If things keep going at this rate, you’ll be a young woman before I can acquaint myself with who you are right now. Soon you’ll stop growling and start asking for things. You won’t spread your fingers and scream anymore, you’ll articulate your concerns with rationality and calm. You’ll know how to get your own juice, so you won’t have to come ask me and I won’t make you say please and thank you. And when you can’t sleep, you won’t cry until I come and take you to the couch. We won’t sit quietly in the dark together. And then you won’t fall asleep on my lap.
Christmas 2005
We took you to Temple Square to see the pretty lights just before Christmas. It was pouring rain. We were not the only family in the world that thought of looking at pretty lights that night and the place was teaming with umbrellas and galoshes. I held you in my arms the whole night; I didn’t want you to miss it all down around our knees. Somehow you weren’t very heavy and I liked having your little face near mine. It changed colors as we passed under the different trees and the rain made your cheeks twinkle. I couldn’t keep your hood on and your hair became dark and matted around your eyes. You didn’t seem to notice the rain. You gazed at a million lights and cooed to yourself. It was like you didn’t know what the rain was. Sometimes you looked down at me to smile or to call my attention to a color you had spotted.
We stopped to watch the presentation of the Nativity. I thought you might like to look at the sheepies and the cow. But I followed your eye-line past the animals into the stable where Mary and Joseph knelt by the manger. I asked if you could see Jesus and you nodded, but I tried to get closer to give you a better view. You stared quietly at the scene, listening to the narration. I started to explain it to you but quit after a while, as you seemed to make sense of it yourself. Somehow I wasn’t surprised when it appeared that you were following the whole story. You sat with half a grin and let the rain tap at your forehead, eyes fixed on the baby in the manger. I studied your little face. There was a calm that descended on you, and a distinct maturity-- beyond your age-- composed your features. The size of that moment wanted to knock me over, but I stood my ground. I clamored to understand the role I played as I held you in the rain; your soul reconnected with something that you knew made sense, something familiar and close, and it seemed it was my job to hold it there.
It was all so much bigger than myself, bigger than you and me and the discomfort of wet clothes. I watched you there, blurry now and twinkling, and I begged in my heart for a way to talk to you—- to really converse. I know that you are still privy to some things that I am not. There is a window yet open to you for I don’t know how long. For a few minutes it seemed that you knew more than I will ever be able to teach you, and it makes my laugh out loud to think that someone is going to let me try. I think it ridiculous but sweet that someone trusts me enough to carry your soul around in my arms and try to protect it from the rain.
July 2008
Tonight we visited the Halls where you were lucky enough to secure two fresh eggs from the chicken coupe. They were still warm in your hands when you brought them to me. You placed them in two plastic cups and remained close to them the rest of the evening. I think if your frame had allowed it, you would have settled down and sat on them until they hatched.
It was late when we got home. Too late to do anything but go straight to bed. But you had already decided that you would have your eggs before bed and that I would help you do it. You had made up your mind to boil them, and I know too well what that means.
It would have been one thing had you wanted to scramble them. I would have refused and taken you to bed right then. But boiling eggs is something you and I do together. It’s one of our special things. So when you play a card like that, I will always fold.
So I boiled those eggs and I timed their extraction so that the yokes would be just right. You bustled around my knees offering suggestions and recounting past boiled egg success stories. Most of them had to do with running really, really cold water over them to cool them down. When it came to peeling and eating, you were surprised when I declined to eat with you. I said that I wasn’t hungry. And you asked if I would save it until tomorrow. And I said maybe I would. I said maybe, if you felt like you wanted it in the morning, you could eat it instead. And you were genuinely pleased that I would offer your own egg to you.
We chipped away at the brown shell protecting your treasure and we listened to Bach. You hummed the bits you knew and talked during the bits you didn’t. I held a dash of Kosher salt in my palm for you to pinch and sprinkle on your egg. You did so several times, and I waited with my open, cupped hand at the ready. You looked up at me with each bite and I asked if it was good. You nodded your head vigorously while I stroked your braids with my free hand. The window over the kitchen sink held our faint reflection behind the open blinds. Your little head barely made the frame.
I watched you grow in that window. I saw you as a sixteen-year-old, rising to my shoulder, talking through some issue with me over a hard-boiled egg. You didn’t need your blue foot stool anymore and you peeled your own egg. But I still held the salt. In my open palm, waiting for you to return to me as needed.
I tried to get a good look at your adolescent self in our reflection, but the blinds hampered my view. And when I turned to look at your actual person, you were grinning up at me with golden yoke on your nose. And your vast, chestnut eyes shattered everything but the sweet glory of the present.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Never Take Three Kids To Walmart
Sorry I've been absent lately. I've been on vacation. No I haven't! Dang it, I haven't!
While I've been away, some things have happened. Some important vows, which I hope you'll remind me I made, if some devil of a person or child tries to tempt me to break them.
The first:
I promise never to attend a wedding reception with my three kids ever again in my life. Unless, you know, it is the reception of my brother or dear cousin or something.
The second:
I'll never go to Walmart with Julian (and those others too) ever again. Ever ever ever ever ever ever again.
Because whenever I think, or am persuaded to think, that I'll be okay and that by some happy chance this time there won't be a long line at the reception, or that some angel will be giving out otter pops at the end of each aisle, all the while blocking Parley's view of every Lightning McQueen car that screams out, "I could be yours you know, Parley," I am wrong. Everytime I'm wrong!
I made the second vow tonight, after Julian refused to sit in the cart and insisted on being held the entire time at Walmart. Being held was still not enough, and he cried until I fed him tastes of everything in the cart. He ate raspberry after raspberry and wiped his berry red staining hands on my white shirt. I came away with lots of groceries, but I somehow think I missed most of what I needed. Parley's desperate need to go to the bathroom and Julian's desperate need to infuriate caused me to hurry in a very unproductive way. So, with a leaking box of Otter Pops (you couldn't have paid me to go back and trade it) in the trunk and a whole bunch of who knows what else, we drove home.
Some things that were said on our way home:
Parley: Do we have to go to bed today?
Hazel: Why can't we get a treat?
Jed: You guys are all lucky because Daddy feels like committing a horrible, violent crime, but I'm just too tired.
Reducing the world's crime rate, one vow at a time.
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