http://chappellshots.com/gallery3/index.php/CarbonEmeryCounty/Mud-Run-Carbon-County-Fair-2014

This is a link to a mud run I participated in.  Look in the dirty, filthy adults file.  Look for the pink running shorts and super sexy legs.  Just kidding on the legs part.  I was lucky to be in quite a few pics since I was running with the photographer's wife.  Or not so lucky, depending on the picture.  It was super fun and not actually that muddy because there was so much water.  I did end up with a gritty shoe full of small rocks, though.

In other news my baby started kindergarten this week.  Watching her shiny brown hair bounce onto the bus was brutal.  Like a knife to the heart.  I followed the bus to school to make sure she knew how to get from the bus to her classroom.  As soon as she knew where her classroom was she ran off to the playground without a backward glance and I sat in the parking lot and spied on her until the bell rang with my heart bleeding all over the car.  Which doesn't matter because it was quite dirty anyway.

I was amused and disturbed today to find out that Alma and Violet have engaged in a practice they call "Train Potty."  According to them it is very useful when two people have to go to the bathroom at the same time, although I suspect there are size limitations as to how big a person can be to make use of Train Potty.

Winter Hatred 2012--A collection of Haikus

Snow falls soft, lovely
Atmospheric dirt descends
Now it is ugly

Christmas in Thailand
Spicy, happy sweat dripping
A distant mem'ry

I crawl into bed
Icy feet seek Grant's warmth
He shrieks like a girl

My kids, when learning to talk, have all made pretty much the same grammar mistakes. Drived, sleeped, putted. Using object pronouns for subject pronouns. Not using the adverbial  -ly properly. Etc. But Violet has been regularly using one that I haven't heard yet. She's taken the words am and not and created the contraction amn't.

 Example:
Violet, are you being naughty?
No! I amn't!

 I find a lot of these grammar accidents fascinating because they are usually arrived at logically and you can see how the child has internalized so many of the rules just not all of the exceptions. But other times words and sentences come completely from left field and that's even better!

 What are some good ones you've heard?

I never considered that I would be proud to have a skateboarder for son, but I am! The amount of diligence he puts into this impresses me. This is an example of what the kids like to video when I am not around. It makes me laugh every time.

Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day was pretty good this year, I actually got a present! I had to make breakfast, but I was excused from lunch and dinner and they only left me a little bit of a mess to clean up at the end of the day. But, just like every year, all day I had a problem with the focus on how Mother's Day is a day for women who have had children. Because I don't believe that's right. I remember a Mother's Day Sunday many years ago when I had just found out that an IUI had failed. This was approaching about three years of trying to get pregnant and I thought that Sunday that i would implode from bitterness, jealously and unfairness. Another woman in the ward had lost her baby just a day after he was born not quite a year earlier and was pregnant again and I was also burning with shame that the only thing I could feel for her was envy. The next Mother's Day found me just barely pregnant from an IVF treatment and feeling like I finally "deserved" to be part of Mother's Day. I was so young. I didn't know that getting pregnant didn't make me a mother any more than putting on a gold medal made me an Olympic athlete. There are still plenty of days when I deserve the title of mother about as much as I deserve the title of Olympic athlete. That is to say, not at all. Since those days, when I finally pulled my self out of my own narcissism enough to notice the people around me, I found this....a whole world of women who have never birthed a child themselves that teach me more about mothering than most women who have. I've often thought about the scripture story of the Good Samaritan that teaches that a neighbor is not someone who lives near you, but someone who helps you. I've seen a plethora of real life parables that have convinced me that a mother is not a woman who has birthed a child but a woman who has love and nurturing in her heart. Heck, if growing a child in your abdomen and pushing it out were all it took to be a mother then there would be no need for the Division of Child Services. My list of childless mother's who inspire me is long. It includes the famous--like Mother Theresa--and women that I've met in my everyday life. Many of them are in Taiwan. Taiwanese culture is such that society in general feels a collective responsibility toward children and while I lived there I was helped along greatly in raising my kids by young and old, parous and nulliparous alike. I loved it that Taiwanese culture did not make the ridiculous assumption that only parous women know something about child raising. Just recently I've met another woman who is so poised and intelligent and perfectly embodies Motherhood. The first few times I met her I was unsure which children were hers because she was so attentive and loving to every child in the room, including mine. Once, Alma made a comment about a craft he was working on, nothing super witty, but it was cute and childish so of course I noticed it. But I looked up to see that she had noticed, too and she said, "Oh, I just love him." Her sincerity astounded me (not least because Alma is so energetically boyish that most people are annoyed by him long before they have a chance to notice his sweetness) and I thought, "I want to be like her." How many of us women save our best love and our tenderest nurturing for the children we grow ourselves? Haven't we all seen the woman who lavishes true love and care on her own children, but can't seem to muster any real affection for the child of another? Like a chef that eats with disdain dishes made by others. It is no great feat to love your own children. Any imbecile can do that. It really would take a heart of stone to not love your own kids. But to see the gem that is in every child and treat them as the precious beings they are, whether they are yours or not, that is difficult and, I think, women who have this quality are the best mothers. So many times I've wished that my older, more experienced self could go back in time and tell my younger, hurting self that bitterness, selfishness and envy all preclude love and those were things that made me not a mother, not my biological inability to conceive. There are so many ways to be a mother, all out there for the taking, and I rejected all of them but the one I wanted. And because I'm a dolt, I didn't realize how wrong I was until many years after I finally did get what I wanted. To this day, I wonder in my heart, if I had, in the end, been denied biological children, would I have ever learned that lesson? Consequently, I've spent the last decade of Mother's Days wondering if I have come far enough yet to deserve the title.

Sleep-overs

I am so done with them.

One friend I had to take home at about 3 am because she was scared. Six months later she tried again and I had to stay up with her half the night because she was scared at our house but also scared of getting in trouble if she went home in the middle of the night.

Another friend has slept over about four times over the last year and has wet the bed EVERY time. I resorted to making her sleep on a shower curtain but she still manages to get just enough urine on every blanket and pillow that I have to wash everything. We finally said no more, but she keeps begging Lily and forces Lily to keep begging us.

Then, the best of all. The boys had a friend over. And he had diarrhea. In the bed. In the middle of the night. And he didn't tell us. Neither did the boys, until the next evening when Eliseo mentioned that he'd woken up and his knee was all wet and he thought he'd had an accident but, whew, it wasn't him, it was just that Friend had gotten diarrhea on his knee. This fact was somehow, inexplicably, such a relief to Eliseo that he suddenly remembered to mention it so long after the event. Then I, myself, had to go search and sniff out all the soiled places and bedding and do about 1000 loads of laundry.

And I was so hoping that 2011 would be the year when, at the end, looking back on it, I wouldn't have anything embarrassing or disgusting to remember.

Rune

constantly startles and amuses me with quirky quips.

I've mentioned this before in a post about how he reduced me to hilarity for days over an Earnest P. Whorl comment while I was lecturing Eliseo.

Also memorable was his monologue on the unbearable unendingness of kissing in the movie Jane Eyre.

And recently...

I'd made dill pickle soup for dinner, a new recipe, and the kids seemed to enjoy it. Rune commented on the way out the door to scouts that he wanted me to leave the soup out so he could eat more when he returned home. While he was gone I decided that there was just enough soup left to scrape a second dinner from and so callously put the soup away rationalizing that he would probably eat some sort of unhealthy junk at scouts (I was right-brownies) and so wouldn't miss the soup. Later, in the before bedtime rush to get a drink of milk, I asked the kids who liked the soup. Rune replied, "I did, I would've had more but you squashed that dream." I realize it can't possibly be as funny in the re-telling, but his dead pan voice without a hint of trying to be dramatic, and throwing out that piece of English language in the middle of pouring his milk as if it was a rational response to my putting soup away when he'd asked me not to....well, it had Grant and I giggling and joking about dream squashing well into the night. Which is about 10pm in our world.

It's quite possible that it is not really that funny and that Grant and I are just hopelessly mired in the mundane landscape of parents who never get out.

My kids

requested to eat the testicles from the jack rabbit that Grant and Alma killed the other day. They were not forced or coerced in any way. The only thing that upset them was that one jack rabbit does not yield more than two testicles.

P.S. It's okay if you're grossed out.

Another example

of the hilarious brilliance in Lily's songwriting.

So far this song is untitled.

She was born like an artist. Raised like a hound.
She always shines bright. Never hides her colors.
Glides like the wind. Floats like a feather.
And always shows her colors of her Land.
She jingles with the bells. Makes the rainbows shine.
And has the colors of the wind.
She can be an artist, she can be a hound.
But she keeps her colors bright.


What I want to know is who is this song based on? Some figment of Lily's imagination? Or is she writing about herself (she does fancy herself an artist after all)? In which case I'd really like an explanation for the raised like a hound part. Not to mention what zoomorphic trait does she imagine a hound gives to this artistic girl who jingles with the bells and makes rainbows shine?

What do you do with neighbors who

refuse to take your homemade Christmas treats delivered to their door in the holiday spirit by your cute and guile-less eight year old daughter?

At least they didn't scream at her but merely sent her packing with a curt, "No thanks, we don't need any."

It's surprising how much it smarts to be disliked so vehemently.

Grant and I are both really un-festive when it comes to putting up Christmas lights on the house. As in, we have never done it and have never wanted to. I really don't know what Grant's reasons are, but for myself it is the frigid weather. I'm already so cold inside the house that I have no idea why anyone in their right mind would purposely go outside the house for hours to do a project when they don't have to. Eliseo, however, is dying to have Christmas lights on the house and has been trying to convince us for days that it is a worthwhile effort. When I picked him up from Scouts tonight he tried a new plug.

Eliseo (pointing to a festive house): See! We need to do our house like that. It's just so....attractive!

I really can't convey it in writing but the way he pronounced the word attractive is still making me laugh. It was a convincing enough argument that I may let him have a go at it himself and see what he comes up with.

Ode to Winter Hatred 2011

When Hell freezes over

It really will be

Hell.

Summer was fun. We went to the cabin in Colorado. We went to Oregon for a month. We visited the coast, something we haven't done in 10 years. I got to see my sister Rachel, which I haven't done in two years. I got to spend a lot of time with my cool sis in law, Elyn, and it was super fun getting to know her better. I took tons of pictures and some video, but we all know how much I can't stand uploading pictures so use your imagination. (You are permitted, while you are using your imagination, to picture me looking exactly the same as I did about 15 years ago.)

My highlights:

We were blessedly away from our psychotic neighbor for most of the summer.
There was help with dinner and clean up every night.
Jogging in the perfect temperature of an Eastern Oregon early morning under the shade of trees.
Garage sale-ing with my mom and sisters.

The kids' highlights:

Not having to practice piano for six weeks.
Having to change clothes only once every three days or so.
The dessert marathon that was Grandma's house.
Cousins, cousins, cousins!

Now we are back in school. Rune at Jr. High, which he loves. I am so happy that he is having such a great time. Eliseo and Lily at homeschool. We are doing K12 this year. We'll see how it goes. Alma and Violet manage to decrease our productivity by about 50% every day which is not exactly fun, but it can be funny.

I've recently developed an intense interest in investing and acquiring assets. I've always been a scientist at heart and never thought I would have any interest in financial matters, but it's been very fun so far. I even bought the book Investing Online for Dummies. Rune was very proud of me. He said, "Hey! You bought one of those Dummies books!" Even if I never become a savvy investor I'm thoroughly enjoying learning something entirely new.

You notice I haven't mentioned Grant. That is because archaeologists disappear into the 'field' during the summer. (You must mentally say the word field in a mysterious voice.) As far as Grant is concerned I think our summerly interaction largely consisted of me nagging him about sunscreen, long sleeved shirts and wide brimmed hats. As much as I hate winter it will be nice to see Grant again (and WITHOUT a sunburn). I can't say how much he will enjoy seeing me, though, after all my nagging!

Lastly, just this Saturday I had the awesome experience of meeting Billy Blanks. Who, for those of you who don't know, is the creator of Tae Bo. Although he was unaware of it, he and I go waaaay back. For about 7 years I stayed in shape through two of his DVD's. The Basic one when pregnant and the Advanced one when not pregnant. Billy Blanks and his blue (Basic video) and red (Advanced video) singlets are permanently etched in my brain. Unfortunately, he no longer wears singlets.

Mother's Day 2011

1. The kids had to be reminded that it was Mother's Day when it became obvious that they didn't remember and/or care.
2. They spent all day disobeying me.
3. I made a deal with Grant that he was excused from Mother's Day dinner duties if he would go work on the basement. He readily agreed, then went and took a 3 hour nap. Just when I was about to strangle him awake he popped out of bed and worked on the basement.
4. Over dinner I tried to give the kids a mighty guilt trip about my mistreatment. Only Rune was moved to real sorrow. Lily unapologetic-ally and glibly promised to serve me faithfully for the rest of the week. Then, after dinner, she threw a fit when I asked her to practice piano.
5. I went to bed laughing and not looking forward to the day when my house will only be full of echoes and Grant will be the only one around for me to boss.

My favorite kid's media

Not in any particular order.

Pingu

He is exasperating and loveable at the same time. Just like a real kid! The lack of coherent dialogue is completely made up for by simplicty and exaggerated body language. The kids (and okay, Grant and I) have all enjoyed mimicking the babble and, often through tricks of sound and mind, have found 'coherent' words from all languages that we know. The fact that the episodes are only 5 mintues long is also a plus. If the kids are begging to watch TV but you don't particularly want them to be vegging in front of a screen, the solution is simple: "Okay you can watch two episodes of Pingu." They feel like they've scored and so do you!

www.uptoten.com

Boowa and Kwala are hands down my favorite choice for toddler computer time. It is innocent fun at its best. The site is so simple, fun and catchy that I often play along with the kids. Or at least watch them play. They have a huge selection of super simple games and songs. Boowa and Kwala have been part of our family dynamics since Rune was probably four years old and I've never gotten tired of them. An added bonus: If you have a desire to teach your kids French, the site can be toggled between English and French.

Teletubbies

Toddlers love repetition and Teletubbies gives them plenty of it. When it comes to a fun activity a small child's favorite word is "again!" and the Teletubbies are all over that philosophy. They do everything at least twice. I appreciate so much that this show moves at a baby's pace and not the parent's. An aside: Rune and Eliseo watched this show quite a bit in Taiwan and all of us learned a fair amount of Chinese from it. It is usually very difficult to learn a language from TV but since the Teletubbies talk so simply, use a lot of context, and repeat so often it is an ideal language learning tool for small kids.

Kipper

On Netflix one reviewer of this show called it the "Seinfeld" of toddler shows since the episodes are about essentially nothing. But 'nothing' is our relative adult term for very important happenings in a child's world. I've tested this out on Violet. At various and random times I would ask, "What does Kipper do?" She always gets a big smile on her face and is never without a ready answer. "He goes outside." "He finds Tiger." "He swings on the swings." In her world view Kipper does lots of things. I've also really enjoyed listening to my kids try to imitate their British accents.

Backyardigans

Alma recently discovered this show himself on Netflix. I had never seen it before. The premise is a group of kids who use their imaginations to make all sorts of adventures in their backyards. But the real beauty of the show is the music. So far I think we've experienced every genre of music except rap. If someone knows of a rap episode I'd love the find it. My favorite episode so far is the chef/ninja/great pie episode. This show has inspired my kids to try and use their imaginations more and I imagine it could really inspire a musically talented kid.

Spongebob Squarepants

Spongebob is honest, hard-working, good-humored, good-natured, non-judgemental and completely without guile. He looks on the bright side of everything and the good side of everybody. He is such a welcome departure from the rest of cartoondom that is rife with sarcasm, half-snide quips and a universal disrespect for authority based on the premise that all parent/teacher figures are dumb and/or ridiculous. I also appreciate that it avoids the good guys vs. evil nemesis story line. The closest Spongebob has to an evil nemesis is, I guess, Squidward, but he's not evil, just obstinately bad-humored. And more often than not he gravitates towards Spongebob's happy and fun antics in spite of himself.

Although Easter is past I don't think it is too late to share this song that I think does a good job of conveying some of the feelings that we should feel about the Atonement.

However, I do take issue with the chorus. I think God does love us for who we can become. I understand JJ Heller's meaning, though--that He doesn't love us for who we become as compared to other people. I will never become (spiritually speaking) what some people will become, but I feel loved for my own personal potential. I hope I love my own kids that way.

Anyhoo, here's the song.

Somehow Lily is the only family member prone to black eyes. This was day two. I think day four was the worst. We're almost on day 14 now and it's finally back to looking approximately like this again.

I've started giving Alma piano lessons. I thought If all those five year olds on YouTube can play Bach, then dadgummit, my four year old should be able to play Old MacDonald! I can't stand how cute he is sitting there on his own plunking out his little tunes.

My diapering days are over! I was happy about this until I realized it means that I no longer have a baby. Then I cried. It's still a manic depressive subject for me. Will all her milestones do this to me????

My mom likes to collect vintage patterns from yard sales. This is one of them. The embroidery around the hem is hand done.

This is our grown up deacon on his way to church to pass the sacrament for the first time. Sniff...I'm so proud of you, Grant. Just kidding. He looked so earnest and cute in his white shirt and high water pants. Seriously, the kid's legs grow like bamboo. He's got the legs of a sixteen year old and the torso of a twelve year old, a pre-teen form of awkwardness that is only accentuated by a tucked in shirt. Every Sunday I giggle and then hug him and wish he would just stop growing up already.

Little League !?!

I've never had a child in little league before. We've had brief forays into soccer, basketball and football. But this little league stuff is serious. I guess it is the All-American sport (um..Is it? I just said that when really I know almost nothing about any sport). First off, we are only in "Pre-Season." Using my terrific grammar skills I take this to mean that the real "Season" hasn't started yet. This is shocking to me considering that we already have two two-hour practices and two (approximately 2 1/2 hour time commitment) games per week. Using my terrific math skills this translates into an average of nine! hours per week committed to baseball.

Why didn't someone inform me of these numbers before this conversation happened:
Eliseo: Mom, can I play baseball?
Me : Sure, that sounds fun.

Let's talk about Asians for a minute. How many times have I heard people commiserate on the amount of time Asian children have to spend on school work and music lessons. It's true, too. I've seen elementary aged kids spend 3 hours on homework and that's after they went to cram school and music lessons. If you search Youtube for children playing piano you will find a plethora of five year old Asians playing Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. They have this box-like contraption under their feet that helps them use the damper pedal since their little legs swing about a foot above it. If you are a Westerner, search your Western soul for what you think about this. Does it feel like pushing a five year old to practice piano two hours a day is...excessive? It feels excessive to Westerners because it is pretty much an impossible task for us since all our children's peers don't have to do anything excessive like that and so they would naturally resent it. It works in Asian cultures because all the child's peers are spending equal amounts of time in cram schools and music lessons and because the parents can easily say, "I had to do this when I was your age!" So it is a matter of course for the Asian child.

However, I've now discovered that Asians have nothing on us Westerners when it comes to pushing kids into spending excessive amounts of time on a pursuit. Take, for example, nine! hours a week spent playing baseball in the Pre-Season. I'm afraid to see what kind of time commitments will be expected during the Season. Eliseo loves baseball so far. He feels dressed to the nines in his uniform and asks me seriously if he looks like a "real" baseball player. I love to see him having fun. He doesn't really get much exercise-most of the little league games seem to consist of the following: the pitcher pitches, the batter swings and misses or doesn't swing at all, the ball bounces off some portion of the catcher's gear, the catcher jumps up, throws off his mask to chase down the ball, throws it back to the pitcher who misses and then chases down the ball so he can pitch again. It would be annoying if it wasn't so cute and funny-but it melts my heart to see how much he loves it.

But..but..but..the life lessons he's learning in little league could be learned, IMHO, in WAAAAAAY less than nine! hours per week. These nine! hours per week, I'm pretty sure, are not going to end in a professional baseball career for Eliseo. Or even a sports scholarship. But if I could get my little Eliseo to spend nine! hours per week on academic pursuits (after school) there could be a real chance of an academic scholarship in his future. He would breeze his way through college and have his choice of careers and be set for life. But instead we are spending nine! hours per week playing little league baseball. It just seems....excessive.

I'm just being honest.

My aerobics instructor recently had breast augmentation. And I'm jealous! (In a I'm happy for her way). She looks great. Not unnatural at all, just great. Would I ever pay thousands of dollars for breast augmentation. Probably not. Would I do it if I won it in a drawing? Probably yes. I'm not entirely sure where I stand because the point is pretty much moot. If I had thousands of dollars to spend frivolously, like pocket change....hmmm....I don't know. Most likely I'd rather buy airfare to Taiwan. If I could buy all the airfare to Taiwan I wanted and still had thousands of dollars to spend frivolously, like pocket change....hm.......tempting. See? Moot.

But to be able to buy undergarments in the actual women's section like a woman and not in the 'training' section with the 10 year olds? A pleasant (and vain) dream.

An aside:
I just heard Lily ask her best friend, Eeliana, "Do you want some lemonade?" Eeliana responds suspiciously, "Is it made out of chicken blood?"

Does she know us or what?