Gr-Attitude

Things I am thankful for...in hindsight...after last night's dinner:

I am thankful that I realized I was feeding Averi carrots, which are orange, so that when she pulled her hand up above the high chair tray and it was covered in greenish goo I knew it wasn't peas.

I am thankful that she didn't put the greenish-goo covered hand in her mouth.

I am thankful that high chairs are covered in vinyl for easy cleanup.

I am thankful - every day, actually - for Lysol Wipes.

I am thankful that Casey was home to help with cleanup.

I am thankful that when child #1 had his own accident a few moments later, Casey took care of it.

I am thankful that Gavin is able to wipe himself.

I am thankful for flushing toilets.

I am thankful for Wet Wipes.

I am thankful that Casey shelled my shrimp for me so that I could at least eat a few.

I am thankful for microwaves that reheat our food when it takes an hour and a half for dinner to be finished.

Last, I am thankful for early bedtimes - for children.

Appalachian Spring

I have a joyful thought to post, and then a regret.

First, the joy.

As I drove home from the grocery store today, we listened to Appalachian Spring by my favorite composer, Aaron Copland. What I didn't expect was that it is a perfect selection to introduce young children to classical music. Copland's music is always so rich and vastly interesting, and I found myself able to anticipate the tempo and volume variations since I know the piece so well. I would ask Gavin to tell me if the section we were listening to was fast or slow, loud or soft. Then I would tell him to listen for various instruments, i.e. French horns (can I help it? My ear is too trained not to hear them!), trumpet, drums, violins. He maintained interest for the entire piece, all 22 minutes of it, and made his own commentary about it:

"This part sounds a little slow. No, now it's fast and loud! Oh, I hear the trumpet! There's a French horn!"

My favorite part was during the "Simple Gifts" section, where the full orchestra breaks into the main theme and the bass drum sounds at regular intervals with a loud "boom!" I told Gavin to clap every time he heard the drum, and after I clapped a few times with him, he anticipated it and clapped on the beat. Since we were in the car, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him with arms stretched wide, ready to clap, with a look of delight on his face and a giggle or two as he clapped.

To top it off, Averi seemed to love the music too, because I could hear her giggle and make noise as we turned the volume up and down. I knew she wasn't reacting to Gavin, either, because he ended up reacting to her!

It was a simply lovely memory. I can't wait for the next time. Hmm, what music shall I choose next?!

My regret:

Grandpa Jay and Grandma Cheryl visited us over the weekend, and I didn't get a single photo with them. Not one. There were several times I wished I had the camera with us, and then I just couldn't remember to take it the next time.

It's a good thing Casey took about 20 pictures of our water heater, though. You never know when those will come in handy for the sake of posterity.

This photo of Gavin shows him wearing Grandma's glasses and Grandpa's hat, so I guess it proves in some subtle way that they were actually here with us. I just wish the hat had been bigger.


There goes my Mother-of-the-Labor-Day-Weekend award (Mother-of-the-Year has been completely out of the question for about 3 years now, although I think I might have been in the running for Mother-of-the-Last-3.2 Seconds award once until I caught Gavin drinking Tylenol. Hey, at least I gave him more freedom when playing rough that day because the pain relief was already in his system).

Anyway. Moral of the story: when I'm 30 and old, at least I'll have Copland.

It's Monday.

Yep. We all feel like this sometimes.

That's Good - No, That's Bad!

Warning: long post to follow. This one is more for the sake of our family than anything, so stay tuned for lighter posts!

I know I'm a good month late in reporting on our Fourth of July, but rather than scrap the idea of blogging about it I decided to record it for the sake of posterity, although they might remember it different than I am about to report it. At least I will have done my duty as official family historian to show my children that yes, indeed, we did go on a "vacation," because after this one I will probably never take them on another one again. Ostensibly, we wanted to go to Salt Lake City for my dear friend, Tina's wedding, but since Casey had a day off for the 4th, we decided to drive the whole family up to see Temple Square, BYU, etc. Good idea...ostensibly.

If you have ever read the children's book, "That's Good! That's Bad!" then you have some idea of how our trip went. It was a completely bipolar time for us; a veritable roller-coaster of events and emotions that left us scratching our heads and saying, "Well...at least we tried." We certainly learned a lot about what to do when taking young kids on vacation, but we have very little desire to get out and use our new-found knowledge. A trip to the grocery store where they give out free balloons and complementary cold viruses is vacation enough, right? The trip went as follows:

Day 1:

Drove to Page, AZ. Tried to leave NO LATER THAN 3 pm. Ended up leaving between 4 and 4:30 pm. Before leaving, I got extremely frustrated and maintained a lovely bad mood for oh, 4 or so of the 7 hours of driving time. Also before leaving, Casey let Gavin have a water bottle to keep him busy while we finished packing the car. That's good - no, that's bad! Gavin had to go to the bathroom 40 minutes into the trip, and it took us 15 minutes to find a bathroom. We pulled off the freeway on the worst possible exit; entered a very scary gas station to find out that they had no restroom, and finally found one down the road - but not before Gavin was literally screaming and crying because he had to go so badly. Casey bolted into the restroom, holding a screaming, shoeless Gavin. But they made it. Phew. Ate dinner at Kentucky Fried Chicken. That's good - no, that's bad! I relived that choice in the middle of the night with abdominal pain. Sigh. We got to Page near 1 in the morning and realized that the motel we had booked may not be the best quality. Gavin was wide awake until about 2 or 2:30 am. Trying to settle him down was pretty fantastic and nearly impossible because of the awful noise the air conditioning unit was making. Finally, he slept, Casey slept, Averi slept.

Day 2

Pleasantly awake! Stopped to see the Glen Canyon Dam at Lake Powell. Then, we were on the road and having a lovely time snacking, listening to some good tunes, and laughing. We had a ridiculously idyllic time at the world's most perfect park in Kanab, Utah and decided as we kept driving that living in that canyon would be incredible. Picture green meadows, cows ruminating, rustic ranches surrounded by meadows, trees, mountains and streams, and a blue sky littered with fluffy clouds. Gorgeous. Moving on, we stopped in Nephi to feed Averi. Gavin learned to climb trees with Dad at a park, then we drove to Salt Lake...that's good - no, that's bad...with Averi crying the whole way. She was done.

We got to our hotel...that's good - no, that's bad...and I had to give my 3-year-old son a lesson on what smoking was and why Heavenly Father doesn't want us to do it because two very pregnant women were lighting up together right outside the entrance to our hotel. Fantastic. I nearly crawled out from the backseat and smacked them in the head. As we settled into our room, Casey went back downstairs to get our luggage while I bathed Gavin...that's good - no, that's bad...who screamed his head off at me when I asked him to tilt his head back so I could rinse out the shampoo, and Averi was crying her eyes out on the bed. I was sure people thought I was abusing my children. Finally, Casey came back to (I thought) relieve me and help with the kids...that's good - no, that's bad...where he told me he nicked another car with our car door, and in the process of moving our car so it didn't happen again, the side of the car scraped along a concrete pillar in the parking garage.

Great. Let the dysfunction continue.

Day 3
I woke early to bathe and get ready to go to the temple for Tina's wedding. Left the kids with Dad after they drove me over to Temple Square. I got to see my former roommate, Christa, and friends Jim and Amy in the sealing room...that's good - no, that's bad...which made me wish Casey were with me because it was the first time I had been back to Salt Lake since I had been married in that temple in a sealing room just down the hall. So many emotions! The sealing was wonderful, Tina looked gorgeous, and we all had lunch together afterward. Back at the hotel, we all took naps and watched a movie, then went to Gateway Mall to peruse and eat dinner. Everything turned out okay!

Day 4

Good breakfast; fantastic hotel suite - we were sad to leave this morning, but happy to go to Temple Square. We showed Gavin the temple (again; he saw it the day before when Casey and the kids met me after the sealing, and he said, "This is so gorgeous!") and visitor's centers...that's good - no, that's bad...where he kept touching things and running around, and when he got in trouble he cried so loud that I could hear it where I was nursing on the other side of the building. Nice. We had a lovely lunch and drove to our next hotel at Thanksgiving Point...that's good - no, that's bad...where we stayed too long and missed our opportunity to go to the Creamery, BYU Bookstore (for more than 10 minutes before it closed, anyway) and Deseret Book. Boo. But we did go to a few favorite BYU buildings and walk around campus. We also went to Coney's for some tasty frozen custard. That evening, we got to see fireworks from the parking lot of our hotel, and Gavin just loved them. Yay!

Day 5

We slept in...that's good - no, that's bad...and missed our opportunity to go to an early church service. While we were getting ready for Sunday and packing up, Casey was holding Averi and watching Gavin while I showered...that's good - no, that's bad...and Gavin made him nearly drop Averi. Not a good morning. We drove around and found a chapel, and I felt emotionally patriotic while singing The Star Spangled Banner. Our plan was to leave right after sacrament meeting so that we could eat and begin the drive home...that's good - no, that's bad...and we found out that Susan Easton Black was the gospel doctrine teacher in that ward as we drove away. Dang it. Bring on the idyllic afternoon, anyway: a picnic on the grass in front of the Provo temple, blue skies, July 4th, PERFECT weather, birds chirping, Gavin getting to experience actual grass and trees; "God's army," i.e. hoards of missionaries, walking around the temple grounds...that's good - no, that's bad...and Gavin pooped in his pants. No bathroom to take care of this. I should have known. On the road we were, again. Got to Page, AZ and same motel as last time in record time...that's good - no, that's bad...where we were met with insanely loud music at 12 am as an Independence Day celebration raged on seemingly in our room and a drunk man came right up to us and asked to use our room to charge his phone so he could call his friend to come pick him up. Also, we realized just what a crappy motel we had picked when Casey went to grab toilet paper and the holder came right out of the wall.

Day 6
We were all in a lovely mood, we watched The Price is Right, Gavin played outside on some playground equipment...that's good - no, that's bad...and peed his pants. Not too bad, right? Okay. We dealt with that. Averi sat up for about half a minute for the first time all by herself before we left the motel! While driving back to Tucson, we stopped outside of Phoenix at some fabulous outlet stores and picked up some much-needed items. Finally, we left for Tucson with only 3 hours left of driving to do! That's good - no, that's bad...Averi screamed. I crawled in the back. Casey drove. Averi screamed. We had to stop no more than 45 minutes after we left the mall. Averi was fine, just fine after we took her out of her seat. We started up again after getting gas, children quiet and sleeping, and got home before 10:30, exhausted but home. Our trip was over...that's good - no, that's bad...until we got the $200 speeding ticket in the mail a few weeks later. All's well that ends...well, it ended.

There were some beautiful moments on this trip, for sure. I remember holding my baby and watching my son and husband play in the grass with a gentle breeze blowing, and I said a silent prayer that I would never forget that moment - a moment when absolutely everything was right with the world; everyone was safe, content, healthy, happy, and together.

I might venture out with the kids again, as long as I can channel memories like that and bring way more underwear for Gavin.

Bittersweet First

Gavin's first day of school is today, and I feel...well, melancholy. He couldn't have been more excited, of course, but I feel like he took my heart with him in his little Blue's Clues backpack, along with his "Cars movie" puzzle (as he calls it) for show and tell and some school supplies.


This isn't traditional preschool in the sense that I dropped him off at a place of business with a professional teacher, outrageously expensive and under-achieving curriculum, and a 5 days-a-week schedule; rather, I love that we opted for Joy School instead. He gets to experience 6 different teachers, each of us the mothers of the six children in this school and members of the Church, with a wonderful curriculum that teaches about the joys of childhood, and he will learn and play with children he already knows from church as well. I do love traditional preschools (as long as they adhere to NAEYC standards and curricula), but I didn't want to put Gavin into an expensive preschool that would teach things he already knew just for the sake of social interaction. That's a pretty expensive play date. Joy School was a great fit for us.

On paper, it looks like I'm being a big baby. Well, I am. So there.

I know, however, that every other mother (and father) who has ever seen her children go through an experience that makes them grow understands.

I just wanted to hold him this morning and command him to stop growing. No more getting taller! No more growing out of your clothing! No more asking what "industrious" means and recalling the correct answer at a later date! No more teaching a fabulous lesson on the sacrament at Family Home Evening! I forbid you to leave me, to go off and learn and become everything your Heavenly Father wants you to be. Okay, okay, everything I, too want you to be...

...Just not yet.

And yet, I so look forward to the look on his face and the energy he will bring with him as he itches to tell me all about what he did today and how excited he is to go back. I want to etch into my memory the way his little face looks as he animatedly relates the activities of the day and, I'm sure, delivers a report on the toilets. (Gavin's fascination with toilets is incredible.)

It's times like these when I look heavenward and thank my Heavenly Father for creating in me a desire so strong to be with my children that I would do anything to have them with me for eternity. How much more must the Lord want us, His children, to return to His presence? Does He not ache for our own growing pains, even more so than we do for our children because He knows the outcome of our choices before we make them? It is a tender mercy, then, that I have this time to remind me of the importance and the enormity of my responsibility.

Better to get all of my deep thoughts out before Gavin gets home, anyway. I guess I'll just have to stare at this face for awhile while we wait for our favorite boy!

Who Dunnit

This soap dispenser was empty. I was aware of that fact and planned to fill it up as soon as possible.

It is full now...and I didn't fill it up, nor was I aware that it was being filled.

Someone just might be too smart for his own good (or ours, for that matter)...

Brain Freeze

Homemade blueberry yogurt popsicles...and the perfect moment to take a picture. Priceless.

I'll post about our "vacation" soon...