Sunday Notes

I try not to get emotional about each little milestone, but it's difficult when important events are becoming as numerous as grains of sand this time of year. Ruby gave her Book Two recital and Freestone got through his Twinkle recital today. Since it was Ruby's gig, her teacher gave her the choice of having her siblings play. Ruby couldn't pass up the chance to make Golda play her flute, knowing Golda wouldn't want to. Golda was a good sport about it and played very well. Araceli played her Bach from last week's recital and sounded great. Freestone motored through all 6 Twinkle Variations with his teacher, almost running our of gas a couple of times, but making it to the finish line. During Ruby's part of the program, Free obnoxiously sneaked in and grabbed his Twinkle Trophy off the mantle. No ceremony.
Ruby played all ten songs from Book Two, all memorized in order, ending with a duet with her teacher. I was so proud of her for what she's accomplished. Every day for the last few weeks, I have had the relaxing privilege of sitting on the couch and listening to Ruby go through the whole program. I'm sure I enjoyed it much more than Ruby did! Edette, the teacher, presented Ruby with a trophy at the end of the recital. Scott and I both had cameras with dead batteries, so we didn't capture Ruby's cute musical note earrings or Star sitting next to the kids as they played, like it was her job. We missed the trophy presentation as well as the trophy sneaking, and didn't get pictures of most of the great people who made up the audience.

Better, even, than the kids' accomplishment was seeing all the family members, friends and neighbors who have been supportive of us for years and years. Some of our friends and family are probably sick to death of being invited to these things, and we so much appreciate them continuing to answer our phone calls! And bringing food! If anyone wants to take a sabbatical from acting as our fan base, please feel free! Friendship with us seems to come with "strings" attached, doesn't it?

Veruca Salt and the Oompa Loompa

It may be difficult to get your hands on tickets to Wicked on Broadway, but tickets to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Golda and Ruby are plentiful. You can't go wrong on price, either. You could take a hundred of your closest friends to Charlie for the same price as one ticket to Wicked. Even your youngest friends could go; it's only an hour long!

I saw the show tonight and it was wonderful. Ruby and Golda and the rest of the kids were fabulous, and so much fun to watch! The length of the show left us time to visit Baskin-Robbin after. Isn't that always the best part? I think I might have to see the show again tomorrow. I loved watching Golda act like a spoiled brat and Ruby doing the Oompa dance numbers. Plus, I'd like to try a couple more ice cream flavors.

Royalty

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A lot was going on in the bathroom yesterday. Golda was getting ready for Medieval Day by dressing as a queen. The 6th graders had to earn their Medieval status by doing chores at home. The kids who earned the most points got to be queens and were entitled to more privileges than serfs or knights, etc. Golda's competitive spirit had her weeding flower beds, fixing dinner and doing a service for a neighbor. I would like to personally commend the 6th grade teachers for this idea! Earning queen status was a LOT of work, most of which benefited me.

The other person in the bathroom was Princess Xanthe, hiding in the shower so she wouldn't have to go to the eye doctor. Although it was a great hiding place, I still found her because she was wailing and whining. We'll have to work on strategy. She did go to the eye doc and survived. After days of trying to get a contact lens in this baby's eye and failing, the doctor told me, "Well, I WAS asking the impossible." Well, he could have TOLD me that before I spent a week of my life torturing my kid. Next week Xanthe will be sporting glasses and an eye patch four hours a day. Cute!

You know it's the end of the school year when the kids have actual costume changes during the day. After Medieval morning, it was time for the 6th grade Shakespeare plays. Golda was Baptista in a scene from Taming of the Shrew. I have to say, the kids were pretty good! (Especially Golda, of course:)) I was impressed with their level of preparation. Again, I appreciate the 6th grade teachers. Introducing them to Shakespeare in such an interactive way is a great idea. Now they know the plot to four of his most widely known plays. It's good to start these things early, before it's too late. I used to read Shakespeare. Now I read Yahoo headlines on the way to my blog.

Little Cellist

Dear Araceli,

You played beautifully in your cello recital tonight! I was so proud of you for learning your piece so well and sounding beautiful. You looked at the pianist and listened and counted, and your tone was great, especially the last note! You got it! What an amazing girl you are. I'm so glad you're "one of the big kids" now. It's fun to have you stay up a little later and be so helpful with everything. Your baby brother is going to love having you as his nanny. I bet he loves the sound of the cello already. You'll have to play your Bach for him when he's born and see if he recognizes it!

Daddy and I are so lucky to have a daughter like you. We think you're beautiful and perfect, and we love how much love is in your heart. You're a good example for the little kids, and the big kids, too. It's a good thing you're the middle child, so you can be a friend to everyone. Heavenly Father sent you here to be a very important part of our family, to bring joy and love wherever you go. I think He is very proud of you, and I am too.

Love, Mom

Tradition...Tradition!

I can always count on Memorial Day weekend to be one of the most fun of the year. We took advantage of the pool opening, which, as I mentioned, is heaven for me. Friday, our first pool day, Xanthe walked into the pool, looked around and said, "I need a treat." I had to remind her of the rule: "No treats until the last day of summer." Last year, Freestone discovered that all he had to do to get a treat was go to the snack bar and say Bill and Coco's membership number and they'd give him whatever he wanted. It was like magic! Until Mom caught on.

Sunday after church, Scott and Golda went to Uncle Ken and Aunt Loretta's missionary homecoming. We're so glad to have them back from St. George! Araceli's day included a special date to the opera with Coco and Bill, while the rest of us visited the cemetery where Marlene's parents are buried. A few years ago, we started a tradition of spaghetti dinner at our house the night before Memorial Day, and once it's a tradition, it becomes even more fun. The kids get to talk about all the fun they're going to have the next day at Lagoon! Incidentally, the kids also worked a good couple of hours in Jakey's sweat shop, coloring pictures for his upcoming art show.

Lagoon Day we got up early to finish everyone's practicing before packing up and going to Lagoon. Scott wonders why the kids have to practice on a holiday. I tell him there's no way I'm passing up an opportunity to use Lagoon as an incentive!

Although Scott and I were both hobbling by the end of the day, we could not have had more fun. Between the enormous picnic at the Turquoise Terrace and the kids' excitement, it was a perfect day. Grandma and Grandpa wanted an old-time photograph of the grandkids to hang at the cabin. The girls at the photo place got all 19 kids dressed in pioneer/outlaw garb and managed to take a beautiful picture with everyone looking their cutest. Quite a feat! One more ride on Puff the kid coaster, Freestone's favorite ride, and we said good-bye.

After baths, I took Araceli, Golda and Ruby for an evening stroll around our local cemetery, regaling them with stories of my grandparents, ancestors and kids I went to high school with who left us too soon. It was a nice night. It's funny how a person's life can be distilled down to a few anecdotes to be passed on through the generations. It makes you want to live a good life, so that when stories of you are told later, a picture of integrity comes through. I feel that way about all our ancestors on all sides of the family, and I'm so grateful for my kids to be the product of such worthy men and women. Having their example to live up to is a blessing. Having their tradition of Lagoon Day is a blessing, too!

Toadally Awesome

Where is heaven? Is it very far?...

For Freestone, heaven is Little Big Planet. For Golda heaven is found backstage, ready to go into the lights. Araceli's favorite thing is mothering her dolls. She's already pretty good at multi-tasking. Xanthe's heaven is whenever somebody is giving her their undivided attention. The closest I can get to heaven, and it's pretty darn close, is having all the kids at the pool together. I love to see them so happy and carefree. Meanwhile, our pilgrimages to the pool free up Scott to enjoy his own heaven...home alone in his man cave watching Sports Center. It's a win-win.

Ruby has finally earned her own little piece of heaven. She completed her goal of finishing Book Two in guitar and went yesterday to get a fire-belly toad that she has wanted since first grade. The toad's name is Firebella and she is black and lime green with orange fingernails. Scott took Ruby to the pet store and came home just a tiny bit excited about Ruby's new acqusition and all the crickets, waxworms and bloodworms that go along with it. It was accidental genius on my part to send Scott rather than bringing all the creatures home and trying to convince him how cool they were. Because I'm not so sure myself that it's going to be awesome to have a pet that eats bugs. It was fun for Ruby to have Dad there to help pick out the prettiest toad. Firebella is pretty hot, especially her flaming orange fingernails. And the way she eats crickets with a flick of her head is pretty amazing. She has a nice habitat in an aquarium that has been waiting for her arrival since I found it at a garage sale last fall. Here we go, into another chapter of kid-centric hobbies, learning more about fire-belly toads than I ever though possible. This is going to be fun, Rubes!

Here You Go, Lexie! :)

My beautiful, talented niece, Lexie, tagged me to play this game. Here she is at her ballet recital last week. She lit up the stage! Here you go, Lexie!

8 things I am looking forward to:

Summer, meeting our baby, hanging out at the pool, ballet recital week, the end of school, finishing our basement, going to Montana, Lagoon day.

8 things I did yesterday: picked up Xanthe's new contacts at Primary Children's, ordered Freestone's Twinkle trophy, took Ari to a rehearsal with her pianist (thanks, Jennifer!), dropped the girls off at play practice, went to the pool for the first time this year, celebrated nephew Abram's birthday, fixed a violin, stayed up too late reading.

8 things I wish I could do: run long distances, wake up early and exercize, travel all the time, spend a summer on the beach in Portugal with Scott and the kids, visit my uncle and aunt's place in Thailand, grow a beautiful garden, play in an orchestra again, sing

8 shows I watch: American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, America's Funniest Home Videos, Desperate Housewives, that show that's on after it, Jay Leno

8 people to tag: anyone who wants to play

Confessions

I have two confessions to make, both embarrassing to me as a parent. The first: Freestone has been working on his Twinkle Variations for two years. I know I'm not alone, and that other Suzuki parents can relate. He has passed off other songs, but he can't muster the attention to play all six variations in a row. There have been many lessons where Free bounced around the room like a human pinball or, alternately, sat slumped over his guitar like he'd had a double dose of valium. The norm is Freestone acting like a complete idiot and me sitting there with my face flaming, vowing to beat him up as soon as we get to the car. Every time I do the walk of shame to the car after a horrendous lesson, Freestone cheerfully skipping beside me as if he wasn't ruining my life, I decide to quit. Then there's some minor breakthrough and I keep going. Besides, I love my practicing time with Free, frustration notwithstanding. It's our thing.

Every day during practicing, I'll say something like, "Time for your Twinkle Variations." "Which Twinkle Variation do you want to play first?" "Let's play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the theme." You have no idea how many different games, techniques and methods we have used for learning the song. He has played the theme or one of the variations in no less than 4 or 5 recitals. Still, sometimes it's like he's never heard it before when he practices.

So about a month ago, and this is two years into listening to these songs every time we're in the car and playing them every day, Freestone was playing along on the theme during practicing. Suddenly, he stopped and said, "Ooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh, I get it! This song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star!!" Light bulb moment.

I just looked at him, wondering how that fact had escaped him for so long, until he said, "Uh, am I finished?" I thought, "You are so finished." And I put the guitar away. Forever.

That was at about the same time Scott introduced video games to the kids. (This is my second confession.) He gave one to Freestone called Little Big Planet, and it was love at first sight. Free grabbed the controller and whizzed around the menu like he'd had years of experience. Now he's obsessed. All of his sentences start out, "In Little Big Planet, do you know what?..." One day, he sat in the car at the park for an hour crying because, "Outside is stupid! The park is stupid!" For me, that's just humiliating evidence of my utter and complete failure as a parent. I never thought it possible for two smart people to raise a kid who is addicted to video games. I pictured Free gaining two hundred pounds on snack foods and having to be hospitalized for dehydration from not being able to stop playing his game.

But, thanks to Little Big Planet, something happened to Freestone's concentration. It coagulated, like he drew it in from the four corners of the universe to help him get past a certain level of the game. And it translated to guitar. Suddenly, with the promise of Little Big Planet time, he can absolutely play all six variations in a row perfectly. He gets up in the morning and suggests practicing. He cooperates at his lessons. He finally has his official Twinkle Recital coming up. Hallelujah! All I have to do is trade 20 minutes of practicing for an hour of video game time, and Freestone will do whatever I ask of him. He gets it! Now I'm a big fan of video games for how they build concentration, give little boys (and girls) something to be passionate about, and mostly for the currency they give me when it comes to bribery. I may be wrong, but only time will tell. So far, soooooo good!

Shocked and Saddened

Ok, maybe I'm overstating it a little bit. But I was shocked. I thought I didn't care who won American Idol...until my guy lost. Whereas I liked Chris before, now I don't like him for stealing the win from the more talented contestant. Boo! Araceli has a little crush on Adam Lambert. She's going to be so disappointed! I know, I know, it's better that he lost so that he can pursue his career his own way. I hope he goes the Broadway route as opposed to the rocker genre. After that crushing defeat, I'm so looking forward to So You Think You Can Dance tonight! BTW, if you make any negative comments about our best friend, Adam Lambert, I'll delete them because you would be wrong.

Look Sharp

If I were Oprah and I had a Favorite Things show, I would give away Sierra Club Engagement calendars and Extra Fine Sharpies. Sharpies are definitely my favorite thing because of the happy colors and the way they write. Lefties, or at least me, have trouble with pens. Sharpies dry fast so I don't smear the ink with my hand, and I don't have to find a special angle to hold them that works. So I use them for everything, especially my calendar. People ask me if it's color-coded according to kids or types of events. Uh-huh. Sure. I'm that organized. I do love to schedule and plan. In fact, my calendar IS color-coded. Turquoise means there was a turquoise pen available. Orange means orange was the first pen I grabbed. Red is the pen in my kitchen, black is the one on my keychain. Regular pen means I searched everywhere for a Sharpie and finally used an inferior pen. Pencil is a last resort because it smudges. Scott uses pencil for everything and writes in tiny block letters, all caps. What would a handwriting expert say about that? What would one say about my rainbow calendar? That my brain is a mess and I'm extremely juvenile? Probably, but the colors make me happy. I secretly want to go back to grade school and use a brand-new Crayola 64-pack for everything. That would be the ideal.

Wordsmiths

I thought I'd show off some examples of my little wordsmiths' work. Words are so powerful and can be put together is such a beautiful way. Golda's Mothers' Day tribute was just what I wanted to hear. She put together in words, on paper that she made herself, some of my favorite things about being a mom.

Araceli writes heartfelt letters all the time. Her favorite word to use has always been "love." It's the first word she learned to spell. This letter to Ruby says, "To Ruby from Ari Dopp. I love you. You were boren in 1999. I was boren in 2001. I hav loved you sins I was boren. Love is all arawnd. I allwaze new ther was sumthing that you loved about me. You are a grate sister. I love the gatare. You sound grate on the gatare. Love..."

Ari's little letter gave Ruby a boost of happiness on the way to her guitar recital and it made a keepsake that I'll treasure as one on my favorites, just like Golda's Mothers' Day tribute. I love my little wordsmiths!

Tougher Than a Mountain Man

This is Ruby in her pioneer costume for the Mountain Man Rendezvous today. She was actually standing upright, but I forgot how to change the orientation of the picture. The rendezvous was just like those held in the wild, wild West with Jim Bridger and the gang. The kids played games, had a trading post and listened to a real mountain man in full regalia talk about life as a "real man." He even shot an antique gun.

Ruby has been tougher than a mountain man lately with her crazy infection. After the surgery on her neck, the infection still would not go away. Turns out, it was an evil, drug-resistant form of strep which is now being treated with two different antibiotics; ten pills a day. I even have to take medicine to her at lunchtime, since the kids aren't allowed to bring drugs to school. It's better than the alternative: an IV in her arm for a month. Her freckles drained right out of her face when Dr. Scheuller mentioned that possibility, so I'm glad we didn't have to resort to that. Back in the days of real mountain men, an infection like this would have meant death. Ruby still has a gaping hole in her neck that I have to clean and dress three times a day. Something like that wouldn't heal on its own out on the Oregon Trail. Thank heavens the trails we blaze in this time and place are paved with antibiotics.

Battle of the Experts

When I grow up I want to be good at gardening. I'll have lush, verdant flower beds with immaculate rows of coordinated flowers and giant pots of exotic, flowing plants as well as a massive vegetable garden. For now, I have a flat of marigolds.

Scott and I have our differences over the yard. Like every bone of contention, this one stems from the fact that neither of us is an expert at gardening. My expertise is based solely on the fact that I have a friend whose family owns a greenhouse. (Hi Nate!) Scott's authority comes from the fact that he used to mow his grandma's lawn. Our combined lack of knowledge results in both of us trumping up our meager tidbits of information and trying to convince each other that we know what we're talking about. Our confidence on any given subject is directly inverse to our knowledge of it.

Example: I bought a dwarf flowering almond tree that I think would look perfect in our front yard. Scott says no way, and it's not a tree because it only grows to four feet and anything that comes up to his waist is not a tree. I say everyone has a tree in their front yard. He says it will look like it doesn't belong. I say our yard looks boring and we're not doing our part to save the planet if we can't even plant a dwarf tree. He says nobody in the history of the world thinks it's a good idea to plant a tree in the middle of the lawn. I say I've been doing extensive research and nine out of ten lawns have trees planted right in the middle.

This is where every argument we have always ends. Somebody starts making up statistics. Then the other person does a dramatic mime of pulling a number out of a hat, saying, "Oh, look! It's a nine." It's a nice way of saying, "You have no idea what you're talking about." Which is usually true. But someday I'll be a gardening expert, and then I'll plant dwarf trees all over our yard. Or maybe I won't because I'll decide Scott was right. When it comes to aesthetics, Scott is usually right, but don't tell him I said that. I don't have any statistics to back it up.

Brain Freeze

This is a picture of the item that I fished out of my purse the other day and tried to put into the ignition of my car. I know it doesn't look like a car key, but it is a car. Maybe that's the connection my brain made? More likely what happened was a complete lack of cerebral activity. That's not a bad thing, either, because I've had some bad ideas lately. For one, I got dressed without looking in the mirror yesterday. When I came out of the closet (not THAT closet), I looked like I was wearing Polly Pocket's halter top. Apparently, I've grown out of some of my clothes. It happens with pregnancy.

Another bad idea was mentioning to a carload of little kids that we might get ice cream. By the time we got to the place that has the tiny soft serve cones, they had built up fantasies of 29-scoop sundaes topped with gummy bears, oreos, sprinkles and sour patch candies. The more elaborate their creations got, the faster I drove, but it wasn't fast enough. It's hard to keep up with the confluence of imagination and confection. The next day, I decided to give away all of Freestone's "dumb" shoes. That way, he would only have one pair, so he would never lose track of them. It's always the good ones that get lost. That's how Free ended up at school in Ari's old soccer cleats. Having only one pair of shoes in no way guarantees they won't get lost. But it was worth a try.

I did have one good idea. I took my three older girls to a movie tonight for Mothers' Day. What better way to celebrate than to have a spontaneous girls' night out with my favorite future mothers? I even brought my real car keys, so we got home just fine after the movie. I'm not going to tell them what motherhood does to your brain. I'll just let that be a surprise when the time comes! Happy Mothers' Day to all of you who already know what I'm talking about! From my perspective, you're all doing a great job.

Pomp and Circumstance in Miniature

Anyone who knows Xanthe has heard that her favorite person is Teacher Jen. She's potty trained because of Teacher Jen. She goes to bed at night to make Teacher Jen happy. Whenevershe feels like being naughty, I remind her how disappointed Teacher Jen would be if she did something wrong. We all adore Teacher Jen.

Last week, Xanthe's beloved teacher was diagnosed with leukemia. Everyone is stunned and heartbroken to hear that such a wonderful person has this road ahead of her. They think it's treatable, and Jen has a lot of prayers coming her way, and a lot of support. Thursday was preschool graduation. There was a lot of emotion in the air, which translated into Xanthe bursting into tears at the beginning of the ceremony and turning into an appendage of my leg for the duration of the program. She did manage to shuffle over to Teacher Jen with her head down and me by her side to receive her hat and certificate. She sat on my lap while the other kids sang songs and posed for cameras.

After it was all over, in the car, she said, "I'm ready to be good at school." She was not happy that it was over and tried to tell me that it had been too short by saying, "It wasn't three minutes or five minutes. It was one minute!" I wish preschool could last all summer, too. We wish Teacher Jen a healing summer and renewed energy by fall. Thank you to Jen for shaping Xanthe for good, forever.

Chivalry Isn't Dead

Golda is doing a unit on Medieval times in school. Yesterday she asked me what chivalry is. Tonight at Golda's orchestra concert, I experienced chivalry firsthand. All the sixth graders in the area got together for this concert, so there were 300 kids playing and hundreds more watching in a crowded gym. The way the day played out, I ended up there with 5 little kids who had just downed slushies. Cool! I found an empty spot to stand by the wall and planted all the kids on the floor at my feet. No sooner had I staked out my wall space than an elderly man slowly got up from his chair and pushed it over to me. I didn't want to argue and I sure didn't want to stand, so I accepted. He leaned over with a smile and said, "Hey, I'm not the one carrying the baby!" I was so grateful. The man who gave me his chair, easily in his '80's, stood the whole time, even though it was hot and stuffy, and even though there were plenty of young people sitting in chairs all around, oblivious to the kind old gentleman whose knees were buckling in the heat. I wondered why none of them offered him their seat like he had offered his. It bothered me that teenagers felt entitled to sit while a less spry man stood.

I think it's because there are societal rules that earlier generations learned that kids don't learn anymore. Older people are always entitled to chairs and the right of way and the respect of people younger that they are. Have we forgotten that? I heard the phrase "Respect your elders" many times as a kid, usually when my dad wanted me to speak up to an adult or to obey a teacher or a grandparent. I say it to my kids, but I worry that they won't see the importance of respecting their elders when there is no value placed on it in society. Any man who sacrifices in order to defer to a pregnant woman deserves the respect of everyone around him. In some cultures, his age alone would earn him the respect he deserves. That's how it should be. When I tried to thank him at the end of the concert, he humbly put a finger to his lips. I'll have to tell Golda that I saw chivalry in action from a true knight. We can learn a lot from those who have logged more years on the planet. We have to remember that it's not the other way around.

Yesterday I was uplifted by the message in Relief Society at church. The premise was finding joy in the journey. I appreciate the message that this life is all about joy and creating harmony in our lives. It sure beats the message that the sky is falling that we hear so much. I recently told Scott, through late-night tears of fatigue, "I'm having fun. I'm just having way too much of it." The trick for anyone in my stage of life is to enjoy the incredible bounty of joy that accompanies the work of raising kids.

In the car on the way to ballet today, I had my two girls in their black leotards and pink tights, brushes in hand, doing their buns. I said to them, "This is so much fun! This is the whole reason I had kids, to take them to ballet and drive them around and see them work hard." Golda said dubiously, "It doesn't sound like THAT much fun." I assured her that it is. Since I'm raising future parents, as my friend Erin said, I want them to see that I find joy in raising them and feel that having a family is something they want for their future.

My goal now is to decide how I want to be as a mom and then do it. If I want to do lots of crafts or go to the zoo more or let the kids have parties and friends over, I can't let anything so banal as being tired or having chores to do stand in the way. Childhood is a one-shot deal. I don't want my time as a mom to be characterized by phrases like, "When the kids are bigger..." or "As soon as we get through this..." or "I'm too tired right now."

My mom had one sister and we spent a lot of time with her and her kids growing up. She had a pool at her condo complex, where I remember spending many hours. Swimming was followed by lunch and what my mom and Aunt Pat called, "Perfecting the art of doing nothing." When Aunt Pat died much too young of breast cancer, I bet my mom didn't think of all the chores left undone when we had headed out to swim at Aunt Pat's pool all those times. And I bet she didn't think of all the work it took to fix those lunches for all of us, to get us out of the pool, to load us in the car. If it was a lot of work, and I'm thinking it was, I never knew it. I just saw Mom and Aunt Pat having fun.

During the long, cold, dreary winter of Scott's Achilles injury, I remember feeling like our family would never feel right again. Freestone looks back on those weeks as the Golden Age of his childhood. Daddy was always on the couch, right where Free left him, available to play video games or watch TV with him. Freestone wishes Scott would get hurt again. I love his perspective because it reminds me that, even if some things are hard, other things are wonderful. Sometimes the only difference between the two is attitude. It also reminds me that the most important thing for a kid is to have the security of knowing a parent will be right where you left them, happy to see you again.

The bottom line for me this week is letting my actions reflect the gratitude I feel for motherhood. This is a journey that I am grateful to be on. I want my children to know that. If I can show them through my attitude, I'll feel a modicum of success.