Heart Attack

Scott and I finally went to a movie together.  We arrived at the Kaysville Theater in plenty of time to choose from among all the seats in the house.  It's a good thing we got there early.  Four more people came after we did, and to think they might have gotten there first and chosen the very seats we wanted!  As we sat there in the half-dark, we remembered that the last time we went to a movie together was with my ex-boyfriend when he was visiting from Spain.  The movie was A.I.  So ten years ago?  We go to movies; we just don't go together.  It seems like a huge waste of babysitting time to sit next to each other and not interact for two hours. Now that our kids do most of the babysitting, we have to be careful.  Their time is valuable and we don't want to take advantage of them.  Watching kids is hard and our older kids don't exist just to make our lives easier.

And then there's the problem of the popcorn.  Calling it a problem is a stretch, but I like a lot of butter on my popcorn, and Scott thinks it's perfectly acceptable to eat it when it's not dripping with grease.  We're not popcorn-compatible.  Before the movie started, we had already gotten past the golden, glistening, salty part down to the non-buttery popcorn.  I went out and asked for more butter, saying, "My husband says there's not enough butter on the popcorn."  Yes, I sold him out for an extra tablespoon of butter.  Not even butter.  Lard.

And that's not the worst of it.  A half-hour into the movie, Scott thought it would be funny to tell me he was having a heart attack.  You know, from all the butter.  But it's hard to interpret humor in the dark, and a movie isn't the ideal place to explain the premise of a joke.  So he just leaned over and said with a straight face, "I think I'm having a heart attack."

And you know what my first thought was?  My first thought was, "Oh, man, but this is a good movie and I don't want to miss any of it."

Yeah.  Scott tells me he's having a heart attack and my first instinct is to feel inconvenienced.  And then I immediately began thinking through when we (or just me, if it came to that) would be able to come back to the theater, if we did have to leave due to Scott's imminent death.  Friday night wasn't good.  Saturday, we could, but tickets are $3 instead of $2 on weekends and that's just dumb.  Monday, the girls don't get out of dance until 9:45...

"If Scott is, indeed, having a lard-induced heart attack, I may not be able to come back and see the end of this movie until next Thursday, IF THEN!"

That's what I was thinking.  I don't know what to make of this new awareness that I am a terrible person.  I could try to be better, but would it really be fair to Scott to suddenly become someone other than the girl he married?  When he took those vows, he was in love with a self-absorbed narcissist incapable of empathy.  If that's who he fell in love with, who am I to change 17 years in?

But since we're talking about Scott and heart attacks, if he does have one, could someone please mention at his funeral that he gave his life so I could have the right amount of butter on my popcorn?  He loves me.  When we got home from the movie, Scott looked up at all the stars and said, "Isn't it beautiful?"  I gazed down at my large popcorn refill and said, "It IS beautiful, the way the butter glistens in the moonlight."  Maybe I just have a butter problem.  Scott, I just want you to know, I would have driven you to the hospital if you had been having a heart attack.  The popcorn was almost gone anyway, and we could have gone back later for the free refill.

Pick Your Poison

 We have poison ivy all over our yard.  I used to get into it and spend every single summer with weepy scabs on some part of my body.  My dad thought the poison ivy was pretty, especially in the fall, and he didn't want to hurt it by ripping it out, so we never got rid of it.  It's true, poison ivy is pretty.  Its groups of three leaves (Leaves of three, let it be!) are waxy-shiny, and the colors are vibrant when they turn in autumn.  Every time we walk past the poison ivy on our way to my parents' house, I point it out as it grazes our shins and faces.

And every time, all the kids completely ignore me.  So it's actually shocking that we got this far without a poison ivy outbreak.  At the big party Sunday, a bunch of the kids roamed deep into the gully.  From the looks of Freestone's face (and Jake got it too), he remembered the cautionary poem as "Leaves of three, rub it all over your face."

I suspected poison ivy Monday at Lagoon as Free's cheeks got progressively more rosy.  I chalked it up to the excitement of the roller coasters and crossed my fingers.  But then he woke up with his face twice its normal size Tuesday.  He was too hideous to go to school.  People wouldn't have recognized him. 

I took him to the doctor.  The assistant took us into an exam room, sat down at the computer monitor and said, "So.  What are we seeing you for today?"

I shook my head.  If she had just put a modicum of effort into her job, maybe glancing at the patient, she would have asked a more informed question, such as, "Dude, what happened to your face?!"  Let's say she was just being delicate.

With prescription steroids, a topical cream and Benadryl (our doc doesn't mess around), Freestone was deflated enough to go on his school field trip this morning.  When I woke him up at 6:15, he was mad that I hadn't woken him up earlier.  I told his violin teacher that he was mad that he didn't have time to mentally prepare for the field trip before he arrived at his violin lesson.  Surprisingly, he was able to pull it together and have a good lesson before I dropped him off at the Frontrunner station to ride trax into Salt Lake.  He had no idea what they were doing for the field trip once they got to the big city, which is fine with me.  Surprises are good, right?  I'm just glad Freestone didn't have to go on trax all puffed up.  Someone might have thought he was a deployed air bag.

I Could Be Wrong

Found this in my drafts...

At the very end of my ballet class, I allowed each girl to tell me one thing she got for Christmas. Gifts mentioned ranged from American Girl dolls to iphones, Wii's, Nintendo DS's, cameras, a 3-day pass to Disneyland and even a trip to Hawaii, leaving that very day! I was a little amazed that not one of the gifts cost under a hundred dollars, and some of them cost into the thousands! And that was for one gift. Believe me, I'm not saying that's wrong. We are big into Christmas excess, and I can only justify it by saying that my kids don't get presents all the time. Scott loves Christmas, and he likes to do it up like his parents did for him, and like mine did for me. It is interesting, though, that the gifts have become so costly.

My dancers are girls who work hard at ballet, and probably at school and sports and church and playing instruments, and in some cases, they work very hard just to stay mentally balanced. These are little Americans, so the "Work Hard, Play Hard" ethic is embedded into their psyches. I just wonder, are we giving our youth too much? I would argue, and you might disagree, that we are not giving them too much. Adults have been worried about spoiling kids since Adam and Eve. I'm not a "What is our society coming to?" type person. I think it's easier to ruin them by expecting too little from them than by giving them nice Christmas gifts. I guess my argument is that it's not what we give children that spoils them. It's when we don't expect or demand from them (gratitude, hard work, high moral standards) that spoils them. I could be wrong. It's just a thought.

Lagoon Day

 Lagoon Day 2013 was our best Lagoon Day yet.  Perfect weather, everyone was there, the lines were short, the food was plentiful and...wait for it...all of our kids suddenly got brave!  Freestone had bee fretting about Lagoon Day, saying he hated it because Dad always tried to make him go on scary rides.  I think he was over-dramatizing the situation just a little, but he is like Golda; they don't like big rides.  Or should I say, they didn't like big rides, until yesterday!  Golda had been on all the big rides and decided they weren't for her.  But something came over Freestone and he just started going on roller coasters.  He went on everything, and I guess Golda decided, "What the heck."  And Xanthe was tall enough to try every ride, which she did.  Gee, I guess I only have two little kids left!  The rest are big now!  It used to be that Scott took all the big kids, which was, let's see, Ruby and Ari.  And I took all the little kids, which included Golda, Freestone, Xanthe, Ptolemy and Tziporah.  Now, Scott has all the kids except the babies. 

 So you'd think I would be able to keep track of them.  Nope.  Golda and I were sitting on a bench in kiddieland and I said, "So, where's Ptolemy?"  She said, "I don't know.  I thought you had him."  Panic.  We found him riding the whales.  Nobody could remember how long he had been on the ride, but both the teenager operating it and Ptolemy were relieved to see us.  (I only lost him one other time, when Ruby took him to the bathroom and we almost called Search and Rescue.  Oh, and when he went on the merry-go-round with Grandma while I wasn't paying attention.)  I also lost Xanthe, but just for a few minutes while she was on a ride.  She didn't know I had lost track of her, but I spent the whole ride waving to a four-year-old Latino boy with a crew cut.  It was only after the kids got off the ride that I realized this little guy wasn't Xanthe.  I need glasses.

Tziporah and Jersey look miserable on the whale ride, but it's not what you think.  Tziporah wasn't scared, she was mad about the seat belt.  She wanted to stand up and ride the whales.  I explained that to the ride attendant and he patiently explained to me why that wouldn't be safe.  Duh!  Lighten up, kid.  I'm joking!  It's not like you're in charge of the red button that can start a nuclear war.  It's the whale ride.

Then again, I can't be too hard on the kid, since he let Ptolemy stay on the ride until someone found him.

 Again, the seat belt is a problem.  I'm with Tizzy on this one.  The boats would be much more fun if you were standing on the prow, arms outstretched, wind in your hair.  Only if it was really windy, though, because the boats move verrrry slowly.

 Ice cream!  Here's the trick:  Don't get single scoops for everyone.  Get double scoops to share.  Ask for them "in a cup with a cone on top."  Then, while they're being scooped, say to the girl scooping, "Oh no!  One of the kids asked for mint chocolate chip and I forgot to order it!  Can you put some in there?"  And that's the secret to big scoops.  Or you could employ Jennie's trick of complimenting your scooper-girl on being the best scooper in the place.  The scoops only get bigger from there!

 Check out the look of glee on Tizzy's face when she gets her own gun.  The NRA would be proud.  I cringe.  At one point, Ptolemy actually kissed his machine gun.  I'm scared.  I really am.

 It looks like Ptolemy had a great time, probably never realized he was lost for most of the day. Also, he seems to have recovered from being used as a human shield by Scott on Rattlesnake Rapids.  Scott stayed dry, Tolly was drenched.

 Yes, a security officer escorted us out.  And no, we would not have left had he not followed us all the way to the exit.

 Our two champions!

On the way home from Lagoon, I joked and said, "Who wants to go to Cherry Hill now?"  I was answered with a chorus of "Meeeeee!"  Scott said, "You probably would."  And I said, "I probably will, just because I can."  Ari, Free and Tolly threw suits on and we ran to the water park at Cherry Hill.  alas, it was closed early because it was a school night.  It was 7:55 and the Oakridge pool closes at 8.  The kids didn't want to go home dry.  They wanted to go home wet and trick Dad into thinking they had gone on the waterslides.  We sped over to Oakridge, arriving at 7:59.  I instructed the kids, "Just go in.  Don't flinch.  Don't hesitate.  The lifeguards will smell weakness.  Just jump in the pool, no explanations.  I'll take care of that."

I held open the gate, greeted by 5 surprised lifeguards, as three kids, one if a floatie suit, filed past them and jumped into the pool.  I explained, "It's a bet.  We can't go home dry or we lose the bet.  Thanks for helping out!  See you tomorrow!"  With that, the kids filed back into the car and we drove off before the young lifeguards could so much as blow a whistle.

At home, I found out something about Freestone.  He is a terrible liar.  Scott asked him about Cherry Hill and he froze.  the whole story we concocted in the car, with all the details about how many times we went on each slide, was gone.  The truth came out.  Well, that's good, I suppose.

So, summer has officially begun.  Except we have two more weeks of school left.  Can I get a groan?  Thank you.

In Which Tizzy Parties Like It's 1999

The Dopp Memorial Day Eve Spaghetti Dinner has become a little tradition for us.  If I love it, and I do, Tziporah loves it even more.  Not only do we have the regular cousins, we also have extra cousins!  I don't know if they're second cousins or something once-removed or what, but they are fun!  Tizzy really believed she was one of the kids and became incensed every time we brought her back in the house.

Marlene and Jodi, the mom of two of the extra cousins.  Scott and I visited Rick and Jodi when they lived in Puerto Rico, right after we got married.  Jodi took us all over the island.  We were reminiscing tonight about how we almost died boogie boarding at Rincon Beach.  Good times.

...and Ryan.  Or Jeff.  Nope, it's Ryan.

Do I always look this goofy?  Kids, don't answer that.

Little cuties!

Tizzy trying to get higher up on Grandma's body.  Maybe so she can see more?

Tizzy trying to grab the camera.  This was toward the end of the party, after I had put her to bed.  To which she said, in effect, "Uh, heck no!"

So Tizzy was the entertainment at the after-party, which for Mormons, usually takes place in the street in front of the house next to a row of minivans, while someone tries half-heartedly to find the missing children, who are probably hiding because, hello!  The extra cousins are here!

"I'll be here all week!"

Oh look.  there go some of the kids.  Hey, kids, get in the car...oh, never mind.

"And now, if you'll focus your attention on my giant stick, I will attempt to poke your eye out!"

And when I say kids are lost, it's to the point where they are being brought home in wagons by neighbors.  I do admit, the wagon driver was my dad.  Ptolemy looked like the little emperor that he is, being driven down the street in style.  Tizzy had to get in on the action!

After her ride in the Bill-drawn wagon, Tizzy made us all double up laughing by trying to stand up after Scott swung her around.  Staggering around like a drunken gnome, she would finally fall flat on her back and flap her arms, baring her vampire fangs.  I am so glad we don't drink.  I can't imagine what we would come up with as baby entertainment if our judgment were any more impaired.  As it was, Golda had to go inside, she was so nervous about all the staggering.  I'm not sure we entirely had all our wits about us, there were so many desserts to be eaten.  After several pans of cakes, cookies and brownies, I brought out a whole trifle I had completely forgotten I had.  Even now, crumbs are falling out of my mouth onto the keyboard because I have lost the ability to close my mouth, but not the ability to cram cake into it.

Yes, it was a fun day.  Tizzy thoroughly enjoyed herself.  Little does she know, tomorrow it's going to be all the same people and all the same food, but at an amusement park!  Whaaaaaat?!?!

Fantasy Island

There was nothing better than Saturday night when I was a kid.  It was when Love Boat and Fantasy Island were on.  My parents didn't seem to watch those shows.  Why, I couldn't imagine, but I had a standing invitation to spend the night at my grandparents' house every Saturday night so I never had to miss Ricardo Montalban's "Welcome!  To Fantasy Island!"  Fantasy Island was a place of second chances, where you could change history, change fate, buy more time, do things better.

 We called our grandparents "Bill and Golda" instead of Grandma and Grandpa, and Bill would always make me a malted milk as we settled in to watch Love Boat.  He knew I liked the malt spoon with the twisted handle and the little mug with yellow and orange pansies on it.  He knew I liked vanilla ice cream, scooped out of the big, gallon bucket, sprinkled with just the right amount of Ovaltine (a LOT!) and bathed in enough Half & Half to make a milkshake.

What continues to astound me, as an impatient parent, is that Bill took the time to go through the malted milk ritual, with all the steps, in the special cup with the special spoon, and then to watch the special shows with me, every Saturday night.  It may have been simply that he needed me.  He needed me to change the channels with the rotary knob and fiddle with the volume on the wood-encased TV set.  He needed to know that if he commanded, "Mute!", I would scramble obediently over to the TV and click the volume control down to nothing.  I was a cute little puppy, especially after I got a perm.

Now my grandpa is gone, and my children will never know why his malted milks can never be successfully imitated.  I myself don't even know.  It must have been the special mug.  I just wish Bill could come back, holding a gallon of Farr's vanilla ice cream and a glass jar of Ovaltine.  I wish he could make us each a malted milk and we could all gather around his La-Z-Boy, turn on the TV and hear, one more time, "Welcome!  To Fantasy Island!"

On the Boardwalk

When I was in sixth grade, there was a cute little girl with glasses and blonde, perfect hair who was funny and nice and friendly.  Not only was she someone we all wanted to be around, she also had a very cool mom.  At least she must have had a very cool mom, because she always had potato chips in her lunch!  Despite the fact that there was a potato chip factory right in our very town, those greasy, crispy little delicacies were strictly taboo at the King household.  So I can't honestly say whether it was Michelle's fun personality or the potato chips she willingly shared with me that cemented our friendship.  All I know is, I benefited from it in 6th grade, and I'm still reaping the benefits.

Namely, Shelter Lunch.  It's a little group of age-old friends who love to set a table and then spend a couple of hours sitting around it drinking Coke and sneaking Hershey's Kisses to the kids who wander by.  Each of us has our own strengths.  Michelle likes to say that together, we are the perfect woman.  I think that we are each, individually, the perfect women, too.  But here's an example of the synergy of a group of women.  Jen's daughter got a part in a play as Snow White.  She needed a Snow White costume of the fly.  Two days later, Michelle showed up at Shelter with a magnificent, handmade costume that she "just happened to have all the fabric for anyhow." 

Actually, I'm not sure if that's an example of synergy, or if it's just another way Michelle is an amazing friend.  Beware, if you're a 5th grader who is sharing your lunch with your friends, you're probably going to end up, 30 years later, organizing their lunches, compiling their recipes into books, sewing their children's Halloween and play costumes, bringing them cinnamon rolls when their husbands are injured and notifying them when things go on sale at Hobby Lobby.

Are you sure you're up for that?  Before you offer those potato chips, make sure you know where you want to be thirty years from now.  Or forty.  Or sixty.  Because, Michelle, my dear, we ain't goin' anywhere.  Oh, and, save me some shade under your umbrella at Cherry Hill.

Scott made us another Summer Mix Tape.  Last year's that Scott and Ryan made were a hit!

Al fresco.  The theme was "On the Boardwalk."  I was going for a Coney Island vibe.

Ari designed the pretty vases of snowballs from Coco's yard.

Carney food to go with our banh mi that I couldn't resist driving to SLC to pick up.

Gift bags included the CD and some fun summer trinkets.

Dessert was an idea I stole from my amazing SIL Nikki.  She hosted Jersey's first birthday party last week and every detail was perfect.  She lent me the jars and the idea for trifle.  The quote was from Blaise Pascal: "A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us."  It is a good reminder to me that most things that upset us in life are quite small compared to the big picture, and can usually be cured with a trifle.  Of course, some sorrows and challenges can't be chocolated away.  That's when friends who share their potato chips come in.

Life With Tizzy

8:58 AM, Tizzy is in the kitchen with me, helping me unload the dishwasher.  (Actually, I'm loading, she's unloading, but the point is, we're together.)

8:59 AM, Tizzy is gone.  I notice the door ajar and race outside to find she has gone down the steps, across the yard, and has climbed to the top rung of the swingset ladder.  Now she's out of rungs, so both hands and both feet are perched on the top rung.  She looks like a plump, uncoordinated bird against the backdrop of the open sky.  She is chirping uncertainly, as if even she questions her decision-making skills.  I bound down the steps three at a time and pry her off the ladder.  I carry her back upstairs and inside, where I set her down next to some race cars.  She turns around and goes directly back to the door.

And a variation of this happens approximately every three minutes.  In fact, I am setting down the laptop right now to get her off the back of the couch.  Did you know we had to get rid of her high chair?  Yeah, that's right.  I would strap her in, turn around to grab her food, and she would be standing on the tray, swinging her arms like, "Got outta my high chair.  NBD."  I feel a stab of guilt every time I set a bowl of food on the ground for Tizzy to eat, as if she were a furry little cocker spaniel.  Every time I see her squatting down by her bowl of grub, I think, "Fido."  Most mommy guilt is completely unjustified.  No, this is real. 

(Tizzy is on the kitchen counter now, FYI.  With a knife.  30 seconds ago, I put her on the floor next to me with some blocks.)

Anyway, this morning, I strapped the babes in the car with a movie and invented an hour's worth of errands to run, just to give me a mental and physical break from the catch-and-release program Tizzy has consigned me to.  Waiting in the car for Papa Murphy's Pizza to make our dinner, I tried to capture Tizzy's new skill, saying Mommy!, on video.  I at least wanted to get a good shot of her vampire teeth, the side ones that came in before the still-missing front ones.

Tizzy wouldn't perform, of course, but I did capture the grittiest, most raw, unglamorous parts of being a mother with pre and pre-pre-schoolers, complete with a filthy carseat and yesterday's chicken nuggets. (I just had to go downstairs to get Tizzy off Ari's top bunkbed.  I'm not kidding.  I should pay more attention, but you would think the ice cube trays I got out would provide more than 10 seconds of entertainment.  Oops, there she goes again...down the stairs.)

You know what?  Just watch the video. The ending is my favorite. I have to go run some more errands!

Fashionist-ugh

Yes, this is my child.  He has inherited, through nature or nurture we don't know, my tragic fashion sense.  I came by it quite honestly.  I can't blame my mother; her taste is impeccable.  In the same way my father tried to condition me into a marathon runner, my mother steeped me in the joys of retail therapy.  Every failure of mine in life came with a validated parking stub at the Crossroads Mall and a crisp, new pair of the latest jeans as a consolation.  Every success was marked with a celebratory trip to Nordstrom for a consultation at the Lancome counter and maybe a pair of Polo socks, their smug horse logos meant to mark me as a winner.

All Mom's effort might have turned me into a successful shopper, if only it hadn't made my feet so tired.  If my dad thought a marathon was hard, he obviously never shopped with my mom.  For the same reasons Freestone "would rather be buried alive than practice violin," my mother's efforts to turn me into a fashionista backfired just a tad.  The smell of retail still makes me itchy, physically and emotionally.  Most notable among our mother-daughter shopping exploits are:  The time I literally fainted from hunger in Saks Fifth Avenue and the time my mom broke a rib and still went to the Nordstrom Semi-Annual Sale the next day.  All you people with your race stickers on your car windows, you ain't got nuthin' on my mom.  She is a warrior.

Before my girlfriends' trip, Scott came home bearing a big bag of new clothes for me.  In true Dopp fashion, he also came bearing a story about how "it was all on clearance, and then I had a 30% off coupon."  Only when Scott or my mom shop for me do I look presentable, and sometimes not even then.

On the trip, two separate women went out of their way to run after me, lunge at me, to inform me that there was a tag on my shirt.  While it was kind of them to exert themselves, I was thinking, "So what?"  It's not like it was a scorpion or something.  I thanked them both, but what I really wanted to say was, "AND my husband got 30% off the clearance price on this tag.  Can you believe that?"  I know, irrelevant information at a time like that, when I was in mortal danger of being seen with a tag hanging off my shirt.  My priorities are clearly out of whack.

However, I do have to pat myself on the back (at risk of finding an errant tag) for the clever way I surround myself with beautiful people (Scott, Coco, Bill - Coco dresses him - my kids, my friends, Scott's family, Emily, Lexie) who not only make me look better by association, but take pity on me and give me, if not actual clothes, fashion tips like "Wait, don't go out!  You're not wearing any pants," or "Did you mean to put on two different shoes?"  Thanks, team.  I could never do it without you.  I hope to reciprocate one day.  Here's what I'll do for you:  Bring me two seemingly mismatched socks and I'll tell you how they match.  It's not all about color, you know.  There are secrets, and I know them all.