May 2011...I Wish I Could Freeze Time

 This is my favorite.

When Ari was a tiny, precious baby with cherry red lips and a delicate little nose, I wanted to keep her like that forever.  When she was a willful three-year-old with a self-inflicted pixie haircut who did her own makeup, she was so fun I wanted her to stay, stay little!  When she was in kindergarten and spent her days playing with Ellison, fighting and reconciling, building kingdoms with their imaginations, I never wanted that stage to end.  Now Araceli, my Araceli, is a little girl harboring a growing teenager in her body.  I know I can't keep her young, but this is the last stop before my little Celi disappears forever.  I can already see a much older Araceli in some of these pictures.  It's thrilling, but heartbreaking at the same time.  I'm not afraid of the future when I see through the camera lens what a sweet, wonderful person Araceli is becoming.

I have to thank my niece, Alexis, for taking the time to give Ari a make-over and do a fun photo shoot.  Lexie is really, really talented in many areas.  She has an eye for design and does some pretty amazing photography.  At the prices she charges, (rock bottom!) you would have to be an idiot not to hire her to shoot your favorite people.  Thank you, Lexie, for capturing this girl before she slips away.  It means a lot to me.

Who Wore It Best?

Ruby and Ptolemy were looking at pictures and pointing to all the people.  On this one, Ruby pointed to Ari and Ptolemy said, "Ari!"  Then Ptolemy pointed to the gnome and said, "Bill!" 

 I do see a resemblance.  All Bill needs is a tall, green velvet hat!  It gets funnier every time I look at the gnome picture.   Hoo hoo hoo, ha ha ha...

Dear Blogger, Please give me my last two posts back.  I promise I'll be nice.

Testing, Testing...

 Second grade testing starts today.  Free was instructed to have a good breakfast and be on time to school.  After a good breakfast of quiche (breakfast had to contain eggs to make him smarter, Freestone said), it was time to practice and get ready for school.  Free claimed he didn't have time to practice because he had to get to school on time.  I tried to explain that it was only 7:30, but he whined, "Practicing before school is like killing yourself before you're even born."  Wow, I'm glad he doesn't have any strong feelings about it or anything!  After fussing through most of his practicing, Freestone got dressed, fretting about not having enough time.  I asked him what he wanted to have time for, and he said, "To go get better parents."  Putting socks on brought on a whole whining episode about wishing he had a better life.  Standing at the front door in his coat with a glazed look in his eye, he said, "I feel hot."  I said, "Don't worry about the test.  Just try to answer every question."  He looked straight ahead and emphatically said, "No."

I don't like that the kids are so stressed out about the test.  I wish they would get to school and be handed a No. 2 pencil and a test with no advance warning.  Most of them would probably do better on it.  Bet then, stress, preparation and worry prepare kids for real life.  Throughout their academic career and beyond, there will be tests, deadlines, decisions and hurdles, and the answers won't be A, B, C or D.  Sometimes there won't be answers and they'll have to make up their own.  Sometimes a test will happen in a heartbeat with no warning, and sometimes a test will last for years.  Sometimes they'll have to make the right decision over and over every day, and it won't ever get any easier.  There will be decisions between two wrong choices or two right ones, tests that threaten to destroy everything, tests where you'll never know if you got it right and tests where you know you definitely got it wrong.  There will be times when they will feel like there are just too many unanswerable questions.  But you always have to pick yourself back up and try to grow for the next test.  So I'm actually grateful in some way for the ordeal of end-of-level testing.  It's not the last ordeal my 7-year-old will face, but it might help him feel more prepared the next time a challenge jumps into his path.  All I can do is give him a good breakfast.

Big Baby

This little boy has been a bear lately.  A cute bear, but still more of a handful than the docile baby who used to snuggle up in my arms during a movie.  Now he has to sit on the high stools at the counter with the other kids.  He has to pile on when the kids wrestle.  He has gotten decked in the face several times trying to join in on the Wii dance game, but he still tries.  Yesterday in the car, I stopped at a red light and he started badgering me.  "Go, Mama!  Ayanna go!  Ayanna get out, get a burger!  Get out, get a burger!  Go!  Yes, go!"  He was so frustrated at not being able to make the car move.  When someone is carrying him, he controls their motions by pointing and grunting, but it doesn't work with a car.

He was crying in the car today when we dropped Ruby off.  "Ayanna get out, go Meebee!"  I said, "You're my little baby boy!"  And he shouted, "No no baby boy!"  I said, "Are you my big boy?"  He said, "Mama big boy."

I didn't know he had an opinion on that, but I guess I should get used to having my baby - I mean BIG - boy have an opinion on everything.  He did relent and go down for a nap without a fuss.  When I put him in his crib, he said, "OK, Mama.  You the most!"  That's Tolly language for "Love you the most," what the big kids say at bedtime.  It's cute enough to melt you heart, but I miss "Waaaaa!" a little bit!

Xanthe Has Two Mommies

 Last fall

 This spring

 Xanthe's secret smile

 Getting hot chocolate

Xanthe gave me a darling fill-in-the-blank Mothers Day card.  Thank you for helping her with it, Mme Stockett!  It says:

My mom's name is Circe.  She is 30 years old and weighs 45 pounds.  My favorite meal she makes is Chinese.  My least favorite meal she makes is carrots.  My favorite thing to do with my mom is getting hot chocolate.  My mom is good at dancing.  My mom is proud of me because I clean.  I love my mom because she works hard.  Love, Xanthe

What a cute note.  I am so glad Xanthe is my daughter.  As I tucked her in last night, I reminded her that she had a birth mother in China.  She still hasn't grasped the meaning of that, and doesn't really ask questions about it.  I tried to explain that she grew inside of her birth mother like Ptolemy grew inside of me, and that's why she looks so beautiful like she does.  She asked, "And she (the birth mother) was Chinese like me?"  I said yes, and she must have been very beautiful.  Xanthe said, "What was on her nose?"  Huh?  I don't get it.  I told Xanthe that if her birth mother could see her, she would be very proud and think Xanthe was beautiful.  She answered, "Ya, but not with this on my forehead."  She just happened to have a big goose egg from Freestone accidentally throwing a plastic baseball bat.  So, whenever we have these "birth mother conversations,"  Xanthe is very much in the moment and seems completely uninterested in trying to imagine a stranger in a faraway place growing her in her tummy.  I keep waiting for the tough questions, but I didn't think "What was on her nose?" would be one of them.  A wart?  Chocolate?

For me, I wish I could see Xanthe's birth parents just once, give them a hug, show them how sweet and beautiful their daughter is, and thank them.  Especially on Mothers Day, I am sad knowing that I will never know anything about the woman who carried our child and labored to bring her into the world, only to wrap her in a blanket and leave her alone.  It was an act of superhuman faith on so many levels, and her faith was rewarded.  I just have to believe that, on some level, that mother knows that her sacrifice was not in vain.

On the subject of adoption and heart wrenching, WATCH THIS.  We're not adopting again, but might you?  :)

Scott

Here is what I love on Mother's Day:  The man who has made all my dreams come true.  I could have (and would have), like some of my brave and extraordinary friends, been a mother on my own.  I admire you, ladies, and all of the women around me who are absolutely dedicated to the idea of motherhood, each in their own beautiful way, whether they are in the thick of it or still hoping.

I am thankful that my journey has included a man as committed to motherhood as I am.  He was raised by a wonderful mother, he has always shown my mom great respect, and he has literally, spiritually and emotionally made my dream of motherhood a reality through a thousand baby steps over the past thirty years since Scott moved into my life.  He was a steadfast example of righteousness when my life was more about me, me, me.  He led me by example to the perfect life.  He supported me when I wanted to have a baby so soon after marriage.  He was excited when I felt like it was time for another baby a few short months after Golda was born.  He cried with me and demonstrated great patience with me after I had a miscarriage.  He was thrilled when a third baby girl was born, never mentioning that, gee, a son would be nice!  Though in shock, he rejoiced when Freestone came along just a year and a half later.  With four young children, Scott got down on his knees to pray for strength when I desperately wanted to adopt.  He found it in his heart to welcome Xanthe with open arms even before we knew her; before she was born.  She is here because of Scott.  And he found it in his heart to bring Ptolemy here through trial and heartache, waiting and wondering.  I look at Tolly Boy and see all the faith-filled decisions, capitulations and sacrifices Scott has made to bring our family to a place where I can sit on my front porch, look at the beautiful mountains and feel like I have it all.

This weekend, Scott took Jake and Freestone to Park City for an overnighter.  (It was the ward fathers and sons outing, but Scott told me there were two problems with taking little boys camping:  One, we don't have tents and sleeping bags.  Two, if we did have tents and sleeping bags, they'd have to sleep in them.  Park City is more Scott's speed.)  After a fun and probably exhausting trip with Ryan his two boys, Scott came home, grabbed his daughters and went right back up to Park City to do the whole show again with a different audience!  Late last night, I texted Scott to thank him for a relaxing and fun Mother's Day weekend.  I had gotten so many things done that I had been looking forward to.  He texted back, "I am actually having a great weekend.  I guess I am a dad first and foremost.  I haven't watched a single minute of an NBA playoff game, and I don't even care.  The kids are fun."

If that isn't the best mother's day gift I could ask for!  Along with the time to wander the greenhouse, plant my flower garden, read magazines, watch a movie, spend time with two or three kids instead of six, enjoy getting the house ready for brunch without interruption, organize my calendar clear through July, finish a bunch of tasks and generally do whatever I want for hours on end.  Thanks for giving me the blessing of being a mom, Scott.  I love it. 

True Confessions

Discalimer:  My kids have really, really good teachers, and we love them.  We are thankfu they are getting a great education!

Hello, my name is Circe and I suffer from HIFR.  Homework-Induced Fits of Rage.  I try to control my condition, and I do OK from September to about the first of May.  That's when the pressure gets to me and I fall off the wagon.  I had been managing my HIFR with frozen yogurt, dark chocolate and hyper-vigilance;  making sure all the homework was done at all times and thinking of it as a helpful way to keep up on what my kids were learning in school.  In theory, I want my children to be highly educated.  In practice, well, I'm kinda tired and the kids have been working hard all day and I just want to get them to bed and watch American Idol.
As hard as I try to control my HIFR, this week finally got to me.  I think it started with Golda's Rube Goldberg machine.  I walked in from teaching at 9:30 PM and instead of the kitchen being dark and clean, it was a brightly lit hive of activity involving cups, bowls, funnels, marbles, string, Turkish puppets, boxes and books.  Thanks HEAVENS Aunt Michelle was helping Golda because I took one look at the instructions and felt like my actual brain might be on fire.  Something like "your apparatus must include a pulley, lever, wedge, wheel...."  AAAAAAA!!!!!  What's a wedge?  I thought it was a salad.   A pulley?  At 10:00 at night?  How?  Why?  Michelle, Golda, Ruby and Jakey are geniuses.  Crisis averted.

Unfortunately, more homework was on the horizon.  Araceli's class is preparing for testing, so she got a bunch of work she had missed last Friday, plus her regular homework packets in math and English, plus more test preparation.  And a book report!  You're not going to believe me, but it was 27 pages!  And Freestone, in addition to practice sheets for addition and subtraction facts and his two regular packets, had a moon phases book where he's supposed to track the phases of the moon each night for 28 nights.  Yeah, how about if instead of that, Freestone brings the PS3 to school and helps all of his classmates get to the next level of Lego Harry Potter.  That's something that is useful in real life.  We'll talk about the phases of the moon sometime in the distant future when I'm OK with Freestone being up and doing homework when the moon is out.

But I digress.  Araceli's homework is what put me over the edge.  I could analyze the elements that came together to create the perfect storm.  Warm, sunny weather, ballet, cello, Ari recovering from a nasty cold, a slow walk home from Activity Day, a mother in the midst of a little obsession with polygamy stories...Before we knew it, it was Thursday night at 8:30 and Ari was sitting at the kitchen counter working diligently on page two of her twenty-seven pages of homework, due the next day.  I tried to use my breathing techniques.  I tried envisioning a safe place, a tropical beach, a world with no worksheets, but my hypothalmus took over.  I reached across the counter, snatched the packets and ripped them in half.  I said, "There.  Now you don't have to do your homework.  Let's get you to bed, ya cute little thing!"

Ari screamed.  It was an Edvard Munch moment.  She was horrified.  Apoplexic.  We're talking panic attack.  Geez, I thought I was helping!  (The HIFR distorts my reality.  What can I say?)  After talking Ari down off the ceiling and reassuring her that she could tell her teacher that her mom ripped up her homework, she gratefully went to bed.

I got a message from Ari the next morning.  Tiny little voice:  "Hi Mom.  This is Ari.  Mr. Keck was really mad that you ripped up my homework.  Can you bring it to the school?  Love you.  Bye."  I would have, I really would have, but I didn't have any tape.  Xanthe had used it all for her homework.

Ruby's Delay

 Dear Ruby,
Brilliant paper on Hamlet's Delay!  I love the symbolism of not finishing the paper and leaving it sitting around the kitchen for two weeks.  That powerful statement (leaving the paper unfinished) underscored Hamlet's inablility to decide what to do.  Further, my reaction to seeing the paper day after day mirrored Hamlet''s descent into madness.  How precient of you to know that I, as your teacher, would become part of the symbolism!  Hamlet tortured himself trying to decide what to do to avenge his father's death, just as you have probably been in agony trying to decide what to write after "Hamlet was..."  Just as Hamlet had to put on a happy face in public, you have done a remarkable job of appearing not to care in the least that you have a two-page paper due and no idea what to write.  (Is that an ink pen that I see before me, its handle toward my hand?...) Well, worry no more, Ruby.  I'm giving you an A-plus for creativity, use of irony and symbolism and just plain being a great kid.

Love, Teacher Circe

 P.S.  You look good with your new dance bag.  Good choice.  You certainly don't shop like Hamlet.  It's more of a Julius Caesar approach.  Veni vidi visa..."I came, I saw, I bought."

Emergency Backpacks

Our mudroom is a constant battle.  It's where the junk from the rest of the house piles up.  The only reason the rest of the house is tidy is that all the stuff that's not messing up the rest of the house is usually in big piles in the mudroom.  We clean it out, but like a cancer, the stuff starts creeping back in.  Scott did an overhaul of the mudroom this weekend, reducing the piles to a few backpacks and a bin full of tights and leotards.  This morning, Freestone couldn't find his coat and I told him it was in the mudroom closet.  He whined, "But there's no closet in there!"  OK, I'm starting to see why he always had a problem putting his coat away in the closet.  Plus the fact that the closet door was hard to open (or see, apparently) because of all the coats and gloves and shoes piled up in front of it.

So anyway, now that the mudroom is clean, I have lots of extra backpacks, gloves, jackets and shoes.  Rather than giving it all away, I'm going to finally put together the backpack 72-hour kits we should have in case of emergency.  Compiling all the ideas I've seen online, I think I have most of what I need for each person, but I want to get all of your good ideas and helpful tips on 72-hour kits.  If we had to leave our house suddenly and were able to grab each person's backpack, what would we need to have in those backpacks?  I'm thinking we would be in a hotel or shelter, or possible even outside or in our car.  I'm planning for winter because I hate to be cold. 

OK, all you experts.  I'm ready for your ideas!  What is the best, high-protein, long-lasting food to put in?  Thanks!