xanthe

Xanthe woke up early Sunday morning.  I awoke to her intense little eyes staring me down, willing me to get up.  I could have told her to watch TV until the rest of the household started stirring, but I sensed she needed some Xanthe time.  She changed Tziporah's diaper and held her while we chatted about her birth story.  For the first time, she seemed to have questions.  Xanthe asked if she was cute as a baby.  Of course she was, and still is!  Then she said,  "I know why babies are so cute.  Because Jesus made them cute because he wanted them to be cute when they grew up.  But grown-ups aren't really that cute.  You have grey hair, mom."

Right about that time, I was wondering why I didn't have Xanthe watch a show instead of inviting her into my cozy bedroom to analyze my aging process.  I may not be "cute," but Xanthe went on to tell me that when she's forty, she wants to be "a ballet teacher and a mom because I love ballet and I love being a mom."  And she said, "And I'll have grey hair like you and I'll dye it all the time just like you!"

Kids are so brutally honest.  Aging is inevitable, but if you can do it in a way that makes a seven-year-old want to emulate you, I think you're doing OK.  So snaps to me!  Hey, I need all the snaps I can get after Xanthe's critique.  Xanthe, I hope you grow up to have just as much fun as a ballet teacher and a mom as I do.  And when you dye your hair, stay away from a color called "Paint the Town."

backstage with freestone

My backstage manny.

Good Night, My Someone

 Actually, good night my everyone.  Music Man is over.  It was a GREAT production.  I saw it from the audience twice and from back stage twice, and it was a delight every time from every angle.  I'm going to miss the cast, and I know Golda is going to miss them far more than I.  After all, they've been her "family" for late nights and early Saturday mornings for the past couple of months.  NOW how are we going to keep them off the streets and out of the pool halls...that starts with P that rhymes with T that stands for...oh, never mind...

Lexie and Jennie

Grandma and Grandpa

Coco and Bill

Evyn and Michael

Golda, Jess and Emily

Abbi and Golda, River City Dancers

Music Man

Listening to notes after dress rehearsal

Zaneeta Shinn and Tommy Djilas (Golda and Tiernan)

Opening Night fans

Cast and Friends

Jana Dearden did it again.  She put together a fantastic production.  Golda was Zaneeta, the mayor's rebellious if ditzy daughter.  It was Golda's best part yet and she was great!  This production was heavy on the dancing.  One of the dance numbers is eight minutes long!  Golda and the others got a lot of experience at partnering, and the untrained boys learned a lot of steps and terminology.  Those boys were pretty darn impressive!   In the play, Zaneeta is hanging out with the town bad boy, Tommy Djilas.  Zaneeta's dad says, "You keep your hands off my oldest daughter, you hooligan!"  With Golda turning sixteen in a year, she will be old enough to date.  That line hits too close to home!

The show runs at the Browning Center at Weber State through Saturday night.  Golda is Zaneeta again in the matinee, but if you see the show Friday or Saturday night, you still get to see her do a lot of dancing and singing as a River City Teen.

Golda, we're so proud of you for all your hard work late into the night with your amazing friends.  You're such a fun person to have orbiting around in our solar system.  "There's drama!  Right here in Kaysville City!  Drama that starts with D that rhymes with G that stands for Golda!"  Ha ha.  Golda, I love how you keep the drama onstage, the friendships backstage, the hard work behind the scenes and the glitz in front of the cameras.  We love you!

Little Tizzy

This little baby is almost four months old!  Time goes so fast, I'll never be able to get enough of her chubby chuckles or the smell of her velvety-soft head.  I still can't believe we have Tziporah!  I often think back to the moment I saw the positive pregnancy test.  I was positive it was going to be negative.  Ha!  I didn't even have time to walk away from it before the two lines registered.  I guess my first reaction was a mixture of rapture, joy and disbelief.  And then a pervading fear rushed in, that something could happen to the baby.  Miracles aren't so easy to come by, and can be so delicate.  Five, ten seconds after I learned of the existence of this baby, I would have been devastated to lose her.  I would have missed her for the rest of my life.

The night before Freestone's baptism, when I was nine or ten weeks along, I spotted.  I thought, "Not now!  Why!?"  I was heartbroken.  I couldn't sleep all night and prayed continually to be able to keep the baby here with us.  The next morning, everything was fine.  My prayers were answered.  That was a comfort to me throughout the rest of the pregnancy, even when she mysteriously stopped growing.  I kept telling myself that this baby's mission was to stay here, but it was hard to believe we could be so fortunate, so blessed.  I couldn't hold her in my arms a moment too soon.

Tziporah is a complete, complex, intricate person in that tiny little body, just bursting to fulfill her destiny.  She is at the beginning of a journey I can't even imagine, as she lays nestled in her birdie sleeper, her small hands tucked up under her chin.  The rest of us, we're just lucky to be along for the ride.

Mom, Did You Ever Play an Instrument?

I love music people.  This is Ruby's guitar teacher, Mr. Johnson's (sortof broken) doorbell.

As we were listening to Xanthe's piano CD, she asked me, "Mom, did you ever play an instrument when you were a kid?"

Um, yes I did.  I played the violin.   I can even fake the cello a little when Ari needs a practicing break.  I learned by osmosis, trying to help Ari practice.  I EVEN attempt Xanthe's piano tunes sometimes! But I'm still REALLY bad.  I have never been able to play the piano.  I barely passed my piano proficiency test in college, after 3 tries.  Piano isn't the only instrument I can't play.  When Golda started flute and couldn't get a good sound, I said, "Here, let me show you."  I don't know why I thought I could play the flute, but I was surprised when I took the instrument, blew into it and...nothing happened.  Another example of my misguided confidence.  It's harder than it looks!  That's why I love to listen to Golda practice.  I can't believe she can do that!  One of my favorite instruments is guitar.  The classical guitar repertoire is so delicious, all of it.  When Ruby started lessons, my plan was to learn along with her.  I did OK for a few weeks, but then Ruby zoomed ahead and I couldn't keep up.  I'm resigned to just being a listener forever, which is just as fun.

Even with all my ineptitude, I can still play an instrument because once upon a time, I worked very hard and earned, through blood sweat and many, many tears, a violin performance degree from Indiana University.  I'm proud of that because it was so incredibly difficult.  I'm grateful my parents gave me that opportunity.  So yes, I used to play an instrument when I was a kid and I'm sure glad I did.  Music has brought me a lot of opportunities (trips to Europe!) and a lot of happiness (trips to Europe!).  (Although Scott would argue that my training has ruined me for listening to music.  I can't do it without criticizing.  Musician's Curse.)  I mentioned to one of the kids that, gee, orchestra sounded like a fun thing to do.  The kid said, "Yeah, Mom, of course it sounds fun to you.  It's your favorite thing in the world."  It's true.  From the moment I sat on the edge of my chair in 5th grade, hanging on Mr. Marsden's every flick of the baton, I've been hooked.  It would be impossible to count how many orchestras I've played in, but I've probably played most everything in the standard repertoire at least a few times.  My favorites have been Mahler, Beethoven and Bartok.  I don't play in an orchestra right now, and I do miss it, but my time will come again. 

Xanthe, keep practicing piano.  Someday your kids will wonder if you can do anything interesting or useful and you can say, "No, but I do play the piano!"

Golda and Ruby's Dance Workshops for Little Girls

Golda and Ruby’s Dance Workshops!

Session One:  June 4-7 and 11-14, 9:30 – 10:15

Session Two:  June 25-28 and July 2,3, 5 and 6, 10:30 – 11:15

Session Three:  July 9-13 and 16-18, 9:30 – 10:15

Each workshop is eight days. 

Each session is $20.00, or $50.00 for all three sessions (six weeks!).

Ages 3-7

Call Golda (801-425-5195) or Ruby (801-425-5194) to register.

The first session started today and they still have room.  

If you want to come, please do, starting Tuesday!

The Happiness Project

I just finished reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  It took me a long time to get through it because there were so many good thoughts and ideas.  After each chapter, I felt like I needed time to digest and incorporate.  I could blog at length about any number of ideas from the book.

One of the overarching ideas I took was that happiness is a valid pursuit (It's in the Constitution!) and that happiness is a valid frame of mind.  In recent years in parenting circles, there seems to have been a trend toward complaining, disguised as "admitting it's hard."  I've never felt comfortable with this notion, but it made me feel like if I said I loved my life, I was being dishonest, or if I put a positive spin on things, I was disingenuous.  Sometimes we sabotage our own happiness by craving validation over joy.  The book mentions the impulse to act downtrodden instead of happy in order to underscore to others that we are working hard.  The thought is that if we seem happy, we must be either stupid or lazy or we just don't get it.

I am going to strive to eradicate that way of thinking from my life.  There is no reason I can't choose to be happy all the time.  I'm basically a happy person at my core, so it's not too much of a stretch for me. That said, I do love sarcasm and snarkiness, and I even love to complain for fun.  So I have my battles to fight, but on the opposite side is the fact that I have no trouble at all with gratitude.  I'm grateful all the time for the world around me, and that goes a long way toward happiness.  In fact, I think it's my ability to recognize how blessed I am that makes me such a happy person, and I'm grateful for that.  (See?!  I can't help it!)

If the Mormon pioneers could sing,  "Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?  'Tis not so; all is right" as they buried their babies, abandoned their possessions and literally froze to death, what right do I have to be unhappy?  Sometimes when I catch myself griping I think, "You think this is hard?  What a wimp.  You know what would be hard?  Raising kids in a covered wagon."

I can't remember where I first heard the notion of a "First World Problem," but I say that to my kids all the time now.  It's a problem that wouldn't be a problem if you had more serious problems, so get over it.   Many times you'll realize that your current "problem" is a result of privilege.  Just now, Tziporah was asleep on my bed and Araceli wanted to give her a good night kiss.  I thought, "No!  You'll wake her up!"  And then I thought, "Who cares?  Look at your two beautiful daughters!"  I literally took a step back, giving them space, and watched their tender moment.  I'm so much happier than if I had chided Ari.

We were all in the car the other day and the kids couldn't decide on what kind of pizza to get.  Holy First World Problem!  I was frustrated.  Then Freestone said something so funny:  "Plain cheese pizza is the epic failure of pizza!"  Our tension evaporated.  I thought about how fortunate we were to be eating.  We got pepperoni.

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.  If you read it, get ready for a paradigm shift.

Lost in Translation

"Freestone, don't do that!  Why are you putting orange juice in your eye?"

"Well, I don't get superpowers from just doing nothing!"

"Huh?"

"And then my head lights on fire and everybody's like aaaaaaah, his head's on fire!"

"Uh-huh.  OK."

"Mom, do you know what you do?  Someone spills their Skittles and you offer to pick them up and then you just eat them as fast as you can."

"Did you do that?"

"No but Mom, Alex said "e" instead of "i" and Mr. Keck was like 'Allez dans la salle pour parler l'anglais!'"

Is this kid speaking a foreign language?  Well, yeah, kindof, but I don't think French is the problem here.  It's Freestonese that's Greek to me!

(Now he's singing "I Wish You a Horrid Christmas and the Saddest New Year.  Just FYI.)

Ari's Journey

Ari's last journey was to Ensign Peak and This is the Place Monument.  The kids had worked on walking sticks.  Ari used many sheets of sandpaper to get hers as smooth as butter.  I found her asleep with it the night before the journey.  Not taking any chances of losing it!  Ensign Peak was a big journey and Ari loved it.  Between her super-smooth walking stick and the enormous hair bow Tiffany made for the Kentucky Derby party, Ari was a fun little hiker.  You can bet that her backpack was full of everything she or anyone else could dream of needing, and then some.  Fourth grade journeys are such a unique opportunity.  I have a feeling Mrs. Povey started it all, with her desire to teach the kids to get out there and get fit, move their bodies and enjoy the great outdoors while learning in a way a classroom can't teach.  I'm excited for Freestone to be in her class next year!