Tonight is a one verse night...

You know those nights when you can't bring yourself to read a whole conference talk in the Ensign or a whole chapter in the scriptures? When I was a teenager and still wanted to fill in the "100% scripture reader" sticker chart and I was just too beat to really read my scriptures, I'd just open my quad and read the first verse my eyes alighted upon. Back then, I think I often looked for some kind of special message that was intended for me to read that night. But it usually ended up being something like "For if the ^ablood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the ^bpurifying of the flesh" (wha???). Anyway, my point is, NaBloPoMo can be a long month, and tonight you, my fair readers, are getting the one-verse version of blog. I'm just checking in to say I'm here. A sick kid last night and a totally different sick kid today and an essay completed this afternoon have completely sapped me of any good blog.

1. short-lived stomach bugs
2. peers who will review
3. a husband home after 36 hours at the hospital (do you realize that's a whole work week for most people?)

The only hour of the month harder than sacrament meeting...

...takes place in the same building (I usually even sit in the same room), with many of the same people. The main differences are that I swap my high heels for a neckerchief and slide, and Bryce changes out his white shirt and tie for a blue shirt with patches. I'm still wrangling four kids (often solo), still have to pack snacks (this time for everyone, not just some contraband goldfish for my brood), and still have to deal with the "I'm soooooo bored"s from my kids. And if such a thing is even possible in our ward, it's at least 100 times louder than sacrament meeting.

If you've ever been there, you've probably recognized the place-- the monthly pack meeting of our ward's cub scout troop. Last year, when I wasn't a leader, Eddie and I had a deal-- if he wasn't working, he'd take Bryce and I'd stay home with the other kids. Now that I'm officially (if somewhat reluctantly) part of the organization, I can't sluff it off.

But seriously folks, how is pack meeting fun for anyone besides the cub scouts? It's not fun for the siblings, who have to sit around and watch while the boys do activities. It's not fun for the people who come early to set up and leave late to clean up. It's not fun for the women who patrol the hallways shushing the masses because the Young Women are having some sort of award night in the next room. It's certainly not fun for anyone who has to share the same air with the 40 or so boys after they've been running and chasing and jumping up and down. I consider any night that I get out of there without screaming at anyone a good pack meeting.

Tonight was the Raingutter Regatta. Bryce has asthma, so you can guess how well he did. As a leader, I spent most of the night walking around the building searching for the boys who decided that a little friendly competition doesn't always feel so fun and friendly and were hiding under tablecloths and in the chapel so they could cry away from the gleeful smiles of the victors. Mine went to church repeating the mantra, "Just be calm. Just be calm." At pack meeting, I think I need to adopt the same one-- Or else its alternative: "Just stay home. Just stay home."

1. I don't have to do that again for another month.
2. Lunch with friends.
3. A husband who comes home for an hour, even when he can't help with pack meeting.

I think she has issues with the story of the creation...

Our house: 6:30p.m. on a Monday night. Kids fed. Kids bathed. Husband not home. One big kid planning FHE. One big kid writing a comic book. One big kid helping me add to the huge pile of upstairs things that have accumulated downstairs over the course of the last twelve hours. No one watching the greatest force of destruction known to the household-- Maren. We find her, surrounded by tiny shreds of paper-- tiny shreds representing the first seven chapters of Genesis, gleefully (and neatly!) pulled from Eddie's scriptures.

I think she's already on her way to being a cafeteria Mormon, and she's decided that her first point of contention is the Adam and Eve story.

1. Kids fed
2. Kids bathed
3. Maren in bed

direct from the horse's mouth...

"Nobody watches more football than me." Said by my husband, at 9:31pm on Sunday, November 16th. There, I have it in writing, just in case I need it.

That said, despite my excellent "tuning out skills" that was one good BYU game yesterday. But I won't be sad next week when BYU's regular season ends.

I used to be sad when I was a kid and my birthday fell on a Sunday, because it was always Super Bowl Sunday. I hated sharing any part of my day with a football game. But in retrospect, my dad's and my brother's interest in football was pretty mild compared with Eddie's. I guess the good news about having the NFL push back the Super Bowl a week or two from when it was held in the 80s and 90s is that I won't get ignored on my Sunday birthdays, but I think sometimes I'd also welcome the Super Bowl on my birthday as a symbolic gift of no more football for seven months.

particularly lethal ice cream combo

Blue Bell Snickerdoodle (cinnamon ice cream with a caramel ribbon and crushed up snickerdoodles) with smashed-up mini Heath bars mixed in. There are about a million mini Heath bars in our Halloween stash and no one else in the house has figured out just how good the ice cream is, so it's all MINE!

Good thing I ran those 22 miles this morning!

1. Weekends with Eddie home
2. Family nights out
3. Cooler weather!

what am I missing?

I have a hard time feeling like I'm doing nothing. I listen to podcasts while doing the dishes or making dinner, watch shows on the DVR while folding laundry, and never go to Isaac's physical therapy appointments without a book to read. Right now I'm reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and I'm totally hooked. I started yesterday, and I'm more than 100 pages into it. I feel like I'm finally coming out of the reading funk I've been in, and I'm happy that such a good book is bringing me out (usually I need something trashy to cleanse my palate) and unless I'm actively parenting, I want to be reading that book.

I've gotten to know the office staff at the physical therapy office pretty well (going there for seven or eight months does that, I guess). One of the receptionists is so friendly and cute, and she commented about how much she liked my purse and then went on to chat and chat about purses. Ordinarily, I'd be happy to chat with her, but I really wanted to get back to my book. As soon as I could extricate myself without being totally rude, I started reading again.

Sometimes I wonder how much I miss because my nose is always in a book. Several weeks ago, I had intended to bring the rough draft of an essay I was writing to Isaac's appointment, but I left it in the kitchen on the rush out the door. My only other option was to read Sports Illustrated or an issue of Domino I had already dog-eared to death at home, so I sat and watched Maren play. Another mom was in the office. She was very young and heavily tattooed, with two kids under two vying for her attention. She was also scared-- her pediatrician thought her baby might have a serious heart condition, and she needed someone to talk to. That day, without my book, I was able to listen.

After the St. George marathon last month, I flew home from Vegas on some very turbulent air. I went to the back of the plane to use the restroom and heard the flight attendants ask if there was a doctor on the flight. One of the passengers was having an epileptic seizure, and between the turbulence and the medical emergency, people were feeling tense. I was stranded at the back of the plane and my book was up at the front of the plane. So I sat, nothing to read, and a woman who was in the same aisle as the woman having the seizure came and sat in front of me. A couple of seconds later, she reached behind her seat and grabbed my leg, hard. At first I wanted to pull away, but then I realized that she was terrified. I held her hand until the flight attendants got the situation under control and the turbulence passed.

My love affair with reading isn't going to end any time soon, but these two experiences made me see that sometimes, maybe, there might be some upside to forgetting to pack along my book.

1. great books
2. spirited emails
3. killer spinning classes

Toys Gone Wild

Remember the premise of the Toy Story series-- when humans leave, the toys come to life? I don't think it's a cute little story designed to endear kids to their toys. In my house, I think it's true. How else do all of the toys in all of the buckets end up dumped unceremoniously on the floor every day? My kids insist (eyes averted) that they have nothing to do with it, or else blame Maren for the mess (she does make a mess, but it's usually confined to Dora, Little People and my makeup-- legos, action figures and Polly Pockets are not her purview). I've been a very mean mom lately, yelling and threatening no Christmas presents if I have to pick up a single toy at the end of the day, but we had something happen last night that makes me wonder if the kids really aren't to blame.

At 2:41 and an ominous wail started up in the playroom. Eddie and I became semi-conscious and ruled out that one of the kids was having an emergency. So what was it? A sick cat? One of the pigeons that roosts outside our bedroom window? We were too tired to figure it out. Over the next ten minutes or so, the sound repeated weakly two or three times. Then, all middle-of-the-night heck broke loose, and it gained in strength and sounded somewhat familiar, though oddly distorted. I feigned sleep, while Eddie went out to investigate (all of those years of nursing babies have gotten me a free pass in the "investigate in the middle of the night" responsibilities) and returned to our room carrying a possessed Little People Castle-- lights flashing, trumpet blaring madly. We were too brain-dead to go hunting for a Philips-head screwdriver at 3 am, and I debated internally whether or not it would be appropriate to huck it into the middle of the street. Thankfully, Eddie found the switch on the bottom and we all went back to sleep.

But I still think our toys are alive. They're probably upstairs right now, ready to spring out of the buckets at the first convenient moment.

1. toys without batteries
2. Christmas shopping underway
3. nothing big on today's agenda

My list (a meme)

Lyn had this on her blog. I've done the bolded stuff. What about you?

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a Meteor Shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a Mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a Lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

dumpapallooza 2008

I cleaned the whole house yesterday. Top to bottom, scrub, scrub, scrub. At 5pm, I left the house to drop Annie off at ballet, and ran to Kroger for a few necessities (diet Coke, vanilla, ice cream sandwiches since I didn't have time to bake for the cub scouts). When I got home half an hour later, Hurricane Maren had hit, leaving a path of destruction an entire playroom, bathroom and three bedrooms wide. Right now she's climbing on the desk beside me, throwing paper all over the floor. Yeah, the floor I just cleaned. And she wrought all of her havoc while watching Dora, which was my last safe haven.

1. a clean house (while it lasted)
2. Maren (despite her messes)
3. two kids who leave all day and don't contribute to the mess

Bye bye, baby Mac

We got an email from the Houston Zoo last night, bearing the sad news that Mac, the two-year-old Asian elephant, died Sunday night of elephant herpes virus.

Our family spends a lot of time at the zoo, and we spent the summer of 2006 eagerly watching Shanti as her belly swelled along with mine. When Mac was born in October, I felt about the size of a pregnant elephant, and couldn't imagine how Shanti managed to give birth to the largest elephant born in captivity. But when we went to visit him for the first time, he was only about a week old, and he looked tiny. Elephantine, but tiny, next to his Mama.

Bryce cried himself to sleep last night. Annie sobbed too, asking me if I thought Shanti was ok. They cried much harder over Mac than they did when their great-grandma died a few months ago, but they've also watched him grow up. Just a couple of weeks ago we stood for a long time outside of the elephant enclosure and watched Mac and Tucker (the resident three-year-old) swing their trunks at each other.

Bryce was so sad this morning that he said the only thing to make him feel better would be for me to come to school and have lunch with him. Maybe he was milking it, but it totally worked.

1. The Houston Zoo
2. Eating lunch with all of my kids
3. A clean house (at least for the moment!)