Daring Young Mom

Lately we’ve been reading a version of Sleeping Beauty FRE-QUENT-LY.

Laylee (wearing big pink wings): Magoo can be the wicked fairy. (to Magoo) You can be the wicked fairy.
Laylee (slamming Magoo’s head between two pillows): You’re the wicked fairy and I’m the good fairy. (slam slam)
Magoo: WAAAAHHHH!!!!
Me: Laylee. Please stop hitting your brother.
Laylee: He’s the wicked fairy!
Me: Not anymore. He doesn’t like being the wicked fairy.
Laylee: Then YOU’re the wicked fairy.
Me: No I’m not.
Laylee: Yes you are the wicked fairy.
Me: No I’m not.
Laylee: Okay, I’m the wicked fairy.

Later today –
Laylee: We’re having juice for dinner.
Me: Yes
Laylee: Did Jesus make this juice?
Me: Well, Jesus and Heavenly Father made the earth and they made the plants that grow on it. So they made..
Laylee: And goats?
Me: Yeah, goats too. So someone squeezed the apples to make juice.
Laylee: So Jesus made this juice?
Me: Okay.
Laylee: It’s easier to walk if you have feet. We have feet and so we can walk. Did Heavenly Father make us our green couch?
Me: Not really. He made the trees and then we used the wood to make the couch.
Laylee: Penguins are supposed to have wings.
Me: Yes, they do.
Laylee: So they want to fly.
Me: Yeah, but they can’t fly with their wings.
Laylee: Do penguins have fish on their movie (been watching ‘March of the Penguins’ lately)
Me: Yes, they eat the fish.
Laylee: What do the baby penguins eat?
Me: You know how Mommy eats food and then it turns into milk in my body like magic and Magoo eats it out of my breasts?
Laylee: Nods
Me: Well, the momma penguins eat the fish and then it turns into special baby food inside of them and then they feed it to the baby penguins out of their mouth
Laylee (attentively): So it’s like magic. And the fairy godmother uses her wand to make a magic dress for Cinderella to wear. She can’t wear her pink dress if it gets ripped.
Me: Yeah.
Laylee: But now Cinderella’s not lost.
Me: Oh? Where is she?
Laylee: She’s in the cupboard. See. (Runs to cupboard and pulls out the dvd case)
Me: Ah.
Laylee: Up please.
I lift her up.
Laylee: You are the strongest girl in the WORLD!

Sorry. That may have been misleading. Not YOU, the internet world. Let me esplain. Nope. There is too much. Let me sum up.

My fabulous Uncle “Jay” used to always say:

You can pick your nose
And you can pick your friends
But you can’t pick your relatives

I blindly believed this little “nugget” of knowledge for many years but today I will lay waste to Uncle Jay’s conclusions.

1. You can not pick your nose, not all the time, not in public, not without a tissue, and MOST especially not in front of your mom, who (if she’s me) will tell you how yucky and germy it is. She will then make you wash your hands and sing the entire alphabet song while rubbing the soap in.

2. You can sort of pick your friends. Sometimes you pick friends who don’t care to be friends with you. They publicly mock you in Junior High because you still listen to New Kids on the Block so you go home and burn all of your Jordan Knight posters and destroy your Hangin’ Tough cassette, only to continue to be publicly shunned and have your name immortalized on the bathroom wall in permanent marker along with a word your mother told you NEVER to say. (Incidentally, I did find Hangin’ Tough in mint condition at a Value Village in Quebec one summer during college so I’m doing better now.)

Sometimes they pick you when you don’t want to be picked.

3. Once and only once in your life do you get to pick your relatives.

Yesterday was a day of slovenliness. If Sunday was a day of rest, then Saturday was a day of dead-cheese-laying-on-the-couch-in-a-bathrobe. Seriously. I didn’t eat lunch until 3:45 and didn’t shower until the evening. I cleaned nothing. We played and chilled all day.

At about 9pm, I got the bug of productivity and started cleaning like mad. We stayed up until 3 in the morning, me cleaning and watching the West Wing Season 1 and Dan stirring up newt’s eyes and toad’s fingers on his computer to create a new program to help with the administration of the Cirque des Mamans.

At some point around 1 am, I was taking out the recycling when I realized I was looking like a piece of hud and was mumbling some sort of incoherent half-song, half-baby-babble-chant about “Ooo-blah-bagga-bladda-ya-dadda-wa-joojie” aloud to myself, while shuffling tin cans in a house that had been a disaster all day.

DYD sat in his pajamas unfazed. He looked up at me and smiled and continued to work.

I was babbling like an idiot in a strange made-up language, watching left-wing propaganda in his living room and keeping us up until 3 am because I wasted the whole day and he was smiling at me with love, while working on a program I asked him to write for me.

I would never EVER have felt comfortable in this state with ANY boyfriend I ever had. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Do you know who this guy is? He’s my family. This should have hit me on our wedding day when we were sealed for time and eternity and everyone told us we were officially a family now, no matter how small. This should have hit me when we had our children. It did, in a way, each of those times.

But for some reason last night, it hit me the hardest. Life is strange. Dan is my family. We are a family. He is my closest relative and I got to pick him. Uncle Jay, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

It’s probably because I live too close to those Pike Market guys.

Or maybe it has something to do with the massive amount of tuna I prepared for dinner group and some wandering missionaries last night.

The dinner smelled like fish, not the missionaries…well maybe they smell like fish now. Oh, and they were Mormon missionaries, if you must know. They weren’t wearing their “identification” at the time so it took me a while to ferret it out. (Please see picture to the right. This graphic was sent to me by someones hilarious who classified it as an “S&E Fish and Chips Award FOR MORMONS ONLY, GOSH!” in the category of Good Sportsmanship While Being Absolutely Hilarious. It made me laugh…for a really long time.

Thursday I made a conscious decision to tackle the most “taxing” item on my to-do list and work on that one thing at the expense of everything else I had to do.

So, um, yeah.

I spent ALL DAY working on our taxes.

I’ve done them in the past, no real problems, but we have way too many complications this year. A second child tax credit, a refi, thoughts of starting a home-based business to support my blogging habit. (Can I itemize a deduction for just thinking about a home-based business? It did take a lot of time and effort on my part and I think I should be compensated.)

So far the only things I have right are our social security numbers and W2s. Everything else will require a redo this weekend. When Dan came home, he had to pry the 50 million documents from my fingers so we could spend some time enjoying the finer things in life, things such as reading through your billions of supportive and often hilarious comments.

I’m sorry I can’t respond to each one. I really enjoyed ever single comment and hope to slowly make the trek out to each of your blogs, if I haven’t already.

I have this funny thing with reading new blogs. I always hope they’ll be lame so I won’t have one more cool blog to check in on. You people are very disappointing in that regard so far.

I have been campaigning for months to have an 80’s dance at church and the time finally came last night. The attendance was sparse at best but the music was great and the dancing even greater.

Have you ever seen a 3 year old do the Robot? Yeah, me neither. Laylee was way uncooperative last night, spending most of the evening hovering around the snack table, nursing a cup of what appeared to some sort of sherbet punch, spiked with Gak. Punch and cookies vs. learning cool new dance moves? We’ve got to get that girl’s priorities straightened out.

She did get her groove on a couple of times and was heard chanting “Too Legit! Too Legit to quit!” so I think she’ll be okay.

By now you should know that I really like posts about hair. REALLY REALLY like them. I also really enjoy show and tell. This week we’re supposed to be showing something close up.

Beauty, thy name is Aquanet! Who knew the mullet was so versatile?

When I finished this exquisite creation, Laylee asked, “What kind is that hair called?”

Me: Do you like it?
Laylee: It looks like the hair a monkey would wear.

There you have it.

***update – the writer M**** is no longer blogging publicly and has asked that I help protect her privacy so I’ve removed her name from this post and comments and removed any links I had up to her previous site, which no longer exists but which had a URL bearing her first and last name.***

Or can I just tattoo the Angel Moroni on my forehead instead? It would be a lot less itchy and would cover up more than a few…shall we call them “imperfections” on my face.

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was “What a great day to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!” I rolled to my knees and said a very humble, sincere, spiritual and heartfelt Mormony prayer.

I then got breakfast for my two little kids – yep! – they’re big fat Mormons too, both of them. So’s my husband, my mom, my dad, my 3 sisters and my brother. What a big family! Woo-hoo! We Mormons just LOVE families. (If you want to know more about what Mormons think about families, click here)

I just thought I’d make it a little easier for the bounty-hunters of discernment to find me and put me in a column somewhere.

This is an example of how certain Christians would prefer that my blog be written. Having a link on my sidebar to Mormon.org is not enough. Periodically mentioning things about my religious life is not enough. Giving back a Christian award for Humor when I found out that I was considered an evil interloper in the world of internet Christianity was not enough.

Now the person who exposed my blog as the “pea” underneath the legitimate Christian winners is at it again. She has called on her friends to go to Heather’s awards site, check out each of the nominees and put them into columns of Christian, Mormon or “Other.”

I am not making this next part up.

She is offering a reward for these bounty-hunters of faith. She says she thinks it’s fine for people to read each other, we should just all know what everybody is…

Hello. I am a human being.

What does knowing I’m Mormon have to do with caring that my son’s hand just got scorched or laughing at the way I chastise Ducky? Um…um…still thinking…

Casting Mormons and several other groups who believe in Christ out of their little club is not enough for her. She now has to seek out a group of awards that are dedicated to NOT labeling and classifying people and ruin their fun too.

Heather started the awards to recognize and reward us for the things that bring us together despite our vast differences. She wants the awards to be about “sharing the love.”

The writer who is concerned about the awards just makes me feel sad and tired all the way down to my bones! She writes that Mormons and others who are “not Christian” are sneaking their way into Christian circles by doing things like quoting C. S. Lewis on our blogs. Heck, I think Muslims should use C. S. Lewis quotes on their blog. He is just a fantastic and faith-filled man. Period. His words should be in as many places as possible. I also love the writing of Ellie Weisel and Gandhi. Am I trying to trick you into thinking I’m Jewish or Hindi? Um….no!

She says that we’re trying to convert you by weedling our way into your friendship groups. She wants bloggers to be much more clear about their “worldview” so that when people are reading you, they can take your writing with the right grain of salt.

So here are a few things you should know about my world view before you decide whether or not to read this blog any more:

-I am LDS, a card-carrying Mormon (had you gotten that yet or was I still being too sneaky?).
-I am not affiliated with any political party.
-I love being a mom.
-I don’t mind the Seattle rain that much.
-I give birth in hospitals.
-I like strawberry ice cream.
-I eat meat and vegetables, classifying me as an omnivore.
-I was raised white but Laylee has informed me that mommies can be blue or brown too.
-I cheer for the Calgary Flames hockey team. Any questions?

Run away. Run away now Edmonton Oilers fans!

Maybe I’ll carry this philosophy of making sure people are aware of everyone’s worldview into the way I speak with my friends in real life.

“Hey, my friend Shanna wrote me the sweetest note. I should warn you she’s a Republican.”

“Don’t you think Karen’s doing a great job on the PTA, besides the fact that she was a Girl Scout in junior high?”

“Come on Scott, we should be a little wary of your stance on the environment. You eat Chunky Beef Burger Soup with a FORK!”

Come on! Yes. I am LDS. I believe in LDS doctrine. If I did not, I wouldn’t put so much effort into my religion. It is sacred to me. A lot of people don’t believe in modern day prophets, Christ as their divine Savior, or read the Book of Mormon. Guess what!? They can belong to other religions or none at all.

THIS IS NOT A RELIGIOUS BLOG. It is a blog about my life, my kids and whatever the heck I want to write about. Sometimes I want to write about my mullet. Sometimes I want to write about my daughter’s prayers. Some people want to write a lot about their religious beliefs on their blogs and that’s fine. I read several “religious” blogs from various faiths and I enjoy them.

This blog is written by a person who likes you for your wonderful qualities and for the stories of your kids’ vomit and vandalism, that make me feel better about my own exciting mommy life.

It is written by a person who does not want to stamp labels on people.

It is written by a person who is sick and tired of this whole subject.

It is also written by a person who is purposely not linking to my past posts on the subject or to the blog of the woman who questions your discernment for even reading this far.

One last thing – I know that LDS people differ in belief from other Christian faiths just like other Christian faiths disagree with each other (This links to a great post by DYD about defining Christianity. Man, I like him!). I know some people don’t categorize us as Christians. I also know what I believe and anyone who comments on this blog to tell me “what I really believe but just don’t know it, even though I’ve been a member for 27 years” will be deleted.

I’m sick of the drama.

So, as I was taking the picture of my lovely flowers, I heard this hideous wailing like Magoo’s arms were being cut off. My first feeling was annoyance, “Give him back the toy already and we can all carry on to lead productive lives!”

I openned the door to find Magoo standing, supporting himself with his hands against the electric wall heater. As I ran over, he dropped to the ground and wouldn’t stop wailing. Laylee has never been burned by one of these heaters. But then, she’s a girl.

I ran his hands under cold water, put a wet washcloth on his palms and called the Urgent Care Facility 10 minutes from our house. Nope. They don’t mess around with hand burns on little kids. I’d have to take him to the hospital ER 30 minutes away.

I’m usually pretty good in emergencies and tend to break down AFTER but this was not one of those times. I kind of started freaking out. I called Dan at MegaCorp and he said he’d meet me at the hospital. But what about the car trip over there? Who would hold the cold cloth on his hands?

I had this picture in my mind of his hands curling up into permenant fists as the skin contracted and healed taut on the drive over. As I was voicing this concern to DYD, the doorbell rang. It was my mother’s helper. This week we’d changed the day and she was here to help with whatever I needed.

“Get in the car. We’re going to the ER and I need you to hold a wet washcloth on Magoo’s burns.”

“Um……I brought you these sugar cookies.”

Helper sang songs to Magoo as he screamed bloody murder the entire way. The singing was good as it camouflaged the nasty things I was saying to the incredibly lame and insensitive drivers I was passing in the retchin’ fretchin’ rush hour traffic.

I would like to take this moment to yell at the lady who drove in the fast lane, boxing me in at 62 mph on the freeway while the lane in front of her remained clear as far as the eye could see.

WHAT IN THE NAME OF CHEESE IS WRONG WITH YOU!!????? I FLASHED MY BRIGHTS. I WAVED YOU TO MOVE OVER. I VERBALLY AND GESTURALLY BEGGED YOU TO MOVE OVER…IN MY MINI-VAN! YOU WERE DRIVING THE SAME SPEED AS THE PEOPLE IN THE SLOW LANE! YOU JUST SAT THERE, SHAKING YOU SHAGGY HEAD OF 80’S HAIR LIKE YOU WERE GONNA TEACH ME A LESSON!

I LEARNED A LESSON. I LEARNED THAT YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR LICENSE REVOKED ON ACCOUNT OF HAVING NO MERCY IN YOUR SOUL.

Aaahhh. I’m glad I got that off my chest. There should be some universal symbol for “I’m not just a wacko who’s driving like a crazed maniac because I’m late for a tennis lesson. I’m taking my kid to the EMERGENCY ROOM. Kindly move out of my ever-living way.” She had me blocked in for fully 5 minutes people, all the time shaking her head and maintaining a constant 62 on her speedometer, all the while I’m sure my son will never have the use of his poor disfigured hands again.

So eventually we got there. Helper ran in the front doors with Magoo while I went to find a parking spot. She then sat in the lobby with Laylee while DYD and I went back to triage.

Magoo got to splash in some water.

This was the first time in his life he didn’t want to splash in some water.

But, being the over-prepared-for-usually-all-the-wrong-things mom that I am, I had a measuring cup and water toys in my diaper bag, along with a change of clothes for after the splattering.

They wrapped his hand in a bandage with ointment and told me to try to keep it on. Ha HA! It didn’t last 2 minutes in the car.

I had him back in to the pediatrician’s office this morning to check in. We go back on Friday and on Monday to check for infection. In the meantime, I’m supposed to keep him bandaged, while he pulls at the gauze with his fingers, teeth, toes, charred gimpy stump, etc.

Really, it’s not that bad. He has 4 long skinny blisters on his palm. What the doctors are really worried about is the chance of complications caused by infection because he crawls on all fours like a dog, licks the bottom of shoes, and splashes in the toilet if I ever leave the bathroom door open a crack. I think they’re also worried about that poor lady and what happened to her to make her such an unfeeling wench.

We drugged the Magoo with Ibuprofen, put the kids to bed and finished a lovely Valentine’s Day with a game of cards and some shnuggling.