He's out there hoeing again

My days are filled with slobber right now. Slobber is what drools out of Morgan's mouth. She chews on everything right now. This drives Ava insane and then I hear about it all day. "Eeeew, slobber." "Mom, Morgan slobbered on this." "Mom! This is covered in slobber." "Aaaah, I can't touch that, it's slobbered." "SLOBBER!"

I'm losing my mind.

I feeling like I'm out hoeing my dirt patch in the the middle of winter. (thanks for the neighbor story Christy...it is completely relevant to my life right now.)

teaparty sidebar: So we got Ava a tea set for christmas and we've put it to good use. She invites a few friends over each week for fancy nancy teaparties. Today, we'll be serving frosted animal cookies, skittles, and cream soda.

bryan sidebar: I forgot to mention that Bryan came to town and we had a blast. I love that boy.

Stake evaluation sidebar: So this past weekend has been insane. Primary party x 100 kids, issues I can't mention, and Ward Conference which = Stake evaluation. We survived...I think. I'm meeting with the Stake Primary Pres this week to get the results. I figure it will be more positive than the last when I got steamrolled by the (former) Stake-Pres-Primary-Nazi (who believed that Sharing Time should not be fun and all business...like a dumbed down Gospel Doctrine class.) Don't get me wrong, the Nazi was good for me, but I'm grateful for the new president.

some will use the cats for good, others for evil

We officially donated all our baby stuff to goodwill. No more baby car seat, bassinet, highchair, etc. We're still holding on to the crib but other than that: finito. I don't know what inspired Aaron to finally let go but he did. I think he has finally accepted that we're not having any more children and has come to terms with not having a boy. Sit Ubu sit, good boy.

I feel the need, the need for speed

Yesterday I took kids + friends for a walk to the reservoir. As we were rounding up friends, I asked Bryn if she wanted to wear her boots (cuz we still have lots of snow) or her tennis shoes. She thought for a minute and said she wanted to wear her "Fancy Nancy" shoes because she can run fast in them and she wanted to be fast.

Later, when we were walking along the trail, the older girls thought it was awesome to run ahead which made it harder for Bryn and Becca to keep up. Bryn eventually became frustrated and yelled to Lauren to wait up. The older girls stopped and Becca took off to catch up. Just before Bryn ran after her, I saw Bryn looking down at her feet and then I heard her say out loud to herself, "Why aren't these things working?"

Faster shoes are such a magical thing.

Which inspired an idea for a story that I storyboarded the rest of the way to the park. It is the manuscript I'm going to finish this year: The Faster Shoes [a modern retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk]. Thanks Bryn. I already have the first page done and want to enter it into a contest for this month.

I'm like an otter, a sexy little otter

Here she is in all her glam, my 2010 goal list. I'm only throwing up one ball at a time this year...so we'll see if I get them done this way. I think one a month is good:

[jan] De-mom my car and maintain for 22 days (the arbitrary habit-forming day count)
[feb] Declutter my two stash spots (laundry room & kid cupboards) and maintain.
[mar] Attend a writing conference (NCWC).
[apr] Repotty train Morgan (we've been in regression for too long.)
[may & sept] Run two races: bolder boulder (if we aren't in santa cruz) & my southlands 5K.
[jun] Read the Book of Mormon with Lauren before she is baptised.
[jul] Complete a basic drawing class with Bryn.
[aug] Read 12 middle grade novels.
[oct] Teach Ava all her letters & sounds.
[nov] Give an accounting of my spend-less/want-less for the year. This means writing down everything I spend money on...hopefully this will deter frivolous spending and then I can see where I needlessly spent.
[dec] Finish a new manuscript.

There's a lot of stuff that didn't make the cut but I figure this is a more manageable list of things that I really want to accomplish.

solve this one sherlock

The backstory: yesterday, Lauren came home crying. An older boy from up the street yelled at her, "Your freckles are ridiculous." A bunch of kids laughed. This crushed her. She's the only one in her class that has freckles and it makes her feel different. After a few minutes I was able to calm her down. I thought about going and talking to his mom but didn't want to give it more attention and chalked it up to mean kids.

Today, I got a call from the Vice Principal of Lauren's school. He had called Lauren, the older boy and the older boy's brother into his office. Apparently there was more to the said incident the day before. Here is a retelling of what happened as far as I, the VP, and the boys' dad could determine:

Lauren and the younger boy, Ben (also 7), were sitting together on the bus reading a book together. Lore and Ben are really good friends. Ben's older brother came over to them and began to tease them that they were boyfriend/girlfriend.

Lore is not allowed to have a boyfriend and isn't interested in boys yet. So the teasing offended her. She protested several times. To which Ben asked why she wouldn't be his girlfriend.

And she responded, "When I have a boyfriend his skin won't be brown." Did I mention Ben is black? Yeah.

Naturally this hurt Ben's feelings and then now you can understand why his brother made the freckle comment.

Well this also put Ben's parents out of sorts and they ran to the school to complain. I understand their anger but they could have come over to our house instead of the school. Whatever. Lauren was devastated to be called into the VP's office. When they talked it out, they all apologized. And then I went over and talked to the parents after school. Everything is fine.

Lore wasn't trying to be racist (she doesn't even know what that means). And I think they understand this.

The crazy thing is, we've tried hard to teach our kids that skin color is no different that hair or eye color. If we were all the same, life would be boring. But it still backfired.

Innocently,Lore was just thinking that when you have a boyfriend then you marry them and she wants to marry someone like her dad who happens to be white. This of course came out wrong. And in the future her response will be: I don't want a boyfriend because I'm not allowed.

uggh. rough day.

How in the world do you teach your children that everyone is equal without having to explain racial sensitivities?

We basically told Lore that just how she was hurt by them making fun of what makes her unique, she had hurt Ben's feeling for same reasons.

And I'm still a bit upset with the VP for calling me about race but not calling the boys' parents about name calling (which he knew about). When I mentioned the freckle/skin comment to the dad it was news to him. And obviously the freckle comment does not weigh the same but it made Lauren cry just as much. Her self esteem is just as damaged. What's a mom to do?

dashing, dashing, dashing, dashing

The Christmas download. Two weeks, relative bliss. Here's the top ten:

1. squeals of delight on Christmas morning (and during the Chimpmunk squeakual--brutal but worth the squeals)
2. Ry & Christy & crew for all around fun playing Nintendo, pump it up, monkey biz, games, blokus (which Ava now calls Punk. Who wouldn't want to play Punk?), yadda, yadda, yadda, good times.
3. snowboarding with Lauren
4. sledding and snow fights. Sorry to those who got a facial.
5. Band Hero with the Cannons. I really suck on vocals.
6. kids sleeping in till 8:30a.
7. two weeks and no church meetings
8. seeing Jen & Jer and family
9. The Aquarium
10. Morgan chowing through her whole stocking before dinner.

Bottom Five

1. Creating a seating map for primary and then walking into a Primary Rm completely reconfigured by the previous ward...note to self: coordinate with other wards next year.
2. Kids after the squeakual.
3. Overtired kids.
4. Morgan throwing up on the way to the ski resorts.
5. The last snowboard run with Lore...I knew I shouldn't have pushed it and I paid for it.

you like that?

Just to give you an idea of how my week is going (and thus explains why I haven't posted in a bit):

Today I'm wearing maternity garments. I'm not pregnant. I'm just really really behind on laundry. All I had was maternity this morning. And they are giant awful granny panties. I guess I should be grateful that they're loose.

swine laundry. Why can't it clean itself? Like a cat.