Where I admit to buying a doll. For myself.

I think that as parents, we all live vicariously through our children.

Take Christmas at our house, for example. Shane knows all the toys to buy my kids. He suggests toys and entertainment items that end up being exactly what the boys want because of one little secret: it's what he really wants. Most years, I don't know who is more excited for the toys to be opened, him or the kids. He wants to play with the trucks and put together the legos and drive the remote control cars.

This is all fine and dandy. For him. But what about MY living vicariously?

None of the aforemention items were included in my childhood Christmases. With 3 sisters, Christmas was a mass of clothes and baby dolls and barbies and anything else that went along with girls. As my boys have outgrown Little People (which I totally loved, and therefore enjoyed having them opened during the past few Christmases) I get less and less vicariously living through their toys.

Now this same principle applies to most events where the purchasing of toys comes into play. Sadly, most often the toys that get purchased around my house come housed in a paper box underneath little pieces of edible chicken and french fries. There are times when even these lame toys are fun enough for Shane to want to play with. Me? I get nothing.

So I recently took matters into my own hands. Meet my two new friends.

I am a little (but only a little) bit embarressed to say how inordinately excited I was that McDonalds had the Wizard of Oz dolls available in the female brand of Happy Meals. It was physically painful to leave the McDonalds lobby in our local Walmart when I saw them. There I stood with my two boys, each of us ogling the Happy Meal toys (they had Bat Man toys for boys, you see). I determined that we really needed to eat out for dinner that night, and was happy to buy the kids Micky D's while we ordered Cafe Rio takeout.

"Oh, and can you throw in one of the Wicked Witch of the West dolls with those boy Happy Meals? Oh, she costs $1.69? That's fine." A week later, after my new green faced dolly spent days sitting on the kitchen counter all alone, I bought her friend Scarecrow. I'm on a mission to get Dorothy, and then I think I'll be satisfied.

I'll admit that once the excitement of teasing Thomas and Ben in the car about how much they secretly wanted my WWoftheWest doll more than their Bat Mat ship, it wasn't really that exciting having a doll around. I mean, it's not like I have time to sit around and play with her.

But, for a minute, I got to be a girl. I got to buy a girl toy, something I don't have much experience with in my life full of jumping, wrestling, noise-creating --but incredibly cute-- boys. It was fun and spontaneous and made me feel a little more joy in my life for a little while.

If only the hat would come off. I was dying to brush Wicked Witch's hair. Even with the green face, she's a lot cuter than Bat Man.

And come on, admit it. You know you wanted one too.

Book Review

My sister Amy and I decided we should review every book we read this year. I don't think I've been 100% successful, but I'm still trying. I've been a book peruser lately; I'm reading about 5 right now, and I can't seem to get into any one of them. Plus, I'm rereading my SDBBE book so I can make the necessary notes & comments that make SDBBE so enjoyable.

This is one that I have recently FINISHED.

An Invisible Sign of my Own, by Aimee Bender.

I found this book off another blogger's blog; hi, Special K. I had started Aimee Bender's short story collection, Willfull Creatures, but short stories aren't really my thing. I can appreciate them, but I don't enjoy them on the whole. So when I heard about An Invisible Sign of my Own, I did what I do best: requested it from the library. I love the library but that's an entirely different post..

Invisible Sign is one of those books that you either will like or not like. It starts by telling the story of a town that had found the secret to eternal life. Yay for them, right? Wrong, because there were too many people inhabiting the town, crowding up the streets and alleyways. The solution was for each family to kill off one of their own, a token sacrifice, a hero that would allow the greater good to continue on for those who lived on. The problem was one family who couldn't decide on one, so they cut off random parts of themselves, a leg here, an arm there, an eye somewhere else. Eventually everyone in the town got uncomfortable around this legless, armless, eyeless family and they were forced to move to the next town.

After this cheerful introduction, we are introduced to Mona Grey, who likes to knock on wood, eat soap, and quit things she is good at. Mona is asked to teach math at the elementary school where she is introduced to an intersting bunch of second graders. The second graders love Mona's class, and she begins to love them despite her tendency to sabotage things that make her happy.

I really liked Mona. Sometimes authors who write "quirky" books (sorry for the lame word) just make them that way for the sake of being different and distinct. I read a book like this in college by Samuel Becker named Molloy. The main character sucks on pebbles and describes their taste and texture for page upon page upon page. Dull, dull, pointless reading. If the characters don't grow or learn anyting through the course of the book, I wonder why the author bothered to keep writing.

So, while quirky, I liked that Aimee Bender wrote a book that stepped out of the bounds of typical fiction but still allowed for growth and resolution of the initial problem. Mona learns that you don't have to cut off your leg to acheive happiness, that seemingly random events don't always culminate in the death of loved ones. She learns that she doesn't have to sabotage everything that is good in her life. And that is good fiction.

Blankets & hiking and such

Here are a few blankets I've made this summer for all the sweet babies that have been born to my friends. I don't have a picture of my first blanket, but here are the rest.

The only one I got to buy PINK for. I went a little crazy. I don't get to buy pink very often.


I loved making this one. The yellow was so happy.



This is the one I was complaining about the other day. It turned out better than I thought after I scrapped the fabrics that weren't working. I hope that my neighbor will like this one. I kind of ran out of fabric, so I had to improvise & add in some left overs from other blankets. It turned out better than I expected.


On another note, we went on a little hike up one of the Cottonwood canyons today. It was so fun. My kids love to be out in the mountains, and it's fun to have them be big enough to do big kid stuff. Here are my favorite pictures.

A nice hiker took this group shot of us. I might just have to print it and frame it. The first year we were married Shane and I went to this little spot by the river. We have gone back 4 or 5 times now. I kept thinking today about the first time we took Thomas there. He was about 15 months and wasn't walking yet. I'd dressed him in a really dark red long sleeved onsie and blue overalls. I found a tree that had red leaves and took his picture next to it. I still remember the red of the leaves and his shirt contrasting the blond of his still curly baby hair and blue eyes. Good times. Another sweet memory from today to file away.

I loved the light in this one. Oh, and my three cute boys. I don't know what I would do without them. I feel really good lately; more like me than I've felt in a long time. It feels good.

Some random stuff

• (A thought while running tonight, listening to my mp3) "Really, Alanis Morrisette? All that angst over UNCLE JOEY?"(Apparently he recently talked to the media about Alanis and the song, saying that she was an angry person and that he might of hurt her. Really? UNCLE JOEY?)



• Mamma Mia, which might be my favorite movie ever, just keeps going through my brain over and over. I bought the soundtrack. I've listened to it about a zillion times. Me and my kids are singing the songs together in the car. How did I miss this awesome musical? What closet have I been hiding in? I cried during the part when they sang Dancing Queen. It made me remember being young with my friends and dancing and watching movies about dancing and going dancing...Rebecca, if you read this post: I miss you. I miss us.



• While getting ready to go down to help get my dad situated, I pondered which camera to take. Then I wondered: do you really document such an event? I took it, but I thought it was a little weird, taking pictures of something that isn't really a happy thing. Strange.
  


• It has been a year this week since I had a big bunion cut off my foot. It's strange that a - I had a bunion and b - it's now gone. I remember after I was out of surgery and the doctor was leaving, I asked if they could bring me the remains of my bunion. They told me no, it was in the garbage. Then I made a fool of myself calling people while drugged. Fun stuff. But, a year ago today, my foot looked like this: Yes, I took a picture of it the morning before. I miss that bump a little, and the ability to curl my big toe under. But I added another cool scar to my foot scar collection. Yay for me.

• I am blogging tonight because I'm stalling. I should be working on a blanket I'm making for a friend who is having a baby, and the blanket is turning out to be hideously ugly and I don't have the energy to buy more fabric to make it cute. So I'm blogging instead. Yay for you, huh?

Alright. Enough stalling. Ugly as it may be, I'll try to finish the blanket.

And thanks to everyone for reading my post yesterday. I hope it wasn't whiney. I just wanted to document that day for me and my family. I love having the internet to share those kinds of things.

The proper removal of band aids.

Just rip it off, right? Because then it will hurt less.

Today was the day that my dad stopped living in the home he's occupied for over 30 years. It is a sad day, but a necessary one. He just isn't safe living at home anymore. My mom can't take care of him anymore. I can't blame her; she has lived day in and day out with alzheimers for 3 years now.

Before you pull the adhesive, take a big breath.


Two of my sisters gathered at the care center with my mom this morning. I entered a foreign room filled with my dad and mom and sisters, a few of my dad's things littering the floor and bed. An empty suitcase. Clothes in a closet. A bed on wheels. Cozy old people chairs.

My dad's new residence? Bizarre, but true.

I watched them take his weight, ask him his height. His hands were folded quietly, but his feet wiggled a nervous jig minute after minute after minute. His eyes were a little moist, and he looked at me from the depths of brown. Was he trying to convey something? He couldn't express the feelings, but they came out just the same.

Kiss afterward to make it feel better.

I worried about leaving him, sitting alone in that foreign room with his familiar things. But I was spared. Moments before I left, it was magically lunch time, and he was lead down to the dining room, introduced around, and invited to join in on a game of "throw the poker chip into the pie tin" (the game that is sweeping the nation.)

He walked the chip over to the tin and dropped it in. Everyone laughed, his new friend Becky in the wheelchair called him a cheater, and for a moment I saw my dad's smile transform him into the man I once knew. Then I could kiss him and walk away.

Wait for time to heal all wounds.

And wait I shall. But not for his healing, but my own.

I love you, Dad.

To Thomas...

Dear Thomas,

Your brother Ben is now the age you were when he was born. This should make me think of Ben, but it makes me think of you, and those weeks and months and now years after Ben was born.

We had you to ourselves for 3 1/2 years. You had a mom and a dad and you didn't have to share us with anyone. If I babied you a little, well, it was natural: you were my baby. So what if I still fed you every morsel of food (can you just see me spoon feeding spaghetti-o's to a 3 year old?), or if I called you Baby or Sunshine more than your actual name? I didn't have anyone else to call or treat like one, and so you were the magnificent beneficiary of all that undivided love and attention.

I can still remember how you suddenly catapulted into Big Kid-dom. It happened a few hours after I had Ben, when you came and visited me. The little hands that wrapped around my neck were suddenly much larger than I remembered, especially with other smaller hands to compare them to. Part of your world now included the role as big brother, which brought responsibility to your life that you'd never experienced. There was no way I could prepare you or myself for those changes.


I know this is the burden of all big brothers and sisters. But I'm sorry that you had to bear it. I watch Ben now (at the age you were then) and I still see him as little, and yet I remember thinking of you as big. What a dichotomy. Each day that you grow older, you are the big brother, and so I see you as big. But when I look back at your younger self in pictures, I remind myself that you were little.

One of my favorite passages is from the Poisonwood Bible. It says that your first child is your best foot forward, and you glory in each step and milestone and crow it to the world.

I've done that with you your whole life. You are my original experiment, and I am still learning how amazing you are, and how amazing it is to be the mom of a 7 year old. But I wish I could go back in time again to where you were my little one, rather than my big. I wish I could go back and be a little more understanding of 3 1/2 when I had newborn. I wish for that for one minute we could be sitting on our hospital bed the morning after you were born, gazing into each other's eyes. I'm proud of who you are, but for one minute I wish you could be this boy again.

I hope that you don't hold it against me that you had to grow up in my heart.

Love, Momma

Random thoughts

Yesterday I put a huge amount of time into writing what was probably the whiniest post ever written in the history of the blogosphere. I posted it, and 20 minutes later deleted it. I don't think anyone beyond my husband read it, which is a good thing.

It went something like this: Whine, whine, whine, my extended family makes me whine because of whiney things they whined at me 16 years ago. Poor me. Boo hoo.

You should have read it. Wait, actually, be glad you didn't.

But then I read my sister's blog, which detailed an accident that had happened to her father-in-law and I realized just how whiney I sounded. My stupid post suddenly seemed so inconsequential. I'm still glad that I wrote it, because like I said, Shane read it and it gave us something really good to talk about on our drive home. But I didn't really need to share it with the world.

It made me think about blogging in general. I've been so inspired by other bloggers use of their blog to uplift and inspire others. I don't think that many people come here to my blog for that. I don't know that my blog has a specific purpose, other than I love being able to have a place to write things that I'd never write otherwise. I love reading the comments that my blogging friends make. I seriously read them again and again (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that!) and enjoy them each time. But I don't think that I just write for comments. I like sharing my little corner of the world with the world. If I learn something along the way, even better, and if I make a new friend, that is the best.

So thanks to all my blogging friends. You are very welcome in my life, and I treasure our acquaintance.

I spent some time listening to conference talks yesterday as well. I listened to Elder Ballard's talk, which was intended for young mothers. How this talk inspired me. He reminded me that our children only spend a quarter of their life under our direct supervision. How important this time is that we have with them! And what an absent mother I can be sometimes, even when I'm in the same room! I was reminded that I need to try to put away my selfishness and focus on them more while they are still little. The time will come when they won't be yelling at me to watch them try to do a cartwheel or asking me to make them a paper airplane. I'm ashamed that I needed such a reminder, but inspired that I can and will do better. I guess we all need reminders every now and then.

I went home and spent more time with my boys. I watched Thomas pretending to be a Karate teacher, and Ben trying to do everything he could to thwart Thomas' pretending. I handled things a little differently when they started fighting with each other over the swimming kick board that Thomas was using as his pretend skateboard. I really tried to see them, and be with them. It was only few minutes, but it made me feel so much closer to them. Hopefully I can remember those feelings and act on them more frequently.

So ends my random thoughts. I've got about ten other things I want to write about (Ben starting preschool is one of them; squeee - 2 free hours a week, guilt free!!!) but they'll have to wait. Happy Tuesday to everyone.

Where is Becky?

Hey, I'm guest posting over at Hola, Isabel today (well, since yesterday, but I didn't realize til today!) Check me out!

I hope my post wasn't too dorky. You guys can be the judge of that. And, because I know you've been wondering, you can find out exactly why I don't have many vacation posts....

Book Reviews

I'm way, way behind on book reviews, so I'm doing them group style. Here we go!

Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner

It took me four (4) months to read this book. Not because I wasn't interested, but just because I had 2 Stephanie Meyer books to read, 4 SDBBE books, and a few library books in the middle.

This book is a classic, but a good classic. It tells the story of a historian who is researching the life of his grandmother, Susan Ward. Susan married a man who was way ahead of his times in engineering. The result of that was that most of his ideas were ahead of both the technology of his time and the vision of his counterparts. As the couple went from disaster to disaster, the book details the loss of faith that Susan experiences in her husband and the possibilities for their family. She uprooted herself and her family more times that I can count, living her life through the correspondence she sent back East to her more successful contemporaries.

It is a stunning book (despite the longevity of my reading time; it never takes me that long to read a book, with the exception of Anna Karinina, which is my nemesis). The prose is beautiful, and resonates on so many levels. I would recommend it to anyone, although it is quite long and detailed. But you won't be dissappointed if you give it a chance.

High Fidelity

I read this for my last SDBBE round three book. (SDBBE is a book exchange that I belong to where you read books that are mailed to you from other readers. There were 4 readers in my group, and so each month for four months, I would recieve a book that I would then mail on to another reader. We all read and commentate in the books with different colors of ink, so by the time you get to the last one, there are lots and lots of comments to go through as you read.) I really enjoyed it. I've read another book by Nick Hornby, but I liked this one a lot more. It took me a little bit to get into, but I really enjoyed the humor in it. The best part was that since it was the last book that was exchanged, I had 3 other commentators reading it along with me. It is so fun to get to know the people in your group and recognize their humor. My group has the trial of trying to decipher my handwriting in each of the books I pass on. Sorry about that, May, Isabel and Britt!

But I liked High Fidelity. I'd like to see the movie now. I love John Cusack, and I can totally see him playing the main character, Rob. Thanks, Isabel!

Midwife's Story

This was the 3rd SDBBE book. I love stories about babies being born, and so I loved this book. I wish I had the guts to do what they do (have babies with a midwife, in their house), but I don't. Plus I really love my OB/GYN, and can't imagine having a baby without his help. And, since the midwife helps mostly Amish women, I'm out of the running all together.

Anyway, this book really hit a personal note. One of the chapters talked about a girl who's baby died a few months before birth, and how the midwife had to deliver the baby, knowing it had passed on. I read that chapter with tears in my eyes, remembering my dear sweet niece who had the same experience. I can't believe how strong God makes some women, and how tough the trials have to be. It was a great book; thanks a lot for picking it, Britt.

Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer

I am glad that this series is over. I liked this book a lot more than Eclipse, but I still can't get back to how I felt after reading Twilight. I think that Bella is whiney, I think Edward became a characature devoted to carrying Bella around, and I think that Renesmee is the dumbest, ugliest baby name ever.

I thought Bella's gift was pretty cool. But I think she worries about all the wrong things. Who doesn't look in the mirror on their wedding day? How could you have that little interest in marrying the man you love? And why couldn't she have screwed up just a little, have been a little bit vulnerable as a new vampire? Why did she have to be so controlled? I think it's a cop out. Sorry. Again, glad the series is over.

Whew. I felt all summer like I was moving from book to book, crossing them off in my head as I finished them like a grocery list. I've got a few books on the shelf right now, and I don't feel pressured to read anything, which is a great feeling.

I'm going to post this; maybe I'll come back later and add pictures of the books. And maybe I won't.