Silly about

When S was a baby, my mother in law once accused G and me of being "silly about" him. Well, we were. We waited a long time for that guy, and let's face it, he was extremely cute. I know at least I went through the same thing with baby A (G not so much, because A basically wouldn't have anything to do with his daddy until he was about 2). K was different, of course, because he didn't arrive until he was 3. But we definitely went through a falling-in-love time with him last year around this time.

We are, if possible, even more silly about Z than we have ever been before. Like you didn't know that by now!

Here's a little update on the development of her personality.

• Big fan of : dogs, cats, balloons, pushing buttons, brushing her own teeth, yogurt, baths, lotion, songs with actions, playing outside, taking care of baby dolls, pretending to put on makeup, putting on her own pants, berries of any kind, swinging on swings, peas, cucumbers, her ruffled cherry-print swimming suit, reading by herself, baby quilts, climbing up on the toilet to get into the cabinet, washing things with a baby wipe
  
• Not particularly fond of: being read to, riding in a car, being held in a swimming pool, riding in a stroller, diaper changes, having her hair fixed, hurrying, tomatoes, sharing the spotlight with any type of cousin, doors that are closed, bedtime, daycare
• Says: mama, daddy, baby, please, sorry, crying, yay, no, cheese, drink, mine, owie, poopoo, loud, yummy, night-night, hi, bye, wow, grandma (sounds a lot like mama), grandpa, a few other names of people

We have a chance

I know I'm not the only one who listens to Senator Barack Obama and thinks we as a country have gotten incredibly lucky, after a long, long series of screwups, to have another chance to live up to our ideals, to implement the dream of Dr. King, to reach the top of the mountain. I sincerely pray we don't blow it.

So it's another Obama song. I love 'em, OK? I'm aware politics is not realistically about lofty ideals worthy of song right now. But I think it ought to be.

GooooooooObama!

Through the mists of time

Can you see my future? Where will I live a year from now? Right here where I am now Sacramento, California Bay Area, California Washington, D.C. area Wisconsin Utah London, England Adelaide, Australia Portland, Oregon Some other unknown place ... See what your fellow fortunetellers thought!

This is, of course, just for fun.

And naturally I am not at all blogging about my husband's career or different places where he has applied for or is thinking about applying for jobs. I just chose random places. Ha.

Happy Birthday, Ph.D.-to-be

Today is the 37th birthday of Dr. G-to-be.

Pretty soon he will be closer to 40 than 35. There are still 3 more years before he can tease me back with that particular statement. And by then, he will actually be 40. I love that!

Seriously, I have a fantastic husband, as I've tried to make clear before. I'm awfully glad he's around.

Happy birthday to G!

Good for the soul

Things I need to remind myself are good for me:

• Taking a slightly longer route home to drive through my favorite tall-treed, shady neighborhood full of vintage Mission and Craftsman homes
• Stopping for hugs and tickles before I jump into dinner prep after work
• Feeding the kids kid food, putting them to bed, and making really luscious grownup food for G and me (last night: slow cooked beef roast; pan sauce with balsamic vinegar, garlic and basil; cheese polenta; peas)
• A long lunch break to feel a little more caught up on errands, a little less panicked and loserish (worth the make-up time I will spend on the laptop tonight)
• Telling G about the funny things the kids have done that he's missed, like K's very loud tick-tock noise when Grandma was singing him "Hickory, Dickory Dock," and agreeing on how cute our kids are
  
• Asking G for an update on the dissertation (progress! it's good! very encouraging)

Number 9, number 9

Happy birthday to my big boy S. You wear me out, darling child.

But I am glad you got a Wii game and Legos and soccer cleats and a crystal growing set and a whipped cream cake and mint chip ice cream and Rice Krispy treats to hand out in class. I hope your 9th birthday was great for you.

You are great for me - my first baby, the boy who made my dreams come true and turned me into a mother.

I'm so proud of the way you are growing up.

Shake it up, baby

Are you ready?

I just gave my employer two weeks' notice.

This change - such a biggie - has been some time coming. My vacation gave me time (mostly on the road and late at night) to think and pray and really come to the conclusion that it is time to let go of this job I have loved for the last four years and go back to being "just a mom" ... even though of course we all know that no one, but no one, is "just" a mom.

This blog started out, shortly after I started my job, as a working moms' group blog with a few friends. Silly me, working moms do not have time to blog! So it quickly came down to just me. It has been a useful place to spew out all my brain garbage so that I can get on with my workday. I guess that may not actually change. The blog will certainly continue to exist. I think we may have some interesting times ahead as I make this transition.

I am full of plans and ideas about how I want things to be after I leave this desk where my behind has been glued eight hours a day for the last four years. I am trying to keep my feet on the ground about it. It's hard. Eight hours seems like a lot of time when you're glued to a chair. When you're chasing kids, I know it's not really that much.

Still, a major life change would not be complete for me without a bulleted list. Here are some things I want/need to do.

• Freelance for my current employer 15-20 hours a week. This is a must, financially. I'm thankful that it is going to be possible.
  
• Free up my husband to finish his dissertation and get us all on with our lives, by taking primary responsibility for the house and kids.
• Take care of myself and my mental health by exercising daily. The last time I was doing this regularly was before Z was born. As much as I have tried, I cannot fit it in my current schedule. It has to be very high priority on the new schedule because of its stressbusting power. I won't lie, being a stay-at-home-mom stresses me out. I do remember that much.
• Improve my kids' social opportunities. Have friends over. Go to play dates and stuff.
  
• Write. My own stuff, fiction and essays, not press releases and brochures.
• Make stuff homemade - you know, food and maybe some clothes - and be really thrifty. Again, not so much a want as a need. We are going from 1.5 incomes (my salary and G's grad student stipend) to maybe .75 incomes if we are lucky (the stipend plus whatever I can do as a freelancer).
• Be a better friend, visiting teacher, and Primary teacher. I have been skimming by on all these things for the last four years. Thankfully I have had friends and companions and fellow church workers who have uncomplainingly picked up my slack. How did I get so lucky?
  
• Brush up my math skills over the next three or four years and generally prepare so that when Z goes to school, I can, too. Graduate degree, here I come. Slowly.
  

There you go. It's not totally unrealistic, right? Maybe just a little bit?

How surprising is this, by the way? My boss said she knew it was coming. Has she been reading this blog?

Rescue

My sister M1 works in a bakery supply store. Sometimes when packaging is damaged or other adverse circumstances occur, she can bring home products for use around here.

For instance, there are about 50 pounds of high quality milk chocolate pieces just sitting here. The store was getting rid of them and she was going to take them to the food bank, but one of her kids opened them and so they couldn't go there. Thus we must give them a good home.

Last night we were pulling pieces off a big block of caramel. We were fairly well behaved; after a couple pieces each we quit in favor of ice water and Mario Party 8. But I just had to share M1's quote:

"Some people rescue pets. I rescue candy."

I love my family!

Three hour tour

I'll just tell you right up front: I loved BYU. It was a great experience for me. Beyond just the fun-fun-fun of my freshman year silliness and the unusual but great experience of going through the rest of my undergraduate education as a married lady ... my education there was perfect for me. I had amazing experiences in Honors classes. I had a class in epistemology called "Thinking is Not Doubting." The subtitle could have been, "Everything you ever wanted to talk about in church but were afraid to ask." We talked about birth control, homosexuality, polygamy, the priesthood ban, you name it. Somehow this counted as a science elective. While I may have cheated myself out of a bit of science education by choosing this course, it helped me build a foundation that now lets me hold on to my testimony when the earth seems to be moving under my feet.

Some of my favorite things from my BYU days are not there anymore or just not the same - International Cinema and Eugene England come to mind ... and many things I have just lost track of. But it's still my school.

I took my kids to the old alma mater today for the kinder sales pitch. Even though my husband will probably be a professor someplace where they can get reduced tuition, BYU might still be cheaper. Also I might want them to leave home. And of course I would love for them to get what I got out of their college experience.

So we motored down to Provo today (we're staying at my parents' house in the SLC suburbs) and did a customized tour. Here's what made our list:

• BYU Bookstore. If you want to get off on the right foot with my kids, you start with candy and buying stuff. I'm not above that. We all got shirts, and the kids each got to choose a book and a dollar's worth of their poison of choice from the candy counter. And I got some chocolate covered cinnamon bears. It's an upgrade from the usual quarter pound of Swedish fish I used to go for about once a week in my Cougar days.
• Eyring Science Center. Hands-on exhibits in the lobby. I pointed out to my kids that BYU has at least four buildings for science and engineering. UC Merced (where G is finishing his Ph.D.) right now has only one. Of course, UC Merced is 3 years old to BYU's 133. Still, S was particularly impressed. K loved the dino bones.
• JSB. Replicas of the Golden Plates, Liahona, Urim and Thummim, and sword of Moroni. Z responded, "Wow!" I explained carefully that these were only replicas to help us imagine. Visited the Avard Fairbanks statue of Joseph Smith in the courtyard. Z waved goodbye to him as we left. I could not convince the kids to walk by my old workplace on the second floor. Sigh!
• Maeser Building. Just wanted to show the kids a building that was there when my dad's parents went to BYU in the 1940s. We were just with them at our Bear Lake reunion, so I think at least my older two made the connection. They are the only fellow Cougs on that side of the family; on my mom's side there are several more, though.
• Video games in the indoor games place. Does that place have a name? I never went there when I was in school. But it was a big hit with my kids.

We wanted to come back to Grandma's in time for dinner, and that was worthwhile as Uncle B made some killer spicy spaghetti. Yummy!

Anyway, so we skipped some of the things I had planned, like going to the Creamery and tooling around the mouth of Rock Canyon where G and I used to hike almost every week. I'd also like to catch the Museum of Art with the kids when they are older. And I know my cousin wanted me to try harder to hook them on BYU football. I'm going to have to recruit him to help with that - I'm such an ignoramus.

We'll save that stuff for next time. It was a fun day - the kids really were good and I actually enjoyed being out with all four of them for an entire day! That's good, huh?

I think I planted some good little seeds. I really do believe it's never too early!

Paris

We are having a fabulous family reunion at the Bear Lake Hermitage in Paris, Idaho. It's just across the street from the beautiful old Paris Tabernacle and several historical sites related to my ancestors who settled this area. The lake is fabulous, the cousins are great company, the babies are all super cute and the fresh raspberry shakes are unbeatable. Plus, my big boys are at Minnetonka Cave and my little kids are both napping at the same time! So I had a shake, browsed the antique shop and caught up on my e-mail. It actually feels like a vacation!

(P.S. Not my photo. Thanks to my kids and a very hard tile floor I am again without a functioning camera. Yes, that is two down in a year. I don't want to talk about it.)

Fifteen

Today I celebrate fifteen years married to Dr. G-to-be.

It is hard to find the right words to suggest the importance of this connection and the goodness of the man I chose. And I am not normally a person who has trouble finding words. But you know me, I will try anyway.

One lifetime with G would not be enough for all the laughter, closeness, searching, adventure and fun that has characterized our marriage so far. I am so glad to know that our partnership will last forever.

We have definitely been through ups and downs in terms of money, children, and even our relationship with each other. But I somehow found someone I know will not bail on me, no matter what. Whatever may happen to us, it happens to us together.

I don't worry about G. His goodness is so solid. It would be contrary to his character to hurt or betray our family in any way. It would be virtually impossible for him to desert our faith. He is commitment personified - and he makes it seem so easy, that it becomes easy for me. I love that about him.

Nineteen years ago he was a rock to me as I navigated a new town with new friends and challenges to my standards that I had never really encountered before. He is still that rock, that tower of strength.

But this is a guy who will not baby me. I'm not dragged behind him or put up on a false pedestal. He expects me to be right there with him. A lot of the time I don't make it. But he seems to believe I can.

Plus, the guy is funny, smart, hardworking and totally hot. It pretty much adds up to fifteen years of bliss.

No big plans or presents today. We're planning a trip for after he finishes the dreaded terminal degree that will mean he cannot be in school anymore. I think we've settled on Mexico as the location to celebrate all our accomplishments of the last fifteen years.

Happy anniversary to me and G!

Party on, Darth

From K on the way home from a pool party/wedding open house tonight:

"I was Darth K Darth Vader party boy in the pool."

"A wedding is when people get wet."

Leaf

August is a new month. I have a personal trait I need to eliminate.

I had a big heart-to-heart with Dr. G-to-be last night wherein he told me that I am just too stressed and it is affecting my family. He is really right. I have smoke coming out of my ears about 90% of the time I am with my family.

I did tell him that the words "don't stress out" don't really do much to relieve my stress. Go figure. This whole, "you do everything while I write my dissertation" business is kind of hard on me.

I am supremely disappointed at how little stress relief has come from my reduction in work hours this summer. I really thought it would help more.

Anyway, here are my questions. I sincerely want your answers. I truly intend to carry my load a little better.

• What do you do to de-stress in five minutes or less on a zero budget? In other words, when there is smoke coming out of your ears, how do you quickly put out the fire?
  
• How do you cope when everybody needs something and you're still just one person who, by the way, also needs to take care of herself?
• How do you teach your kids to be more self-sufficient and motivate them to take care of themselves a little bit, without making them feel guilty for causing your stress?

This is me turning over a new, serene leaf. Obviously, I have no idea how to do it. I'm going on faith.

G, by the way, has also pledged some improvements, for which I am grateful.

Knots

I just realized that I spent three hours in my car today and never left town.

Dropping off kids at three different places and then driving to work takes an hour.

And then, after work, picking up kids at three different places, dropping one kid off at Cub Scout Day Camp, and registering two boys for soccer at the absolute last possible moment (I signed my check two minutes before the office closed), it all added up to very nearly three hours.

I do not love driving around town, especially on a tight schedule. My town is full of train tracks and unsynchronized traffic lights and summer construction. My kids are loud and inquisitive. It stresses me out.

No wonder I come home with my stomach in knots.

I prescribed myself some chocolate pudding.

Recreation

When I was up in Yosemite at the end of June I got to go to the weekly barbecue with all the students up there. My new friend Sunny made this awesome tortellini salad. She told me it was an America's Test Kitchen recipe (always great!) but my mom couldn't find it in her big ATK book and my kids were on the computer being good, so I didn't want to disrupt that with a recipe expedition on google. And thus I just made it up and put it together from memory ... with a little improvisation, too. You know me.

Tortellini Salad with Basil

1 package small cheese tortellini (mine came from Costco), cooked
2 small-medium zucchini, sliced
1 c. cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
1/2 of a small red onion, diced (no more than 1/4 c.)
2 chicken breasts, cooked and diced (grilled would be fabulous but I was lazy and used the microwave)
2-3 slices bacon, cooked to crispy and crumbled
A big handful of fresh basil leaves, chiffonaded
1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese
1/4 c. olive oil
2 tbsp. vinegar (red or white would be fine)
generous fresh ground pepper

Whisk the oil, vinegar, cheese, basil, bacon and pepper in a large bowl. Add everything else and mix.

On the side: grapes. 'Tis the season in California! We got the most amazing tiny champagne grapes in our CSA box last night. Perfect!

I am having the best leftovers for lunch today!

Marathon

All times are approximate.

[This isn't even counting the part about getting everybody dressed and shod and loaded and buckled. We're starting at the starting line, even though we weren't quite there for the starting shot.]

• 10:02 Family enters chapel overflow sans me, as I am depositing materials in Primary classroom.
• 10:05 I arrive in chapel overflow. G and all four children are sitting in a row. Investigator and 4yo son - let's call him Curly - are taking remaining two seats on row. I pick up Z, seats her on my lap, take my seat. S has somehow managed to bring a Lego spaceship of his own design into the chapel. I don't allow my kids to bring toys to church. I don't know how he managed this. G takes it away and out to the car to be locked up.
• 10:09 We discover that Curly, who is very friendly, doesn't have an inside voice. Curly's mom seems not quite tuned in. I shush Curly. Curly demonstrates his perfected evil eye. Scary.
• 10:11 Ward librarian, sensing potential crisis, brings enough paper and crayons for all five children in row. Children begin to draw.
• 10:16 Sacrament hymn begins. I get in maybe 6-8 words. The rest of the time I am chasing Z across the aisle, where the family with the well-behaved children sits. I can see why she would like to be over there.
• 10:19 I try to get all the boys up in their seats for the sacrament prayer. Try.
• 10:20 K discovers that, as he refused to get up into his chair, he has missed the bread. K begins to wail.
• 10:21 K is back down using his chair as a desk, drawing.
• 10:22 Z wants to draw. I set her up on the chair temporarily vacated by Curly.
• 10:24 I didn't realize it was temporary. "THAT'S MY CHAIR!" Curly has found a new enemy: my baby girl. I set him up with a new paper and crayons on the adjacent chair. This works for a while.
• 10:29 The deacons sit down. My kids get their promised half-stick of Orbit gum. Curly comes back from wherever he is running around and of course K's first words are, "I got gum!" Then he opens his mouth to show it off.
• 10:31 Curly has picked up Z's baby toy. I ask him to give it back. He insists it is his. I, perhaps unwisely, wrest it from his hands. He responds by snatching Z's paper and tearing it, defiant expression on his grimy, little face. I take it from him. He throws an eraser at my head. His mother takes him up to the pews.
• 10:33 I take Z out to protect her (and me) from further retribution. K follows me.
• 10:35 We are in the mother's lounge so that I can sit in the lone rocking chair and listen to the talks without putting my baby in danger from Curly.
• 10:39 Z figures out how to climb up on the diaper pail and get on the counter so she can play in the water. I get her down, dry her off and place the diaper pail up on the counter.
• 10:41 Z hits K. He wails. Z will not say sorry. ("Ah-ee," in her language, but usually she does it willingly.) I put Z in the corner for her 60-second time out; Z wails. I did get two whole minutes of the talk about pioneers, before this happened.
• 10:42 I rock two wailing kids.
• 10:44 K presses the foot pedal on the diaper pail, which is still up on the counter. Aroma fills the room. K finds this hysterically funny.
• 10:45 S (age almost 9) arrives in the mother's room and wants to hang out with us. I begin to contemplate how unfair it is that I am in this room with three children and G is in the chapel with one.
• 10:47 A sister in the ward arrives in the mother's room to change her granddaughter's diaper. We willingly evacuate and return to the chapel. Curly and his mom are gone.
• 10:49 S and A request a bathroom trip. G accedes. K tries to follow them. I do not accede.
• 10:51 Z wails. I can't remember now why. G takes her out. K is squirmy.
• 10:57 S and A have not returned. With a firm grip on K's hand, I set off in search of them. S is in the foyer with G. I tell him to get back in the chapel. He is big enough to sit and listen.
• 10:58 I find A playing on the stairs with his friend. I tell him to get back in the chapel. He is big enough to sit and listen.
• 10:59 When I return to the chapel, the man behind our row tells me S has taken my keys out of the famously gargantuan church bag and left the room. On pain of death, K and A are instructed to stay in their seats while I go find S. K sniffles.
• 11:00 I find S in the foyer and insist on the return of they keys. (Have you figured out why he had them? Do you even remember the beginning of this meeting by this time?) S asks how long until the end of the meeting. Ten minutes, a.k.a. time and all eternity. Flattened, I agree that S may go wait in his classroom.
• 11:01 Returning again to the meeting, I survey the crayons, papers and gum wrappers strewn over our row and the one in front of us. G has returned with Z. G is listening to the final speaker. Z is looking for the Orbit gum. She ain't no dumb bunny. I get it from her just in time.
• 11:03 K makes a run for it. While I am running after him. A gets up, announcing he is getting a drink of water. I put the kibosh on that. He's darling, but sometimes he is really full of it. He can wait seven minutes.
• 11:07 Apparently I have blocked this out. I don't know how I got to the end of the meeting.
• 11:08 Mercifully, the closing prayer. K and A fold their arms. It's cute. They can't keep it up for more than 30 seconds. The prayer goes on much longer than that. Much. We struggle.
• 11:11 I confiscate a McDonald's toy that has appeared out of nowhere as A hustles off to Primary. I beg G to please pick up the crayons while I take Z to nursery.
• 11:12 Bishop's wife comes over to tell me I am doing a good job. Well, it's nice of her to say that. Sigh.
  

The point of this is to justify to myself why I was not more friendly to Curly's mom. I fear we drove her away today. But, honestly, I can't be a member missionary at church. I can't even get myself spiritually fed, much less anyone else. I am just trying to survive and instill this ritual in the rising generation. Because if I can get them to listen, they will have a few years to be fed and strengthened there. Before they have kids.

Tidied up

I look so much neater when I'm all summed up in three-point lists. This is Sally's fault.

JOYS:
1. When my baby sings. The newest song in her repertoire: "Buffalo Soldier" by Bob Marley. It's S's favorite, so we listen to it every morning in the mommymobile. Z is in charge of the "wo-yo-yo" part, and she does it well.
2. A well put together meal. Whether I have made it, or someone else, it is a source of great satisfaction.
3. A squishy bed, a good book and a locked door.

FEARS:
1. People realizing how incapable I am.
2. The effects of my temper.
3. Never being able to settle down.

GOALS:
1. To return the bulk of my time to my home and family.
2. To overcome my weaknesses without being sucked down into the vortex of despair that begins to swirl when I see them.
3. To go to Paris. France, not Idaho. Not that there's anything wrong with Idaho.

COLLECTIONS/OBSESSIONS:
1. Old, blue and green canning jars. I use them as canisters in my kitchen. It makes me feel connected to my foremothers, a little bit.
2. Music. It's a collection that can never grow too big, especially now that it's digital.
3. Born shoes and sandals. It's a very practical weakness to have. Best shoes I've ever worn. Except maybe the MBTs but those are super expensive and not as cute.

RANDOM FACTS:
1. Will work for gnocchi. (I'm having some for lunch right now.)
2. I have several unlikely matchmaking ideas in my head that I think might make a good novel. That would be more productive than actually trying to set people up, at least.
3. Cheater's Creamy Balsamic dressing: 4 tbsp olive oil, 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar, pinch red pepper flakes, generous pinch salt, 1/2 c. prepared mayonnaise. Whisk until smooth.

As you know, I don't tag. Feel free to pick this up if you like.

A little personal

If you would rather not know slightly personal girly stuff about me, skip this one.

In April, at my once-every-three-or-four-years "annual" exam (what can I say, I think I technically got in enough stirrups during my years of infertility treatments to last me a lifetime) my doctor found a small lump in my left breast.

This did not strike terror into my heart like it would for a lot of women. I am lucky - breast cancer is not really in my family. And thanks to my religious upbringing and continued choices I have almost no other risk factors, either.

I never really thought I had cancer or anything. This is the reason I haven't told most people about it - I didn't want people freaking out over nothing.

My gynecologist wanted to check the area again in three months. So I went back earlier this month. No changes, which is good. She wasn't really worried about it. She asked if I wanted to have it checked further, and I said, yes - just to be safe. So we scheduled a breast ultrasound.

It's possible I had some kind of mental block about this procedure. I missed the first appointment because the imaging place had the wrong address printed in the phone book. Then I thought I was ten minutes late for this morning's rescheduled appointment, so I drove like a she-bat from my office to the imaging center - watch out for the speed demon in the white minivan. It turns out I was actually 50 minutes early. They had me change anyway, inexplicably, locking up my purse and its contents in a locker, and I ended up spending 2+ hours in the cold, cold waiting room wearing that charming little blue paper robe, reading old Ladies Home Journals.

And then it was done. The tech couldn't see anything. I couldn't see anything. I really don't think there is anything wrong with me. It will be good to know for sure once I hear from the doctor (later today, I hope). Again, though, no big deal.

Here's what surprised me. It was a very strange experience for me to lie on an ultrasound table. I've seen too many pregnancy movies and TV shows, I guess. It's that iconic moment when most women see their babies for the first time. And a reminder that that's not me. I teared up a little bit. The tech asked me if I had kids. I immediately replied that I had four, adopted. I didn't want her to ask any more questions.

So you wanna talk about getting freaked out over nothing? I am 34, and I suppose that's about the right age for the infamous biological clock, but I have four kids. Four! As every stranger I run into consistently reminds me, my hands are full! I don't want or need another baby. But I have not let go of wanting that one small part of the experience of motherhood and womanhood that I have never had. In all honestly it makes me a little mad that instead of a miracle in the ultrasound room, what I get is a little health scare, a reminder that my body is getting older, and really, other than that, nothing. The same nothing that has been freaking me out on and off for the last 14 years.

Sometimes I think that is really hard for other people to understand, even the people closest to me. And I guess it is more than a little bit personal. There you go. A squeaky-clean window on the messy room that is my soul.

Last night's dinner

Z took seconds on this. And everybody ate some except S. This is a remarkable feat!

Golden Succotash
1 onion, diced
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 package turkey kielbasa, quartered lengthwise and sliced
About 2 c. corn kernels (fresh, frozen or canned ... I'm easy to please)
2 large tomatoes, diced
1 can garbanzo beans, drained
Salt and pepper to taste

Saute onion in oil over medium-high heat until transparent. Add sausage and stir until fragrant. Add vegetables and beans. Reduce and simmer about 10 minutes to reduce liquids.

I served this with some parmesan flatbread. The grownups sprinkled theirs with red pepper flakes. Everybody was happy.

Shuffle off to Buffalo

1. Put your iTunes/ music player on shuffle (I actually just used my Windows Media Player and clicked "shuffle")
2. For each question, press the "next" button to get your answer
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER WHAT
4. Post all answers on your blog and send a shout out back to this blog!
Here we go!

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?
"To Zion" (Lauryn Hill)

huh?

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"Fixing a Hole" (Beatles)

ok, this is probably accurate

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Doctor Robert" (Beatles)

get your minds out of the gutter!

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Sky Blue" (Ari Hest)

can't argue with that

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
"Big Ben" (Ari Hest)

it makes sense if you sing, "Think big, Ben"

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"I Won't Back Down" (Tom Petty)

nice!

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"Overglazed" (Breeders)

haha ...

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS?
"Yellow Submarine" (Beatles)

we did sing this one in a ward talent show one time. the whole famdamily.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"Through the Morning, Through the Night" (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss)

again, whatever. good song though ...

WHAT IS 2+2?
"Tell Me What You See" (Beatles)

now that is a fitting answer for an english major when asked a math question.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"Here No More" (Breeders)

true. she was here on saturday, though.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Constellations" (Jack Johnson)

that's kinda sweet.

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Hag" (Breeders)

ha! i own that!

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"Just Like Heaven" (Cure)

aw.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"What Goes On" (Beatles)

no comment.

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"Nowhere Man" (Beatles)

gosh, i don't think that's true. hope not.

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Rainin in Paradize" (Manu Chao)

i'm sure the only reason this is so weird is that my wedding was 15 years ago. it did rain on us, though.

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
"I Shall Believe" (Sheryl Crow)

appropriate!

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Jonas and Ezekiel" (Indigo Girls)

also kind of true if you think broadly.

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"Galileo" (Indigo Girls)

you caught me. i secretly believe in reincarnation.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Bird Never Flies" (Ari Hest)

hmmmmmmm ...

WHAT SHOULD YOU POST THIS AS?
"What I Can Do for You" (Sheryl Crow)

yes. what i can do for you is useless blog memes. have fun!

I think I have too much Beatles on my mp3 player.

Best meme ever

I've participated in this one on Sara's blog and MaryRuth's blog so far. I'll play on yours, too, if you do it!

Come out, come out, wherever you are! Let's reminisce!

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

DVD to see

I never claimed I was on the forefront of culture. That's the disclaimer. I have been wanting to see this movie for a long time but for practical reasons it kept getting pushed behind Animaniacs in the Netflix queue.

(What? You watch movies in the theater? Huh.)

Anyway, The Great Debaters. See it if you haven't already. Then tell me if you still have stuff you want to complain about in your life.

And yes, it's one of those teacher-type movies. They are always kind of the same and I always love them.

And also, I still love Denzel. Seriously. Love.

Web site of the day

Nerd girls!

Present

Lazily cross-posted from my workitty-work bloggitty-blog. This is work in the same way premium ice cream is food.

I am here on the deck of the Wawona field station director's residence, which pretty much qualifies as the most serene outdoor spot I have been in for a long time, maybe ever.

The view is incredible with pine-covered mountains all around, the barest pink blush still on the sky, a little smoke rising from a wildfire over the mountain to the southeast.

The silence is profound, even healing. True, I can still hear a jet engine somewhere very distant, and some other very far-off, unidentifiable rushing sound, and a few echoes of human voices, and the occasional buzz of a mosquito. And the click of my keyboard. But that is all.

It occurs to me here that one reason we sometimes have a hard time staying in the moment in our everyday lives, is because those moments are too crowded. There's no room for us to be present.

Here, it is wide open. I'm here.

Smile worthwhile

Lest I ever do or say something that makes you think I am not totally into my kids, I present to you:

1. K's smile



2. S getting intense with the Wii



3. A on air guitar



4. Z emulating her older brothers (fresh out of the bathtub, to boot)



We had a fun birthday celebration at home last night. K was thrilled enough to sing "happy birthday to me" all night long. He even got some quality time with his new Super Soaker. (Am I dumb, or what?)

The word is no

And Z definitely knows it. Hello, toddler years.

(Sorry the video is really just music; it was the best I could find.)

To be four

Reportedly, my mom once found the three-year-old me crying for no discernible reason. On inquiry, she learned I was crying "because I wanted to be four."

You have to admit, four is pretty great - I might still even say worth weeping with desire for. The so-called terrible twos and even worse threes (nobody warned me about that) are behind you. You can talk well and play with friends and enjoy preschool. While you may still need to learn to tie your shoes and cut your own pork chops, you feel a lot more like a big kid. Yet no one expects you to do homework, scrub the sink or cook dinner. Life is good at four.

Happy birthday to the world's newest four year old. It's gonna be a great year.

Parent's joy

The best thing in the world for me is when my kids are kind to each other. When this happens, I congratulate myself for actually having more than one child. (If you know my oldest, you may understand why this was kind of a leap of faith.) It makes a lot of the harder moments feel worthwhile.

This morning, S asked K if he had a good sleep. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is huge. S has had the hardest time accepting K as a brother - we have tried to just let it grow naturally and not push it. A little kindness is a huge deal.

Tonight, S read to Z. A big pile of books, from "Goodnight Moon" to "Spinky Sulks." To me, this is bliss. And Z loves it. I think she likes it better than my reading to her. Big brother attention is pretty special.

A is constantly playing with the little kids. I need to do a better job recognizing his consistent kindness.

I believe God is our father, with a parent's feeling for all his children. I can imagine now, better than I could before I became a mom, why he commands us, teaches us, pleads with us, to love each other and be kind and make peace. It is a joy I have not felt in any other situation; I think it may be the greatest gift a parent could receive.

Reasons (update on the little kids)

K is going to be four in five days. He is trying to cram in as much life experience as he can before that time. As we know, after you turn four, it's all downhill.

As bedtime approaches each day, he starts to panic, asking to do different things - go swimming, eat a popsicle, play on the computer, play Legos. When I explain that there's not time to do his selected activity before the dreaded hour, he says, "But I didn't get to do that yet today!"

That's carpe diem in its purest and most annoying form. He really has the whine down to a science.

Really, though, what should you get to do, just because you haven't done it yet today? Are your reasons for not doing it as good as the simple reason that you should get to do that thing today? Mine aren't. Why aren't we doing those things? Life passes us by so fast.


Z is also carpe dieming, mainly by spilling large quantities of foodstuffs all over the floor. Two days ago it was a nearly-full box of multigrain Cheerios. Yesterday, a full pitcher of fresh limeade. I was, of course busy clipping Costco coupons in my beautiful delusion that she was busy jumping on the couch with her brothers.

Last time I had a toddler it was 2003-ish. That's a long time ago. It's a buttkicker. I almost forgot.

These two are still online to become final forever members of our family sometime in the next few months. We are slowly progressing through the paperwork. That reminds me - I need to schedule some fingerprints for G and me. Moving right along ...

Stuff for your summer

Let's just get right to the bullets this time, shall we? You all know what this is about.

Staying cool

• Passion herbal tea, venti, iced, shaken, one Splenda. It is hot out there, folks. It is prettier than water and you feel like you're getting a treat. Also, it might be about the cheapest drink there is at S'bucks.
  
• Fudgesicles. The cheap store-brand kind do just fine. And they are only 60 calories. Or maybe it was 100. Anyway, not very many.
  
• Dreyer's all fruit popsicles. I have sworn off the cheap kind, even for the kids. Those things are just a big bag of misery. The fruit ones, I swear, do not affect behavior so adversely. Death to high fructose corn syrup.
• Ceiling fans.
• Wearing a dress. Almost as good as wearing nothing.
  
• Playing in the hose and screaming with the kids.

Passing the Dog Days

• John Mayer singing "Free Fallin'" on his new live album. One of the best songs ever except with a young and sexy face and voice. Not that I don't love Tom Petty, but he sort of reminds me of my dad.
  
• More new music: Coldplay, Beck. Highly recommended.
• 30 Rock, streaming on Netflix. Funny stuff.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation on DVD. It's a family affair. We are all nerds. Proud of it, too.
• Facebooking like a giant geek.
  

Dining

• A 2-pound pork roast rubbed with red curry paste, seared on the grill, then cooked over indirect heat about an hour. Serve with steamed rice and veggies.
• Bags of frozen Bertolli pasta. Grill up some chicken or fish, toss a salad, serve this on the side. All good, all easy.
• Suffer through cooking a big pot of soup early in the week, and you are scot-free from any cooking for days. This week: chicken noodle with garden veggies and fresh sage.
  

Friends

Our neighborhood is a hodgepodge, demographically. It's safe and clean and near the school and the church and generally, I can't complain. The houses were all built between the late '60s and the mid-'80s and are well maintained and respectable. But - as you might expect from the age of the homes - most of the families are empty-nesters or near empty-nesters; a few have very young kids (infants). I have missed the out-in-the street atmosphere I remember from certain neighborhoods I lived in growing up - kids always out biking, playing ball, arguing, being kids.

But my two big boys bonded with some neighborhood friends over the weekend. There's an 11-year-old who's slightly shorter than my 9-year-old, and a 9-year-old slightly shorter than my 7-year-old. Apparently the size factor trumps the age/maturity factor. Who can pin that down in school-age boys, anyway? One moment they are young men, the next they are whining like 3-year-olds. All four of them got along great. (I don't have any school-age girls right now. Ask me about how that works in a few more years.)

They were back and forth between houses all day Saturday. The new friends have a pool, but amazingly they still hung out at my house some. W and W even helped my boys clean their pigsty of a room so they could play. My heart was won. I fed them popsicles and chatted with them and thanked heaven my kids finally found neighborhood friends.

They gathered up all the spent fireworks that were sitting on the curbs waiting to be swept up. They took them all out on our back patio and dissected them with a couple of pocketknives. Of course I had to keep the baby inside and the boys were filthy with ash. But they had so much fun. This is the kind of activity I remember from my childhood.

Another summer salad

Are you in the half of the alphabet that has to bring a salad to the big picnic tomorrow? I'm in the dessert half this year, so I'll be making pies tonight to take to the park by the river up the highway where we go every year to pig out on tri-tip, sweat a bunch, talk with our friends from church and watch the kids try to catch tadpoles. Lemon meringue - my specialty.

But I made this hearty salad last night and it was pretty awesome. You could take it to your picnic. I think it could even be a whole meal, although we had it with some grilled salmon and corn on the cob. Yes, on a weeknight! Sometimes I am ambitious!

I made this with the fresh horticultural beans that came in my CSA box from Willey Farms this week.



They are a cousin of the pinto bean and when you get them out of their their big yellow-green pods, they are beautifully striped cream and purple colors. Sadly, this color cooks out, but they are still a tasty change from canned legumes. You cook them in salted, boiling water about 15-20 minutes - just until tender.



Bean, tomato, cuke and basil salad

About 1 lb. cooked horticultural beans
1 pt. small tomatoes - I used little orange ones
1/2 small red onion, diced fine
1 small, thin-skinned cucumber, diced (yay for my little garden!)
About 1 tbsp. chopped fresh basil
About 2 tbsp. olive oil
About 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Throw it all in a big bowl. Mix it up. It makes about 4 big, hearty servings.

Bloggy type news

Good news: I am now getting paid to blog.
Bad news: It is the same pay I have always been getting paid. There's just a bloggy project involved.

I just started a little Blogger blog about the Yosemite programs I am working to document and publicize this summer. Feel free to drop by! I am hoping to get some of the students and maybe even faculty and staff on board as contributors so it may even become more than just me.

Eventually we will migrate the content over to our campus Web site. We were supposed to have a blog engine some time ago and I was hoping it would be ready for this project. It's not, though, so I'm doing this instead.

Ask me ask me ask me

If you ever want to know

• where not to eat in Oakhurst, CA (hint: pale green guacamole comprising about 2% avocado)
• how it feels to breathe wood smoke for two solid days
• how to really lay on a killer guilt trip
• for an 8-year-old computer game addict
• for an extremely silly Primary class
  
• what it takes to treat ringworm in a child's scalp
• how it feels to hit the maximum charge limit at the gas station without filling up your whole tank
• how to amuse a toddler and a preschooler in an exam room for 90 minutes

I also have some other skills and knowledge somewhere. But these are things I am absolutely sure are available in my brain today.

Ketchup again

A lot has been going on, and none of it has been blogging. Here it is.

• My parents came to see us over the weekend. They brought my sister M1 and her two kids, N (age 5) and R (age 1). It was pretty much great. The house was packed and chaotic - imagine 11 people in your 1600 square foot 3/2 ranch for three or four days. We eat good, we talk good, even the kids mostly played good, except for Z who thought R looked literally delicious. Z has a very big, toothy mouth.
• I took my mom and sister to the flea market. We got lots of fruits and veggies, of course. Also cold horchata and churros. And little Chinese PJs for the baby girls (including my brother's adorable preemie) and blingy gangsta Mario shirts for the boys. Z and R also got pink strollers for their baby dolls. There is no justice when moms are doing the buying for baby girls - there was no compensatory gift for the boys to balance out the strollers. But I understand they did go out for ice cream after their park outing with dad and grandpa that morning.
  
• We spent the evening at the lake with hummus and veggies and warm breezes and cool green water full of floating, featherlike eucalyptus leaves. Watching the sailboats is my idea of fun on a Saturday night these days. However, there was a lot of garbage on the ground. Not so good for curious baby girls. We left after only a couple of hours.
• My mom is staying all week to help out, hang out and stay with the kids while G and I go up to Yosemite overnight tomorrow and Friday. Grandmas rock! Say it with me! Grandmas rock!
  
• Took a day off Monday to go junk shop/antiquing and Costcoing with my mom. So fun. I got a nice big blue Mason jar (this is what I use for canisters) and some sweet little Mexican silver earrings. Also a bunch of Usborne history books for my boys.
• Grandma is spending one special day with each child this week. She took S to the nickel arcade and to Target. Today all A knows is he wants a Target trip, too. She is a saint. Those are the places I most hate to go with my kids.
• She is also repainting my poor, pathetic faux-French-country dining set. First life: horrible '90s pickle finish. Second life: distressed chocolate brown. Third life: Bangkok Russet. I think I am going to like the third life best.
• I read a couple of books: Eat, Pray Love, and These Is My Words. I am guessing I will not have time to totally review them, so here is a little two-book capsule. I liked them both - the first took more patience as a memoir that stubbornly held back the most interesting and potentially sympathy-worthy details (why the marriage failed) but in the end it was worthwhile. It was a mind-opener in terms of approaching God, most of all. The second was just very freaking fun to read - scary and romantic and educational.
• I have been grilling. Finally got the new canister hooked up to the grill and boy is it worth the effort! Baby eggplants and pattypan squash were the stars last night - just tossed with some olive oil and lemon juice and salt and pepper and parsley. Served with leftover roasted chicken and cut up watermelon and cantaloupe. Heaven, I tell you.

Like I said, G and I are heading up to the park for the next couple of days. I'll check in when I get back.

Mirror, mirror

K asked for "two toasts" (two pieces of toast) for his bedtime snack. It was already 8:30 or so, and I decided to give him only one.

K: I wanted two toasts!
Me: You can only have one. It's almost bedtime.
K: (with a death glare) That sucks.

Where do you think he learned that?

Soldier boys

My sons, like a lot of boys, I think, have been interested in the soldier's life. They like the idea of using guns and killing bad guys.

I tell them they can choose any honest work as long as they go to college first. And I pray that an education will teach them the stupidity of most wars, or at least keep them off the front lines should they choose to serve in the military.

My oldest is getting more careful already. At almost nine, he says, "if there were a war here, I would go around telling everyone to get away. Because you never know what can happen in a war." My precious, unselfish, still-learning, nine-year-old voice of warning.

While I respect members of the military, and I try to teach that to my children, I do not honor those who have sent them to the battlefields where they now serve. I guess maybe that comes through to my kids.

The real cry of my mommy heart is very much like this mom's. Above all, I want them safe, in a peaceful world.

Looming

Don't you hate it when you have a big zit about to emerge, and you can't see it, but you can feel it?

Don't you also hate it when a blogger gives a post a scary title and you look down a little further and find out it is not about anything important at all?

Parents, children, disasters

I believe I got the idea to read this book from Lucy. She gives me a lot of good book ideas. Sometimes I think we are twins separated at birth, and by that I don't mean to be a creepy internet stalker but it is just strange how much alike we seem to be. We have never even met in person although my visiting teacher does happen to be her sister in law, which is a nice function of being in the small overlap of the two small worlds of Mormons and bloggers. Anyway, if we are in fact twins separated at birth, Lucy got all the volleyball genes and I got none. But we do both have book fetishes and destructive sons and husbands about to become real grownups, among other commonalities.

So I read this book, and it was touching and funny and desperately sad. I told my sister yesterday it is about parents and children and disasters. It is also about love and forgiveness, about our inabilities to speak and connect, about how we manage to give each other what we need and fail to do the same, about realizing in the worst of times how lucky we are and have been.

There is an absent presence in this book - the protagonist's mother. It is so beautifully resolved toward the end, I had to put the book down and cry for a while.

Here's Lucy's review, which is more detailed than mine.

I will just say this: you should read it.

Learn to face the strange

I always like to use a song lyric when I can't really think of a good title. Name that tune!

I am working on some more big changes that I hope will benefit our little family.

Unfortunately, I can't talk about them yet.

I just want to ask those of you who are praying people to pray that they work out. And those of you who are not praying people, to channel us some good energy and thoughts and stuff. Because quite frankly I believe it all makes a difference.

Treat

Veggie chips I found at Buchanan Hollow Nut Company.

Carrots, sweet potatoes, green beans, taro and acorn squash. Seriously beautiful and delicious!

This product is not on the BHNC site but maybe if you called them you could get some!

Biker beware, or conservation gone awry

When you are biking home from work to save gas, be mindful.

If you are slightly distracted and biking one-handed, and then you suddenly realize you need to stop at a stop sign, you may brake with only your front brakes.

On a newly tuned-up bike, front brakes can be working well. Too well. If that is the case and you brake with only the front brakes, your bike will flip.

Poor Dr. G-to-be.

So much for saving gas.

This has been a public service announcement from Watch Out for Mama.

We are now accepting contributions for our Band-Aid fund. And it is not about hunger in Africa.

I love green

Have you known me since high school? I think there are a few of you out there who have. If so, you might be interested to know I am still crazy about green, even after the last house I lived in with the horrific avocado shag carpet. It took me a while to get over that. It inflicted a lot of trauma.

My love for the verdant now manifests more frequently in things that grow in the dirt, and less frequently in fuzzy wool skirts, trapeze tops, suede pumps and opaque tights. Before you get too worried, I was somewhat cute in those days and could get away with a lot. These days, not so much. And I'm aware of that. Anyway, my color choice made it easy to find great stuff on clearance racks. Still my primary strategy. But I only have one chartreuse sweater these days.

And I never did get that booger-green VW bus I used to want. I suppose I could paint the Odyssey. It would be sweet to get some airbrushed Norse gods and stuff, as well. I'm thinking about it.


These are purple potato plants. I love the slight purple cast in the leaves. Can hardly wait to dig them up.


First tomatoes! So pretty!


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmgarlic ... and in contrast ...


Gardenia. Somebody when this landscaping was planted was thinking kindly of me falling asleep on the twin bed in the baby's room, breeze drifting over the shrubs into the window, carrying the sweetest scent in the world.


Sunflowers and onions, growing in the sun.

Summer salad

It's the first day of summer vacation for my kids today. There was a palpable energy in the house starting about 6:30 a.m. This caused us to hustle everybody to daycare asap even though I didn't have to be at work until 9. Because when I say palpable energy, what I mean is that the kids were really freaking loud today, even more than usual.

Anyway, yay, summer! Here is what we had last night alongside great big hamburgers:

Blackberry and jicama salad

4 c. romaine and/or red leaf lettuce in bite-size pieces
1/4 c. purple cabbage, sliced thin
1 c. jicama, diced
1 c. blackberries or boysenberries
Your favorite red wine or raspberry vinaigrette
1/2 c. feta cheese

Mix it. That is all. I love the ease of a salad.

I am sorry about no pictures. I have great intentions. Honestly, though, when I get dinner on the table, I generally care a lot more about my growly stomach than my blog readers. I will try to be less selfish.

Barack Obama in St. Paul, MN

Sorta tagged

I suppose I could get away with pretending I'm not included in Daravanh's tagged group.

But you know what? I am feeling lazy. A meme like this makes an easy blog post.

So there you go. I've been tagged. Sort of.

8 Things I'm Passionate About

• my faith
• my children (and racial awareness, foster care, and adoption - it's a package deal)
  
• my husband
  
• my extended family
  
• my job (and science, higher education and the health of the regional economy- another package deal)
  
• my friends
• food and cooking
• reading and writing
  
• music and singing (I think that makes nine ... I have a lot of passion to go around, ok?)
• oh, and the Obama campaign.
  

8 Books I've Read and Enjoyed

• The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (Erdrich)
  
• The Master Butcher's Singing Club (Erdrich)
  
• The Twilight series (Meyer) (polar opposite of an Erdrich book - but what they have in common is good storytelling)
• The Birth House (McKay)
• A Child Called It/The Lost Boy (Pelzer)
• Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
• Jane Eyre (over and over and over)
• Pretty much everything by Orson Scott Card
  

8 Things/Words I say often

• I don't know
• Wait a minute
• Maybe next year
• I love you super
  
• You can play outside or in your room.
• What?
• Is it ok if I get back to you on that tomorrow/next week?
• Are you trying to kill me?
  

8 Things I want to do before I die

• Be with all of my children in the temple
• See big changes that I hope and pray for (yes, I'm being intentionally vague)
  
• Get a graduate degree
• Publish a novel
• Serve a mission
• Maintain a healthy weight and body image
• Travel internationally, for fun
• Learn to accept and celebrate the chaos that is life on earth
  

8 Things I learned or remembered this year

• My relationship with Heavenly Father opens the way for me to live without fear or regret.
• Faith is a choice.
• Sometimes the right thing to do is put up a fight.
• How it feels to have a completed family. I think.
  
• How the cytoskeleton moves and behaves.
• What quantum dots might be able to do.
  
• New respect for lawyers.
• How to talk with people with whom you have fundamental differences in belief or agenda.

8 People I Want to Tag

• Frederick Douglass
• Jane Austen
• Bo Diddley
• Marie Curie
• Eliza R. Snow
• Ira Gershwin
• Annie Oakley
  
• Jacques Cousteau

OK, so I hate tagging people, and that says I should list 8 people I want to tag, not 8 people I am tagging. You can't tell me you wouldn't want to read their responses, though.

Best tattle ever

K: Mom, she was going to tattle on me!

See that stick?

In eight or nine years I think we are going to have to use it to beat away suitors. Isn't our boy so handsome!?

He's also seven years old today.

I can hardly believe it was seven whole years ago that I walked the amazingly beautiful beach in Pine Knoll Shores, NC, waiting for news of his birth in nearby Morehead City. I picked up otherworldly translucent mother-of -pearl pieces, the remaining inner parts of shells, their rough outer parts beat away by the waves, and thought of his brave and beautiful birthmom - how she was being tried by her experience and how she was choosing of her own free will to hold on to what was most glowing and precious in her own self by doing what she felt was right for her son. Seven years later I am no less grateful for her choice, no less sure that she was guided by God's hand as she sought to be, no less in awe of her example of obeying the guidance she received.

That afternoon the social worker brought us a hospital card bearing the imprint of his tiny, wrinkled feet. He assured us that the baby had huge cheeks and was very, very cute. Ah, he was right. We learned when we met our little A two days later at the local chapel.



What a miracle.

Happy birthday to my big boy.

I got what everybody wants

You know me. I'm a mother of four with a husband in the final throes of a Ph.D. I work at the nonprofit equivalent of a startup company. It makes life stressful sometimes. Pressure from all sides, for sure.

I am excited to say, though, that instead of waiting for life to get easier I have actually done something.

I requested a pay cut in return for some free time.

I'm cutting my work hours to 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. and taking a corresponding cut in pay. This will work ok because Dr. G.-to-be gets paid full time in the summer. I keep my benefits at the current level, and I continue to accrue vacation and sick leave at my current rate. My boss gets to trim her budget a bit (important for her right now) and I get basically a totally sweet deal.

I'm doing this at a time when I generally get to determine my own workload anyway. I have one big, exciting multimedia-type project to work on this summer, and that will be the main thrust of my 30 hours. The rest of the time, I fill in with little stuff like I normally do. And whatever I get done will be cool, and whatever I don't will go to the bargain-basement but quite-good freelancers my colleague and office mate was smart enough to find.

See how great this is?

I've read pundits who believe that this is the kind of flexibility that allows moms to continue in satisfying careers while their children are young. I am so happy and grateful that my employer is allowing it. I totally believe it should be more widely available. It is going to make a huge difference for us while the kids are out of school for the summer and G finishes up his dissertation.

This arrangement starts Monday. I am so excited. The prospect of two hours each day where I can either pick up my kids and hang with them - because I WANT to - or leave them where they are and get a haircut or go work out or do the grocery shopping ... well, it's what every real woman wants - to have it all, in manageable doses. Forget glamorous shoes and bags a la Sex and the City. We want time. We want fulfillment. We want freedom. We want life. That's what I say.

I do still read

It has been basically forever since I did a book post. I have been reading! Honest!

I will say that one book I read was one I am not going to tell people I read - it was basically a cross between Brigadoon and a Harlequin novel. I am embarrassed that I read that thing!

Actually I have been reading as Z settles in at night, so she will know I am nearby, but I am not actively singing to her and babying her so much. It's a good time to just be and read and enjoy some peace. A rare commodity indeed. And I've finished two really good books in the last little while.

Tonight I'm only writing about one because it's fresh in my mind and it was mind-blowingly awesome, especially compared to Brigadoon-with-sex. But I think it would be awesome compared to most books. (You would think my vocabulary would be more impressive after reading such an - um - awesome book.)

I'm speaking of "The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse" by Louise Erdrich.

I was going through her catalog at the end of the book tonight and I think I have pretty much read all her novels, starting with "Tracks" in AP English in high school. Yet another habit for which I can thank Ms. Stitham. The last one was "The Master Butcher's Singing Club" - read on our trip to Alaska last summer. Gorgeous.

I think what I love about Erdrich's novels is the mess. Everything is too messy to be clear about, too complicated to be didactic in the least. Even as I say that I am tempted to start a list of dichotomies that swirl around in these books - this book - and it's impossible to do. You can start with magic and miracle, pagan and Christian, but in the middle of it all there are devils and curses and human failings and wonders of nature, love and lust, repercussions of abuses and illnesses, vengeance, forgiveness, music.

This all fits, in "Little No Horse," into a story about a sincere but deceptive Catholic missionary among the Ojibwe, really a gifted female pianist, who started as a nun and became a passionate lover and very nearly a murder victim before finding her priestly vocation - and her struggle with secrets and realities and the complex web of reservation life. Sister Leopolda, a late nun from the res, is up for sainthood, and this pianist/priest, Agnes/Father Damien Modeste, has information about her life that will affect her candidacy. But you can't understand Leopolda without knowing about a hundred other stories and people - many of whom are familiar from Erdrich's other novels. Familiar enough - remember, when I read "Tracks" for the first time it was 16 years ago or so - that I kept turning to the family tree printed at the front of the book, remembering all the connections among these familiar names - Pillager, Nanapush, Kashpaw, Morrissey, Lazarre.

Here are some ideas I loved - not spoilers, I hope.

(Really, even knowing the ending could not spoil this book. It is so much more than a plot. You probably know by now I am a darned sucker for a good story no matter what, but I am an absolute fool for a good story with great ideas.)

Appalling realities might disqualify one person from sainthood, but they don't undo miracles that occurred. And some people who might seem inherently unqualified when you're in the lucky position of an omniscient reader might be saints in spite of it all.

From Father Damien's Sermon to the Snakes:

What is the question we spend our entire lives asking? Our question is this: Are we loved? I don't mean by one another. Are we loved by the one who made us? Constantly, we look for evidence. In the gifts we are given - children, good weather, money, a happy marriage perhaps - we find assurance. In contrast, our pains, illnesses, the deaths of those we love, our poverty, our innocent misfortunes - those we take as signs that God has somehow turned away. But, my friends, what exactly is love here? How to define it? Does God's love have anything at all to do with the lack or plethora of good fortune at work in our lives? Or is God's love, perhaps, something very different from what we think we know?

Divine love may be so large it cannot see us.

Or it may be so infinitely tiny that it works on a level where it directs us like an unknown substance buried in our blood.

Or it may be transparent, an invisible screen, a filter through which we see and hear all that is created. ...

Like you, I poise alertly and open my senses to try to read the air, the clouds, the sun's slant, the little movements of the animals, all in the hope I will learn the secret of whether I am loved.

Fost-adopt tips

A reader wrote in asking for information about foster-to-adopt and whether the program works. (Hi, LN!) I e-mailed her in response. And I have to be honest, I was so impressed with my answer that I thought I'd share it with the blog audience (yes, all ten of you) too.

That's a hard question to answer. For us, it is working - finally. I told this reader there are no guarantees in this system that you will adopt any particular child placed in your home. But here are the tips I can offer to increase the odds you will be able to adopt successfully from the foster care system:

• Work directly with the county or state, not with a private agency. This will most likely allow you to take placements of kids from your local area so you do not have to travel for visits and court dates.
• Do everything they ask of you - the paperwork and classes and appointments can be overwhelming but you have to stay on top of it to stay in good graces with everybody.
• Make it clear from the outset that you are interested in adopting and not in a succession of temporary foster placements. Repeat as necessary with EVERY social worker you come in contact with. Write it down and send it to them and ask that it be placed in the file.
• Tell them you want to take placement of children whose parents are being denied services or who are most likely to become available for adoption.
• Be open to older kids, special needs kids, drug-exposed kids, abused kids, whatever you feel you can handle. The more open you can be, the faster you will be successful. But don't bite off more than you can chew. Not everybody is cut out for every kind of kid.
• Once a child has been in your home 6 months, hire an attorney and petition for de facto parent status and prospective adoptive parent status designated by the court. You can do these things yourself but a knowledgeable family law attorney will offer you the benefit of connections and knowledge that you could not possibly have on your own. They will also help you keep from making stupid mistakes. If you can manage it, think now about getting legal insurance. Ours is through ARAG.
• Get a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for the child as soon as you can. This is not available in our county (which is scandalous!) but it is an awesome program that can really inject a good dose of common sense into the CPS/court system.
• At the same time try to create good relationships with biological parents, with clear boundaries. Be cooperative and friendly at visits. Get to know them. You will be amazed how fast you develop understanding and sympathy in situations with which you might have previously had no patience at all.
• If you experience anything negative with a social worker, set up a meeting with the director of the foster agency and explain what has happened (calmly and nicely of course). If things go really wrong, request that your case undergo administrative review.
• Always remember that the first goal of a foster agency is reunification with the biological parents. They are not primarily there to help you adopt. There is nobody who is paid to be on your side. (Another great reason to hire an attorney!) You will be treated as a babysitter. It takes a lot of strength to do this. You have to be very prepared to stand up and fight for yourself and for the kids in your home.

Inspired

Commencement was today. It's always a lift - a reminder of one very big reason I do what I do, working as a higher ed staffer.

It was also inspiring for Z. There were cookies. And balloons. Bliss.



And for G. One of his friends got a Ph.D. We're going there!

Baby mine

I mentioned I've been working from home for a few days with Z. What a precious time. I am not really complaining. It has been so fun.

She will be 18 months old next week. It really is a developmental corner for her. She is turning from a baby into a little girl.

She is learning to express what she loves. She toddles around singing to herself all day. No words, but I can always recognize her songs. Mostly the Imperial Death March and I Am a Child of God. Put a little music on (currently, "Raising Sand" by Alison Krauss and Robert Plant) and she stops whatever she's doing to dance.

She is learning to take an active role to make sure her needs are met. She tells me (by pointing at her little bum) when she needs a diaper change. When she is tired, she lies down on the floor, or climbs up on the new couch, and goes to sleep. She calls me Mama now. When she cries, it's a word, "Nah! Nah!" General expression of unhappiness.

She is learning to be brave. In this wind, she doesn't hide. She turns her face to the gale and lets it blow the hair out of her eyes. And squints, and smiles. She likes to run away from me. Last night at the elementary school open house, I chased her down the sidewalk three different times while trying to talk to S's teacher about whose class he should be in for (gulp!) fourth grade.

She's getting down my emotional connection with food. She enjoys a lot of string cheese at lunchtime. When she's in trouble (for example, when she started throwing the pears off her high chair tray after her string cheese was gone and I took it away and gave her a pretty stern "no") she does this adorably manipulative fishy-style "kiss me" face. I can't resist it.