Month: March 2012

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Life is a package

The grass is always greener growing on the other side, right? It’s all a matter of perspective. As one commentator here once said, the grass on our side of the fence is green because we’ve tended it with loving care.

But it’s still easy to see our neighbor’s lawns and think about how much we want to live there. However, it might be a nice place to visit . . .

Appearances can be deceiving—and our grass is on the other side of someone else’s fence, too. One of my friends, Michelle Davidson Argyle, has written very honestly about her struggles with envy (which we all have!), and she pointed out some great thoughts on the topic by Monica Wood a couple months ago. I’ll just quote a little here (adding my own emphasis):

Would you really want another life? You can’t go around cherry picking from this life or that one. Maybe you want his Pulitzer, her reviews, his money, her talent, but you’d also have to take his lung x-ray, her mother’s death, his stutter, her truly hideous hair. And besides, you’d have to give up your singing voice, your friend Robin, the two hundred bird songs you know by ear. So there you go. Life’s a package, and you know–you know this–you don’t truly want any package other than your own.

As much as my kids make my crazy and as much as I sometimes struggle with the vicissitudes of life as a mother, I wouldn’t trade them—and all the bad and all the good that comes with them—for anything.

What do you think? What makes you value your life-package?

Photo by Jonathan

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Can you say “Precocious”?

I had someone say that to me about one of my kids this last week, but I think it might apply to all of them. Yes, even the one with a twenty-word vocabulary.

This week, Hayden told Ryan (AKA Daddy) that he wanted to work on his birdhouse this weekend. Ryan agreed, but that wasn’t good enough for Hayden.

“Put it in your phone, Daddy.”

Ryan said, “Why do I need to put it on my phone?”

“Because,” Hayden replied, “your phone is smarter than you.”

Ouch.

Last night while we were finishing dinner, Rebecca picked up a picture of Jesus and pretended to read the information on the back, as if she were delivering a talk in Primary (which she hasn’t done yet—she keeps volunteering for prayers). About twenty minutes before, she discovered Rachel had absconded with her milk cup and finished it off. I finally appeased her tears—or so I thought.

After introducing her subject, Deezus, she continued on about Him for a while before I realized what she was saying:

“An’ he wants us to be nice . . . and kind . . . an’ not d’ink ouw big sistay’s d’inks. . . .”

Not on the subject of talking, but last week, Rachel was playing with her baby doll when she suddenly ran into the kitchen, opened the silverware drawer, and ran back:

(She actually got the baby’s mouth most of the time. She also shared some cereal later.)

Rachel is still working on words in general, so we applaud any of her efforts, even “yah” and “suh.” Unfortunately, her latest phrases have taken a sharp turn toward the negative:

When she gets upset, she flaps her hands like a floundering flightless fowl and wails, “No waaaaaay.”

And last week on a road trip, she realized we all found it hilarious when she answered any question with “Ummmmm no.” It’s a lot less cute the 45th time.

What’s your favorite precocious moment?

Categories
Fulfillment Faith

Just a reminder

I was scrolling through my feed reader a while ago. I saw my usual spate of stories from the LDS.org homepage. For some reason, they’re always just titles, no content in the posts. But I like getting them. Especially when the message is something as simple as this:

And you do: you’re a mom.

What reminds you that you matter?

Categories
MetaBlogging

Blog comments from start to finish

I’ve got so much information packed into old posts that sometimes even I forget what I’ve already written about. But I was talking to one of my sisters about comments on our craft blog the other day, and I remembered that I’d posted at least a couple times about blog comments on here. Yeah, it was more than a couple. Here are some of the highlights on my posts on blog comments

Four Ways to Encourage Comments on Your Blog
Are you making it harder for people to comment on your blog? Make it easier for people to comment (and get more comments?).

Protect Your Blog with a Comment Policy
You can protect your blog from comments that are mean-spirited or reveal sensitive information so easily—and never feel guilty for deleting those comments!

Subscribe to comments to follow blog conversations
Ever leave a comment on a blog post and want to see the replies? How easy is it to forget to come back later? Don’t let that happen with this easy trick!

Handling negative comments
It happens: people disagree. How can you handle it and move on when someone disagrees on your blog?

Follow through on comments
Show your commentators some love (and maybe get more comments?) by following through on your comments.

What’s your best advice on blog comments?

Categories
Kids/Parenting

Hayden’s sayings

Hayden is a smart kid. Sometimes, a little too smart for his own good.

Hayden has been working on behavior incentives at school. Every morning before school, we review what he needs to work on that day. His first day, he did a good job. The next morning as we walked to school, I told him, “You’re doing so well, Hayden. We want to keep it up, right?”

H: “Well, I don’t want to keep it down!”

image
Watching a crane at work

“Mom, that car [he might have said “Vehicle”] over there is taking a lot of gas. It’s an S-U-Vay.”

From time to time, Hayden requests to play a CD of Primary music. One of these times, “I Love to See the Temple” was playing in the background as the kids were playing. Hayden found a golf ball.

Rebecca: “Hayden, I want to see!”

Hayden: “You want to see the temple?”

Rebecca: “No, I want to see the gowf baww!”

Video of the above photo:

(Turned out to be a supply closet, actually.)

He sometimes watches a PBS Kids Go webtoon about nutrition. The cartoon has drummed it into his brain that sodium is the big bad evil lurking in most foods—so he insists on checking the sodium level on every nutrition label.

He’s taken this so far that one of his favorite meals, Spaghettios, must be eaten in moderation, because half a can has around 25% of the DRV of sodium.

I hope he lives a long, funny life.

Categories
Random Work

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I know it’s a little early

St. Patrick’s Day is probably my favorite pointless holiday of the year! There are two basic reasons for this—and neither of them are my rich Irish heritage. (Incidentally, I do have Irish heritage, but considering those people died in the US a century before I was born, I don’t really have a strong attachment to the culture from them.)

No, my real reasons are at least half ridiculous:

1.) When I was in college, I spent Thanksgivings with my aunt. Randomly one year when we got up silly early for Black Friday, we began speaking in an Irish accent. These things only make sense before 5 AM.

2.) My first novel, due out next year, features a character from Ireland. I just finished a round of edits on the sequel, which features even more characters from Ireland (6!), so I’m up to my neck in Irish accents and slang and culture. I’ve spent approximately 1,000,000 hours studying it 😉 .

So to celebrate, I’m going to share a little “true” Irishness with you.

Eight Myths about Irish Culture and St. Patrick’s Day Dispelled—complete with tips on brushing up your Irish accent and how best to celebrate this weekend!

Irish Potato Candy—real!

Complete with recipe!

Irish Flag Apron—kinda kitschy, but real!

Complete with instructions—and it only cost me $5!

Photos all by me! Okay, and my husband.