Dancing with Daffodils

My four-year-old son recently finished his first t-ball season.  He had a handful of practices, seven or eight four-inning games and he really enjoyed practicing at home with his dad after using all of his money to buy a tee and a metal bat.  He had fun, enjoyed a great experience with some very kind coaches and he learned a bit about baseball and teamwork, all satisfactory results of the $60 spent and the time we dedicated as a family to having him at his practices and games.   At the end of the season his coaches provided a pizza party and said they would hand out trophies to the kids if parents were willing to purchase them.  I said yes to pizza and no thanks to the trophy, which I did for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t like clutter and my kids have a lot of stuff.  Why in the world do we need another hunk of metal to sit on a dresser?  Secondly, I didn’t want to spend $10 on said hunk of metal.  Thirdly, I didn’t feel that participating i...

I recently went to the doctor for a check-up and as we were moving from one room to another he watched me pick up my wallet and keys and asked, “Where is your cell phone?” I told him I don’t carry a cell phone and he asked, “What kind of American citizen are you, anyway?” I know most people think I’m crazy but I’m a relatively unplugged citizen.  I do have a cell phone but I usually leave it at home and use it more like a home phone than anything else.  Even more crazy, it is not a smart phone.  Unlike most people, when I’m out of the house, I like to be left alone.  After all, when I’m driving, at the doctor, at the store, or out with a friend or my husband, I don’t want to talk to anyone or be bothered or distracted.  I don’t mind moments of peace and quiet when I have to wait for something and don’t have anything to do.  Even yesterday in the car I was driving for awhile by myself and my first thought was that I should have brought something to liste...

So, today is my birthday.  I really used to love my birthday.  I spent a lot of them as a child and youth at the beach in North Carolina or at church summer camp and it was always exciting.  One of my favorite memories was the year they decorated my top bunk and we had a bat in the cabin and I was just sure I was going to wake up one morning with a bat tangled in the streamers right over my head.  My mother always made my favorite dinner which was either roast beef with mashed potatoes or stir fry.  Since it was right before school started I usually got lot of school clothes for birthday gifts.  Other memorable gifts include when I was a missionary in Kiev, Ukraine and my companion got me a new pillow for my bed to replace the huge and uncomfortable one I was using and then there was the year my husband took me to see Mary Poppins at the Kennedy Center. I love surprises and the anticipation of what was in store for me on my birthday always gave me a giddy...

Last week was the year anniversary from when I started my blog.  I appreciate those who take the time to read my posts and for the incentive that has given me to continue practicing my writing. I haven’t written much lately because I am pregnant and expecting child number four in January.  This means that even though I’ve had some really good ideas that I tried to write about, they didn’t come out very coherently and also that I’ve spent most of my afternoons napping instead of writing.   So this post is going to be a random assortment of thoughts that didn’t quite get fleshed out into their own posts.   1.  President Obama said something recently that really bothered me and so forgive this short, political rant.  President Obama recently signed a bill that “strengthened” the Equal Pay Act, which is supposed to eliminate all gender-biased pay in the workplace.  I think he is completely right in the fact that women and men doing the exact s...

This week my husband and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.  It was a beautiful day and the beginning of our life together.  Our love story is unique but I suppose not really.  It started in high school during our senior year when because of an eccentric AP English teacher, I ended up sitting behind this very quiet but nice guy.  We were up in the front corner of the room away from our friends and so we chatted here and there.  He worked in a movie theater and got to go see movies for free.  I did joke that he should share the wealth but I still was rather shocked the day he followed me out of the room after class and asked me  if I would like to go on a date with him.  This was the first time I’d been officially asked out and I said yes because I knew he was a nice guy.  He gave me his phone number on a gum wrapper and I called him later that night to work out the details.   When he told his friends he had asked me out they ...

Last year on March 29th I was hoping to deliver a baby.  My other two had been relatively on time so I anticipated number three would be similar.  Eleven days later she finally arrived.  This week as I was thinking of celebrating her first birthday, this swell of frustration overcame me.  Those eleven days were so miserable.  The waiting, the anticipation, the [wonderful] parents who every day asked when she was going to come because we’re only here for two and a half weeks, the discomfort and a great need to just have my body back all contributed to this frustration.  A year later and I can still feel it. I recently went to the library and as I went to check out my books, a librarian came over to help me.  Inwardly I groaned because it was the mean librarian.  I have dubbed her so because two or three years ago when I had a small toddler and a crawling baby, we had a bit of a run-in that I’ll sum up by saying I was frazzled, she was not very ...

Just to warn you, this post gets a bit personal.  This is something I’ve been wanting to write about for almost a year but every time I decided to go for it, I get nervous, but this time I’m not wimping out. There are women out there who need to know they are not alone so I’m just going to say it.   I loath breastfeeding. I took the class before I was to become a mother and I was committed because breast is best and all of my sisters had done it so I could do it too.  Then I had a baby with a terrible latch and even with three visits with a lactation consultant (despite the fact that I am rather modest and was totally uncomfortable with someone besides my husband watching me try to nurse) and months of effort, it still hurt.  I pushed her feedings for as long as I could and tried all of the creams but she never nursed without clicking her tongue and I never nursed without pain.  After three months I got used to the pain but getting her on was always a p...

I am all for moving forward, upward and onward in life.  I was thrilled to go to college, get married, become a mother, and while I dislike the process of moving, six of the eight times I’ve had to do it I’ve been excited for the new adventure that awaited me. What gets me is the lateral changes; the times when things are just different than they used to be but aren’t necessarily any better or worse.  Those changes take time for me wrap my mind around and figure out if I like or not.  Right now we’re in the situation of having three children and two rooms and trying to figure out who shares.  Our first try was putting the baby with the 4-year-old who is a super sleeper.  Turns out that baby wakes up too early when she sees her big brother in the room and starts yelling to get him up to play with her and even he couldn’t sleep through that display of noisy affection. Try number two is going to happen this weekend where we’ll put the older two together an...

Four years ago today the Vancouver Winter Olympics were going on and I took my 18-month-old daughter to the doctor for her check up.  I was also supposed to be having a baby boy.  After three years of fertility treatments, I was finally able to get pregnant with my daughter.  I adored her and she was the perfect little baby.  When she was about 10 months old, I realized that I was unusually tired, a tired that persisted no matter how much I slept.  I had an extra pregnancy test laying around so I thought I’d take it just to rule it out but you cannot imagine my shock when it came back positive.  I had never seen a positive result before and I’d taken close to 50.  It was so exciting and overwhelming and seriously surprising.  We had recently moved here and I started calling around to OBGYNs trying to get an appointment for confirmation with my hands shaking as I dialed. My husband was out of town and when he returned home a few days late...

Valentine’s Day is one of my very favorite holidays. I’ve loved it since I was a child and my parents would give me a valentine and we’d have chocolate and a special dinner.  I enjoy sharing love with my family and friends, plus I love covering my house in pink and red hearts.  There is so much positivity about the holiday and I believe love is worth celebrating.  I know some people are bitter because they don’t have a significant other to share the holiday with but I think Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate all love, including siblings, friends, cousins, parents, and children.  Even likable co-workers deserve a chocolate heart or two.   One of my favorite Valentine’s Day memories is from the year after we got married.  Josh was a full-time student and I was a temporarily unemployed graduate.  We had decided even while dating not to exchange gifts but to do something fun together as a way to celebrate the holiday. Unfortunately that ...

Please tell me that I'm not the only one who often comes home from [insert any social event here] feeling uneasy about something that I said.  Call it insecurity, call it self-centeredness, call it what you will, but I often stew and worry and think over and over again about what I said in a public setting and how it will affect what people think of me or even just feel the frustration of not having actually made the point I wanted to make. This is why I am a writer.  I can read something over and over again before anyone else reads it and I can make sure it is saying exactly what I want to say before I announce those feelings or thoughts to anyone else. But I digress.  I was at church on Sunday and we were having a fabulous lesson on tithing during our Relief Society (the women's organization) meeting.  I had read the lesson beforehand and discussed it with my husband and parents who were visiting, so I had already given some thought to this topic.  When I r...