Through My Eyes

If you have to get sick...

2009-12-25T17:03:00.002-06:00

Christmas day isn't a bad day to choose.
On Tuesday night, Mosey started throwing up and he was sick all day Wednesday. Last night after we got the boys down, I started feeling it, too. Happily, Ben and I finished all the wrapping and preparations before the worst of the sickness hit. I dragged myself out of bed this morning (the boys slept in until *8:00*!!!) and lay on the couch to observe all the Christmas present-opening festivities, and then hit the hay for another 5 hours. I'm currently feeling *okay* after not eating anything for about 22 hours. I hope I'm the last one to get it.
Merry Christmas everyone!

It's the tree that does it

2009-12-19T21:21:00.005-06:00

The boys have been looking forward to Christmas, but I haven't seen a lot of the super-excited silliness that I remember from being that age. I was worried we'd somehow lost the magic. But this afternoon we finally got around to buying our Christmas tree, and ever since then, it's like the Christmas light got turned on inside each of them.
When we got home from the ward party tonight, they all 3 ordered Ben and I into our bedroom because they "needed to have a secret Christmas meeting" in the kitchen. So cute!!
They're getting excited about buying each other presents, which also makes me very glad.
Ben is at the store buying more Christmas lights (we wrapped our lights up veeerrrry carefully last year in plastic, and STILL, after sitting in the box for a year, 3 of the strands don't work anymore. Why is that?! Anyway, tomorrow after church we'll decorate the tree and make our gingerbread house.
Only 5 more days!!

Here are some recent pictures.

Last Wednesday as I was driving the boys home from art, the clouds in the sky were so unusual. You can't see as well in the picture, but it looked exactly like the surface of a wavy ocean, but inverted. The clouds were in this really unusual undulating pattern. Yes, I took a picture as I was driving down the freeway. But as you can see, there really wasn't anyone else on the road!

Being down South, we don't get the beautiful changing leaves on the trees like other places. Heck, more than half of the trees here won't even lose their leaves! But there are a bunch of these particular trees here and there in Austin, and they are really breathtaking. Every time we pass one, the boys want me to take a picture, so on Thursday, I did! I don't know what kind of trees they are, but they sure are pretty.

A Christmas Carol

2009-12-18T22:45:00.003-06:00

We took the boys to see A Christmas Carol tonight (the 3D Disney movie). It was sooooo good!
Audible.com offered a free download of the original Charles Dickens version, and we finished listening to it about an hour before the movie started. I was really impressed because nearly all the dialogue in the movie was word-for-word from the book.
3-D animation is getting so good. This was the first CGI movie I've seen in which the characters were rendered in a realistic way. It was really incredible. And I love the 3D. It's cool to be in the middle of a big change like this-- kind of like when movies went from silent to sound, or from black and white to color. 2D to 3D is the same.
Go see it if you haven't yet!

shopping...

2009-12-18T00:25:00.003-06:00

This month has just flown by. Ben and I haven't had a moment to go Christmas shopping together, and I'm not sure when we will! We've had things going on every weekend since Thanksgiving. Ben was gone to Utah all last weekend. Tomorrow night I'd like to go get a Christmas tree (yeah, we haven't had a moment to do that either), Saturday night is the ward Christmas party for which I've been recruited to help. Week nights are too hard-- Ben doesn't get home till 6:45 or 7:00, and the boys have to get to bed and there's always so many things I need to finish up with at night.
So tonight I got on Amazon.com and I now have $690 worth of things in my shopping cart. I'm not buying them all!!! I basically just put in everything I was thinking about, and hopefully tomorrow during the day Ben can look at it all and we can collaborate and get things ordered. I don't think there's really going to be any time at all for us to go to actual stores before Christmas, so this will have to do.
I love Christmas time. I haven't really been stressed, just extremely busy! I wish I could somehow squeeze in another 2 weeks before Christmas. How can it really be in just one week?? Too bad the boys aren't a little younger. I might try to con them into thinking Christmas is really on the 31st. :-)

worried

2009-12-16T23:08:00.004-06:00

Brigham went to play at a little neighbor boy's house tonight while I took Mosey to speech therapy. When I picked him up, he told me that he told J about our church. I was a little surprise and asked him more about his conversation. I'm a bit worried about how he came across. Brigham can be a little zealous in his 8-year-old way. We were reading about the "great and abominable church" in our scripture study this week and when I asked him what he thought that church represented, he was quick to say, "all other churches except ours!" Which led to a (I hope) productive discussion on exactly what the great and abominable church is *not*. (i.e. NOT other churches, but instead people and institutions that do not care about God's laws and think that trying to be good is silly.)
He said that he told J that he really needed to go to church and that after he died he would be really embarrassed when he realized that what Brigham had been telling him was right. **Cringe**.
Anyway, I tried to strike a balance between praising Brigham for being a missionary, and also gently giving him some pointers on how to talk to other people about religion.
I sent this email to J's mom, hoping to calm any ruffled feathers that might have occurred. From what Brigham told me that J said, they do not go to church, but they read Bible stories as a family.
Hi M,
Thanks for having Brigham over tonight, he had a good time.
He told me he and J were having a conversation about religion while he was at your house. Brigham tries very hard to be a good boy, and is definitely my most devout child. :-) He's never brought up such topics with other friends, so I was a little surprised to hear what they were talking about.
We have a religious home and so we frequently speak of religious things. I'm not sure how he came across to J, but I know that Brigham can be a little intense about many things, whether about Harry Potter, or multiplication, or God. :-)
It sounded like their conversation was very interesting-- what do angels look like, where is Heaven, what do you do there. I was entertained to hear what some of his answers were. They were not 100% representative of LDS church doctrine. :-)
But I really hope he was not inappropriate and that he did not offend J. I told Brigham tonight that the most important thing to keep in mind when talking to other people about God is to be very sensitive and not say anything that might make the other person feel bad or sad because the thing God wants more than anything else is for all of us to be kind and loving to each other. I told him that he should remember that any time he talks to anyone else about God, his goal should be to make the other person feel good so that he'll want to talk about God again! Brigham said, "I don't really think J will want to talk about it anymore," so again, I'm hoping he wasn't too inappropriate.
Anyway, I hope you understand! Brigham likes playing with J and I will remind him to cool it on the God talk a little in the future.

Was that ok? Too much? Not enough? I would feel terrible if this ends up alienating their family...

2009-12-14T07:58:00.000-06:00

reerrereererererererererererererererererererereeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeerrrrrererererererer

Singles wards

2009-12-13T22:02:00.003-06:00

I went to the Austin singles' ward this afternoon to play a duet with a friend of mine for their Sacrament Meeting Christmas program.
It is a very talented ward!! Several very good pianists, lots of really good vocalists, an amazing violinist, a beautiful oboist... Really, the talent was extraordinary. Is it just a Mormon thing? If we got another randomly selected group of 20-30 year olds, would there be as much talent?
I was thinking the whole time how glad I am not to be in singles' ward. I was able to really enjoy the beauty and spirit of the program today. I was able to appreciate the talents of others without feeling envious or self-critical. However, had I been one of the single girls in the audience today, I know what I would have been thinking about.
"That girl is more talented than I am."
"She's skinny AND has a good voice."
"Why don't I practice so I can be as good as she is?"
Etc., etc.
I hope the young women in that ward are not as insecure or prone to comparison as I was.
I hope everyone there was able to feel the spirit and enjoy the talents of other people without descending into that dark place of comparison and self-doubt. I hope they're all way more mature than I was. :-)

So yay for not being single! :-)

Let it snow!!

2009-12-05T20:42:00.005-06:00

We had a crazy couple of days of weather here in Austin. A cold front blew down Thursday night and Friday it was literally freezing! The forecast even called for some snow flurries. So Friday morning the boys got up and dressed for the day. All the boys put on 2 pairs of pants, Joseph had on 2 of his shirts, one long-sleeved shirt of Ben's and a thick jacket. Brigham had a ski cap on, and all the boys got bandanas/dishtowels for me to tie over their nose and mouth to protect from frostbite. :-) They were so funny.

There was no snow in the morning and I didn't think we'd see any, but sure enough, a few flakes started to fall around lunchtime. I knew there was no point in trying to continue lessons when snowflakes were falling, so I told the boys to go on out. By that time they had shed some of the winter gear they had been wearing, but that didn't stop them from running outside and enjoying the "snowstorm" for the 20 minutes or so that it lasted. Joseph even gathered enough snow from our trampoline to make one whole snowball! :-)
I know the snow is hard to see. But look reeeally hard, it's there! It was a veritable blizzard for Austin! :-)
Thank goodness it warmed up again today. I'm just not a snow girl...

sick day for mom = fun day for kids

2009-12-03T00:38:00.003-06:00

We've been passing around a stomach bug around here. Brigham and Moses had it on Sunday, Joseph had it on Monday, and I woke up with it early this morning. Nothing serious, just a serious case of the queasies. No one lost their lunch.
But I am also fighting off a cold, and between the two viruses, I was down and out for most of the day. Which meant no lessons for the boys. Except for piano practicing. That is non-negotiable.
And still, Joseph had the NERVE to say tonight, just before bed, "I didn't have any time to do anything fun today!"
Yeah. Take a look at the playroom right now and you'll see what a big fat fib that is! :-)
I'm feeling better now, though, so tomorrow we pick up that ball again.

I'm working my way through our Thanksgiving pictures.

Here's Miles eating a snack on the riverboat. I love this kid so much.

Mosey and Mara sharing a joke. Aren't her little braids cute?

Another one of smiley Miley. He got this soccer ball and spent about 5 minutes trying to stand up with it. He finally did, then plopped back down, lifted it up, and tried to eat it. Rosalynde and I cracked up, thinking about what must be going through his little mind: "Hmm, maybe I can fit this in my mouth if I try reeeeal hard!"

The two brothers, Jack and Miles. These two look the most alike of Rosalynde's four kids.

Rosalynde's oldest, Elena. She has the most beautiful blue eyes, the exact shade as her shirt. She is so affectionate and volunteered to come to our house as a stand-in-daughter so I could practice my french-braiding.

No solo picture of Mara, she's at that intensely-allergic-to-cameras stage. I took a few family pictures, and when those were done, she was D-O-N-E.

Thanksgiving recap and back to the grindstone

2009-11-30T23:56:00.003-06:00

Well, I kind of failed in my NaBloPoMo attempt at a blog-post-a-day, but I got close! Yesterday we left our hotel first thing in the morning, but didn't get home until after midnight, so I had no chance!
We are home from our quick trip to St. Louis.
It was awesome seeing Rosalynde and John and their kids. All the cousins played together well. Going swimming at our hotel was a particular hit. Elena cried when she had to say goodbye on Saturday night, so I guess that meant she had a good time.
Wednesday was spent driving.
Thursday was Thanksgiving.
On Friday we met Rosalynde and her kids at the Magic House, which was every bit as magical as the first time. I wish we had one of those in Austin! We ate dinner at Steak and Shake, played at Rosalynde's for a while, and then took the kids to swim at our hotel.
Saturday morning Rosalynde and I took the kids to a holiday play put on by a children's theater group. It was extremely cheesy, but cute and the kids really liked it. They had all the kids participating. At one point, all the kids went up on stage to sing Jingle Bells. Everyone except Joseph. He doesn't get into performances at all. Sigh... I wish he would just give it a try! Anyway, Elena was the star of Jingle Bells (she is the exact opposite of Joseph and is a natural performer). Later on, Brigham went up to help turn the key in a toy soldier, and then went along with the little dance afterward. I was so impressed with him! He was very serious and watched the other actors to get the dance just right. Go Brigham! I so wished I had my camera with me. I debated bringing it, but decided to leave it in the car at the last minute. Mistake!!!! It was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for him. I'll just have to try to remember it.
After the play we drove downtown and took the Tom Sawyer riverboat out on the Mississippi River for an hour cruise which was pretty fun and interesting. Although we parked in the MOST handicapped inaccessible place that we possibly could have. Ben ended up carrying me down about 100 stairs, with John toting the wheelchair behind us. Oh well.
I took pictures of Rosalynde's family after we got back, and then had a Thanksgiving-leftovers dinner and another swim session at the hotel.
Yesterday we headed back, after a brief detour back to Rosalynde's house to claim a missing jacket. Ben was not in favor of going back to get it, thinking the cost of the Walmart jacket wasn't worth the added time to our trip. He said it would be more than an hour before we passed our hotel again heading back down the freeway. It was actually about 18 minutes. So there! :-) Shorter than it would have been to drive to Walmart to buy a new jacket.
The drive back was loooong. We drove through a lot of rain, and then made a poor decision in getting off the turnpike too soon. And then when we got through Dallas we hit traffic. Bad traffic until nearly Waco! It took us almost 3 hours just to get from south of Dallas to 10-15 miles north of Waco. It was a bad combination of freeways merging, and 2 disabled vehicles several miles apart.
We also passed a record number of highway patrol cars up to St. Louis and back. We decided to count them on the way back. We passed 21!!! And that is not counting the several additional cop cars helping with the 3 accidents we passed. But we did not get pulled over. All the cop cars certainly did the job in keeping us from speeding, that's for sure.
Now we're home. The dog is happy to see us. The fish are alive. Spots is back home.
Joseph isn't feeling too well, I haven't unpacked much of anything, and all-in-all it is a bit of a let-down to have to plunge back into real life.

Thanksgiving snaps

2009-11-28T22:15:00.002-06:00

Rosalynde made this pretty fall window hanging in her front room. The leaves are cut out of corn husks and dyed red. She is so creative!

Ben goes nowhere with his little laptop. I think John has a little laptop envy. :-)

The cook and hostess extraordinaire. Thank you for EVERYTHING, Rosalynde!

I caught John by surprise, dishing up the mashed potatoes. Thank you, too!!

Mosey is thankful for Orange Crush this Thanksgiving.

And Miley is thankful for his bobby. He is the cutest 9 month old EVER!!

I am thankful for the end of No-Sugar-November. We had apple pie, sweet potato pie, and pumpkin pie. Yes, I had all three.

Joseph is thankful for whipped cream.

Ben is thankful for 3 silly boys. And so am I.

We leave for home tomorrow morning. The holiday went by way too fast, as usual.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T23:15:00.002-06:00

Brigham (and the rest of us) had an awesome Thanksgiving! We hope you did too!

Backseat boys (All right!)

2009-11-26T22:58:00.002-06:00

We drove from Austin to St. Louis to be with my sister's family for Thanksgiving. We love road trips! We listened to (almost all of) The Hunger Games on the way up. Intense.

Smart alec

2009-11-24T10:55:00.002-06:00

Joseph got his daddy's smart alec tendencies.
He was typing his science report yesterday morning and I came to check up on him. Here's what I saw:

Egg Membrane Experiment

Purpose:
To see if the membrane of an egg is permeable to water.
Method:
1. We measured the whatever it was 67m. so now we can do the experiment so we put the blue mixture into water and it blew up the house and the house blowing up killed mom isn't that awesome? Well me Brigham and Mosey ran out of the house just in time and we jumped on are bikes and ran away.

Hmmm... I'm just a little offended that he thought it was awesome that I got killed by the exploding blue mixture!

Because our lives are not quite busy enough...

2009-11-23T22:42:00.002-06:00

Yesterday right after Sacrament meeting, one of our high councilmen came and nabbed Ben, telling him he needed to talk with him for a few minutes, and then with me. We knew what that meant-- a new calling!
Ben's been the primary pianist for the past year, and was a primary teacher for 2 years before that. 3 years is pretty long to be in the primary!
He has been called to be the 2nd counselor in the Elders quorum, which makes our respective callings nicely symmetrical. It's funny because the R.S. 1st couselor's husband is also the Elders Quorum 1st counselor!
So we'll be juggling meeting schedules, that's for sure. At least our R.S. and E.Q. presidency meetings won't be double-booked, with 2 sets of spouses in each! But I do think it means that we'll pretty much never have Sunday evenings with both of us at home, and that probably 3 weeks out of the month we'll be taking separate cars.
Ben's already talking about buying a small trailer to help with all the moves that are inevitably in his future. :-)
I'm excited for him, though. It will be great for him to be able to interact with adults for a change. And I think he'll do a great job.

Weekend warrior

2009-11-22T17:02:00.002-06:00

We're trying (not entirely successfully) to get ready for our trip to St. Louis this coming week. This involves laundry, straightening up the house, and cleaning up the back yard. Yesterday I put the boys to work attacking the back yard. It was pretty bad.
Anyway, Brigham needed to dress appropriately for the job, and this is what he came up with. Pretty good, huh?
I wonder if I would be a better housekeeper if I bought a maid's uniform to work in every once in a while? :-)

painting faces and throwing punches

2009-11-21T20:59:00.003-06:00

I got another email today from a prospective HALT-MS trial candidate, also fighting insurance. It's really good to be able to be in contact with other people in this clinical trial. I wish that there was a way for all the past, current, and future patients to get in contact with each other. We need to start a stem cell transplant multiple sclerosis support group! It's funny, 16 months out, I'm starting to feel like a veteran!

I have to write about something that happened with Mosey a few weeks ago. It was during his 2nd to last soccer game, during the few minutes of practice that they do before the game. There was another boy on his team, "Miguel" who was quite a handful. Very energetic, shall we say. I was watching from the sideline and see Mosey and Miguel start getting into an argument.
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
Miguel: "Yes!"
Mosey: "No!"
At first I thought they were just playing, because it was so ridiculous. But then Miguel got right up into Mosey's face and yelled, "AAAAAAHHHH!!" And what did Mosey do? Exactly what he has been trained to do as the youngest of 3 brothers-- he punched him. He punched him in the chest, so it could have been worse (visions of black eyes, bloody noses, and split lips flashed before my eyes), but I was horrified. Miguel started crying and ran to his mom. I yelled at Mosey to get off the field. He came to me, almost in tears himself. He began, "Mom, he was yelling at me and--" but I cut him off and said, "I know, Mosey, I know, I saw him. But it doesn't matter that he was yelling, you NEVER hit another person, no matter what they say to you! It's never ok to hit like that!" We had a quick, extremely serious talk and I told him he had to go over and apologize to Miguel or he wouldn't be allowed to play. Mosey was good and walked over there with his head down and said, "I'm sorry for hitting you," and then ran back.
Afterward, I asked what they had been fighting about. I didn't ask him right away, because I didn't want him to get the idea that it *mattered* what they had been fighting about. Mosey said, "He said that after the game he was going to come and paint my face!!"
Ha! Can you believe it? I had to try not to laugh. I told Mosey that he needed to stop and think about things before getting into an argument. Was there any way that Miguel could paint his face? Would Miguel's mom let him? Would I let someone do that to Mosey? If not, then the best thing to do would have been to ignore him and walk away.
Mosey was pretty upset and defensive for the next few minutes, and almost got into another altercation. A few of the kids on his team were running around and "tagging" each other. Another little boy ran up behind Mosey and "tagged" him, and Mosey whirled around and I was very worried he was going to attack again! But he got control of himself and didn't do it. Good boy.
It's always interesting to me to see how differently my boys react in certain situations compared to how I would have acted. When I was 5, if another little girl had come up and started yelling at me like that, I would have started crying and run away, not hit her! Still, I don't want to entirely squash any instinct that Mosey has to protect himself. If Miguel had started hitting Mosey, I would have been ok with Mosey throwing a punch as well.

Duel of the Turner boys

2009-11-20T22:27:00.002-06:00

This is what the boys did today on a gloomy drizzly gray November afternoon. Looks like fun, huh?
My boys really want it to be fall. And it has been a little cool the past few days, so the boys excitedly pulled out sweaters and jackets. But don't let that fool you-- look at Mosey's bare feet! This is one of the reasons I love Austin.
Sometimes I'm just amazed at how *boy like* my boys are! :-)

Favorite

2009-11-19T23:32:00.002-06:00

My brilliant boy Brigham is a very... creative speller. He's been working on the word "favorite." He missed it a couple of days in a row, and so he tried hard to memorize the way it looks like it ought to be pronounced. So yesterday on his 3rd attempt with this spelling word, here's what he came up with:
faverright
That's just awesome, I say! Brigham is nothing if not creative.
He did get it right today, and I daresay he will never forget how to spell favorite again. :-)

Rope Swing

2009-11-19T23:23:00.003-06:00

Mosey is a lot like Joseph. I think that he and Joseph may be more alike in personality (and certainly appearance) than Joseph and Brigham! (A fact that does not go unnoticed by Brigham, who tells me sometimes he feels left out. This is why I always thought that an ideal family size would be 4 or more children. 1 is lonely, 2 will fight, with 3 one will be left out, but with 4, everyone will probably have an ally.)
Anyway, one of the ways in which Mosey and Joseph are alike is their mutual obsession with the rope swing. I believe we are on swing #3 in that tree in the back yard. My boys swing on it until the plastic literally falls apart. If I can't find Joseph or Moses, 90% of the time I just need to look out the back door and there he is. Brigham likes it too, but if I can't find him, 90% of the time he'll be tucked away somewhere drawing.
I read somewhere that swinging is actually considered therapy for certain types of childhood behavioral disorders. I don't think my kids are particularly disordered (at least, no more than normal!), but the swing really calms them down. And our swing is in the perfect location-- just off the edge of the deck, so the boys can grab the swing and jump off the side of the deck and go swinging through the air. It looks fun, I wish I could try it!

No-sugar November

2009-11-18T21:32:00.002-06:00

My younger sister Naomi has been doing "No-sugar November" for a few years now. I've always thought she was nuts (and I still kind of do), but this year I decided to join her. I have very few ways in which to really physically challenge myself. I used to run and work out, and those were great ways of developing physical self-discipline. But now I can't do that and I realized I missed having a physical challenge. So I decided to try it.
I'm not being very strict. Maybe next year I'll be more strict. I've banned myself from all "gratuitous" sugar (desserts, candy, sugary cereal, etc.), but not from other natural forms of sugar like fruit and grains. I did sprinkle sugar on grapefruit last week and felt like I should call my sister to confess. :-)
I hoped I'd be able to report how great I feel cutting out gratuitous sugar, but sadly I cannot. I'd probably have to eliminate all refined carbohydrates and I really have zero desire to do that.
I haven't lost any weight (I haven't been trying to, but I'm too female to ever get to the point where I wouldn't be a little happy about losing a pound or two), and I think it's probably because when I get that sugar craving, I'll try to fill it with something else. But really, I just want something sweet, so I'll end up eating more of the non-sweet thing to satisfy (Weight Watchers says that when you have a craving, you should fill it, but in moderation, because otherwise you will eat "around" your craving and end up eating more points than if you just ate what you wanted in the first place, and I think it is true!). I guess avoiding this trap ought to have been part of the discipline I've been trying to exercise!
My sister gives herself Thanksgiving as a vacation day, and then goes back to no-sugar for the rest of the month. But Thanksgiving is close enough to the end of the month, that I'm calling it quits then. It's one thing to forego all your kids leftover Halloween candy, but leftover Thanksgiving pie? I don't think so! I'll try not to go too crazy, though.
I read somewhere that the average weight-gain over the holidays is 7 pounds. Wow! So even if I have not lost weight, at least I have eliminated the post-Halloween candy gorge from my holiday caloric total.
I admit to being pretty freaked out about gaining weight. It used to not be such a huge deal, because I could just add a 2 or 3 miles to my daily run and in a couple of weeks I could lose a couple of pounds. But now? A pound of fat is something like 3500 calories. So if I want to lose even 1 pound, I can't do it by running for an hour 5 days a week (roughly 3500 calories at my weight), something that used to be no big deal. Now I have to eliminate 3500 calories only by cutting out food, which would be about 1/3 of the calories I eat in a whole week. It's hard to cut down what you're eating by 1/3, and maintain that for any length of time. I'd much, much rather exercise.
I keep reminding myself that it is easier to stay the weight I am than to try to lose it later so I'm trying very hard to stay disciplined.
Ben's lost about 20 pounds in the past year-- impressive, huh? He wants to lose about 5 more, I think, and he's started jogging at night. I'm jealous. Very, very, very jealous.
When I got home from the hospital last year, the reality of my future life began to settle in a little bit. The 2 years previous had been filled with one change after another, and I never got a chance to really adjust and accept my new realities. So after the transplant was over and my life was settling down into something slightly resembling normalcy and stability, my new limitations had a chance to sink in.
Ben took me on some walks in the wheelchair around our neighborhood. We live near a beautiful golf course that meanders around through our neighborhood. There are walking and jogging trails through the golf course, and even just on the streets, the big old shady oak trees and quiet windy roads in our area are ideal for running. It was hard for me to accept that I will never go running again. It still is.
Ok, that is quite enough self-pity for one night! I'm going to go to bed and wake up tomorrow and be incredibly grateful for everything that I *can* do and forget about the things I can't.
And I'm looking forward to one week from tomorrow!!! Freedom!!! Pumpkin pie!!!

Recent snapshots

2009-11-17T23:50:00.004-06:00

Here's the gigantic pile of leaves the boys decided to and actually did rake by themselves. Impressive, huh?

We have a lot of these critters up in the trees behind our house. Whenever Mister sees one he goes crazy. Joseph sat out on the back deck with a flashlight (turned off) and waited until he saw movement along the fence. Then he shined the light at it, making it freeze up there long enough for Brigham to run outside with a camera and take this picture.

The boys decided to dress up the dog last weekend. He was wearing my Rice University T-shirt, a dracula cape, Brigham's solider cap, and a pair of 3-d glasses. What a patient dog.

Here are the boys and Ben tonight at dinner, watching Youtube videos while their soup cooled. (I believe this was a Paul Shanklin video).

challenge vs competition

2009-11-16T23:52:00.003-06:00

I've been thinking recently about how best to instill in the boys how to have pride in their work-- to gain satisfaction in a goal accomplished, a job well done. So much of the pride people feel in their accomplishments is not necessarily in the accomplishment itself, but in how it measured up to everyone else around them. I'm constantly trying to find ways to drive home to the boys the importance of taking pride in their work and taking satisfaction in a job they did really well.
Did I write last week about how the boys went outside and very spontaneously and secretly decided to rake up the leaves in the back yard? It was very cute. They were extremely proud of themselves, and rightfully so. It was a good moment for them, but I need to find more opportunities to teach them these concepts.
We had a family home evening tonight about not being afraid of hard work, and not letting your feelings get in the way of doing the right thing (i.e. not letting the feeling of boredom get in the way of finishing your math assignment! LOL).
Mosey said, "One thing that made it more fun to rake the leaves was pretending to fight invisible guys!" Maybe I'll use that as a tactic next time I'm tackling a load of laundry. Think it'll work? :-)
So part of the trick with the boys is to make a less pleasant task as fun as possible so that they can get to completion and then experience those feelings of satisfaction.
The boys started a gymnastics class last week. Today was their 2nd class. I'd taken them to a couple of other trial classes, but had been disappointed in the gym and coaches, and the boys had been less than enthusiastic. But soccer is over and I wanted them to be in another sport, specifically one with a male coach because I am always looking for opportunities for my boys to have male mentors. So I found out about this homeschool gymnastics class and took them last week for a trial class. I was very happy with the gym and with the coaches, and the boys seemed to have a good time and were happy to go back today.
We're not a very sports-oriented family, but I do think that sports can play a really valuable role in developing character in that it provides a natural (and hopefully fun) way to work through difficulty to achieve a goal.
(On a side note, it is a little frustrating watching the boys out there and seeing them having trouble with one thing or another and knowing that I could so easily teach them how to do it if I could only show them myself. Hmph.)
I really loved gymnastics when I was a kid, even though I never was that great at it. That's something I really hope to be able to teach the boys-- to love something even though it is very hard and you're not that great! I know that the fact that it was hard for me and I wasn't naturally that gifted were actually the very reasons (or at least 2 of them) why I liked gymnastics so much-- it was a challenge and the triumphs were therefore all the sweeter. I hope the boys will be able to experience some of that in the sports that they try.
It's tricky teaching kids the joy of conquering a challenge. They have to be willing to stick with it even when it's not very fun in order to get the payoff at the end. Hopefully with enough experience they'll learn to take the long view.
I tried to tie in their feelings of pride (the good kind, right?) in raking all those leaves, with the feelings of pride they will have as they accomplish longer term goals. I hope they got a little of it. One of the downsides to homeschooling is that they don't get the payoff of getting the highest grade in the class, or beating their friend on the mad-minute math sheet, or any of the other countless small competitive triumphs that can be experienced in a classroom setting. Teaching the boys to be proud of their work for itself, and not being proud of their work in comparison with someone else's isn't easy. It's probably healthier, though.
Anyway, there are some random musings for a Monday night.

meh

2009-11-15T22:50:00.002-06:00

No Torty yet... :-(
We spent a long time looking for him, and Ben and Joseph crawled under the deck and got unbelievably dirty. I really like that little guy and hope he turns up. Joseph asked if I thought he was just in a really long bad dream and he would wake up and Torty wouldn't be lost. That broke my heart a little.
We had stake conference today. Our stake broadcast the meeting to our ward building because there just isn't enough room in the Stake Center for everybody. 2 hours watching a grainy broadcast in a darkened chapel isn't that fun for little boys, but they did well anyway. Afterward, an older lady a couple of rows back complimented the boys on their good behavior. She went on to complain about all the other kids who were not so reverent (it was kind of loud, but I mostly tune that stuff out), and how it showed a lack of respect to God and the failure of parents to discipline their kids. She was nice to compliment my boys, but I thought she was pretty unfair to all the other families who made the effort to go to Stake Conference, which many families take as a "free pass." It's not easy for little kids to be still and quiet for *that* long. Why do people get judgmental like that? Shouldn't church be the one place we have compassion for others and forgive them their weaknesses? Then I have to hold the mirror up to my own face and wonder why I'm being so uncharitable to that poor woman who just wanted to feel the spirit and was distracted by all the kid-noises.
Anyway.
I totally forgot about a presidency meeting tonight. I had my phone off and was in my room folding clothes and listening to my iPod when the RS President knocked on my door to pick me up. Ben was in the front room, but was sleeping and didn't wake up to her knocks. Oops. I hate dropping the ball like that. I really, really hate feeling irresponsible. I constantly have this dread that deep down I really am irresponsible and pretty soon the truth will come out and everyone else will realize it too.
Yesterday I went to the memorial service for a woman in my ward who just died of colon cancer. She was only 2 years older than me and left 3 little kids and a husband who adored her. The service was so beautiful, but so, so sad. She and I had talked a few times about chemotherapy and how hard chronic illness can be for kids (this was her 2nd bout with cancer after having first been diagnosed 5 years ago). I've felt some weird form of survivor's guilt-- just as I was recovering from my stem cell transplant which will hopefully put me in permanent remission, she was finding out about her recurrence, which she knew would be terminal. I've thought about her so much over the past year. During those times when I've felt discouraged or pessimistic or depressed, I've thought about how if she allowed herself to think about it (which she probably did not), she would have traded places with me in an instant and felt like the luckiest person in the world to do so. She was a very brave person. She had 5 younger brothers, and they were all there with their families yesterday, and 3 of her sisters-in-law sang the song I want sung at my funeral, and the whole thing was very emotional for me. I wanted to say something meaningful to her husband on my way out, but barely choked out, "That was beautiful and I'm so glad I got to attend." And then felt like an idiot because what kind of moron would be "glad" to attend someone's memorial? I doubt he registered my idiocy, but I still felt bad. I guess there's nothing good to say in those circumstances.
Anyway, it's been one of those "meh" weekends for me, I guess.

Bound to happen...

2009-11-14T22:52:00.003-06:00

A sad thing happened today.
Joseph took Torty outside for a few minutes late this afternoon to walk around and eat some grass. He's only taken him outside a couple of other times because I'm paranoid about him getting lost.
Well, Joseph got distracted and forgot to keep his eye on him, and now we can't find him.
Ben and the boys went in back with a 200 W bulb on a work light searching through the bushes and under the deck, but no luck. They'll have to keep trying tomorrow when it's light.
Torty *is* back there. It's just that he could be under the deck, and if he is, it could be very hard to find him. The boys are all praying that they'll find him. And so am I. Joseph was extremely sad and feels just terrible.
Will you offer a quick prayer that Torty will turn up?

We took the boys to see "Where the Wild Things Are" tonight. I'm not sure what to think of it. It held the boys' rapt attention, though, and Mosey said at the end, "I think that movie was good enough that we should buy it." That's pretty high-praise! He was a little scared in some parts, but over all not as scared as I thought he might be. When we watched "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," during the climax scene when the dam holding back all the leftover food is about to burst and crush everyone on the island, Mosey got really scared and said to me, "I thought this movie was supposed to be funny! It isn't funny, it's scary!!!"
But, going back to "Wild Things," Max sure reminded me of Joseph. Joseph has never been as angry as Max, thank goodness, but there were places in the movie that hit close to home. The closing scene with the mother watching Max as he eats his supper (that was still hot) was very powerful to me.