A Few of My Favorite Things

Here's a list of things that are making me happy...I feel like I've been kinda down lately so I thought it would be good to do a little blessing counting.

-The way Eli says "Mama kiss pweez!"

-Whenever Sammy giggles...his laugh is like pure happiness in sound form

-The fact that Dan comes home every night from work and gives me a kiss before he even puts his laptop bag down

-My small but fertile garden. I have been eating fresh tomatoes and mint like a crazy person. 

-The color blue of my freshly painted kitchen.

-OLYMPICS! Definitely a favorite.

-The heat. I LOVE summer. LOVE LOVE LOVE. 

-Our Thanksgiving Point Pass. We go all the stinking time and I'm still not sick of it. 

-The air conditioning in my car...two summers without it makes me very appreciative. 

-Imagine Dragons...k I know their single is waaaay popular right now but I don't care...it makes me happy. 

-The arrival of canning season. Its the only hobby I have that I'm kinda fanatic about. 

Oh, I also love the fact that my son calls the moon Endor when it's out during the day. 

La Logic League

Oh gosh. I'm mad. If you didn't know by now...lots of things make me mad. But today...extra mad with a side of super irritated. Topped with a hint of self-righteous indignation and served over a bed of leafy green go-to-hell. That kind of mad.

I read this article yesterday on the webnuts:

http://www.khou.com/news/NYCs-plan-to-ban-baby-formula-in-hospitals-164420306.html

It made me the above mad. Let me go off for a sec.

When I had Eli I expected to hook up my newborn to my overflowing mammaries and nurse him. I pictured sweet moments of maternal bliss as I cuddled my baby and we skin-on-skinned...or whatever the crap it's called.

That did not happen. Two days after Eli was born my milk hadn't come in. Three days....four days...five six seven. Never. I had a light trickle of milky goodness that I would pumped out for him...never more than a few ounces at at time. I tried everything. Herbs, foods, pumping, consultations, crying, singing to my boobs, chanting to the Leche Gods, lighting candles, and so forth. Nothing worked. I nursed Eli for 2 months, supplementing with evil evil formula until I just had to stop. I was exhausted. Night time feedings were lasting 3 hours, after nursing on each side for at least 30 minutes, giving baby a bottle, getting him back to sleep, and pumping for at least another 30 minutes.

I tried. Dangit all I tried. I also cried, a lot. All I heard during my pregnancy was how bad formula was, all the crap about "nipple confusion" and so much more whatever, that when I was faced with the prospect of not being able to provide the one thing my son needed more than anything else in his infancy, I felt like a complete failure.

I wasn't though...I know that now. I now know formula is just fine. Eli has honestly been sick maybe 2 days in his almost 3 years (minus searing seasonal allergies) and is off the charts for growth. Still though, I tried even harder to nurse with Sammy but gave up much sooner, because at that point I knew formula was just fine. Expensive, but totally fine.

Do I wish I could nurse my kiddies? Oh absolutely. Do I know that mother's milk is superior to formula? Meh, I don't think at this point there's that much a difference to be honest.

The problem with stuff like this NYC ban is that the people who are instituting it think somehow they are sticking it to the man but they are, most definitely, sticking it to the woman. Formula companies probably don't really care. But I'll tell you what even getting a few small samples at the hospital helped out so much in those first few days with my kids at home. I didn't have to the store to buy it. I didn't have to worry about the expense for a few days. I have actually solicited my friends who have had babies recently if I could have their hospital samples.

All a ban like this does is create more guilt. And we as mothers do NOT need anything else to feel guilty about. Add the fact that Sammy was a c-section birth and I'm a poster child for the modern day irresponsible mother. Jeepers. Keep your high-minded ideas to yourself.

Oh, and I just found this article...so THERE. Rant over.


A victim of formula. See how unhealthy he looks...SEE?????

An Artistic Problem

I'm a big art snob. I feel I can be. If there's anything I have a legitimate reason to be uppity about, it's art. It can't be food...I'm no great connoisseur that's for derned sure (Arby's anyone?) and I am most definitely NOT a clothes snob (most of my wardrobe has come, electively, from DI) but I do know art. I worked in an art museum for 3 years, I studied art and humanities at BYU, I lived in Spain, and consequentially, at the Prado for 3 months and I have been to more art galleries and museums across the country and world than I have been to H&M...and that's saying something (K...maybe I'm a little bit of a clothes snob...)

The one area of art I've always struggled with is religious art. Most of it I think is crap. There, I said it. Even the most popular depictions of Christ make me want to close my eyes and sing Neil Diamond songs (for some reason...). It gets so bad sometimes that I find myself being REALLY irreverent when I'm in, say, a Deseret Book Store (the mothership of all bad religious art distributors).

I'm trying to get better, but the problem is, I now have a kid that I have to teach about Jesus and the only way to really do that is introducing him to pictures of Jesus...most of which I HATE. There are a few I love, like most anything by Minerva Teichert, and most of Carl Bloch's stuff. It's hard though, to find children's books with their paintings featured. 

I also hate (I'm using that word liberally in this post!) when I hear people talking to their kids and they say stuff like, "Don't be naughty, Jesus is listening..." and point to a pic of Christ they have in their house. Wo be unto the idolatrous! says me. 

So conundrums abound. I want my son to start learning about Christ and his teachings, but I have a really hard time showing him pictures of Christ. Anytime I do I find myself, almost by rote, saying, "now look here Eli, here is an artist's idea of what Christ would have looked like, although in Jewish tradition he would have had a longer beard, less of a flowy robe on, and would probably not be glowing...". 

I think I have a problem.....suggestions?

Party On Wayne

So, for whatever reason, in the last few months I have been invited to soooo many parties. I know what you're thinking, "Popular Popular POPULAR!". No. Let me splain'.

I'm talking about 'lady parties'. You know..."come to my house for a totally non pressured sales pitch on something you NEED to have and then munch down some cookies and Shasta". THOSE types of parties.

Now, I don't mean to offend, and if you are part of a 'party business' then that's just fine. However, after working at NuSkin, the mother of all multilevel marketing groups, for an entire 6 weeks way back when Dan and I were first married (I did Spanish customer service support) I came to the absolute conclusion that I would not ever participate in "direct sales" types of marketing. I also decided that I would avoid going to 'parties' when at all possible because they just make me feel super awkward...no matter how 'low pressured' or casual they are supposed to be.

With that rant over, there's a clip from my favorite TV show 30 Rock that always comes to mind whenever I hear about someone's awesome product they are selling...that I have to come to their house and sit in their living room to buy, that for some reason I can't just go buy at a normal store....

The Social Notwork

I'm very proud of that title.

Anyway...since we moved a few months ago Dan and I have been trying to get to know people in our new neighborhood. Church is sort of a bad place to get a real vibe on what people are actually like. I've met some other moms at the park and gone to a couple of play-dates around the area but its also very hard to get to know someone when your child is either puking on their floor or pooping in their kiddie pool (true story...).


All the new social efforts have made me tired. It's also drawn attention once again to how hard it is to make good friends as a married couple. You not only have to find someone that is compatible with one member of the partnership but you have to find TWO compatible individuals...this is hard. 


I wish there was some sort of site, like they have for single peeps, but for marrieds. Somewhere I could go, fill out a dual profile, and have them hook Dan and I up with other married couples looking for a good time (ok...that sounded creepy...but not in my brain.). Like an eHarmony...but for people who are too lazy to get to know other married couples the old fashioned way. I would make sure this site had a place where you could check things like "sometimes makes off-colored remarks, needs to be paired with couple of similar humor", or "talks mostly in Arrested Development quotes...other couple needs to be down with that".

This system would make my life soooo much easier. Dan...can you design this with your webnut magic? Aaaaand GO!

Sunday Thoughts

Yesterday evening Dan and I (plus small family) rolled into our driveway after a week in Denver spending some fun time with the Garfield group. We had a great visit but were looking forward to getting back home and, above all else, sleeping in our own bed.

The trip home was traumatic, to maybe be slightly dramatic. Eli was sick of being in the car after about an hour but refused to take a nap. All he wanted to do was watch cartoons on Youtube on my phone but there are surprisingly few internets out in the middle of nowhere. Explaining this to Eli just made him angrier and louder. By about Rock Springs Dan and I were both ready to jump out the window.  I put on headphones at one point and tried to block out the yelling.

Because Eli was so irate Sammy had a hard time sleeping too. He soon joined in the noise and there was little Dan and I could do but look at each other occasionally, laugh really hard, and then go back to quietly crying to ourselves.

The problem with situations like this, ones where there is no way to really get the kids to calm down, is that my Patience-O-Meter starts to drop and then pretty soon I have had It. You know...It? I hate when I loose my patience with Eli. It makes me feel awful terrible. I will go weeks and feel like Saint Roby the enlightened and then WHAM...stick me in a car with him yelling at me for 8 hours and I just want to run screaming off into the horizon.

Then this morning in preparation for church I watched this video. I love these Mormon Moments. As I listened to President Monson talk about what it important and what is not...I was reminded again that being a mom is my full time job and if I can't find joy on some level being with my kids even when they are screaming in my face then I don't deserve this incredible task.

Eli is 2. That is all there is to it. Sammy is 6 months. That is all there is to that. Someday my little boys will be grown up and will no longer need me like they do right now. I need to just slow down and not wish a moment of this away. Sure I'd love to spend summers traveling like I used to and I would LOVE to be able to go anywhere at the drop of a hat but that is not as rewarding or even as exciting as my life right now.

Does it seem like this blog is turning into more of a personal journal lately? Sorry about that. I'm just super tired today and trying, honestly, to get up the energy to take Eli to church...a happening that will surely take a good deal of patience and love on my part. But we do the important things so we can reap the rewards later...right?

Reason Number 98 Why I am a Bad Person

I am a person with many glaring character flaws. I could name them all...but...I don't want to. One of them, though, is my inability to Let Things Go. Not so much when it comes to things involving my relationships with other people, or important things, or things that matter. Mostly I can't let trivial and insignificant stuff go...like when people say idiotic things on the internet or when I find copy errors in the instruction manual of my new vacuum.

Today Sammy woke up at 5:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep. I tried everything and finally just resigned myself to an early rising. I, unfortunately, have a smart phone and popped open Facebook at this un-godly hour and started browsing. My early morning brain is two things, 1-very foggy and 2-very irritable (ask my poor poor husband..). This makes for some very dangerous social networking. My not letting of things go comes out in odd and embarrassing ways.

So...as I was perusing the Facebook...I came across a post on KSL Deals...with what I saw as a glaring gramatical error. Now, in my lucid awake state I would have just moved on by. In my sleep deprived morning self-righteous state...I could not let it go.

There is it, like a visual representation of my tired internet self and my more awake self. First the correction...and then the guilt and a sort of patronizing pat shoulder. Oh well...maybe I should enable some sort of feature that makes it so I can't comment on stuff until I'm able to answer a math problem or something..