October 2015 Edition: February 2014

Friday, February 28, 2014

Tidbits of Hilarity

Anyone with children knows how darn funny they can be. Unfortunately, I don't spend the time writing down their every word and the comic episode gets lost among a million other abandoned memories. Well, even though it's just a quick jot, this post is dedicated to some funny moments recently:

(Siena, with her "About Me" poster for being Star Student)

Siena and her class were busy with a project for Martin Luther King, Jr. when another mom volunteer noticed something different about her assignment. The students were all writing Thank You letters to him for the things he did, and according to the mom helper they were all saying things like, "Thank you for freeing the slaves." Ha Ha! It's inaccurate, but you can see how they might think that. Well, when the mom looked at Siena's paper, she noticed that there was more than just the "freeing the slaves" line; Siena had written something to the effect of, "Thank you for helping our country. I want to be like you and free the slaves, but I can't find any." (I'm sitting here laughing as I'm writing this.) Oh, the innocence of youth.

(Qiana, working hard on a project and with her trademark focus.)

Qiana has thrown in her fair share of comic relief in our lives, too. With her, it's the little things that may not stand out as very funny to other people, but are treasures to us. For example, two days ago it was beautiful and sunny outside so we went outside to play with sidewalk chalk. After triumphing over what she thought were accurately-written numbers on a hopscotch sequence, she was feeling very elated. (She gets an enormous amount of satisfaction if she can "accomplish" something that was once a barrier to her, whether it's right or not. I love this about her, though.) When she feels that happy, she gets extremely charitable--no joke. She runs to me and smothers me with hugs and kisses and "Mom, you're my favorite mom in the world" comments. Of course I don't correct her slight errors right then because it would send her into an equally dismal attitude. But, back to the sidewalk chalk.... She went inside and asked me to write down on a piece of paper the words, "Welcome Home Siena" with which she proceeded to smother the front porch in chalk. When she finished, she noticed there was a bare stair up to the porch and asked if she could write, "Thank you for all of the wonderful things." Her happy place is very happy indeed.

(Ezra, in dress-ups at Family Night @ the library.)

Ezra is talking a lot, but most of his words are still so slurred and it's hard to decipher exactly what he's saying. However, once in a while he'll pull out a word we never were aware he knows. This happened yesterday and I laughed out loud. I was emptying the grocery bags into the fridge and he was staring intently on. All of the sudden he ran to the fridge door and pulled out a bottle of salad dressing. "Wanch, wanch" (Ranch, Ranch) was all he said in an excited tizzy. That little boy 1.) knows what he wants despite it being 9:30 in the morning, and 2.) melts my heart with his sincere excitement over the things his sisters like. (Oh, have I not mentioned how obsessed Siena and Qiana are with Ranch. Siena once told me that she wanted a third helping of salad just so she could have Ranch dressing. I will say, though, that I haven't bought the MSG Ranch dressing in a while, so it's curbing their addictions. ;)

Anyway, I think this was a good recording session. Hopefully I'll get on the ball more often because things like this remind me of how good life really is.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Opposing Forces

Have you ever felt loyalties to two opposing forces? Well, if you haven't, you can probably imagine how uncomfortable and unsettling it is. If you agree with one, you abandon the other and feel the weight of betraying it.

Thus it is for me, and it is not a new thing. Ever since the year 2005, to be exact.

You see, my husband and my own father are two completely different people. I love them both and would not do anything purposely to make them upset. However, because they are two different people, their suggestions at activities that involve the other usually collide in a big way. It's not that they don't like each other (they really DO, by the way,) it's just that they don't have a lot of the same interests. For that reason, it's really hard to find activities outside of family gatherings that both would like.

I'll give you an example:

My aunt's awesome Valentine's Day dance was a perfect chance to let loose and enjoy an evening together. I suggested to my dad that we all go together. He promptly refused, on the grounds that he doesn't dance... or socialize. (Okay, maybe I made that last one up.) So that idea didn't work out. (I also have to mention that even if he did shrug his shoulders and give in to that one, they wouldn't have ended up going anyway. My poor mom was really ill that night. But I'm going off-topic....) Juan and I had fun that night, but we didn't sharing in that fun with my Dad.

Another instance happened this week as well. My dad invited me to go snowmobiling with Harper and him. I thought it was on a day where Siena had school and Juan had work and since he asks all the time and I always refuse, I accepted the invitation. I mean, he already had Sierra lined up to babysit, for heaven's sake! Once I found out that both Juan and Siena would be home all day because of President's Day, I felt horrible. I explained the new schedule to mi padre; my dad's solution was to just have the whole family come and he would take the kids and Juan ice fishing. I didn't want to cancel on him, even though I KNEW that this was not Juan's cup of tea, because I had committed to a rare outing with my dad. So without consulting Juan, I accepted the offer again. I thought it through again afterwards and more aspects I hadn't considered started coming to mind. Juan was not going to want to go out on ice with his foot like that and I didn't want to leave him alone while I went and had fun. I felt horrible again!!

Here I was with a decision to make. Who would I upset? I didn't have to think hard about it because I had another commitment I hadn't lived up to and that was to go to the temple. A temple trip would work for Juan's and my schedules, but would coincide with the snowmobiling trip. I decided to cancel with my dad the night before the trip. It was a difficult decision because I got myself stuck between two good things. I HATE that I did that to them and myself.

I cancelled with my dad via my mom since I was too ashamed to do it in person. I begged her to plead my case or to somehow soften the blow, but a while later I got a call from my dad. It was strictly a Guilt Trip phone call. It totally worked. I feel awful and I feel like a flighty, irresponsible person. I can't remember a time when I have felt so regretful over a really poor decision... Wait a second, yes I can, it happens all the time! But for some reason, I feel extra doses of remorse when my poor judgement involves disappointing my parents.

And all this mess is just because I was trying to please both opposing forces. Ugh! Life!

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Happy VDay

(...and when I say VDay, I mean of the Valentine variety, not the Victory in Europe Day during WWII.)

I usually don't do anything too special for this holiday. I can't keep up with them all, so some holidays fall by the wayside and this one is usually part of that lot (along with St. Patrick's Day, Pioneer Day, and Halloween.) HOWEVER, I took a little bit of initiative, thanks to the fun and annual Valentine's package that Amber and Kurt sent the kids. It inspired me to be a better, more whimsical mother. So we made a loose curtain of hearts and draped them from an homemade Valentine's banner hanging in the kitchen; we also decorated sugar cookies on two different occasions. I bought the kids decorative melamine plates and served a complete VDay breakfast on them, cute saying and all! I mean, this was a huge step for Stacia this year.

The afternoon was stressful though. I didn't time things right and I found myself dashing out of the house, kids in-tow, driving to the floral wholesaler with just a few minutes to make "critical" floral decisions, helping with the set-up for the dance that night (more on that to come,) and arranging flowers for my dad and uncle like a madwoman once we made it home again. Making dinner and giving a feeble attempt at tidying the house were just afterthoughts.

Valentine's Day was a rush of mostly Crazy, but the thought of my date tonight got me through it. Juan and I were able to spend the evening together while the sitter took care of our unruly, yet totally adorable brood.

Aaahhh, Date Nights. Glad you're back.

I planned the date for tonight, so Juan was kept in suspense as to where we were going and what we were going to do. He found out where we were going by opening felt fortune cookies (reminiscent of his proposal) with driving directions. The first destination was "GOLD'S GYM" since he's wanted to get a gym pass for a while. I clearly thought he could handle it, but he told me he didn't want to go. It wasn't that he was a baby, like I know you're thinking right now, it's because he's not too sure his foot is ready for working out after all. We decided to wait on that. The next fortune cookie held "DINNER" as a destination. He got to "choose his own adventure" as to where we went to dinner, as long as it was Asian. Because we finally broke out of our tradition of being "un-traditional" on Valentine's Day and went out to eat, I decided to pull out all the--cheesy--stops; we sat at our table and I gave him one chopstick. Only one. I told him, "This is me all by myself. I'm completely useless." At that point, I gave him the other chopstick and said, "This is you... and Baby, You Complete Me..." or something like that. (Insert swelling orchestra music, audience Awwwww's and the teary smiles HERE.)

Go Cliché or Go Home, though. Right?

After dinner, he opened another felt fortune cookie that read, "CVS". He was utterly confused at what we were going to do on our date there. I kept giving him obscure clues so he wouldn't figure it out before we got there. It drove him nuts! :) I told him, "We haven't talked about this all night on our date, so we need to go to CVS right now," and, "2/3 of this has a lot to do with Philadelphia." He caught onto the right idea once he figured out it connected to our children. We got to the front counter and I asked for my photo order. This is what I gave him:

We just needed to talk about the kids to make it an official date. :)

After that we went to the UVU Auto Shop where my aunt Ra'Shelle and uncle Don were hosting a Valentine's Day dance. It was pretty fun, despite the limitations Juan's foot put on him. We invited Juan's parents, Beto and Rosi, and Hector and Lola and they all showed up. There was a live 80's band and my aunt even sang a love song for all the couples to dance to. I hope this memory lasts for a long time because it was just so fun to be there with both sides of my family.

When we got home, Sadie (one of my Mia Maids) had everything cleaned up and the kids were asleep in bed.

PARADISE FOUND!

Despite the crazy morning of Ezra leaving a path of destruction in his wake, it was a lovely VDay.