Category Archives: Diapers

The dirty side of motherhood.

How do people who are REALLY busy do it all?

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I’m just keeping it real here.  I am feeling way overwhelmed lately.  And it makes me feel like a whimp.  I have been trying for several days to catch up on blogging my Women’s Conference summaries.  I think I only have one or two left, but I can’t seem to get it together.  I’ve felt so busy that it’s left me a little uninspired.  The ridiculous thing is I can’t figure out what I’m so busy at.  My oldest child is in kindergarten and he plays on a baseball team.  I have Sunday responsibilities.  Other than that, I’m not calendared out to the max.  And yet, I feel like I’ve been running full speed for a couple of weeks and I can’t seem to catch my footing and approach things rationally.  I’m doomed when my kids have full schedules and I get some real responsibilities.

Here are a few of the things that I know I should be working on, and their deadlines are looming over me like a great weight…. but at the end of the day, I want to crawl in bed and sleep my worries away because I don’t have the energy to think through them like I know I should.

1.  In less than two weeks, I’m teaching 8 classes for EFY at Brigham Young University (actually only 4 classes, each one taught twice).  I am so not ready right now.  I’ve only taught one of the classes before and all 4 of them need a lot more preparation before I will feel comfortable and ready.

2.  This weekend I am in charge of a quarterly Activity Day for my Primary kids.  Anyone have any brilliant ideas I could use for an “Article of Faith Field Day”?

3.  I still have so many thoughts floating around in my  head from Women’s Conference that I feel like I need to turn into tangible goals.  I want to make a plan, a strategy really, to help me incorporate those promptings into action in my life and in the life of my family.  I feel an urgency to think it all through and plan it all out before I lose the ideas and the ambition.

Well, that’s it I guess.  Those are kind of the big ones that keep drumming around in the back of my mind while I hash out all the details of the day-to-day.  Laundry’s going.  The sink is full and needs some attention.  I refuse to look at my play room right now.

So say something to inspire me.  Go.

Add Reptile Surgeon to my resume

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Clark got a toy frog from his Grandpa this weekend.  It’s one of those gummy, stretchy kind of toys that is perfect for a boy with an overactive and slightly destructive imagination.  He stretches the arms and legs out as far as they go, flips it around several times, then releases it to watch it spin itself back to original position.  This is, of course, more fun with sound effects of what a frog would sound like if it were forced to ride the Vomit Comet at the local amusement park.

Unfortunately, Clark and said frog were a little careless in their adventures this morning.  He thought it would be funny to wind up the frog and then put it on Natalie’s head.  The result:

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That thing was all wound up and twisted in and out of Natalie’s locks.  After much apologetic wailing by Clark, it was determined that drastic measures must be taken.  I amputated the frog’s arm.

DSCF2032The rest of the arm was stretched out and twisted a hundred different ways in Natalie’s hair.  I would free one small section at a time, and then surgically remove it.  Final results:

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Dr. Oz and Sanjay Gupta have got nothing on me.  I am mother.  Hear me roar.

“I love meatloaf.”

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

droppedImageThese are the words that warmed my heart after the kind of day that made leftover meatloaf a luxury. My day was no different than the kind millions of moms better than me pull off everyday: cousin sleepover, pancake breakfast, zoo with 4 kids, meet your kindergarten teacher open house, and the Mt. Everest of motherhood: taking your children with you to IKEA. (Okay, I’m being overdramatic, but it really is in one of my least favorite outings with kids.) So, when we staggered into the house at the time I would really like to be getting them ready for bed, my weary mind thought through all of my pathetic, one-day-left-until-payday-and-no-groceries-in-the-house options for dinner. Finally I remembered some leftover meatloaf from a more ambitious day earlier in the week. (Yes, for some of us moms, meatloaf is an ambitious meal.) So, knowing it would not be well-received, but at least it’s better than nothing, I microwaved my way to dinnertime. I called up the kids who squealed “hooray!” on their way to the table until they saw what was actually served.

Grant asked “Is this meatloaf, mom?,” and Clark piped up and said “I love meatloaf.” I wanted to hug him for being forgiving on a long, exhausting day. It made me think that this is why Heavenly Father wants us to be like a little child, “submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father [or mother or a bad dinner].” Maybe I should try to be some of those things next time we go to IKEA.

(This entry was originally posted on August 28, 2009.  I’m still rebuilding my lost archives.)

Financial security and other mini-vacation lessons

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We took a mini-vacation this past weekend because Matt has about two weeks off of school in between semesters.  I found a great hotel deal online, which simply required us to participate in a 90-minute time-share sales pitch,* and came with free food vouchers and everything.  So we packed up the kids, a few bags of clothes, and a variety of road trip entertainment items (read: DVD player, Leapster, junk food, and a pile of library books).  Before we left to come home this morning, I made the mistake of looking at some Webkins at a store.  This, to Grant and Clark, was a bona-fide contractual offer that a Webkinz purchase was in our near future.  Grant could not understand why the purchase was not made, and spent most of the trip home speculating about when we would go to a local store and pick up the Webkinz that I had cruelly and carelessly forgotten to purchase this morning.  I told him we’d take a look at the bank account when we got home and see about the possibility.

He immediately corralled me to the office upon arriving home.  I had transferred a vacation budget into my checking account right before we left town.  I didn’t do a great job of keeping track of spending, so I cringed a little when I looked it up.

“Uh oh, Grant, we have a problem.”

“What?”

“Well, it says here that my bank account has -$18.73.”

“Is that enough for a Webkinz?”

“Um, no.  It means I have $18.00 below zero.“
(Long pause.)
“Don’t worry, mom.  I know where we have thousands and thousands of dollars.”
He ran across the room and came back with this:
DSCF2027Wow.  If only I had known, we could have vacationed in New Zealand.  Just leave it to a six-year-old to solve all your problems.  Verdict: Chores for Webkinz.  Hopefully, he won’t get done until the next payday.


On Sunday, we met up with my good friend Molly and her family.  I’m stealing pictures of Grant, Clark, and Natalie from her blog because she’s one of those moms who actually thinks to bring along a camera when her family has a little outing.  It was great to see her.  She’s on my top-ten cool list.
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p.s.  Indoor water parks are really fun, but they have way too many stairs for out-of-shape people, especially the adult variety that are forced to carry all their children’s inner-tubes over and over and over again.
p.p.s.  Even if you look over your things 7 million times, you will always leave something behind in your vacation locale, like a portable DVD player power cord that is still plugged into the wall behind the dresser, and the library book that is still in a booth at the local Pizza Pub.

*Those people who do time-share pitches are tricky, tricky, tricky.  If Matt had his way, we would now be the proud owners of 40-years-worth of tropical vacations and an Alaskan helicopter skiing package.  Since I am only slightly more disciplined, and withstood their amazing deals and plummeting prices, for four– yes, FOUR– hours, we are instead only the proud owners of a pre-purchased vacation to Disney World that we had already planned on making when Matt graduates in the spring.  Call me a sucker if you will.

p.p.p.s.  If you are a careless packer, you might have to use your husband’s deodorant, and it’s a weird, unpleasant kind of feeling when you find yourself smelling manly.
p.p.p.p.s.  That Excedrin Tension Headache really works.
The end.
(I have just a few more Women’s Conference classes to review over the next several days, so watch for those, and then we’re back to our regularly scheduled . . . um, stuff.)

Rules

Posted in Diapers, Divinity by

DSCF1442I’m a rule nazi.  It’s a good thing my kids aren’t teenagers yet because they still don’t fight back when I frequently say, “Ok, I’m making a new rule!”  I mean, who knew you needed rules like don’t wipe your boogers on my bedroom wall or in the carpet, or no sticking your whole fist in your beverage glass, or even do not run up and down the stairs and throughout the house with a poopy bum when you need to be wiped; please stay in the bathroom and call me?!?  Sigh.  There must be rules.

My “main” rules are taped on the fridge [see photo above] and I make the kids look at them often.  “Grant, go look at the rules!”  “Clark, stop throwing your books and go look at the rules!”  And they do it.  They stand there and oogle at them and run through each one, often out loud, and then usually say, “Oops. I forgot that one.  Sorry mom.”  I usually make them look at them after time-outs, too, so they can pick out the rule that got them into trouble in the first place.  Even Natalie walks past the rules and reports proudly, “Mommy, no push.”  I know, I need counseling.

You know, God gives us rules, too — commandments, and then the Holy Ghost “makes new rules” all the time like pick up the toys with them instead of yelling at them to do it.  I wish I were as disciplined about returning to the rules as I make my children be.  I think I’d make less mistakes if I constantly turned back to the scriptures to help me correct and monitor my behavior.  Maybe I need more time-outs myself…. oh, good idea; wouldn’t that be nice?

(This entry was originally posted on August 27, 2008.  I’m still rebuilding my lost archives.)