The Brave Mom

Last night Nathaniel came home at 11:30 after watching a movie with friends and when he came up to the house he saw this 2-inch long beetle. He covered it with a bucket so the rest of us could see it this morning. According to him this took great effort on account of his terrible fear and disgust.

So this morning when we did the great unveiling he was horrified to see that his mother actually touched it. (Well, I wanted to see what it would do.) It flailed its legs and made this weird rattling noise and I screamed. So then I had to do it again of course, and screamed again--and again. Then I remembered that we have neighbors, so I stopped screaming and just kept touching it to get that cool reaction. I put it in a jar so the kids can show all their friends today before we let it go. (Relax, it wasn't as if I was planning to keep it as beetle pet or something.)

Nathaniel thinks I am not a normal mother. Normal mothers don't tease their kid's friends. They don't laugh when they drew an "X" on your leg. They don't make up songs about how happy they are to have their kids back in school. Normal mothers don't threaten that if your behavior doesn't change and quick, they are going into your classroom wearing a bathing suit and sing. They don't laugh at their own jokes or when you are mad, or ask you random "what if..." questions.

The other day at Rebecca's soccer practice she spotted a snake and I caught it. Then I held it until John ran over and played with it. The other moms were stupified. "You're a brave mom!" 

Ok, well if it had stripes I wouldn't have done that. I never can remember that yellow/red kill the fellow rhyme to tell the non-poisonous from the harmless. But this was just a little gopher snake or something. I don't like rats (at all) and I detest cockroaches. If a mouse ever ran across the floor I might scream and jump up on the couch.

Once I was in a pet store buying a tarantula as a surprise for Nathaniel. Some big biker dudes were amazed to see me holding it. I said, "Well, you are holding a rat and I wouldn't even come close to that thing." 

Everybody has their thing, I guess. Anyone who saw how I grew up knows we are not a family generally afraid of bugs, snakes or spiders. But we all hate rats and cockroaches.

Who needs a normal mom anyway?

Rainbow

There was the most awesome rainbow the other day and I was at the grocery store cursing myself that I didn't have my camera with me. Lucky for me Sarah got these shots with hers while I was gone. (I'm so proud!)
She took them from our backyard--

Decisions, decisions

So as you know, I'm heading back to school.

In five days.

People keep asking me what I'm going to major in and to tell the truth, I've been agonizing about that all summer. (All summer, daily, hourly)

Nursing is my first pick, but it just so happens to be the hardest program to get into at BYU (or anywhere for that matter). To put it mildly, the competition is fierce. I have to have a 3.8 just to be competitive, which for me means re-taking B's to bring them up to A's (I currently have a 3.5).
These were classes I took when I was seventeen. How's that for being haunted by your past?

The nursing program is rigorous. You are not even supposed to have a job. Hah!! I kind of have a BIG job that just so happens to be the most important one I'll ever have. It's called M-O-M. Can't get those years back. Missing class because one of my kids is sick or has a program at school puts me in a bad position because with labs if you miss it is a bear to make up. I don't really want to be faced with that choice on a regular basis. I can't exactly get a sub.

So after much thought, debate, prayer, etc. I've switched my major to my second choice, teaching English in secondary education. The classes will be so much easier for my little brain and a third of them are offered online.

I have to admit that I was fighting it pretty hard because here in Utah you don't get paid to be a teacher. I guess that makes for some good ones here because you know they aren't exactly in it for the money. (If you don't believe me Google "Nebo School District Salary" to see what my kid's teachers are getting paid.) I know it sounds selfish, but I like to get paid for what I do. As Adam Sandler once said in a job interview, "No, sir, I have no experience but I'm a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I'd like to put more in that jar. That's where you come in."

So there you have it, I'm shallow. The bummer deal is that having decided so late I am having trouble getting into my classes (though there is going to be a very happy person getting into my vacant 10am Chemistry slot!)

Funny thing is when I walked into Nathaniel's school for the Open House I looked around and thought, "I could be happy doing this". At the time I was still a declared major in nursing.

Who knows if I'll be happy doing it. That is the most agonizing thing of all, deciding what you want to do and wondering if you will be happy doing it for the rest of your working life.

All I know is the nursing students at BYU can feel lucky they don't have me for their competition anymore. I'm vicious.

Oh Meryl...

Wasn't really in on the story line but Meryl Streep is my favorite so I really wanted to see Mama Mia. Peter swore up and down he wouldn't take me so I saw it with my step-mom and sister in California.

I loved it. (Note song on my blog) Had some seriously laugh-out-loud moments. Pretty racy plot. Meryl was awesome as usual and absolutely pulled it off. Pierce, well, not so much.

Peter so would have hated it, and may have never recovered.

The most wonderful time of the year

So the kiddies returned to school yesterday, and my oh my...the peace.
I am so not the mom who cries as they leave, reminiscing on how fast the time has gone. I'm thinking more like, about time.
I love my kids tons and love being with them, just not-every-hour-of-the-day-can't-go-to-the-bathroom-without-""MOM!"-being-with-them.

When I went to pick them up from school I ran into another mom from my ward and we exchanged feelings on the start of school. "It's so quiet!" she said, "I got SO much done!"
I was like "umm, me too."

I totally took a two hour nap.

My sick hobby

A favorite pastime of mine is to take pictures of Subarus with Obama stickers on them. It drives Peter crazy. (To say Peter is right-winged is kind of an understatement)
Peter's Subaru is bottom pic.

Visiting my parents

Yellowstone

Things Peter checked before I flew to California

--My cellphone
--The cellphone charger
--Driver's license
--Not one, but two copies of my boarding pass
--water bottle (I might get stuck in the desert)
--Extra cash
Did I bring any liquids over 3 oz? Park in the red zone. Go straight through security. You don't have to wait in line. Are you sure you have enough cash? Put one boarding pass in suitcase and one in purse in case you lose one. Don't forget where you parked. Put your parking ticket on the dash, not in your purse. You might lose it. Double check your departing gate at the airport. Sometimes it changes. No, don't put your suitcase in the trunk, put it in the back seat. It is faster to get out.

My husband loves me.

I'll get off my soapbox now...

In my last post I listed the books I checked out from the library. I only ended up taking a couple to Yellowstone with us and read only one.
Apparently the wrong one.
I read (or rather read and then skimmed the rest) of "The Patron Saint of Liars" by Ann Patchett. It sounded good. It was about a home for unwed mothers. A woman shows up planning to give up her baby though she is married. On the back cover it talks about how the home proves "healing" for her. New York Times writes that the author is a "startlingly wise young writer." So sounds good right?
Wrong.
I was thinking surely the young woman shows up at this place because she is in an abusive marriage or some other sort of scandal. Nope. He is a just an ordinary decent man who loves and cares for her and she takes off without so much as a goodbye. She does not tell him she is pregnant, or planning to give away their child. She just leaves him desperately frantic and alone. And why does she do this? Because she doesn't "love" him.
So from that point on I was skimming. Not because I was intrigued, but because I was hoping for some deeper meaning--some moral message or pivotal moment where she realizes what a fool she has been and makes it right. But there is no such moment. Does someone really think this was "startlingly wise" literature?
Last week I ended up getting a movie series from Netflix because it was looking juicy (which it totally was). It was called the "Forsyte Saga", if you happen to have seen it. Very dramatic and I thoroughly enjoyed it for all of it's soap-op-rah like twists. The actors were awesome and the costumes incredible. I really did enjoy it. But Peter didn't and I really can't blame him. He was thrown off right at the beginning when a man leaves his perfectly decent wife and beautiful child for the governess because he has decided that they are in "love". Then the rest of the Saga revolves around two characters, a husband and wife whom she married under pressure from her mother. He cares for her deeply and may even love her (in a warped possessive kind of way) and he spends a great deal of energy trying to please her but she never warms up to him. All he wants to know is why she can't just be a wife to him. I wondered that too. Why couldn't she?
In India and other countries people have arranged marriages. Their parents decide who is best and that is who they marry, out of respect. Most parents love their children and want them to be happy. As a general rule these marriages are solid and they grow to love each other very much. They are, in fact, more statistically likely to endure than conventional marriages. No doubt there are terrible exceptions but you see where I am going with this. I think any two good people can make a go of it.
In the tax business we see a lot of ugly (and I mean ugly) divorces. People who have wonderful children and adored each other at one point in their life. Then one year he comes in and says she left him for somebody else who was more exciting and distracting from her dull life. They are losing everything and have nasty lawyers and he can hardly pull himself out of bed in the morning. (Poor Peter who considered therapist as the occupation of his nightmares thought he would be safe in taxes--silly man).
I know not every marriage is a match made in heaven. I know there are times where people truly have to get out. But I also know that there are a lot of divorces that cannot be justified.
After 14 yrs. I can recall moments where I wondered just what we'd gotten ourselves into. It has not always been easy, but sometimes when you are truly committed to something and you work at it, things will eventually work themselves out. Not to overlook that also, as a Mormon, I can't overemphasize the support it was to us to believe that the vows we had made to each other were forever, and before God.
Do we live in a constant state of passion? I wouldn't exactly call it that, but I love my man more than anything. He isn't perfect but he tries really hard and in the end that is all that matters to me. He is the one I daydream about and can't live without. Sometimes I don't think I deserve him and sometimes I want to beat him. Ask any happy couple, they know what I mean. Welcome to marriage, folks.
Besides any smart woman knows that a good man only wants two things, and one of those is a good hot meal once in a while.