My New Year's Resolutions

So I sat and thought about it this morning, and tried to come up with some interesting goals for myself. Things that would really make me stretch and grow and stuff. Then I decided that was lame, and it would be a lot more fun to create some resolutions for other people. So without further ado, here are some resolutions I have created for my family, and I hereby resolve to watch and see if they accomplish them.

HUSBAND:
1. Resolve to bring your wife Dove chocolate at least once a month. Preferably twelve times.
2. Resolve to create an awesome color-coded excel program that will track Madeline's vital statistics, such as number of times she spills juice on a newly mopped floor and average length of her self-imposed timeouts.
3. Resolve to conquer the world through hypnosis.
4. Resolve to stop waking your wife in the middle of the night, and then not remembering it in the morning. Emergencies only.
5. Resolve to actually watch something on you big screen television besides football. (March Madness qualifies.
6. Resolve to use subtle Harry Potter references at least twice a week.
7. Resolve to use your new search optimization skills to make the top google search results for "baloney" your facebook account, work website, and this blog, in that order.
8. Resolve to get in your antsy cleaning mode at least once a week, or whenever your wife is feeling particularly lazy.
9. Resolve to eat more green beans. We won't push the peas thing.
10. Resolve to not get any concussions. Ever.

DAUGHTER:
1. Resolve to start waking up at nine. And going to sleep at seven.
2. Resolve to use your new cleaning supplies on mom's kitchen floor daily. It's all your mess anyway.
3. Resolve to eat more chicken. Kids are supposed to like chicken.
4. Resolve to make "Yes" your new favorite word.
5. Resolve to create a secret club in nursery, with yourself as president, and use it to extra treats at snack time.
6. Resolve to quit begging food off of other people in sacrament meeting and just eat your own dratted goldfish.
7. Resolve to use your charming smile and good looks to get into a prestigious preschool, so that you might be in a position to care for your parents financially in their old age.
8. Resolve to make friends with someone besides your uncle Bryce, so that you won't shout his name over and over every time we get into the car.
9. Resolve to get fatter so all of your pants will fit.
10. Resolve to finish all the books you've started this year, such as Doctrines of Faith, Plato's Discourses, and the Bible. And read them this time, instead of tearing out the pages.

And thus concludes our grand plans for this year. Rest assured that we will be working tirelessly to make these resolutions fruitful. Or someone will, and I'll be sleeping. May you all have a very happy New Year. See you on the flip side.

The New Year Is Upon Us

Oh goodness. It is almost the end of the year. Being the brilliant person I am, I just realized this today. I don't like it. Mostly because I don't want it to be 2010. I can't handle a new decade right now. And 2010 is so awkward. It's the date they put in sic-fi movies when they want to put in hovering cars and robots and invading aliens. So we can't live in 2010. Not to mention I have no idea what to call it. I've had the same problem for the past ten years, but I cheated and always talked about the beginning of the century or the Millennium instead of the 0's or something else stupid sounding. But now I need a way to distinguish this decade from the last one, and I'm fresh out of ideas. Why can't we live in the nineties again?

I also don't want a new year to be here because I'm supposed to make up New Year's Resolutions. And I'm really bad at resolutions. I hate making them because I feel it's futile and over optimistic to try and make more than one or two changes at the same time. My habits are very resistant to change. Last year I cheated and made resolutions that weren't really resolutions, but rather affirmations of my lifestyle. That worked pretty well. But alas, it's not all that clever doing it two years in a row. So I'll have to come up with some other witty way to seem cool and really not do anything at all. I'll let you know how that lofty goal goes. Until then, I'm going to go enjoy the remaining time I have in a nice normal year with no home DNA testing, hover boards, or Big Brother computers.

No, we didn't get a new maid. Why do you ask?

So I've noticed a trend among Madeline's Christmas presents. Among other things, the last few days she's been enjoying:

-A new vacuum
-A deluxe cleaning set (mop, broom, bucket, gloves, sponges, etc.)
-A new kitchen
-A new baby stroller
-New princess dressups
-New cell phone

Seeing the common link? That's right. We're brainwashing our daughter to be the perfect Mormon housewife. Now Madeline's daily schedule is full of fun and excitement. She dresses up her baby doll, puts it in the stroller, and drags her around as she does her chores, which include whipping up culinary masterpieces and making the house shine spotlessly, all while chatting away on her phone. And after a long day of hard work (in high heels, I might add), she gets gussied up in her princess dress, jewelry and crown, and waits patiently (or not so patiently) to greet the man of the house as he comes home from his daily labors. I'm expecting the Feminist Club of America to report me for child abuse any day now. But I'm okay with that, because Madeline certainly didn't get all these girlie tendencies from yours truly. And I'm quite happy to abdicate these responsibilities to the rising generation. I love Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Wow. Are you tired? I'm tired.

Christmas will do that to you, I guess. I could now regale you with a minute by minute replay of our day, and a breakdown of every gift we got and gave. Complete with pictures of feasting, revelry, and aforementioned gifts. But this is not that kind of blog. So I will only tell you about one. Alas, there is a story first. Did you really think I would break my newly instituted short blog rule just for Christmas? Here is the story:

Once upon a time I got pregnant. This was a happy thing, but, unfortunately, it caused my once delicate fingers to swell to immense proportions. As a result, I was forced to remove my beloved wedding ring and confine it to a box for the duration. Fast forward to a few months after our little mischief maker joined our ranks. I had lost some weight, and hoped my fingers had too. I retrieved my ring and despite the fact that it was still a bit tight, was determined to resume wearing it, lest any single men felt tempted to flirt with an overweight woman with a newborn.

Then one day, I realized that I was once again not wearing my ring. And I couldn't remember when I took it off. I felt sure I must have put it somewhere for safekeeping until it fit better. A frantic search of the obvious places yielded nothing. I thought I must have taken it off and put it in a pocket, a purse, or a bag. I wondered if I put it on a counter or sink and forgot to put it back on. But after many days of thorough searching in every box and cranny, there was still nothing. If you have ever lost your wedding ring, you will probably understand that there was a lot of tears. And guilt. And a lot of other not so pleasant feelings and sadness and what have you. It became a painful subject, naturally.

Two more moves followed my months of searching, and each time I looked through every box and drawer as we packed and unpacked. It was pretty clear that whatever safe spot I had chosen to hide my ring was a very secure location, in which the ring would remain until the Millennium. So I resigned myself to feeling stupid.

But.

My lovely husband knew I felt stupid. And sad. And guilty. And that I really wanted something to wear on my finger to show I did love him, even if I'm bad at keeping track of jewelry. So the blessed man got me a new ring for Christmas. A beautiful ring. Much less expensive than the first, which is practical, but let me tell you, just as priceless, if not more so. Because this ring is not just a symbol of our eternal commitment to be together, but our eternal commitment to overlook flaws like losing very important things and being supportive and giving your spouse another chance to do things right. Basically, a symbol of our imperfect selves trying to do better together. And reminding me it's the person who took the time to pick out a ring for you, not the ring itself. So I'm feeling pretty happy at the moment. And pretty unapologetic that this post is kind of sappy and not so sarcastic. Because sometimes you don't feel sarcastic, you feel happy. And sappy.

I think I was too caught up in the Christmas spirit.

It is Christmas Eve, and as promised, here I am not sleeping. This is, however, more due to Madeline not sleeping than my excitement. Just thought I should note that.

In other news, I had a strange life experience last night. We watched the Poinsettia Bowl, and I found myself rooting for the Utes. That's right, the Utes. The team in red. Our Arch Nemesis. And even enjoying that they were totally creaming the other guy. It was like living in a strange, parallel universe. But I couldn't help it, I swear. Hatred of the BCS and a desire to support our conference drove me to it. I promise I am now back on the band wagon, and such a thing shall never happen again. Maybe it's because it's Christmas, so I felt an inkling of holiday spirit staring at the red uniforms. And I must point out, it was only possible in the first place because I knew no matter the outcome, BYU pretty much officially had the better season, having won the Holy War and beat up on our own Pac 10 the night before. I think I am now rambling, trying to rationalize and ease my guilt. Maybe I'll go build a Snow Cougar in my BYU sweatshirt now.

Tomorrow! Tomorrow! I love ya, etc.

I feel like a little kid. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. And I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight because I'm so excited. Tomorrow there will be cookies (Maple Bells!) and new pajamas and the nativity. My mother will be frantically wrapping presents all afternoon, and having us wrap presents in blank boxes while we try to guess who they're for. We'll have to crack the Christmas code my dad writes on the presents, because he can't just write To Cami or To Jessie. He'll write V4 and L19 and we have to guess what the numbers and letters mean. We'll watch my little brother watch Santa Claus land in random places in Greenland and Cuba on the internet. And if we're lucky, we'll have some random late night Christmas family activity that we won't decide on until tomorrow. Like a midnight movie or family concert around the piano, or, perhaps, a family Rock Band session. And then an argument about what time to wake up and open presents, which after all the drama, will probably be decided mostly by when Madeline wakes up. I love Christmas Eve. It's almost better than Christmas Day.

Maybe it's a cry for attention.

So we did exciting things this weekend. Of which this was the least exciting, but of the most importance to the blogging world. A year or two ago, I purchased some neon pink and black striped tights. Normally I would not buy such a thing, but I had a gift card to an all socks online store, so I said to myself: Live a little. Get the bright striped tights. They look exactly like this:

Unfortunately, I do not own stilettos like that. A tragedy. Anyway, I wanted to wear something Christmasy to church. But I had nothing Christmasy. So instead, I decided to wear my tights. Because I had never worn them before and they were begging for it. I realize, based on that picture, that this might seem highly scandalous. But bear in mind, I was wearing a very plain and not scandalous mid-calf black dress and nice boring black flats. Close toed. So I felt I was within my rights. Jessie had his doubts. I'm pretty sure he would have walked twenty feet in front of me on the way to church, except he was afraid if he did that, I might not cook him dinner for a week. So he endured it and only mentioned once or twice that he felt it would be wise to keep my bright pink tight wearing to a minimum. I told him I was a Christmas elf. Take that, holiday spirit

And speaking of my questionable fashion choices, this weekend we had our annual Lundstrom family Christmas party. And during our ever exciting white elephant exchange, I managed to snag one of these:

That's right. I am now the proud owner of a leopard print Snuggie. Again, not something I would ever buy for myself. But you can bet I'll steal one at a white elephant party. And be proud of myself for doing it. And at the first available opportunity, I'm going to proudly show it off. Go me.

Jessie thinks I'm all of a sudden an "extremist" in fashion. I'll let you be the judge. But hey, one life to live, seize the day, yada yada yada. I'm going to be warm this winter if it it kills me. Or if I have to wear neon stripes and leopard prints to do it.

Either Madeline or I is a glutton for punishment.

We have a problem at our house. It's called discipline. It seems very simple on the surface. When Madeline does something wrong, particularly something we've asked heruage not to do many times, she gets put on her timeout chair for a few minutes. At the end of a few minutes, she must explain to mom (in as eloquent language as she is capable of) what she did wrong, after which we give each other kisses and she can be on her way.

That's the the theoretical. In reality, it's a little more complicated. For starters, Madeline likes to put herself on timeout. If I walk in to see she's done something bad, before I can say anything, she'll raise her hands in surrender and yell, "Tine-Out!". Then she runs giggling to her chair and clamors up. She'll sit there smiling as proudly as if she were the Queen of England, and laughs every once in a while to remind me she's having a really good time. When she's decided it's been long enough, she puckers up her lips for a kiss. Then, when I let her down, she runs around pointing at herself and saying smilingly and matter of factly, "Naughty."

So basically Madeline does the whole ritual perfectly and compliantly, while mocking me the entire time and having the time of her life.

Are you allowed to punish a child for a successful timeout?

Some stuff I wrote.

We watched the finale of So You Think You can dance last night. Some guy won and ripped off his shirt and danced around the stage. I have to say, it was a lot cuter when Madeline did it during Elmo's world today.

Anyway. That was about all I had to say coming into this blog post, but I don't believe in writing short blog posts. Short blog posts are just facebook status updates masquerading as their cooler older siblings. I figure that if you're going to write nothing but one line blog entries and call yourself a blogger, you might as well go join Twitter and pretend people care about your every move. I should probably just go delete my Twitter account, since I haven't looked at it in over a month. I just don't see what service Twitter does for humanity. If someone could explain it to me, I will go Twitter it so everyone will know.

Speaking of overly popular websites, I decided Facebook is getting sneaky. Apparently, this new privacy thing, depending on how you look at it, a) allows you to micromanage exactly how much content each and every person you've ever known is allowed to see or b) allows Facebook to sneakily share everything you've ever put on facebook unless you go click through a hundred links and tell them that yes, when you mean you want things to be private, that means not letting random Hungarians access to pictures of your freshman year of college. I thought I was covered when I just clicked "Friends Only" on all of the boxes when Mark whatshisface sent me a message telling me he wanted to help me keep my information safe. But to make sure random applications that your friends add to punch you in the face with a llama doesn't have access to your birthday and address, you have to go change it manually. Ditto on all your photos. Just a heads up from a disgruntled customer, who will nonetheless continue like millions of others to continue to use Facebook no matter how much I think they are screwing things up because they own my soul.

Well, that's a respectable blog post length. So I now bid you farewell. And beg you to please leave your shirt on and not act like an idiot if you win a quarter million dollars. Thanks you.

Boy Howdy, I feel like I'm back in sophmore english.

Jessie's been after me since we got married to read a book called Cold Sassy Tree. It's a book his english teacher made him read over the summer in high school. He complained about having to read over summer vacation, until I told him I had the pleasure of reading Charles Dicken's Bleak House the summer before my sophmore year. Which, for those of you who were not blessed to experience it with me, is a really, really long book. So that pretty much blew Jessie's woes out of the water. Anyway, the reason he wanted me to read this book was mostly because one of the characters likes to say "Boy Howdy!". Jessie likes to say it too, and that's where he got it from. He'd go on and on about how I was missing out, and I should read it. So I finally checked it out from the library a few weeks ago. Jessie saw me reading it. I started asking him questions about the plot and the characters. He couldn't even remember any of the names. Actually, he wasn't even one hundred percent sure he was remembering the right book. Luckily for him, the main character does, indeed, like to use that exclamation. So for the sake of a dozen Boy Howdies, I am now nearly through a random book about a hormonal teenage boy from the post civil war south whose grandfather is also overly hormonal. What a great wife I am. At least I don't have to write any essays on the matter.

Brought to you by the resident neighborhood hermits.

So today I went shopping with my mom. One of the first things she says to me: "So I guess you had a really exciting day yesterday, huh?" I stared at her blankly. The most exciting thing that happened to me yesterday was getting to sleep in until 8 am because Madeline did. I'm not sure how she knew about this grand accomplishment. She sees me looking confused, and says, "Didn't a plane crash right by your house?"

Huh. Turns out a small plane did crash right by our house. About a hundred, hundred fifty yard away actually.

In my defense, the only time I left the house all day was to get the mail. But still. I'm sitting there thinking, I might have heard some sirens. Did I hear sirens? Was that yesterday? Or was that the day Madeline hit her head on the window? Wait. Which day did Madeline hit her head on the window?

I was curious to see if Jessie realized we had nearly been involved in an aviation disaster. The only thing he said about his drive home yesterday was that traffic was a bit heavier than usual. We picked him up for lunch, and I asked him, "Hey, how about that traffic yesterday? Did you by chance see, you know, a small plane crashed next to our house?"

Turns out he didn't see it. Either on the way home last night or on the way to work this morning. A coworker told him about it today. According to him, it was dark. Last night at least. I don't know what his excuse was this morning. For missing a small plane crashed into a hill by our house.

Please, dear readers, do me a favor. If a small meteor should strike our neighbor's house, or an earthquake should shut down the city, or you know, the end of the world comes, would someone please send me an e-mail? Or a text?

Thanks. Jessie and I like to be informed.

I'm dreaming of a red Christmas. And concussions.

It looks like Christmas now. Partly because of the snow. And partly because you walk into church and every female of every age is wearing red. Our nursery, which is something like 80% female, was full of frilly red dresses and bows. Next week Madeline is totally wearing green to beat the peer pressure. Yesterday, I am sorry to say, she was in red and white. But she looked really, really cute. So maybe it was justified.

Speaking of the little red monster, she likes to destroy things. Including wrapping paper, gift tags, ornaments, bibles, walls, clothes, and carpets. But the most fun this week was when she was running away from Jessie and ran right into the ledge on our bay windows. There was an instant bruise about the size of a large, thick Christmas cookie. It pretty much caused me to freak out and google concussions for a half hour. Eventually, after consulting both the internet and my mother, I decided she had no obvious signs of major damage. But to be safe, I woke up about three times that night to get Madeline up. Just to make sure she would wake up. She didn't like that very much. I considered it payback for doing the same thing to me for the first six months of her life. She's all good now, and her bangs pretty much hid the bruising so no one at church accused us of child abuse. They were too busy trying to see the girl under the huge fluffy red and white dress. I think I need to find me a dress like that. So I can keep up with the nursery fashions.

Chains and where they lead to.

Madeline and I got bored while suffering our convalescence this past week. So we did what anybody would do who has finally given in to listening to Christmas music all day every day on the radio. We made a Christmas countdown chain. Not being crafty, I had no colored paper, so we improvised by alternating printing paper and wrapping paper. It looks kind of festive. Jessie hung it above our stairs, just at the edge of Madeline's range. For the first day or two, she could grab the end and threaten to bring the whole project crashing down if she decided to suddenly develop Tarzan like instincts. But now it's safely out of her reach, unless she has some sort of freakish Christmas growth spurt. She never wants to help tear a link off at night, but she watches with interest as we do it. And she'll randomly stop playing and go "Oooh! Chain!" and point like it's the most interesting thing we've ever had in our house. Maybe it is. It's not very long. Somehow I remember Christmas chains being longer when I was younger. I must have been shorter. Or we started in October.

I was listening to the radio last night. The song "All I want for Christmas is a hippopotamus" came on. Have you heard that one? Sadly, I think I never had before last night. Once upon a time I really truly wanted a real hippopotamus to live in our backyard. I thought maybe it would give me rides. Even then, I knew it wasn't realistic though. No one gets a hippopotamus for Christmas. So I never put a live hippopotamus on my lists. I put books and jewelry and tetherballs. I was thinking about that as I looked at our Christmas chain today. I made my mom and Jessie a list, but when Madeline/Jessie pulls off the last chain, I won't be getting a live hippo. Sometimes, you just can't put things on your Christmas list.

Swine flu.....okay. Not. Just good old-fashioned illnesses for me.

Hi. How are you? I'm good. I just feel like it's been years since I blogged, because the last four days have been really awesome and really long. I started getting sick on Sunday, and after three days of wondering whether I had the flu or strep throat, I started to suspect it was the latter. So I sucked it up and went to the doctor. Who was very, very impressed with the size of my tonsils. And, in better news, gave me a prescription to blessed, strep killing drugs. I love strep throat. No really, I don't. But as a teenager, I'd always get a bad sore throat and get dragged to the doctor's for those annoying painful throat swabs that seem like the nurse is trying probe to China by way of your adenoids. And then the test would be negative, and they'd conclude it was an untreatable virus and send me on my way. So I'm really, really glad that if I'm going to be miserably sick, I could be clever enough to get an illness with a nice simple cure.

Thus far, it seems that Madeline and Jessie have been spared the whole strep throat experience. Knock on wood. But they have been subject to my lack of being interesting/lack of cleaning their living space. The only reason I got away with not doing the dishes for three days was by not cooking for three days. But they survived eating a chocolate shake for dinner. Poor babies. And tomorrow, I should be interesting/productive again. Bless you, amoxicillin.

This is what I think.

I have one or two or three things to say.

First. Go Cougars! I'm proud of you for winning. You nearly gave me a heart attack, but you pulled it off. Way to be.

Second. Max Hall. Dude. I know you were upset. I believe your family was probably not treated well last year, and that's a shame. But that doesn't excuse your comments. The whole two wrongs don't make a right thing, you know? It doesn't matter if anyone else has made rude comments in the past, or what the fans are saying. You're the quarterback and you should be held to a higher standard. If you can't say anything nice, etc. I sincerely hope you apologize, or if you don't, that the BYU football program makes it clear they don't approve of your comments. Because I think you ruined a great night for a lot of BYU fans, and gave the Utes considerably less respect than they deserved. Bad form, sir.

Third. To everyone else. Yes, Hall was classless. But so is ridiculing all of BYU because of what he said. That's what you're complaining about, isn't it? So I think it would be the "classy" thing for both sides to suck it up, let ALL the rude comments from everyone be forgotten if not forgiven, and focus on our respective bowl games. Let's try to bring a little respect back to our rivalry.

Okay. Off my soap box now. I feel better. Hope you do too.

I give thanks that my husband is still alive.

Happy Thanksgiving. Hope everyone is looking forward to the turkey and pie. I know I am. Mostly the chocolate pie. No offense to those other, fruit pies, but chocolate pie is an integral part of my childhood. It's comfort food. It's just too bad you have to eat all the healthy stuff before you can get to the chocolate pie.

However, before we get to turkey and pie, I have to wait for Jessie to be done with his turkey bowl. I am, justifiably, a little bit paranoid about Jessie and football. The year before we got married, he played football with his ward, and it wasn't pretty. He tripped, hit his head on the frozen ground, and was unconscious for the next four hours. He woke up in the hospital, which we all know doesn't rank on America's Top 100 places to get Delicious Thanksgiving Meals. We weren't dating then, but after he told me the story later, I pretty much forbade him from ever playing football again. Unfortunately, he is stubborn. So he goes every week and plays anyway, and he won't even wear his bike helmet like I suggested. Husbands. So, provided he doesn't split his head open or twist his ankle or die of internal bleeding, it will be a good Thanksgiving. Be safe everyone, and eat lots of fruit pie. But not chocolate. Because I want to eat it all.

Tis the season...the monkey said so.

I almost made it. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to listen to Christmas music or decorate until after Thanksgiving. Otherwise I get sick of Christmas music by the actual day. Also, I feel kind of bad that Thanksgiving doesn't get to enjoy the limelight a little. So the only thing I've allowed myself to do is Christmas shopping, which I can pretend is run of the mill birthday shopping. And I pretend I don't see all the Christmas signs at the store.

But then, little things kept conspiring to force me into the spirit of the season. I got the urge to wrap a couple of the presents I bought. And you can't do that in birthday paper. And the radio stations are all playing Christmas music. After listening to straight country for the last two weeks, I started feeling tempted to cheat. The crushing blow, however, came this morning when I turned on some Curious George for Madeline. And it was an hour long, special Christmas episode. With singing and gift giving and tree shopping and cookie making. Stupid children's programming. Don't they know they should be putting on turkeys and stuffing and football? Now I feel the urge to make maple bells. And unpack our tree. And make snowflakes. I'm disgusted with myself. At least Thanksgiving is tomorrow. You can bet the day after that, we'll be listening to Christmas carols and breaking out the decorations. And it's all because of that dratted monkey.

Mom vs. Dad

Jessie and I celebrated our anniversary this weekend, which meant Madeline got to stay with Grandma. Sometimes I wish it was just a little traumatic for her to be away from me (for her, not me. It is traumatic for me.) But since Grandma has a dog, a piano, and Uncle Bryce, she was only to happy to leave. I did think that perhaps she would be excited to see me when we went to pick her up. It seemed that way. I got out of the car before Jessie, and Madeline watched from my mother's window. Her face lit up, and she was smiling and jumping up and down. I went up to the door, opened it up and reached for her...and she ran right past me. "Daddy! Daddy!" she said. Ten minutes later, I convinced her to give me a hug. But only because I let her go right back to Dad.

I got my revenge today, though. We were sitting at the computer looking at pictures, because Madeline is (quite rightly) obsessed with her own image. I would click to a new picture and exclaim, "There's Mommy!", "There's Grandpa!", and "Look, it's Madeline!". So Madeline joined in. "Madeline!" she'd say. "Mama!" (Grandma.). "There's Mommy!". Then we got to a picture of a sea lion at Sea World. Without missing a beat, Madeline exclaims, "It's Daddy!"

I think maybe I'll make Madeline cookies.

It doesn't change a thing, but even so, after twenty-five years, it's nice to know

It's that time of year again. No, not Thanksgiving. Not Christmas. Not False Confession Day. No, tomorrow marks three years that Jessie and I have put up with having someone steal the covers from you while you're sleeping. So once again, you have the privilege of listening to me highlight my husband's amazing super powers. Don't worry, mushiness is not my strong suit, this should be safe reading for small children and endangered species.

So, Jessita, thanks for three years of wedded bliss. I was a little worried you were only marrying me to get a free Mexican cruise, but then, I only married you for your rare book inheritance, so we're even. I thought maybe you'd jump ship about month seven to pursue your career writing love songs to Excel, but when you let me make up that Christmas budget and showed me how to use the sorting function, I knew we'd make it. Those days we were lost in the barbaric Antimony countryside were rough, when we thought we were going to die, but I'll always treasure the moment we looked into each other's eyes and promised that if only one of us made it out , they'd come back and put our car's punctured oil pan over the other's grave. If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Here's to you, Mr. Warner. Thanks for making your fatherly example and genetic contribution to this adorable little dictator:

Thanks for not leaving me after you learned how much I suck at this:

Thanks for not making me get rid of my giant collection of these:


And thanks for showing up on time to get permanently stuck with me on this day (although I'm not grateful you tricked me into thinking you'd forgotten. Minus ten thousand anniversary brownie points for you!):

The last three years have been awesome.

Here's to the next ninety-seven.

And you'd better bring chocolate, my friend.

In which I ridicule popular media.

Today, I feel like ranting against popular culture. You have been warned.

Rant #1: Glee. I've tried to give it a chance, but I'm over it. I was actually excited after the pilot, but the show has since lost my support. Half the singers are too raspy and pop for me, the dancing is either beyond cheesy or sexually suggestive, and they all get these looks on their faces while they're singing that annoy me beyond belief. Looks that scream "I am trying to way cooler than I actually am, but even I would admit if pressed that this is all a bit ridiculous." And don't get me started on the plot. Like most night time soap operas, there is twenty times more drama than is feasibly realistic. And I'm pretty much opposed to the morals they're subtly and not so subtly pushing. They make us cheer for the other woman and hope she'll break up a marriage. The teenagers are all hormonal and way too quick to jump into bed with each other. And I'm not crazy about the way they're treating teenage pregnancy and gay relationships, although I know many people would disagree with me. (I won't go too much into either of those except to say that I think it's ridiculous that in television, when a straight person has a crush on a gay person, it's a comic device, and when a gay person has a crush on a straight person, they're a tragic figure. Yes, that's a huge generalization. But it feels like a double standard to me.) But enough moralizing. Because there is obviously plenty of trashiness on television besides Glee. I have to say, the ridiculousness of the music is my bigger grudge. Burn me at the stake.

Rant #2 : New Moon. I thought the books were okay. Mostly because the writing was very good, making it impossible to put down even if it annoyed you half out of your mind. And the first movie was considerably better than I feared, probably because I had heard horrible things about it and was expecting a really low budget film and horrible acting (think Annikan and Padme). But I just don't understand this craze to be first to see the movie. Or really, the obsession with the characters. I think Edward looks like a mannequin wearing way too much diamond makeup. And were he real, I wouldn't want to marry him. Not because of the blood sucking thing. We could work that out. More the moodiness. And the whole control freak thing. Nor is Jacob much better. Too needy and whiny. I'll probably see the movie. Eventually. After it's been in redbox for a month. I'll leave the overpriced late night movie tickets to the teenagers who know how to stay awake past ten.

The blog to explain all blogs.

So sometimes, I feel like I should blog more. And sometimes (like this week) I decide to take a famous "blogging break", only without the customary goodbye post to let you know I'm not blogging. That's for several reasons. The first is primarily laziness. If I have the time and motivation to write a blog post telling you I'm not going to blog for a while, I could just write a normal blog to amuse and show my blogging brilliance, which is far more fun. Also, I don't like committing to anything. If I should tell you it's a week long break and then come back two months later because I was having fun being a slacker, that would be dishonest. But if I told you it would be a month and then decided after three days that I have great and hilarious things you absolutely need to know, I'm just another Flaky Mormon Mommy Blogger (FMMB). I just can't take myself that seriously. So I live my life, blog when I feel like it, and write meaningless ramblings about the reasons and wheretofores on Monday nights when I'm bored. My life is awesome.

Some nursery wisdom

I'm deciding I love nursery. Kids are just way too much fun. My favorite part this week was during our lesson, when we were talking about being nice to our brothers and sisters. One little girl told us, in the most innocent voice you can imagine, "I try to be nice. But sometimes, I'm naughty." It was all I could do to smother my laughter. You and me both, kid. Maybe you can learn more in nursery than Sunday School.

Happy Holidays. We already have house guests.

So remember last year when I saw a mouse at our apartment? Yeah. I saw another one today. And now I'm afraid to walk around in my kitchen. To my credit, I did not wake my husband up to tell him about my trauma like I did last time. So instead of being grumpy, he thought the whole thing was pretty funny. I did NOT think the whole thing was funny. At all. I feel violated, and I can't get a pan out of the cupboard without cringing. I bang loudly when I go into the kitchen with a broom so the mouse will know I'm coming and hide. This is not for his safety, but rather for my sanity. We went out and bought mouse traps right away, naturally, but because Madeline is a lot more mobile and curious than she was last time mice ruined my life, I'm worried she's going to find one and get her hand whacked off. So basically, I'll be a basket case until we catch something. Those stupid mice should just live in their little field colonies and get eaten by owls. That's what I think.

So to distract myself from evil rodents, we officially started Christmas shopping today. Well, started again. Because I got on a Christmas gift kick about a month ago and bought some Christmas pajamas and a gift for Madeline, and then didn't do anything else for weeks. But today, I got presents for all of my brothers. Which, unfortunately, cannot be shared here due to the whole pesky public domain thing. But trust me, they're good presents. I decided I'd like to be done with my Christmas shopping by Thanksgiving. Ambitious, I know. And let's just pretend it will actually happen. Because then I will feel successful and accomplished. All I want for Christmas is a mouse free house. In case you were wondering.

Halloween, and the new addition to the family

Well, we survived Halloween and Daylight Savings this weekend. Why they insist on putting those two things so close together is a mystery to me. Let's wire kids with sweets and then change their sleeping schedule! Yay! But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Madeline didn't gorge on candy, although she certainly wanted to. She got the idea of trick or treating pretty early and was having an awesome time knocking on doors. She also would not let go of her bucket of candy, even though it got pretty heavy. You'd ask her if she wanted you to hold it, and she'd say uh huh in the affirmative, but good luck getting her hand off the handle. Death grip. She was a cute little ladybug, but you'll have to imagine just how cute, because Jessie has all of the pictures on his phone. We were the Flinstones, thanks to my sister, who is my official resident creative force. Madeline was originally going to go as Pebbles, but you try to make a Pebbles costume warm AND cute. (Okay, don't really try. I'm sure anyone but me could have done it.)

In other news, I'd figure I'd enlighten those of you who wanted to know the wherefores and hows behind our new gigantically oversized television. Jessie went to a lunch seminar for work that was hosted by a company in the telecom industry looking for resellers. Or something. I'm not exactly sure how this was relevant to his job, even though he keeps explaining it. But he went, and they had a raffle where they gave away a handful of ipods and one giant 52 inch television. To a room of about 40 people. So his odds were pretty good. I know he did it just to flout my authority. You see, he has a television fund where we put all of our loose change and bills. I told him he couldn't buy a new television until he had enough money. And I made a rule that nothing bigger than a five dollar bill could go in the fund, just so he didn't make a convenient withdrawl at the ATM to hurry things along. I told him it was good for his self-discipline and he'd really appreciate a nice flat screen when he bought it with his hard earned money. But I guess he couldn't be that patient, so he went out and won one. Men. Anyway, now we have a giant television, which will make us spend money buying a television stand and HD cable to fully take advantage of its capabilities. So you see, you don't want this to happen to you. So be vigilant. Save your money and don't let your husband go to seminars. This is my wise advice for the week.

Fun with small, moody children

So all my hinting must have paid off, because they called me to nursery. I'm pretty excited. Maybe I'm crazy, because I know a lot of people think nursery is a trial. Maybe I'm still naive about that. But I think anyplace where you play with toys and eat snacks can't be half bad. So no more Sunday school or relief society for me for a while. I'll be learning how to be reverent and smile at people and listen to my mother. Apparently I never figured those things out.

Probably to prepare me for my new calling, Madeline has put me through the paces this week. She had her eighteen month appointment this week, and apparently that was not her favorite thing. Over the last five days she's had two days of fever, a mysterious short-lived skin rash, bruising from the shots, two days of non-stop crankiness and kicking and screaming tantrums, and no coherent sleeping schedule, except for consistency in waking up before six every morning. Also a smashed hand and a basketball landing on her head. Pretty awesome week, huh? But she's perky and happy today, so things are looking up. I was starting to think she broke a mirror or spilled some salt or something. Come to think of it, she's done both those things a few times. But she's a tough cookie, so don't worry about her. Worry about all the broken mirrors and spilled salt we'll have to replace. That could get costly.

Madeline. And libraries.

Madeline had her eighteen month appointment yesterday. It was fun and excitement all around. Well, for those of us who didn't get shots. Madeline is growing despite eating mostly goldfish and spaghetti, and she does all the charming things an eighteen month old should do, like destroying things, climbing onto high surfaces in hopes of falling off, and saying no a lot. Unfortunately, she had to get immunizations and a flu shot (normal, not swine. Good luck getting a swine flu shot right now.). So now she has a fever and life is sad. But at least she won't die of pertussis.

In other fun and exciting news, we officially got a new library card yesterday. So now I can start reading all the books I've been hearing good things about for the past three months and couldn't get a hold of, because I was a poor library cardless person. The problem is, I've forgotten all the books I wanted to read, so I just checked out a bunch I've read before. I'm a chronic re-reader. I need some new material. Because if I read the Work and the Glory series one more time, Jessie will think I'm crazy. Any suggestions are welcome. Suggestions submitted with a plate of butterscotch oatmeal cookies will receive a higher rank on my reading list.

Teaching is our new favorite hobby.

So. I haven't gotten a calling yet in our new ward. It's been almost three months, so I've been waiting for the shoe to drop. I still don't have one, even after dropping hints about how much I love sluffing Sunday school and hanging with small children and eating snacks to the primary presidency and nursery leader. But this week I'm talking in sacrament on Sunday and teaching Sunbeams. So I have to go get some lessons ready, which I'm procrastinating. I don't feel too bad, because Jessie has to take a test tomorrow, prepare his talk for scarament meeting, prepare a lesson for Elder's quorum, and prepare a lesson for home teaching. That'll show him for getting his favorite calling.

The rare Picture Post. Enjoy.

I guess it's been a long time since I put any pictures on my blog. I don't really feel too fussed. That's not what my blog is for. But I shall break the visual silence with some photographical evidence of our Halloween spirit. We carved pumpkins for FHE last night (we are apostates and do it on Tuesday due to Jessie's silly urge to get an education on Monday nights. Men.) Madeline had a lot of fun, although she was a little reluctant to touch the seeds at first. And even though she drew a masterpiece on her pumpkin, Dad refused to follow intstructions and just cut out a pumpkin face. The nerve. Anyway, here is Madeline being really excited and cute.

And here she is, going after her seeds somewhat reluctantly.

Here are the finished products. Note how cool and spirited I am. Jessie's is the one they'll be using as a relief society centerpiece next Sunday. And I think Madeline's needs no explanation.

Jessie went forth and carved with much zeal.

In other news, Jessie and I went on a date last weekend. A real date where you get a baysitter and spend a little money and such. Jessie decided to take me skating. Funny story. I don't skate. Which is really ironic, because our second first date (long story), where we decided we were cool people and should date, we went ice skating. And I was fearless. We were country dancing on the ice and running at each other, and I feel down twenty times and didn't care. We went ice skating a few months later, when we were engaged, and I was a complete chicken. It was one of our most lackluster dates ever. I told Jessie that someone upstairs obviously intervened and gave me twenty times my normal balance and daring in order to make our first date a blast so we would date and get married. He didn't believe me at first. But after taking me skating again, he's starting to come around. Jessie is now a firm believer that our first date was a miracle designed to trick him into marrying me. Pretty good trick, huh? Anyway, here's a couple pictures showing my extreme discomfort and Jessie watching me be a wimp.

We did not plan the matching colors. Also, I want you to know, there was much speculation as to whether I could take a picture and stand on roller blades at the same time. But we all lived. Even when I dropped my bracelet. I just sat staring down at it for a few minutes until some 8 year old kid whizzing by at a hundred miles an hour took pity on me and picked it up. Then we went and sat in a movie theater, which I am much more skilled at. We all have our talents.

I love primary children. They should speak every week.

Sometimes I love fast and testimony meetings. Especially when Madeline eats everyone's else's snacks instead of her own and leaves me ducking for cover under the pew so no one will know it's my kid screaming "more" at the boy behind her who is smuggling her teddy grahams. But yesterday, there was a better reason to love testimony meeting. Here's a snippet of two testimonies by a couple of primary boys, one after the other:

Boy #1: And I love my family, even though they hurt me sometimes. (Long pause.) But I love my family.

Boy #2: I'd like to bear my testimony that this true church is the true church, and it is the only true and living church, and other churches, they have different names, but this true church...(pause)...has a really good name for the only true church. Amen.

Guy sitting in front of us, to his wife: What is the bishop teaching these kids?

I was a straight A student in high school. This is important to remember.

I had one of those days. Where I wonder if I still have a brain in there somewhere. I wasn't going to blog about it, but Jessie told me if I didn't, he was going to proclaim himself guest blogger of the day, and he knows all my passwords. Dratted marriage and the spilling of my secrets. Anyway, my day is best summarized by this little anecdote:

I went to Smith's Marketplace to pick up some odds and ends, including such interesting things as lightbulbs and fruit. Madeline was being awesome, and other people were enjoying watching me chase her through women's lingerie, yelling at her to put down the bras in her hands. She also dumped out her goldfish in the shoe section, the produce section, and at the checkout stand, respectively. My apologies, Smith's janitors. So I was a little flustered when I got up to the stand, and as soon as the girl had rung up my stuff, I put it all back into my cart before she could bag it. When I was almost done, I realized she was giving me a weird look, and she asked if I wanted her to bag my stuff. I said yes, thinking she was referring to my lightbulbs, and then realized she meant all the groceries I'd just put in my cart. I was too embarrassed to admit I was losing my mind, so I pretended I meant to do it all along and assured her I didn't want bags. To save the environment. Except my lightbulbs. Because they are more important than the environment. And then I loaded all my stuff into my trunk, sans bags, and when I got home, I brought out my own bags and loaded the stuff into them so I could take it into the house.

We won't talk about how I went to a baby shower and forgot to bring the present.

It's days like this that I just want to go stare at my college diploma on the wall so I can remember that I had rational thought, once.

Welcome to my new wacky world of pink. For now.

So apparently my blog needed a makeover. Also a few rooms in my house and probably myself, but we're going to just stick to what's feasible here. So I don't know if I like it or not. Apparently I was feeling girly when I picked the template. This may change if I should suddenly get the desire to beat someone up or watch NFL football. But for now, enjoy something different. Please make lots of comments about how you love the weird picture of Jessie's face right at the top of the header. He'll be so grateful for the attention.

Speaking of Jessie, he interpreted his Spanish recipe for empanadas last night so we could make them and feel ethinic and special. They were pretty yummy, although Madeline wouldn't eat them. She wants to make it very clear that she is American, thank you very much, and as such must subsist on hot dogs and pasta and yogurt and goldfish crackers and cookies. Because that is the most American diet you could ever hope for. She also likes to fall off things, though where she got the idea this is the American way, I do not know. I just know that she likes to jump off three foot platforms at the park if you're not watching, cry for ten seconds, and then get mad at you for comforting her instead of letting her leap onto swinging red circles of doom. Clearly my daughter has not yet developed that part of her brain that is responsible for saying DANGER WILL ROBINSON. Just the part that says MINE.

Our weekend

So it's been a good weekend. I ate a lot of chocolate, saw an entire session of conference without interruption, and won a game of Phase 10 while half asleep. We went up to my parent's for the second half of conference, and while the boys were at priesthood, I went with my sister to sing with a bunch of young single adults. Apparently the church likes to get young single adult wards to sing outside temple square while people are coming and going from Conference, so that people feel spiritual instead of feeling like arguing with protesters. My sister's ward was one of these, and since they were supposed to contribute eighty people and had about than ten, I pretended to not be married and went with them. (To defend the turnout, you have to remember they were singing as people left priesthood session, so no boys were able to make it, and their ward is pretty small.) It was fun, although my voice was hoarse by the end. We didn't really get hassled by protesters because it was late, but I swear as we were leaving there was a guy standing on the corner preaching against Evil Mormon Driving Practices. I didn't know you could protest against that, or I would have gotten me a permit and joined him.

On Sunday, because we sang, we got some tickets to the afternoon session, and my sister gave hers to Jessie so we could go. That was pretty awesome because a) Madeline had limited my prior uninterrupted Conference viewing to approximately 1.5 talks and b) we got to be there for Elder Holland's extremely powerful talk on the Book of Mormon, which I loved. Also, we rode Trax for about three blocks, because Jessie really wanted to. And got off at the wrong stop. But Jessie got his ride. So it was an awesome weekend. Hope yours was slightly awesome also.

Hi. We're just being cold. How are you?

Hi. I'm alive. I just haven't done anything terribly exciting or had a creative thought for a week. That would depress me, but I made my favorite cookies yesterday, so I'm good. Plus, it's finally cold out, which makes me a lot more willing to just curl up in a blanket with Madeline and be lazy. Not that Madeline knows how to be lazy, but I'm trying to teach her. It's one of many things on our list, like saying "please", not skipping one when we count to three, and sitting still for longer than two minutes. Because apparently this is a skill they like in nursery.

Did I mention Madeline is in nursery? It's pretty much awesome.

We stuck her in last week, one week early, to get her used to it. Okay, that's a lie, because she'd get used to it just fine if we waited until she was actually 18 months. We did it because she's a terror and we want someone else to watch our kid while we get to listen to a lesson. I admit it. But in our defense, she's really pretty easy. She loves kids and toys, and the only snag was apparently a moment during singing time when she didn't want to sit and pay attention. Surprise. She even said thank you when she got a snack. I felt fulfilled as a mother. Whatever behavioral problems my daughter has, she's at least polite. I don't know what to do with my new found freedom. But I'm sure I'll figure it out.

I blog to relieve my feelings when companies are stupid.

So I'm pretty ticked at bill collectors today. Want to hear why? Thanks, you're such a good listener.

Jessie and I are good, responsible citizens. We pay all our bills on time, in full, 99% of the time. So we get a letter from a certain power company that shall remain nameless (I'm looking at you, Rocky Mountain Power) saying that during our move, there was a 14 dollar fee that got overlooked for disconnecting or some such thing. It was a very polite letter. They made it sound more like they forgot to bill us and would we pretty please pay it than YOU ARE LATE, EVIL POWER LEACHING MOOCH, PAY US NOW. So we got this letter dated September 8th a few weeks ago. Through a bit of miscomunication between the hubby and I, we hadn't sent a check yet. Yesterday, a collection company calls to harass us over this fourteen dollars we owe them. Are you kidding me? They claimed they had sent us a letter. Which we got today. So kudos to you, power company, for taking two faithful, reliable customers who forgot a 14 dollar bill while in the midst of moving, sending us one reminder letter, and then not even waiting until we can send you a check before reporting us to collections people who don't even wait for THEIR letter to arrive before calling to accuse us of ignoring them. Cool your heels. We were going to pay it. We're not wrecking our credit over fourteen bucks.

Then, we get a statement from our HOA. We tried to pay our fees online, because they kind of were really excited about that option in our last monthly statement. We put in our information and got an electronic receipt that said, hey, you're the best, thanks for paying your HOA fees, you're so awesome. Then after several weeks, we notice the money never came out of our bank account. And get a statement in the mail for next month with two month's worth of fees, plus a 5% late fee plus interest at 18% APR. And I sit there wondering if the world is out to ruin our credit. We tried to give you the money, people. You said you were good. You gave us a receipt. Do you want us to call you every two days after that and say, "But did you really mean it when you said we paid our fees or were you kidding?" Because we should have assumed they were lying. Silly us. I'm officially sick of people being stupid.

Anyway, thanks for listening to Cami's daily rant. Your check is in the mail. But I'm not paying interest if you refuse to cash it for six months. You've been warned.

My Girl's Night. By Myself.

Tonight I got to watch Gilmore Girls. This is a semi-rare occurence, because the husband hates Gilmore Girls. A lot. A LOT. Unfairly, I think, because he's only ever seen five minutes of it. But he maintains that they talk way too fast and there is too much drama and he just can't take it. (Incidentally, he's probably right. But I like that they talk too much and have too much drama. It makes me feel like my life is nice and put together and simple.) So anyway, in deference to his feelings and sanity, I only watch it on days he has class or study groups. Which means that sometimes I really don't know how the heck things got the way they are, because I'm skipping through every fifth episode. I'm like, woah, when did they break up? When did Rory decide to go to Yale instead of Harvard? Why is the grandpa dude listed as a special guest when he's in every episode? You'd think I would know these things from watching it when it first aired, but I was in my pretending-I'm-not-a-girl-who-likes-drama-and-love-stories-and-attractive-men stage. So I still don't know what the heck is going on, and I have to go look it up on wikipedia. And when you look it up on wikipedia, you lose the witty banter and fast talking and emotion-manipulating background music, and it just sounds like a soap opera, and I wonder why I'm reading about Gilmore Girls instead of the page on blue whales or Dick Van Dyke. Maybe I'll quit watching the show altogether and just rewatch all seven seasons of The West Wing. Because it's got plenty of drama and fast talking too. But Jessie likes that one. Hypocrite.

I struggle in the morning. What else is new?

So when I was pregnant, I had this crazy idea that motherhood would force me to be a morning person. I've never been one in any sense. In college, making it out of bed before ten was a major accomplishment, and usually only happened if I had a nine o'clock class where attendance was part of our grade. (I only ever had an eight o'clock class once, my first semester, and I quickly learned from my mistakes.) I figured a baby with her own schedule would force my body to adjust. In a way, it did. I never stay up past eleven anymore, ever. But I discovered that just because your body is up and moving and taking care of a kid before 8 am doesn't mean your brain is. Basically, Madeline and I don't really start our day until we've been up a few hours, because morning coherency will never be a skill I can master. Jessie just laughs at me, as I sit on the couch, glassy eyed and unresponsive, trying to figure out why Madeline is so dratted chipper when the sun hasn't come up yet. It's six thirty and she wants to go play in the backyard in her pajamas, and I'm thinking, where does that door go again? We have a backyard? We have a kid? Don't make me face these realities before at least noon. I was in the middle of a great dream about throwing spaghetti at some bullies from high school, and I'd like to find out how it ends. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to accept the fact that I'll never be one of those mothers who gets up at five thirty in the morning to jog five miles and make homemade bread for the kid's school lunches. I'll be the mother who takes her children to the bus stop in pajama bottoms and ratty hair. I'm okay with that.

My two cents on the most overblown talent show ever.

So we watched the finale of America's Got Talent last night. I thought I had become a country music convert, but chicken chaser man bugged the heck out of me. Was I the only one on the planet who thought he was just the smallest bit off on every prolonged note he sang? My poor ears were suffering. Needless to say, we won't be going to the strip to listen to him bawl his sad songs out of tune. I think Barbara Padilla got shafted because fat opera man won last year, so everyone was sick of opera. Sad day, because she was twenty times the singer he was. Sometimes I think America cannot think for itself and should always listen to me. But I do commend them for not choosing lewd swearing grandma to win. News flash, lady. Acting inappropriately crude for your age isn't that hilarious. Okay, I'm done critiquing. I'll go back to watching quality television. Madeline loves watching her Arthur.

Update

My husband noticed I hadn't cleaned the house. Drat. Good news is, he cleaned most of it himself. So maybe I am smarter than I thought.

Also, I am not really all that sick anymore, for those of my loyal fans who were worried. It's nice to feel like a person again. I might do it more often.

And I haven't dyed my hair yet. But Jessie told me I should. As long as my sister does it instead of him, because last time we tried it didn't turn out so well. So if you meet a familiar looking person in the next few weeks you don't recognize, it's me. Make a silly face to say hello. And then if it's not really me, feel very ridiculous.

Cami takes a sick day.

I admit it. I am one of those sporadic bloggers. So sue me. At least I don't have any ads, so I don't have to worry about maintaining readers. How good it is to have no ambitions. Anyway. I'm only blogging now because doing anything else will take too much energy. Basically, I've been fighting headaches and backaches and everywhere aches and fevers and chills for three days, and I decided an hour ago to just give up and be sick. Because any morning where it is seventy degrees in your house and you are wearing a jacket and thick socks under a quilt to keep warm, there is no hope for your day. So I'm being lazy. Doing nothing. And rationalizing it by making dinner. Because if your husband comes home to a hot dinner, maybe he won't notice the piles of laundry. Right? I'm afraid my husband might be too smart to fall for that, but I'm going to try it anyway.

So basically, instead of doing all the cool housewifey things I'm supposed to be doing, I alternate between taking pills and reading Anne of Green Gables. Apparently I own the whole set and it's been hiding for the last five years. I won't name names. But one of my many sisters had it stashed on her bookshelf for safekeeping. What a nice sister. And now I'm pretending I'm in junior high again. I love Anne. She makes me want to have red hair. Not bright red, which is good, because my hair would never consent to go that shade. Maybe I'll dye my hair. Then my husband won't know it was me who was lazy all day. Good plan.

Happy fall. Or spring. I've forgotten which.

Hey. It's the last day of August. That could really mean less to me. I'm having season withdrawals. Basically, while everyone else is rejoicing in sending kids back to school, or backpack shopping, or whatever else, I'm trying to remember what month it is. Because our schedule has changed exactly Not at All. Jessie goes to work. Jessie goes to school. We go to church. Madeline and I fight about sleeping schedules and try to keep up with laundry and make cookies too often. If I hadn't been counting down two years to this August, I'd probably still think it was June. When I get dressed for church, I freak out and have to remember if we're past Easter and before Labor Day so I can wear white shoes. Not that I wouldn't wear them anyway. Because I am a rebel. But I like to know I'm being rebellious so I can enjoy it.

Madeline, on the other hand, always knows when she's being rebellious, and always enjoys it, too. Basically she doesn't like to do anything unless she thought of it herself. I'll get out her milk because she's standing in front of the fridge, tugging on the handle, and she'll throw it on the floor. So I put it just out reach on the counter, and all of a sudden she pushing chairs over to get it down because she wants it so badly. Same thing applies to getting into the bathtub, getting dressed, or changing a diaper. If I tell her to do it, she unfailingly resists. But if I suggest it and pretend I could care less, she's all of a sudden eager. This does not bode well for the teenage years. It's a good thing I'm an expert at reverse psychology. And general trickery.

How I remembered I am a slacker, not an organizer

I was all motivated today to clean my house. I like how pristine it is and decided to keep it that way. I started contemplating how I could make a schedule and keep to it. I thought about making lists of tasks, or a chore chart, and marking down when the chores were last done so I don't go three months without cleaning my toilets. I played with the idea of color coding tasks by priority. I contemplated using Excel to make these cool charts. Then I realized I'm becoming my husband. So I promptly sat down with Madeline to watch Word Girl on PBS and play meaningless games on the internet.

That was a close call.

What I did on my summer vacation

Wow. I have become a major slacker. You guys don't care about what I did the last few weeks, I know, so it's all good. But maybe I'll give you a quick rundown anyway so I can feel like I've been blogging the last two weeks. Good plan.

-We picked up Curtis from the airport. He's still short and skinny. Madeline likes him, but she likes bananas more.

-We went to California. GPS is a good thing to have when no one brings directions. Madeline behaves better when she's not in the same vehicle I'm in. Good to know for future family vacations. We'll just mail her there in a large box.

-We played at the beach. There are large waves at the beach. If you can't swim properly, don't try to "ride" one. It'll end up giving you a fun ride into a mountain full of sand that will cake every part of your body. Seriously. I was getting sand out of my ears a week later. Also, Madeline doesn't like seeing me tossed around by waves. It makes her cry. She does like throwing sand on people's legs.

-We went to the mall. It was about six zillion times bigger than any mall in Utah, but no fun to shop at because all the dressing rooms had lines about half an hour long. Don't take boys to the mall if you want to have fun. They don't like malls.

-We went to Wicked. It was awesome and someday when I'm rich I'm going to go to New York and spend every night at a Broadway musical for a year. But don't take pictures of yourself on your phone before it starts because the ushers are cranky.

-We went to church. Curtis liked this a lot. But only because he didn't go to relief society, where the lesson title seemed to be "Why relief society was founded so women could have group therapy sessions and encourage each other to be selfish and pamper themselves". I took the opportunity to skip the meeting and play with Madeline on all the sweet toys sitting in the hall by the nursery. My mom and sister were jealous.

-We played board games. I beat Jessie at Settlers of Catan. Just had to throw that out there.

-We went to Sea World. We saw a lot of whales, of which I could not tell you which one was Shamu. All I know is he wasn't the beluga whale in the Arctic exhibit. Madeline refused to ride in her stroller, even though at the hotel all she wanted to do was ride it through the hallway. She was rewarded with a stuffed penguin for her disobedience. There were also Clydesdale horses, because apparently they are sea animals as long as that beer company owns Sea World.

-We played basketball. I scored the winning shot. It was probably the only one I made.

-We went to the zoo and saw a bunch of animals. Madeline learned to talk like a monkey. I saw a hippopotamus. We all bought hats, except my dad, who obviously didn't need one because he has a lot of hair on his head providing him with shade. We forced Madeline to ride in her stroller and she learned to like it because she doesn't know how to undo her seat belt.

-We went swimming a lot. I tried to learn how to swim properly and failed.

- We came home and Madeline learned to throw really long, loud temper tantrums. Thus my lack of blogging.

So, that's what we did. It was fun. It was awesome. No one died. Successful trip.

Home again home again, jiggity jig

So, I haven't said anything about it yet, because my brother threatened us all into deep silence. But I'm pretty sure the word is out by now, so I can confess: I'm really excited for Elder Lundstrom to get home from his mission. And meet his niece. Because she's pretty dratted adorable. Also, because after he does that we can go on a trip to California, which is almost as exciting as seeing your brother after two years. (Just kidding. California is way more exciting, right?) I didn't think I'd miss him too much, since I'd been away at college for a while before he left and didn't waste away of loneliness or anything. But not seeing him often and not being able to see him at all are two way different things. So I will definitely be a little anxious to get to the airport this week, and not because I love riding the escalators. Even though escalators are almost as cool as California.

So I've been trying to show Madeline pictures of her long lost uncle so she'll recognize him a little bit when she sees him. She gets really attentive, but so far she won't say "Curtis". Only "Hi Dale!" And "Bryce!" and "What's that?" Usually followed by hysterical laughing. Because apparently life is way funnier than I'd realized and I've been missing out for the last twenty years. She laughs at everything. She likes to laugh at kids she sees. She laughs when she drops things. She laughs when I have to chase her into the back of the men's room at church becuase someone who hates me propped the door open. And yes, it is extremely awkward to walk out of the men's room when people are walking by that didn't see you chasing a disobedient toddler in. Just another thing that's sure to impress our new ward.

I was randomly thinking about...

I was wondering today who makes up e-mail forwards. I get them occasionally, but pretty much always ignore them, if only because having something horrible happen to me in the next 48 hours because I didn't pass it on could only spice up my life. But who in their right mind would actually write up one of those things and send it? By the time I get them, they've always been forwarded at least ten times. I can see how some of the cheesy feel good stories could get started by some overly emotional hormonal woman who cries when she reads that precious story about the blind kindergartner from Iowa who wrote Amazing Grace, and decides to forward it to all her friends, who are also overly hormonal, and send it to all their friends, and add pictures and change the fonts to size 300 with flashing colors. But who adds the part that says your child will become a musical prodigy if you forward it on to twenty people? Or that your long lost flame will call you in the next 12 hours if you press forward right away? Or that if you don't send to every single person you ever cared about within twenty minutes you'll always be angry and bitter and all those people will know you didn't send it and hate you forever? My favorites are the ones that try to give you guilt trips. If you don't pass on the story of the soldier who saved his whole platoon after his wife prayed for him, you hate America. And Christianity. And men. And small children. So send it, you heartless cold soul! I like to delete those first. Apparently all my fondest wishes and dreams will never come true because I won't play the game, but I'm okay with that. Just know that if you're not receiving a daily forward from me telling you you're one of my five best girlfriends ever, I hate you.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

Our new neighborhood is friendly. Really friendly. I don't know how to deal with this. People come up and say hi and want to hang out and let our kids play together, and I'm sitting there going "Socialization? Ahhhh!" Our last neighborhood was a lot more subdued. No one was ever home at our fourplex. I was starting to think we must have been emitting strange odors from our apartment, because the parking lot was always literally empty from eight in the morning until we went to bed. So I'm kind of out of practice on being nice to people and making polite chit chat and being interesting. And I don't have the whole short-term living situation thing going for me, so I probably should get over my awkwardness and learn how to interact with human beings. Are there classes for this sort of thing? Where I can perhaps practice on complete strangers I'll never meet again? So far I'm sticking to the whole where-you-from-what's-your-major concept with a few substitutions, like "how old is your kid?" instead of "when do you graduate?" Actually, I like that one. You can go on about how cute someone's kid is for ages and they end up thinking you're pretty nice. I usually count on Madeline to make some sort of disruption about five minutes into the conversation to spare me from remembering what you're supposed to do after the initial get to know you. Sometimes, a hyperactive child is a blessing.

My daughter is not a drug addict. Promise.

Whenever my daughter wants a cracker, she follows me to the pantry and says "Crack? Crack?" I can't be the only one who finds this hilarious.

This is only one of the many fun things she likes to say. When I'm not paying attention to her, she follows me around, tugging on my leg and moaning "I know, I know". It took me a while to realize she does that because whenever she falls down or hurts herself, that's what I say to comfort her. Also, she likes to say stairs. Since our house is now three levels, we do a lot of stairs. And no matter what her woes are, if you say, "Want to go upstairs?" or "Want to go downstairs?", she perks right up and runs to them and points and says "Stairs? Stairs?" It's pretty darned melt your heart adorable. If I do say so myself. Don't get me started on her animal sounds. Maybe I'm just feeling extra amiable towards her since this whole new no-fight napping thing. She can pretty much do whatever she wants after learning that skill. Little manipulator.

Hey. I just realized I live here.

This is the first time I've ever moved into a place with the intention of staying for several years at minimum. It's kind of a weird feeling. I'm thinking to myself, I could unpack the college books that have been in boxes the last three years and put them on a bookcase. I have to actually find a place for every knick-knack I own, or what's the point in having it? I should go through the junk drawers that have followed me from my freshman year of college and never really been thoroughly cleaned out. It's kind of a relief. All of the stuff I've held onto in hopes it might be useful someday has met their time of judgment. Step up and prove your value or get thrown out in the dumpster. Tough love. At least, that's the plan. I'll probably still hold onto everything I did in seventh grade. For sentimental reasons. I'm such a wuss.

I declare victory.

I have arrived.

My daughter took two naps today. Without fighting me. I just laid her down when she got cranky and she went to sleep with no wailing. No screaming.

I officially rock. My mad parenting skills have obviously caught up with me. I'll be cooking myself a delicious dinner to celebrate. If my cooking skills can keep up with my parenting awesomeness.

The good old days

So I was looking at my old high school yearbook last night. (That's so old, because I graduated five years ago, but whatever.) Besides becoming convinced once again that someone should have taken pity on me and given me a fashion makeover, I was able to relive all the geeky activities and goofy friendships of my senior year. And I realized I've been lying to people when I told them I had no desire to ever return to high school. I thought that was true. College was much better to me, and a lot more fun. But I made some good friends in high school that I don't really get to see much anymore, and I realized it wouldn't be so bad to go back and relive the glory days. Don't get me wrong. I don't miss it enough to go to my five year reunion. I'd rather be in California. But enough that maybe I'll quit pretending my life began in college. At least if all the people who wrote about how horrible BYU would be in my yearbook will admit it didn't work out that badly for me.

Ode to having the gas on

There are a lot of cool things you can do with hot water. Like dishes, laundry, taking hot showers, giving your kid a warm bath. Little stuff that makes the world better. And after a brief, dismal ten minutes of blackout after Jessie tried hooking up the dryer, when I thought I would be spending the night in utter darkness without air conditioning, we managed to get back both power and drying capability. So all is right with the world, and I have clean clothes. I know you were worried.

Read at your own risk.

So, if you're looking for sunshine and roses and happy stories, go read another blog. It's been quite the fun week, and I can't decide which to rant about:

- My demon former landlord who is OCD about cleaning apartments and is charging us by the hour to go back over everything I did because it screamed filthy to her. The woman took apart the sinks to find hair we missed and yelled at us for not unscrewing the vents in the ceiling and cleaning them out. BYU wasn't this picky. Phooey on you, landlady. Keep it up and I'll kidnap you, drive you to Antimony, and leave you there.

-Speaking of which, Antimony was as lovely as ever. We were there all of twelve hours when our brand new tent snapped. In two places. For no apparent reason. Also, on the way down the mountain, our car hit the same rock that punched a hole in our oil pan last year, and we're now leaking antifreeze. At least we made it home. Never again, oh Antimony. There's a reason it's located right next to Hell's Backbone.

-The cold showers we've been taking since we moved in. And now our gas is finally on, and I don't have the upper body strength to turn the valve and partake of the goodness. I knew I should be hitting the gym. Curse my wimpiness.

-Madeline didn't like moving. Or camping. For the past three days, she has been clingy 24/7, throwing kicking and screaming fits whenever you tell her no, and refusing to nap when she is tired. I'm sure our first impression at our new ward was fantastic. Especially when the lesson is on reverence and respect and removing screaming children from sacrament meeting. At least they'll remember us.

So, there's all my ranting in one post, for your enjoyment. Let us commiserate, and tomorrow I'll write about how wonderful it is to own my own home and stuff. After I spend a little more time unpacking boxes and trying to impose order on the chaos. Maybe I'll just boycott life and spend time watching some wonderfully stupid and utterly useless drama on the Bachelorette. Because choosing your life long partner (read: fling of six months) from a flock of fame hungry single men is way more difficult than my life.

Today we buy a house, for tomorrow we move.

Well, it's about five hours from being official. We're going to go spend a ton of money that isn't ours, and move all our stuff again, and see if we can traumatize Madeline or if she really just doesn't care where she is as long as you give her crackers and free reign of the universe. Every time we've gone to the new house, she camps out in her soon to be new room, on some poor little girl's bed, and stares at the giant mirrors on her new closet and talks to herself. So I'm pretty optimistic. Jessie, on the other hand, might not adapt so well. His commute will go from 1.5 minutes to 10-15, and he's really not a commuter. I'll give him some crackers and juice and maybe some chocolate, and I'm sure he'll come around.

Anywho, we really are actually excited for the move. We'll have a lot more space and the ability to paint our walls neon orange if we wanted to, and let me tell you, we have been wanting to. I'm really excited for our giant pantry, a new dishwasher that maybe washes dishes, a fenced backyard with grass to let Madeline run wild in, a playground around the corner for the same purpose, and my own master bathroom and walk in closet. Jessie's excited for the non existant sound system and new tv he plans to put in the basement and getting lots of money from the government for having the audacity to purchase a home. Madeline is excited to unpack boxes for real. So happy 24th of July. We'll be organizing our socks and baking goods. Whoopee!

A few words about moving and that little place I like to call Purgatory

Greetings, earthlings. Things are going well with the whole house buying thing, which means we'll probably be moving in a week and a half. For the third time in a year and a half. Awesome, no? I finally found some boxes and have managed to DI/trash approximately three items from our apartment, so things are progressing nicely. Madeline is nearly as good at unpacking as I am at packing, so we're both working hard. Although I'm winning by about a dozen boxes at the moment. And Jessie disassembled his weight set, so we're both finally getting some exercise. (Kidding, Jessie. You know we already get exercise chasing Madeline around at church.)

So, this is our plan for the next two weeks: pack, do homework, repeat. Move all our junk. Clean our apartment. Go camping for three days. Smart of us, eh? Then we can come home to a nice, new, house full of boxes with all our dirty camping gear. If we ever get home. Because we're going to...please hold back your cries of dismay...a little place called Antimony. You know, that town in the middle of nowhere. That eats people. And cars. I'm starting to think the place is cursed. So I was pretty adamant that we move before we go down there, in case we get kidnapped by aliens and don't make it back in time to let the new renters take over our apartment. I tried to start an underground family coup to change the location of our annual camping trip, but was pretty much overruled by people singing about tradition.

(And let's just remember how well that worked out for this guy:)

So, Antimony, I'm giving you one more shot. You've stolen my dignity, my time, my sanity, and my car. If you take my firstborn, that's it. We're camping in Yellowstone from now on.

I am doing stuff. I promise.

Hi. It's me. Remember me?

We've been busy, as promised. We spent last weekend at the ever popular Lundstrom reunion, stuffing ourselves on good food and exercising more than we have in the past month. We survived dodgeball, soccer, and fireworks without any major injuries. Which is sort of a feat at the Lundstrom reunion. (I credit this achievement to the lack of the traditional male morning basketball game.)It was good to see all the relatives we never see, and take a break from life, the universe and everything. Also, it was good to see Logan again. I don't go up as often now that I'm a pseudo Utah county girl, and have a husband who abhors long journeys by car. And a one year old who thinks any ride over ten minutes is a long journey.

But now we're back, and pretending to be busy again. We found some renters for our apartment, so it's official: we better buy a house or we'll be homeless. I've packed about three boxes full of books and realized I need a lot more boxes and a lot more motivation. Anyone with ideas on how to obtain either are hereby referred to our suggestions box. So, that's about how things are going. We'll see if we make any significant progress on being productive, and alert you immediately.

We like to move it move it

So I've been a little busy lately, I guess. Doing stuff. And junk. And other stuff. Oh, and buying a house. And stuff.

Jessie and I decided to bite the bullet and become indebted for the rest of our lives, in the hopes that a) someday we won't have to pay rent and b) no one will yell at us if we stick nails into our walls wherever we want them. We're buying a townhouse in Lehi. That is, we're buying it if everything goes through alright and it doesn't burn down and we don't blow our down payment money on a trip to Sweden to stay in the ice hotel. This is all very exciting and stuff. But it means we're very very very busy. Doing things like cleaning the apartment top to bottom every day for potential renters. And getting tax returns and pay stubs and bank account information from the last 73 years. And trying to find boxes that are cheap/free. Because seriously, why does one large moving box cost five freaking dollars? At WALMART, of all places? My go to store that always gives me cheap, flimsy products for, well, cheap? I'm disheartened. Luckily, WalMart doesn't know we have hired Jessie's brother (who works in their produce department) to steal their used fruit boxes and we're not paying a cent.

I know, you're all very excited, but hold your applause. Sometime in the range of the next 2 days to 2 months I'll post some pictures and give you details on how amazingly awesome my new house is and which of its features Madeline has permanently stained with strawberries and/or juice and/or crayon. But first I have to pack. So don't count on hearing my witty little expositions on my life too often the next little while. I shall miss you. And probably procrastinate packing in favor of telling you twice a week how much fun packing is. Until then.

I don't see the family resemblance.

So yesterday I was watching a couple of my sister-in-law's kids while she was at Lagoon. One of which is a nine month old with amazing talents. Here are some of the amazing, phenomenal, astonishing things my niece can do at nine months that Madeline has never quite got the hang of:

-Hold still while you change her diaper
-Hold still while you put on her clothes
-Hold still while you wipe her face
-Eat all of her food without making a mess, and in record time
-Stay in one spot when you set her down. (Not because she can't crawl. Because she likes to sit in one spot and play with a toy or watch the things going on around her. I thought to myself, oh. This is how people bring children to sacrament meeting without sedating them first.)
-Cry at a decibel level under 1 million
-Stay away from the dishwasher when I am loading it and making fun clanking sounds

In other words, I discovered the reason why people have multiple children. And how they don't die when said multiple children are less than ten years apart. Fortunately for me, my child is not obedient or quiet. But hey, what can you do? I love my trouble maker child and wouldn't trade her, because she's so cute when she's getting into mischief. Remind me of that on Sunday when she's playing under the bishop's chair. (Note: This has never actually happened to us. Yet.)

Dinner and Dad's Day

I love being a stay at home mom, but there's one task that really bugs me sometimes. (Okay, maybe more than one, but I'm only going to complain about one here. Maybe I'll complain about the dishes tomorrow, if you're lucky.) I hate deciding what to do for dinner. I don't even really mind making it. But you have to plan it, and try to decide what will sound good to everybody, and make sure you have all the ingredients, and then you have to do it all over again tomorrow. This is why in college I ate nothing but mashed potatoes, sausage, and Sunny D. Not necessarily together. Luckily, Jessie isn't too picky, and if I have something on the table when he gets home, he's happy. Maybe today we'll just have Trix yogurt. Do you think Jessie will say anything if I just put some yogurt on the table?

I also haven't decided what to get Jessie for Father's Day yet. That's right, I'm a slacker. It's in four days and I have no clue. The problem is, he got me a pretty good Mother's Day gift. He lost a couple points because he didn't order it until a few days before, so it came a little late. But he still set the bar pretty high. So now I have to find something that says, "Jessie is freaking awesome, and Cami is the best at picking out Father's Day gifts." But I thought that would look a little long on a t-shirt, so I need a gift that just implies it instead of saying it outright. Problem is, apparently you are supposed to buy tools or furniture for Father's Day, and Jessie already has ample amounts of both. He just wants a big screen television, but since our tv fund is only up to about 40 bucks, I'm thinking we still have a while before I can use that as a gift idea. So I'll probably just aimlessly search the internet for the next three days and go pick him up some socks at WalMart Saturday night. Maybe they'll seem cooler if I get muti-colored ones instead of white.

Adventures in house hunting

So we went out with a realtor looking at houses today. It was kind of exciting. Mostly because the world is full of crazy people. At one house, we drove up and there was a drunk guy in the garage talking to the lady who lived there. He swore at us, and our realtor got up in his face and told him to respect women and mind his manners generally. I thought he was going to punch him out, but then the drunk guy decided to be nice and apologize and try to be social. Turns out he lives across the street. Score one for the neighborhood. Note to the world: if you're trying to sell your house for more than it's worth, don't have your wasted neighbor in the garage when prospective buyers are around.

Things got more exciting when we finished looking at houses. We were talking to our realtor in front of a bunch of townhouses, when his four year old son decided to he had to go really bad and peed right by our car. We were too busy laughing to keep him from stealing a ball out of someone's yard and throwing it on top of the carport. Our poor realtor just turned to us and said, "Dude. Don't have boys." Words of wisdom.

Moral of the story. You should go house shopping. Make new friends. See the world. Swap stories with your realtor to see who got robbed at gunpoint more times on their mission. You'll be glad you did.

Rain, rain, go away

I am usually a fan of rain. But for some reason, when your nose is all stuffed up and your throat aches and your head hurts, rain isn't fun anymore. Therefore, I politely request that the rain go away until I can breathe again. So that I can use my new umbrella instead of staring outside thinking that I'm going to myself sicker if I go out there. And coincidentally, as I predicted, I was out and about last night without my umbrella during the rain. Granted, I was riding in the car most of the time, so I probably couldn't have used it anyway, but it would have been comforting to know it was there. In all its new, pristine, chic glory.

A few random thoughts on scouts, my exciting life, umbrellas and footwear

So, I'm a slacker. I usually don't like to mention when I'm a slacker, in hopes that the world at large won't notice. But I've been a bad blogger lately. And I have no excuse. I have not been sick, I have not been vacationing, I have not been busy beyond all belief magnifying my callings and hosting enrichments and working in my extensive garden, and my internet has been fully functional. I'm just a royal slacker. Tell your friends.

I have been doing a few things though, lest you think I sit at home and watch soap operas all day. I don't even like soap operas. If I wanted all the drama, I would have remained single in a ward at BYU forever. No, I have been doing other stuff. I went to cub scout camp on Saturday. Boy, was that a lot of fun. If your definition of fun is chasing ten year olds who hate boondoggle all day. I'd blame it on the short attention spans of prepubescent boys, but the majority of the other dens attending had twice as many boys and half the amount of disobedience. I prefer to think of our boys as "high energy". I'm trying to figure out a way to hook them up to my car and save the environment. Chew on that idea, Mr. President: Cub Scouts are the solution to the energy crisis.

But that's not all folks. Surely you didn't think my week consisted solely of cub scouts. I also bought myself an umbrella. Exciting, no? Actually, I bought Jessie one too, because I suddenly decided umbrellas were a necessary commodity for every successful home. And for some reason we haven't owned an umbrella for the past two years. Despite this egregious oversight, we managed to survive. Now it probably won't rain for a month. But if it does, I have an umbrella. Which I probably will have either left at home or won't be able to find when a sudden downpour does arrive. I also bought shoes, which won't help at all in a downpour and are actually not sensible for bad weather at all. But they were really cute and they were on sale, and if I learned anything from my sister, it's that those are two really good reasons to buy shoes. And you really only need one or the other to justify yourself. Hope you enjoyed your fun and exciting week as much as I enjoyed mine. I'm going to go pick out outfits that match my shoes. (Jessie doesn't understand this urge. Poor Jessie. I think he only owns four or five pair of shoes.)

A story about my husband

So, my husband gave me permission to share a funny and somewhat embarrassing story about him on my blog. Mostly after I assured him it was definitely the sort of thing I would do all the time, in my dizty mode. Then, in the interest of total honesty, I also assured him I would be mocking him for the rest of the week because it WASN'T me this time, and I was going to take full advantage of that.

Anyway, on Sunday we were back in actual classes instead of nursery, which was sad because Madeline had grown accustomed to doing whatever she liked. So we were chasing her all over gymnasium, pulling her out of other people's scripture and diaper bags, taking away other kid's bottles, pulling her off stranger's laps, and trying to keep her out of the front of the room where our obvious lack of parenting skills would be much more visible. I finally had her somewhat content, coloring on our Sunday School handout, when I turn and realize that Jessie disappeared. Since Madeline was contained, I had no idea why he would leave. I finally spotted him in the back of the room, talking and laughing with this couple we have never met. Great, I thought. Jessie has finally made some friends. Why he felt social in the middle of the Sunday School lesson was a bit perplexing and distracting. He came back a minute later and explained the whole thing to me. Turns out he had no idea Madeline was right next to me (which was an understandable mistake, since her success at staying in one place for more than thirty seconds is lamentable). So he turned around looking for her, and spotted a little girl with short brown curly hair going through the couple's diaper bag. So he did what any sensible father would do, and booked it over there to grab her. Except after he grabbed her and tried to drag her back to his seat, the couple was nice enough to inform him that it was their kid. Just a few seconds too late to save Jessie's dignity.

Fortunately, apparently they've made that mistake a few times before themselves, because they thought it was pretty funny. Me, I was thinking: wonderful. I married a kidnapper. The ward is going to start locking up their toddlers when we come to church functions. I tried to point out to Jessie that they were wearing completely different color dresses, not to mention that other than the hair, they look nothing alike. He fed me some hooey about the other girl's dress being remarkably similar to a yellow dress Madeline owns. (Oh, but I checked her closet, dearest husband. She only has one yellow dress, that she hasn't worn for six months because it's way too small. You just had a moment. Where you lost your head. And yes, we're still within the week period that I'm going to mock you about it.) So the moral of the story is that Madeline is so naughty at church that we reflexively discipline any other child within twenty feet of us. Everything is her fault. Not Jessie's. I repeat- Madeline's fault, not Jessie's. Because she can't read my blog yet. Then I'll have to find another scapegoat. Drat it all.