DINNER AT GRANDMA'S

I haven't had any of the kids over for dinner since Christmas! I'm a horrible Mom. So today we had Kraut and The Soap Queen and their seven munchkins over. It was nice to have them all here. The kids were delightful and when they left I gave them all a bouncy ball. Here's some photos of their choices.

Oops, blogger is being obstinate. Photos tomorrow. That is if blogger is finished with it's snit.

Church was wonderful today. I will post some highlights, great tidbits, on Starlight later in the week, hopefully.

I feel so good after attending church. I love it. This was not always the case. When the kids were little we were ALWAYS hunting someone's shoes and by the time we got to church everyone was cranky. I could have eliminated the problem by doing the smart thing--getting ready the night before--but the night before I never thought about it. So it went, shoeless kids and frustrated mom and dad. Now the kids are gone and probably have their own shoeless Sundays.

I'd give almost anything to have the kids back, hunting shoes and being cranky at church for just one Sunday. So, I'm going to bed and think of each of them, all clean and ready for church and I'm going to remember looking down the row and loving them so much it hurt. I still love them so much it hurts but tonight I'm going to remember them with cowlicks, shirts buttoned wrong, shoelaces untied, remembering them being bored and drawing on the back of the Sacrament Meeting program, turning the page of the Hymn book to find the right page. No matter what page it was on they would start at hymn #1 and turn each page until they got to the page, even if it was 157 or 312. I learned to memorize the hymns as I couldn't count on reading them, that's for sure.

Have a great week and I hope blogger is being nicer to all of you.

ADVICE

If you are going to your son and daughter-in-law's house to tend the kids and eat their delicious food and help the nine-year-old with her Valentine box and then the 12 year old decides he will decorate his box instead of just taking it "as is," which was a black shoe box, and then the six year old decorates everything in sight with every sticker available, and you decide this is the perfect photo opportunity for tonight's post and you get out the camera and click the shutter and the camera displays a message something like, "no image taken" and then you remember that because you are such a technologically challenged person--not an idiot, mind you, just technologically challenged--that you still don't have your Christmas camera's software downloaded and so every night you take the photo card out of the new camera and put it in the old camera and download the photos from it and then erase the card and then put it back into the new camera and when you see the message on the new camera you remember that the card is still in the old camera and that if you had just put the extra card in your purse like you told yourself you should have done you wouldn't have missed the great shots of kids and construction paper and stickers and Valentine's boxes and you would have a picture to post on the blog tonight.

So, take my advice and don't do this or you will be sorry, like I am.

SPRING, WHEREFORE ART THOU

Snow, falling, packing, frictionless, cars sliding, feet slipping, cold. Shivers. Sweaters, coats, gloves, dripping off chairs, drying out.Spring and summer water, growing from snow memories in bands of velvet green.

Children playing, outdoor dinners, redneck fashion, lazy eating. Dad and daughter, silly-shirt-laughter.

Hurry spring. Kids are growing, seeds are waiting, lawn mower needs a turn. Lonely for springs promise, summer's bounty, the work of fall in mason jars and then...again, the snow will come. But now, oh so lonely for the spring.

PHONE CALLS FROM THE KIDS

I "Googled" "phone images" and got page after page after page of cell phones. This was the ONLY non-cell phone I got until page seven. Phone calls from the kids:

Today one of my boys called from the grocery store, asking what went in lasagna. Then he and his wife bought everything for lasagna except lasagna noodles.

Later he called with good news about his and his wife's education. I was so pleased for them. Three miracles--or tender mercies--for them. They will both graduate earlier and don't have to take some of the classes they thought they had to--money and time saved.

My daughter called to ask us to dinner but I didn't have time to talk to her because I was busy taking the "old-woman" out of my hair by making it brown again. The color is called, "Brandy." I don't drink it but, obviously, I wear it.

When I called her back to ask if I could bring something to dinner Phil said, "They've gone to the movie." Just then the "beep" beeped and I left a message, not to them but a discussion with Phil about how I would have gone to the movie with them.

"Only one problem, " Phil said. "They didn't ask you,"

I pouted with words and whined a bit and then, when I had made my point, I hung up. Then, after we had been to Costco--WITH AT LEAST SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE IN UTAH--I called again and she said she had made everyone listen to my message and that her husband said I was crazy. And then I heard him correct her. "Crazier!" he said.

So today was a fun phone-calls-with-the-kids day.

That's all. Such a little thing but it means so much to a mom that I can have fun with my kids on the phone, and that they call when they have good news, and that they call for cooking advice, and that we can laugh at and with each other. Little things like that mean so much to me and probably every other mom on the planet. We're funny like that.

So, call your mom and ask a cooking question or tell her some good news or just breathe into the phone. It will give her a thrill.

THE ABC'S OF GRATITUDE--H THROUGH K

H--Holy Ghost. I am so grateful that I know He exists, that I know He will never fail. I have had so many "whisperings" that have been warnings, comfort, witnesses of truth, uneasiness at falseness, and even tiny little things like, "go check the soup" two minutes before it was going to boil over. His whispering once saved Gilmore Girl's life. His whispering once saved The Brown Dot from freezing cold in the middle of the night--maybe saved his life, too. He is involved in my life daily and I am grateful I have this knowledge.

I--Ice Cream. I'm grateful I don't like it much. One of the few calorie laden things I don't want to eat. Let's hear it for not wanting to eat ice cream!

J--Jesus. I don't understand how it was done but I know He atoned for my sins and the sins of every human being. As I love my parents--who are gone--how grateful I am for the knowledge that I will be reunited with them--as I love my husband and children, probably more than any of them will ever know, I know, without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus loves more than I ever can. He loves all, not just the good, the pretty, the smart, the ones with good fashion sense. He not only loves me--and everyone else--but he experienced all my fears, pains, disappointments, tragedies, sorrows, etc. He KNOWS how I feel and he is there to give me comfort and acceptance. What a great gift he offers. I'm takin' it, I can tell you.

K--Kids. Not the goat kind. The human kind. Without them this world would be so empty. I am grateful that Heavenly Father let me raise five of them. Each one was/is different. Each one is cherished by Phil and me. I love the sound of children's voices--well, except when they are screaming. Their sing-song-ing up and down voices, how unique that sound is. Some lisp and we are just a little bit sorry when they learn to speak properly. They say hilarious things, do hilarious things, love without motives, forgive almost instantly and throw themselves into life with joy. I wish I had the confidence I had when I was a little child. All children are born with confidence and then they learn fear. So, I'm grateful for kids and for their confidence and pure love and hope this world always has a plethora of them.

Also, it seem to me that when children are born with handicaps that they don't seem to feel sorry for themselves. Adults rant and rail if something happens to them to diminish their abilities but kids seem to take it in their stride. They must have special spirits to be given disabilities and to make the most of what they can do.

A friend of mine saw a child at a doctor's office that had the most debilitating handicap imaginable. He was cheerful and happy. I doubt that he will grow up to be bitter and sad. I think he will grow up to be a great human being and my friend will never forget him. She is a better person for observing his attitude and I am also, for simply hearing about him.

SIX WORDS FOR HEARING OVERLOAD

Bands drumming. Kids screaming. I'm crazy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MISS MANNERS

Last Friday I met Gilmore Girl and her two chicklets, Curly Sue and Tuesday at Heaps. I'm a Heaps customer extraordinaire, I should own stock. I should get a yearly bonus. I should at least be on the menu decision committee.

We were there because Tuesday is turning three--this very day she's turning three.

Happy Birthday, Tuesday.

Heaps sends a certificate to children on their birthday, giving them a free pizza and an ice cream sundae along with their must-always-have-one suckers. (See yesterday's post.)

They ate the suckers after dinner. I don't want you to think Gilmore Girl is an irresponsible parent.

Curly Sue, being her charming self with a brand new haircut.
Tuesday, being her charming self, never waiting until ALL the flashes go off before looking away.

While we ate Gilmore Girl and I were talking about Achievement Days--she is one of the Achievement Days leaders in her ward. Achievement Days is for girls, age eight through eleven. They meet twice a month and have lessons and activities.

"My Achievement Days girls need a lesson on manners, I think," Gilmore Girl said.

Curly Sue is in Gilmore Girl's Achievement Days group. She looked very innocent. Her little sister, on the other hand....

Drank her root beer with her finger in her mouth....

Then she messed with her mother's lemon and ice water.... And didn't hold still for the photo, either--or perhaps it was the person behind the camera.

At one point of the evening she blew a raspberry....

And then said, "It was an accident," but it sounded more like "Ith wath an athident." And then she pulled a face at her sister.

She ate her sundae in a very unorthodox way....

A sticky unorthodox way.

She held her head, in consternation at all the rude behavior. Gilmore Girl held her head too, and said, "She isn't old enough to go to Achievement Days but she definitely needs it."

Tuesday actually had more un-mannerized behavior but I have blocked it out of my mind. I called Gilmore Girl to see if she remembered and she has blocked the rude behaviour out of her mind, too.

Who me? Innocent me? Who's having a birthday this very day? How could you ever think of me as rude?

And so it goes. Children, charming their parents and grandparents so we forget about the questionable behavior.

Or perhaps we don't. Perhaps we forgive.

WHAT? THE END OF SUMMER? WELL, THEN, TIME FOR NEW CLOTHES

School starts early here--August 18. All I want to say is WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Kids need a full summer to get rid of the school cooties. They need to have dog days, sweltering days, when they finally can't stand it another minute and they run through the sprinkler, fully clothed--or as fully clothed as a kid is, in the summer. They need to have enough time to lie on the grass, being so bored that they finally look at the clouds and see castles and cows with the heads of chickens and warriors wearing hula hoops.

Having back-to-school sales on the 4th of July is just wrong. The 4th of July should be in the first half of summer with days and days of saying, "I'm bored," until the kids decide to run a lemonade stand, or dig a hole to China in the back yard and discover a dinosaur instead, or construct a tree house in a tree too puny to hold them, maybe with a quick trip to the emergency room thrown in for good measure.

If you let a kid have enough summer they get itchy to go back to school, they hunt through kitchen drawers for pencils which they sharpen just to sniff the aphrodisiac back-to-school smell. They rub old erasers until all the old is rubbed off and then they write on scrap paper just so they can erase what they wrote.

But this year school is reaching its fingers right into the grass cutting, begging-for-Popsicles, can-we-go-swimming days of summer. School shouldn't start until after Labor Day. By then everyone is ready, including the teachers who actually had time to take their kids on vacation.

So, anyway, today The Yoga Empress and her two charming girls, Mary Poppins and Hollywood took me to lunch at Heaps. It was delicious. After lunch we had a mini-fashion show in the parking lot. As long as the girls have to go back to school they are going to look good.

How cute is this? Don't you just love plaid and those cute little diamonds?
These are pin-stripped long shorts and a sucker. The pin-stripes don't show but these are darling, they go with the diamond vest and shirt.
Hollywood with her new clothes and a sucker. This girl only wants to wears skirts. Even in the winter. She is Miss Skirt.

Another skirt with a red sweater vest and white shirt. Rabbit ears optional.
Mary Poppins with a white eyelet skirt. Watermelon sucker behind back.
I'm not sure what to call this pose but it's very grown up.

Oh, and the suckers? An essential part of going to Heaps. It's a rule, I'm pretty sure.

So, as long as summer is whizzing by I'm glad I got the chance to spend an hour with some of my favorite people in one of my favorite restaurants in one of my favorite seasons, summer, which seems to be too short.

OVERHEARD II

Overheard at a Stake Conference:
"Angels will go before you on your right hand and your left."

Overheard at a writing critique group:
"I'm thriving in my new energy." When this statement was met with blank stares, the person added, "That's code for 'I'm having a bad day.'"

A little girl talking to her mother. Her mother was holding a brand new baby:
"Momma, you are not a good sharer."

Overheard in a restaurant:
“I don’t know how she continues to live. She talks so much she never takes a breath."

In a parking lot—enjoying a relationship with a disease, I guess:
“I’m doing so well with my diarrhea.”

A sign seen in a store:
If you want breakfast in bed sleep in the kitchen.

On a televised training conference:
Perfect love of the Lord casteth out fear.

Two young mother’s talking:
“My kids have been violent since school let out.”

A little boy talking a mile a minute to his mother:
“Today, on the trampoline we played fetch with raisins.”

Husband, talking to his wife about her gallivanting--with a friend--for several hours when she said it would be just ONE hour!
"You two can't see each other anymore. You're a bad influence on each other. You're supposed to lift each other up. Maybe you two should be grounded."
Then there was much laughter.

Talking to a friend on the phone when she said:
“I’ve got to go now. My phone’s hot.”

And so, it goes. At this time in my life I'm too old to be grounded, I might or might not be thriving in my new energy, and my phone might be the only hot thing about me. But, on the more optimistic side, I have angels going before me on my right hand and my left. What more could anyone ask?

THEY WILL HAVE IT SO MUCH EASIER IF THEY LISTEN

Today I think the high was 98 degrees. This is what I saw in our neighborhood.

Our neighborhood taking his grandson for a walk. And the grandson wanted to be covered up to his chin with a beach towel.

"That's what he wants and so that's what we'll do," Boyd said. That's a grandfather for you, doing whatever the grandchild wants, even if it makes no sense.

Then our neighbor said something that we all fear. "When he gets to be a teenager will he even talk to me?"

He seems to be thinking it over.

And then the grandchild took over and and did it his way. Another fear every parent and grandparent fears--maybe they will do it their way, even if it's wrong.

And so it goes, down through the generations. Parents and grandparents, who have so much knowledge and love and the younger generation is determined to do it their way. Just like we did.

We could have saved ourselves so much trouble if we had just listened.

But maybe, just maybe this generation will.

THE SPAGHETTI WAR

Elizabeth and Jason were here for lasagna tonight. She and Phil reminisced about the pasta dinners of years gone by.

"Remember the spaghetti war?" one of them said. Then they went on to revel in the glories of a bunch of family members disobeying--the father of the group the biggest disobeyer of them all.

I think I remember how it started. Dinner was over. We were sitting at the table talking and one of the kids was playing in the leftover spaghetti with a fork. I never could figure out how much spaghetti to cook--still can't--and so there was half a serving bowl left. One of the kids asked how you tell if spaghetti noodles were cooked long enough.

"Well, supposedly, if you throw a strand of spaghetti on the ceiling, and it sticks, it's done."

Oh, oh, I thought. I hope no one picks up on that.

It was too late. Strands of spaghetti whanged toward the ceiling like lava steams, escaping from violently erupting volcanoes.

"All right, all right," I said. "Enough of that. Calm down."

Phil looked at me and I could see all his intelligence leaking out his ears. A primeval man hunkered down, his gnarly hand posed over the bowl holding the pasta. Two hoary fingers reached in, plucked a strand of spaghetti and before my very eyes the beast flung a noodle in my direction. I ducked and tried once again.

"All right, now...."

That's as far as I got. Spaghetti flew in my direction from the hunkered beast's offspring. Whap. Whap. Whap-whap-whap.

I fled. A lone woman with common sense and dignity. I looked around the corner to see total anarchy reigning. A Dad with spaghetti hanging from his ears. Children with spaghetti in their hair. Spaghetti hanging from the light fixture. Spaghetti on the paintings, on the wall, on the clock. Spaghetti everywhere. Laughter, insane laughter filled the air.

"There she is," someone said. Spaghetti whinged in my direction from all directions. Whap, whap, whap. I fled to the bathroom to pick spaghetti off my face. I sat on the step, out of sight and out of range. Occasionally I'd offer advice:

"Okay, play time is over."

I was answered with nothing but maniacal laughter.

"You are going to have to clean all that up!"

"We will," they all chorused, including Phil.

The war went on for a long, long time. When the bowl was empty they plucked used pasta off each other and threw it again. When the used pasta started to disintegrate they rolled it into pasta balls and threw those. They only quit because everyone was too tired to throw another strand. I poked my head around the door again. They somehow revived and magically found more spaghetti and it all came whining my way. I ducked back out of sight.

Finally the Neanderthal haze cleared from Phil's eyes and he became a dad.

"Okay, kids. Let's clean up."

"Aaw, Dad."

"No, I mean it. Let's clean up. Put all the pasta in the bowl."

When about half of the mess was cleaned up the beast clutched the bowl to his chest. "Suckers," he said. He grabbed a handful of ragged pasta and threw it in every direction.

Screams of delight sounded in the kitchen, drowning out the groans of the sensible person sitting on the steps.

"They are insane," I said to myself. "It comes from Phil's side. It will take generations to breed the insanity out."

When they finally called it quits the kitchen looked like a mad elf had decorated for Christmas. And to give everyone credit, they did clean up. Kind of. We plucked petrified spaghetti off various parts of the kitchen for what seemed like years.

Which, one day was the catalyst for the, "Let's see what else will stick to the ceiling" science project that my GROWN UP BOYS participated in, but that's a story for another day.