Ben Isn't Coming to California

We leave tomorrow for California for my brothers wedding reception and temple sealing. We have been excited for weeks. Now that the day is finally here, Ben has just brought me some pretty bad news. He just said, "Sorry, Mom. I can't come to our trip because I have to stay home and practice our song." When I probed for more information, he explained that preschool graduation was to include the kids singing two of the songs they learned this year. He doesn't know the second verse to "I Got Joy" so he will need to stay behind and learn it so he will be ready to perform it at the graduation when we return.

Love Is...

...letting your daughter sit on your lap after she wakes from naps and snuggling her until she is ready to get up and play when she has a nasty, yucky, stinky diaper. Remembering she needs your love more than a clean diaper and more than you need clean air. ...wiping spit up off your nice, clean suitcoat the second you arrive at church. (I secretly smile and am impressed by any guy I see at church with spit up on his lapel. It tells me he is pulling his weight at home.) ...rocking a screaming baby so your sweetheart can walk away, breath a minute and let their eardrums recover. ...letting your wife have a night out with the girls so she can feel like a grown up again. ...folding laundry. ...folding laundry that has been in the basket for seven days without saying one word about how it should have been done a week ago. ...taking the kids on a walk so dinner can be made in peace, or rather, so it can just get made at all. Seems impossible to cook with a million distractions. ...Brian Ray-of-Sunshine Zufelt.

In A Jam

Jacob keeps getting himself stuck in the oddest places and can’t get out. I can’t wait until he figures out how to shift his transmission out of reverse. Here he is in the junk corner, under the easel, under the support bar of our dining room chairs, behind my Halloween sewing projects that are still in the to do pile in May.

Ward Campout

We went camping: Ben brought his work gloves along to make sure he was ready to help with any work we may need done. He loves to help lay out the tarps, set up the tent find firewood and put new logs on the fire to keep it going. He also made sure that we he packed his backpack…sort of. He didn’t care much what else went in it—he just needed to be sure that he had two whistles. He explained it to us by saying “Safety First, Mom.” In case we get lost in the woods he can blow the whistle and we can find him. Good plan. I don’t think it ever left the backpack, but he also wasn’t ever allowed to go off in the woods alone in the first place. Maddie spent most of her time playing with the other little girls going in and out of each others tents. They all knew the rules were no shoes in the tents, so I guess she actually spent the majority of her time taking her shoes on and off with a giant smile on her face. Jacob had recently acquired the skill of scooting. Unfortunately, he is stuck in reverse. We kept putting him down on a blanket or tarp and he would scoot himself backward until he was under the car and I’d pull him out again. He was always pleased with himself though. In order to pack up when it was time to go, we needed a safe place to keep him, so I made a makeshift highchair/exersaucer in the trunk of the car with pillows. He absolutely loved it. Soft stuff all around to grab and play with and he was high enough up that he could see us moving about. The campground is only 10 minutes from our house, so it’s easy to go anytime. Not many families were willing to sleep the night in a tent. Of the big crowd that came to socialize, only four families actually spent the night. Several people came back in the morning though to enjoy a pancake and sausage breakfast. Ben was most interested in going on a hike. Brian obliged and created a “hike” of about a tenth of a mile to the playground. They thought it was perfect. All the kids had fun roaming free, enjoying the outdoors, the rocks, the sticks and roasting marshmallows on the fire even if they didn’t choose to eat any of them. Fire is just a magical thing. We can’t put our finger on exactly why, but the Soderborg tent was a favorite. We did catch our kids throwing dirt clods on top of it and I had to go clean it off and tell them to quit. Other than that, I think they had loads of fun. Brian put Ben and Maddie down for bed around 10:00pm and Ben fell right to sleep. Maddie soon emerged back to the campfire where she hung out with the adults until about midnight. Turns out the other congregation we share our church building with was also on a men’s campout that night. At 6 am we were awakened to the noises that you can expect from a dozen 12 year old boys and their leaders would make. Their fire was only about fifteen feet from our heads and for about an hour until our kids began to stir, Brian and I laid in bed listening to what was going on outside. In its own special way, it really was comical. The two adult leaders were having a normal conversation about what I can’t recall. What I do remember was that you would hear two sentences of their conversation then “Put the stick down” and their conversation would pick up as if nothing had happened. Two more sentences and “Don’t put that in the fire,” and the conversation went on. For an hour, I heard them talk with every third sentence being direction to keep the 12 year old scouts from killing themselves or injuring each other. It was a tiny little glimpse into what scout camp might be. Wow. I pity the leaders that camp with them for a week. They must be exhausted when they return home. What good leaders.

Spiked Hair Ben

Ben loves to have hair long enough to merit getting out mousse and spiking it up. He is always so excited and proud of how he looks. Once during the school year, he did his spiked hair and told me everyone will laugh at me and was so excited for them to notice how silly his hair was. He cried to me afterwards and told me that “not a single guy laughed.” He was heartbroken. For a while, we had to call him "Shark Boy" and eventually, he wanted to name Jacob "Shark Boy."

Mothers Day 2009

At the end of the day on Mothers Day, Ben came to me and brought me some of his very precious money. He gave me $1.16. That is: one dollar, one dime, one nickel and one penny. He said he didn't have any quarters or he would have given me one of those too. I thanked him and then pulled one of his favorite lines on him... "Since you did something nice for me, I will do something nice for you." I told him I would spend the money on a big box of candy at Wal-Mart and share it with him. Today I bought Milk Duds because I knew he loves chocolate thinking it would be the best thing ever. Turns out, he doesn't like Milk Duds. Oh well. I tried. Maybe I'll spring for some Mike 'n' Ike next time I'm there and share.

Gardening Gloves

I totally wish it was February again. Maybe I would have done better today if it had been No Buy Month. I went to Wal-Mart for a $4 watch battery. The lady was busy helping other people so to keep the kids busy, I walked the aisles. Checked back, she was gone. Walked a bit more. Came back, gave her my watch. Walked the aisles. Came back to get it, she was busy with another customer. Walked the aisles. In the end my $4 watch battery cost us a bit more than $4. All of it totally necessary stuff, right? No. We got Milk Duds (from Ben's Mother's Day gift of $1.16 to me), gardening gloves, two movies from the $5 bin for our upcoming airplane trip, light bulbs and "pretties" for Maddie's hair. I realized that was the first hair bow Maddie has ever had. Sad. She's over two and a half years old. Poor girl. If I had just waited instead of walking the aisles we'd be better off. Of course, I am glad we got the gardening gloves. We insist the kids help us with all types of work. Often we wear gloves when we work in the garden or do other things. They don't have any and try to wear adult gloves. It just doesn't work. In my attempts to preempt the next problem that seemed imminent, I explained that these gloves wer SUPPOSED to get dirty. It was okay and they should not freak out when it happened. They work-played in the front yard, weeding and playing with their gloves on and had a ball. When Maddie was ready to go inside I took her in. Eventually Ben finished working and cleaned up his weed bucket and shovel. He came inside and went in the bathroom to wash his hands. After a while, he came to me in the kitchen and asked, "Mom, where are we going to keep our gloves so I can put them away?" I told him he could keep his gloves in the basement with the grownup gloves if he wanted. As I was telling him that, I noticed he was holding his gloves all wadded up in his hand sort of akwardly. I reached out to touch them and sure enough, they were wet. He explained that he had washed them. Okay. So the message I delivered wasn't as complete and helpful as I thought. Mostly I was just surprised at the wet gloves, not mad. Then I took them to see just how wet they really were...moist or drippy. They had been wrung out pretty well after he rinsed the dirt off, but they felt weird. I rubbed them a bit before I figured out what was wrong. I was getting bubbles as I rubbed. He had not just rinsed the dirt off. He had washed them with soap. A totally logical thing to do. I hope I didn't make him feel too bad. I could see how my not so careful words hurt his feelings. I hadn't been mean or rebuking, but it was too late when I realized I hadn't been gentle. He looked crestfallen. He was doing everything he could to be the best kid possible. He even asked me where to put them away. What a GREAT kid!! I apologized to him, though I don't know if fixed the damage done.