Frenemies?

This video might be funny only to me. There's not a ton of payoff.

I love how Mandu the Dog looks at me like, "Why are you doing nothing to stop this?"

Note to Facebook readers: you have to click through to see it. Duh.

Some Really Obvious Things.

1. I watched the movie Babies today. I loved it. Babies are so cute! At first they can't do anything except just lie there and be squishy, but then they learn how to do things! And when they mess up it's adorable because they're little! I never get tired of babies.

2. It's getting colder! I think fall is coming! Fall is usually really fun, because I love the first day of school, but since I'm not in school right now mostly fall is just cold. My birthday is happening soon, but mostly that just indicates that after I turn 26 it's going to be cold all the time for a long time. I just really hate being cold!

3. Know what I like to read? Books. Especially the Classics. So timeless! You should definitely check them out.

4. Sufjan Stevens is a great singer. I know, he has a funny name, but hear me out! He is generally categorized as an "independent" or "indie" songwriter. Some people argue that indie music is superior to commercial music because it's more "real."*

5. A good food to eat is pasta, maybe with sauce. If you want to get crazy maybe you should try TOMATO sauce. Whoa. Now that's a good combo.

6. I'm pretty excited about my interview for grad school! I was worried I wasn't going to get one, which would have meant that I was the bottom quarter of all the applicants. That wouldn't make me feel good. However, my being chosen only means that as an interviewee I am in the top 75%, which isn't that comforting either. What if I am not in the top 25%, or even the top 50%? It feels good to be chosen for things you want to do. Accordingly, I will be sad if I do not get chosen.

7. I can't wait to get some student loans so I won't be so worried about money! It's great to get money from the government. It sucks that you have to pay it back, though!

*I am not one of those people.

Make my day.

I love film. I also love movies. I love both, but I have a hard time with film festivals. I love to see new, creative film projects that often deserve more accolades than they ever receive, but I hate having to navigate my way through all of the terrible pieces of filth that they show at film festivals. And it's not because I'm a prude, because if you know me you know I'm not. However, I have noticed that a lot of independent filmmakers seem to think that in order to stand out in such a competitive industry, they have to include gratuitous violence, maybe because gratuitous violence sticks in people's memories? I don't know if that's why they do it, but I do know that it bothers me.

At Bumbershoot on Monday, Cassie and I attended two short film festivals: one intended for families, the other featuring short film by local filmmakers that were intended for adults. At the latter event, the final of the four films was honestly one of the most disturbing short films I have ever seen, and I am pretty open when it comes to what films I will try (I don't avoid films because they have a certain rating, for example). I think maybe the violence was supposed to be funny (It featured an old man getting shot in the eye, a pregnant woman getting shot in the stomach, and three other people getting shot in equally gruesome places) but it made me sick to my stomach. I don't understand why someone would feel inspired to make a film like that. It didn't make any point about violence or crime, it didn't make me think, all it did was make me sad. Like The Jungle in short film form, although that was created with a purpose in mind, so perhaps that's a poor analogy.

I know I must sound very puritanical and uppity right now, but it's film like the one we saw that make me not want to go to film festivals. You just never know when you'll wind up watching violence that's pretty much pornographic--created with no purpose beyond hitting you in the stomach.

That being said, the family film festival had several really charming pieces of film that I am sharing with you now. One is embed-able (?) the other is not. But please watch both of them because they are well-done and deserve whatever attention my measly blog readership would garner them.

This one is really funny, reminds me of something Pixar would do.

Click here to watch the other, which is simple and adorable and just really great.

Did these films just make your day? I'll bet they did.

One more sob from my ovaries.

I would like to promise that this will be the last baby-related post for a while.

But I can't promise that. I'm sorry.

Seriously, she is CO CUTE, right? Not to mention precocious. Who crawls like that at six months? Nobody, that's who.

This is why I am sad.

Tomorrow is the last day that I will be hanging out with these little gals on a regular basis.

Aren't they delicious? Every time I look at them my ovaries cry.

On Narwals.

Here is a haiku I wrote in a writing workshop with two ten year-old boys.

Narwal queen and king

dancing in the ocean breeze.

They will stab your face.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I am a ten year-old boy in a twenty-five year-old woman's body.

Moms.

Have you heard of StoryCorps? I had heard of them but wasn't really aware of what they did until someone passed along to me this video, which started out as a story on NPR until StoryCorps animated it.

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

It's a great interview. I love moms.

I feel pretty good about what I have decided to do with my life.

I really like teaching. The more hours I spend in the classroom I am volunteering with at Room Nine, the more convinced I am that this is the vocation for me. That being said, I am glad I majored in something else for my undergrad, because I think I will fit in better at the UW's teaching program than BYU's. Assuming I get in. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, today I was helping some fourth graders prepare for the writing section of the MSP (which used to be the WASL, which used to be something else ... which is just one symptom of the disease that plagues public schools these days ...but that's not what I'm here to talk about). I took three of them into a tutoring room to help them do a practice worksheet for the narrative writing section, where they give you a prompt, ask you to write a creative narrative piece, and then grade you on it. Super counter intuitive. But again, beside the point.

I thought it would be a helpful example, and also only fair, if I participated in the dreaded exercise with them. The assignment is to take the open-ended prompt they give you, do a pre-writing exercise, write a first draft, and then write a final draft.

Here is the prompt.

"One day you receive a special gift. It is a very old watch. You put it on. In several paragraphs, write a story telling what happens."

Inspiring, yeah?

I talked through my pre-writing process with the three ten year-old boys I was working with. Here is what I came up with at first.

1. Get present (in the future).

2. It's a watch.

3. Watch explodes.

4. I get hit by a truck.

The truth is, I am a ten year-old boy in a twenty-five year-old woman's body.

So anyway, in the first draft stage we talked some more about my story and agreed that it was super awesome. However, it still needed the following additions:

1. An alligator.

2. A dinosaur.

3. A veterinarian.

And now, I present to you the story I wrote for the fourth grade Washington Skills Test. I imagine it would get top marks. Maybe even extra points for being so awesome.

**************************************************************************************

It is the year 3000. The world is a very different place than it was the year I was born. For starters, man now lives to be several thousand years old, which has its good points and bad points. I certainly appreciate the medical miracles that allow for such lengthy and pain-free lives, but the monotony of day-to-day life over so many years can get tedious. Also, I have way too many relatives.

The only thing that really keeps me grounded nowadays is my pet alligator, Robert Palmer. I call her Bertie for short. She has a very genial disposition and always listens to me. Feeding her can get expensive, but when she gazes at me adoringly with her beady yellow eyes, it's all worth it.

Today is my birthday. I am 1016 years old. After so many years I have completely run out of birthday party themes: pirate, cowboy, French food, Salem witch trial reenactment--I've done them all. Plus most of my friends are dead or cryogenically frozen. I decided to just have a quiet birthday dinner, me and Bertie.

Knock, knock. A visitor? Nobody ever visits me. Not even door-to-door missionaries. the "BEWARE FEROCIOUS ALLIGATOR" sign is a bit misleading, but I don't feel too bad about it.

It was the Fed-UPS driver with a package for me. After a retinal scan to confirm my identity, he handed me a small package. It was from my Uncle Eugenio. He and I have never gotten along. What was his angle? Maybe he was trying to make nice. I quickly tore open the package.

It was a calculator watch. The kind I had when I was a pretentious 25 year-old hipster, almost a thousand years ago. I couldn't believe Eugenio would get me a present I actually liked. I put the watch on.

KA-BOOM!! The force of the watch's explosion sent me flying through the air, over my front lawn and into the adjacent road. Stunned and slightly singed, yet unhurt, I staggered to my feet just in time to see the truck barreling towards me.

The next thing I remember, I was on my back in a white room, Bertie at my side, and a dinosaur in a lab coat was shining a flashlight into my eyes.

"Good afternoon," she said somberly. "If scientists hadn't proved the non-existence of luck six hundred years ago, I would say you are the luckiest person who has ever lived."

Dazed, I tried to sit up, but she pushed me back down with one three-fingered hand. "Nope. Rest. It's a good thing Ms. Palmer brought you in immediately. I don't believe in God, being a dinosaur, but somebody deserves to be thanked."

"Thanks, Bertie," I mumbled weakly. She nuzzled me with her snout and nipped affectionately at my silver space pants.

"You can go home now, or whenever you want," Dr. Rex called over her shoulder as she bustled out of the exam room. "I need to attend to a few solar panel burns. Feel better!"

Bertie and I ambled home slowly, her pausing every few seconds for me to catch up. I felt sore all over, like I had been hit by a truck, which made sense. But as we were finally within sight of my house, I saw that familiar sinister van parked in my driveway. A white van with no windows. Uncle Eugenio!

He stepped out of the car slowly as soon as we arrived at the sidewalk. His golden teeth glinted in the sun, as did his greasy mustache.

"So, you survived my birthday present," he snarled out that last word.

"Why, Uncle Eugenio?" I asked, choking on the term that indicated we were of the same blood. "Why would you want to kill me?"

"Why?" He screeched. "WHY? Because our grandmother died and left her massive fortune to all her descendants! Split evenly! Do you know how much I received?"

I racked my brain, trying to recall how much my share had been.

"A dollar?"

"FIFTY CENTS!" He sputtered, flecks of his saliva striking me in the face. "Millions of dollars amounted to nothing for us all! Why? Because there are TOO MANY OF US!"

"So ... "I began, trying to figure out where this left him and me.

"So I am going to destroy every member of our family until I receive a decent inheritance. You rabbits," he said, cocking a pistol at my forehead. "I will now finish what I started with you, you alligator-loving bunny."

Before the shot was fired, however, there was another sound. A sickening crunch, like burning logs. I looked down and saw Bertie, with Uncle Eugenio's leg from mid-femur down, in her mouth.

Robert Palmer continued to work her way methodically through her meal on my front lawn. I watched for a few seconds and then went inside to fix a cup of herb tea, guiltless.

**************************************************************************************

I expect a letter regarding my Hugo Award sometime in the next week or so. If you want to ensure I get the recognition I deserve, go ahead and submit my name for me. I won't be embarrassed.

Are you aware that when I upload a lot of pictures I actually write the blog entry BACKWARDS?

I used to want to be an editor. I like marking up papers and being right, and it's the only thing one can do with a Bachelor's in English Linguistics without going to graduate school or learning how to program computers. It was pretty much my only chance to be employable, so I went with it. Then I took an editing class where we practiced editing real material, and I hated it more than I have ever hated anything in my life.

I think it's because people can be real idiots, and I have no patience for it. If you can't write, why are you writing a book? No, your writing is terrible. YOU shut up. My career as an editor would have been short-lived. Or I would have become an agent within a matter of weeks.

Seemingly unrelated tangent!

Have you ever heard of the infant literacy program Your Baby Can Read? It's like the poor man's Baby Einstein. Although unlike Baby Einstein, YBCR hasn't been sued for false advertising ... yet.

Basically it's a really expensive set of videos and books that you show to your baby in an effort to jumpstart his or her reading abilities. You're supposed to show your baby this video EVERY SINGLE COTTON-PICKING DAY and supplement the little angel's intellectual development with the books and flashcards (not included). In both the video and the books, they show a word, then a picture of what the word represents. That's it. Also, the program is much more expensive than a gross of post-its.

Your Baby Can Read was developed by Robert C. Titzer, Ph.D., who is an infant researcher and most likely a super guy. I applaud his chutzpah in convincing helicopter parents to invest that kind of money in anything. But seriously, the program is a crock. It's not gonna hurt anyone, but it's not gonna turn your baby smart, either. You might as well be showing the kids "Days of Our Lives." That's on every day, too.

Here's the thing. Your baby CAN'T read. Humans don't develop the focus ability and brain matter to read until around age three. If you show your kid a video EVERY FREAKING DAY, of course he or she will memorize the symbols and associate them with the images that accompany them. But that's not reading, that's symbol recognition. Infants can't grasp phonics or any of the other complex mental processes that reading requires. Any parents within the sound of my voice: don't waste your money.

One caveat. I suppose someone could argue that showing your kid this video every day is technically better than plunking him or her in front of "As the World Turns" for forty minutes every day. I mean, at least he's being quiet and not subjected to any inappropriate material, right?

Point taken. But here's the thing. If you sit a child under the age of three in front of television, you must acknowledge what you are doing. You are trying to keep that child occupied. And that's OK! Kids are exhausting and it's hard to get stuff done when they are constantly underfoot. But don't try to convince yourself that your child is benefiting from any really expensive video more than he would benefit or not benefit from a Disney video or even a string of commercials. Kids like TV because it's flashy and keeps up with their attention span. It doesn't make kids smarter. The End.

Also, I totally use Curious George as leverage for good behavior with D so I have half an hour to make her dinner. See? But like I said, I own that. I know that's what I'm doing.

The Your Baby Can Read series, besides being obviously fraudulent, is entertaining in other ways as well. For one, the video was made on a minuscule budget, using youtube-quality clips of what are obviously the author's own children and the author's own home. The budget may have been blown on a three-minute piece of computer animation that accompanies "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." One can't say for sure.

The books are also unintentionally funny. Observe. Each page has a word, as shown.

When one lifts the flap with the word written on it, one finds an image defining what the letters stand for.

Not all of the images are this creepy, but you get the idea.

So the kicker is, while the good folks at Your Baby Can Read were putting these books together, it was obvious that they weren't really going for a sense of cohesion. For one thing, the words come in no discernible order. They aren't ordered by subject matter or difficulty or phonetics or anything. Each book gets, in a very unquantifiable way, progressively "harder," but within the books the words seem sort of tossed in without any rhyme or reason.

Since each word has another random word facing it on the opposite page, this leads to some interesting two-page spreads.

Some of them create a mental image that seems logical.

Or charming.

Or sorta funny.

Or REALLY funny.

PFTTHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

(This is only funny if you are eight years old)

(Which I am)

The above one is good, but I do believe this one is my favorite.

Literally speaking.

Some of them sound like exotic diseases.

I'm picturing Joseph Merrick in dental form. Ouch.

This one can't be comfortable, either.

Or perhaps an ancient, obscure martial arts move.

Hi-YA! Chimpanzee kick!!!

Others just sound like playground insults.

Ouch.

Hey, four eyes!!

Shut up, cat toes!!!!!

Some of them seem even a little sinister.

Thinly-veiled subliminal racism, anyone?

Does this seem like a fat joke, or am I being hypersensitive?

P.S. Hi, Dr. Titzer! Google yourself much? Rest assured this is all in good fun.

P.P.S. But seriously, food for thought, right? Did this occur to your editor(s) at all?

P.P.P.S. Your daughters are adorable. I wish you and your family all the best.

It's the little things...

Today was one of those really long days at work--not so much because it was Friday, but because C spit up on me three times and is teething and D is going through a "throwing food from her high chair" phase and I was just kind of annoyed. Oh well. However, this little moment made it all worthwhile. Maybe.

Note: D is no longer breastfed. She sees her mom nursing C all the time, which is probably the source of this conversation.

Scene: I am standing next to D, age 2.

D: (gesticulating wildly, which usually indicates she wants to be picked up) Hey! Hey!

Me: Hey? (I lean over to pick her up)

D: (GRABS my boobs, one in each hand, like a frat boy) Milk! MILK!!

Me: Uh...no, there's no milk in there.

D: (insistently) Milk!!!

Me: Nope. No milk. Only Mommy has milk. Not Elisa.

D: (looks utterly flabbergasted) No milk? (Her hands have not yet left my breasts)

Me: Nope.

D: (Grabs my shirt and struggles to lift it up, presumably to see for herself if what I say is true) Wanna see! Wanna see!

Awesome.

Parasymbology

I want a job, but I still haven't found one. In order to add to my piddling, hideously inadequate paragraph of qualifications, today I spent eight hours learning CPR and first aid by practicing on Red Cross manikins of varying sizes. The course covered infant, child and adult methods, so we got to practice pressing on little baby Claire's (apparently that was her name, according to my instructor) chest and creating a seal over her tiny nose and mouth in order to fill her minute lungs with air. It took only the slightest puff of air from my grown up lungs. The video instructor kept reiterating, ludicrously, I thought, to always keep in mind that "babies are very small." Yeah, duh, I thought smugly as we watched the video. But then when I really had to practice resuscitating an infant, it hit me--holy majoly, babies are really, REALLY small.

Also--and this is so pathetic I hesitate to write it, but it's important--I have forgotten how easy it is to let my mind and body assume that a plastic doll is an actual infant. I loved dolls as a kid, and played with my baby dolls in secret long after my friends had ditched them for make-up. While we were listening to Judy's instructions on infant CPR, I was unconsciously holding the manikin the same way I would hold a normal baby of about four months--back resting against the crook of my elbow, head leaning forward on my breast, my other arm circling the opposite way supporting her legs. Next to me, the cute nineteen year-old boy who had come with his father, twice stricken with heart attacks, started absently bouncing the baby doll on his knee. I looked around the room and everyone else was also holding his or her baby doll as if it were real--the burly mid-forties swim teacher, the mother of four who is hoping to start an in-home daycare, the woman about my age, perhaps younger, who is going to adopt a child. The only one who didn't seem to get in the spirit of holding Baby Claire was the security guard immediately to my left, who I think might have been mildly handicapped.

The really bizarre thing, even more bizarre than a room of reasonably educated adults playing with dolls on a Thursday afternoon, was how much I (consciously or unconsciously) enjoyed holding that manikin. I tried to send a text to Brooke explaining the scene and how it made me feel, but I couldn't whittle it down to 160 characters so I gave up. She is accustomed to me unloading my broodiness on her more often than I unload on anyone else I know, for she is one of the few people on this earth who doesn't think I'm freaky or obsessive or sad or pathetic or demented for liking children, for wanting children. Actually, she might think I am all those things and just hide it very well.

Here is the truth. I love babies. And not the way I love giraffes or penguins, although God knows I like those too. I have no illusions about how exhausting infants can be, and how terrifying and dangerous it is to be responsible for eight pounds of organs and nerves and skin that could go limp at any moment when you might have to use two fingers to pump oxygenated blood through their lilliputian body while trying not to break their little ribs. However, there are only two things I am good at. At least, good enough to be able to admit in public that I am good at them. Good enough to be able to say yes, I think this is one of my gifts. These two things are writing and taking care of children. This is a poorly written piece so please ignore the former, for now the latter is my matter of subject.

From the time I was about eight years old, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I never had any fast opinions about it. Because, to be honest, the only thing in my head was who cares? I just want babies. Even amongst Mormons, it is not considered hip to like babies too much or talk too much about wanting children. Not because it's not expected, but rather because it's not really under your control, when or if it happens. Assuming too much about when you will get married and have children, or whether you will get married at all is dangerous. I have recently, in my old age (psh), come to the conclusion that in many ways, it is better to plan for the worst, a life of spinsterhood, and then be surprised when you somehow end up fulfilling your duty to the universe along the way. Better that than to sit on your hope chest all your life. Also, to tell others about how much I have disappointed myself in the past quarter century of life, how far my life is from what I had expected and hoped for, always sounds too sad to explain to others, especially when it connotes being somehow unwanted.

How did this end up being a post about being angry at God? It always comes down to that, though. I know God, and I know that He can deal with my anger just fine, so there are times when I just can't help throwing a little bitterness His way. I have never literally shaken my fists at the sky (that I can recall) but always my reaction, when I see a picture of another friend's baby or read another article from a parenting blog I still follow even though I am no longer a nanny (Embarrassing true confessions galore!). Sometimes I'm even jealous of my acquaintances who are stuck in miserable marriages because hey, at least they have kids. It's times like that when I can really let God have it, with words (in all caps) along the lines of HEY BUSTER HAVE I OFFENDED YOU IN SOME WAY? I MEAN REALLY? HOW IN THE HELL IS SHE MORE DESERVING OF CHILDREN THAN I AM? And so it goes. Of course, I am able to recognize the many ways in which I have been blessed. But that doesn't make it any easier when people I know, especially people I don't particularly like, kvetch about the difficulties of parenting small children. That's when I look up at the sky and say (again in all caps) SO THAT'S A CURSE HUH? WELL, SMITE ME, B*TCH!!!! Also, when people I know with children try to comfort me with words like Hey, it's not all fun and games. That's when I say OH WOW I KNOW THAT OKAY? Usually though, I just sort of grimace in response.

I can throw platitudes about patience and the Lord's time and all that jazz at myself even faster than other people can throw them at me, but the fact is, reassuring myself that someday MAYBE I will have children feels about as effective as telling a sick person about Heaven. Soothing in theory, but in the thick of the moment more frustrating than anything. It's much preferable to be cool--and oh! I really want to be cool!--and pretend that it doesn't bother me. That I have better things to do even though I am not sure what they are. One more shaken fist at Heaven for that, if you'll permit me.

If this is starting to sound like thousands upon thousands words worth of bitching, that's because it is. However, I don't think I have laid out my feelings on the matter in such an honest way before. It feels good. Still pathetic, but good.

You know what I was intending to write about tonight? This movie. I saw it at the Admiral and it was pretty good. Not what I expected, and I little absurd for my taste, but definitely enjoyable. Here is a quote from tonight's film that struck me, patched together from my memory and the internet:

“Your life is like a river. If you’re aiming for a goal that isn't your destiny, you will always be swimming against the current. Young Gandhi wants to be a stock car racer? Not gonna happen. Little Anne Frank wants to be a high school teacher? Tough titty Anne. That's not your destiny. But you will go on to move the hearts and minds of millions. Find out what your destiny is and the river will carry you. Sometimes events in life give an individual clues as to where their destiny lies."

It would, given everything I have just written and my mindset and the line about Anne Frank, who I assume wanted to grow up and have adventures and die in her sleep as much as I do, be easy for me to remember that quote and think to myself: OH SHIT*. Perhaps being a mother is not in the cards and I should just buy a tract of land and raise dalmatians.

I choose not to interpret the quote this way. Rather, that there are missions for each of us to fulfill in life, and sometimes things work out differently or not at all, and it all turns out OK. You recall my botched trip to Thailand. There was also the time in high school when I tried out for the school dance team and I was good, really good. Good enough, I thought, to make the team. Then I botched the audition and got rejected and hated myself. But a few weeks later while I was in Hawaii, I went swimming during a thunderstorm and busted my knee when a wave threw me onto a rock. So I wouldn't have been able to dance, anyway.

I still get notices from that hospital in Hawaii every once in a while informing me that my bill is paid in full.

I am currently choosing to believe that everything that has happened to me so far will eventually lead to all the things I have wanted all my life, but perhaps will be better or (certainly) more appreciated because of all the time I spent anticipating them. Like getting to eat ice cream for a week after getting your wisdom teeth out!

My mother made terrible analogies, my children will say.

*I know I've been working on the cussing thing. It's a process. Allow me this one indulgence, will you? Thanks. Also, please note that I starred the other cuss because I only wanted to do eight minutes of abs tomorrow. I have a busy day planned.

Books I will insist my children read

Because I've been thinking about literature lately.

For children:

Matilda by Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
Bridge to Terebithia by Katherine Paterson
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Holes by Louis Sachar
The View from Saturday by E. L. Konigsburg
Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech
The Giver by Lois Lowry
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Treehorn Times Three by Florence Parry Heide
Nobody's Family is Going to Change by Louise Fitzhugh
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery
ALL the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary
ALL the Fudge books by Judy Blume
ALL the Russell and Elisa books by Johanna Hurwitz
The Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume
Free to be ... You and Me by various artists
ALL the Anastasia books by Lois Lowry
Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

For young adults:

A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Cages by Peg Kehret
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson
Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
I Heard the Owl Call My Name by Margaret Craven
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stewart
Persepolis I & II by Marjane Sartrapi
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

For adults:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle
The Watchmen by Alan Moore et al.
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
1984 by George Orwell
Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
The Bible
The Book of Mormon
The Doctrine and Covenants
Mythology by Edith Hamilton


Things I will never let my children read:

My mission journals

Day Zero, or, Don't be fooled by the post dates, read the real ones

29 June 2009 Flight from Salt Lake City to Cincinnati

Airplanes are boring. I like trains better. I don't hate flying like some people do, and I relish the time alone to read embarrassing magazines without feeling like there's something much more productive I ought to be doing ... actually, forget what I just said. I'm not bored at all. Just hungry. I don't know what time it is in the sky currently, but by my calculations it's approaching dinnertime. And I'm on a Delta flight, which means food costs money and I'm sure much of it would be inedible (not just for my vegetarian self, for anyone). I finished American Born Chinese and figured out exactly which presentations at the IAFL conference I absolutely MUST attend (3 are about child abuse! I'm excited about that ... Is that weird?) so now it's either nap, which I'd rather not do, or write, which I am currently doing. I'm applauding myself for not bringing my iPod. It makes me feel more present. Also, the three year-old boy in the seat directly in front of me reached out his little hand and put it on my knee a few minutes ago. I couldn't see his face so I'm not sure if it was intentional or not.

Some other things I've noticed so far:

1. The very old man in front of me in line was very nice. His name was Carl. He looked clean but didn't have any luggage, only a plastic grocery bag with his meds in it. He definitely should not have been traveling alone. His flight left ten minutes before mine so I made sure he was ahead of me in the security line so he wouldn't get lost. I hope he made his flight. He had trouble understanding the ticket agent's directions.

2. A woman, also in line in front of me, had a blue canvas bag with a patch on it that said: "Utah Knitters Guild: Wanna make something of it?" along with a picture of some sheep. It reminded me of Olivia.

3. While I was boarding the plane a voice came over the intercom saying there was a "David Koler" who needed to recover some lost property. I immediately texted my brother and told him of the strange coincidence.

4. Ohio looks like an earth-tone patchwork quilt with a long ice cream stain on it (blueberry).

5. I just saw the border that joins Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Really? Apparently, I don't know the geography of my own homeland at all. Everything between the Intermountain West and the original 13 colonies is just a blur.

6. At the airport in line behind me (until she cut) was a woman with a baby in a sling and a toddler on a leash, accompanied by her own mother. During check-in, Grandma got Leash Duty and the little boy decided he was DONE with this indignity, lay on the ground and refused to get up. Inwardly, I applauded. Leashes are for dogs, not children. Power, miniature brother.

Humph.

Throughout my life I have undergone a great deal of preparation to be a mother. I have always looked forward to parenthood, and although I am 24 and as of yet unmarried, I do have faith that all these experiences will be of use to me someday, if they haven't been already. In high school I worked at a daycare during the summer, volunteered st Seattle Children's Hospital, and tutored elementary school kids in reading. It was a blast. I always dreaded leaving my job at the daycare each fall when school started again, because I would really much rather hang out with little kids all day than go to high school. Then again, who wouldn't?

When I got back from my mission a nanny job sort of fell into my lap, and I worked full-time there for about nine months until I started school again, then worked part-time until they let me go in December (this economic downturn affects all, even the very very rich). So basically I feel about as prepared to be a mother as I could be without actually having undergone the birth/raising a baby process itself.

Apparently, God disagrees.

I have a dog, and although I love him dearly, I would say it is a different kind of love than the love I feel for humans. However, having a dog is excellent preparation for parenthood. Because of Sego, I have to get up in the morning at a reasonable hour even if I am so tired I want to die, because he has needs that need to be met. Much of my money goes towards meeting his basic needs, even though I would much rather be spending my money on books or scarves. Also, parenthood is often dirty and disgusting, and so is owning a dog. Dogs bring a certain amount of chaos to your life, and so do children. I use Sego as a litmus test for possible romantic partners, because (this is true) I want lots of kids, and if someone can't handle the chaos supplied by one 24-pound dog, NO WAY are they going to handle living with five or six (or you know, whatever) kids.

Anyway, about the "disgusting" part. Last night Sego seemed a little under the weather, so I let him sleep in my bed. I usually do this only if one of us is feeling down. Generally it's me. Anyway, I had a really hard time sleeping last night, so I didn't work out this morning and slept in for a while. When I woke up, I felt sort of cold and clammy, and though I sometimes sweat when I sleep (if I'm sick or something) it didn't quite feel like that.

I woke up and examined my bed, and Sego had puked ALL OVER MY BED. And by extension, me as well.

GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS EWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Thusly, I am skipping class to do laundry this morning, so my roommate (a cat person) won't come home to the MOST DISGUSTING SCENE OF ALL TIME.

OK, God. I get it.

FREEDOM!!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a timeline. For the end of my current job, that is. I go at the end of August, right before school starts. So that means all I have to do this month is find myself a replacement and train him or her. Most likely a her. I imagine mannies are hard to come by in Provo.

I am going to miss my kids. A lot. But at the same time, I know that the time is right for me to leave. I love these kids so much. I miss them when I don't see them during the weekend. It's intrinsically a good thing that I love these kids, because that means I take good care of them. But on the other hand, I am very attached to them, especially the babies. I spend more waking hours with them than their mother does. They cry for me when I'm not around. That's bad.

Allow me a rather dramatic illustration. Have you ever heard of how some toddlers hold their breath when throwing a tantrum or when really upset? According to my mother, I never did this. But it's not totally uncommon. The baby, who will turn two in a week or so, never does this as a way to manipulate, but sometimes when he injures himself in a way that is frightening (like falling, for example). It scares me but never lasts that long.

Anyway, on Friday my employer was home briefly and the baby was playing in the other room. We hear crying. My boss said dismissively, "You can get him." I go into the formal room and see Jake standing on the couch, with his little finger caught in the wide wooden blinds. I remove his finger and its not swollen or broken or anything like that. But I think it scared him to be trapped like that all alone, even for a second, and he started doing the holding the breath thing. But this time he didn't start crying right away. He turned blue.

I didn't panic, but I was definitely in shock, so I was just holding him and sort of staring at him in horror when my boss came in. I guess this has happened to her before, so she took him from me, and he fainted in her arms. She laid him on the floor and started hitting his chest and blowing in his face. He came to and started crying. Both I and my boss were kneeling over him. And then he turns .... and cries .... "Li-saaaa..."

Crap, kid. Not the best way to wrap up a near-death experience. For once in your life, can't you cry for your mom?

It feels great to be loved, I'm not gonna lie. But I know that love should not be directed at me. I'm a domestic employee. A great one, but I won't be sending them to college. I won't be talking them through their first dates. I won't even be around to potty train them. I don't think it would be best for them to bond with a long -term nanny, either, to be honest. This whole nanny thing is contrary to human nature.

I will raise my own children. And I suppose I knew this was coming with my job all along. Permit me an excerpt from the international best-seller the Nanny Diaries.

"Just how does an intelligent, adult woman become someone whose whole sterile kingdom has been reduced to alphabetized lingerie drawers and imported French dairy substitutes? Where is the child in this home? Where is the woman in this mother?

And how, exactly, am I to fit in?

Ultimately, there would come a turning point in every job when it seemed that the child and I were the only three-dimensional people running around on the black-and-white marble chessboards of those apartments. Making it inevitable that someone would get knocked down.

Looking back, it was a setup to begin with. They want you. You want the job.

But to do it well is to lose it.

Hit it."

Proof that I'm doing something right ...

Maybe I'm a still a bit starry-eyed about parenting, but I don't understand how someone could not find raising kids fulfilling. OK, granted, I don't come home each day thinking to myself, "my goodness, what a pleasant and fulfilling day I just had." There are plenty of days where I feel guilty that we watched too much TV in a given day, or that I only fed them processed food (because it's the only food my employer buys ... but that's another story), or irritated that the baby wouldn't stop crying or wouldn't take a nap. But one of my favorite things, aside from raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, is progress! Tracking the progress of children is infinitely more interesting and cool (not to mention much cuter) than tracking the progress of say, a science project. Although I suppose children are a science project in their own right.

I have been at this job four months now. That might not sound like very long--probably because it isn't--but in my time with my employer, I have noticed a difference in the babies. Of course, they are still spoiled when I'm not around, so they thrown tantrums sometimes when they don't get what they want, but this happens a lot less than it used to. After a week of being strict about time-outs when Grady doesn't listen, he has pretty much learned to listen. At least as well as a two year-old can be expected to listen.

I talk to the kids all the time. Using regular words in a regular voice. I think partially because of that, Jake has gone from almost completely non-verbal to a real little talker. He can tell me when he wants to go outside, eat, go to the park, get out of his crib or high chair; he says please and thank you; he says "help me" when he needs something (which is adorable, incidentally). He can identify all sorts of animals and knows the names of everybody in his family, including the dog. Grady, on the other hand, has learned to count to three (when I arrived he couldn't count at all) and expanded his vocabulary quite impressively. He repeats what I say with often hilarious results.

A few examples: the other day the cleaners were mopping the hardwood floor in the kitchen, so I decided to take the babies upstairs to get out of their way. As we were walking up the stairs, Grady was dawdling. So I said, "Hey, Grady, pick up the pace." He looked up at me with an eager-to -please expression, said questioningly, "Pace?" and then squatted on the floor and started picking up lint from the carpet. Having never heard that idiom, of course he assumed that pace was a concrete object, and I wanted him to pick it up. I almost died laughing.

Second example: the other day the babies were crying after a brief audience with Mother. She had stopped by and then left quickly, which always upsets them. Jake stopped crying first and was sitting in my lap while were watching Grady cry by the door. So I said to Jake (keep in mind that he is only one), "Jake, Grady is sad. What can we do to make him feel better?"
Jake (very distinctly): Cookie.
Me: Should we give Grady a cookie?
Jake nods.
So we went to the cookie jar and got one cookie out. I gave it to Jake, and instead of eating it (which let's face it, even a lot of adults would do), he took it over and gave it to his brother. Who immediately stopped crying.

I would have signed up for fifty years of motherhood that day if anyone had given me the option.

Guess I still need someone to father my children, though. Bummer.

Kids

The past two weeks I've had a lot of time to think about parenting. Why, you ask? Well, due to my working ten hours a day this week and last, I have pretty much been the primary caregiver for the boys the past while. I don't know know how my grandmother did it. In the past fortnight, I have learned a lot about where my limits are as a parent, what works, what really doesn't, and what kind of mother I want to be. To begin:

Temperance: Damn rich kids. Not to stereotype, but I don't think I've ever met a child of rich parents who wasn't spoiled. Not necessarily spoiled in the sense of ill-mannered--not Veruca Salt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory--but spoiled in the sense of given everything. I had a friend in high school who was the only child of a neurosurgeon. She was a sweet, kind, charming young lady, but spoiled. We were talking about parenting one night, and she said she couldn't fathom needing something she wouldn't be able to have. If she had been one of ten children, there would have certainly been times when she had needed new shoes, but not gotten them because there wasn't money for them. But because she was an only child, she always had new shoes when she needed them, and then some. From what I saw she had all the material possessions she wanted. She was a good kid, but she had no concept of the word "wait." I certainly don't believe in the purposeful withholding of life's necessities from children: they call that neglect. And I know how it can scar a child to not have enough money to provide for essentials: I have another friend who lived out his childhood in fear that he would get sick because his family had no medical insurance, and he feared the arguments his getting sick would cause. That's not OK either. But I think it's important for kids to not always get what they want. Delayed gratification is a lesson better learned sooner than later.

My conclusion: I don't want my kids to have everything they want, and assuming my life turns out even close to the way I think it's going to turn out, I doubt I will be able to give them absolutely everything they need either. I want my kids to have to work for things they want: like saving for a toy, for example, and then actually waiting for them to save up and buy it instead of breaking down and buying it like my mom always did.

Discipline: Simply put, there is very little discipline in the home I work in. I guess if one of the kids is rude when Dad's around, he might have to do an extra chore, but basically, if a kid is crying, all Mom wants to do is get it to stop. I believe that sometimes a kid needs to cry a little bit in order to learn that life is not always going to go the way they want it. That means time-outs when a small child is intentionally rotten (one minute for every year of age) and punishments that match the crimes with older children. For example, if a kid doesn't do his chores, he has to stay home on Saturday and do chores instead.

Silence: David O. McKay said it best: there should be no yelling in the home unless the house is on fire.

Nathan vs. Personal Alarm System vs. Sink

I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about those personal alarm systems like the one you see to your left. I think they're a great idea for autistic people or Alzheimer's patients. I personally believe that every woman's keychain should be fitted with a rape whistle, just in case. Mine actually has two. Which really is in a different category anyway.

But my employer is the owner of a local security systems company. You know what I'm talking about. The ones who send Mormon kids all over the country to sell their products door to door. Because after selling people on a religious lifestyle change, selling security systems ought to be easy, right?

So thankfully my employer has never tried to sell me on any of his products. I'm glad he hasn't because that would be awkward, but he knows I'm not in his demographic anyway. I don't have a significant say over anything worth protecting except my body, I guess. Hence the rape whistle. But anyway ... The house they live in really is quite nice, and has a very modern fancy shmancy alarm system. Of course it does. But today an aspect of it almost killed me. Before I killed it. Dun dun dun.

Nathan, age 6, was rummaging around the junk drawer looking for Heaven knows what this afternoon, and came across an unlabeled keychain with a button. I'm going to honest here, while this was happening this baby was asleep and I may or may not have been lying down with him trying to sneak in some sleep as well. I've been sick this week. So sue me.

I aroused from half-sleep to the most horrible noise in the world. At first I thought it was one of their dumb battery-operated toys gone insane, or maybe even the TV. But it was so loud it hurt my ears, and made the baby wake up crying.

Imagine the most irritating high-pitched but POWERFUL whine in existence. The kind a helicopter-sized mosquito would make. The kind of sound they might play to really stubborn prisoners in Guantanamo Bay until they screamed.

NO! PLEASE! I'LL TALK! JUST STOP THAT INFERNAL NOISE!

Maybe those prisoners are made of stronger stuff than I am, but I would have talked.

So Nathan had innocently pushed the button on the unlabeled keychain, and activated some sort of personal alarm system. I examined the stupid thing and found, that, of course, there isn't an off switch. For good reason. If all the bad guy had to do was wrestle away the personal alarm system from the victim and flip the off switch, APEX couldn't get away with charging so much for these things.

My addled, recently-from-sleep brain pondered the possibilities. No off switch. I checked the main reactor (or whatever you call it) of the home alarm system, and the two were obviously not connected in any way. I did figure out during this process that if I held the whole thing very tightly in my hand, that muffled the noise a little. Doing just that, I called my boss.

She didn't know how to disable it. She didn't even know she HAD a personal alarm system. So I called the Big Boss, you know, the one you're not supposed to bother.

You know what he told me? There IS no way to disable those stupid things. In a grave voice, he said to me, "You're going to have to destroy it."

Yes, Master. My life is a science fiction movie, I see. Or a futuristic remake of Old Yeller.

He also pointed out, logically, that Abbie doesn't use it anyway, since she didn't know it was there.

Nathan and I took sadistic glee in filling the sink with water and dropping the Banshee thingy in. It kept going for at least a minute, muffled by the water, and then reduced to a insect-like clicking noise. But every time we drained the water, it would resume screeching, although a littler fainter each time.

Ask me how many times we had to refill the sink. Go on. Ask me.

Five.

Buy one of those suckers, and NOBODY will mess with your sh*t. Not without wishing they never been born. Tap that.