Dear Whoever May Be Reading,

Wow, have things been crazy lately. I'm trying to re-vamp myself and prepare for summer, (providing the snow ever decides to stop), and I've let these little updates slide. Well, enough of that.

Last night I asked Cameron if he wanted me or his dad to go on the field trip with him to the zoo today. I reminded him that I am the cool one who compulsively buys things like candy and souvenirs.

But there's just something about a boy's bond with his father. So today, Andrew went with Cameron to the zoo and the planetarium. I was really glad that Cameron chose Andrew because Andrew never gets to do that kind of stuff with the boys. And really, the only reason I gave Cameron a choice is because I like to put my kids in awkward situations of having to chose their favorite parent and then guilt the hell out of them for it later on.

But if he had chosen me, that would have meant one entire day of not wiping bottoms or noses, and I would have been more than ok with that, too.


Cameron at the zoo with his group. I gave Andrew a ten so he could be the cool dad and get the kids some candy from the gift shop. We like to take every opportunity we can to buy friends for our kids.

Today, Ethan got his first library card. I announced that I was going to the library tonight and he volunteered to come along. (Cameron couldn't come because he was being punished for favoring his father.)

Ethan felt so grown up holding that gray piece of plastic. We spent a half hour perusing the books and when he found out the he could check out a movie he nearly burst with pride. When finally we got in line to check out our selections, Ethan turned to me and said, "Don't worry, Mom, I'll pay for these with my card."

I bit my tongue to keep from laughing at him.

And when we got home, I had to take a picture of him pretending to read this book that is 135 pages long, has no pictures, and is far too advanced for him. He's been an avid pretend reader for two solid years. He really does sit there staring at a page for about two minutes before he turns to the next page and pretends to read that one, too. About three days after this process begins he announces that he's finished with his book and would like to start on the next one in the series. He's nuts, but I'll keep him.


Drew has finally mastered the potty. I can happily announce that I have not thrown away a pair of poopy underwear in at least three days. He hasn't had an accident of any sort in quite a long while, and he attributes his success to his tri-cornered hat. It's good luck. He also finds it helpful to bring a snack - thus the empty baggie previously containing potato chips.

We don't really take snacks into the bathroom or wear costumes when we go, I just thought this one incident of both happening was pretty comical. I can't even walk into the bathroom if I'm still chewing something - I have to stand in the hallway and swallow before I go in. So don't go calling the sanitation police or anything.


And our caboose - Trent. This picture depicts the reason I hate giving him a bath.

Because it isn't just him that gets a bath - I end up soaked, too. There have been times when he has gone four or five days without a bath because I couldn't bear to clean up the mess. I hope he grows out of the splashing obsession, because the other parts of bath time are kinda cute:


Just not cute ENOUGH.

So until next time folks, me hopes you are well. I'm going to fold laundry now.

Heads Up!

I know that I just told you that I'd try to stay away from poop stories, but I just bought Drew some big boy underwear and a potty seat. So I'm just warning you that I might have to go back on my word.

In an effort to be more classy, I am switching from poop to farts.

I was walking into a big box store the other day, (I get tired of saying I was going to Wal-Mart - it's as trashy as talking incessantly about bowel movements), and I was carrying Drew on my hip. And because it was Drew and because you never know what you're going to get with Drew, I can't say I was really surprised when he farted on my arm and then in his most incredulous voice he said, "Did you fart??"

I was not about to take the blame for that one, so I told him that, no, I hadn't farted, it was his fart. We argued back and forth all the way into the store, and all the while, Drew kept farting on my arm and denying it.

It reminded me of when I was a teenager and I would go to the grocery store with my Dad. He couldn't seem to pick out a bag of chips without passing gas. And Dad's gas rarely smelled, but it was always as loud as a tuba. He would do the deed and then, in order to pass the blame, he would say, "Bethany!", in the voice of a very disappointed parent. Anyone lingering in the aisle would throw disdainful glances my way and I would flush with undeserved shame.

Again tonight, I was helping Drew into his pajamas and he bent over, farted, and looked at me and proclaimed, "I not fart."

Well, you know what? I am so glad that I finally have a child who doesn't burst into hysterics when they fart, and would rather everyone just pretend that it hadn't happened.

Prodigy and Poop. (I know - enough with the poop stories already.)

This morning at breakfast I was dumbfounded when I saw my nephew, Bryan, take a piece of blueberry poptart and purposefully reach up and place it in his hair, gooey side down. Then he took another, larger piece and put that in his hair, too. When he felt the larger piece slipping towards his forehead, his hand flicked up to it and pushed it down into place. He squashed it down hard enough to be sure that it wouldn't budge, and then he placed both hands back on the tray and serenely stared into space. This all happened in just a few short seconds, and all while I was standing right next to him, jaw hanging open. I felt certain that he was bound for the short bus to kindergarten.

After we cleaned up that mess, I sat in the living room, watched him play for a minute, and then said, "Bryan, I will give you five dollars if you only poop once today." And I meant it, too. Bryan looked at me as if to say, "You're on." And then we both went about our business.

You see, Bryan has some kind of over-active digestive system, and he has anywhere from three to six bowel movements during the ten and a half hours I watch him each weekday. Then he goes home and acts completely normal, only averaging two BM's a day on the weekends. I think he hates me.

So, imagine my surprise when I changed Bryan's diaper before his morning nap and there was no need for the baby wipes I had armed myself with! That could very well be a first. I think Bryan is smarter than I gave him credit for at breakfast. If he keeps this up, he'll be stuck with the burden of deciding if he wants to spend his cash on some binkie bling or a lollipop the size of his head.

Maybe his antics at breakfast were just a sign of artistic repression, and we need to break out the pudding paints. Not until spring when we can do it outside though.

Naked People Falling On Me

I never would have remembered these suppressed memories had my Aunt not dredged them up by mentioning volunteering in her last blog post. (Give her some ideas people, before she turns into the lady on the news who is the owner of 112 cats that she brought home with her from the animal shelter and quickly became overwhelmed and is found by animal control living in poop and kitty litter 6 inches deep and carting around a bird on her shoulder.)

So after thinking about the only time that I have formally volunteered, ( I spend time in my kids' classrooms at school and do church stuff, but no longer anything with a name tag), I remembered how much I dreaded putting on that red and white striped apron and going to the hospital. I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me start from the beginning.

I was fourteen, and I have no clue who's idea it was for my sister, Natalie, and I to become Candy Stripers at the local hospital. It must have been Southwest Washington Medical Center, but I'm not entirely sure, having worked so hard to forget the entire experience. At any rate, some well-intentioned person signed Natalie and I up for orientation, where we spent an entire day being instructed on the rules and regulations of volunteering in a hospital and also being shown the correct way to make a bed using "hospital corners". Valuable piece of information there, people. So following all of the regulation mumbo-jumbo, we were given a tour of the hospital and shown all the areas where we might be assigned to volunteer. Of course, everyone's favorite was the pediatric wing where you could play with the cute little sick kids in rooms surrounded with rainbow paintings and tiny-sized armchairs. And nothing remotely disturbing or grotesque could ever happen in a pediatric ward, right? (Wrong.) So when it came time to fill out our preferences of where we'd like to work, all 50 of us surely put down the same departments: Pediatric, gift shop, (with it's cheery sounding cash register), and lobby, where we could smile and direct people to their loved ones' rooms without having to actually come in contact with the unfortunate sick and dismembered. (Feel free to call me 'insensitive' in any forthcoming hate mail.)

So a week later, all of us Candy Stripers anxiously arrived at the hospital to learn our fates. Apparently, all of the happy places were assigned to the blond haired, blue eyed beauties, for I was assigned to the surgery wing.

Did you get that? Surgery wing. Not a happy place at all.

We broke into groups and were escorted to our designated areas. I said good-bye to Natalie, and if you'd like to know where she went, you'll have to ask her because it's one of those details too painful to dredge up, but let's remember that she has blonde hair and blue eyes, was approached by "model scouts" more times than I can remember, and was given a job at Musicland before she'd even finished asking for an application by the man who later became her lucky husband. The elevator doors opened up on the surgical floor and all of my awkward adolescent comrades and I emerged into the very hallways of Hell where, I kid you not, you could hear people moaning in every other room and one woman was actually screaming and everyone was ignoring her.

Every Thursday I went to that wing and did my best to disappear into the background as nurses bustled to and fro, taking calls and answering pages. I know they weren't doing anything to help their patients, because if they had been, then the moaning surely would have stopped. Some days I avoided having to go into anyone's room and got away with delivering samples to the lab or picking up more kidney shaped vomit catchers from the supply warden.

Some days I was not so lucky.

One day I was given the assignment of making sure that all the patients had adequately stocked bedside drawers. I was checking for bedpans, the stinking vomit catchers, little plastic cups and tissue boxes, among other things. Once in a while I had to converse with women who were still coming off the morphine high and smile and talk nicely while I backed out of the room with promises to send a nurse. And then I came upon the room. The room that was blessedly void of any living soul. I checked the drawer, found it satisfactory and headed back out. But as I passed the bathroom, a large, lumbering person stumbled toward me, and with a little groan, fell completely naked into my arms. Too shocked to know what else to do, I tried my best to keep the slippery person from falling all the way to the floor. My arms were underneath their arms, but I was unsure of whether I was dealing with a man or a woman, so I couldn't make myself use my hands to grab them around the middle for fear of latching on to two naked breasts. And why was this person wet?? Please let them have just taken a shower, please don't let this slippery being be covered in sweat! Just as my knees were about to buckle, a nurse came into the room and helped me drag the person upright. Then I bolted. I didn't even stay to help the nurse get the patient to his or her bed. I needed to wash both my arms from the shoulders down, pronto.

And that is the last memory I have of volunteering in a hospital. It is not, however, the last memory I have of someone naked falling on me.

The next story is not so awful. It takes place in a daycare. I must have figured out how to do my hair and make-up in a way that would validate me to be in the presence of darling children. Or maybe the staff was desperate. However it happened, at 18 I found myself the sole caretaker for more than the legal number of pre-schoolers for several hours a day. Once the school-age children were off to their classrooms I had some help, but until then, I spent the morning hours on my own. Thankfully, we only took kids who were potty trained. That does not mean that they were all capable of the entire spectrum of toilet duties on their own, however.

One day, little Dylan yelled from the bathroom, the door to which he had left open, "Teacher Beth, can you come wipe me?" He was an intoxicating and adorable 3 year old, and of course I could wipe him. I went into the bathroom and Dylan promptly bent over and rested the top of his head on the floor so that I had an unencumbered view of his wiping needs. I gathered the toilet paper and went to work. And then he lost his balance and his tiny butt landed on my arm, one cheek on either side of my radius bone. Laughing hysterically, he regained his upright position and said through his giggles, "Sorry, Teacher Beth", and then went on with his chuckling. I was desperately trying to control my urge to lunge my forearm into boiling water, because I had a skid mark where there never ought to be a skid mark. I toughed it out and finished wiping his behind before I scoured my arm under the sink with our month's supply of liquid soap.

Moral of the story, you never know when a naked person might fall on you, and there's nothing you can do to stop them. That's about it.

It was a good, good day.

Until last Friday, I thought that the thing I loved best about my oldest two sons was that nine times out of ten, they are able to urinate into the toilet without getting so much as a drop on the floor.  A close second to that would be their solid grasp of sarcasm, without which, most of our conversations would end in confused looks or hurt feelings.


On Friday, I drove, (hallelujah), to pick up the boys from school so we could go pick out snacks to take to the ball game that night in Salt Lake.  I asked them how their days were, and boy, was I a proud Mama when they told me.  


Ethan had used all his Bull Dog Coins* at the Bull Dog Store to purchase me a necklace.  He handed me that red-beaded Mardi Gras necklace with a radient smile plastered on his cute, little mug, and I wore it all day with as much pleasure as if it had been a string of genuine pearls.  Ethan also told me that there was a little boy at recess who had no one to play with because his legs don't work very well, and that he had asked that boy if he would like to play with him, and together they played tag, until the "outside duty" came and told them that tag was not allowed.  (Seriously?  No swings, no tag...what's next?  And I know it sounds odd for Ethan to ask the boy who's legs don't work well to play tag with him, but it's the thought that counts.  I hope the recess aid caught them quickly, or that poor boy might have spent his entire recess hopefully chasing my 6-year-old all over the playground and never gotten close to catching him.)  


Cameron beamed when he got in the van and told me that he had passed his math facts and moved onto subtraction.  I was just as proud as he was, because the kids have 2 minutes to get all 36 addition facts correct, and, as of a week ago, Cameron was taking 2 minutes and thirty seconds to pass all 36.  On Friday, he got them all right in one minute, thirty-two seconds.  He has worked his tail off to complete that, and now he is one of very few in his class that has moved on to the next level.  I am extra pleased with his success, because I went to his class and tested 8 kids, and only one of them passed, while the others were struggling to get 15 correct in the two minute period.  I'm not saying he's better than the others, I'm just very happy that he doesn't have to struggle with math while he's having to struggle with reading.  It was a painfully happy moment to find that he had passed, and his confidence is taking off!  He then told me that he had played four-square with 6 other kids at recess, and I almost cried.  Every day I ask Cameron who he played with at recess, and his answer is always the same:  "I mostly played by myself."  That is agony to a mother.  So to hear that he had been involved in a game with his classmates was the best news I could have gotten that day.


Today, I am a very proud mother, indeed.  And it has nothing to do with bathroom cleanliness.

*Bulldog coins are pieces of paper they earn in Ethan's class to be spent every other Friday in their classroom store, where they can choose from an array of trinkets and prizes.  

That strange new feeling.

Of late, I have been experiencing a foreign phenomenon where my abdomen causes me much discomfort and pain.  I, admittedly, have hypochondriasis tenancies, and was originally convinced that a tumor was growing on my ovary, probably the left one, and that I surely had no more than a year to live.  Then I realized that I needed to change my bathroom reading.  The only options in the drawer next to the toilet were some book on the Navajo, a VW Club newsletter, (which I have already read several times), or The Christmas Shoes, which is a book based on the depressing country song where a kid buys a pair of shoes for his dying mother on Christmas Eve so that she'll look beautiful if she were to meet Jesus that night.  The mother in the book is dying of ovarian cancer, or uterine cancer, I don't remember which, but apparently it made an impression.  I am now considering seeking professional help, but not for my imagined tumor. 


So it hits me one day that maybe I conjured up my terminal disease because I had been spending too much time in the bathroom reading that stupid book.  When was the last time that I produced anything during my visits to the toilet, anyway?  Am I supposed to be keeping track of how many bowel movements I have in, say, a week?  I thought that was something that you only did with infants?  I feel certain that I've made a deposit during each trip, but does it matter how much you give, or just how often?  Can you be constipated if you've been going regularly?  (Yes, Heidi and Kitti, I am talking to you because there is no way I'm calling a doctor to ask!)  I've always been the type who could just let the fruit ripen and fall from the tree.  Thirty seconds, in and out, no effort required.  That's why I think that my self-diagnosis of constipation must be accurate because yesterday I found myself using birthing techniques to eliminate the brick that was lodged somewhere in my lower intestine.  Pull knees up to chest, tuck chin and push like hell for the count of ten.  Take breath, resume pushing.  And so on and so forth.  I was pleased to find that when it was all over and done with, I did not require stitches, but was disgusted that for all my hard work, I had passed a pitiful excuse for a bowel movement, (although I swear it had corners), and that I had earned a hemorrhoid.  At least, I think that's what it was, and if not, then the hypochondriasis is about to take over again.  I stood there in the bathroom wondering what it would feel like to ride in a car for twelve hours next week with an mn'm type thing resting on the edge of my sphincter.  Thankfully, I will not have to find out, because the bulge has since disappeared. 


I am a notorius hater of water.  It doesn't taste like Dr. Pepper or Cherry Coke, therefore, it must be bad.  I drink mostly soda, a little milk, and occasionally some juice or Crystal Lite.  But when I really think about it, I don't drink a lot of those either.  I am not an idiot, so I know that my poor hydration habits are not helping with my dry skin or migraines, and that is probably the exact cause of my constipation.  When I was younger, my body probably dealt with it just fine, and with age comes a realization that I have turned my digestive system into a sewer treatment plant. 


So what do I do?  Do any of you have tips?  Let me tell you right now that I'm not ready to give up the soda or the pop, (both being the same thing - but I wanted to make sure that everyone from every U.S. geographical region knew to what I was referring), because I'm just not there.  Might not ever be.  But I need some good ways to make sure I drink a lot of water along with my Dr. Pepper.  Water alone is gross, especially our city water.  Does it count as drinking water if you add something to it?  And what do you add that won't give you cancer?  (Again with the hypochondriasis.)  Aspartame is bad, right?  Help me out here, people, my body is begging you!

Stirred Up By Crickets

In the quiet hours between chaos and slumber, I lay and listen to the sounds of night. The breeze stroking the leaves on the trees to sleep and crickets singing their night-loving hymns. Summer nights are entrancing to anyone willing to fall prey to their spell-casting. Those crickets serenading me outside my window bring a rush of memories. I close my eyes as my mind staggers in attempt to keep up with the flashes and pictures running through my head. Campfires. Arriving home past curfew from a date. Listening to waves crash onto a dark shore. But one picture repeatedly pushes it's way to the back of my eyelids again and again, rudely forcing it's presence upon me.

The Toilet Paper Wars.

This was not the shadowy memory that I had hoped to linger upon, but I turned myself over to it, surrendering my hopes of a romantic recollection....

......Rural Battle Ground, Washington provided little in the way of entertainment in my day. My sister and friends and I would do anything during summer months to keep ourselves occupied with whatever didn't turn us into Country Bumpkins. That need to refrain from wearing giant belt buckles and listening to twangy music gave birth to the toilet paper wars. Dan and Scott, boys our age who lived about a half mile up the road, may have been the ones to spur the first attack, or it may have been us girls - I don't remember now, but there were many battles.

On one of those vengeful nights, Natalie and I had two friends over, Stephanie and Sandy. We erected a tent in the front yard of our house to deter any enemy activity. After all, who would dare toilet paper a house when the objects of your flirtatious offensive could be hiding just inside canvas walls that allowed in all kinds of suspicious noises? The four of us sat inside the tent and plotted our moves for the evening. The objective was simple; toilet paper Dan's house. But execution wouldn't be so easy because Dan and Scott might be expecting us. They could even be driving the road between our base and theirs, watching for our advance. We decided the best way to move would be to split in twos, walking up each side of the road towards our target, and dive into the ditch anytime a car approached from either direction to avoid being spotted by our foe. Gathering up our ammo, (copious ammounts of Charmin), we cautiously proceeded out of the tent and made our way towards the road.

The distance between our houses never seemed so far as when we were desperate to avoid detection. The chirping of our allies, the crickets, cheered us on with each adrenaline filled step and the moon was all that lit our way. It wasn't long at all before headlights appeared in the distance behind us and we all scrambled to lay as flat as possible in the deep trenches on either side of the pavement. Thoughts of roadkill and all varieties of insects and rodents plagued our minds as we waited for the car to pass. We could have been laying on anything in those ditches, but it was war. Sacrifice was necessity.

The car passed, and, hearts racing, we climbed from our hiding places and resumed the forge up the road. We had made it almost to the bottom of a little hill near the end of the road. Dan lived at the top of the incline - not far to go. Then, another car, rounding the corner right ahead of us! There was no time! We scattered in all directions. Headlights surrounded us in their revealing illumination. Each of us dove towards the ditch nearest us. Then a scream! The roar of a truck's engine passed us, we were safe. Then silence.

"Who screamed?" someone whispered in the welcomed darkness.

The reply came from Sandy. "This ditch is full of water! I'm soaking wet!"

Mouths covered to quiet our laughter, we watched Sandy crawl out of her ditch, dripping with filthy water. Poor Sandy had become the first casualty in The Toilet Paper Wars. She had selflessly helped us to avoid capture, and we were grateful.

At last, we made it to the enemy's camp. Cloaked in a hush, we unraveled the T.P. around bushes, lamp posts, fence railings and shrubs. We rolled it across the lawn in stripe and zig-zag patterns. Stealthily, we tossed the rolls into trees and the tissue cascaded back down to us like a glorious waterfall. We took just a moment to admire our work. The mission had been a success.

Back in the tent later that night, we excitedly munched on our rations of junk food and discussed when retaliation might be coming. No matter - we were the Masters, and we were ready to escalate the campaign to complete annihilation if necessary. With giddy enthusiasm, we settled into our sleeping bags to listen to those crickets pass the news of our victory to all the nocturnal world. And then we slept, confident that, for that night, we were impervious to raids from our worthy opponents.

The Curse of the Puberty Fairy

I was looking down at my legs during my last class of the day. It was pre-algebra, and Ms. Whateverhernamewas was spieling about positive and negative numbers. We had been given an assignment of some sort and were sitting in groups on the floor. That's why I was staring at my legs. First staring, and then trying to hide them somehow underneath my body. Hiding legs as long as mine wasn't easy, even back then, when I was twelve. You see, that day was the first time that I had noticed that all the girls sitting in my group on the floor had already begun shaving their legs, and mine were still covered with that soft, barely noticeable hair that has never known the harshness of a razor. On that day, when I came to the knowledge that I was lagging behind my friends in the matters of womanly hygiene, those little hairs were as obvious to me as flecks of pepper in a salt shaker. I was mortified to find that I was still a little kid when my peers had made the transformation into seeming womanhood. After all, one who could wield a razor was surely mastering other feats such as proclaiming their need for Midol or dying their hair!

Panic ensued, and I began to wonder if I was the only one in my 7th grade class who had not started her period and were there other shaving areas I had been innocently neglecting? How did one go about shaving legs, anyhow? Seemed like there was something about using soap or not using soap... I determined that I would just have to figure it out myself; there was no way I was going to ask my mother or my sister, because surely they would laugh at my inexperience and wonder what had taken me so long to enter the world of puberty management. How could I be so stupid as to think that strapping on my first training bra was the only hurdle to be jumped in the road to maturity? (Which may as well have been yesterday, for all the progress I've made in that area.)

Growing up always came slowly for me. I got "the talk" when I was 8 because my older sister was concerned about contracting AIDS, and when one of us needed to be informed of something, the other had to be included or we would just get the news second-hand. I covered my mouth during the majority of the lecture to stifle my laughs and cover my unsquelchable grin. Still ranks as one of my parent's favorite parenting moments with me, I'm sure.

My period arrived when I was thirteen, and thankfully it came when no one was home, so I was able to deal with the transformation without any embarrassing interference; until my sister came home with her friend, who somehow discovered my secret and proceeded to congratulate me as though I had accomplished something that I had actually striven to achieve.

Thankfully, there were a few areas where I managed quite well on my own: application of deodorant and knowing when to tell my mother that I could curl my own bangs and still obtain the same degree of mockery from pre-teen vixens at school. That was about it, but it was something.

Seventeen years later, I still find myself sometimes baffled by what mainstream society has deemed "normal" in the beauty department. I have never had a Brazilian Wax, a facial or any kind of Botox or colon cleanse. Maybe I'm missing out, but I think that as long as I have mastered the basics that I was a little slow to pick up on all those years ago, I'll be fine without the rest. I do have one regret though. Maybe if my mother had fed me more hormone injected beef, I would have graduated from that training bra by now.


Incidentally, isn't this an educational ad?



Yikes!