Aunt Lollie and baby Jake

Aunt Lollie and baby Jake
I can't wait to be a Grandma!!!

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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Understanding Whoopee Cushions and Building Rainbows

I filled my latest hand-written journal yesterday. It was hard to say good-bye to those pages. Within them was the program from Ben's funeral. Finishing the journal made my time with him that much further away. Lori said every day is one day closer to being with him again. I don't have that kind of faith. I'm very stuck in earthly thought.

Like applying to grad school. Here is my personal statement...http://www.wallawalla.edu/form/view/7adcf8d2879f94f36efa48ff3b476df0

Like whoopee cushions. Why are little boys so obsessed with their own bodily functions? I know the answer to that question. I read it once in a psych text book. Or heard it at a parenting conference. It has to do with their fear of inability to control themselves. Kind of the "if you can't beat 'em, join em" mentality.

Okay.

Saturday I took six boys to pizza, laser tag and race cars. We were celebrating Joey's birthday. nine and ten-year-old boys are not quite 58 inches high. How do I know? Well, I'll tell you: At the party, we realized a few of the boys were too short to ride on the go carts. I pulled out my trusty travel sized hair spray, (yes I was raised in Utah...home of froofy hair) and brushed their hair, (which is rather long - as is the style nowadays), and sprayed it so it stood straight up!

They still weren't tall enough. But they looked adorable.

I'm very behind in knowing what is going on in the world. Today at Geyser Park there was a TV on the CNN channel. It had no volume but two rows of stories written on the screen. I sat there and read the news and got depressed.

I'm learning things about myself as I go without television. One of the reasons I knew going without it would be good for me and that the loss of information and the current culture was worth being missed was that I was never much of a news watcher anyhoo. More than that, I knew that my boys have much less control over themselves and the television choices they make than Doug and I do. But I admit, for every BYU TV talk or serious news piece I watched was a sit com. I loved the Biography channel. I will have it again. When my boys are older.

I do NOT miss the countless hours of advertising.

Doug took the boys to a film festival last night. He came home eager to share with me one of the shows which was a parody on the cycle of consumerism perpetuated by television. I just realized that I have a two year break between having kids in seminary. What a perfect time to go to a two year graduate program!!!!! I can do it!

The intellectual spirit is so willing - but my dang weak flesh. I need to talk myself into victory!

Go me!

You can do it!

What a perfect time, too!

No calling in church yet - why not prepare to serve? No need to stress about the time it will take from kids. They are all in school! Classes are only one day a week. What if I thought of earning an MSW as a calling? Not a self - serving thing - but a way to prepare to serve more and better. If I think of doing it for others, rather than myself, I will feel better about it.

There are things I must give up. I will have to spend my reading time listening to books on CD while I clean. I cannot NOT clean. I want to stay married for heaven's sake...literally!

My reading will have to be textbooks - not novels. I will NOT allow myself to let go of reading to my boys. I love that time we spend together. As we were driving to Joey's party, it hit me that my sweet brown-eyed boy is 10, the age of the boy in the song I'll Build You a Rainbow. I hope, if I were to die tomorrow he would be able to say I've spent more time with him in 10 years than most moms spend with their boys in a lifetime.

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