Musings

Flawed Pony Parenting Logic and Home-schooling

Ever since reading this story and that one about the kid with the My Little Pony backpack, my mind has been reeling.

To make a longer story short, here’s the news recap hailing from North Carolina.

This 10-year-old kid was being bullied at school because of his blue fuzzy My Little Pony backpack. His mom went to the school to complain. The school counselor mentioned that the easiest solution would be for the kid to get a new backpack. The principal later called the child’s mother and told her that the child was no longer allowed to bring the backpack to school. The mom flipped out. The mom now homeschools.

I have to say that last sentence, “The mom now homeschools,” does not surprise me in the least. It seems that nowadays the homeschooling road is the most popular for a lot of unsatisfied parents. I am not here to pass judgement on homeschooling parents. In fact, I might end up homeschooling one of mine next year if she doesn’t get her school transfer. I am here however to pass judgement on flawed logic and parents who can’t be honest with themselves.

First of all, let me make two things very clear. One – I am NOT o.k. with bullying. In this instance and in every instance the bully children should have been reprimanded and disciplined. (I don’t know if they were appropriately or at all from the news stories.) However, typically bully children come from bully homes, so there is only so much a school can do to change behavior.

Secondly, I believe children should be given space to be who they want to be. You want to wear a pink tutu and your 12 and a boy? Go for it. Are you a girl who wants to play football? More power to you.

Now, to the point I really want to make that seems to be widely ignored in modern bully stories. Parents, pull your heads out….Every day, you are sending your kids off to war…..and you are not equipping them with the skills that they need.

What skills? The skills of socialization, survival, problem-solving, and leadership to name a few.

Here is some flawed logic that I have seen people use to support their choice to homeschool.

Sweeping generalizations (bad stereotyping)
All the kids at that school are mean. They are all bad kids. I’m pretty sure this is never the case.

Hasty conclusions with inadequete support (more than one personal example for validity for your argument)
In homeschooling this can look like: Well, wow, this kid was homeschooled and went to Harvard, therefore my kid can also.

Non sequitor (It does not follow)
I graduated from high school therefore I can teach my kids til they graduate. Yes, you can, but this logic is really bad.

Casual fallacy (one event merely follows the first and isn’t necessarily because of cause/effect)
My child got in trouble at school today because his teacher was in a bad mood. Is that the real reason? Or is your child honestly having behavior problems that need to be addressed? Maybe your child is causing the teacher’s foul mood and not the other way around.

Ad hominem attack (an argument that is not balanced but based solely on personal opinion)
Common core is awful therefore my kids should not be schooled with it.

Circular reasoning (the evidence and conclusion restate each other)
Schools are failing because teachers are failing.

False dichotomy or false dilemma (Either/or arguments that oversimplify complex answers to two solutions)
I can either keep my kids in a public school I am not happy with or I can homeschool. These are not the only two solutions to a complex problem.

I know of many parents who have used very bad logic as their sole foundation for homeschooling. I also know many parents who are really harming their kids by homeschooling ineffectively.

So what does this have to do with the pony kid who was bullied? I believe at the root of both homeschooling and bullying lies a much bigger problem: parents who are not honest with themselves. Parents who are failing and laying the blame on someone else.

In the case of the boy with the pony backpack, I believe the parents failed to teach their child how to be confident in his pony-touting ways. I would never send my kid off to war without the weapons he would need to fight it, and you can be sure that I also would not let my child walk into a cafeteria of potential bullies without first discussing how to defend himself in his unconventional backpack/lunchbox choices.

Likewise, I would not just believe homeschooling to be the best thing for my kids if they were having trouble in public schools. As adults, we have troubles coming at us from every direction. We can’t just hide away at home to avoid our problems. We have to face them head on. The really scary part about a larger percentage of the population homeschooling is the fact that all of the home-schooled kids first learned behaviors at home that may be the biggest culprit in them not having success at school. The solution of pulling them out of school to address the problems that are only perpetuated at home is totally counterproductive. Unless, of course, we gain awareness collectively as a family and put change in motion.

Before you feel all judged, let me give you several examples from my life as a concerned mother.

First, we had a terrible experience with public schooling at an inner-city school in Knoxville, TN where we used to live. The principal was bad. Most of the teachers were heroic. The majority of the student population was grossly neglected. The school was neglected. The playgrounds were falling apart. The school didn’t participate in field trips. EVER. Abigail’s second grade teacher was in her first year and totally ill-equipped. Frustrations were high every day. Abigail would come home crying because the teacher made the whole class miss recess again even though she never personally had bad behavior. She no longer could drink chocolate milk at lunch because the principal pulled it off the shelf with the logic that it was causing misbehaved kids to misbehave even more. Violence was taking place in the second grade. One boy threw a desk at another and broke his nose. Forget the fact that no learning was taking place. How could it with all the other distractions? Yes, I had every right to pull Abigail out and home-school her especially after addressing our concerns with the administration to not have anything change. We didn’t pull Abigail. She survived the second grade and the next year we humbly and gratefully accepted a “No Child Left Behind” school transfer. Abigail’s new school was a haven and we all loved it. When Abigail went on her first field trip in third grade she was in seventh heaven. Abigail is now fourteen. She often talks about her experiences at her first school. They shaped her into what she is: one resilient, tough, and adaptable kid.

Do I judge any parent who pulled their kid out? No. Not at all. In fact I would applaud their courage. However, I do think that if a parent makes a choice to home-school, they better look around and have a very honest assessment of what their child is going to learn at home. When one home-schools they have to recognize that their child is now being influenced almost solely by their family. Are you going to give them all the experience they need to thrive in the real world? Are you going to be perpetuating in them bad behaviors that you just don’t want to fix: sleeping til noon, having bad hygeine, learning as little as possible, not teaching discipline, etc. If you are going to home-school, I think you should ask yourself WHY your kids are (or would) struggling in public school in the first place….the source of their trouble is more than likely YOU, not the school. The kid at Abigail’s school that was throwing desks was more than likely frustrated with his bad teacher, but the reason he threw a desk while Abigail came home crying every day was the difference of what was taught in their home. It is hard to change. Possible, but hard. You better have a really fine-tuned game plan of how you are going to change yourself and teach your children at the same time.

My other experience in still playing out. Sophia is twelve and does not want to have to attend the school in the boundary of where we just moved. She has not a single friend at this new school. We are working with the school district to get her a school transfer next year back to the junior high where her friends will be attending based on the extreme anxiety she is having over the situation. The district asked for a letter from a health-care professional. We went to the doctor last week. I explained Sophia’s anxiety and her shyness and tendency to isolate. I then said, “If we can’t get this transfer, I will probably just home-school her for a year until we move back to our old school boundary.” The doctor didn’t shy away with her response, “If you are worried about her isolating, wouldn’t home-schooling be the worst possible scenario?” She was right! Anyone who knows me, knows that I in no way am modeling shy behavior for my daughter. She came that way. I, however, as her parent, have to make decisions that will help her overcome her weaknesses instead of feed into them.

Wow, this post got long quick. I think the very hardest part of parenting is being able to get outside ourselves and our flawed personal-protecting logic to honestly assess how our weaknesses are promoting the same in our children. And even harder than the honest assessment is changing. The change has to start with us as. Yes, this can be done, whether or not we send our kids to public school or if we home-school, if we are teaching our kids to be bullies or our children are being bullied, but by all means, let’s make sure we are doing the hard work. We owe that to our kids.

The Pregnancy Alien

Sometimes I wish I was more prolific so that I could accurately describe what I am experiencing. Pregnancy is not one of those times. The following description is for all you pregnant ladies who may need a little help explaining what you are going through (especially to those of the opposite sex.)

Below you will find a simple explanation as to why you are watching Mary Poppins while bawling and taking a break to get the pickles out of the fridge…even though you just finished off a whole half gallon of ice-cream. After reading, they will hopefully understand better that you really aren’t trying to make their life a living hell….it’s not your fault…it’s the fault of the alien that they implanted deep inside your brain.

It all started one night (or day, if you are that kind of person) when nothing could be wrong in the world. You and your loved one (or one night stand, if you are that kind of person) were enjoying one of the most beautiful things to experience in this life: sex. I hope it was good because if it wasn’t, you are really going to be miserable for a long time to come wondering why you allowed it to happen.

What you probably didn’t take the time to think about (or maybe you did, if you are that kind of person) was that when you let this loved-one (or stranger, if you are that kind of person) make an installment into your cervix an alien was coming with the package. I can’t tell you if the alien is attached to the sperm or the egg (but I’m pregnant so of course my opinion is that it was in the sperm.) Once the sperm combines with that one lucky egg to form the baby that you will love forever, the alien gets permission to release itself into your brain and wreak all kinds of havoc. You see, mother nature has a plan, if your body and mind can hack 10 months with this alien, then you are deemed worthy of motherhood. There is no other way to pass the test…unless of course you adopt, which I highly recommend.

And so it begins.

It starts with a tad bit of nauseousness and the feeling that you have to pee all the time, but it progresses and it progresses fast.

From your brain, your pet alien spreads into every single one of your body systems. It constantly sucks from your cardiovascular, skeletal, digestive, and neurological. You can’t shake it. No matter what you do, you are forced to just surrender to it or else your brain will surely explode. Let’s face it, you are already borderline insane, even when just weeks before you were perfectly normal.

You have crazy dreams. They may start with something as innocent as Ronald McDonald stealing your baby without a face, but they will continue to get scarier and scarier until before you know it you are sleeping with the Hamburglar and he’s a woman. And just prepare yourself for the really scary one that is yet to surface….you are in labor, and out pops a Big Mac. You may or may not take a bite of it…..and that may or not be ketchup. Trust me, if it’s not this exact same scenario, something very similar will happen to you and you will wake up covered in sweat in a panic attack, and realize that you really just peed the bed.

You are overly emotional and sensitive. Remember how you used to watch the news and be bored? Now you can’t get through it without bursting into tears. Even if all the stories are positive (which they rarely are) your over-enlarged heart just can’t seem to get the happy face of that man who received his meal on wheels out of your tear ducts. Oh, and that poor weatherman…no one listens to him. His mother must be so distraught. And then you will realize that you must be this man’s mother because you are ridiculously distraught. But how can that be because he is thirty years older than you?

And then as the worst thing that happened to you all day, your hubby will hand you a box of kleenex, and all you will want to do is yell at him and tell him to stop making fun of your state. It’s at this point that you will run into the bathroom to escape it all, but don’t be too discouraged when you realize that the alien followed you in there. Because when you look at your face in the mirror, you aren’t going to recognize it. It will be bloated and red and stained with tears. I would say that you will have mascara running everywhere but everyone will know that’s impossible because you smartened up and quit wearing it a few months back.

You are over-analytical. It will be completely normal for you to have thoughts such as: If Barrack Obama would just hurry up with his socialistic agenda, then we could all just move on with our second Civil War, and oh by golly the Republicans will get all the military on their side, but that could be bad because they would have to fight against the left’s hoodrats and butch lesbians. [thinking in run-on sentences will be acceptable of course because aliens don’t know grammar] Wow, this could get really interesting. Oh, no this can’t happen, unless the war is over before my baby is born. I hope they all kill each other so we can have a peaceful society with the really smart people who hid out in their state of the art bomb-shelters. (Which by the way, you know exactly where are located because of your most recent Google searches on how to survive Obamageddon.) Oh yeah, and hubby, I know exactly what those Broncos need to do to win the super-bowl…let’s talk about their defensive strategy….And it just won’t stop. If I were a mailman, I would be so much more efficient by doing…..see what I mean.

You CAN’T stop nesting. If you start filing that box of papers that have been sitting there for a few years, you are just at the beginning. You will know when the end is near when you have changed the organization of your pantry for the 15th time and it’s exactly the way it was when you started.

You are tired. You can’t stop yawning. It comes at the most inconvenient of times. In the beginning, before you’ve told anyone your news, it’s all you can do to fake your way through lunch with the girlfriends. You have discovered that yawning is actually contagious and seeing the back of that friend’s mouth for an hour straight was difficult for our overly sensitive gag reflex. You can hardly get out of bad. And you no longer make it through the nightly news. You’ve been on Chapter 14 of your book for at least 12 weeks. You slap yourself whenever you get behind the wheel to heighten your slow reflexes. Sex is completely out of the question, unless it only involves…well, I better stop there or my Mormon friends will be offended.

Your morning breath could burn down buildings. And is actually totally screwing up your dental hygiene.

Your boobs hurt. Once again, sex is completely out of the question. So is spooning, if your hubby has wandering hands. Putting on a bra is pure torture partly because it doesn’t really fit anymore and mostly because your nipples are constantly raw. Why do your boobs have to hurt? Oh, because this is nothing compared to when your milk comes in or the first three weeks of nursing. (You first timers will have to trust me on this. I told you adoption is a beautiful beautiful thing. So is bottle-feeding.)

You are cranky. Oh, you think I’m cranky, huh? Well, you are a #($&#^H@ that @&#%%* your @&#&$&. Remember, it’s not you, it’s the alien. And boy do aliens have attitudes and potty mouths. They must have been raised in a barn with a bunch of sailors on Mars. You don’t have to attend confession for anything you think while pregnant because you are being controlled and manipulated by an alien who only watches rated R movies.

You are nauseous. But mostly you are terrified that cake will never taste good again. The smell of cooking meat will put you over the edge as well as pumpkin spice candles, bath and body works, and your mother. When your hubby’s deodorant starts in with its assault on your sinuses, you will know that round 2 is on it’s way. Do you know I still about barf anytime I smell pumpkin spice candles and that aversion happened during my first pregnancy 15 years ago?…it has NEVER gone away.

You are starving, even if you just ate. This would normally be a great excuse to pig out on whatever you want. It’s too bad nothing sounds good anymore. You may have to resort to a cup of warm ovaltine a few times a day. And then when you feel up to it, eat a whole bag of chips or whatever else you get a hankering for…just be prepared for the uncontrollable sobs that will most definitely follow. WHY? Why can’t I control myself? It’s the alien. You must have gotten the fattest one.

You have cravings that are brutal and unrelenting. Nothing sounded good a minute ago before you sat down on the couch with your cup of ovaltine, but now if you don’t get a teriyaki bowl from Panda Express AND a pralines and cream milkshake from Baskin Robbins and a pickle, you may go ballistic. When your hubby gets home with all three in hand a half an hour later and after taking one bite, you puke everywhere. Then you cry and tell him it doesn’t sound good anymore and that your birthday is ruined forever more. (This is a hypothetical, I’m absolutely NOT speaking from experience here because if I was then that would also rat out my husband who then refused to make any food runs for the duration of my following eight pregnancies – this too shall pass, he would say)

Think about the alien and pretend you already birthed him out of your body. Smile at your man and apologize before bursting into tears. While he holds back your hair as you puke up that one bite that somehow multiplied by fifty into the toilet, soothe your soul with the thought that at least he is sticking around – the husband silly – of course you don’t want the alien to stick around. But try to be understanding. Once in a while you may find the alien asleep and that’s when you can give your hubby a break from pregnancy and tell him go play ball with the guys…..as long as he brings you a 12″ sub on the way home….without pickles.

Your whole body feels exhausted. You don’t understand why you just want to sleep all the time. In fact if you don’t get double the sleep that you used to get you start getting shaky. Just know that the alien is using your veins and arteries as roller coasters and your organs as skate parks, and your heart as a trampoline. Your brain makes a perfect corn maze and your digestive track is like the most awesome water slide park ever. Your bones are teething toys and your muscles are just doing their best not to completely disappear from fear. Take that nap and that day or week off work if that is what you have to do. The alien is not going away. Your only consolation is that the baby and uterus is off limits for this alien and soon enough it will trap the alien in your upper body while the baby starts using your ribs as a punching bag and your bladder as a soccer ball.

You have to drive everywhere because if anyone else drives your upchucking will be at high alert.

You should really buy stock in cold cereal because that is all you are going to eat for a while especially when you just have to feed that alien every night at 3 a.m.

You have never had heartburn like this. The alien gets really mad after being trapped in your upper body and he starts throwing up acid in your esophagus. You are just going to have to deal with it because your baby won’t appreciate you taking most over the counter medicines.

You feel like you will never be yourself again. And you won’t, but once the alien is flushed away with the after-birth, your new you will be a huge improvement.

You feel hopeless. But when you look into the eyes of the person you protected from said alien for ten months, your world will be consumed by hope.

You feel defeated. And this will progressively get worse until your child is a teenager at which point your defeat will max out.

You lose all bladder control. Yeah, I’d like to tell you this will go away too, but it won’t. From now on whenever you sneeze or cough or laugh, you will have to cross your legs for extra safety.

You just want to curl up in a ball and wake up after 10 months. I actually recommend this route.

You want to be babied, but you don’t want to need to be babied. And this feeling will continue for approximately 12-24 months until you start getting regular sleep again. If you are lucky, you will get a husband who will trade off between the fierce oscillating babying and needing to be babied.

Don’t worry when you catch him on the verge of tears after work one day because of a totally overwhelming panic attack caused by his inability to deal with all the changes that just keep happening daily and the fact that his wife is not the person he married. Remember as you asked him to remember for you that it’s the alien’s fault. Remind him that it will be o.k. It’s just that he never had permission to express his emotions while the alien was around. He was so good at being strong for you and you love him for eternity. He’ll recover, as will you, it will just take about five years for full recovery and meanwhile you will have a ball of energy to feed, change, bathe, and keep alive, as well as teach to walk, talk, sleep, and potty-train. You are both going to be too busy to stay overwhelmed so keep the nervous breakdowns brief and hope that you both can trade off between healthy and crazy.

Of course, if you have another baby, your recovery time will double. Don’t even think about it right now. The alien may decide to increase its test efforts for you and you really don’t want to hear about what that sounds like…it may include you pooping on a doctor while in delivery. (Really, I never did that. I swear. I just heard it happens. And yes, I made my husband watch to make sure. It’s the least he could do after implanting that alien in me for 10 months.)

Mom, I’m here. Don’t forget me.

I sounded so crabby at the therapist’s office the other day while explaining my mixed emotions about being 40 and pregnant, “I’ve never been the kind of woman who was like, ‘Oh, please let me bear children. It’s my life dream to have a whole houseful of darlings. My only ambition is to be a mother.’ ” In fact, even though I’ve always assumed I would have a large family and was even quoted in my high-school yearbook that I planned to have a dozen kids, I have also been quite conflicted about it ever since I can remember. I love kids. I came from a large family that I also love. But, I have always also been full of dreams and ambitions that had nothing to do with family. In fact, I knew kids would just get in the way of a lot of what I wanted to do: graduate from college, serve in the Peace Corps, write a book or two, travel, and have a successful career in one thing or another.

I further explained to the therapist, “I’m a willing vessel, I’m just a broken one.” LeGrand and I both chuckled. Ain’t that the truth! He knows it even more intimately than I do. I am a very spiritual person and I try to live my life in communication with God. This is a good thing and a bad one. Because I listen to the voice of God, my life is always full of conflict. What He wants for me always seems to be in direct opposition of what I want for myself.

I remember when my hubby and I had been married for just a month. We went to the temple together and separated to do some work. I was 24, he was 22. We were both in college and working full-time. After we were done with our service in the temple, we walked out to the car hand in hand, both very quiet. Something was up. You could cut the dark sky in front of us with a pocketknife. My newer-than-new husband turned to me and said, “Alice, I felt it too, we are supposed to start our family now, and have joy in our posterity.” Nooooooooooo. I couldn’t keep the spiritual impressions I had felt in my own heart a secret like I had planned. This was crazy, but it was also undoubtedly what God wanted for us. I knew that this family business would rob me of all if not most of my own dreams. It took me six months to even become willing to go off birth control and then I was still resentful. And pregnant.

So, bring us up to the present day. We have four kids. I’ve had four miscarriages. I am forty and pregnant. Four seems to be an important number for me right now. This is my fourth and final blog. I know many people are reasonably questioning the child growing inside of me. Heck, they can’t question any more than I am. I am questioning. My husband is questioning. The only ones who are not questioning are our four children. They couldn’t be any more excited. Kids are really good at instinctively knowing what is most important…plus they don’t have to worry about paying the bills or losing three years of sleep.

I’d like to take this chance to explain and write down this little tale so that I will always remember it. There is one reason and one reason alone I am pregnant. The reason is that this child spoke to me from its pre-mortal realm. In August of 2012, my hubby and I found ourselves again at the temple. I had just suffered a pretty brutal miscarriage at 18 weeks. As we sat in the chapel, I turned to my husband and said, “LeGrand, I am not praying about this today, but I just want to be done having kids. I’m 38. I’m so tired, and I don’t think I can handle it emotionally anymore.” LG answered with his full support, “It’s up to you Alice. I don’t blame you. I don’t want you to have to go through that again either.” I wasn’t going to pray about it because I didn’t want any other answer from God besides my own.

mom im here

But something miraculous happened. Something I couldn’t deny. God sent a messenger to the temple that day. In the spirit form of a child. My child. The one I hadn’t yet given birth to.

It’s hard to explain the special place that are Mormon temples. They are very sacred. God is always there. They are a place where the veil between two worlds is very thin. In the temple I’ve felt the presence of many of my deceased loved ones who have gone on before me. They have been there with me often, telling me that they are watching over me.

I never expected to be visited by someone who had yet to come to earth, but somebody had an important message that day. One that I really didn’t want to hear. In fact it was the last thing I wanted to hear.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked behind me to see no one there but to feel someone as assuredly as if they were standing there. There was no doubt someone was there. I then heard an audible voice, “Mom, I’m here. Please, don’t forget me.”

I instantly started bawling. How selfish I am! How easily distracted I become. I so willingly forget that this earth-life isn’t about gaining the adventures that I want to have, but is all about being willing to take on the ones that I already promised God (and others) that I would achieve. My most important calling in this life is to be a vessel, even if I’m the most broken one that there ever was. I answered with a pledge in my heart, “I won’t. I promise. I could never forget you.” It took me sixteen more months to get pregnant again. Every day I was haunted by the pleading of my child. I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant or stay pregnant. I convinced myself that it was just the miscarried kid talking to me. I would maybe get to meet him at a later day in heaven. I told God that if he wanted it to happen, forty was as high as I was willing to go. Miraculously, I got pregnant on the first cycle after my 40th birthday, almost as if God wanted me to know that he got the message. But also in typical God-fashion..in the 11th hour…after we’ve been tested to the limit.

I’ve vacillated between anxiousness, depression, and elation. I’m only four months in and I’ve already had to give up my running, my plans to go back to school and work, and a portion of my sanity. A big chunk of money that was put aside for our new home will now be used for doctor bills and baby items. I worry every day that this child will have special needs, but one thing dismisses my many worries. There is one thing that I will always know: this child is special. More than anything, this child wanted a chance to be mortal. He knew that for that to happen I had to be his mama. He traveled from wherever he was all the way to the temple to remind me of my promise long ago to not forget. I smile at his bravery and his audacity because he chose the day that I least wanted to hear it to remind me.

And then I cringe at what is in store for him. He’s going to be stubborn. He’s going to be brave. He’s going to have his own ideas. He will also have a mother to remind him that more than anything he wanted to come to earth because that is what God wanted him to do. I will remind him as much as I will myself: We might as well keep on listening to God…no matter how much harder it seems to make our lives and how much it robs us of our own dreams and ambitions. Ultimately we both will have to answer for how we used our time on earth and every single one of our choices. God will never be concerned with how much we traveled or achieved, His main concern is for the immortality and eternal life of all of His children. For that to happen, He first has to get them to earth….even if the vessel is forty and all washed up. All we can hope for is our own willingness to say, “I am a vessel, God. I am broken but I am here and I am listening.”

* I say “he” because I have this secret wish that the lucky number five will be the son for which I’ve prayed for my husband, but we are 99.9% sure that “he” is really Vivienne. There is always that .01% though, I’ll let you know in a couple of weeks.

Blue boobs.

Stuff was heavy on my heart last night. Two things in-particular.

Yesterday I posted on Facebook about two subjects that are extremely annoying to me: breastfeeding in public and BYU. Ha ha. My Mormon friends who know how many babies are born to college students at BYU might find this ironic combination hysterical. I sure do.

Now, as you all know from my last post, for some reason, I am extremely emotional this week. My overabundance of emotion may explain the guilt I was feeling over these two totally random facebook posts. It wasn’t necessarily the posts that made me feel guilty but two of the responses I received.

One of my young friends was really hurt by my “throw a blanket over it” philosophy. It wasn’t the first and won’t be the last time I disagree with a nursing mom on the ease of covering up while breastfeeding, but the love I feel for this mom who will not back down about my “modesty and politeness-to-others over comfort of baby” stance had my heart bleeding. It just didn’t feel worth the argument to me anymore.

Also, a family member had posted a reply to the BYU post, but then deleted it. She had reprimanded me for not being kind (as I had posted something early about kindness being a large tenet of my faith.) I responded with a comment that stated that I believed that saying I was not a fan of BYU wasn’t unkind…..but as I lay there last night, I was questioning my extreme dislike of BYU. Those of you who really know me, know how deep my hatred goes. Was it unkind? Was I unkind? Isn’t it really all those jerky BYU people that need to come down off their high horses? Doesn’t everyone know that?

I fell asleep with tears rolling down my cheeks and both of these interactions (among a few other things) weighing heavy on my heart. I was an emotional wreck last night and LG’s arm around me was the only thing that calmed me down until my sleeping meds. kicked in. As heavy as the subjects were nagging at my conscience, I am totally shocked I didn’t dream all night of a blue boob-out at the Wilkinson Center, a BYU football game with a stadium full of crying hungry babies covered by blankets, or perhaps Cosmo the Cougar stripping down to nothing to reveal his true identity as a woman with a latched on baby cat.

I then woke up first thing this morning to this video…

This video is so beautiful. The subject of not bullying is important to me. After 12 hours of guilt, yet still not wanting to change, I couldn’t help but feel like a bully with my overheated opinions on BYU and breastfeeding. I wondered if my intolerances (no matter how petty) had really caused someone pain.

This lecture by Dieter F. Uchtdorf continues to effect my life profoundly. It is probably very poignant to me because no matter how kind I profess to be, it exposes some of my biggest weaknesses. I pretty much fail at this 5 question test every time I take it.

Do you harbor a grudge against someone else?
Do you gossip, even when what you say may be true?
Do you exclude, push away, or punish others because of something they have done?
Do you secretly envy another?
Do you wish to cause harm to someone?

O.k. maybe I get a 20% because I can honestly say I don’t really want to cause harm to anyone. Except for the guard on our favorite basketball team. He reminds me of some guys I know personally who are trash talking and arrogant typical hot-headed jerky Mormon basketball players. (The kind that act all nice and righteous in real life but let it all go to pot when on the court. – I admittedly have an open wound because of guys like this.) I totally told my husband on the way out of the game last night that even though he is on “our team” I would love to see him get what is coming to him. I am certain he would run off with his tail between his legs (kind of like he did last night) as his type are prone to do. Dang-it, I’m back to a 0%.

As I pondered further I realized that BYU and breastfeeding would be in the honest answers I would give to several of these 5 probing inquiries. I realized that both subjects are really just surface scapegoats for the bigger causes that are super important to me: being kind and cognizant of those around us.

And then I realized I was a hypocrite. How can I expect others (BYU grads and breast-feeders in-particular) to be kind, humble, and polite to those around them when I am not willing to budge and give them the same benefit-of-the-doubt that I belittle them for not having?

So, this post is a long way of saying I’ve had a change of heart.

Go Cougars. Breastfeed away.

I offer you my sincerest apologies for being awful and (albeit still with a great amount of hesitance) I promise to try and not just give you the benefit of the doubt but to sincerely LOVE you wherever you are on your journey – even when you are extremely arrogant and especially when you are bare-chested.

I won’t ever matter.

I’ve been having a rough week. I am feeling things extremely deep. I can’t make it stop. So many things keep penetrating my heart and are pushing me over the edge toward a blinding dark. I am not depressed – thank you wellbutrin. I am just in a bubble of over-emotion that I can’t escape. I will escape eventually, but I’ve learned to just ride it out. Try to stay calm. Don’t over-burden others by dumping on them (unless they read my blog of course.) They don’t understand anyways.

I don’t know why God gave me this excess of emotion. I dare say it makes me a more compassionate person, but I don’t always appreciate it. I especially don’t appreciate the passion that comes along with my package…the opinions I cannot keep contained, no matter how hard I try. I don’t like suffering via proxy. I don’t like feeling a deep emptiness because of a child lost as if he is my own, when he wasn’t. I don’t want to feel the extreme frustration accompanying a whole lot of friends dealing with medical nightmares. I don’t even know how this sympathetic state always happens to me. I don’t know how I can lose sleep for other people, but it happens all of the time. I cry into my pillow because the pains of this harsh world get to be way too much and I can’t figure out how to hide away. An alternative solution would be to find a superhero costume maker that could repel such empathy from entering my heart and mind – too bad none exist – It would make my life so much easier. But, life wasn’t meant to be easy. We each have our own cross to carry. My cross just seems to consist of everyone else’s on some days. It hurts me so much. I have physical pain and emotional burden because of others’ pains. I feel it for those I love most, but I also feel it for complete strangers.

Now that I sound like a complete lunatic, I will get on with the intended post. I’ve been following Our Scared Sacred from one of my favorite bloggers over at Momastery. The intention of the series was to get people to think about their biggest fears and to make the courageous decision to show up WITH the fear instead of waiting for it to subside. So, I took a really crazy scary journey of thought this morning and delved into my overly excessive emotional well. I sifted through all the other peoples’ pains to find my own. I had to explore the deepest darkest part, but I think I came up with an honest answer: I am afraid I will never matter.

I am afraid that when I die, no one will show up at my funeral. I am afraid that I won’t be remembered. I am afraid that my beautiful amazing daughters would be a million times better off with another mother, ANY other mother. I am afraid that my middle-child syndrome is not a syndrome at all, but that I really am invisible to everyone around me. I am afraid my husband will replace me like he does his cell phone every couple years: upgrade to the latest and greatest, only to leave the old one discarded with it’s broken screen, slow processor, and crowded memory stick. I am convinced that no-one sees anything in me worth honoring or admiring. I am afraid that no-one on this earth will care when I am gone. No-one will even mourn. In fact, I am sure everyone will be relieved that my obnoxiousness is no more cumbersome to them. Good riddance. I am afraid not only that I will never matter in the future but that I have also never mattered in the past, and that I don’t really matter in the present.

I guess this very real fear explains my love for blogging. Here is where I go to leave my stamp, my DNA, my thought. I throw out my opinions, my emotions, myself and leave it with a hope and prayer that, perhaps if I am very lucky, someday someone will stumble upon it and decide that I matter. They will be touched by one sentence or one word and be changed and then in that moment between my words and them I will have succeeded at conquering my fear: I will have made myself matter.

It’s a daily struggle for me to believe I matter. Perhaps I try to make myself matter by mourning with others. Perhaps I make myself matter by over-feeling. Perhaps I just wish that someone would really care for me, so I try to overcompensate by caring too much for everyone but myself.

Someday I will believe that I matter.

Someday.

Here is where I find my spark of mattering. I write and hope that the spark will ignite to its full potential before I die. I want to believe that if not a single soul shows up at my bedside when I take my last breath, I will die knowing that I mattered.

And perhaps the only reason I will have mattered is because you mattered to me.

Maybe others matter to me so very much because the more I care for them, the more I can believe that they actually care for me.

The parable of the cinnamon roll.

I am blessed with many wonderful friends.
I am a lucky girl in the friend department.
This parable really happened.
It has a great moral & spiritual lesson.
I think Jesus would approve.

One day in my living room I sat chatting about life with two friends. One friend was a few decades younger then I and the other one a decade older. The younger friend is extremely bright and a total whiz on the computer, especially when it comes to genealogy research. The older friend is a piano instructor and a lover of all things music/literature. Important to the story is the knowledge that all three of us friends are decent in the kitchen. We can all cook. I would say we are each above average cooks. I know this because I am a food connoisseur and have eaten yummy samples from all of us.

As we sat chatting, both ladies thanked me for the delicious cinnamon rolls I had delivered to their doors the week before. Ironically, the older and more experienced of us three was the one to lament that she had yet to perfect her cinnamon rolls. “They always turn out really dry and I don’t know how to fix it,” she complained. Both the twenty something friend and myself both agreed that her answer was quite simple: stop adding too much flour into the dough. The older friend said she would give it another shot.

A few weeks later my older, wiser, and way more accomplished friend was ecstatic to report to me that for the first time in her life, she finally perfected the cinnamon roll. It just took one easy adjustment…the adjustment suggested by her two younger less-experienced friends: less flour. She was happy, but I think I was happier. I was happy at her accomplishment (even when she didn’t share her spoils – how dare she!?!), but the most joy in the moment came from the simple truth that real friends help each other be better. They don’t compete with each other. They don’t have to pretend to be something they are not. Real friends can honestly admit disappointment in themselves and can help lift each other to a higher plane.

Real friends share their cooking tips because no matter how much I want life to be about the cinnamon rolls, it isn’t. Life is about relationships and the world needs more friends who are willing to share their title of perfect cinnamon roll maker – even if they don’t share them every time.

Oh yeah, and here is the recipe. It was shared with me by another real friend who lives in TN. It’s a good thing she taught me how to make her cinnamon rolls for myself or I would be in a bad bad place void of the ooey gooey goodness.

Snow in Appalachia

My daughter Abigail gets so mad when she has to correct people on the correct pronunciation of The Appalachian Mountains. Out here in the western U.S. everyone seems to think that everyone should say App a Lay shun.

Abigail knows with every fiber of her being that the correct pronunciation is App a La (a like apple) chin. I mean, Hello, everyone knows that! But people out here in Utah don’t know it and they do dare correct her all of the time. She tells them they are ignorant which I think is pretty awesome and kind of ironic. I would discourage her from the fight, but I am proud of her Southern blood and she did live in TN for eight years of her life so I understand it’s kind of her duty.

Check out this picture of a family friend who dressed up with her husband as rednecks. They nailed it with the crashed NASCAR and everything. Man, I miss the south. I especially loved its quirky sides. I miss blogging about it.

In the last twenty-four hours there has been a lot of buzz about how the South is full of a bunch of idiots who can’t navigate the road in bad weather. It really upsets me. Anyone who dares criticize has never had to navigate a shady icy windy holler with ditches on both sides. Trust me, it’s not a fun experience.

If you don’t believe me, go check out this video of a very long traffic pile-up in Atlanta. Count how many truck-trailers were involved and remind yourself that these guys drive all over the United States….they know how to navigate in the weather…they just can’t possibly keep their vehicle under control on a road that was covered in ice then piled with snow that will not be salted or plowed…and even if it was, it still may not free it of ice.

Because I have lived in the South, I want to stand by my daughter in defense of the Southerners…sometimes Appalachian Americans are smarter then you babbling Yankees…sometimes you really are the ignorant ones. I know it’s hard to swallow. I’m sure you feel kind of how I felt the first time I tried out one of their fancy rest-stops…total mind-blown.

To be fair though, sometimes Appalachian Americans can be total idiots, just like the rest of us. Here’s a good joke.

Two rednecks were given a special SAT test to meet their admission requirements to the Military Academy. Soon after the test began the first guy turns to the second guy and asks, “Old MacDonald had a what?

The other replies, “He had a farm.”

The first asks, “How do you spell it?”

To which the second replied, “E-I-E-I-O.”

Perhaps, the thing I love about Southerners the most is that they laugh freely at themselves. I sure miss that.

Oh and I have to add this. I also love how Southerners aren’t afraid to trash talk especially when it comes to their abilities in college sports.

Happy Frozen kind of Friday

Happy Friday y’all.

It is the weirdest thing looking back at old photos.
Especially as a mother who is not just intimate with the toddler face
but also the current one that is so very different and bigger and older.
I find my heart traveling back to meet my baby girl where she was
and then I have to pull it back to the present.

The present consists of oatmeal {still her favorite} for breakfast
along with Frozen video after video.
This is her current favorite.

She just finished her breathing treatments for
her poor asthmatic induced cough that never seems to cease.

Then we are off to her favorite place. PRE-SCHOOL.
{It happens to be one of my favorite places too.}
Instead of getting my physical workout during pre-school today
I am looking forward to an emotional session of marriage counseling.

Then I am taking the kids out to lunch.
I totally bribed them NOT to do the science fair.
Sometimes, I am an unconventional underachieving cool mom like that.
Maybe I will look up a science project I can do at McDonald’s.
{I think we should buy an extra hamburger and let it sit out awhile.

Then I will be babysitting and helping my hubby pack for a “frozen” scout camp this weekend.
It’s too bad he doesn’t have a pet reindeer to keep him warm.

For My Sugar Daddy

I am tempted to just write the lyrics:

I’m your lady.

You are my man.

Whenever you reach

for me,

I’ll do all that I can.

But that would just be cheezy.

And we know you only call me lady when you are rebuking me.

But I am your lady.

And you are my man.

And whenever you reach for me,

I have done all that I can.

It was the times that you didn’t reach for me that were painful.

Because I couldn’t do anything to help.

Here are some old photos from that fun date-night at The Velour

when we went to see The Hinckley Brothers.

Doesn’t that seem like years ago?

Oh yeah, because it was.

I am catching up on all my old blog drafts and when I found this one this morning it made me smile.

One hundred percent of my best memories include you Mr. Gold, I hope you know that.

I can’t wait to make many many more….including the more recent one from last night, when my pants didn’t fit and you hugged me while I cried and told me I was beautiful just the way I am. You are the best.

Evolving

I used to trap myself in the ideal that people shouldn’t change, and then I went to therapy. I now realize that people not only can change, but they should. Change has made me a much happier person.

As you know, last year I made the hard decision and retired this successful spot online. I moved on to a great little blog that was created for the purpose of supporting myself through some changes, specifically learning to love being a stay-at-home mom. I am proud of what I created here and what I created at InLoveatHome, but I can’t stop changing. I’m evolving all the time and I am sick of jumping ship when a subject gets uninteresting to me.

I came up with a solution….create a blog that allows for evolution. Make myself a place where I am not confined to writing about funny things or even things about the home. I wanted a place that would support me in my aspirations to write. My youngest is going to kindergarten this year, and I want to really dig in to my dream of writing a novel. I can’t shake the haunting feeling that I am not getting any younger, and I shouldn’t wait for a sunnier day.

So, with great risk of looking like a total fool I have created a space just for me. O.k it’s only 1/8th of a place so far. I still have a lot of work to do.

If you feel so inclined to follow me or support me in my dream, please know you are welcome to join me at my new blog. The title bears my name and I hope to stay there for, well, forever. See you there. alicewgold