School

Prom Night

Look at what I spotted downtown on Saturday night.

A baseball playing kid who thinks he belonged at prom back in 1979.

Wow! I wonder if his date approved of his “statement”.

Maybe she should have called in Taylor Swift to pick her boyfriend as her publicity stunt.
It is so nice to be 32 and comfortable in plain old clothes that are comfortable. (oh and I just re-read this and I am 34, not 32 – wishful thinking, I guess)

Tears of Joy
I now have a very intimate connection to this scripture:

John 16:20
Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.
Here is the name of my husband on the list of those who passed the TN Bar.
G
SHAHERYAR SHER GILL
JENNIFER LAUREN GILLIS
AUTUMN LYNNE GILLMORE
REBECCA BISSON GOBER
LEGRAND GOLD
ANTHONY BRADLEY GRAY
ANTHONY NICHOLAS GRECO
DOUGLAS SCOTT GRISWOLD
SAMANTHA KAY GROSLAND
JORDAN MITCHELL GWIAZDON

Here is the picture of me in the car, driving with my knee, talking on my cell phone, crying tears of relief and joy, while simulatenously capturing the moment for my blog.

P.S. I am seriously considering re-naming my blog to “My Life in My Minivan”

A Note from Ms. Nitz

I have blogged before about Sophia trying to outgrow her shyness.

A while back, I sent a note into Sophia’s teacher to inquire about any areas we could help Sophia improve upon. We had gotten her report card and it said she could work on something to do with language skills.

Here is the note that Ms. Nitz sent back home.

We have talked with Ms. Nitz before about Sophia fitting in socially and Ms. Nitz always tells us that she trys to pay extra attention to kids like Sophia. Ms. Nitz has said, “When children are so delightful and quiet they can easily be forgotten about.”

So, you can imagine my quandry when she sent this note home. Was she serious? Or was she just trying to play with us on Sophia’s quiet and less than excited personality?

I have confused some readers here already, so let me write a little more. Ms. Nitz was serious, Sophia needed to learn how to recognize the word shouted in her book and how the exclamation point is used. Ms. Nitz was not in a “round about” way trying to tell us that Sophia needed to learn how to shout or get excited. When I tend to try and find humor in everything I confuse myself a lot of the time. I was confused over this note until my hubby explained it to me, and I am sorry for not being more concise with the original story.

Karma

My husband, LeGrand, and I recently made a huge change in our control of finances. He took over the bills and the budget. I have done such a fabulous job for the past ten years, that we decided he should take a turn. Or, I needed to reign myself in more efficiently. But, hey, I am proud that he has never tried to control me, it was all my idea!

I really have done a great job giving us a fairly normal life for the past four years of grad school. Being a stay home mom with three kids and a partially working husband has not been easy, to say the least. But, having LG take over has been an even more exciting challenge. Let’s just say that my eyes have been opened to a whole new penny pinching world. And, so have his. It’s supposed to get better after school, not worse.


These are just a few of the law books

that the money from our budget

paid for in the past four years.

The total amount paid for law school:

trust me, when I say,

you don’t want to know.

(Besides, we really haven’t
paid for anything but the books –
we have the next 30 years for that)

This is the milk dripping off the car last Saturday.
We had gone to Sam’s Club
and I dropped the milk in route from the cart to the van.

To salvage the rest of the gallon,
I placed the upside down container (hole on top)
inside a shopping bag.

I had LG hold it just at the right angle,
out the window of the car, all the way home.

By the time we got home,
there was only a remaining half gallon
(but hey, in today’s world that adds up to $2.25)

Did I mention that it was cold and raining outside?
It took LG’s arm a good 1/2 hour to defrost.

And, even though he wouldn’t admit it,
he was laughing inside when after he complained
I purposefully ran through that mud puddle .
(The kids and I didn’t even try to hide our amusement)

This is the vanilla that I wish I would have known about.

My self proclaimed budget at Sam’s was $100, and when I reached my limit, I left the desired vanilla behind.

The next day, when I reached my desired $80 budget at the grocery store, I again left the vanilla on the shelf.

Two hours later, I had to borrow some from the neighbor.

Sixteen hours after I borrowed, I found this little culprit in the back of my shelf, hiding behind all my spices.


This is the brand new bottle of Clorox wipes.

When we got it out of it’s package, there were no wipes inside, just suds. The estimated worth of the missing wipes…$3.

I think that Sam’s Club is out to get me.

This is me at the bank trying to redeem a twelve dollar service charge.

The bank closed out our overdraft credit card last year without telling us. (Good for us, we never used it)

Now, the bank it trying to penalize us for not having the correct kind of checking. (it needs to be linked to a line of credit)

I have no idea why it took the bank eight months to finally give us a service charge. I think they waited just long enough so that they could make us reapply for the credit. Is there a conspiracy?

LG told me that if I could get the $12 back it was ALL MINE! So, after getting nowhere with customer service on the phone, I carted a couple of kids into the local branch. Sophia took my picture.

So, on to the Karma. Since January when LG took over the finances, he has become notorious for leaving all of our money in savings, except for what we absolutely HAVE to have. Whenever I go to the store, I have discovered that I better call and make sure that we have money in checking. I cannot tell you how many times my card has not gone through. I have gotten onto LG about this several times. It is so embarrassing! And especially frustrating when you have just wrestled your way all the way through the vastness Wal-Mart with three kids in tow.

Friday night we stopped to rent some movies. Food City has a great deal: 5 catalog movies for five nights for $5. LG was standing with the girls as I went to check out. What happened? Do you have to ask? My debit card was declined for the third time of the week. I paid with my credit card, while shooting LG a look and explaining to the clerk that we really do have money. Let’s just say LG and I didn’t do much talking the rest of the night. He thought that I had spent too much money, and I knew he just didn’t transfer enough money. He went to his laptop to crank out the numbers and I came to my refuge that we call the blog. One hour later, he came out and apologized. He said it would never happen again. We made up.

Fast forward. It is Saturday night at 11:30 PM; LG has not arrived home from the church yet. I begin to worry. He comes running in the door, asking me where his Discover Card is. “I don’t know, it was laying out on the table last I saw it”, I reply. I had washed LG’s wallet the week before, when it was “misplaced” for the thousandth time. (Everything is misplaced to LG, not lost, because he always finds it eventually – he is still searching for his first three wedding bands) LG had transferred the contents of his wallet to his new wallet that was gifted to him by Abigail at Christmastime, and he couldn’t find his credit card.

I inquired, “What do you need it for?” LG shrugged, “I just went and got gas and my debit card was declined. I couldn’t find my credit card either, and the clerk said she was going to call the authorities. I tried to go to the ATM and take it out, but even though I transferred the money last night, it wasn’t in there. I tried to take it out of savings, but the bank said that service wasn’t provided with our account.” I promptly ran to pay for his gas. When I got home we did a thorough search for the missing Discover Card…..it was right in his wallet the whole time.

It’s a good thing the man has a sense of humor…because you know I was laughing AT him the whole time. It made me feel better that he was laughing too.

Hey, you’re scary.
That’s better.
Your eyes are closed.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.

Underpaid Profession

I would NEVER want to be a teacher for various reasons that I don’t have to go into right now..I must sleep.

I honor and love teacher and am so grateful for them, but they are so under appreciated by society as a whole it is pathetic…it looks as if students are treating their teachers at an all new level of low.

The world just isn’t the same…what happened to kids being kids? When I was in High School it was considered way CRAZY just to spit in the teacher’s coffee when she wasn’t looking.

27 Chicks

Every day between Sophia’s kindergarten pickup and Abigail’s pickup, I go over to the Aders, and Valerie and I walk while we let the kids play. We want to show up her hippy sons when we hike with them on the Appalachian trail for a couple of days. (they don’t think we can do it)

On Thursday, the Aders added 28 baby chicks to the 4 baby ducks that I already posted about. Abigail was heartbroken after hearing Sophia and Bella tell her all about the chicks, and so after school yesterday, we all went back to the Aders so that Abigail could get her turn to see the baby chicks.

I was heartbroken to hear that my runt (the first one that Valerie put in my hand – what a great first experience – it kind of convulsed and pooped on me) had died in the night…Valerie gave her a proper burial by chucking her over the back fence into the BEYOND at the beginning of our walk. Later, I realized that we should have at least given the runt a name before we disposed of her…as an afterthought I would like to affectionately call her Chicken Little.

As you heard in the video, as of yesterday at 3:00 the chickens had no names. Me, being the animal lover that I am, can not let any living thing go nameless. Valerie’s sister gave her the idea of painting the baby chicks toenails to help her differentiate them while they grew.

So, yesterday, every one of the chicks got their toenails polished (Abigail was a great help with this task) and a name….here they are:

1- Mary (she is calm and peaceful like the Mary’s in the scriptures)

2- Janice (she is loud and annoying, like Chandler’s ex-girlfriend on Friends)

3- Deeny (she was an escape artist just like Hoodini)

4-Henny Penny (she is a gold chicken with silver nail polish – she had to be named after money)

5- Strawberry (she is a sweet chick with red nail polish)

6- Diana (gold chick with purple nail polish – Purple and Gold were my HS colors and the Lancers were our mascots – we named her after royalty)

7- Big Momma (she is one big chick)

8- Angelina ( she had pink nail polish with feathers stuck to her toes, she is named for the ballerina)

9- Jo (she’s the little tomboy)

10- Shaniqua (she’s the black chick)

11- Frances (she’s got the French manicure)

12- FloJo (she is black, fast, and has fancy silver nails)

13- Whoopi (black and full of life)

14- Dora (the boys named her – she’s got a spot on her neck, totally irrelevant)

15- Jemima (another black chick)

16- Addie (she’s a crazy chick we added the I E to the A D D)

17 – Decrescendo (when you pick her up, she’s really loud, and then she quiets down)

18- AnnaBelle (she tried to eat Valerie’s hand)

19- Molly (she wanted to get back in the pack with all the other chicks real bad, we named her after all the other Molly Mormons that we know who are tryint to keep up)

20- Jane (she was just a plain old not exciting chick)

21- Ruby (the boys named this one)

22- Ginger (she pecked some red nail polish onto her beak and it made her look like she was wearing lipstick – we named her after the Gilligan’s Island star)

23- Fiona (she had bed head and was real grouchy- we just liked the name and thought her characteristics were in sync with an hogre)

24- Dorothy (she’s got a dot on her beak – we named her after my Grandma who hated to be called Dot for short)

25 & 26- MaryKate and Ashley (they’re identical twins)

27- Lucy (she got the sparkly nail polish, so we named her after a stripper – I wanted to name my Bella Lucy so badly, but my mother and another friend both told me that Lucy was a name for a stripper – I don’t agree but it ruined the name for me. But, HA, I showed them, I now have Bella and an adopted chicken named LUCY..and everyone LOVES LUCY)

Thanks for the memories Valerie! I cannot wait to keep painting toenails every Friday. And, I also can’t wait to get farm fresh eggs for real cheap!

She’s got the world at her feet.
This post should be read by mothers raising their first child,
it truly could save you some suffering in the long run!

I have to laugh whenever I see people boasting the talents of their toddlers. I am not laughing AT you my mother friends, just WITH you. (unless you aren’t laughing, and then I guess I am laughing at you) I so used to be the same way. I used to love to compare my little girl with other children. “Oh, yeah, she knows all of her alphabet, she can count to 100, and she has every Book of Mormon prophet memorized” and this was at the age of 2. (and this was the truth)

But, several years ago that child comparison game got very old for me. How did I get past it, you ask? I just birthed a few more kids that weren’t labeled as “prodigy material”. It only took me two seconds to realize that just because one child learns faster, it didn’t make her entitled to better success. My other two children are also very bright in their own ways, and they have every bit of a chance at success than Abigail does. (even if Bella is almost 5 and still doesn’t know how to write every letter)

I used to drill Abigail over and over again, and she loved it. My other two children, don’t love being drilled. And, I am happy to report that I have gladly accepted that they will learn most everything they need to know in school; I do not need to send them into school ready to pass kindergarten. (I did that with Abigail and all it did was lead to her own boredom)

Abigail could read at 3. She could do math by 4. She is extremely smart. In soccer, she can play a mean forward, but because she is even smart on the soccer field, she is put at midfield (she is smart enough to play offense and defense).

Abigail was labeled as “smart”, but what did that do for her? It hasn’t boosted her drive, it has only made it tainted. I recently read an article in the Reader’s Digest that says that a parent should not praise a child’s intellect, but their effort. We found this out the hard way.

Here’s the quote from the article, Inspire Your Kids:

Social psychologist Carol Dweck, PhD, tested the effects of overpraise on 400
fifth graders while she was at Columbia University. She found that kids praised
for “trying hard” did better on tests and were more likely to take on difficult
assignments than those lauded for being “smart.”

So, now that Abigail is 8, and still ingenious, what do we focus on? We focus on her motivation. We focus on the fact that just because she is smart it doesn’t mean that she can sluff.

It is a fine act of balancing. We want her to pave her own way, and not do things because we want it, but because she wants it. When I recently read this article I felt really good about not pushing her too hard. I knew there had to be a reason (besides our own laziness) that we shouldn’t have to stay on her case 24-7.

Little did I know, that Abigail has a great effect on other children. Do you remember Doogie Howser,? Well today, psychologists are calling The Doogie Howser effect good for competition. They say that because of overachieving children, normally developed children try harder. No wonder that Sophia and Bella are more driven, they are trying to keep up with Abigail. Abigail better watch it, or they will just pass her right by.

Consequently, I knew there was a reason that I recently have been learning not to compare myself to others. I just figured out that everyone has the world at their feet and everyone has a different role to play in that world. I don’t need to push myself because Doogie is a child doctor, I need to push myself towards the goals that I set for myself. Who cares what Doogie is doing?

And it is precisely for this new found knowledge: that of the Doogie Howser effect, that I am reminded again that LG is a genius and I am just one of those hamsters in the wheel trying to catch up. LG never pushes himself because someone else seems to be doing better than him. He truly doesn’t even pay attention to what other people are doing. When I used to ask him, “how did everyone else do on the final?” He would say, “I don’t know Alice, I really don’t care.” And he was serious…do you see how that can make a person emotionally healthier?

Why doesn’t he care, you ask, because he has always known that he is a genius. He was told so since he was a child. He was an oldest. And, as the oldest, what do you think that he is always working on? You got it, his motivation! (You see, this is just one big round cycle) Me, on the other hand, I was a middle child. I have always known that my intellect is average and that if I wanted to outdo others, (especially those people called my smart older siblings) it would come by pure effort alone. And, I am proud to say that I took that challenge head on.

Until recently, that is, when I learned that when you jump off the wheel, it means that you get automatic “smarter” status. Guess what, in the past few months, my IQ just jumped a good 20 points or so. Now, that’s what I call having the world at your feet.

Oh the comfort of a man!

I found this picture a couple of weeks ago while organizing all of our digital family photos. I thought it was so darling. Kitty Bear is just teeny and LG looks 10 years younger. (Wow, I know that law school took forever but I just didn’t realize just how long the law school phase of our lives has been!)


I just had to smile when looking at this photo because I think I have 3 other identical pictures, except for the other three photos are of LG and his other 3 babies: Abigail, Sophia, and Bella. To find those photos I would have to dig out the Tupperware, search, and scan; and because of the complications associated with retrieving medieval family photos, you will just have to trust me that these photos do actually exist.


Here is one previously scanned of LG and Abigail when she was not so baby, but nevertheless, it is still a cute picture.

So, I know my cute hubby, cat, or kids don’t make for the most interesting post. (most of you have probably already quit reading)

Back to the original post, not that it will interest you that much more. Our friends just blessed our lives in the most magnificent way. They gave us their 3 month old mattress! If you could only see the old cheap mattress that we have been using for the past 8 years, you would know how much of a real blessing this nice new pillow top feels to us. And, if any of you have the heebie jeebies thinking about accepting someones used mattress, then you obviously have not been as poor as we are. (So, please be kind with the comments)

We figure if we are poor, we also should let our children have a little taste of the poverty. Abigail has been complaining about her mattress for months. We finally got her an egg crate on top of it this week. While testing our new and improved mattress, Abigail squeezed right in between LG and I. I took the opportunity to ask her about her new egg crate bed. Her reply was simple, “Oh, I love the egg crate, now, I can’t feel the springs in my back!” Yes, we are equally pathetic around here! It’s no wonder a friend took pity.

Anyhow, I really wished I could post the look on LG’s face when he climbed into bed tonight: the look was that of pure elation! I have never seen him look more happy and comfortable at the same time. (A BIG THANKS to our anonymous bed givers!!!)

So, after we tried laying on the bed for a few minutes, we got the kids to bed. LG and I both headed to the bathroom for the nightly bed preparation. (brushing teeth, using the potty, taking the medicine) While LG was finishing up, I came out to check my e-mail and my blog. When LG appeared a little later, he inquired as to what I was doing. When I said oh so non-chalantly “oh, just checking my e-mail”, (notice I left out the blogging, not that LG didn’t read right through that) LG said, “O.k. I will wait up for you”.

I was not the least bit surprised when approximately 5 minutes later (no joke, no longer than 5 minutes) I hear the sound of pure exultation coming from my husband’s large frame….what is that noise exactly?, you ask….well, it’s close to the sound of a bear in hibernation…just one BIG snore after another! And, yes, I can hear it on the opposite end of the house.

I hurried and closed out my google reader to climb into bed with LG. (I hoped LG would have lost track of time and fall for the just checking e-mail thing) I also hoped that when I crawled into bed with LG that he would want to take advantage of some alone time. (wink, wink, if you know what I mean) Wow, I really must have been hallucinating. I should have known better. The guy has never owned a comfortable mattress of his own.

It took only 2.2 minutes and a nightly prayer for me to realize that I would NOT be able to keep LG’s interest tonight! The snoring immediately continued and provided all the answer I needed…so, here I am, blogging one very boring post.

The moral of the post: if you want to get some attention from your hubby, keep the old mattress…thanks again my anonymous friend, my love life is officially OVER!

But, oh, my hubby is SO comfortable, and now I have more time to blog. How can a woman complain?

Gender Roles
The gender roles: thank goodness they don’t have to be black and white.
When we were newlyweds, (10.5 years ago!!) LG and I took a sociology for the family class together. Of course, LG humored me by taking the sociology class. Soft sciences aren’t really his thing. (He had no idea at the time, that he married a girl whom would take him on a complex psychological journey) I forgot how fun that was to study together. We also took a health class together. (I had no idea at the time that we should have paid better attention to our health instruction)
Anyhow, I remember learning about gender roles in this sociology class and how their definitions are getting more and more intertwined. I was somewhat happy at the time feeling like it would be o.k. that I married a man who was more nurturing than me.
I also felt extremely validated because I had married a man who appreciated me for the strong willed girl that I am. I sometimes kid when I am trying to explain my differences from other women that I am a “manly girl”. (not in a gay way) I just enjoy doing things on my own and not being that damsel in distress.
Last night as LG and I were discussing our friends’ baby, LG said how impressed he was with our friend Dave’s ability to be nurturing. I said to him, “I love it, you are the exact same way.” and then I added, “I am not so nurturing, huh?” LG said, “You are with the babies.” (I will take that in a complimentary sort of way and add the realization that I can do a better job with my big grown babies – including LG)
Even though LG and I are still constantly trying to work out our gender roles, I am still a firm believer that the women were meant to be the nurturers and the men the protectors. (What else explains the fact that he can’t handle throw up and I couldn’t “kill off” that injured bird outside) I love it when I find scientific things that support the teachings of the church.