Marching Band

Friday evening was the Red Rocks Marching Band Competition in St. George, Utah. I had the opportunity to go along and watch Susan compete with our high school band (which shall remain nameless even though most of you already know where I live but I have to make some small effort to protect my identity just in case there is some freaky internet stalker who might wish to come and steal my beautiful children and murder me in my sleep).

For grandparents and other interested family who have never seen the band march, here is a short video of part of their competition routine. Susan is the adorable one wearing black and red.

Here she is up close. Isn't she a cutie? I sure love this kid.

She has been incredibly diligent and dedicated to this whole marching band thing. These kids meet to practice at 6:30am 4 days a week, with a two hour after school practice on the fifth day. In the summer they had two band camps, one in May and one in August, for a combined total of 18 days marching out in the hot sun. She's learned a lot, made tons of friends, and had a blast along the way.

And it all paid off when they won THIRD PLACE in the 2A division! What a great way to end the season! Everyone was happy and relieved and we all went back to the hotel and some of us stayed up most of the night being silly (hint: "some of us" means SUSAN and not her poor tired mother), which is what kids do on band trips, right?

Way to Go, DONS!

That doesn't give my location away, does it?

PayDay

So yesterday afternoon I walked into the kitchen, and my 14-year old was doing the dishes. It thrilled me that she was doing her job without me having to remind her. And then I realized something that propelled my already happy heart into the stratosphere: dishes were not her responsibility this week. She did them just because she noticed that they needed doing.

Surely this dream is too good to be true... but please, please don't wake me up!

Thanks, Susan! You RAWK.

A funny thing happened on the way home from the Orthodontist

After the shocking orthodontist appointment, I was famished, so we went to Taco Bell. Karianne was driving, and I thought it would be good for her to experience a drive through. She ordered successfully, and we pulled forward to the window. As we stopped, we both noticed at the same time that she was about three feet away from the window. She said, "Oh. Do I need to be closer?" I said, "Yes." And giggled.

Unfortunately, there was a car behind us, so backing up and angling closer was not an option. Just then the Taco Bell worker opened the window, and as luck would have it, it was Chelsea Talbert from our ward. She laughed with us about the unfortunate placement of our vehicle. Karianne opened her door and handed over the cash in exchange for our food. Chelsea continued laughing until we pulled away. I think Karianne's head deflated an inch or two right about then.

Seeing as how the dinner plans called for ingredients that I didn't have at home, Karianne then chauffeured Susan and me to Macey's, our family's favorite grocery store (that's their motto--and it's true!). When we got there, she parked perfectly, and we got out.

Karianne and I play this little game when we go somewhere together. Each of the front doors on the van has a master locking switch. We each try to be first locking the door. This time I won. I locked the door from the passenger side just as she closed the driver's side door. She did a little double take, and I grinned wickedly at her through the windows, to let her know that I had won. Then Susan shut her door and we went into the store.

We had a lovely time at Macey's. We smuggled in our Taco Bell bag, feeling all rebellious, and bought a 44oz Sprite to share at a table in the deli. After consuming this ridiculously late lunch (it was 4:30pm), I resisted buying the yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies at the bakery and instead put more sensible items into the cart, like egg nog, steak, candy, and ice cream. Hey. At least one of them is healthy. And the candy was for my cub scouts. Consider also the fact that I had two adorable, highly persuasive teenagers which I love with me, and well, you can see that I had no chance. Besides, this post is not about what I bought so why am I defending myself to you?

Anyway.

After handing over the money, we pushed the cart out of the store and to the van. I reached into my pocket for the keys. Nothing.

"Dang! Where are my keys?"

I looked in my purse for the keys. Nada. I turned to Karianne, aka "the driver", and said, "you have the keys, right?"

Karianne did not give the response I was hoping for. Instead, her eyes got big, I mean really big, and she ducked and slunk to the driver's side door while I repeated the futile search again, hoping for a different result the second time around. Who moved my cheese?!

"Mom? The van is still running."

This took a moment to soak into my Sprite marinaded mind. How could the van be running....?

Oh. NO. I turned and frowned at her in disbelief. Say it isn't so.

"Mom. The keys are in the ignition."

That's ok, I thought, since I have a spare key in my purse. My old purse. Which was sitting at home on the counter next to the toaster oven.

I clapped my hand to my forehead and raised my face to the sky in my best Luke Skywalker imitation. "Noooooooooooooo!"

I looked back at Karianne, who had mysteriously transformed from a confident teenager to a frightened little kid. I vaguely noticed the other shoppers in the parking lot staring in our direction. And then I laughed. The ridiculousness of the situation couldn't be ignored. Sure, she'd gotten out of the car without turning it off and walked away, but I was the one who locked the door. Actually it would have been impossible for Karianne to lock the door on her side--the van will not lock from the driver's side if the keys are in the ignition. And because I was just as much to blame as she was, how could I be mad at her? If I got mad at her for something I'd done, then I would be a hypocrite, and I'm trying to set a good example for my offspring, here.

I assessed the situation. There was a spare key at home in my purse. Nathan was at home, so I could call a neighbor to go get the key and bring it to me. Tom was the next idea. I looked at my watch: 5:10. Tom worked out at the gym just a few blocks down the street from ~5-5:40. Perfect! I called his cell phone -- no answer. That meant that his phone was in the locker room.

"Ok," I said, "Dad's at Gold's Gym. We'll go and get dad to bring us back and open the van with his keys."

"What do we do with the groceries"? Susan asked.

Uh... "Leave them here, behind the van."

Karianne looked at me like I was crazy. "Why don't we just bring them with us?"

I snorted. "I am so not carrying several bags of groceries to Gold's Gym with me." Then a new thought appeared. "I know: we'll hitchhike. That will be way faster."

Karianne's eyes bulged again. "We can't hitchhike!" She said it like it was a dirty word.

"Sure we can," I said. "Why not?"

"It isn't safe!" I could hear her think "duh", but wisely, she didn't say it out loud.

"It is if you pick the right ride, "I said. "Tell you what, you and Susan wait here, and I'll go."

"We'll get mugged!" Karianne gasped as an involuntary shiver slid down her spine. "Besides, it's cold out here!"

"Fine. Why don't you two go back into Macey's with the food and wait at the deli. I'll call you when I get back."

With that, I turned and surveyed the parking lot to identify a friendly looking person to ask for a lift. There was a couple loading bottled water into the back of their pickup--no room in the cab for me. There was an older woman getting into her car -- I figured I'd scare her if I approached asking for a ride. Then, I saw her: a young mother loading her groceries and two young children into her four door sedan. Perfect. I approached, explained my situation, and asked if she could possibly give me a quick lift to the gym. She laughed and agreed, and didn't seem scared of me at all. Amazing.

Once at the gym, I had Tom paged to come to the front desk. After a minute, they let me wander onto the workout area to see if I could find him. Where was he? A ward member saw me and came over, and said that I had just missed him. I looked at my watch - 5:20. ?? He wasn't usually done by then. I called his cell again. No answer. I called home. No answer.

Why doesn't he answer his phone? He should have it with him. Why doesn't anyone answer at home? Calling a neighbor was starting to look like the best option after all.

GREAT. Now not only am I stranded without a car, but my kids are stranded somewhere else, with melting ice cream to boot. My sense of humor was starting to wear thin.

Still looking for my stolen cheese, I called Tom's cell twice more, to no avail. Then one more try at home.

"Hello?" Nathan said.

"Nathan!" I yelled into the phone. "Is dad there?"

"I don't think so....lemme look downstairs." I waited. "Nope, he's not here... oh, wait. He just walked in the door."

Finally.

The ice cream was only partially melted, and my girls will hopefully recover from the trauma of being abandoned at Macey's while their mother hitched a ride with a complete stranger. I have since transferred my spare key to my NEW purse, and Karianne thinks that it will be awhile before she leaves the key in the ignition.

Dinner was late again... but this time it wasn't my fault!

Flying fiery serpents

Somehow, somewhere, Susan got the idea that owning a pet snake would be cool.

"But snakes are creepy," I said.

"They don't make noise, they don't shed, and they don't eat much" Susan countered.

"But the cost!" I said.

"I'll pay for everything," Susan promised.

"I am so not cleaning up after a snake." I stated.

"Don't worry, I'll do everything!" Susan caressed.

What could I say to that? "Go ask your dad what he thinks," I said.

I thought I had her with that one.

He said yes.

I told him later, "You know that voice you heard in the back of your head, screaming 'NO! Don't do it! Noooooooo!'? That was me."

"I didn't hear anything," said he, with an almost too innocent look on his face.

Obviously I need to work on my telepathy skills.

What happened to the united parenting front we agreed on? What happened to the "I'll talk it over with mom" stalling tactic?

He said yes.

Susan began researching online, deciding what kind of snake she wanted, learning about habitat and food requirements, costs etc.

Saturday, I took Susan out yard sale-ing, looking for a cheap terrarium. I didn't expect to find anything the first time out. This was just an exploratory trip to gauge costs. I was half hoping that Susan would see how much equipment costs would be compared to her meager cash stash, decide she couldn't afford it, and treat her mother to ice cream instead.

I had forgotten that I was with the luckiest child in the world, the psychic who not only reads minds, but also has a knack for being in just the right place at the right time. Thus it happened that at the second, yes SECOND, stop on our list, we found a nice big glass and steel terrarium, with heat lamp, heat rock, thermometer, and knarly driftwood included, for a measly TEN DOLLARS. It was simply too good to pass up. Susan handed over Mr. Hamilton, and the 4 foot long glass box was loaded into the car.

Happily, we went home (one of us was happier than the other) to set up and prepare the enclosure for habitation. I envisioned Susan saving up her shekels for a few weeks, meanwhile learning how to regulate the temperature to the desired levels, and then buying the snake sometime in June. But no, Dad came through with a paternal loan, and by Saturday night the terrarium was complete with wood chips, water dish, more rocks and branches, and ready for the reptile.

Monday evening, Tom and Susan brought home Reggie, a new baby corn snake.


Awwwwwwww, isn't she cuuuuuuute?

Maybe this snake thing will be ok. Susan is in hock for about 70 bucks worth of equipment, food, and of course, the snake. I've got my own personal slave until the debt is paid. Permit me a cruel chuckle. Mwhahahahaha!

Psychic Susan

My second daughter, Susan, is turning thirteen this month. This child has an interesting gift: she has an extra sense of things unseen. It was particularly noticeable when she was small. As an infant, she was very tuned in to my thoughts, it seemed. Sometimes I would wake up briefly in the middle of the night; if I went back to sleep quickly, all was quiet. But if I even thought about Susan, almost immediately she would cry out. This happened over and over and over until I finally learned to think of anything but her during my brief nocturnal wakings. If I was successful, she slept on. If I slipped and even thought of not thinking about her, she woke up. It was very strange -- and sometimes frustrating, to have a child that could seemingly read my mind.

As Susan grew, it became apparent that she was very sensitive physically as well. She had the most sensitive skin, and had more diaper rashes than any of my other babies. She was very sensitive to the temperature of food, bathwater, and weather. She would wrinkle her nose at the faintest smell that even my pregnant nose didn't detect, and most foods were too strong tasting for her particular palate. Her emotions were also sensitive; as a little girl, she seemed to vacillate between bitter disappointment and ecstatic euphoria at the flip of a switch. In Susan's world, when life was good, it was very very good, but when it was bad, it was horrid. To be honest, I worried about her more than a little; if she was this temperamental as a four year old, what would the teenage years be like?

As she got older, she continued to demonstrate her uncanny ability to see beyond what most others could. Her older sister soon learned that it was no fun to play Memory with Susan, because not only was Susan's visual memory formidable, but she would often guess matches from cards that had not yet been turned over. When I mediated disputes with the "pick a number between 1 and 100 method" Susan would win much more often than her share, many times guessing the exact number I was thinking of! I must admit that there were a few times that I cheated and changed the number after she guessed, to try to make it a little more fair for the other kids. (Sorry Susan)

I am happy to report that as Susan has grown, that she has developed much more self-control than she had at the age of four. :) Poised to enter her teenage years, she is a beautiful, intelligent, talented young lady with a really fun sense of humor, and has an entertaining knack for silly song lyrics and clever quips that keep us laughing. She is known among her peers as a very kind and loyal friend, with an independence of will that leads her to do what she thinks is right irregardless of what "the crowd" says.

Now on the brink of womanhood, Susan continues to exhibit an unusual level of awareness for things unseen, including a valuable sensitivity to the Holy Ghost. On the surface, she is often quite placid, and usually keeps her own counsel, but I believe that underneath that calm exterior is a young lady that thinks and feels things very deeply. It has been fascinating to watch her grow up and begin to mature into such an amazing person. I am enjoying every minute of it.

Susan, I love you very much. You are an important part of our family, and I am very honored to be your mother.