have you heard this?

My mom turned me on to this song. I'm a huge Taylor Swift fan, and Taylor feels the same way about Cold Play, so it's a great song combo for our family. And we love the piano just a bit. Check it out:

I'm weird

I don't do well in emergency situations. The first time Claire ever injured herself with blood (bit her tongue when she fell) I was a wreck. The only thing my brain could get to wipe the blood was a hot pad. I've gotten better at dealing with this over time (still, only like 4 other incidents involving blood have ever happened at our house).

So last night we're getting ready for bed. It's 1:30am (I know, one day we have to grow up and have a normal bedtime). I just found a Smith's brand lotion that is supposed to be the same as Jergen's Daily Glow. I put it on at night so that I don't smell bad all day. Anyway, I was slathering it on myself. At $2.50 a bottle I decided I could afford to do arms AND legs. To avoid staining my garments I decided to go without them for a while while the lotion dried. So there I am, in my birthday suit, all covered in the special tan lotion, and the fire alarm goes off. All of the alarms in our house. I start running around like a crazy woman. A naked crazy woman. I ran from the bathroom, to my room, down the hall, back to my room, and here are my thoughts during my running:

Get the kids.
Ah! I can't just run outside naked.
Okay, put clothes on.
But wait, I don't want to be in a fire without my garments on. Put those on first.
But I don't want the lotion to get on my garments...
Get the kids.

And the alarm turned itself off. Taylor strangely just sat at the computer the whole time watching me. It must have been entertaining. I was happy (but a little bugged) that the kids slept through the whole thing. The alarm in our room was flashing, so I looked up the instruction manual online (what did people do to before the internet?) and apparently the flashing means that that alarm started the alarms. We don't know why it went off. Probably just a mistake. There was a fan and open window in that room, so I wonder what the deal was. Anyway, it was comical. And I am crazy.

Something to think about though: I saw a TV special a while ago that showed that kids sleep through alarms. They sleep so deeply that apparently the only thing that will wake them up is their parent yelling their name. They showed tons of kids calmly sleeping through alarms (or pulling pillows and blankets over their ears). Not one kid in their study got up and out of bed. My kids slept through. In the future I really might invest in one of these new alarms that record the voice of a parent saying the child's name and then play it really loud with instructions on leaving the house.

Made in China

We love the store Six Star. It's a glorified dollar store. The items are mostly $1, some are $3. They're all pretty great (if you are three-years-old). Kyle is obsessed with a line of cars they have. They are quite large, have pretty good push-action, and cost $1 (which is good, because if we step on them they crush). He freaks out when he sees them. They are made in China. Obviously. Here's how I know (besides the sticker):














First up is the Fire Engine. On the front of it it says, "Decent Fire Engine" "Win Instant Success"

Did they decide to put fortunes on toys now? I'm guessing it should have said "With Instant Action" (it goes when you push it), but how knows.

It also says 119 all over the sides. I'm guessing it should be 911. Who knows.



















Next up is the Police car. "Any trouble with you, call the police to help." Can't count how many times I've seen that on a cruiser!
















And the packaging reads: "All kinds of toys are selected freely by you. Every styles fully wonderful." You can tell someone had a chinese/english dictionary, but no translator was involved.



















And not a toy, but none-the-less questionable. Here's the packaging for our home-made popcicles. It pictures happy popcicles, an apple, and green and red bell peppers. Maybe they do things WAY different in China, but I'm really, really wondering if they use bell peppers to make popcicles. Yuck!

And in spite all of this we will continue to shop at Six Star. Maybe we should invest in a home test for lead content though.

I said I would never...

I said I would NEVER:
Pick up a binky off the floor and put it straight in my kid's mouth.
After about 4 months of age, I'm fine with wiping it off and sticking it back in. Or we do the classic "put it in my mouth first" move.

Leave the house with a stain on my clothes
As long as it isn't poop or snot, and I'm just going to the store or the park---I'll leave the house with a minor stain. I've got a spot on my shoulder right now from Kyle's mouth after he had pudding. I think I'll take a baby wipe to it before we go anywhere though :) It's just not worth changing for every spot, I have enough laundry as is.

Go anywhere without makeup
My surgeries have long negated this statement. It's been kind of freeing.

Be addicted to Coke
I have a diet coke with lime every day at nap time. It's either a nap or a coke for me, and usually there are things to get done. I blame this on my husband and fellow addict, but mostly on Dr. Patel for not catching the inflammation in my eye which caused daily migraines for 5 months. Coke was the only thing that got me through the day.

Some of my standards are leaving me, but I still will never:
Force my daughter to enter a pageant
Let my kid leave the house with a dirty face
Be somewhere public and not immediately change a stinky diaper
Let my kid wander around in just a diaper
Let my kids wander free around someone else's house without my constant
supervision.

That's it for now, though I'm sure I could put a lot more in each category.

Good and Bad and Great

So I got shots in my eyelid tuesday. It was a solution meant to eat away at the Juvederm which never smoothed out like it should have and just sat like a little bump across the crease of my eyelid. The solution was supposed to take 2-3 days to work. It took like 20 hours. By the time I woke up yesterday all of the the Juvederm was gone. Happy day! My eye opens again (the roll on the crease pushed down on the lid---claire kept asking why I was closing one eye). The shots were immensely painful. Horribly painful. I cried. But it only hurt for about 8 hours, and my eye is back to normal. It's still hollow-er around the top, but I'm okay with that. Dr. Engen says he can fill it, just with a lot less of the stuff. I don't know about that. It hurt a lot.

And the bad news. Kyle is sick again. Well, I hope he's teething, but either way his nose is a running hose. I think he got it when I tended my friend's kid. I'm all up to help out, but please don't bring your sick kids (or sick parents) to my house. Ever. For any reason. I'll pay you the same respect. Now i'm on wipe patrol and just waiting for Claire to catch it. Because of this I had to miss Relief Society last night. I was not thrilled. I was really looking forward to going. We were going to sit around and exchange advice on mothering and stuff. I need to learn all I can.

Lastly, while we wait for Taylor to be employable (his thesis has to go through one more person until it's officially done) he's taken up yard work to make a few extra dollars. I just have to say what a wonderful provider he is. He's taken a number of jobs that I would never have the will, guts, or drive to do, all in the name of getting by. Beyond the yard work he's worked as a waiter at Ruby Tuesday, he worked one-on-one with juvenile delinquents, and worked for years selling shoes at ZCMI/Macy's/Meier & Frank. I'm happy for him that pretty soon he'll be able to go to work and actually do what he's been working towards for so long. Isn't he great?

I'll Buy Dell Again!

So our laptop's screen went out a few months ago. We thought we'd have to send it to Timbuktu to get it fixed, so we waited until the thesis was done. Well yesterday I talked to someone from Dell about it. I was thrilled when they said they'd send the parts out to a technician who would come to my house. I was even more thrilled when that tech called me this morning to make an appointment for today. Less than 24 hours after the phone call Dell had shipped the parts, sent a tech to my home, and my computer is all better. They even replaced the little clicking button that Claire broke last year. All free because my warranty doesn't expire for another 50 days (good timing).

We've loved this computer anyway (despite the broken screen), and although I thought I'd go with a Mac next time---Dell is awesome. I'll stick with them.

Little Miracle

So I went to have my surgery on Friday. Sometime during last week I sent Taylor a text saying something like, "My stitch fell out and my eye looks totally better. It's a MIRACLE!" Then later I sent one saying, "Actually I bet it's just how it was before the surgery. Well, on the way to the doctor's office I took my valium-like pill, so I'm not too sure I'll be quoting exactly, but they had me all lying down on the table and were scrubbing up and everything when the doctor asked, "Where's that stitch?" It had been clearly lying in the outer corner of my eye which was just hanging open with a huge gap between my eye/prosthetic and eyelid. Now the stitch was gone and so was the gap. The thing is, that stitch had to be surgically removed. That's why we were having surgery to fix it. I never noticed it falling out or anything. One moment it was just gone. He had me get up and look under a magnifier. He still couldn't see it. He removed my prosthetic where he could clearly see the inner-structure of my lids. He said that it had remarkably healed with in half a milimeter of where he had placed it. He kept saying, "It's just so unusual!" Because the last time he saw me there it looked so bad.

Anyway, we know how it happened. Lots of prayers, temple attendance, and blessings. They didn't do surgery, and we've spent the weekend hanging with family and Taylor has been able to touch up his thesis guilt-free. He is still bugged by my upper lid which isn't behaving. He said he's heard of an injectible drug which can help, but he's going to have to find it (on the internet!?!). So, thanks for all of the well-wishes. It was a great (no) surgery day :)

Twenty-Eight

I turn 28 tomorrow. I like that. I finally feel like age is helping me to find my niche in the world. I like that I have two kids, one of which is almost 4. It makes me feel like I finally have some real world experience under my belt. I actually happy that 28 is one year closer to 30. I'm excited for 30. I feel like maybe when I'm 30 I won't be trying so hard to prove myself as a grown-up. I'm looking at it as a destination, not a dreaded number.

Last year I got a lot of nice gifts---but mother nature offered a couple not so nice gifts. Namely: snow on my birthday and acne. I woke up on my birthday with acne. It was like I was 17, not 27. So for the last year each night before I go to bed and every morning when I wake up I have to decide if I want to use products to prevent acne or wrinkles. I'm yet to find a acne/wrinkle dual product. Maybe the folks over at Oil of Olay or Mary Kay or whoever can work on that. So far I am yet to keep either at bay. However with how my eye has looked in the last few months, I doubt people are noticing my skin.

I've already had a great birthday with my Symphony trip and today my parents surprised me by being in the Chapel during our temple outing. We spent the day with them and had a nice time at the final party with Taylor's cohort and faculty. It made my mind go back to two years ago when we had our first party. The whole program seemed overwhelming. Now we have a new family member (Kyle) and Taylor will defend his thesis in about 12 hours. I'm so proud of him. He managed to complete a very difficult program and internships and write a thesis and other huge projects while still spending plenty of time with us. We never felt neglected. Happy Birthday to me---we're done!

And then I have my surgery Friday. While I (not-so) secretly enjoy the down-time, I'm a little nervous because I think I'm getting allergic to Percocet, and I don't know what I'll have for pain management. That scares me. But I know I'll manage. Claire is going down to St. George with my folks for Suzy's graduation (yeah, Suzy!), so that will really help her. She worries a lot about me. I intend to spend my down-time putting together all of the newspaper articles from my pageant days. I have two entire huge bins to go through. I've already sorted them, so just a bunch of cut and glue work. I'm excited to finally get it done after 8 years. Did I mention that during the sorting I found a card which still contained $50 cash! I did a happy dance. And I promptly spent it on page protectors, cardstock, and other things needed to organize all my stuff. I'm doing a minimalist scrapbook. Nothing special, because I just don't have the time, money, or desire.

So all I want for my birthday is for my surgery to work this time. I'll take as many prayers as I can get. Oh, and for the acne to go away so I can concentrate on the wrinkles :)

The good and the bad

We just got back from a great weekend trip. My birthday's coming up (the 30th, hint, hint) and last night my mother-in-law took me out for an early celebration to the symphony. This (embarrassingly enough) was my first trip to the symphony that I can remember. And what a night! They played MY concerto---Rachmoninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto in c minor. The one I played at Miss America (okay, the last four pages of which I played at Miss America). It was fabulous. Better than I had hoped. I loved it. I love that song. Click on the above link and just listen to a bit. You'll love it too.

Oh, and more good news was that I happened to catch my friend Libby (hairdresser extreme) in a kind of free moment while she was doing my mom's hair, and I got some highlights to cover my ever-growing roots. And i have bangs now too. I'll have to post a picture soon. With sunglasses, of course).

And the bad new is that I saw my doctor on Friday. I was concerned because I have a random suture sticking up in the corner of my eye. I found out that it just so happens to be the MAIN stitch that they did the surgery for. It had come loose from where it was stuck to my tendon or whatever. Anyway, the whole surgery didn't work because of that one stitch. So two weeks from now, May 1st, I get to do the WHOLE stupid thing again. Awake. Lovely. And the fat filler didn't go as planned either, so he has some fun thing planned to fix that too.

And so go the days of our lives, huh? At least my life. It seems like everything happens the hard way. I'm willing to take suggestions on the lesson I should be learning from all of this. I think I've learned a lot, but I must be missing something big.

Peep Show

Thanks to Holly, I just spent 15 minutes of my precious free time looking at this year's Peeps Show dedicated to dioramas made with Peeps (the candy). It's pretty funny.