Month: July 2008 (Page 2 of 2)

Oh to be young and skinny and not have body related self confidence issues.

What? Watermelon? I’m not stealing any watermelon.

Oh, to be on a paddleboat with grandpa–what could be better?

Silence. Blissful alone time. And it’s all mine! (Evil laugh) BWa, ha ha ha Ha!

My family and everyone staying here has gone up to my family reunion at Payson Lakes for our family reunion. And I’m here. By myself! (Cartwheels and jumping!) Of course I’m going to miss them, can’t you tell? No, really.

I wish the reunion weren’t this weekend–opening night, for heaven’s sake. I thought I could go up for the day and play and have fun and then come home and get ready for the show, but to be to the theater by 5:00 with my hair in curlers and all that, I would have to leave the reunion at about 3:00. And that would either mean drag my family out of there at that time, or take two cars (Ryan already decided he didn’t want to sleep over on the campout without some back up, and am totally ok with that. But, gosh, wouldn’t that be great if he did? Then I could have tomorrow morning by myself, too!). And driving an extra car all that way just seems wasteful. So, Ryan lovingly agreed that it would be better for me to just stay home. Isn’t he the greatest?! Let’s give it up for Ryan! Of course, my whole family will be up there, and the kids will just play happily with their cousins, but still, I really appreciate him taking them and not making feel guilty that I’m staying home.

So, since they left, I’ve done dishes, cleaned the family room, and I’m just about to sweep the kitchen and clean the stove. Then I have about 12 loads of laundry that also desire my attention, and I might just get groceries, who knows? Having an extra family living here is SO MUCH FUN, but we sure make a mess. And with me being gone every night, I’ve gotten a little bit behind on the upkeep. But don’t think I’m going to just clean all day! Oh, no! I’ve got a big old nap scheduled! Hooray! So please don’t call me because I won’t answer the phone.

With the kids out of school and guests here, I haven’t been alone in quite some time. I hope you don’t think I love my family and all, because I really do! But I also enjoy a little down time where no one is asking anything of me and I can just rest.

And just a bit about the play. We had our last rehearsal last night! We ended at 11:40. And you’ll never believe what they did with my hair (I don’t know why my hair is such an issue! I must just have problem hair) No wig, if you’ll remember. This time I went in hot rollers, and my dear hair and make-up queen Kelly fixed me up good. She had made this darling little “hat” for me!

So here’s a shot of me in all my hair glory, with the little watering can “hat”. It’s really glued onto a headband, and then the headband in pinned in there to my scalp (I mean my hair). It would have been simpler to just use a nail gun to attach the dumb thing, though. While I LOVE the hat, and I think it’s so cute and so “Who-ish”, it’s just wasn’t real practical. Try doing anything with that thing on your head. By the end of the opening number, the headband was loose and the flowers were shifting. So I tried to not move my head. But then I was worried about the head thing and then I messed up the dance. Ugh! I thought, if I can just keep it on through act 1, then I can take it off, and oh, this is squishing my brain! I did keep it on through the next couple of scenes, but there’s this little house on stage I have to go through, and it’s already something I have to duck to get through. Try it with an extra 6 inches on top. You see where I’m going with this?

After the next little scene, I saw Kelly backstage, and she was asking how it was working out. “It’s not. It’s slipping and I’m worrying about it and then I’m messing up lines.” She was very sweet about it (all that work to get it in there!) and we took it off. She said she’d figure out something else for the next night, but in the meantime, we just took out some of the flowers and butterflies and stuck them in my hair. They hardly even needed bobby pins, since there was so much hairspray there I could probably hide my sandwich in there and you wouldn’t notice. On the way to the greenroom, where she was going to “just tease it up a little bit and maybe spray it some more”, I picked up a little blue bird on the floor. “Is this a prop?” I asked the prop lady. “No, it’s just a toy. I think it was in my daughter’s happy meal or something,” she told me. I asked if she minded if I used it, then. She told me to go ahead. So, we stuck that little bird in there, and it looked GREAT! And it was much more comfortable than the headband and the constant worry of if my “hat” is going to fall off.

So, we’ll see what Kelly comes up with for tonight. We talked about getting some butterflies and just gluing them onto clips and sticking them in there, instead of one big hat thing. Hopefully we’ll get it all worked out. If not, I’m fine with the bird and the flowers we used last night.

But there’s a lot of little kids in the show, and they seem very concerned with my hair. “Aren’t you wearing the wig?”
“Wow! Where did you get that watering can?”
“Is that a bird in your hair?”
“I love your hair Mrs. Mayor”
and my personal favorite,
“Wasn’t that the bird that so and so was playing with earlier?”
“Um, yes, ” I said, ” I found it on the floor, so we put it in my hair.”

So the saga of the hair continues on. Don’t you just want to come and see the show so you can see how I end up? Well, we open tonight!

At about 11:40, we heard screaming coming from John’s room. I rushed into his room, and he was walking around, obviously very upset. I picked him up to try to comfort him, but he was grabbing at himself and kicking. In order to not wake Megan, who is sharing his room with him right now, we took him into our room to figure out what was wrong.
“Do you need to use the potty?” I asked him.
“NOOO!” he yelled.
“Are you hurt? Where does it hurt?” I asked him.
“Nooo!” he yelled again. He was writhing about, kicking and screaming. We tried to help him calm down, and he would for a minute, but then he was back kicking and yelling.
In a panic, I asked Ryan to call our friend and neighbor who is also a doctor. Maybe it’s a seizure. Maybe there’s something really wrong with him. Maybe he’s in pain! We’ve got to help him! But we didn’t call our doctor friend. It was midnight, after all. We just kept trying to comfort him.

He calmed down a little bit laying in my lap, and I comforted him the best I could. Eventually he said, “I want a blanket.” I put him down in our bed and put a blanket over him, and he went back to sleep.

I wish I could say the same for me. I couldn’t sleep all night worrying about my boy. Maybe he has some weird form of autism. Maybe he has some internal injuries that are hurting him. Maybe he has appendicitis. (And NO, I was not up all night looking up things on Web MD–this was just my mind racing.)

He slept the rest of the night, and didn’t even wake up when Ryan took him back to his own bed. Teh next morning, he didn’t mention any of this.

Well, Ryan looked things up and found that our boy had had a “night terror”, which I had heard of but never actually experienced (isn’t it funny that on the 5th kid I’m still learning new things?) and sent me a link to this.

The next morning, when I went walking, I asked my friend and my sister-in-law if any of their kids had done this, and they both answered yes. With one of their kids. At rehearsal that night I mentioned it to someone in the play and they said that yes, one of their kids had had night terrors. I guess it’s a common thing.

Night terrors are not the same as nightmares and the treatment is different as well.
Difficulty: Average
Time Required: Varies
Here’s How:

1. Don’t hug or shake your child. Waking the child will only frighten him or her more. (oops, I did that wrong)
2. Stay close to your child until he or she falls into a normal sleep again.
3. Turn on the lights and talk softly to soothe and assure the child that he or she is safe.
4. Watch to make sure your child doesn’t do anything to harm him or herself, like falling out of bed.
5. Night terrors sometimes lead to sleep walking. If this occurs, guide your child gently back to bed without waking him or her.
6. Keep the room safe in case of sleepwalking. Avoid upper bunks and keep the floor free of dangerous obstructions. (his room is totally FULL of obstructions!)
7. Warn baby-sitters or other family members and let them know how to deal with night terrors.
8. Keep your child on a regular schedule of meal times, bed times and rising times. (I don’t know how to do this when we have company and it’s summer time)
9. Make sure the child goes to the bathroom before going to bed. Night terrors can sometimes cause bedwetting. (Right)
10. Check for fever or illness that may be causing the night terrors.
11. Night terrors often occur about the same time every night. Set the alarm and wake your child before the terror begins.
12. If the night terrors happen often or are particularly disturbing to you or your child, discuss the problem with your doctor.
13. Ask your doctor if he can prescribe any medication that might help. (or maybe one for me. Xanax?)
14. If you believe the episodes may be caused by emotional problems or post-traumatic stress, talk it over with a psychiatrist or counselor.

1. Remember that most night terrors end before puberty.
2. A happy, relaxed home will help chase away the night terrors.
3. Remember that your child will probably not remember the night terror episode in the morning.

But it still scared me to death and I don’t want to have to go through that again, thank you very much.

Yesterday we had a fun day planned. We were going to go to the Colonial Days celebration in Provo. We love to go to the Crandall Printing Museum.

Ryan’s dad volunteers there to run the linotype, and our kids think it’s such a cool place. And during this week, people can tour the museum for free, and see all the other fun stuff they have going on at Colonial days. My sister the artist was actually there doing chalk drawing.

So, even though it was hotter than a day should be in Utah, we had a nice time there.

Except for one tiny little detail. Oh, you knew there had to be an “Except” didn’t you? Oh, yes you did, you smart thing, you.

Well. In Provo, they have these deep gutters that are about a foot deep and a foot wide, and there is no curb to keep you out of it. Why? I don’t know why. I guess it’s set up as a trap for unsuspecting cars or something. Well, I was that unsuspecting driver. I was looking for a place to park, and flipped a U-turn. Only not quite. I had almost made it, and CLONK!!! There we are, stuck in the gutter.

Wow, I thought, that was pretty stupid. Hmmm. I guess I’ll call AAA. The kids and I got out of the car, and I called triple A and they were remarkably helpful. They told me that they would have a tow truck there within the next half hour. I felt kind of dumb, but I had to ask the nice lady on the phone what would happen. “I mean, do I pay him, or is this just it?”
“No, this is it. You haven’t used our services this year, have you? Oh, and your membership is due to expire in August, so it’s a good thing it hasn’t expired yet. This is one of your four allowed roadside emergency calls for the year.” she told me.
“Wow, so I could have three more roadside emergencies in the next month!” I said. I was joking. I really don’t want to have to call them at all, but it’s nice to know I can if I need to. And I WILL be renewing that membership in August, let me tell you.

So as not to just sit and wait, the kids went with our friends who were with us, and went to go and see the Colonial fest while I waited.

With nothing to do but take a few more pictures, I sat and waited. A guy from across the street came over and asked if this were my car. Um, yeah. I was kind of embarrassed, but he told me people are getting stuck in these ditches ALL the time. Someone this morning did the same exact thing and had to be towed out. He told me that he and his brothers had been able to lift the car up just enough to get some traction and drive out of there, and they would be willing to try, if I wanted help. “Oh, that is so nice of you to offer, but I’ve already got a tow truck on the way.” I was very impressed that he would be so kind and offer to help.

In less than half an hour, Brandon the tow truck driver arrived on the scene.
First he figured he would jack it up, but then I guess he couldn’t find a good place to do the jacking. (Don’t laugh, I don’t know what you call it!) So, he put some wood down in the gutter and then hooked up the winch to the back of the van.

A little winch action and he had that car pulled right up out of the ditch. Wow! “That was easier than I thought it would be,” he said. Once we got it parked on the road and not in the gutter, he even looked under there at the axle and said he didn’t think it was damaged. “I’m not a body guy, but I think that should be fine,” he told me. I was so grateful! Thank you Triple A! I don’t know how much it would have cost me to have it extricated from the gutter had I been paying for it, but I’m sure it would have been more than the $45 a year I paid for the AAA membership. OK, I’ll stop. (But really, it’s a good thing, don’t you think?)

I walked about a block to where my kids were, and found them happily eating snowcones with their friends.

So, we went on a quick tour of the printing museum, (which I also highly recommend! It’s so cool!) saw some other displays and exibits, and headed out of there.

THEN, as if that weren’t enough, we had to stop and buy stage makeup, false eyelashes, and a parakeet. Yes, I said a parakeet. But that’s another story for another day.

So, guess what I did yesterday.

Go ahead–Guess!

I bet you can’t guess. Go ahead…you in the back. ????
Nope. I didn’t sprain my ankle. Nope, I didn’t run off and get married (I’m already happily married, silly!)
Nope, I didn’t sell any of my children, although I wanted to.

Keep guessing.

Oh, I’ll just tell you already. I purchased cemetery plots. Really! Why, pray tell, did I purchase cemetery plots for myself and my dear hubby, you may ask? Well, basically because the price was going up. Yep. Until June 30th, you could get a plot in our little Highland cemetery for $500 each. On July 1st the price nearly doubles. Plus, I can just add it into my city bill and pay for it over the next two years.

I’ve been meaning to go in and take care of this little detail for the past couple of weeks, but of course I left it to the last day. I went in to the city office building, and asked, “Are you having a run of people here to buy cemetery plots?” I asked casually. “Are we ever!” they told me. But I guess I came at a good time because there was only one person ahead of me meeting with the coordinator, so I only had to wait about 10 minutes. I went in, and she showed me a map of the cemetery and said, “So, where do you want to be?” Always the wanna-be, I asked if they could look someone else up and see if I could be by them. My friend, Tess, is also here in Highland, and I knew she had already bought her spots. So, I picked two little spots out right by Tess and David, so we can chat when we’re all dead and buried! Won’t that be fun!? Well, not really, because we’ll all be dead and probably won’t have that much to say to each other. The lady praised me for being so quick to make up my mind. She told me that she’s had people agonizing over spots, calling to change their spots and all sorts of hassles. Well, I’m nothing if not quick to make up my mind (sometimes).

So, where will you be buried? Hmmm?