Thanks for the, um, gift?

During my pregnancy with Rachel I enrolled in our health insurer's Maternity program, which involved monthly phone calls with a nurse caseworker to keep track of my pregnancy progress and manage any complications should they arise. I had been involved with a similar program with a prior insurer, and at the end they sent me a $25 JCPenney gift card as a thank you. I assumed this program would be have a similar end-of-program gift.

On the last phone call, my nurse caseworker told me I would receive a Thank You gift in the mail. A few weeks later it arrived. I unwrapped the package to find a soft white fleece baby blanket with a satin band...and a large embroidered insurance company logo in one corner!!!

Maybe they were trying to say, "Wrap your baby in the warmth and comfort of having health insurance." I thought it was weird.

No longer mad at anyone's kid

I get kudos for the most effective use of blogging. Although it was completely unintentional, the culprit behind the Garage Graffiti incident of '09 was discovered when said culprit's mother read my blog! I'm not going to name any names, but since Braden's name was misspelled, we knew it wasn't our own son. (Believe me, I thought about that scenario before moving on to other suspects!)

A few days after my post, a friend from the neighborhood brought her sheepish child over to apologize. He or she was very cute and said, "I'm sorry I drew on your door." The mother knew her child had been in possession of a red dry erase marker (which would explain why it was so hard to get off with the wet Mr. Clean Eraser) and got suspicious after seeing the picture I posted. After a few pointed questions she was able to get the truth about the incident. Nathan had gotten most of it off, but since my friend wanted her child to have the experience of 'making restitution,' they touched up the garage door with some white enamel paint and her son/daughter bought me a new box of Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to replace the one we used up cleaning off the door.

All's well that ends well.

Before and After

Valentine's Day...

A few weeks later...

Spring hasn't sprung, but it's beginning its yearly tease.

Music Madness

Does it make us bad parents that we let our eight- and six-year old children watch American Idol with us? I've decided no - because they both mention not liking it when the girls wear immodest clothing ("That girl's shirt is not good at all. It only has one sleeve!") Plus, we've been watching it together for a few weeks, and I've heard the judges use some words we, um, don't use in our family, but they haven't asked about them. Which is probably good, but I just realized could be bad because maybe that means they already know what they mean! Like their father, they L-O-V-E music. They watch intently, then hand me a hand-written list of the phone numbers I'm supposed to call so I can vote for their favorites as they head off to bed.

We have raised a family of audiophiles, to be sure. The funny thing is, our kids know their tastes. Braden's favorite song is Enter Sandman by Metallica. Cassidy likes Maroon 5. Rebecca is only three, but she has a top ten list that she requests by name whenever Nathan hooks his ipod up to the car stereo. Seriously. She like The Killers (Human), Pink (So What), The Rolling Stones (Paint it Black), Rihanna (Umbrella), Beyonce (Single Ladies, which she calls "The Sing-a Ladies"), Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (Face Down), Michael Jackson, even some instrumental stuff like Rodrigo y Gabriela (Diablo Rojo) or Eric Johnson (Cliffs of Dover.) Allowing for her youthful indiscretions - we all know Umbrella isn't a lasting classic - I won't deny the girl's got taste!

A Delicate Flower

I took Rachel in for her 4 month well-child visit last week. Much to my surprise, I found out that she is not gaining weight like she should be. I have never had a kid (or, let's be honest, a family member) have trouble with gaining weight. I've had many comments over the past 3 weeks about how she looked 'so little' or 'very delicate' compared to the other babies in our neighborhood that are her age. I didn't think much of it, because Braden and Rebecca were (and are) tall for their ages, so they looked healthy but thin. I thought the same thing was happening with Rachel. At two months old she was 70th percentile for height and 40th for weight. Last week she was 83rd percentile for height and only NINTH percentile for weight!!! I was shocked to find out that in two months she had grown like two inches but she had only gained 10 ounces!

Everything else about her development is normal, so the doctor suggested she drink more formula and that we mix it to a 'high-calorie' concentration with an extra scoop and a half per bottle. That means she now gets two bottles a day and I only nurse her two or three times a day. In two or three weeks we'll start baby cereal, which I expect will help a little. Until then, I gotta make a run to Costco tomorrow, because I'm already running out of this:

I'm totally on board with helping her gain weight and be healthy, but I'm a little bummed about the extra $$$ outlay.

I like the way you work it (out)

I have lost 4 pounds and a total of 2 1/4 inches since mid-January.  Improving my appearance and increasing my fitness never happens as quickly as I want it to, but I'm happy to have made some progress.  My Wii Mii (say it out loud, it sounds funnier) still looks like she's got a little junk in her proverbial trunk, but at least when I stand on the Fit balance board to be weighed before exercising, I always hear "That's Normal!" at the end.

Now if I could just (said in a forboding voice) --

"Step Away from the Cookies."

A Mother's Lament

A few weeks ago I had one of THOSE weekends. Do any of you SAHMs know what I'm talking about? I felt ill-used, under-appreciated, and totally ignored.

I was frustrated that my current church calling is one that only the Bishop and the choir director care about. Being the ward choir accompanist is something people notice only if you make a huge mistake while the choir sings or if you don't show up. I know I've had my ups and downs in the Primary callings I've held recently, but at least people showed up for what I prepared when I was doing that. Our poor choir has only women who come regularly, and one man about every other week - so more than once I have practiced a song for two weeks or more, only to have it scrapped because we don't have enough men to pull it off.

I was tired of doing so many things for so many people and never getting thanked. It made me so mad that I felt I had to thank Nathan for brushing someone's teeth or changing Rachel's diaper, but when I do the same things it's just part of the job description. That's not to say he expected to be thanked, it's because I wanted to thank him for the help - I just wished he and the kids wanted to thank me for the help too. When I leave to go Visiting Teaching or on errands or choir practice I felt like I have to have all the ducks in a row before I leave, with any combination of feeding, dressing, washing, and getting to bed completed. I wished Nathan was able to do the same for me before he leaves too.

I had a good cry and told Nathan how I felt, and he has tried to tell me more that he appreciates the things I do since then.

Don't get me wrong. I am grateful I can stay home. I am grateful I don't have to work. I am grateful I have a church calling that doesn't require a lot of time away from home. I am grateful Nathan can work from home so I can go Visiting Teaching and run errands without dragging my kids along. I'm grateful for our health and for our (mostly) well-behaved kids and for our free country.

I don't need a lot of Stuart Smalley Daily Affirmation comments from you, my friends and loyal readers, because this is old news, and I assure you, I'm mostly over this. However, I did want to share because I know how often we assume others don't feel like we do. Many women see the smiling outside and assume it matches the inside. I just want everyone to know I have my bad days too!!!

Or maybe my outside isn't as smiling as I assumed it was and you all already knew that...