I Spy At The Wild Animal Park....

Does anyone else find this hilariously funny? We stood there and laughed for hours. Really. ;-)

Eight Years.

Well, we made it eight whole years without having to go there. But now we have . . . a second car. [Cue music. Whatever kind seems appropriate. :)]

You can read all about our good fortune to live so happily with just one car by clicking on the following sentence. We've been so happy and lucky to share a car!

Like I wrote before, it's been pretty amazing how our circumstances keep lending themselves so well to sharing a car. And it's also been SO rewarding to share our schedule to the extent you need when you only have one vehicle. We've loved it.

Lately we've been considering our various options now that:
1) A second baby is coming.
2) Seth is in his last year without school.
3) Matt is finishing his last year of roaming from hospital to hospital, soon to be working exclusively at Children's just three miles away.

The first two say to us, break down and get a car. The third says, HA! Yeah right! Three miles away means NO second car required! HaHA!

Which is absolutely totally true, and resulted in a firm decision to work out another plan. We'd still share the car. For the days when taking Dad to work would mean waking two kids up at 5:30 in the morning, we'd get Matt a scooter. It's a safe route for a scooter, and a lot safer than a bicycle would be, and would take much less time than riding a bus or walking the three miles. Scooter it was.

Then we started to get real about our Camry.

The awesome, awesome Camry. It's been with us our whole marriage, and with me before then (and my dad before then!). "The Crammy" (as my roommates affectionately named it when it was how we all got to grocery stores :)) has been a great car for 11 years and almost 200,000 miles. And it's still a great car. (Consider, too, that it was severely beaten for many years by snow and ice and snow-clearing things like sand, gravel, and salt! This car rocks!) But it's starting to demonstrate that if we keep putting this kind of mileage on it . . . it's on its last legs. :-(

It occurred to us: with this kind of use, we'll need to buy a new car in the next year or two anyway. May as well do it now and have two cars, right? And if the Crammy is only asked to drive three miles to Children's hospital and back every day, how long might it last...? Another five years? More? (That would be SWEET!!!)

So in an effort to be reasonable, and in a dramatic effort to possibly lengthen the life of our awesome old-man of a sweet car, we decided on Thursday to start—to start—looking at vehicles. The beauty being we were in absolutely no rush and could wait months for a great deal.

On Saturday we looked at cars just to get a preliminary feel for things.

And on Monday...we drove a new car home.

Hahahahahaha!!

Turns out that being in no rush with the flexibility to wait for a great deal gives you a killer position during negotiations to get the great deal. And you end up with a car in two days anyway! Kind of funny.

But Matt had a good time negotiating from his killer "I don't need this" position, and Seth had a great time test-driving cars (happiest day of his life :)), and we ended up with a 2009 Kia Rondo. It only has 20,000 miles on it but we got it for almost half the price of a 2010. And it's a Certified Pre-Owned vehicle, which means we keep the great 100,000-mile and 60,000-mile Kia/Hyundai warranties. All in all, it worked out pretty well! We love how the car drives, and we love that it has so much more space without being a van or an SUV or a big car (it's footprint is smaller than the Camry's, but it has seven seats that actually feel more spacious, and tons of cargo room!). It gets great reviews. Hopefully it can last as well as we expect it to after having a killer Toyota for so long.... (Oh, Kia, they say you're pretty decent now. You better be! I guess even if you're not, we got you for cheap. ;))

So, goodbye you fabulous eight years of shared-car bliss! We never thought we'd get that much of you. Thanks to good fate and a good car, you stretched out to almost a decade. I guess that's pretty awesome.

(Watch, the Crammy will die tomorrow, and our car-sharing will be back! Haha!)

Ohhhhh boy.

I've really been looking forward to getting a tour of the hospital where our baby will be born. I haven't been able to stand not knowing what it's like in there!

And I thought I'd enjoy it. Almost five years ago, I had really enjoyed the tour of Seth's hospital. Yes, almost five years! I had been so eager to see the place that I was one of the least-pregnant people there.

I think I was on to something....

Because this tour....
This tour scared the living daylights out of me. Too soon! Too soon!!

Even just sitting in the lobby waiting for our tour guide made me nervous! When a happy family came wandering in with "It's a Girl" balloons and bouquets of flowers, I apparently turned to Matt and muttered: "Oh gosh. Someone just had a baby. . . . Terrible things happen here...." (Haha! Matt laughed at that for a long while. At least one of us was having fun. ;-))

Have I mentioned I hate hospitals? Hate. It's amazing to me that Matt spends his life in them.

And have I mentioned that I hate not having complete control of my body...? The thought of all these people touching me, sticking things in me, collecting or measuring the gross stuff I can't keep from spilling out of me.... It's all very horrifying.

Worth it, though! Worth it! :) I keep chanting this to myself! (I'd be the perfect candidate for a home birth if I didn't care so much about having emergency care ready for our baby. Staying at home sounds sooo comfortable and appealing.... Aside from the mess. Hehe. ;))

So...yeah. I'm in a weird place. The idea of giving birth to a baby is a little too vivid right now, while the awesome idea of a new baby actually coming to our family is so surreal I can't even picture it. At all. Seriously? In a month we'll have another child? A baby again? A little girl? No....... Really?

Logically I say to myself, yes, there will be a new baby...right...? It's not just a medical horror occurring. It's really a new baby coming, Auburn, a new baby. Really! Even though you can't picture it. And I'll be so excited and happy in the hospital that I won't mind will be able to barely tolerate all the indignities and horrors. Right...? :)

And if there's one thing I learned from Seth's birth (or, rather, that was dramatically reinforced), it's that I want a pediatric team with their expertise and equipment to save my baby's life (or brain) if s/he plummets from looking low-risk to having a major emergency in mere (completely unpredictable) moments. So I can deal with it. Keep the maternal sacrifices coming.... ;-)

Less than four weeks, people! Whoa!!! :-)

A visitor.

A little while ago, Seth accidentally left the sliding door open to the backyard. When Matt came home a little while later and headed out to say hi to Seth, I heard Matt call out to me: "Hey, Auburn, is that a toy lizard or is it real?" Which sounds scintillating to me.... If he has to ask, it MUST be something cool-looking, not your ordinary lizard! And I knew there wasn't any toy lizard. Matt and I get up close to it about the same time. He (the lizard :)) was AWESOME. Haven't ever seen one like this before....

Our favorite thing about this guy? We had just had an infestation of ants inside, which he promptly took care of. Ran around for a little while eating all of them. Gone. The whole three trails.... You go, Lizard!!

He also moved like a snake! Super-fast, as lizards are, but not a darter—he was a slitherer with legs under him. This whip-like side-to-side thing going on. Totally cool.

We chased him around for a while, trying to capture him (hard to do when the tail is so long...) to help him back outside. The harder it got, the more tempted we were to keep him around. Maybe he eats silverfish, too.... ;-)

Kids' Day

(I actually wrote this on October 3rd! Just now got the pictures uploaded from Matt's phone, though....)

We had a great Mother's Day. And then we had a great Father's Day. And a little while later, Seth randomly asked from the backseat: "Is there ever going to be a Kids' Day?"

Haha! What a great question! If we can take a whole day for kids and spouse to say thank-you to a mom or dad for being a mom or being a dad, why not celebrate the kids sometime? How fun! It took about half a second for Matt and I to both answer, yes, there is a Kids' Day!

Then we made up some hooey about how, uh, I think it's next month sometime.... :) Seth was darlingly excited.

Every so often he asks us again, "Is it Kids' Day soon?" And today—woo hoo!—today we finally got ourselves together and had Kids' Day.

It has been so, so, so fun. First, we made a special breakfast. Actually two special breakfasts! Matt planned to make cinnamon rolls but didn't get around to making the dough last night, so while we waited for the dough to rise, he made Seth's favorite pancakes: whole wheat. Mmmm.... Then came the cinnamon rolls for lunch.

We've spent the day thanking Seth for being our kid, to which he always grins sweetly and says, "you're welcome!"

And we got him some sa-WEET presents: two dress-up costumes, because we couldn't decide between them! (We might have to make the unveiling of the Halloween Costume a Kids' Day tradition. :))

Much, much, much thanks to our awesome Seth for being our kid, and a great one. Here's to you, kid!

Anesthesia

My book has gone back to a shelf that's too high for me to reach, and I'm too infirm at the moment to climb up a stepladder. But I have to recap the glory of 1940's anesthesia. :)

I loved the excited manner in which he described how, woo hoo! Gone are the days! The days when women must suffer such pain to give birth! Pain is now entirely optional thanks to . . . nitrous oxide!

It goes like this, he explains:

A woman is instructed to bear down just before the worst pain hits. Then she takes a deep breath of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas." Blissfully unaware of . . . anything . . . the mother quickly awakes to discover that by bearing down before she was unconscious, she has assisted her baby in descending through the birth canal. As another pain begins to come on the process is repeated, until finally the mother awakes to find a newborn baby!

Awesome...!?!

You just have to appreciate our day and age, don't you? (And also, a man-centric medical world that managed to finally care about and address the issue of labor pain, even if the best they could come up with for a while was laughing gas!) Almost-all-of-human-experience Lady had no option but to suffer it out—over and over and over again if she didn't happen to be diligently scared into non-menstrual abstinence. (How sad that your relationship with spouse could be so scary! Imagine!) 1940s lady was still getting pregnant all the time, but she could at least whiff some laughing gas...? Dang! And now there's now, when the average woman can plan her pregnancies, then have a barrage of help during the delivery to manage pain in an actually low-risk way. Acupuncture, jet tubs, your husband, injections, epidural....

And you don't even have to be unconscious?! You have got to be kidding me! :)

Thank you, 2010. And all the research and progress that led to it. :)

Nurses and Residents

Courtesy of Expectant Motherhood.

This one had me chuckling a little. :)

"For many a young woman, admission to the maternity ward marks her first acquaintance with hospitals, as well as with the world of nurses and doctors. The immediate reaction may be one of strangeness, of loneliness and of homesickness. The nurses, in their stiff, white uniforms, may seem on first acquaintance somewhat stern and forbidding; you may even chronicle the impression that, to them, you are just another 'case,' which they are handling in a very matter-of-fact and routine sort of way. But beware of first impressions. Beneath their starched and sedate exterior, these daughters of Florence Nightingale cherish but one mission in life, the safety of such as you and yours; your welfare and that of your baby are their greatest concern and their greatest pride; let either of you show the slightest deviation from normal, and they are at attention to raise heaven and earth in your behalf. If they seem business-like, it is only because of their earnest desire to carry out every detail of the care necessary for your well-being. And what about the hospital doctors, the young men in white who venture hesitatingly into your room at odd moments, ask all kinds of silly questions and insist on thumping your chest or getting a drop of blood from your finger? Much maligned are these young men by misunderstanding patients, and a word in their support seems in order. They are doctors of medicine, you understand, who have gone through the most arduous period of study and training known to any of the learned professions. As medical students they have conducted dozens of deliveries and assisted at scores more; and they have passed no end of exacting examinations in obstetrics and every other branch of medicine. This may be their first, second, or even their third year out of school. Fresh from training in the latest scientific methods, they have at their finger tips an array of procedures which may be of the utmost help to your own physician, who will rely on them for much valuable assistance."

Ah, daughters of Florence Nightingale and young men in white....

(Interestingly, nurses are still almost all women. Do you find that odd? What's not "manly" enough for it?)

(I think I need to go watch Meet the Parents now.... ;-))

Oooh.... This one's a goodie!

"Although the mother has no direct responsibility for the care of her baby during the first week or so of the puerperium, she will naturally want to acquaint herself with all that concerns this new and precious possession."

On Smoking

From Expectant Motherhood.

"While most obstetrical authorities, then, disapprove of excessive smoking in pregnancy (twenty-five or more cigarettes daily), there is no reason for believing that a woman who smokes moderately, let us say ten cigarettes or less a day, need change her custom at this time. If you have been used to smoking considerably more than this for several years, by no means try to give them up in pregnancy. There is no surer way of upsetting the nerves at a period when you should be calm and happy, or of converting a placid, sweet-tempered girl into an intolerable shrew. With negligible effort, even the most inveterate smoker can usually be content with a package a day or somewhat less, and if you arrange this there is no great cause for concern."

Really, people.... We just need to preserve the placidity of our sweet-tempered pregnant women...! (Er, I mean pregnant girls.) :-D

Clothing.

Courtesy of Expectant Motherhood.

"The most important consideration in regard to the expectant mother's wardrobe is that it should be attractive."

Ok, stop right there! This is already awesome!

"This may sound like a superficial observation but it is profoundly true. Yes, more important than knowing the dangers of circular garters and high heels is the knowledge that you are well-groomed, because only then (if you are like most women) will you really enjoy entertaining your friends and meeting your husband's friends, and in turn visiting their homes. Pregnancy is no time to be a recluse. The more you are in the company of others, the better off you are; indeed, I have long chronicled the impression that patients who start in labor while playing bridge invariably [invariably! Wow!] have an easy time [emphasis added ;)]. This is simply another way of saying that the woman who cultivates a certain oblivion to the fact that she is pregnant (although obeying the ordinary rules of diet and hygiene) does much better than her introspective sister."

It gets better! :)

"As the appearance of many expectant mothers attests, it is possible to look as attractive at this time as at any other. To be sure, the abdominal rotundity is a handicap [hahahahahaha!!!] but, for some reason, during the middle months of pregnancy women develop a special radiance which is most becoming and [wait for it!] tends to offset this."

HAHAHAHA!!!

HAAAAAHH!! [*wipe eyes*] Ok, continuing.... :)

"Moreover, maternity dresses are so ingeniously contrived these days that they resemble an optical illusion in their ability to beguile the eye in regard to your real contour—which, incidentally, is always more noticeable to you than to anyone else. Patterns for such garments, as well as the ready-made dresses themselves, are readily and inexpensively obtained at any department store and it is a good idea to exercise your ingenuity on this problem."

Love it. Am I the only one laughing my face off right now...? :)

Pearls of Wisdom

Long before there was "What To Expect When You're Expecting" there was another primer on all things pregnancy: "Expectant Motherhood." An indispensable guide! It was written by Dr. Nicholson J. Eastman, M.D., the Obstetrician-in-Chief to the esteemed Johns Hopkins Hospital.

I know this because my mom likes to buy us awesome antique books. :)

This book was first published in 1940. I have the Second Edition, which was published in 1947 offering more modern advice (my copy is a 1949 reprint). I have no idea how long this book was a standard. But it's hilarious. Hahahahaha!!!

I'm not sure what's funnier: the medicine, or the social commentary! Let's just say I have an even greater appreciation now for booming research and also for women's lib. ;-)

(Although, to give this guy, his society and his field credit, I'm sometimes even more surprised with how progressive some of it is. I'm curious how this 1949 version might be different from the 1940 version—the War changed so many things for American culture and for medicine.)

I give you some gems! And I'm sure there are enough to keep them coming for the next little while. Enjoy!!

"Today, thanks to the studies of two German doctors, Aschheim and Zondek, we have at last a sound and trustworthy test for pregnancy and interestingly enough it is performed, like the tests of old, on urine. In carrying out the test a small quantity of morning urine is..."

Can you complete the sentence?

He's just spent several pages talking about how difficult it is to diagnose pregnancy (a problem which is actually kind of interesting to imagine!), but now.... Now! Finally! A simple, easy test!! The small quantity of morning urine is...?

"...injected into a mouse or rabbit."

Of course!

"If the urine comes from a pregnant woman, definite and characteristic changes are produced in the ovaries of the animal within 48 or 72 hours; if the person is not pregnant no alterations whatsoever occur. This test is accurate in about 95% of cases."

:)

Even awesomer!:
"The skeleton of the growing baby is usually demonstrable in X-ray pictures of the mother's abdomen from the beginning of the fifth month and when thus seen is, of course, absolute positive proof of pregnancy."

Ah. Yes. So now we know what the deal is with those Baby Boomers.... ;-)

Actually, it at least goes on to say that visualization is rarely possible before 14 weeks (today's 16), so it's not that useful and is rarely used. Whew!

Wearing thin....

Yet getting so... not thin. ;-)

I'm at 28 weeks now. I think a week or two ago, a switch went off that went: "Ding. Third Trimester. Engage Misery." Not that I wasn't super-tired and super-sore the whole second trimester, too—but, wow! I'm just dying now! Awesome-baby-who-I-swear-I-adore is in my ribs now*. I'm getting a bit of a respite from the kicking-against-the-pelvic-floor trauma that seemed to last much of every day for so long (now it's just bits here and there), but my ribs! AhHOHOWHEHAHKJdfhkhsdfjhajhwoHWHAL!

[That groan turned out kind of cool. I like it. :)]

And, man.... Everything—everything!—just hurts. And I'm randomly morning-sick again, although this time, really just in the morning.

I'm overwhelmed, though, with how all this physical trauma (the pregnancy and the medical loveliness for so long before) is such a small price to pay. It really doesn't seem just to not suffer even more for something so miraculous and wonderful. So while I let myself acknowledge that, yikes, this is really, really miserable(!), I'm also really in awe. And so full of gratitude.

We have a good idea of her birthday ;-) (watch our plans get foiled, though!), and I'm counting the days...!

*Stand up. Find the top of your hip. Now find the bottom of your ribcage. How far is the span between bones? Mine is no more than an inch! Seriously! (My legs are 2/3 my total height!) This isn't so convenient when housing another human being.... The ribs—front and back—are truly suffering. Suffering, I tell you! Suffering! ;) 


Love, love, love you, baby girl. :-*

Auburn's Tips for Vacationing Off-Season!

Undoubtedly, there are places which should not be visited outside of the tourist season. ;-)

Alaska, for example.

I'd love to take an Alaskan cruise one of these days. My favorite travel months of November through February would, uh.... Probably not work out too well.

When we were planning our trip to Costa Rica, we were a little worried about reports that through much of the year, the country is under water and you need to ride a kayak around. (Or something like that.... ;-))

What can you do? Gotta go during tourist season, right?

WRONG!

You can still beat the system! Muwahahahahaha!!

Check for the when hotels and vacation rentals and airlines claim "low season," "medium season," and "high season." Do NOT go in high season. It will cost a ton more, and the experience will be worse. DO go in low season!

But go for the first or last week of it.... ;-)

Muwahahahahahaha!!! Oh, so sneaky!

(Not really. It's pretty obvious. And yet...? No one does it....)

This will make your vacation cost half as much, give you a thousand times the experience, and the weather will be virtually the same. Jackpot. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

Maybe I'll end up with more tips than just this. We'll see. :)

Vacationing in Summer. Part Three.

A few years later, I was back in England—this time as a student of art and architecture (no, not creating my own :)). I showed up the first of the year.

For the next few months, I got to know London in a really fabulous way. I love London! I had a great time becoming familiar with the subtleties of London culture. It began to feel like a home away from home.

And then . . . .

SPRING BREAK!!!

[Cue Psycho slashing music! Strings, strings, strings, strings!!]

Americans descended upon London like the plague. Not that I have anything against Americans in London.... (I was one, after all. :)) But they all came at once!

The city was changed.

Everything was more crowded. Dollar bills filled the donation bins. The locals seemed to disappear.... Instead of the usual dispersement of wandering patrons throughout a gallery, crowds followed each other to sardine themselves in front of something like Sunflowers by Van Gogh. (Furthermore, Americans aren't as quiet in galleries....) Bridges were suddenly crowded with tourists snapping pictures of Parliament, or St. Paul's, or the Tower of London. Those obnoxious tourist buses (for folks who go to a city to sit in a tourist bus) were out and about in droves.

The foot traffic on the sidewalks shifted sides, for heaven's sake...! :)

It was a different place! Really a very stark, unexpected, jarring contrast! (Kristin can back me up on this. It's true! :)) And I couldn't help but feel really, really sad for these thousands of people who were taking a trip of a lifetime, but had no clue that they weren't experiencing the real London.

A couple weeks later.... The American plague was gone, and London went back to normal.

And I logged away this rule of thumb: I'll never travel during Spring Break, either. (Not unless it's a place no one would go in Spring.... Like...?) What's the point of exploring a new culture if you'll just find a bunch of other visitors there? And even if I'm just visiting exotic Montana or something, I want to see exotic Montana the way the locals do! I want to see the quiet days! (Are there unquiet days in Montana? ;-)) I want things uncrowded and authentic. I want to soak up the culture. I want to wander a "tourist trap" on the days when it's left the most normal—the most natural, or the most empty, or the most quiet—and when it's being explored the way its own culture explores it.

And I definitely don't want to be one of those people who visited London during Spring Break 2001 without realizing that in the weeks before and the weeks after...it was a different place. They almost came at the right time. So close....

Strike Three against Summer travel. You're out, Summer. :) (And take Spring break with you. ;))

Vacationing in Summer. Part Two.

The next year, another spur-of-the-moment trip. (I love my family. :)) My dad came home from work one day and said, "Anyone want to go to England in a few weeks?!" Hahaha!

He had noticed some amazing fares and jumped on it, figuring, why the heck not...?

A midnight-trip to Kinko's for passport photos was really the only casualty of our quick planning (we all looked pretty scary! Haha!) and, thanks to being willing to leave last-second and on Christmas Eve, we were able to take a trip of a lifetime that we surely couldn't have taken otherwise.

Strike Two against tourist season. :)

My dad even made it on the news to share this awesome travel strategy! There was a news crew at the airport and my brother Dave, ever the extravert :), shouted over to them: "Hey! Can we get an interview?!" And they actually came over! Turned their lights on us and asked my dad why were we traveling on Christmas Eve...?

When we came home two weeks later, our neighbors and friends were all excited to tell us they'd seen us on the news with his two brief words of wisdom:

"CHEAP. AIRFARE."

Moral of the story: You can go more places if you go at a weird time. And you can even get on TV. :)

Vacationing in Summer. Part One.

I should have named this series: "Vacationing any time other than Summer." Because that's what I mean to promote.

But not too vigorously, mind you, because I'm counting on the world to keep following each other on vacation the same three or four months of the year. So we can have good vacations. :) Yessss!!!

My testimony of off-season travel began in Nauvoo, Illinois.

It's an historical site for our church—a place where Mormons built a beautiful city from swampland before they were forced out to trek to the Salt Lake Valley. Like many members of the church, we have several ancestors who had lived there. And one of the restored homes open for tours belonged to my 3rd-great-grandfather! He built it himself and lived there with his family. When he left for Salt Lake he gave the home to Joseph Smith's mother. It's billed as Lucy Mack Smith's house, with secondary billing to my gramps Joseph Bates Noble. Very cool.

My parents had always wanted to go, and it worked out for us to take a trip in . . . December.

Illinois.
In December.

We were all a little skeered. :)

Can I just say.... It was AWESOME!!! We were in Nauvoo for four days, and all but one afternoon when another family came through for just a few hours, we were the only ones there. Sure we were cold! Who cares?! We were the only ones there! (As in, really, the only ones.) It was awesome. We'd go up to the brickyard to make bricks, or the masonry shop, or a restored home, or wherever, and the senior missionary couple would just light up, so excited to have people come by! They'd put down their cards (how many people get to see missionaries playing cards? ;)) and swarm us, giving us the best tour ever. We became friends with everyone there. We lingered. Pictures and journals were pulled out for us to look at. By the end of our stay, the missionaries even organized a piano recital for everyone's entertainment. It was the most charming thing of all time, strolling around this restored town (that was fabulously decorated for Christmas, no less—1800's style!) with no one there but ourselves and a bunch of cute, lonely, cold senior missionaries who loved us.

We loved the cafe we kept frequenting, too, and became friends with plenty of non-Mormon Nauvoo residents, which was fabulous! What a wonderful experience to truly experience this quaint, charming place—not at all as a tourist attraction, but a real town with real people.

We went to several other church history sites—Liberty Jail, Adam-Ondi-Ahman, the Far West temple site, Independence, Carthage Jail—and in each place, we were alone. I especially loved being able to talk so much with people at other churches—splinter groups that believed in, say, The Book of Mormon, but not in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We had a particularly wonderful experience at the temple for the formerly-known Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now The Community of Christ), and became fast friends with the woman showing us their building and sharing her testimony.

Contrast that with the stories I remember hearing from friends the following Summer: tales of waiting in two-hour lines, of picking and choosing which places you can hit on account of the crowds, of a line being ushered quickly through a building.... They all had a good time! But...we were the only ones there!

Was it worth the extra pairs of gloves to see a totally empty Nauvoo...? OH my goodness, YES.

It was an experience we'll never forget. Authentic. Not at all contrived. And complete with new friends, from LDS missionaries, to normal ol' residents, to volunteers from other religions.

My testimony of non-Summer travel was born! BIG time.

Summer's Over! Woo hoo!!

I went back to Sea World, the Zoo, and the Wild Animal Park this week after a bit of a hiatus and thought...ahhhhh.... Summer's over!

I hate Summer. I've always hated Summer. I remember as a kid—in my couple of years before year-round schooling—that while the end of the school year was pretty exciting, within a week or so I was so over Summer. By the time I got back to school, it was as if Summer had lasted four years. (And, when you think about the percentage three months is in a 6-year-old's memory, that makes some sense!)

Then year-round began, and my love-affair with the other nine months of the year hit full-swing. One-month vacations instead of three? Awesome. Three-month school periods instead of nine? Double-awesome. Family vacations in . . . Winter? Awesome times infinity!!!

Because, you see.... I hate Summer.

And here's why:

1. Too hot. (Not so much in San Diego, but still. We had a week or two when being outside all day wasn't pleasant. And that's just annoying.) (Oh, but then we'd go to my parents' and, AHHH! 95 degrees! 100 degrees! 90 degrees! No thank you. Denver.... 93 degrees! Provo.... 100 degrees!! Summer most of my life has been way too hot.)

2. Too dead. Denver was the one exception to this—it's dead the rest of the year! Haha! Seriously, it is. And then Summer comes around and everything is green and you think, ahhhh.... Why can't it be Summer all year? This was a huge paradigm shift for me: to look forward to Summer. (It was still too hot, though. :)) But California gets gorgeous through Fall and Winter—wildflowers galore—and within three days of Summer weather it's all a mass of death. Very sad.

3. TOO MANY PEOPLE. Anywhere you want to go, there are too many people! We refuse to partake. What's better crowded than uncrowded? Nothing.

So let's get this straight. Everyone else waits for Summer to do things. So they can go somewhere crowded. And bake.

Very smart, people.

We went back to some of our favorite spots this week, found quick and easy parking, walked around in the 68-degree breeze and sunshine, saw nearly no one, took a refreshing breath and thought...ahhhhhhh.... It's back! Life!

I'm starting to get majorly depressed about Seth starting school next year—despite how much I know he'll love it—for two major reasons:

1. (another bullet list :)) Full-day kindergarten! Curse working parents for the demise of half-day! I have to lose Seth for 30+ hours a week?! You kidding me? That's cruel.

2. The Traditional Calendar!!!

I don't know who to blame for that one. But I'm having a heck of a time finding a year-round school. Even the "year-round" calendars still give you two months of your vacation in the Summer, and that is not ok with us. Not ok at all.

So I guess the school and the state and the country and the universe are just going to have to be ok with the fact that we will dapple into truancy. Hahaha! Really, though. We will. Because we love our family time! When Matt is post-call with a whole weekday free, we do something as a family. And we'll be darned if we start to only do those things during . . . Summer. [Ewwwwww!!!] Or weekends! [More ewwwwww!!]

Will we ever, ever, ever go to Disneyland in the Summer? Ha! No way. (You've got to be INSANE to go to Disneyland in the Summer. Those of you who have only been in Summer: do you have any idea what you're missing? It's a completely different place on those 10-6 days. Totally fabulous. Pain-free.)

Will we ever, ever, ever take a family vacation in the Summer? Double-no!! (Nothing ruins a great place like tourists! We'll even take bad weather to not go with tourists! A post on this to follow.... :))

Will we be able to resist bringing Seth home for perfectly gorgeous Winter days at uncrowded beaches and empty tourist sites, or for two-week vacations to destinations no one else is destining...? No times infinity!!

If truancy is a crime, lock us up now! (Or just get the independent study contracts ready. :))

Don't take it too hard. We like you, school. We just like being together so much more!

And we hate Summer.

There's No Hope

I want to like fish sooooo bad. It looks absolutely delectable. The meat is such a great texture, you can flavor it all different ways, it's really good for you...!

Unfortunately, it also tastes like . . . fish! Like the way a pier smells. Like some kind of chemical is putrefying on your plate!

After a successful acclimation to spicy food (thank you, Chris, my "Spice Coach" ;)), I was determined to overcome my sensitivity to that "fishy" flavor. For years Matt was on the hunt for fish that was mild enough for me to enjoy. He'd order fish every chance he got and carefully evaluate.... Then it was either, "Nope, Auburn, this is kind of fishy." Or, if I were lucky, it was, "oh yeah, I'm sure this isn't fishy at all! You can try this one!"

So I'd try it.

Fishy. Every time.

Makes me want to puke.

Mahi mahi. Fishy. Mahi mahi encrusted with some kind of divine macadamia nut mixture. Fishy. The perfect salmon. Fishy. Halibut. Fishy. $40 fish entree. Fishy! I mean, really people. How can you stand it? Do you lick piers, too?

Eventually, Matt gave up. He'd try something and say, "you know, I could swear this doesn't have any fishiness! But you better not try it.... Sorry." :)

The nail in the coffin happened a couple years ago when Brian and Janelle drove to Denver and offered us some of their road snacks. I went for the beef jerky. Mmmm!! Beef jerkkk.... Wha...?

Tastes like FISH!!!

I started to complain. Does anyone else taste this? The beef jerky is fishy! No one believed me—thought I was crazy. I tried another bite. Ugh. Fish fish fish.

At which point, Janelle, incredulous, with a bit of "I'm in the twilight zone" in her voice, said: "Ummmm.... The bag of beef jerky was sitting next to a bottle of omega-3 supplements. Those have, uh.... Fish oil...." Hadn't come in contact—just supplements in a bottle sitting in a bag next to a sealed package of beef jerky. Could it be possible?

All these years I had wondered if the fishiness were just in my head, and now it all clicked. Why would my psyche randomly decide that beef jerky should taste like fish oil...? I started to remember all those times I had eaten something random at a restaurant and had to throw it away because it was too fishy—french fries, carrot cake?, vegetables.

My mind flashed to that chemical-paper genetics experiment in high school biology. Mr. Jones came in with a tube of little strips of paper, gleeful. "Golding! I can't wait for you to taste this! Muwahahahahaha!!!!" Everyone gets a paper to taste. For the vast majority, the paper will taste horribly bitter. But if you happen to have two recessive genes, you'll taste nothing. We had 25 people in the class. I braced for the taste! My classmates started to moan and spit and gag and complain. I tasted . . . nothing. Out of all 25 in the class, I was the only one who could taste nothing. I chewed on that piece of paper for a while just reveling in the awesomeness that is genetics (and in the chagrin of my teacher who had been so excited to torture me :)). So cool! Genes can make you not taste a nasty chemical on a piece of paper!

So now I'm tasting fish on beef jerky and realizing.... I've got some kind of freak genetic thing that makes me taste a chemical in fish other people don't taste!

My dream died.

I also felt vindicated. :)

But the dream died....

And I'll never be able to eat fish. :-(  It's really, really, really sad.

A few weeks ago, Matt bought some Smart Balance eggs. He was so excited about them, too. They'll taste better! They're good for you! Seth eats so many eggs, and now he'll get more Omega-3s!

I made myself an egg-on-bagel sandwich and.... You guessed it!

Fish.

Are you kidding me! Eggs that taste like fish? Who could have seen that coming?! (Disgusting. I had to throw it away after a few bites because I just couldn't take it anymore.)

I don't know what they're feeding those chickens to get Omega-3s in those eggs, but the litmus test—me!—says fish is involved somewhere! I googled it to see if I were crazy. Sure enough, there were but a few souls out there asking the question: "why do my smart balance eggs taste like fish?" The world rose in revolt against them to say, wow, you're insane. But I think they're on to something...!

R.I.P. craving for fish. It's never gonna happen.

To find out or not to find out....

I just read on someone's blog (someone I don't know :)) about the really fun way they found out about the sex of their baby. They said at the last-minute, they asked the tech to write down the gender and seal it in an envelope—and right away they took the envelope to a baker and asked him to bake a cake with pink or blue frosting. They invited their families over for dinner and (with much fanfare, I'm sure) the soon-to-be-Mom got to cut into . . .

Is that fun or is that fun? If I felt like finding out along with a bunch of people, I'd wish we'd thought up this idea ourselves! Maybe at home with our own kids someday.... (How much would kids love that?!) Too cute.

Another goodie!

Seth's prayer last night:

Heavenly Father

Thank You for our things ("our hings")

I would really appreciate it ("hur-preesh-iate it") if You would come to our house to visit

Really soon

And

I'm showing You I keep my deals

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I love that Seth doesn't say the same things all the time. :) And that He frequently tells God "I'd really hurpreeshiate it if . . . ." :-D You know, things like coming over for a visit. He's not a mimicker, that's for sure. Haha! (Or do I sometimes pray like that? Heavenly Father, we'd really appreciate it if Seth could get some help with his scratching so he doesn't die soon. But if he does die soon, help him be happy to live with Thee again. :))

(Showing he can keep his deals is a conversation I'd had with him the other night about why it would be a good idea to go to sleep after he had made a deal with dad for extra Legos time. ;))

The best prayer of the year was in Church a few months ago. Seth's prayers have been impressively context-specific. For probably a full year, every time he prayed at home he would start with: "Heavenly Father, please help us to have a baay-bee. Thank you for...." So when he'd volunteer in nursery at church to say the prayer for the snack, I'd brace myself for a funny situation (I worked in nursery with some other adults). But, dozens of times, he prayed only for things relevant to the nursery class, never for help having a baby. Whew!

Then he graduates to the big-kid "Primary" and I heard him pray in class a few times. It was always context-specific still—so when it was his turn to pray up at the microphone on behalf of all the kids (and bunches of teachers!) in Primary, and I was not telling anyone I was pregnant, I trusted everything would be fine.

First thing out of his mouth! In the microphone! Completely discernable!:

Heavenly Father

Thank you for our baay-bee

Please help our baby to grow

Ohhhh boy! Hahaha!

Then he goes on and on with the sweetest prayer ever:

Thank you for our moms

Thank you for our dads

Thank you for all the pretty flowers

and Thank you for the beautiful sky ("kighhh...")

Thank you for our hings

Thank you we can all be friends

Thank you that we can do hings

Thank you we can have our moms and dads

He had a few more, I just can't remember now. But do you think the cuteness and lengthiness made anyone forget that first part? Haha!

As soon as he says Amen, the chorister sitting behind me goes: "Aw! That was the sweetest prayer EVER!" And the pianist blurts out: "Cat's out of the bag! I hope you were ready!" And all the teachers and everyone else just sit there grinning at me with the funniest looks. It was hilarious. Not a bad way to tell everyone, though.... :)