And a Busy Saturday

(Still on our Seattle trip here)

The next morning we, once again, got up early, got everyone dressed nicely and headed out by 9:30am.  Whew.  (And we did this knowing we'd have to do it for church the next day, also.  Rough way to spend our first three days!  But at least the time difference worked in our favor...)  This time we had the kind of weather you'd expect in Seattle in February-- cold, wet, and drizzling.  We took the ferry into Seattle and I managed to follow my Mom all the way to the cemetery (with a quick detour past the brick home my Grandma had lived in while my Dad was in high school up until when I was a little girl and she sold it and bought her condo).  The graveside service was short, and just had family and Bishop Cook present. 

My sisters and I sang again (different song, this time, and no violin or piano).  We had a few moments where people could share thoughts about my Grandma and it was quite touching to hear both Craig and Brian say nice things about her.  Craig gave the dedicatory prayer, and then they lowered the coffin into the grave.  I've never been at a service where this was done before, but I actually really like it.  I mean-- it was sad and I was sobbing.  But it gave the whole thing a very nice sense of closure, and I appreciated that.  Then we were each given tulips to drop into the grave.

And it was all over.  I pointed out to everyone that there was a cherry blossom tree blooming-- certainly not normal for that time of year, but a lovely token.  And we climbed into our cars to leave.

And then, because Saturday was ALSO the day that Kendra turned 9, and because we wanted there to be more than just a funeral for her special day, we drove across town to where the Museum of Flight is located, right by Boeing airfield.  And we toured all over the museum for as long as we could handle.

Tracy had done Kendra's hair extra pretty for her birthday

Camille quickly made friends with this astronaut

Kendra and Caleb

Just a few of the planes in their newest exhibit (which, unfortunately, was outside and cold!)

Craig with a Blue Angels jet

Samuel inside one of the original AirForce Ones (and looking just as crazy as any president!)

Leah and I taking a quick break before we head out to the parking lot

Bentley being weird (no, he didn't hurt himself)

Camille learning weirdness at Bentley's feet

And Colton just being cute, also at Bentley's feet

Our little clan

By the time we finally headed back to Bainbridge, we were all so exhausted.  But hopefully it was a good day for Kendra, despite the rather gloomy start.  At the house, my Dad had ordered pizza, so it was piping hot when we got home, and then Tracy had made a cake so we got to sing to Kendra and all that.  We'd sent one present ahead, so she got to open that, too.  It was a water bottle for pets, our way of telling her that we were getting her a pet bunny.  As you can imagine, this caused much rejoicing!

Another good day.

The Funeral

I was worried about getting everyone ready in time for the Friday morning funeral, but we were still on east coast time, and I was up and showered by 6am (I even got hot water!).  We made it to the church in plenty of time and let the kids play with their cousins in the nursery room during the viewing. 

Bentley and Samuel practice their origami before we leave for the church

Colton and Eliot

l-r: Samuel, Kendra, Caleb (under the table), Theo, Ryder

Aunt Tracy reading to Camille

Eliot, Theo, and Colton

Some of my kids came to see her, too.  Some of them didn't want to.  And that was fine.  Nicole (Natalie's 2-year-old) just about broke all our hearts by whispering, "Shh!  Gramma's sleeping..."

Family friends came and gave us hugs-- the Hogans, the Cruzats, the Keyes...  People who have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  We had a brief prayer service, and then followed the casket to the chapel for the actual service.

As is often the case with Mormon funerals, this one felt like more of a celebration of life than a sad occasion.  My parents and my aunt all spoke, and my sisters and I sang "Abide with Me, Tis Eventide."  And then our bishop/funeral director gave the closing remarks where he talked about his last visit with my Grandma and read the story of Christ raising Lazarus from the dead.  As they rolled the coffin out to the hearse and we followed, Ryder slipped in front of me and then began doing a crazy dance and singing to himself, "Oh yeah, I'm in the front of the line!  Oh yeah!"  He was quiet enough that I don't think anyone else noticed, but I suddenly found myself trying very hard to not start laughing.  (And I'm already someone who struggles with laughing at inappropriate times, so we know where Ryder gets it from!)

It was a surprisingly beautiful and sunny day, especially for February in Seattle.  And that was really lovely.  Apparently as we were standing in the parking lot, my aunt noticed an old-fashioned Mustang drive by and that made her smile, since my Grandma drove Mustangs for years. 

The Relief Society had put together a wonderful lunch for us, so we got time to sit and talk with all those family friends who had come.  The food was so good-- especially after a day of traveling and eating only junky snacky foods, eating REAL food tasted amazing.  They'd also given us real plates and silverware to eat with-- such a small thing, but it made the meal so much more enjoyable.  I need to remember that some day when I'm tasked with providing a funeral lunch for someone. 

I got to hold Luke & Kat's baby, Maya, in her beautiful dress

And Craig got to hold Rachael and Ian's baby, Nolan

Eventually we figured we had better move along and let everyone continue with their day.  We thanked everyone, loaded flowers into cars, and headed home.  At home, we made the kids play outside and ate leftovers.  Our neighbors came to say Hi, and their visit wiped out Craig and Ian, who both conked out on the couch.  So of course, I took a picture: 

Sleepy brothers-in-law!

It had been a very long, but very good day.

The Trip to Seattle

I suspect that Craig was somewhat horrified when I told him we would ALL be flying to Seattle for Grandma Bentley's funeral.  Because my sisters and I were Grandma's only grandchildren, I felt like I needed all of us to be there for her funeral.  I couldn't rely on my cousins and their children to fill out the chapel a bit, like I did for my Grandma Hansen.  (And it turns out that when you outlive all your friends, there are much less people who can attend your funeral.)

Fortunately for our bank account, my Dad and aunt used funds from my Grandma's estate to pay for everyone's travel expenses.  We couldn't have done it without their generosity.

The other complication in all this was that we already had plans to go to Great Wolf Lodge for a couple days to take a mini-break from winter (this will have to be the subject of another blog post).  We were leaving Sunday, returning Tuesday evening.  The funeral was planned for Friday, so that gave me Wednesday to do all the laundry and get all prepared, and Thursday to pack and then fly.  Whew!  And, just to make sure I was really on my A-game, a friend from out of town had an interview in Charlottesville on Wednesday, so I also spent a couple hours playing tour guide to him!  Double whew!

Anyway, I spent those two days a madwoman of preparations and planning.  And then I spent all Thursday morning packing, cleaning, packing some more, and cleaning some more.  The stupid airline was charging $25 per suitcase, so I was determined to keep things to the bare minimum, but when you have to dress all seven of you up nicely for three days of your trip, that's still a lot of stuff!  Plus all activities and food for everyone for the plane, and a safari trip in Africa might have been less complicated.

But I did it!  I loaded the car, picked the kids up from school, picked Craig up from work, and we were off to the airport!  I'd also dressed up all the kids in their bright orange UVA shirts, hoping this would make them less likely to get lost at the airport.

When I purchased our tickets and the airline lets you choose your seat (but really, they're mostly trying to coerce you into paying for the nicer seats), there were only 6 seats to choose from left on the small plane from Charlottesville to Charlotte, NC.  That had me completely stressed out, and we got to the airport even earlier than normal in case this was going to be a problem.  It turned out to not matter and the airline was very nice about making sure we were all seated together.  But the extra time meant that Craig could run back out to the car and get Ryder's sweatshirt when he left it there (the ONE warm item I packed for each kid, and my 6-year-old decides to leave his in the car!!!!).  So that was good.  And it was good that the Charlottesville airport is tiny, so going through security twice wasn't a big deal-- we couldn't have done that at a big airport, and Ryder would have been very cold in Seattle.

Ryder makes himself comfortable on the floor of the Charlotte airport

The trip out was hard.  We were arriving in Seattle around 9:30pm which is after midnight east coast time.  Camille fought against sleeping on the plane and spent a couple hours of the flight just crying in my arms.  So that sucked.  But Ryder and Colton slept great and Bentley and Kendra were wonderful and made friends with some kids across the aisle from them.  And I had just gotten Anna Kendrick's memoir Scrappy Little Nobody from the library, so that kept me entertained.

When I flew to LA for my other Grandma's funeral, everything went wrong-- my first flight was delayed, which made me miss my connecting flight.  On the return trip, I ended up spending two extra hours on the plane (AFTER the six hour flight!!!!) because of weather issues and then the subsequent back-up that this had caused.  Which, then, once again, made me miss my connecting flight.

So while the trip to Seattle was hard, everything actually went very smoothly.  But flying across the country with a 2-year-old is always hard.

Craig started out with these two, but Colton migrated over to my lap to sleep

Camille had just turned two, so she got her own seat, although she spent most of the flight on my lap.  I worked very hard to not let her squish Colton, who was also on my lap.  Fun!

We landed in Seattle, found all our luggage (some of it had gotten set aside, causing me to momentarily panic), actually caught a shuttle that was just sitting there waiting for us to push our way on (everyone was SUPER nice about making room, giving up seats to the kids, and helping haul our suitcases on board-- I love Seattle people), and picked up our rental car.  Punched the ferry terminal address into the GPS and we were off!  We even caught the next ferry without any trouble, so that was nice.  I had been fearing that we'd pull in just in time to see it leave and that would have made me cry, so I'm glad that didn't happen.

We'd made it!  We were home.

A Tribute to my Grandmother

I loved both of my Grandmas very much, but where my Grandma Hansen lived in California and I usually only got to see her for a couple weeks out of the year, Grandma Bentley lived just a hop, skip, and a jump away in Seattle and was a much bigger part of my life.  We were also her only grandchildren, so she was able to really spoil us properly.

I'm only now beginning to appreciate several things about my grandmother: she was an incredibly independent woman, especially for being born in 1915.  My grandfather was a career Naval officer, and was out to sea a lot.  Grandma had both her children while he was gone (a fact that she bemoaned, mostly because she worried that the hospital would think she wasn't married!).  But because of that, she was always an incredibly self-sufficient woman.  She served in our church as the Stake Young Women's President for quite some time, and during that time became acquainted with the Stake President, President Nash (the man who would later marry Craig and I in the Seattle temple).  He was also a dentist (I guess I could just as easily call him Dr. Nash), and he suggested she work for him as a dental hygienist.  He trained her himself, and she worked for decades, first for him and then for Dr. Thomas.  When she got quite old, she retired for a few weeks and then decided she was bored and went right back to work.  I think she continued working well into her 80s.

My Grandma and Grandpa joined the church when my dad was eleven.  Ironically, they'd lived in Utah but never paid any attention to the local religion.  It was when they were living in California that missionaries began visiting them, and they remembered that they'd been given a Book of Mormon right before leaving Utah!  They took the decision to be baptized very seriously, investigating the Church for over a year before finally committing.  (My Grandpa was a smoker, and used to smoke in the car on the way to church every week.  I wonder what the members must have thought of him at the time!  When the missionaries fully explained the Word of Wisdom, he simply quit cold turkey.)  Once they joined, they always stayed active in the church, my Grandpa served as the bishop of the married ward at UW, where they visited every new mother in the hospital.  They both helped out with the dedication of the Seattle Temple, and my Grandma was a temple worker for several years.


My grandfather's death in 1980 was sudden and unexpected, and my Grandma never stopped grieving for him.  I remember as a small child being warned not to talk about Grandpa around her, because it would make her too sad.  As she got older she would talk about him some, but mostly just to tell us how much she missed him.  I remember once when I told her that I was sure he missed her even more, to which she responded, "Oh, he couldn't possibly!"  But her fierce independence served her well through all those years of being a widow.  Where some women from her generation relied on their husbands to pay the bills and take care of them, my grandmother always did fine on her own.  (After living in a couple very expensive assisted living homes for ten years, I was impressed by how much money she still left to my Dad and Aunt!)

My Dad nearly died when he was 26, and my mother and Grandma shared a room while he was recovering, watching over him and praying for his recovery.  If you think brain surgery is scary now, I can't imagine how it was in the 1970s!  This time of stress created a very solid foundation upon which my Mom and Grandma were able to build a wonderful relationship.  I really only appreciated this once I was married and saw in my married friends just how fraught mother/daughter-in-law relationships can be.  (I feel more and more lucky that I love my mother-in-law and enjoy spending time with her!)

Grandma was also super classy.  She loved to shop at Nordstrom, and once gave us all beautiful cashmere scarves and gloves from there.  (I happened to see them on display later and was shocked at how much she'd spent on us!)  She always dressed nicely and she liked to take us shopping and find clothes that we would like.  She was the ONLY one who could find dresses that Natalie (who was quite the tomboy as a kid) was willing to wear.  When I came home from my mission my clothes were practically rags (turns out biking in extreme temperatures and humidity is NOT a good look!), she helped outfit me in decent clothes again.  (How many 22-year-olds would trust their Grandma's fashion advice?  But I trusted my Grandma, and I headed back to BYU looking great.)  Having said all this, I don't want you to think that my Grandma was a "cool" grandma-- she wasn't dramatic, flamboyant Auntie Mame type or anything-- she just had excellent tastes and wasn't afraid to spend money on quality items.

Her home was always decorated beautifully, often with things from the Philippines and China, places she'd lived with my Grandpa before WWII broke out.  And it was ALWAYS spotless.  Grandma felt that if she found dirt while cleaning, she must have waited too long to clean.  (She also made a point of always helping out in the kitchen at church potlucks... because she wanted to know who brought what.  Some people's homes weren't clean enough to eat out of, in her opinion.)  Once, when some friends came to visit, they held up two leaves they'd found in her otherwise perfect yard!

We would usually take turns spending a week with Grandma in the summer.  In addition to the shopping trips, we would see lots of movies.  (I still have a guilty thrill at the fact that she took me to see The Firm, even though it was rated R.  My Mom was probably horrified...)  We would swim in the pool at her condo while she kept an eye on us.  We would visit her neighbors so she could show us off.  She would take us out to dinner and let us watch MTV (this was back when MTV actually showed music videos, and my family didn't have cable, so that was very exciting).  And she always had a bowl of Hershey Kisses sitting on her coffee table that we could snack on.

Bentley was my Grandma's first great-grandchild, and I was immensely pleased to show him off to her.  She played peek-a-boo with him and they both laughed together and it was a beautiful moment.  When we traveled to Seattle for her 100th birthday, I was able to show off my 3-month-old Camille to her, and she sat holding her so pleased. 

Peek-a-boo

Kiss from Grandma

Four generations!

Adding Craig and Rachael to the picture.  I like that Grandma is too busy smiling at Bentley to look at the camera

It is not in most children's nature to be appreciative or grateful for anything, and I'm sure I took my Grandma for granted.  As I cried and watched her coffin be lowered into the ground, it hit me just how lucky I was to have this amazing woman be such an important part of my life.  She was kind and generous.  She loved us.  She loved being with us.  And she was a wonderful example of how a woman can be kind and strong, able and hard working.

Saying Goodbye

As often happens in life, I feel like my Grandma's death was a slow, easing-into-things sort of affair.  So much so that it really does feel like a journey rather than a single event.  My sister Tracy has been living on Bainbridge Island these last few months, and made a point of visiting my Grandma a lot.  Sometimes when Grandma was really aware, Tracy would FaceTime with us so we could all say Hi, which was really nice.  About a month ago when she did this, I thought to myself, This might be the last time we talk.  And I was grateful to have had such a nice chat with my 101-year-old grandmother.  I was glad she got to wave at all of my children.

Shortly after that conversation, Grandma had several days where she could not be woken up or fed.  Tracy told me this while she was there visiting, and I could hear Grandma moaning in the background while we spoke.  And this was upsetting-- she sounded so forlorn.  It was nice knowing that Tracy was there for her.  I expected any day to get a phone call, but it didn't come.  Grandma woke up a little bit and ate some yogurt, but then continued to mostly sleep.  Tracy had to go out of town for a few days-- she worried about leaving my grandma, but my parents assured her that she needed to keep living her own life.  (They've had this conversation with themselves every time they've gone out of town for the last ten years, so they were used to this concern.)

A week later, my Mom called on Camille's birthday and I assumed she was calling to sing to Camille.  But as I was answering, Mom called out to my Dad, "I'm calling Alanna right now" and I immediately knew she had not called for Camille.  I knew that she was calling each of us, one by one, to tell us that Grandma had passed away.

It made us sad at first that Grandma had been alone when she died.  But then several of us realized (almost at the same time) that this was exactly how Grandma would have wanted it.  When we were little and Grandma would come to our house for the holidays, after all the celebrations were over, she always liked to get up early and leave while we were still asleep.  (My Mom actually got after her for this, explaining that we all wanted a chance to say goodbye and were upset by her sudden absence.  So she stopped doing that at the time.)  But Grandma didn't like goodbyes and now that I'm older, I understand that sentiment-- sometimes goodbyes are just a little too much; it can feel better to just slip away and skip that step entirely.

The bishop for the Bainbridge Island ward, Bishop Cook, is also a mortician and he had been visiting my grandma regularly (as a bishop-- not in his funereal capacity!).  He had seen her just the week before and held her hands and prayed with her; he said she wasn't talking much, but had squeezed his hands very tightly during their prayer and at various moments during their conversation.  She knew what was going on.  He had talked with her about how the time would be coming soon when she would be reunited with my Grandfather, who died 36 years ago when I was just one.  She squeezed his hands even tighter at this.  Bishop Cook made an appointment to see her the following Thursday afternoon, and I truly believe that Grandma was pleased that she made things simple for him by passing away that morning, so that he could still come as planned, but for a different reason. 

My Grandma was classy like that.

My parents made arrangements to leave their mission for a few days for the funeral and we were all able to fly home for it.  We were also all there for my Dad's 70th birthday, which felt like another gift from my Grandma to her son.

I'll tell you more soon-- more about Grandma and more about the trip.  But for now I wanted you to understand the length of this journey, and how even though it's very sad, everything seems to have happened exactly as it should have.  And how often can you say that in life?

Happy Birthday, Camille!

She's been acting like it for a while now, but today is the day that Camille officially turns TWO. 

Pretending to sleep is one of their favorite pastimes

This girl.  She's so spunky.  She's so funny.  She can be so fun, but if you cross her-- watch out.  She will not put up with any crap from anyone.

I'm not sure what this game was, but it made me laugh

She is so loved by her siblings, a fact that makes me happier than just about anything else.

Her hair floats around her head like a wild cloud, and there doesn't seem to be much within my power to tame it.  She bosses Colton around and picks fights with him and loves him so much-- they are best friends and worst enemies all the time.

Waiting for the bus on a cold day

She got Bentley to wrap her up all snug

She pops out of her crib in the morning exclaiming, "Iiiiit's morning!" And if I tell her it's nap time, she argues with me by insisting, "Iiiiiiiit's morning!"

Dressed up as Buzz Lightyear

She likes to ask for something and then change her mind, saying, "Ackshwee, no no no..."

Wearing Kendra's soccer medallion.  Because, why not?

Who could have guessed that she was exactly what our family needed?

Sleeping deeply

I love my little Cami-P so very much.  What a wonderful two years it's been!

Interpretation

I was driving around with the radio on a few weeks ago when the DJ announced that up next was "Cake by the Ocean."  I thought she meant, a song by the group Cake called "By the Ocean" and since I like Cake, I was excited to hear it.  But as soon as the vocals began, it was clear that this was not Cake (that guy has such a gravelly voice you can barely call it singing).  So then I thought maybe it was a song called "Cake" by a group called "The Ocean."  Because that would have made sense, too.

It was at least halfway through the song before I realized the song itself was called "Cake by the Ocean."  Punctuation-- it will get you every time, I'm telling you!

Anyway, it's a catchy song and now I seem to hear it all the time, which is fine, since I like it.  But I told Craig that I wasn't sure eating cake by the ocean was a good idea since you'd get sand everywhere.  Craig said that he'd heard that "cake" was supposed to be a euphemism for sex.  Isn't everything, these days?

But I'm pretty sure either way, the sand would be a problem.

Serving a Purpose

I have a vague recollection of refusing to eat my dinner to the point that my Dad finally got angry and sent me to my room.  This happened before my family moved to Bainbridge, so I must have been about four years old.  I sat in my room (in my memory, I was sitting in the dark, although it's very likely that I made that up) until my mother came in with a flashlight and looked down my throat.  Whatever she saw alarmed her enough that she made my Dad take me to the hospital that very night. 

The doctor looked at my throat and determined that my tonsils were indeed enlarged, but he felt they weren't bad enough for a tonsillectomy.  He took off his glove, blew it up like a balloon, and drew a face on it-- the thumb becoming a nose, the fingers crazy hair-- and gave it to me.  I was delighted with my present and went home with my tonsils still intact, ready to show off my balloon to my sisters.  And I assume that my Dad got to feel bad about being so mean to me, something every kid longs for.

I've regretted that doctor's decision ever since.  My tonsils are just huge, nearly the size of golf balls.  And they're prone to getting these nasty little gunky things stuck between them and the wall of my mouth.  Every few weeks, I have to shine a flashlight into the back of my mouth and swipe around to dislodge them.  It leaves me gagging and spitting, while Craig hollers out reminders me that bulimia is not cool.  (Ha ha, Craig.)

Anyway, after my most recent bout of poking and gagging, I was telling Craig that I sure wished I could have my tonsils removed already.  The only purpose they seem to serve is annoying me.  I once begged a BYU doctor to do it, but he just laughed and said there was no way my student health insurance would ever cover it.

I googled those gross things (tonsilloliths or "tonsil stones," but don't look them up-- they're even bigger and grosser on-line!) which led to me googling tonsils in general.  And it turns out that tonsils actually DO serve a purpose! "As part of the immune system, the tonsils fight infection; they are first line of defense in the throat."  "A main function of the tonsils is to trap germs (bacteria and viruses) which you may breathe in.  Proteins called antibodies produced by the immune cells in the tonsils help to kill germs and help to prevent throat and lung infections."

That was especially interesting to learn because I've noticed over the years that one of my superpowers is that I hardly ever get sick.  Sure, I'll get the occasional cold.  And I'm just enough of a hypochondriac that any time there's a tickle in my throat I gear up for something awful to hit me.  But usually it just fades away and I'm fine.  When you consider just how much my kids like to sneeze and cough on me every time they're sick (and between the five of them, someone always seems to have a runny nose or something), it really is kind of remarkable how healthy I am.  All this time I've been cursing them, but my enormous, sometimes gross tonsils are probably why I'm so healthy!

Sorry, tonsils, that I wanted you cut out of the back of my throat!  I guess we can keep working together after all!

Looking Up

I think it's nice that we get the two worst months out of the way right at the beginning of the year.  January, the longer of the two, is all over, and now we've just got to survive a short February before we can move on to March and all its delights!  Nice work, whoever figure out our modern calendar!  I approve!


Am I the only one who feels like I deserve a pat on the back for getting through January?

Singing Again

I took private voice lessons for about six years, starting in high school and then continuing on in fits and starts in college.  And on my mission, while I was riding a bike all over northern Japan, I would often sing (mostly out of boredom).  It turns out that singing and bicycling at the same time is an excellent way to build up your lung capacity, and by the time I came home from my mission I could really belt it out if I wanted to.

Since leaving college (and my Mom's willingness to pay for voice lessons), I've been incredibly lucky to get to sing in the ward choir under the direction of my friend Sarah, who was a vocal performance major at BYU.  Her choir practices were often mini-voice lessons, as she would explain using your breath properly and shaping your mouth and other important things for producing a full and resonant sound.  I remember once chatting with Craig about voice lessons and realizing that he thought they consisted of learning to read music-- when I laughed and explained that that was NOTHING like what they were about.  I told him that I spent my first few lessons lying on the floor of my teacher's studio just learning how to breathe correctly.  Raising your soft palate, engaging your diaphragm, getting your jaw out of the way...  these are the kinds of things you learn in singing lessons.  Like every act that requires precision-- swinging a golf club, or writing calligraphy-- there are a hundred things that must be done exactly right, and they're all racing through a singer's head as she performs.  It's too much to ever master it all, but the best sure make it look easy!

Anyway, I've always enjoyed singing, and I've always had opportunities to do so.  Not that I'm some star, but I have a nice voice and a decent range, and I can hold my own amongst other sopranos.

But when we moved to Charlottesville, I found out that our ward is not particularly musical.  I don't mean this to sound as negative as it's going to, but our ward choir is kind of...  sad  Our choir director (as a southern gal, I should probably throw in a "bless his heart" right here) is busy with three other callings, and he really doesn't know any more than I do about how to lead a choir (which is to say, not much).  He tries, and I appreciate his efforts, but choir hardly ever meets, and even when it does, I usually don't know about it until it's too late to make it work for our family.  (You really can't be spontaneous with five kids after three hours of church!)

So that's been a little disappointing.

So when Craig heard about a choral group here in Charlottesville called the Oratorio Society of Virginia, I was intrigued.  They practiced Monday nights from 7:30-9:30, and, thanks to a new cut-through road that just opened, were located really close to our home (which is rare-- most things tend to be about 20 minutes away).  That was about as perfect as you could get-- Monday nights are the ONLY nights when there aren't any church activities, and having it close by shaves off a lot of travel time.  Auditions were in January, and I decided I had nothing to lose by trying.

That's kind of my attitude about a lot of things in life-- can't hurt to try!  And it's usually worked pretty well for me.  (The huge glaring exception is the time I auditioned for The Young Ambassadors, a singing and dancing group at BYU.  I'm a pretty good dancer, but when I showed up and the routine they wanted us to learn in 15 minutes had several triple-pirouettes, I knew I was WAY out of my depth.  That was embarrassing!)

Anyway, since I'd lost my voice Christmas Day, it had been a bit scratchy and just "off" ever since.  Some days I could sing just fine, but other days my voice would be small and thin sounding.  I thought about going to see a doctor, but that would have required me to actually have a doctor that I go to, so I finally decided to just be as zen as I could be and not worry about it.  Things would just have to work out however they were supposed to.  I did try really hard to rest my voice and not yell at the kids but this is harder than you might think-- even if I'm not angry with them, it usually takes a pretty loud shout to get everyone's attention over all the other noise going on.  And every few nights I'd sing through my Italian arias a bit.

The audition was on Martin Luther King Day, and Craig came up with the brilliant idea to go to his parents' house to work on Bentley's pinewood derby car.  This was perfect because it meant Craig could enjoy using all Dad's tools and I could hang out with his Mom and not sit around worrying.  Because as soon as we were home again, that's all I did!  It's funny how something can seem like no big deal until the day you have to actually do it-- I think I feel the same way about giving talks in church and having babies, actually...

I'd never been to the Municipal Arts Center before, so I left super early in case I got lost.  I also had forgotten to print out the audition form, so I was hoping they'd have some there that I could fill out (which they did).  There was one woman ahead of me, and I could hear her audition and she had a wonderful voice.  I'd sort of been hoping she'd be terrible and I could feel good about myself in comparison.

And then it was my turn!  The choir director, Michael Slon, chatted with me for a few minutes, asking where I'd sung recently and I had to admit that I'd mostly just been singing in church choirs (I did mention singing Before Tonight) and since he asked what congregation, I told him I was Mormon.  He said that he knew Mack Wilberg, and because I'm super awkward, I told him that I didn't know who that was (he's the director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir).  Oops.  Then he had me warm up and down the piano so he could get a sense for my range, and then he had me sight-read.

Now, if you know anything about singers, then you know that sopranos are the least musical of them all.  Because all we ever sing is the melody, we pretty much tend to suck at actually reading music.  And I am completely typical of every soprano in this way.  (I'd like to think that I'm atypical by not being a total diva, but I guess I might be wrong about that.)  I can barely read music, and I can't sight-read at all.  So this part of the audition was humiliating.  I would do it wrong, he would sing it with me to help me figure it out, and then I'd do it wrong again.  I wanted to hide under the piano.  He finally gave up on that, and asked me what I'd brought to sing.  I got all set up, he played the opening bars and I was off!

Except it was way too slow.  So when he paused to turn the page,  I murmured, "You can speed it up a bit, too," and hoped I wasn't being super rude.  I kept singing and realized that my throat had completely dried out and I couldn't swallow.  Awesome.  But all you can do is keep going and hope your throat doesn't close up or stick.  I finished, and the director said, "Well, I don't usually do this, but we have rehearsals from 7:30 to 9:30 Mondays.  I know it's short notice, but do you think you can make it tonight?"  And me, keeping it awkward, said, "Um, does this mean I got in?"

And it did mean that!  I was in the choir!  I checked back at the audition sign-ups, and there were about 13 people who tried out, and only five were accepted.  And the only women who joined were me and the woman who auditioned ahead of me (so I was right-- she was good!).  I still don't know if I was asked to rehearse that night because I was so good he didn't need to think about whether or not to accept me, or if it was because my sight-reading was so bad that he figured I needed all the extra practicing I could get.  Maybe a little of both.

But I do know that I'm super excited to be singing again.  The music we're learning is beautiful and challenging and I love it.  It's so nice to be surrounded by beauty, whether it's music or art or nature.  Everyone needs that in their life.

Time Worth Spent

I took the kids to the library the other day, where they shared the train table with a few other toddlers (well, as well as toddlers share anything).  Once they were starting to get antsy, but before Camille began wanting to run all over the place, I suggested we go and look for books for mommy.  The other moms sitting around immediately took note, "Mommy has time to read?" one of them said, while another chimed in, "What would that be like?"

I would have thought they were joking, but they seemed genuinely perplexed.  I almost felt like I  should sit down and explain to them that just because you have a toddler doesn't mean you aren't allowed to have some time to yourself, too.  But it probably would have come out really condescending, and besides-- I had antsy children and limited time to find books!  But honestly, how could you possibly NOT have time to read???  That's like saying you don't have time to breathe, or something.

I've thought about it a lot.  Maybe they do other things that interest them more than reading?  I have a friend who regularly goes to book club with me-- except she goes in order to guarantee that she gets around to reading at least one book a month.  My snarky side, with its 500+ books that I've reviewed on Goodreads wants to feel all superior to her.  But the fact is, this friend is also super handy and often busy doing projects that involve power tools and stuff that I never go near.  She's also a lot more involved with her children than I tend to be-- she's already taught her young son to read, and they'll often do art projects together or listen to music and discuss it and stuff.  I tend to hide away with my book and hope my kids will leave me alone so I can get through at least a few pages uninterrupted.

So I guess all I'm saying is that we all have a finite amount of time and some of us choose to spend that time differently.  But for me, I can't imagine EVER not having time to read.


What do you have to spend time doing?

The Gift

I don't normally blog about presents I've received.  Not that people are showering me with gifts left and right or something, but even if they were, I figure it's not something you would want to read about.  I try very hard to not write stuff that would make people feel bad about themselves, and a big part of that is not bragging-- about the kids, about my husband, about anything, really.  (Disney World pictures aside.)

Anyway, all this to say, please forgive me for totally bragging now.  But I have to share this present that I received from Craig's parents for Christmas:

Isn't it beautiful?  This photo is a bit dark, but can you see that there is a birth stone in the tree for each of my children?  I have a hard time explaining just how much I love it.

It's funny, because I never really knew until I had kids just how proud I'd be of them.  Not necessarily anything they've done-- I'm just proud that I have them at all.  I'm proud that I've grown them and birthed them and kept them fed and clean and alive.  I'm proud that I've managed to do this five times over.  I've worked hard raising these children-- it's been my life's work for the past ten years-- and I'm pleased with the results so far.  And like any parent, I hope that when they're grown I will still feel that they are worthy of my pride.

But my love for this necklace is even more than that.  One of the birth blogs that I read posted recently how to make Tree of Life wall hangings (something my non-crafty self can't imagine ever trying to do), but she began by saying that in her experience, most people who love birth also love trees.  (Maybe it's because a healthy placenta will appear to have a "Tree of Life" in it?)  I read her statement and was dumbfounded because that described me perfectly!  I LOVE trees.  Not in some sappy, tree-hugging way, but in the way that I need them around me.  And when one dies, I'm sad.  And when Craig wants to cut some of the ones in our yard down so we'll have more sunlight, I never let him because I just can't bear to get rid of a healthy tree.  They feel like friends, somehow.  Every place we've lived, my first requirement is always that we have big, full grown trees in the yard. 

After staring at my necklace for some time, I googled Tree of Life and was delighted to find that it is such a huge theme in most cultures that it has been deemed a mytheme-- the page lists some of the many religions that include a Tree of Life and it included every religion I've heard of and them some.  Something about this made me happy-- this universal theme that everyone can relate to on some level.  In this time where our country feels so divided, I like the idea that there are truths to which everyone can ascribe.

I love my pretty necklace.  I love that it showcases both the children I'm proud of and important archetypes. 

Thanks, Tom and Donna!  It's absolutely perfect.

Colton's Speech

I don't think I've ever blogged about this before, but about a year ago, Colton suddenly began stuttering.  It was such a change in the way he spoke that his nursery leaders (who only see him once a week) pulled me aside to ask if something had happened that week to cause it.  Like every parent, we googled stuttering, and at his next doctor's appointment I asked his pediatrician about it.  Pretty much everyone gave the same answer: it's very normal for a 3-year-old to stutter.  For now, just ignore it.  Don't tell them to hurry up when they're trying to talk or act frustrated when they can't find their words.  Let it play it out and it usually goes away on its own.

So that's what we've been doing.  Ignoring it.  And that was fine.

Until a month ago when it suddenly got really bad.  That weekend, he could hardly get any words out at all-- he'd get hung up on the "I" at the beginning of the sentence, and after saying that 15 or 20 times, he might finally pause, look at me sheepishly and admit, "I can't say it."

It broke my heart.

And it worried me no end.  Craig began calling around for speech therapists-- one charged $600 just for the assessment.  I bemoaned the fact that Craig's work changed our insurance this year and doesn't cover anything any more.  And during all this, I got a flyer in the mail for free audiology screenings.

Now, Colton's stutter does not sound like a hearing problem to me.  But, there have been other times where I've wondered how good his hearing is.  I mean-- he's obviously not deaf, or anything.  But when we read scriptures as a family, we'll have him repeat after us, and half the time the words he says are just gibberish.  And a third of the time he just looks at us blankly and says nothing at all.  So while I didn't think his hearing was related to the stuttering, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get it checked out, too.  So I made an appointment.

That was early last Thursday, and of course it was a pain.  We were getting there during peak traffic times, so it took a long time to drive across town.  And I'd brought Camille with me (in hindsight, that was dumb of me, but it didn't occur to me to make other arrangements for her).  But we got through it: he had to wear headphones and point to a picture of whatever the audiologist told him.  He put on different headphones and said "Bird" every time he heard a chirping noise.  And when it was all over, the audiologist politely explained that he wasn't hearing very well: he can't really hear whispering at all, and if you speak to him from the next room, he probably won't hear it.

She checked his ears and said there was fluid in both of them, so we need to bring him back in 6 weeks and have them checked again.  If, after three or four months, the fluid is still there we will need to bring him to an Ear, Nose & Throat doctor to determine if he needs tubes in his ears or something.

So we're waiting and seeing.  Ironically, the stutter got MUCH better after just a few days of being so terrible.  So I'm less anxious about the stuttering now.  But I am worried about his hearing.  And, perhaps even more so, I'm worried about the times I've gotten angry with him for not doing what I asked him to do-- how many of those times was he ignoring me because he's three (and that's what 3-year-olds do) and how many times was he simply not hearing me?

Visiting daddy's office, he decided to don some of Daddy's patriot gear

How could I ever have gotten angry at this sweet boy?

Returning to the Piano

Yesterday, the kids had their first piano lessons in over a year!

This may not seem like anything terribly noteworthy, but I've been putting this off for one reason or another ever since we moved a year and a half ago.  So it feels like a major victory to me.  Something to finally check off my never ending to-do list.

I had Bentley and Kendra taking piano back in Manassas-- one of the girls from my congregation would come on Saturdays and spend a half hour with each of them.  She was really good (she would arrange her own choral numbers for the youth to sing-- something I can't even imagine being able to do!), and fairly cheap, so I was very happy with that arrangement.

When we moved, I had every intention of getting them right back into lessons again.  But our ward is not terribly musical, and there weren't any easy teachers to be found.  We have a community website where I asked for recommendations and got some, but I hate contacting strangers and talking about money and stuff, and then we were busy with soccer, and then it was Christmas and then it just never happened.  I think most of my energy was consumed with preschool and worrying over Craig's awful job.  Another semester slipped away, and with all five kids home with me, there wasn't any chance I'd get around to it in the summer.  I toyed with the idea of starting up with the new school year (yes, this last September), but once again soccer happened and killed any further motivation I might have possessed.  And we were so busy, I couldn't imagine adding anything more to the mix.  But as soon as Christmas was over, I was determined.

I emailed and called all those same people from my first post on the community message board.  I got prices.  I talked to people.  And I picked a teacher and he came yesterday.  (I was even good and informed the other teachers we'd found someone, so they wouldn't be left hanging!)

I like his style-- he showed the kids how learning the scales leads to understanding music and had Kendra playing a simple Ode to Joy just by calling out to her which finger to push down.  He explained to me that he likes to focus on this method, and then later teach them how to read music as a secondary skill for playing.  I don't think reading music is particularly hard, so I'm fine with that being put off a bit.  And I think it's good for Bentley to have a male teacher-- I know before he'd worried that maybe piano was just for girls, and then was impressed when his Sunday School teacher (also male) was very good on the piano.  (You may recall that Bentley never believes anything I tell him.)  Also, this first lesson was spent all together, rather than spending thirty minutes with one and then switching to the next kid.  I don't know if all their lessons will go this way, but I did feel that they were getting more time, even if it meant less individual attention.

So I have high hopes for this.  As I stood in the kitchen getting dinner ready, listening to them all plunking away on the piano, I felt like maybe-- just maybe-- I was doing my job right as a mother.

Leaving the House: Kids Edition

When Bentley was just two months old, Craig and I decided to be brave and venture into DC to see one of the many museums there.  We knew it would be difficult going somewhere with a baby, so we tried to set our expectations low: we wouldn't stress about what time we needed to leave the house, we'd just go when we could.  I think we didn't even manage to leave until 2pm.  By the time we had driven in on I-66 and found parking (or maybe we took the Metro in?), we didn't have a whole lot of time to even see things before they closed, but we did still manage to see the Declaration of Independence and then wander around some of the monuments in the dark.  Success!

Bentley was so little!

Craig was so young!

So was I!

We still laugh about it taking us most of the day to just leave.  I realize now that our mistake was thinking there would be a time when the baby was neither hungry, nor sleeping.  With a nowborn, no such time exists!  The key is to leave as soon as they're done eating and then hope for the best.

Since then, we still try really hard to leave the house with kids, even though it still can feel overwhelming.

Something I noticed around that same time, though, was that whenever we had plans to go somewhere new, when it got close to time to leave, I would feel ill.  Something just won't feel right with my stomach, or maybe I have a headache?  It's a peculiar feeling, but it's very real, and it's the same every time.  And every time, I start thinking we should just scrap our plans and stay home.  I usually tell Craig, "I'm really not feeling great.  We may have to postpone this."  We push ahead anyway, and I turn out to be fine.

Craig put Camille's hair into piggy tails before we left

She was being shy about having her picture taken.  That's Ga, her lovey, at her feet.

I am forced to conclude that this feeling is all in my head.  I've started thinking of it as my "child-induced agoraphobia."  And ten years later, it's still there.  I don't notice it very often (there aren't that many new places to go), but a few days before Christmas when we took all the kids to DC to look at the temple lights, it flared up in a big way.  (I think this time what was really stressing me out was both the long drive and knowing that I would be in charge of all five kids on the potentially cold temple grounds while Craig was in the temple.  That felt scary.)  But I pushed through it.  And when we pulled into the temple parking lot, I felt a sweet calm come over me, it was just like coming home.

We parked the car and I ran into the Visitor's Center to find a bathroom (3 and a 1/2 hour drive, y'all!).  As Craig was getting the kids unloaded and putting coats on, all the colorful Christmas lights around Visitor's Center blinked on.  When I came out for my own coat, I saw as the white lights on the trees lining up directly in front of the temple turned on, too.  Craig headed inside, and I doled out snacks.  And took pictures.

I like that you can see the statue of Christ behind them, the temple model, and the actual temple reflected in the glass

Same bench, looking the other direction.  I like that I managed to catch Bentley smiling here.

Sunset!

Anyway, we had snacks, took pictures, walked around looking at lights.  We went inside, managed to hang up everyone's coats and change a couple poopy diapers.  We looked at the collection of nativity sets from all around the world, and shortly after that Craig called to say he was done.  I had done it!  While I was getting ready to go into the temple (and leave Craig with the kids for his turn!), Ryder came running up announcing that his friend Oscar was there!  We went looking, and sure enough our friends the Johnses were looking at the nativity sets!

Craig's turn with the kids!

As I headed into the temple, I shot a text to Emma asking if she wanted to meet us at the new Shake Shack at Tyson's Corner once we were all done, so we ended up doing that.  Shake Shack food was amazing and getting to hang out with Emma was fabulous, as always.  Sitting outside to eat our food (poor Camille shivering because we didn't know we'd be outside and had left her coat in the car, parked a mile away), losing Camille's Ga, and wandering around lost all over the biggest most crowded mall I've ever seen was the less enjoyable part of that experience.

Never go to Tyson's Corner at Christmas time.  It will NOT be worth it.  I'm going back in May!

Anyway, it was a wonderful, if exhausting, day.  I will continue to fight off whatever fear tactics my body tries to ambush me with so we can have experiences like this.

And we managed to order a new Ga for Camille that night.  The day after it arrived, we discovered the original Ga in the pocket of Craig's coat (which he'd wrapped around Camille while we were outside eating).  So now we have a back-up!  And more happy Christmas memories.