Chocolate Phoenix

For those of you without children, I’m sorry. But I had to post about this. I’ll do more posts for your enjoyment later. Although… some of these ideas may be helpful for husbands or roommates!

We have a real problem with getting Aiden to bed. He is not a very good sleeper, and for what seems like forever, he has had to have either Ches or I sit next to his bed until he falls asleep at night. A few weeks ago, I said enough is enough, he is old enough to just go to bed! It took some kicking and screaming the first night, less the second night, and even less the third night, but it was working. Aiden was figuring out that he could go to bed on his own and he didn’t need us to stay in there with him. However, even though I know all the experts say you should have a set bedtime routine, we weren’t so rock-solid on it, so Aiden would often get up with excuses like, “I need to go potty!” or “We forgot to say family prayer!” or “I need to give you a kiss again!”. I was talking to some more experienced mothers (they have teenagers or older now) about this, and I got a great suggestion from one mom. She sat down with her kids and they made a checklist. The kids decided what all went on the checklist, and every night they went through the list. The kids could see what was on the list, they ckecked it off every night, and they had no more excuses to get out of bed (“I need a drink!” “We forgot to read a story!). So Aiden and I spent an evening making one fine looking poster that now hangs on his closet door. Every night Aiden excitedly goes over the entire list, and IT WORKS. Except that he still says “I have to go potty again, Mom”, and then what do you do when you are trying to train him to tell you when he actually has to go potty? So we quickly sit on the potty, and it’s back to bed. Here is Aiden’s Bedtime Checklist:

Put on pajamas
Sit on the potty
Brush teeth
Family prayer (this includes kisses and goodnights)
Read a story
Get a drink
Personal prayer

The other suggestion that the woman had was to have the kids help make the chores list. She took each of her kids and they got to choose what chores they thought they could do. Every month or 6 weeks (whenever she felt it necessary), they would make up new lists and add on to it what chores they were able to do. Her kids literally fought over what chores they wanted to have (“no, I want to do the dishes!” “I get to vacuum!”), and they rushed to do their chores everyday so they could keep the chores on their list. By choosing on their own, the kids feel more in control and they WANT to do these things.

I swear, this woman is a genius. I had a little bit of an idea of using a list (I wanted to make one up for using the bathroom that included flushing the toilet, washing hands, and turning off the light), but it wasn’t going to be one that Aiden got to choose what was on the list. Seriously, this thing is great.

During Relief Society on Sunday, we were discussing forgiveness, using the Prodigal Son parable as a main source of the lesson. As I listened to this familiar story and heard about the younger, wayward son as he was welcomed back into the home with a great feast, I felt a kind of kinship with the elder son when he gets angry and says, “Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at anyt time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” (Luke 15: 29-30)

Now, none of my siblings have devoured anyone’s living with harlots. They are all really good people. But I feel like the elder son in my jealousy of my siblings. I’m jealous because my youngest sister gets to go to a really great university. I really and truely loved going to Ricks College, but before I went there, I had visions of going to one of the country’s top schools. I wanted a huge university! So, sometimes I get angry and think that she doesn’t really appreciate what she has, and how come my parents are letting her go there instead of encouraging her to go somewhere smaller, cheaper, closer to them? I’m jealous that when my brother and sister each got married, they were given furniture from family members. When I got married, Ches and I had nothing. We borrowed a bed for a year until we bought our own, and everything else we had to buy ourselves at second-hand stores. When I was in high school, my parents didn’t have a lot of money (like, none) so I earned my own money for everything I did. I paid for flag camp. I paid for clothes. I paid for fun. I paid for my senior pictures. I paid for graduation announcements. When I went to college, I had $60 in savings. Not much to do anything with. I had to scrimp and save and work and take out loans just to get through school. When my siblings went for college, they also had to scrimp and save and get loans, but they are still able to be supported by parents to a degree. They didn’t have to pay for every little thing on their own throughout high school. I have tons and tons of examples of things that I think they get that I don’t or didn’t get. I’m jealous that I feel like I do everything that I’m expected to do, but I have to work so much harder and do it all completely on my own. I feel sorry for myself.

Back to the parable. I realized that it is stupid to feel sorry for myself. I don’t deserve all this extra stuff. My siblings don’t get half the attention and support that I think they do, I’m sure. I tend to blow things WAY out of proportion, and then feel even more sorry for myself, and then I get angry. Why do I continue to do this??

I realized that I really don’t like this about myself. Even though Erica got to go tryout for the Olympics, that doesn’t mean I should be angry because I never even got to go to band camp. Even though Vince was allowed a later curfew his senior year of high school doesn’t mean I have to be angry because I had to be in at midnight… even on my 18th birthday when I was watching “Gone With The Wind” at the movie theatre and had to leave at Intermission. Even though Lura got to have fresh flowers and a wedding party when she got married doesn’t mean that I have to be angry that I felt as if I had to do my entire wedding for everyone else and stay in their budget and hear comments like “when you get married, just elope, okay?” (That will be another post another day, however)

I’m lucky and blessed to have all the things that I do have and to have done the things I have done and to have the experiences that I have had. I have a great life and a great family, even if everything hasn’t worked out quite like I planned, and even if we are still waiting for some of the good things we want to happen to actually happen to us!

I resolve to celebrate the successes of my siblings and other family members. I resolve to find happiness in the comings and goings of others and not get so caught up in myself. I resolve to remind myself that I am not forgotten just because I haven’t gotten some of the same things as others, but that I am loved in different ways and I am who I am because of those differences.

I hope this works. I want to be a better person!

This weekend, after all the Thanksgiving hoopla, most people woke up early Friday morning to go shopping (or they were smart and stayed in bed because they were still full from all that food). I, on the other hand, got up early to ride on a charter bus with a bunch of teenagers for 10 hours. Such fun!!!!

Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I was able to be a chaperone for the HHS band as we traveled to Las Vegas for state semi-finals in football. Vegas, baby!! We had to share the bus with the cheerleaders, and normally that is something I hate to do. The girls were really good, however. Yay! No extra annoying whining! Once we got to Vegas and checked into our hotels (we didn’t have the same hotel as the cheerleaders), we split the kids up into groups of 10 with two chaperones each, then we hit the town.

My group was actually the drumline. There is only one girl on the drumline, so we were a little outnumbered. The other chaperone was Andy, my color guard dad and the official “best band mom ever”. We took the kids to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner (it was across the street from the hotel we were staying at). The best part was we happened to be seated in a section where all the signed drumheads and symbols were. Andy and I both loved it, and the one white kid on our drumline is totally into hard rock, so he was literally drooling as we pointed out some of the paraphanalia. Everyone had really good meals, and it was such a good experience for these kids. Most of these kids will never go someplace like this. If they do go on trips with their families, they don’t get to go far away, and eating out means McDonalds. So it was a lot of fun.

After dinner, we walked to the strip (it was about a half hour walk! Man, we sure all worked off our turkey dinners!!). We had a game plan as a group: go to New York New York and ride the roller coaster, see the fountain show at the Bellagio, go to MnM World, and spend the majority of the night at Game Works. What we ended up doing was walking to NYNY, waiting while the kids decided that it was too long of a wait, then going to Game Works. Now, I am NOT an arcade person. I am NOT a video game person. That would be my husband. So, I was bored out of my mind. But the kids had a good time. I went upstairs and visited MnM World by myself and got souveniers for Aiden and Dallin.Then I walked around the Coca-Cola place for a few minutes, but they were closing, so I headed back down to Game Works to wait for the kids. By the time we had them gathered up and stopped someplace because they were dying of thirst, we didn’t have time to see the water show. So, back to the hotel we went.

Saturday was the football game. Most of the kids assumed that since we were in Vegas, it would be really hot, so they didn’t bring their jackets or sweatshirts off the bus. Silly kids! I wasn’t freezing or anything, but it was cool, and there was a LOT of wind. The wind made it feel colder than it was.

The game was really good and really exciting. HHS ended up winning it in sudden-death overtime 17-14. The state finals are this Saturday, here in town at Mackay Stadium. Yay for no more long bus drives!!!!!! After the game it was back on the bus for the very long ride home. One of the movies we watched was “Honey”, about this dancer who teaches hip hop to kids and wants to dance in videos. It was actually a pretty cute movie. A very obvious plotline, not the greatest actors, but it was still fun to watch. It had David Moscow in it, and I don’t think I’ve seen him in anything since “Newsies”! Still not a very good actor, but certainly not the worst (the worst actors ever are #1 Keanu Reeves, #2 Kevin Costner).

I was sick all day on Friday, but my fever broke during the night so I felt great on Saturday. However, my head was starting to hurt, and by Sunday afternoon it was a full-on migraine. That didn’t go away until about 3:30 p.m. Monday afternoon.

It was a pretty good trip overall. We have some pretty great kids in this band, and I’m proud of them. I missed my kids, but they had fun with Dad. Mostly I was sad because Dallin got up on his hands and knees all by himself on Friday, so I missed it!! When Ches told me about it on the phone that night, I started to cry a little. He said, “Don’t cry. It’s not that big og a deal and he’ll do it again.”

“Yeah, but I’m the MOTHER!” I replied. “I’m supposed to be there!” I think I’m still sad because Aiden took his first steps at the sitter’s house when I was teaching part time. That was when I knew that as much as I loved teaching, I loved being at home with my kids more and I couldn’t be at work.

It seems that in recent years there have been a number of criminal cases brought about because of teachers having sex with their students. Now, I’m sure this kind of thing has been going on for an eternity, but lately we are hearing more and more. The biggest shocker are these female teachers sleeping with their middle school students. Mary Kay Laterneau was the first big case, and we watched as she was sentenced to jail, had two children with her student, got out of jail, and is now married to that student.

Yesterday, it was announced that Debra Lafave, a school teacher from Florida, will NOT serve prison time because she plead guilty to having sex with a 14- year old student. She is essentially under house arrest, but it’s not even that bad. She doesn’t have to wear that ankle bracelet (made a fashion statement by Martha Stewert), she may leave the house for work or “life essentials” (I.e., grocery shopping, etc.), and she MUST be in the house between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. The judge reportedly said she was too pretty to go to prison, and who knows what would happen to her there.

I’m sorry. Did you say you are worried about her well-being in prison? We are talking about a 25-year old teacher that slept with a 14 year old middle school student, right??? I could care less about her well-being in prison. That is where she deserves to be! If this was between a male teacher and a student (male or female… it doesn’t matter), the male teacher would be behind bars. Ms. Lafave does have to register as a sex offender and cannot work with children or ever get her teacher certificate back. That’s something, but not enough. I don’t see the equality in punishment here.

Watching CNN last night, I saw commentator Nancy Grace talking to a number of people, including one so-called expert (I think she was a lawyer for the Leterneau case). This woman stated that women are NOT predatory to children, that they are only involved in relationships, and that boys aren’t as damaged by these “relationships” as girls are, so women cannot be classified the same as men when it comes to sex crimes.

EXCUSE ME? I’m sorry, but I thought I heard you say women are NOT predatory. Oh, you did? I didn’t know that it was okay for adult women to have sex with young boys. By the way, 14 IS young. Middle school IS young.

This whole thing just ticks me off. As a female teacher, I think it makes me look bad. Who knows how many other whack-jobs there are out there. As a parent it makes me scared beyond belief. My boys could end up with a teacher that has a sexual interest in them, and if that teacher is female and engages in a relationship with MY son, that teacher may not serve prison time. Where is the lesson in all of this? Where is the punishment? There is no difference whatsoever between males and females as far as sex crimes. A sex offender is a sex offender. They should all have the same punishment. And in this case, there should BE a punishment. There should be NO romanticizing of the situation (as in the case of Mary Kay Laterneau). The whole thing is ridiculous, and something better needs to be done about it.

Have you ever noticed that every single guy has a little scar under his chin? Well, maybe not every guy, but all the ones I can think of. I remember having conversations about this in college, and each guy lifting up his chin to show off the scar, then relating the story behind it. Some fell from trees or swingset, some had bike wrecks, I think one guy even had a shaving accident. It seems to be this introduction into manhood. Every male must get a scar under his chin.

Today, Aiden has started his journey into manhood. After church, I was finally preparing myself some lunch, Ches was in the kitchen talking to me, Dallin was playing on the living room floor, and Aiden was sitting at the table about to eat some chips and salsa. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Aiden’s chair tip backwards. There are some moments in my life that seriously seem to go in slow motion, and this was one of them. I couldn’t get there in time and the chair fell all the way down. Aiden had fallen backwards, and hit his head on the floor. I immediately picked him up and rushed to the couch to calm him down. After a minute or so of him crying like he was dying, we noticed he was bleeding… a LOT. Further investigation showed that he had a cut under his chin. It wasn’t just a little slap on a band-aid cut, either. It was a long, wide, deep gash. We had to go to the emergency room.

Needless to say, I was a nervous wreck. We don’t have insurance, so who knows how much this is going to cost! But most of all, my baby is hurt. He is such a boy, so he falls down all the time. His fingetnails are always dirty, and his legs are black and blue from so many bruises. He has scrapes all over him. It’s normal. But this cut on his chin was not normal.

Well, I held it together pretty well, and we were actually in and out of the hospital in an hour. I’m impressed! I mean, when I lived in Arizona, I had to go to the emergency room in Mesa, and I was there for over 7 hours before I saw anyone! Everyone was friendly and helpful. Aiden got an aweful lot of stickers from the nurses. He didn’t get stitches, but he has some kind of glue on his chin now. It should wear off in about 5 days. He is totally fine, so we are home, happy, and healthy (that is, until we get the bill. Hmmm.).

The best part is that as we were in one room, waiting for a nurse, Ches and I talked about how Aiden will now have his “manly” scar under his chin. The nurse came in, took one look at Aiden and said, “Every boy falls and cuts his chin at some point.”

Aiden, welcome to manhood. Or the first step, anyway. You are only 3 after all!

GOING TO HARRY POTTER TODAY!! I’M JUST SO EXCITED, I CAN’T CONTAIN IT!! IT’S GONNA BE GREAT!!

Doing my little Harry Potter dance of joy right now.

As many of you know, I was able to attend my first “passion party” last night. A passion party is like a Tupperware or Mary Kay party, but the products are lotions, lingerie, and what I like to call “devices”. I’m hesitant to type a lot of these words here, not because my mom is reading this or anything, but because I just don’t want people doing a search under one of these words, finding my blog, and then who knows what kind of readers and comments I’ll get! So, you’ll understand if I’m a little vague, right?

On to the party! I was invited by the mom (D) of a girl (B) who was in the band that I work with last year. B is now a college freshman, and in the university bands that Ches works with. (Clear as mud yet??) B’s boyfriend was a model at a bridal fair here in town, so B went to support him. She was checking out all these booths, and everyone would ask her when the big day is, so she started to make up names and dates and wedding details. At one booth, she found a perfume that she really liked. The sales lady said she could have it for free if she hosted a party, so B said “You bet!” She then said to her mom, “Invite whoever you want.” D was at a football game a couple of weeks ago (she has another daughter still in high school), and was telling the band boosters about this, and all of us women were invited. B didn’t really want a lot of the college kids to know about this, so she said she was only inviting all the lesbians in marching band. She invited some close friends, however, and it got to be a bigger group than what you would think. So picture this: crammed into a small living room is D, another older lady (I say older, but I mean late 40’s. Compared to all these college freshman, that is older) that D works with, another band mom, several lesbians, several gay men, some couples, and me — the straight, conservative, young married, Mormon girl. I just knew this was going to be a riot!

The presentation included some language that I don’t usually use (Ches and I are pretty private about sex), but it wasn’t that bad. There were a LOT of lotions that smelled really yummy, felt great, and tasted really yummy, too. There was glow in the dark stuff, sparkly stuff, warming up stuff, and even this stuff that smells different on each person. It mixes with your body’s chemicals so you get your own smell. Mine was a really light, fresh and airy smell. D smelled more like peppermint, and the other band mom was a very distinct bubblegum. That was cool. I got this one kind of lotion that smells like mandarin orange. We got to try it as if it were chapstick or something. I liked it so much I decided that even if Ches and I never use it, I’ll have this really cool, tingly, yummy chapstick!

After the lotions, we were shown some lingerie, but there really wasn’t much of that. I saw a couple of cute things, and maybe I’ll order those later. When we have some more money (our car broke down again, so money is extra tight right now). That did not take long. Then out came the books (I wasn’t even interested! With titles like “Tickle his Pickle”… yeah. So not me!) and the toys. I refused to touch the toys and devices. Most of the stuff I didn’t know what they were for! I couldn’t believe it! People actually USE this stuff? EW!!!!

Overall, it was quite educating and interesting. Interesting is the key word. There were a lot of good laughs, and I wish it had been more, I don’t know, classy? I saw something on the Today show (the very morning I was first told about this party) about these bedroom parties, and it didn’t really look like this. Oh, well. It was still fun, and I did buy a couple of things, including “spicy dice”. Hee hee. I told Ches, “We keep saying we need more games for two people!” The best was that all these freshman are in music, and they all know Ches, but they didn’t know me. Comments like, “That’s Ches’ wife??” were heard (what does that mean, anyway? Is that good or bad?), and some said they were going to make up stories about me at the party to tell Ches later. Since I got home at 11:30 p.m., Ches was sound asleep, and he got up and left before I woke up, so I never got a chance to tell him about the party. I was curious if they would be able to make up a story that he would believe!

Best part of the night: at the end they had some drawings and I was one of the first winners. Which meant I won a pretty rose that when you open it up, there is a really pretty pair of panties for me to wear! I was glad to get that because everyone who won after me got a little pencil eraser that is shaped like a penis.

Proud Mum and Julia, I had to add my two cents worth.

Another bunch of stuff from Ricks College here. One day I was running late for Symphonic Band. Now, for those of you who don’t know (or haven’t yet figured it out), Ricks College was a small, LDS junior college. It has changed recently and is now BYU-Idaho. Anyrate, because it is a religious, private school, there are a lot of religious things you can do there that you can’t do elsewhere (or as easily, anyway). For example, we studied straight out of the hymnbook in music theory, discussed what church leaders and prophets have said in music history, and a prayer was offered at the beginning of every performance and a lot of classes. Symphonic Band always had a prayer before rehearsal.

On this particular day, as I said, I was running late. We rehearsed on the stage in the concert hall (one of the most acoustically correct in the country, btw. I’m a little proud of that!), and the doors to the stage were closed. They were in the middle of prayer. So I waited outside the doors until the prayer was over. Meanwhile, someone else was late or walking by or something and stopped to say hi to me. So I turned and talked to them for a minute. When the prayer was done (I could hear people rustling their instruments and stuff around), I turned around to walk in to rehearsal. I guess I forgot the door was closed, because I walked right into it. Of course, with those perfect acoustics, the sound reverbrated throughout the concert hall and everyone on stage turned and looked at me. They saw it was just me, and I guess they assumed that was no surprise because everyone went back to their business without a second glance.

I have walked into the pillars in the lobby of the Snow Building (the fine arts building at Ricks, aka, my other home). I walked into the walls of the hallways. It was a constant.

So, Proud Mum and Julia, you aren’t the only ones.

This one’s for you, ABQ, per request.

When I was a sophomore at Ricks College, I had the best three roommates ever. Their names are Fawn, Lara, and Jenny. We got along so well, it was unbelievable. We never had a fight. We never had a conflict. We had dinner together almost every night. We prayed together every night. We had scripture study together. We hung out together. We supported each other in our different talents and interests. We wrote to each others’ missionaries and boyfriends at other universities. We were meant to be roommates.

We also had a LOT of fun. Fawn was a nursing student, and I was a music major, and we shared a room. Because those were two of the most difficult majors on campus, you could walk into our bedroom and feel the stress level right away. We often needed to find ways to relieve the stress. So we’d grap Lara and Jenny, jump into Fawn’s car, and drive around the small town of Rexburg with the window wide open, sticking our heads out the window, and screaming. Just screaming nothingness, but screaming all the way. Then, whenever we saw someone walking along the sidewalk, we’d pull up next to them and start to sing our official apartment song:

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go!
‘Cuz I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
I don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go!

We got the strangest looks from people. One guy walked up to the car window and said, “Well, if you insist!”. I happened to be sitting there at the time. He grabbed my face and leaned in the window to KISS me! EW!! Luckily, I was able to turn my head in time. Fawn sped off and we laughed for an hour on that one.

Our apartment (Pineview #40 rocks the house down to the ground!!) was located on the bottom floor of our building. It was actually just below ground level, so our living room window was even with the ground. We had our couch right under the window, and we used to joke that once it started snowing, we’d sell hot chocolate to all the passerbys on their way to and from class. One day, Fawn and I were sitting on the couch, eating cereal (even though it was about 8:30 pm), when we decided to have a little fun. We stood on the couch, opened the window, and started yelling out the window to people: “Help! Help us! We’re locked in!” Most people would start to walk faster, I guess to get away from the two crazy girls.

One guy, however, stopped, looked around, then came over to the window. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“We’re locked in!” We started in with this whole story of how we were locked in the apartment and couldn’t get out, and we needed someone to help us get out. We said our managers said we were bad and put us in our apartment with nothing but fake Cap’n Crunch to eat and locked us in. The poor stranger asked, “They locked you in? How do you know?”

“Well, they shut the door and said ‘Okay, you’re locked in now.’ So we thought that’s it.”

“Are you sure the door is locked? Have you tried opening it?”

Fawn and I looked at each other in surprise. We both ran to the door, opened it, and ran into the hallway jumping and yelling, “It’s not locked!! I’m free! I’m FREE!!”

When we got back to our apartment, the stranger was gone. Poor guy. And that’s what you get when you put a group of Mormon girls together that are full of stress and have no desire to get drunk.

So, I was going to write some really great post that would either make everyone laugh and think, “Wow, that Sariah is one funny chick” or one that would make everyone pause and ponder the great and wonderful things of the world and my view of it.

However, I spent most of my time online today chatting on Yahoo! IM with ABQ Mom (and a little with Erica and Jesse) and trying to read everyone else’s blogs. I’m not complaining because I love to read all y’all, but now I’ve been online too long. I just have dial up, so if anyone is trying to call, the phone just rings and rings for them, and I never know. Also, with the computer, you can’t get your other chores done. And this house has a ton of chores right now.

We emptied our storage unit and are trying to get rid of a lot of our stuff that we will never use again (but hang on to for sentimental reasons). That is a very hard job, by the way. How do you choose what is worth keeping and what is worth throwing away? Ches went through this huge tote of his that is full of stuff from his mission to Ohio, his band trips (mostly the one to Japan), and scouting stuff from when he was little. So many good things in there!! He wanted to get rid of a bunch of the fans from Japan and just keep a couple, but then he realized that so many of them were signed by people he had met or stayed with. How do you throw those away?? They are so personal now!

So anyrate… I have a few boxes of junk of my own. And yes, there is junk in there. I am a packrat. I found old cards and letters, emails that I had printed out because they were so funny at the time, knick knacks of various shapes and sizes, expired condoms, a jar of chocolate sauce that was a gift once (and has never been opened), a flashlight that plugs into the lighter of the car, pens and pencils, an old class and fee schedule from 1997, bank statements from 1995, pictures from 1993… ugh. It’s a big job I have.

Anyway… so I don’t have any more time on the computer. Oh, but I’m supposed to let everyone know that Alyson says hi and that she doesn’t have internet right now for complicated reasons and hasn’t had time to go to her mom’s to use the computer, so that’s why she hasn’t posted in a while. Okay, now I’m going. I’ll post something real later… maybe tonight after Ches gets home and he can take care of the kids.