Archive for March, 2009

Just a Few Thoughts

March 31, 2009 at 8:36 pm · Filed under Books, Church, Family, Friends, Life in general, Random Friday, health

I hate working out. I hate having to work to make my body acceptable to myself. But I went to the gym last night and took my first class. It’s called “Body Pump” and it was an hour of working with barbells. It was so fun! My legs are total jelly today, but I did everything (even though those lunges were haaaaaaard!!) and I’m definitely going to that class again. So yes, I hate working out in general, but if all these classes I want to take are half as fun as this I think I could get addicted to working out. I wish I had gone in earlier this evening for the Body Jam class (dance moves — meaning let’s see how dumb Sariah can look!!)

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I found out on Sunday that our ward is having a father/son campout in a couple of weeks. I asked the girl next to me if the sons had to be a certain age, thinking they would want the cub scouts and older or something, but no. No age requirements. So I could potentially have a night off. Just me.

I’m giddy at the thought.

I doubt Ches will want to take all three boys, with how young they are, and I don’t know how fun it would be. So I’m kind of requiring him to take Aiden and Dallin, and he can decide whether or not to take Parker. I’m still excited at the thought of just one person at home with me. :)

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I know I’ve said it before, but I seriously want to throw the XBox out the window most days. It’s loud and obnoxious, the boys fight easily, and I just don’t get it. If they need help with something, I can’t do anything. I don’t really like playing video games. Not for me. I’m not a video game person. Now, the boys don’t fight all the time, and they actually play well together most of the time. I just fixate on the times that they argue.

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And now, a total Mommy Blogger thing to talk about:

We have been working on potty training Dallin. Things were going really well, but lately it’s not so great. I don’t want to gross anyone out, but I’m a mom of young ones, so bodily functions are just a part of my life and daily conversations. You don’t like it, skip this part.

Dallin will not poop on the potty. I’m throwing out underwear because it’s just easier than trying to clean up that much of a mess. I don’t know what to do. Dallin only wants to wear underwear, and we are trying everything to get him to stop what he is doing and sit on the potty, but nothing has worked so far.

Today I was so frustrated I threw him in the shower to clean him off (usually he gets a bath), and he did NOT like the shower. Cried and cried. So when he had a second accident involving poop, I did it again. I told him everytime he poops in his underwear, I’d put him in the shower to clean him. He cried and cried again. Later, he was playing and peed all over the couch. So I threw him in the shower (he was pretty soaked). He hates showers. I’m hoping this will get the message to sink in.

I told Ches about it, and he said, “Great. You are making him hate something that he has to do. You are making a punishment out of something that he will have to do for his entire life. He has to take showers to get clean. It can’t be a punishment.”

I see his point. But what do I do????

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I hosted a Pampered Chef party last week because I wanted to buy some stuff but totally can’t afford it. I’m pretty pumped because I’m getting some cool stuff. The best part of the party, however, was that we made this awesome pizza. It’s called a California Club Pizza. It has doesn’t have pizza sauce, but does have tomatos, avocado, chicken, bacon, red onion, and cheese and it is SO SO SO good. If you want the recipe, I’ll email it to you. And it was really easy to make. And made good leftovers. So yeah. I liked it a lot (if you can’t tell).

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I just found out that a girl from our ward in Idaho moved here a few weeks ago! She was a student of Ches’ in the band, I had her in Young Women’s, and I taught her flute lessons for a school year. She is the cutest, sweetest thing. Anyway, she is married and has a little baby girl of her own now, and she only lives a few miles away. I talked to her on the phone today, and as soon as her baby gets over the flu we are getting together. I’m excited to have her here, and she said she is excited to be living so close to us and to have a friend!! YAY!!

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I’m hosting Book Club next month. Any suggestions for the book? I was thinking either “The Book Thief” or “The Time Traveler’s Wife”, but I’m afraid they already did the first and the second may have some objectionable material for a kind of church-sponsored club (language mainly, from what I hear). Some of the women in my group may not like it, but I don’t know them well enough yet to be able to tell. They joke around about not getting anything “too trashy”, so what exactly is “too trashy” and what is considered “clean”?? I just don’t know. But if you guys have a suggestion for a book that you did in your book clubs or a book you read recently that you consider a Must Read, please let me know! (This month we are reading “Cry, the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton)

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Making Friends

March 20, 2009 at 4:35 pm · Filed under Life in general, Observations

I have moved a lot, so you’d think I’d be used to this sort of thing. I have learned that it really takes about a year to really get comfortable and happy in a new place. I’m not the most outgoing person, and it’s hard for me to just jump in and make friends right away.

I have complained in the past about this neighborhood and about my ward at church. I haven’t felt accepted or even remotely wanted. I haven’t felt like I fit in. I really did try to put myself out there, but I’ve never been good at that. I keep going to activities at church, however. I keep going to the park in the mornings and the afternoons. I’m going to the neighborhood “boot camp”. I’ve been going to Book Club and trying to attend things like baby showers or Pampered Chef parties or whatever. I try to smile and say hi, and I try to sit by someone at church and talk to them. I know I tend to hold back a lot and I should try harder, but I’m working on it.

We moved here in the end of May. It is now 10 months later, and I am happy to report that I’m starting to feel like a part of the neighborhood. I’m making friends and becoming more and more comfortable around the other moms. I still don’t have anyone I’m particularly close to, and I still don’t quite feel like I actually belong, but I’m on friendly terms with just about everyone, I think.

It takes about a year. We were lucky enough to be in our last place for 2 years, so it was really feeling like home. I miss it a lot, and I think I had a lot more in common with my neighbors and ward members there, but I know that there is still a lot going for me here.

I was talking to a couple of other moms at the park the other morning. Almost everyone else had already left. These two moms are not LDS (rare around here, really), and I realized that I feel more comfortable around the non-LDS neighbors than my LDS neighbors. I wonder why that is.

It was also interesting to talk to them and hear their perspectives on moving here, to a highly LDS populated area, and to this neighborhood in particular. These two women are totally comfortable with everyone now, but it wasn’t always that way.

I realized then that no matter where I go, I will be faced with the same things. That year of trying to “get in” is hard, but it’s even harder for someone who is not a member of such a close-knit community. Mormons tend to get together and form bonds really quickly. They trust each other quickly and have their kids all hang out. I don’t think anyone ever means to be excluding in any way, but it can seem that way to someone new.

This post is kind of jumbled and out of sync. Sorry about that. I’m just in the middle of a bit of an enlightenment and wanted to share some of it with you. I also felt the need to check in with my online friends and say that I’m still alive and I’m actually doing well right now. Things are getting better here. I have a lot of thinking I’m doing right now. I guess you can say this post is…

To be continued…

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Give Oh Give Away!!

March 13, 2009 at 11:42 am · Filed under Friends

For those of you who don’t know her, my good friend Dana is having a GREAT giveaway on her blog. Click here for all the details. You have one of 6 chances to win. Dana has some freakin’ awesome stuff, I have to say. Each of my boys has one of her t-shirts, and I recently purchased some photo notecards. There is even an item from Heather, who crochets the CUTEST stuff ever!! If I had a little girl, they would have all headbands and hair clippies from Heather.

And, if you need good gifts or just would like to help stimulate the economy a little, go to Dana’s Etsy website here or Heather’s website here. Trust me!!!

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What I Want… Or Not

March 3, 2009 at 2:13 pm · Filed under Books, Family, Living in Phoenix

A Pottery Barn Kids catalogue came in the mail yesterday. I always love looking at the catalogues, and I really love looking at the merchandise in the store. I love all the Star Wars stuff they have for boys, and the Dr. Seuss stuff is pretty cool, too. I’d love to decorate my kids’ rooms to look like a PBKids catalogue page. I’d love to have a playroom for the kids like in the catalogue. The play kitchen they have?? SO awesome. My kids like going to the store just to play with the play kitchen there. You don’t need to be a girl to have fun in the kitchen. :) I was looking at some of the other furniture they offer in the catalogue, and I found this awesome media cabinet thing. I can’t find it online, otherwise I’d give you the link. Anyway, it’s perfect for one of those flat screen monstrosities that I’d just kill to have. It has a row of drawers (that fit CDs and DVDs) and six doors. The two sets of doors on the outside are actually pull-out file drawers, and the set of doors on the inside opens to have pull-out media shelves (perfect for the DVD player, XBox, and Wii… which I will hopefully have someday). There are now drool marks on that page of the catalogue.

After dinner last night, Ches and I were sitting by the patio door, watching the boys play in the yard. I call it a yard, but really it’s a big strip of dirt. The boys had two little shovels and a sand sifter, a little wagon, and a large blue bucket. I was showing the new finds of the catalogue to Ches and kind of wishing I had a flat screen TV or enough money to decorate Aiden’s room with the cool space picture (complete with little LED lights) and a large wooden light sabre, when I looked over at my boys.

They were running and laughing, shoveling dirt and throwing it at the wall, pouring dirt and mud into the wagon and the bucket, and just having the best time of their young lives. Their hands were dirty, but their faces shone.

I threw the catalogue on the floor. I don’t want that stuff. I don’t need that stuff. We have dirt. Why do I think I need to fill my house with stuff? The kids are just as happy playing with their plastic shovels that cost $1 at Target than with the $800 kitchen set from Pottery Barn.

I have recently been introduced to the book Roxaboxen by Alice McLerran. This picture book is essentially the true story of a group of children in Yuma, Arizona that lived several generations ago. These children played in the desert and made a villiage out of what was there in the desert: rocks and dirt and pieces of glass… They played there so much that the area today still exists. It is now a park in Yuma where you can go play. The kindergarten teacher at the school where I work told me about this book, and I found it and read it last week. Each class at my school has their own garden to plant things and to play in. The kindergartener’s garden is really set up after Roxaboxen. In fact, the author came to my school a few years ago just to see the Roxaboxen at this school. I was in the garden with the kindergarteners on Thursday and I watched as they dug in the sand, made a river, exchanged shiny rocks (their money), “painted” with water, and overall had the most productive half hour of their day.

When I was a kid, I understood the concept of Roxaboxen. You played outside with your friends until the street lights came on. You played with what was out there. No cell phones. No XBox. No iPods. Just rocks and dirt and trees and grass and flowers and sticks and weeds and old boxes and cans and your bikes and maybe a soccer ball… and your imagination, of course. My children have not heard of Roxaboxen. Yet. But they have their own Roxaboxen in their minds, and soon our backyard will be Roxaboxen.

Because really, what else do you need?

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