I Thought It Would Be EASIER With Just Kate in the Pew...

Yesterday at church was our ward's Primary sacrament program. This is where instead of adults giving talks, the main portion of our meeting is all of the children in our congregation singing the songs they have been learning this year and giving small speaking parts and talks related to the year's theme.

So while M got up to get attendance numbers (he's the ward clerk), I sat and wrangled Kate while trying to watch Claire and Scott sing the songs. Scott is in the youngest class so he was right up front. Right in front, picking his nose. Picking his nose, and then eating it.

When I recovered from my brain aneurysm, and from vomiting due the grossness, I started trying to gesture to him to stop it. I tried to catch his eye and when I did, I would put my hand up to my face, then quickly put it down and shake my head. I tried waving my hand in front of my face. Scott's face simply got more and more confused looking, and I think the mental strain and nervous energy were sending that finger prospecting deeper and deeper. At last I took both arms, folded them in front of me, and then lifted them up in order to suggest he do the same. And it worked! He folded his arms. Phew!

But! In the few second that I used two hands to gesture to Scott, I had let go of Kate. She had rocketed out of the pew and had started toddling as fast as she could down the aisle. She KNEW she was being naughty, and she thought it was hilarious. She was cackling as maniacally as a 15 month old can and she could barely walk straight she was laughing so hard. At least it slowed her down a little! She was halfway down the aisle before I managed to run while hunched over and grab her, which of course she thought was EVEN MORE HILARIOUS!!!

At least the other people watching me seemed to get a good laugh too.

Three Piece Suit and Pink Flip Flops

Or

Why You Should Do What Mom Says

[Warning - Not for squeamish pansies]

We just attended a wedding for Marshall's brother last week. The kids were all in the wedding, so at church yesterday we had them all wear their fancy outfits. When we got home from church, we followed the usual routine. We told Claire and Scott to change out of their church clothes. Marshall and I changed our clothes and got Kate out of her church dress. When I checked on him, Scott was still sitting in his three piece suit reading a book. The only thing he had taken off was his shoes. So I helped him out of his suit coat and then told him again to go get changed.

I went to go do something and then I hear a crashing sound of something breaking. I come running into the dining room to find Kate has pulled a glass off the table and now her foot is bleeding.

[Now here I am torn between beating myself up and being defensive. I KNOW Kate is into EVERYTHING lately. I know she pulls things down off the table. I know we need to be religious about clearing off the table. Why, why did I leave my glass from breakfast on the table??? I know I'm a slob, but it's a whole new problem when being a slob hurts your baby. Shame on me. On the other hand, did I mention Kate is into EVERYTHING lately? It's all I can do to keep up with her. Perhaps if church wasn't at 9am, if M hadn't been gone at meetings leaving me getting everyone ready for church by myself, if I wasn't still getting over a bad cold, if I wasn't exhausted like I always seem to be these days, perhaps then I would have remembered to clear my dishes that morning. There. I made a noble effort at being defensive. But my true nature as a mother wins out. I suck. I can't believe I let her get hurt.]

So her cut was bad enough that while weren't about to call an ambulance or anything, she definitely needed to go get looked at. There was a lot of blood. Yuck. So Marshall crammed his shoes on while applying pressure to her cut. I grabbed the diaper bag with my purse in it and rounded the other kids up. Claire was all dressed and just needed to put some shoes on. Scott on the other hand? Still sitting reading that book wearing his dress pants, white shirt, tie, and vest. Oh well, he got to go in his suit. This is why you listen to Mommy when she tells you to get changed. So I told him to go find his flip flops.

Well, of course, of course! We could only find one flip flop. This is why you put your shoes away when you take them off and not fling them willy-nilly all over the house. So Scott got to wear Claire's pink flip flops.

We were a motley crew there in the ER. Scott, as I mentioned was in a beige suit with pink flip flops. Claire had selected to wear pants with holes in the knee. Pants from LAST winter that were total floods on her. M's shoes were untied because it was too hard for him to tie them while applying pressure to Kate's cut. Oh well, I'm sure they see much worse in the ER.

On the up side, everything at the ER went pretty smoothly. It's pretty near our house and when we got there the waiting room was empty and we got to walk right in. The took x-rays of Kate's foot to check for glass in the cut. No glass, so they cleaned it then they numbed it in preparation to glue the cut. Only problem was that every time they went to push the cut back into place, it would start bleeding again. And the glue wouldn't stick if it was bleeding. But since no one wanted to figure out how to do stitches over her toe nail and nail bed, we REALLY wanted the glue to work out.

Finally after another long bout of constant pressure, it stopped bleeding enough to glue it up. But when they were done, you could tell it was still bleeding a little because blood was collecting inside the cut and it was getting all puffy and gross looking. (Or should I say MORE gross looking.) The glue held most of the way, but in a couple spots it opened enough for blood to keep oozing out. Lovely.

But apparently it was good enough because they sent us home. We were supposed to put a sock on her just to keep her from picking at it, but it was all ooze-y and bleeding a little again. So we put a little gauze and a band-aid on it. But after a few minutes of letting her walk around by herself, blood was soaking through her sock. So despite discharge instructions to just leave it be, we decided to bandage her up rather then go back to the ER. I mean seriously, it was already 4pm and we still hadn't eaten any lunch and Kate still hadn't napped at all. (She already missed her morning nap like she does every Sunday because of church, so she was getting delusional.) The bandage seemed to work until she woke up as we were going to bed. We gave her another dose of Tylenol and took the bandage off. It finally didn't look like it would bleed, so we just put a sock on her. Now it just oozes tiny bits on and off, but seems to be okay. We see the pediatrician for a follow up tomorrow morning. Here's how it looks today:

This photo serves two important purposes: (1) it serves as a diet aid - because, seriously, I don't want to eat ever again every time I look at that thing, and (2) it serves to make y'all feel better about yourselves because, clearly, my rug is in desperate need of vacuuming and still I have posted here for all to see (Isn't it nice that you and I are close enough friends that I can let you see my dirty rug? I'm so glad we're tight like that. Hey, if you want to feel like family, c'mon over because have I got a kitchen sink for you to see!)

UPDATE: Kate's cut seems to have come open again. It's not bleeding, but it's kinda gaping. Guess toddlers are too rough on glue. (Seriously, the number of times in the last 24 hours I have watched her stub that toe into something at full speed, wince, then just keep on running is astounding...) I called the doctor's office, but they said to just put a band aid on it to keep it clean and come in for the appointment we already have set up for tomorrow morning.

Claire, This is Riemann. Riemann, Claire.

M got an email today from his best friend with a good math joke in it:

An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first mathematician orders a beer. The second mathematician orders half of a beer. The third mathematician orders a quarter of a beer... The bartender says, "You guys are all idiots!" and pours two beers.

Claire was reading it over his shoulder and thought it was funny. I asked her if she knew why it was funny. You know, besides the fact that someone called people "idiots." This led to a discussion of the "pattern" of the fractions. We talked about how if it went on forever, the fractions would get smaller and smaller and closer and closer to just two.

So then we asked her, "When will it finally get to two?"

She looked at me, smiled, and said, "Never."

Well, then. Guess we're ready for calculus.

Not Beige This Time

Would you look at that?!?!? For my 30th birthday about a month ago, my sister made me the most incredible cake.




I kept looking at it and I just couldn't believe this beautiful thing was for ME!!! Lil' old me! It was almost too pretty to eat.

But don't you worry. Eat it we did. And if you think this thing looks incredible, you should have tasted it.

Heaven. on. a. fork.

Except when I would put the fork down and just lick my plate.

My sister's design was inspired by my wedding cake:


Or perhaps I should say, the way my wedding cake was supposed to have looked. Which is not what you see above.

Don't get me wrong, I think my wedding cake turned out pretty, it's just that I had envisioned something different and even getting what I got was like pulling teeth.

Originally, we weren't even going to have a cake because I don't like cake that much and M doesn't even eat sugar. Seemed silly to spend the money. But my dad seemed to think it was important to follow tradition. (Cue Tevye: "Tradi-tion! TRADITION!") Well, he was footing the bill, so I wasn't going to argue. However, if I was having cake, I was determined that it would be as yummy as possible. At least to me, because I'm selfish like that. Which meant chocolate - none of that white crap.

I went to a bakery my mom had heard good things about and we taste tested their stuff. They had a delicious chocolate cake and chocolate buttercream that I decided to go with. So when it was time to sit down and actually give them my order, I thought it would be easy. In the end, it was a good thing the cake wasn't very important to me.

I told the bakery I wanted a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream icing. Right off the bat, they questioned whether I REALLY wanted chocolate frosting and not white. And I said definitely.

Then they asked what decoration I wanted on it. I told them my wedding kind of had a stylistic theme of bands or stripes, so I wanted each tier to have a band around it about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way up. Then they wanted to know what color I wanted that in. And I said chocolate. Same as the rest of the cake. They thought I was insane. (Do you? To me I think something can be monochromatic and still be pretty because of texture or varying heights, right?) I told them I wanted it all chocolate. They said it wouldn't show up. I said it would show enough. And I told them we would be adding a few fresh flowers ourselves. They were still dubious and suggested what if the frosting was chocolate and they made the band out of a darker chocolate? I thought that sounded okay so I agreed. I didn't know that would mean they would frost the cake with something they waved near some chocolate so it was just a dirty beige color. I wanted CHOCOLATE. I had pictured a subtle contrast of the regular chocolate buttercream I had just taste-tested and a darker chocolate accent.

Then they asked what else I wanted on the cake. I said nothing. They were appalled. I was repulsed by the very suggestion of a gaudy frilly cake. I like me my streamlined. Tailored. Simple. They told me I HAD to have something or it would be too boring. I said I didn't like a lot of decoration. Then they told me fine, but they wouldn't be able to get the edges on the bands smooth enough so they had to pipe the edges. So I told them fine, make it a straight line then. They again looked at me like I was crazy.

If I had actually cared much about this cake, then I SO would have walked out on them and found someone else. But whatever. In the end the cake was pretty good - a lot better than something non-chocolate. And it was pretty enough, even if it wasn't the tower of chocolate decadence that I had envisioned.


But 8 years later, my sister's cake was perfect. I have the best sister EVER!!!