Baby Beck

Baby Beck is 8 months old! He decided to do everything this last month.

He now...

sits up with help from a pillow
rolls around
started to crawl
says, "Mama" (I kid you not. It is so distinct. I got it on video on my camera.)
sleeps in his own room

It's been a busy, busy month for him.

A Poem and A Dare

So I do a summer school for my kids every year. This week we are working on Poetry. Our first poem was Acrostic. "In Acrostic poems, the first letters of each line are aligned vertically to form a word. The word often is the subject of the poem."

As I was doing my own poem, I realized how uncomfortable I was saying that many positive things in a row about myself. It was weird. So, here comes the dare. I dare you to make an acrostic poem about yourself and post it on your blog. (Note: a dare is like a tag, only with my thumbs in my ears, my tongue sticking out and my hips swinging side to side.)

If you comment...I'll be watching.

Here's mine.

Juggling PTA jobs
Excellent mom
Nice
Nurturing
Adoring

Kind
Attitude
Thoughtful
Headstrong
Leader
Energetic
Enthusiastic
Needs household help

Economy

Does the economy scare anyone else right now? Whether it's job security, loss of wages or rising costs, a lot seems to be going on right now. I, for one, am a tad nervous.

Financial Expert

"Why would anyone listen to you?" Wendell asked, pointing out the obvious question and the one I least wanted to hear.

After writing a post about my under used talents and getting some wonderful support and suggestions from my bloggers friends, I was telling Wendell that I was interested in teaching a community education class on simplified budgeting.

"What experience or expertise do you have that would make people want to listen to your financial advice?"

"I paid off $25,000 of consumer debt in three years," I offered.

"Nah!" Wendell insisted. "You cheated and used the equity in our house."

"True, but I kept the payments the same, lowered the interest rate on the house, and paid more than half of what I owe to my mom and dad on the down payment loan."

"And that makes you a financial expert?"

"I read voraciously on the subject," I asserted, "I've read numerous books and I read three to five financial articles a week."

"I'm just not sure that that is enough. What would it take to become a Certified Financial Planner?" Wendell wondered.

I sighed. "One to two years of school, passing the test and working full time for 5 years. That's really my problem. I'd love to work part time, in a few years, but not full time."

"Keep thinking," Wendell said, "you're eventually going to come up with an idea that will make us a gazillion dollars, but I don't think this is it."

***********************************************

When Wendell got a promotion to finance manager (which came with a healthy pay raise) at the Honda store a year and a half ago, I consumed every financial book and article I could get my hands on to see what we should be doing with our money. Should I pay off debts? Increase the amount we're contributing to our 401K? Buy more insurance? If so, which kinds? We even met with our financial planner.

I got a lot of really good information and set about formulating a financial plan.

Around the same time, our ward sponsored a special financial seminar. My neighbor was the instructor, but because of scheduling difficulties, I wasn't able to attend. My bishop was afraid that too many ward members who needed this advice had missed, so he scheduled another at a better time and made a special invitation to the young married couples. (Since Wendell and I are in our early 30's, we count.)

I was pleased that I was able to go, although Wendell (who trusts me implicitly with the family finances) had to stay home with the kids.

This seminar was among the worst financial advice I had ever heard. And the most appalling thing was that my neighbor did this for a living.

First he nitpicked a budget to death with sub categories of the sub categories. Just the kind of thing that makes people hate budgeting. He never touched on insurance not health, life, disability...nothing. Finally, as he was recommending getting ready to buy a house he suggested getting a $200,000 house rather than $150,000, because the $200K would hold it's value better. What? Where was the discussion on getting what you could afford? If your house is too much of your budget you won't be able to feed your family, let alone keep the house up.

He also suggested that you get a 15 year mortgage rather than a 30 year because in the long run you pay less interest. He forgot to mention that 1) you could do this yourself with a 30 year loan by doubling your principle payments and 2) a loan on a house is some of the cheapest money you can get. It's a great thing not to owe on your home, but if you don't have an emergency savings fund, proper insurance, funding for your retirement AND your children's college education saved for, not to mention money set aside for short term goals like vacations, home remodels or car purchase, then you SHOULDN'T be paying down your house.

I could go on in lambasting this poor man's financial advice, but suffice it to say that he was way out of touch with his audience and I can't actually think of anyone for whom his advice is appropriate.

It was just one of those, "I could do this better than he did," moments. I'm more fun to listen to. I'm more dynamic and for heaven sake I'm more well read on basic financial plans. (I don't doubt, however, that he could tell you more about the stock market and stuff about investing which I admittedly know next to nothing about.)

So, here I sit wondering if I could offer someone a step by step guide to a basic financial plan and simplified budgeting.

Who knows? Maybe I'll start another blog on the subject.

Nathan

Nathan turned 6 on July 16th, so here are six fun facts about my son.

1. Nathan was my biggest baby. He weighed 9 lbs 10 oz (now this is where you gasp) when he was born 15 days early. Early. He was due July 31, but born on the 16th. I was so glad.

2. He has blue eyes. Wendell and I both have brown eyes as do Emma and Anson, so when Nathan was born I was sure his eyes would turn brown. They didn't and they're beautiful blue.

3. With a July birthday, Nathan is among the youngest kids in his grade, but he was the top reader. Now, doesn't that make a mom proud?

4. He's very meticulous. Even as a little tiny boy (who are we kidding--he was never tiny) he would crumple his paper and throw it away if he didn't deem it perfect enough. On the upside, he has the best handwriting of all my kids.

5. He's the middle child. So was I. For that very reason I vowed I would have an even number of children so there was no middle child. Oops. (Although, I argue that with Emma as the oldest and Beck as the youngest all the rest of the kids are middle children.)

6. He is great with babies and little kids. When Nate was little, he was so big that I worried how he'd do with a younger sibling. He took to Annika right from the start. Last year while he was in Kindergarten, he'd come home and play with her until the big kids got home. She loved it, he loved and I loved it. What a sweetie he is!

Minor Remodel and Other Household Stories

All 7 of us have been living in 3 bedrooms for the last 7.5 months. That is fine, except we have 5 bedrooms so squishing in a few and not utilizing the others seems, well, silly. Here is what it took to get Beck out of my bedroom and into the nursery.

Empty out "The-Room-We-Do-Not-Go-Into"
Tear out toilet and vanity from the bathroom
Buy new toilet, install
Buy new vanity and sink, set in the bathroom, hook up faucet
Empty the stuff from one of the bedrooms
Take a lot of it to D.I. and throw a lot of it away
Store what we want to keep in "The-Room-We-Do-Not-Go-Into"
Paint the bedroom pink, paint trim white
Rename "The-Room-We-Do-Not-Go-Into"
Suggestions for new names include: The-Room-We-Go-Into, Happy Hallway, Home Room and Random Room
Random Room wins
Move Emma's bed and dresser downstairs into the pink room
Break it to Anson that he will be living the the pink room for a couple of weeks
Move Anson's bed into the pink room
Buy Anson a new bed, stick it in his bedroom until later
Pick up all the garbage/toys from under Emma's bed
Wash walls in Emma's old room, now the nursery
Pick up all the toys/garbage from under Anson's bed
Wash walls in Anson's old room
Set up new bed frame where Anson's bed used to be
Give the new mattress and box springs to Anson
Give the Anson's old mattress, etc to Nathan
Give Nathan's old mattress, etc to Annika
Annika sleeps on her "big girl" bed in the room with Nathan
Beck sleeps in the crib
Wendell and I sleep without kids in the room, cue Hallelujah Chorus sung by Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Loss

In the entryway of Target I spotted her. An old...acquaintance, Kathy and I had grown up in the same ward. She was four years older than I, so as Young Women, we'd never really been peers. Yet here we were at the entry of Target with a couple kids each in our carts.

I peered in the baby seat at her newest addition. The baby was tiny. "Oh, Kathy!" I exuded, "A new one."

Kathy nodded with appropriate motherly pride. I asked how old the little girl in the cart was. She was 3. Did Kathy have other kids? Yes. A kindergartner and a baby between the two she had with her who had died.

My heart ached for her. A lot of people would say, I can't imagine. But I have a good imagination. And the thought of losing a little one is horrifying.

************************************

At girls camp, I stood in the shower shivering in the mountain cold water. I always sang in the shower and this was no exception. No one was in there, just me and the freezing cold water. After I shut the water off for the final time (mountain cold water requires shutting the water off and regular intervals so you don't go hypothermic.) I pulled my towel off the curtain rod.

Mom would never let us pack good towels to girls camp. We had to pack the worst, threadbare, tiny towels we could find. This one didn't quite reach around me. As I pulled the towel around me, I had a huge slit exposing one thigh and up past my hip. No matter, though, I only had to step out to where my clothes lay on a bench and step back inside the shower curtain. Once modestly sequestered, I could dress.

I stepped out the shower. My clothes were gone, as were my shoes. Everything was missing. I stepped back in the shower, my mind racing. Was it some kind of mistake? Someone accidentally taking my clothes? My bigger problem was how to get back to camp with bare feet and in a towel that barely covered my bottom.

I hadn't gotten very far in my thought process when I heard a voice. I peeped my head out of the shower and was relieved to see a girl from my own camp. Someone I knew. I don't remember how the conversation started, but I do remember begging her to go for help. Please get my sister. She could get me some clothes.

Trickling into the bathroom, faster than made logical sense, the girls from my ward congregated around my shower stall with me in my tiny towel. Suddenly, my clothes had arrived. I was thankful. I didn't even have the presence of mind to be angry.

Only later did I learn that Kathy, my youth leader, had asked Karen, who was the same age as my sister, to steal my clothes. Kathy found me sassy and wanted me punished.

The practical joke she played on me at girls camp is always the first thing I think of when I see Kathy. I earned The Emperor's New Clothes award at the final camp meeting back at home. I laughed till I cried when I got a clear plastic garbage bag as a memento.

**********************************

Some time later, I ran into Kathy again. I had had a baby since I'd seen her last. I had heard she might have too. "How many kids do you have now?" I asked without thinking. She didn't answer directly, but instead named her kids one by one in birth order, reminding me about the one who died. Mentally, I got lost. Had she had another baby or not? What were the ages of her living children? I had no idea.

I wanted to ask these questions, but they were so obviously insensitive that I couldn't bring myself to do it. She was still aching for the loss of this child (a boy maybe?) and his position in the family. My seemingly innocuous question was almost impossible for her to answer.

Recipe for a Hoarder

I found a spoon today on my living room floor. It was under a pair of Annika's pants, which was camouflaged with paper and laundry bins. If I hadn't been trying to pick up so I could vacuum, I'd never have found the spoon.

You see, I'm a hoarder. I hold on to stuff I don't need and/or don't use because, well, I might need it. I throw away garbage, of course! But what you and I might term to be garbage... Let's take a book for example. This book has the binding broken and the middle 4 pages are ripped out. But that is not garbage, HA! No. That just needs a little fixing. So it gets tucked away with the torn out pages jutting out from the middle, to collect dust. I will never get around to fixing it. Never. But what if I do? It would be a terrible waste to just chuck it, right?

Or the glove that hangs out near my couch. It's a perfectly good red glove...mitten, actually. It's too small for all the big kids and too big for all the small kids, but if I could just find it's mate...well, then the little kids will get to use it soon. I'm sure the gloves' partner is around Somewhere, since I'd never throw it away. So I hold on to the mitten indefinitely.

I have a very Depression Era need for holding on to stuff. Yet I was born in the mid 70's. So why do I hoard?

When I was little my folks were poor. Very poor. We patched our clothes, wore tennis shoes to church and didn't get to sign up for stuff like soccer. Once, my parents didn't go to the grocery store for a whole year. We ate deer meat (venison?) that my grandpa and uncles got on a deer hunt. We grew our own veggies in our garden and preserved them for the winter. We had a peach, pear, apple and cherry trees that provided our fruit.

By the time I was 6 I was writing thank you notes to my great-grandma for my Santa Claus present because I didn't really have any other ones. My Grammy had sent my parents money for gifts, but my parents had to use it for the main present, because otherwise we wouldn't have had a Christmas at all.

Then we struck it rich. Kind of. It's what it felt like, anyway.

Over the course of about 3 years our income more than tripled. We were suddenly upper middle class. We got a new house, more than double the size. We went from driving a '68 Chevy (in '86) to a couple year old Ford Crown Victoria. We traded the Chevy's hot, black, sticky vinyl seats for lush velvety brown ones. Enter the years of glut.

Our Christmas' went berserk. When I'd come back to school from the holiday break and my friends would ask me what I got for Christmas, I'd have trouble remembering. It took me about 2 Christmas' to realize that NO ONE got 15 + presents for Christmas JUST from their mom and dad. It literally became embarrassing when I'd come to school the week after Christmas in a new outfit everyday, but that wasn't my main present.

So we'd get all these things. Clothes, books, jackets, shoes, jewelry, knickknacks, etc. And we HAD to keep them all, because they'd cost money. Good money. And we knew what money was worth.

*****************

Wendell and I had our own stint with poverty. After I quit work to stay home with Emma, money got tight. By the time we bought our first house, our savings was gone and we were barely squeaking by. Then Wendell lost his job. In 2001 he had 4 different full-time jobs.

We slowly got on our feet again. Bit by bit over the next 6 years we climbed out of the poverty hole. We got our debts paid down and got money in the bank. We could afford nicer Christmas and birthday gifts for our kids.

Despite the fact that we are now financially solvent, I still function from a place of scarcity. What if it was all taken away? I'd need that book and that mitten, right?

Plus, I have to admit I didn't know that you could throw stuff like that away. Or donate stuff that you didn't use. If there was a chance that you might use it, hang on.

I have taken garbage sack after sack full of donations out to D. I. I have taken stuff to the dump. I have filled and over filled our garbage cans. And I've barely made a dent.

I must keep trying, however, or the stuff wins.

Floor

Her auburn hair was disheveled as she lay in the wreckage, her arm flung stiffly straight out above her head. She was naked, and stripped of all dignity, as she lay face down in the carpet--paralyzed and unable to even glance around the room.

Someone was nearby. She was hoisted upward, less gently than the situation warranted. The mother's eyes were on her taking in her filth, nudity and matted hair. "Polly," the mother whispered and clicked her tongue with disapproval. Then wetting her thumb with spittle, she rubbed the dirt and smudges off Polly's otherwise perfect face.

"I think you may have out grown your usefulness..." the mother continued. Then she dropped Polly into the black depths of large plastic drawer As it slid closed, the light retreated inch by inch until only a faint flicker glowed through a small crack.

**************************************

My big accomplishment for the day was cleaning up. Thought I make a rather drab chore sound more interesting. :) Weird, I know.

Head Trauma

Tuesday night before we left for vacation, I heard a scream from the boys room. Not any cry. It was That Cry. The one that means serious bodily damage has just been done. Nathan had cut his head open. A jagged and deep canyon of skin had emerged on Nate's forehead and dipped into his right brow.


A few phone calls later (set an appoint with the on-call doc and arranging babysitting for the other 4 kids since Wendell was at work), Nathan and I were off to the doctor's office.


"How did you get hurt?" I asked him. He was supposed to be putting new sheets on his bed with Anson help and I was feeling guilty that I hadn't helped him myself.


"I was jumping from Anson's bed to mine," he admitted with all the innocence of a 5-year-old.


He missed the end of his bed and instead hit his "bedside table," a plastic drawer system to contain his toys and treasures. The force of his contact popped the drawers apart and the exposed connector "reached up and cut" him.


It took six stitches to pull the skin of his forehead together. As the doctor gave me final care instructions he said, "His stitches need to come out in 5 days, so make an appointment with your regular doctor."


"Um," I said. "I have a problem. We leave for San Diego on Saturday. Can his stitches come out Saturday morning before we leave?"


No. Well probably not. Perhaps that's the best option given the length of the trip. It would be better if they stayed in 5 days...


Nathan and I were sent home with this puzzling question overhanging our trip preparations.


****************************


Sunday night, after an excruciatingly long drive, we've arrived in San Diego. After we settle in, a bit, to our hotel room we begin preparations for a small medical procedure. We clear a section of table and pulled out alcohol soaked wipes, a sterile kit with special scissors and tweezers, and steri strips.


Wendell does the tweezing and I do the cutting. We try to remember all of the doctors orders and cautions: cut the stitch not the knot, leaving the stitch in will lead to infection, pull up and toward his forehead for the best view of the stitch, when all the stitches are out rub with alcohol wipes to remove skin oil, apply the steri strip horizontally so that it sticks better. If the strip got in his eyebrow it won't stick, no swimming, the incision can pop back open if it's hit...


My head was spinning and my hands were shaking. Nevertheless every one of the stitches were removed. Now we just needed to be careful for the rest if the trip and we'd be OK.