You’re Fired!

I have a degree in Theatre. I’ve worked for a hazardous waste company on and off for about 10 years. Why?

Well, I started as a temp to support my theatre habit. They liked me, they wanted to keep me so they were flexible with me. Over the years as I came and went from location to location and show to show, the one constant it seemed was that they always had work if I wanted it and were always willing to be flexible.

This continued after I married and had my first child (and took and extended leave of absence from the theatre life). I asked if I could work part-time. Sure! When we decided to move halfway across the country I asked if I could work part time from home, in another state. Absolutely! After my second child, and a move the rest of the way across the country, can I work from home in Fairly Land and reduce my hours more? Why not?!

I’ve generally enjoyed the work I do as well. It exercises the left side of my brain. It also utilizes skills outside of sniffing a bum to determine whether a diaper should be changed.

In pushing the limits of their willingness to be flexible, I’ve always known that this blessing of ideal stay-at-home-mom employment could end at any moment. That doesn’t make it much easier when it happens.

We were on vacation last week. We had stopped at a gas station, my kids were complaining, the wind was blowing and it was getting cold. My cell phone rang.

“This is not something we wanted to do over the phone.” But considering I was being fired from the Pacific Coast, it hardly seemed worth a plane ticket.

I was being re-organized out of a job. What? The new VP doesn’t want an assistant she’s never met who works when she wants from 6 states away? Come on!

I am grateful. I’m anxious about the income that will not be replaced. Yet I’m rather excited about the prospects of a) more time with my kids (I’m anxious about that too—I think work has been a bit of an escape), and b) looking into pursuing something that I’m more passionate about. So, as I contemplate just what I could do from home on a part-time basis, and just what fat I can cut from my sparse budget, keep watching. Who knows what I’ll be up to next . . .

Practice Makes Perfect

The other day, I looked up just in time to see Elliot run smack into an open door.

He stopped, readjusted his direction, closed his eyes and kept on walking. At which point he tripped over a large bag of crackers he’d left on the floor.

He opened his eyes, picked up the bag, dumped it out, closed his eyes and proceeded to walk through the pile of crackers.

Apparently he was practicing walking with his eyes closed.

Later I caught him practicing backing up. He sticks out his diapered rear end and carefully walks backwards until he runs into something.

Recently he’s started “beeping” as he does this.

He makes me smile, even as he tracks crackers all over the house.

Happy Stuffmas

I'm sure it's been said before by others (and probably by me as well--just ask my husband) but it seems that America's new religion is Shopping for Stuff. It appears that we have swapped celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ with celebrating the Stuff-Shopping Festival which commences with frenzied rituals on Black Friday, proceeds with month long mecca-like treks to Shopping Centers and culminates in frantic last-minute worship of the Almighty Mall of Stuff on December 24th.

And now, one can worship peacefully in the solitude of one's home with Internet Shopping and the holy sacrament of "Free Shipping" for your Stuff.

What exactly are we buying? Why are we buying it? What void are we trying to fill with stuff? I'm not a fanatic opposed to "the man". I'm just a parent concerned about teaching my children (and myself) the value of things that cannot be purchased such as kindness, love, and caring, rather than ipods, video games and cell phones. Our children learn these values by example. They value what we value. They spend their time where we spend our time. They spend their money where we spend ours.

Ask yourself. What do I value? Answer. Where do I spend my time? How do I spend my money?

Where were you this Friday? Where will you be this month? What will our children "get" this Christmas? Toys? and Games? or a better understanding of their divine worth and the joy of feeling love of their Savior and the love of their parents?

Be different. Let us give less this year so that we can give more. Let's stop feeling guilty about the stuff we did or didn't buy, did or didn't "get" and start filling our stuff-void with the love of the Savior and hence a love of each other.

A wise man once said "You will never have enough of what you don't need." Once on the stuff treadmill, there is no end, except in the getting off.

Just a thought for the season. Happy Stuffmas.

Cataclysmic Converter

Today I took the boys "down the mountain" to get my catalytic converter replaced. What is a catalytic converter you might ask (if you were Ethan, you would also want to know what it does and how it does it). I recently found out that a catalytic converter is part of the exhaust system and affects the emissions of your vehicle. I also recently learned a great deal more.

On the way to the dealer, Ethan began questioning: "What needs to be fixed?"

The Catalytic Converter.

"Why?"

It's broken.

"What does a catlic coverder do?"

It takes the smoke that the engine makes when it burns gas and makes it less dangerous to breath before it comes out the exhaust.

"How does it do that?"

I don't know.

"I know you know, so just tell me how!"

I really don't know. Mom doesn't know everything sweetheart, maybe we can stop by the library on the way home and get a book about it.

"Let's go to the library right now!"

We've passed it and we're late for our appointment, so we'll go after.

"TURN AROUND AND GO TO THE LIBRARY NOW!!!!"

Do you want a swat on your bottom?

I digress.

So, we left the car and attempted to walk the boys across the street to play at the playground. We didn't get 10 feet before they began fighting in the stroller. This resulted in time-outs in the parking lot, an embarrassing 45 minute melt-down amidst the new RAV4s and FJ Cruisers, and spankings. It was ugly ladies and gentlemen.

When we finally left with our new catalytic converter, we did indeed stop by the library.

I spent 30 minutes trying to find a book to explain how a catalytic converter works. To no avail.

"Mom please!! You have to find a book about calykit verters!"

So we settled for a book on how cars work that just didn't have enough detail, a manual for building your own car from the adult non-fiction section and a promise to search it out online. So, for anyone who is wondering, here are the basics of the catalytic converter.

So now, if someone could just invent a "cataclysmic converter" that would take a toxic tantrum and reduce it's hazardous effects on the surroundings I'd be very grateful.

Meeting of the Prophets

I try and avoid fast food joints. An occasional exception these days is Chik-fil-a. It took some time to get over the emotional damage caused by the temp job over a decade ago wherein I accosted people at Chik-fil-a franchises and surveyed them.

I decided to allow this exception due to the family-friendliness of the establishment, the decency of the fare and the usual cleanliness of the play area. This deviance allows my children to run and play in the midst of my errand running.

Until Friday however, I had not frequented the Chik-fil-a nearest to Fairyland. I realize that Chik-fil-a attracts many Christians for the same reasons I listed above. What I realized on Friday however is that only in the heart of the Bible Belt can a devout Mormon suddenly feel not quite religious enough.

The restaurant was packed that day with many women in long skirts. My sons were enjoying scampering about on the play area with be a large number of other children--almost exclusively boys--many of whom were sporting T-shirts with Biblical references. Well, time came for the bulk of them to leave and as their various mothers stepped into the play area to call them away, I began to notice a pattern: "Joshua, Aaron, Enoch, time to go!!" and then "Eli, Ben, Abe" . . . At this point I began to write them down just to test my theory. Here is the list--for real, every last one of them was in the restaurant that day: Jacob, Isaac, Enoch, Daniel, Nathan, Aaron, Joshua, Jacob, Eli, Jonathan, Luke, Adam, Ben and Abe.

At this point I was feeling a bit sheepish as I called to my son Elliot. (I considered temporarily calling Elias). In my defense, part of the reason I chose Elliot is that the Hebrew is "My God is the Lord", and Ethan is also in the Bible, but they aint no Enoch (in fairness, I looked Elliot up and it is derived from Elijah, so there).

I certainly have no problem with the idea of naming your children biblical names and giving them something to live up to (though Enoch and Eli are pretty hefty role models), and having grown up in Utah, I know about wearing your religion on your sleeve (maybe that's why I no longer live in Utah). But I tell ya, sometimes in this place, I just feel I don't quite measure up.

I think I'll name my next son "Moses".

"Amidala" for a girl.

Hooters Air

I was surprised to learn some time ago that there is indeed a Hooters airline. My first question was what self-respecting individual would fly Hooters? My question now is who needs to fly Hooters when they can fly Delta in October?

Last week flew with my two small children across the country to visit Grandma. The flight out was unexpectedly smooth. The return flight was anything but. I’ll leave out the gory tales of tantrums, security lines, delayed flights, lost luggage, and many diapers and diarrhea and focus instead on the final leg of the journey.

I was near tears after missing a connection due to a significantly delayed and very long and trying flight when a gracious gate attendant got me and my boys onto a flight a mere two gates down that was already in the process of boarding. And, we had a whole row to ourselves to boot. I gratefully boarded and was bombarded by three very spirited flight attendants dressed in pink of all forms. I was soon to discover the reason why.

The PA system was functioning all too well that evening. I began to wonder if these ladies had had one too many before boarding. The evening’s entertainment began with the announcement that October is of course, Breast Cancer Awareness month and they giggled and mumbled something about the unfortunate lack of male flight attendants who were to miss out on something termed “the male mammogram”. I started to suspect there was good reason all the male attendants had requested another flight.

Next we were submitted to a loud and long plea to donate money to the cause. This plea somehow involved purchasing copious amounts of pink lemonade and vodka. Something tells me they had already sampled the vodka. This was followed by several announcements confirming the exact web address of the breast cancer awareness site (savethetatas.com – seriously, I looked it up).

I don’t consider myself a prude and am up for some humor on my flight, but I was traveling with small children, one of which is not too young to ask “mommy, what are “Ta Tas”? I didn’t really want to add that word to his vocabulary this evening, so I was a bit annoyed. Fortunately, he didn’t pick up on the term.

Of course, this was only the beginning and it was bound to be a long flight.

Oh yes, there was happy chatter all evening on that blasted PA, the final straw however, came as we were taxing to the gate and she got on to make one last plea for money (I think people were paying her to just stop talking at that point).

And she said (I am not making this up):

“It is a fact that most breast lumps are discovered in wives by their husbands. So, I won’t say anything more except go home and fondle your wives tonight.”

Mommy, what does fondle mean?

What happened to “Welcome to Atlanta, local time is 7:45 pm, we hope you enjoyed your flight”?

“GO HOME AND FONDLE YOUR WIVES”!?!? Ladies, please, there are children present. I’m not one to try and get anybody fired, but I’ll certainly check out all the options before flying Delta again, especially in October.

Dirty

I was making Ethan a sandwich and asked him "Ham or Turkey?" and he gave me that four-year-old inquisitive look and asked "Mom, what's Hammer Turkey?" I believe he was rather excited at the possibility of eating something involving a hammer.

On a similar thread, we've been watching a video of Discovery Channel's "Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe" that I picked up at the library. Ethan, forever fascinated by how things work, is enthralled. So much so that tonight as the missionaries were leaving after dinner he says "Mom, can I watch that dirty movie again before I go to bed?"