Voice-print

How much can you tell about a person over the phone?

A few days ago, I had reason to call for a doctor's appointment for myself and ended up talking to someone on the nurse-line. During my appointment that afternoon I glanced at the computer screen and saw the description of me the nurse had given after our conversation:

"Alert, pleasant female in no acute distress."

It seemed so flat. Two-dimensional. Me in one sentence. But my next thought was that I was just very thankful to be given the "pleasant" label. I don't often get that in a mini-bio. Maybe I just don't deserve it. Anyway, it made me think, "How would I describe the rest of my family in that nurse-y patient-status format?" So here's what I came up with:

(I'm not always as cynical as I sound in these. I do really love my family. But these are pretty honest assessments of the "norm"s.)

NATHAN: "Lethargic, whining male in chronic perceived distress."

DANIEL: "Hyperactive, combative male in acute sugar overload." (When it comes to moods, this is probably the 9-1-1 equivalent.)

STEPHANIE: "Energetic, insistent young female in chronic emotional flux."

ERIC: "Unresponsive but agreeable male in chronic state of exhaustion." (The poor guy is always burning the candle at both ends. Like most males, he's good at tuning us all out, but he is very agreeable and patient.)

Seeing that nurse's note was a good reminder to me that the people I encounter throughout the day see me through a very specific lens and I don't always give them reason to call me "pleasant". I need to add that to my 2011 goals, which is a sure-fire way to make sure nothing changes. Kidding, I hope.

Mother of Invention

Out of necessity, mothers become inventors. Or something like that.

Secretly, I have always wanted to be an inventor. There have been so many moments when exasperation and imagination have merged in my mind to create a brilliant idea for something to make my life easier. (Brilliant to me, at least.) Unfortunately, I only rarely remember the ideas when the moment of greatest necessity has passed. A few of them have been followed by a *ka-ching* thought, but I wouldn't have any idea how to get a new invention produced.

Most of my ideas have been related to baby-care, but not all. Here are a few items I think would make life go a little more smoothly:

Invention #1: "The Boomerang Cup" The first-ever sippy cup with a homing device. This would prevent virtually all those disgusting moments of discovering a two-week-old cheesy-smelly milk substance in the previously missing cup. Simply push the button on the home-base monitor, and the cup lights up and makes a beeping sound which gets louder until you locate it and return it to the base.

Invention #2: "Tall-to-Small Stroller" This is a stroller with telescoping handles. You can adjust them to be very short so that older children can easily push the stroller around, or you can adjust them to be perfect for your arm-length, your husband's, Grandma's, babysitter's, you get the idea.

Invention #3: "The You-Go-Girl" This is a user-friendly way for girls to use the bathroom on the go. You know how sometimes you are stuck in traffic and one or more kids need to use the bathroom? NOW?!? If they're boys (and it's #1), you just hand them the empty bottle you keep for just these kinds of occasions. Put the lid on, put it out of sight and smell-range, voila! But girls? Not so easy. Until now. I don't want to describe this one in detail. I think my mother reads my blog from time to time. Plus, if I ever make the prototype, I think it's VERY marketable.

Don't tell me if these already exist. I want to believe I was the first to think of them.

No...I guess you should tell me.

Real-Life Mystery

This story has all the elements of a great mystery. You know--a piano, an ocean, a couple of guys in a boat, and unanswered questions like:

• whodunit?
• what was the motive?
• how was it done?

Investigate for yourself. Check out the facts by following this clue. And then let me know if you solve it!

Hidden Messages

You know those cute surveys that are done every so often where an adult reads part of an old adage or saying and then lets a child finish the sentence? Like "Don't put all your eggs in one...pocket." Well, I decided it would be fun to try that with my kids using well-known phrases from the scriptures. Some of the responses were exactly correct, some caused me to stifle a laugh, and a few made me rethink my own comprehension of a verse. Here's what my little scriptorians had to say.

First, Daniel (who is 7):
Ye are the salt of... the earth.
Do not run faster than... the wind.
No man can serve two... people.
Pray always, that you may... find the Holy Ghost.
Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have... Priesthood.
Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto... you.
Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as... snow.
Will a man rob God?... No.
But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for... good.
Wickedness never was... here.
And it came to pass that... Nephi came.
For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose... wickedness.
For where your treasure is, there will your... Christ ...be also.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy... love.
Feed my... flock.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be... broken.
Man shall not live by bread alone, but by... fasting.
Make a joyful... house ...unto the Lord.

And Nathan (who is 11):
Ye are the salt of... many.
Do not run faster than... the speed limit.
No man can serve two... minutes.
Pray always that you may... talk with the Lord.
Adam fell that men might be and men are that they might have... kids.
Surely the Lord God will do nothing but he revealeth his secret unto... men.
Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as... snow.
Will a man rob God?... No.
But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for... repentance.
Wickedness never was... okay.
And it came to pass that... they descended into the wilderness.
For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose... his friends.
For where your treasure is, there will your... family ...be also.
Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy... faith.
Feed my... people.
A city that is set on a hill cannot be... demolished.
Man shall not live by bread alone but by... water.
Make a joyful... noise ...unto the Lord.

I loved hearing their responses! I could write pages about what their responses tell me about them. The only one they BOTH filled in correctly was Isaiah 1:18--"though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." If there's anything I would hope for them to already understand about the gospel and keep foremost in their minds throughout their lives, I think that verse would be it: that they can repent and be clean and pure again if they will "reason" with the Lord. Hmmm...they're crazy little people, but I really love them.

WANTED: The Kitchen Bandit

Would anyone care for a salt-and-pepper flavor yogurt?

You know how people use that phrase "terrible twos"? For years, I've been telling them that they're wrong--it's really the terrible threes. My boys were sweet and quite innocent in the "twos" and then little demons when they were three. But now, with a girl, I have discovered the origins of the terrible twos. Aaaaacccchhhh! One of us might not survive till she's three.

The above photo is the result of me turning my back for a few minutes while she "ate" her yogurt. She dumped in some water, then added ALL the salt from the salt shaker and most of the pepper. When I turned back around, she was stirring her concoction.

By itself, this incident is no big deal, right? But there's a cumulative effect when it's just one in a series. Other crimes this week include:

• Continually filling a cup with water and then trying to dump it in the sink, but missing, thereby causing me to waste time searching for a leak in the plumbing.
• Sprinkling handfuls of cat litter all over the bathroom. Yes, it's the kind that expands and makes black marks when wet.
• She has become a professional confetti maker whenever she can get her hands on a pair of scissors.

I now keep all my bathroom stuff in baskets on my vanity. The drawers and cabinets are practically bare. Nothing is safe anymore.

Here are some great parenting quotes that help me to laugh it off at the end of the day:

• Cleaning your house while your kids are growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. (Phyllis Diller)
• A two-year old is kind of like having a blender, but you don't have a top for it. (Jerry Seinfeld)
• Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky. (Fran Lebowitz)
• If your kids are giving you a headache, follow the directions on the aspirin bottle, especially the part that says "keep away from children". (Susan Savannah)

Surreal Cereal: A milk mystery

It was like Frosty the Snowman. One minute I was just making my breakfast, the next, my cereal was alive and smiling at me. This was the result of that "soak time" that is necessary when you choose grape nuts for breakfast (though, as a side note, my dad doesn't wait before crunching into his--you could hear his grape-nut-chewing sounds from the neighbor's basement).

I have already been accused of creating this photo-op, but I assure you, I wouldn't even know how to begin doing that. It was just a natural mysterious occurrence. A "happy" coincidence, if you will.

Deciphering Boys: Entrepreneurship

(Note to Afton: I apologize for my obvious copycatting.)

If you're a boy and you're in need of some fast cash, simply start up your own business. Here are a few get-rich-quick ideas.

1. How to rip-off your brother: First, look around your room and see if there's anything in there you can stand to part with. Don't worry, you don't have to get rid of your bent-up paper clip collection or your wadded up papers and kleenexes or any other similar precious treasures. Possible items might include broken toys, cheap plastic dollar store toys that you no longer want (even though you just bought them earlier that same day), silly bandz that aren't actually yours, or even old homework. Then, gather up the items and take them into your brother's room, tell him how amazing and essential each item is, tell him they're probably too expensive for him to afford but that you will offer him a special deal just today. Take his money without one guilty thought and leave him the impression that he just got the deal of the century.

2. Be a door-to-door salesman: First, find the candy your mom keeps hidden in the kitchen and put it into some kind of cute little container. Then, get a second little container to keep your money in and head out the door. Knock on your neighbors' doors, put on your best irresistible smile, and offer to sell them one piece of candy for a mere 50 cents. (You could start with $1 and see what you get--some of them are pretty gullible.) Before you know it, you'll have a nice little pile of coins going. You could also offer to rake the neighbors' leaves for $20. Front yard only.

3. Offer to do extra chores: After doing a slip-shod job on your assigned chores (or not doing them at all), tell your mom you'd like to earn a little extra cash by doing some more chores. Something like, say, stirring the soup? Or perhaps picking up the pieces of the game you got out 2 days ago? Or, if you're desperate, you could just try to convince your parents that they forgot to pay you for last week's chores.

Any one of these options should be enough to demonstrate to both you and your parents that money actually DOES grow on trees.

Mys-tree

Okay, so here's the mys-tree: What does anyone see in a sycamore tree?!? After moving into the new house in the spring, I started watching the most prominent tree in the front yard to see what it would be like in the four seasons. It didn't do anything spectacular in spring or summer, but I was very hopeful that it would turn some amazing, blazing shade of orange for fall. No. It didn't. In fact, it hardly changed at all.

Finally, after all the other trees were past their peak, this tree's leaves turned a dull yellowish-brown. Then they just dried out, and about 3/4 of them fell off. The other 1/4 are still clinging to the branches in a pathetic-looking way. "Well, ppbbbbbblllllpp!" I said, and thought, "That's not much of a tree." But the tree wasn't finished un-impressing me. Then, for winter, it started dropping all those little spiky balls. You know, those ones that look kind of quaint and country-ish in someone else's yard, but when they're in your own yard, you realize there are at least a million of them, covering the grass and waiting to wreak havoc on your mower. Unless you rake them. And good luck with that!

So, it is with feelings of triumph and anticipation that I announce my intention to have that sorry excuse for a tree removed in the spring. Unless anyone can give me a really great reason for keeping it. Got one?

Zeno's Paradox

Every time I read one of the "Be ye therefore perfect" verses of scripture, I can't help but think of Zeno's paradox. So. First I need to go halfway to perfect. And then from my new position (closer to perfection) I need to go another halfway to perfect, and so on. But there's always another half left, so I will never be perfect. Yet, every January, I set new goals that I hope will get me closer to that perfect state.

Sometimes I have to repeat a goal from last year. Actually, I almost always have to repeat my goals. It can be a little disheartening. One that keeps coming back year after year is to control my tongue and my temper. I was so inspired by this talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland that, ever since first hearing it, this goal has been on my To-do list. But this year, I really am going to make significant progress.

When I yell at the kids, it sounds completely reasonable and justified because, of course, I would never yell at them if it wasn't absolutely necessary. But, somehow, when Eric yells at the kids, it sounds harsh and out of proportion and practically ridiculous. I mean, come on, a little patience, please. (This is another one of my goals--to not be so critical of others.)

There is a very long-standing debate over Zeno's paradox and whether it actually makes sense and is relevant, so here's my two cents worth on the subject:

Whether or not Zeno was correct in his physics, his argument rings true when applied to our quest to be perfect. We can (and should) keep working toward our goal, little halves at a time, but we will never get there. By ourselves, at least. Only the Lord can make up that final distance and bring us to our goal, when we've done everything we can. And I'm so thankful because I'm NEVER going to meet this tongue & temper goal on my own.

But it's a brand new year, so I'm going to try. Yep--it's a brand new year. But how did we get here? Because first we had to go halfway...