I went to one of my sisters seventeen wedding showers tonight night. Everyone that had to give a gift had to also come up with some advice to give her. One lady said to treat him like a puppy.
I turned to my sister and said, “Feed him and walk him.”
Later I thought, “Oh, and don’t let him poop on the carpet.”
Sounds like good advice to me.
The Living Scriptures man came to my house today. I hate salesmen. I am an easy sale. When I answered the door I told him that I am not interested. I said that I had Youth Conference in an hour. He said that it would only take 6 minutes, and that he got credit if he came in. He also said I would get a free dvd, I don’t really care about that. I let him come in.
He told me all about the dvds and all the stuff that the company does and blah, blah, blah. During the course of this, Gentry went from happy playful boy to boy on a rampage. For the first 20 minutes he climbed on the coffee table and stood there for a while, continued on to the game cupboard and dumped all games and peices on the floor. Continued to the corner with all the large toys in it and dragged them to all parts of the lower level of our home. After he had bored himself with everything in the house he went into his corner and pooped (in his diaper), he them came back ready to play. He then noticed that I was not paying attention to him, and that the person that was distracting me had a bag of movies. Lucky him. He thought. I would not let him play with the movies, or the guys pen, or the guys keys, or anything the guy had. He burst into tears and started throwing a tantrum. I was really getting bugged, angry kid that stink was helping with my impatience.
If the guy had taken 10 minutes like he had promised, I probably would have bought the movies. But he did not, and the semi-orderly house had fallen apart while he was here and I just wanted to get him out of the house before I had to leave. I told him that I was not interested. He took this as a que to get more free stuff out of his bag of magic tricks. Really, I said, you are very nice, but I am not interested. More free stuff was offered. Seriously, get out of my house. The longer that he was there the more time that I had to think about how much I did not want these movies. Luckily for me.
When he finally left, I realized I was glad that I did not get these movies. Even though I would have gotten like 10 free dvds, a book about the Nauvoo temple, and some cds by the mormon tabernacle choir. I am picky about the amount of church that I let into my house. I love the gospel, but this is not the gospel that Living Scripture is sharing. They just want to make money. Besides that, I had the living scriptures when I was a kid and I did not like them that much. I don’t remember thinking they helped me learn the gospel.
Also, why would I want the media to teach my kids about the gospel? Isn’t that my job? And if these are the same people that are putting out the extreme manuals that I am supposed to be teaching from, then I don’t want it in my house. The guy even brought up that Elder Ballard had given a talk in conference about having good media in the home. Hmmm, I thought, you must be trying to guilt me into this, because I don’t recall the talk and I want to appear to be a good mormon to a complete stranger. Right? No.
I hate Mormons profitting off other Mormons. Most of the time they do it by guilt, making us think that we have to have all the correct paintings, sculptures, etc. And all the fake spiritual music. It makes me gag.
I love the gospel, but I am thinking very carefully about what I am allowing in my home. I will not let certain movies in my home and that includes ALL movies. Just because something claims to be mormon, does not mean it is something that I want to teach my kids.
The end and amen.
Tonight while cooking dinner, I reached up in the cupboard to get the salt and suddenly had that pain in my side like I have been running WAY to hard. I immediately went into frantic death mode and thought about what I would do with the baby while I went to the emergency room. And then, what was jj going to do when I died. And I don’t have a will. And jeez, this really hurts.
So I called ask a nurse, she asked me all sorts of unmentionable questions that were really quite embarrassing. I love discussing every single function of my body with a complete stranger. That always brings a nice close to the evening. Anyway, we went through all the questions and by the time she was done, she informed me that there was probably nothing wrong with me, but that I had probably pulled a muscle. And the pain went away.
I guess I will live through the evening, which really is a relief. Right?
I know I signed up for flickr so I would not have to bog down the window, but I simply had to share these.
Tonight for family home evening we went to the ice cream place at Thanksgiving Point again. This time I documented our indulgence. It was oh, so, good. It is not like we don’t get enough ice cream around here. It is so hot that all I can do is think about taking baths in ice cream.
Also, I thought that I would share a few other things from my camera phone. Over the weekend we went for a hike with our friends Dan and Lindsey. It was really fun. I packed the baby up in the hiker baby carrier. jj did the mountain climbing and the descent. Here are a few pictures of that.
jj and Gentry. They are the men.
In this one Dan is the purple dot with legs in the middle of a huge rock slide. The rock slide is not happening in this picture it happened sometime before, perhaps the day before. What you cannot see is that he is carrying his 6 month old son on his back.
Here we have jj and gentry, Lindsey, and Dan trying to roll a rock down the mountain into the lake. It did not ever work, but they tried really hard to cause another rock slide.
I did not set this up, but I did find it amusing at Macy’s. Oh, the pleasures of being a grocery shopper.
This is the fine speciman of a man that I am married to.
My baby loves anyone above me. I was discussing this with jj the other day.
If Saddam Hussien and I were standing in a room and the baby needed comfort, he would choose Saddam.
Strange, I would think. He is the murderer of millions and totally freaking looking and has crazy eyes. And he probably smells bad.
But seriously, he would choose anyone over me. Even the weapons of mass destruction guy.
I went and saw the poop doctor today.
I know you wanted to know all about my colon so here goes.
If this Doctor was not good looking and funny, I don’t think that I would EVER go and see him. Not that I see him a lot. This is only the second time since the baby was born. But if he was fat, balding and talked in a nasal voice I would not have gone to see him again.
So I went to see him about problems that I have had since the baby was born and he said, “Well I better take a look.” He is talking about my pooper.
He wanted to see it.
“No,” I said,”I don’t think that is a good idea.”
So we kept talking again about my bowels and he said again, “Well, I better see what is going on.”
“No,” I said again. “I really don’t want to show you.”
It is not like I am completely weird or anything, but I really don’t like people to be looking at me from this point of view. I have gotten used to the gyno and all the great views that they get. But really, I don’t like to share views of my deficater.
So he went on to explain what I needed to do so that he could do the exam and left. Jeez, I HAD to show him then. I mean, really that is what I went there for. So the poop doctor could diagnose whatever the heck is going on.
He recommended a colonoscopy, ultrasound, and nerve test to be done. I said, “No.”
I really am not that committed to fixing things today. I need to work up to letting all sorts of people see my nether regions. I mean, really, when you have a baby you have nine months to work up and get used to people seeing your baby maker. I really need some time to let this all sink in, and then maybe I will be able to let everyone see.
Perhaps someday soon I will have pictures of my colon to share with you all. But I really need to get used to the idea first. In the mean time, this is what he sent me home with since I am completely opposed to all things probe like.
I just set up a myspace.com account. Yes, I am truly 14-years old. You can tell by my chest size AND my lack of maturity.
My child comes up with his own words. He knows the correct words but he does what he wants with it to make it his own.
Bug=Buggah, Boogah, Buggas (this is plural) or Bugger. It often sounds like bugger, as in this comes from your nose. He is fastenated with bugs.
Up=Uppie. As in pick me up woman, you are my beast of burden. This often starts as just “up”, but quickly becomes uppie repeated very quickly and then it gets louder. And if that doesn’t work, he will start to climb you by lifting his little leg in the air and grabbing at the waist of your pants or your belt.
Shovel=Sha fie, rhythms with pie. This is what you dig with. For a long time he was saying just “fie” and we did not get it. Recently he has added the “sha” and suddenly it all clicks.
Rock=ock. As in I need to go dig in the dirt with my “fie” and find a “ock” for each hand. He used to repeat this like crazy. Can you imagine? Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock Ock. Say it as fast as you can a lot. For like 10 minutes, or all the way home from work in the confined space of your car.
Beverage=Wahjuice. I need some wahjuice in my cup, no I mean your cup. Everything is better if it is from your cup with a little bit of my back wash in it. This is a combination of water and juice, I think that it favors the juice a little bit more though because water is not usually what he wants and he gets upset with me if he wanted juice and I gave him water.
F-word=as in the mother of all swear words. He says this to mean several different words and everytime he says it I think where did he learn this. I really, REALLY don’t say this one. But he says it to mean flag and sometimes also for frog.
I had my own weird word moment the other day. I felt a little like Jessica Simpson. Gentry has this little flag (you may insert appropriate Gentry word) that he got around the 4th of July. He has pretty much destroyed it and I said to jj, “We better throw it a way, it has been deficated.” As soon as I said it I knew it was wrong, but I could not remember the correct word. jj was rolling in laughter and said, “You mean desicrate.” Oh, right. Yeah. That is what I meant. Is this chicken that I have, or is it tuna? It says chicken by the sea on the can.
I set up a Flikr account. You can take a look here.
It is nothing terribly exciting. Perhaps later, I will go pro.
My little boy is learning when he has to go to time outs. Today he hit me and I asked him if he had hit mommie. He said yes and went and sat in the naughty spot all by himself. He is so smart. I don’t know if he is learning not to hit though because he hit me four more times today.
I teach the young women in my ward. Two weeks ago I was asked to teach a lesson called, “Reach Out to Others.”
It was so bad. I could not on good conscience give that lesson. To begin with there was a story about two dogs, who came across a cat and did not play with it, next a turtle and did not play with it, and finally a rabbit and they played with it. It just did not make sense to me. How do I relate a story about animals to girls between the ages of 12 and 18. It was stupid and childish and I did not think they would even listen to it.
Next, I was supposed to read the following scriptures to the girls.
Luke 15:8-10
Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one apiece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?
And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
What? Everyone who is LDS is not a sinner, and everyone who is not Mormon is a sinner? I could not teach that. I did not think this was the appropriate use of this scripture. I thought that this was about people who had the gospel and fell away and then came back.
Next, it wanted me to read the following situations to the girls.
Ask the young women to discuss what might be done to help a class member become a participating member of the Church. Emphasize that feeling and showing real concern is important. Present the following situations to the young women and have them solve the problems:
1. You meet a less-active classmate in a store. You want to show her that you are interested in her. What do you do?
2. You invite a less-active friend to class. She hesitates before giving an answer. Then she says that maybe she’ll come sometime. What could you do?
3. You invite a less-active friend to your Young Women class. She says she does not want to go and have people stare at her because she is attending church. What should you do and say?
4. You encourage a less-active member to attend class, and she replies that she does not like the meetings. What would you do?
5. You ask a less-active member to class and she says no. What could you do?
I could not do this. I did not like labeling people who are not LDS as less-active. I did not want them to think they were better than anyone. I don’t think that they are. I think that we all have divine light in us whether we are LDS or not.
Luckily, I found a Young Women’s Manual Resource guide on the web. It links toconferencee talks and other things that are to be used to help enhance the lesson. In this case, I taught this instead of the lesson. For real, read this. It is called the, “The Doctrine of Inclusion.” This was so much better and to the good point of what this lesson was trying to teach.
I called several of the girls and leaders and had them in class tell about a time someone had been kind to them and the influence that it had had on their lives.
I shared the following experience about my college roommates.
When I went to college, there were six girls in my apartment. There were four girls who had gone to elementary, junior high, and high school together. The other two were me and a girl from New Jersey. The four that had grown up together could have easily just stayed their own little group of friends. They did not need more friends, but they included us in everything anyway.
When they had friends from home come and visit them, they took us along on their adventures. When they went home for the weekend they would take us with them. They just included us and took care of us like they had known us their entire lives.
They did not need me, but I needed them,desperately. I was going through my life at home falling apart. I needed their stability and friendship badly.
I lived with these girls the next year also, and then they all started getting married and such. When I got married I moved in next door to Lori, one of these original roommates. I have looked up to her for so long now, like eight years. She was my friend and loved me no matter what.
Our apartments faced each other and we would stand in the doorways and talk forever about everything. Eventually, I started noticing what a good person she was and I started to see how having the gospel in her life was helping her to be a good person. She taught me so much about faith and prayer. But I don’t think that I would have been open to her teaching me, if she had not been my good friend first.
That is what I wanted to teach these girls. That we need to be friends with everyone. And when we are friends with people and they see that things are ok in our lives then they will want to find out why.
I had them read the story of the Good Samaritan, which teaches us to love ALL men and take care of those around us.
I had them read Article of Faith 11
“We claim the privilege of worshipping All Mighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all me the same privilege, let them worship how, where or what they may.”
Meaning that as LDS women we worship God, but also because we are LDS women we allow everyone to worship as they may.
I have a friend, Luke, who I have know for about eight years. He has always let everyone know that he is going to be a Catholic priest. He has gone to Washington D.C. to study at Catholic University of America. He then went to Rome to study at the Vatican. He has been in Africa for a year helping kids who were born with AIDS. Now he is trying to start a school for kids who need help.
He is not the same as me and yet we are both serving God and trying to be good people in our own way.
I quoted from the talk I linked to above. “For the most part, the people in your neighborhood who are not LDS are good, honorable people-every bit as good and honorable as we strive to be. They care about their friends and families, just like we do. They want to make the world a better place, just like we do. They are kind loving and generous, just like we seek to be.”
To finish I had them read, John 13:34-35
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Isn’t that really the point that I should be teaching. Don’t be heavy handed about your faith. If people see something in you and want to know about it, let them know. But don’t slap people with something they don’t believe in. Let them know that you love them no matter what.
I am going to hell for not teaching what was in the manual and for writing about it here I am going to be ex-ed.