I was talking to a friend yesterday, and she said, “So, how are the infertility treatments going?”

Yeah, this friend doesn’t always pay attention to what I say, or what is, in reality, happening in my life. I am not actually doing any infertility treatments, at all. In fact, technically, I’m not even what you would consider infertile. I’m just getting really good at having miscarriages, and the doctors haven’t figured out why. I told her this, and she said, in a glib and almost happy tone, “Well, maybe all of this is just a test.”

I’ve heard a lot of things about why I’m having miscarriages, and people have said all sorts of awkward, silly, and insensitive things, but this one was new. A test? A test of what? My nerves of steel, my strength of will, my uterine lining? I told her if this was a test, I’m ready to pass and get my prize. Unfortunately, though, I don’t think the Lord works that way.

Then she said, “But hasn’t all of this made you a better person?”

Hmm…a better person. Is that what adversity is supposed to do? It’s God’s plan to make us better?

I told her I wasn’t sure if it made me a better person. It’s changed me, surely, and she said, “Well, that’s better, right?”

Well, I’m not sure about that, either. Sometimes the change meant that I was angry at God, and that can’t be better. Sometimes the change meant that I felt so depressed that I had trouble getting out of bed in the morning, and surely that’s not better. This friend, who has also suffered a miscarriage as well as the death of her own mother, insisted that all of those things that happened to her have made her a better person. I was stunned that she would insist that losing her mother improved her life, and say it with such cheerfulness, but maybe this is her way of dealing with it all.

Me, I’m just wondering, if this is a test, what exactly it is that the Lord thinks I lack that I have to learn it with such painful lessons? And isn’t there an easier way to learn them? Maybe there’s not. Maybe the only way to become who God needs us to become is give us trials, and maybe there is some sort of reward at the end, even if it means waiting until we meet God to get it.

For the record, though, if this is some kind of test, I would, in fact, like it to be over so I can get my prize. And I would actually prefer the prize to be given to me here, on this earth, in the form of a sibling for my child. That’s just me, though.

This is actually a post from The Wiz. Blogger apparantly doesn’t like her computer, so I’m posting this for her.

Allison, one of my dear friends whom I’ve never met, (ah, the beauties of blogs) started a threadjack and suggested a post about productive waiting time. And since it’s a good topic, and since I’m too lazy to come up with a topic of my own, I thought I would post about it.

As far as I can tell, she has an 8 yo, a 5 yo, and a toddler, and often finds herself waiting for one of the older two to finish an activity, and has an hour to kill here and there. Her problem? She’s not quite sure how to make that hour productive. (Am I getting this right, Allison?) I personally find that having a nail file handy will keep me busy for hours, but then, I’m easily entertained. My mom brings knitting with her, and her down time results in just a little more of a sweater coming into the world. Hmmm…..the possibility of a toddler strangling himself and/or stabbing random things with knitting needles makes that one less than appealing at this stage of Mommyhood.

She says she sometimes runs small errands like to the post office or dry cleaners, but she just doesn’t have errands like that very often. Hello! Allison! you just answered your own question! Clearly, the answer is: be less organized. Make sure you have lots of random errands throughout the day. For example, forget a few things off of your grocery list when you shop. Then, when you have an hour to kill, go pick up that gallon of milk. Leave huge amounts of film undeveloped, and then take them in one roll at a time. Each roll takes about an hour, right? Or you can run to Starbucks for an evil-looking-on-the-outside, totally-innocent-on-the-inside, costs-too-much-but-oh-so-yummy hot beverage. Or, you can always just bring a book and ignore the children.

When we mommies put on the chauffeur hat, and start shuttling kids to activity days, soccer practice, piano lessons, doctor’s visits, dentist’s visits, dance classes, art class, singing lessons, karate, tae-kwon-doe, horseback riding, Yoga, Pilates, French lessons, blacksmithing apprenticehip, and glass-blowing, there is bound to be some waiting time. Bloggers of the world, what do you with this waiting time?

This , my friends, is what it’s all about. DH and I laughed for a long, long time, both at the pictures and at the original post. What is WRONG with us, people?

You may have heard about our garden. DH may have mentioned it a time or two . But now it’s the end of summer, and we have lots of tomatoes. Lots. So, I thought I would be ambitious and make fresh, homemade tomato soup to use up some of our tomatoes. And really, how hard could that be?

Everything started out fine, until the recipe called to “puree until smooth.” I figured that meant stick everything in the blender, so I poured my simmering mixture into the blender and turned it on high, while Jacob played with cars at my feet.

Mistake number one. The blurpy mixture practically exploded, and in a fraction of a second, half of my kitchen was covered in onions and partially boiled tomato stuff. Unfortunately, Jacob’s box of goldfish crackers was next to the blender, and he saw it get covered in goosh. He was not pleased.

Jacob: “Hey, you got my Goldfish dirty! Move them out of the way! And who got all that stuff on the walls? Who got the walls dirty, Mommy?”

Me:”Um, who do you think?”

He gave me a shrewd look I would not have thought capable of a 3 year old, grabbed his box of crackers, and went back to his cars and his goldfish after I cleaned the orange sludge off of them.

So then I thought the blender was too full, so I poured out some of the mixture, realigned the blender, and tried it again. Mistake number two. The results, sadly, were exactly the same, except this time, I covered the kitchen, the floor, AND my Sunday clothes with said glurpy orange sludge.

Jacob looked up at the mixture of sounds that included the blender being turned rapidly on and then rapidly off, my screeches of pain and alarm, and the orange goop hitting the wall yet again.

Jacob:”Mommy, what are you doing? Why are you getting those walls so dirty?”

Again, the shrewd look was on his face, and I tried to laugh. He just kept looking at me, not laughing, and I thought, “Great. He’s only 3, and he’s already figured out his mother is capable of being a complete idiot.”

C’mon, people, he’s only 3! I thought I had at least 5 good years before he figured it out.

I cleaned up the sludge, and tried to serve the pathetic soup for dinner. It was nasty. We went for a family walk, and then DH made us all hotdogs for dinner.

At least I wasn’t cleaning up puke anymore.

I just finished “Founding Mothers”, by Cokie Roberts, and I’ve come to a conclusion. I am a total wuss.

So, yesterday was a bad day. The bug that knocked Jacob out for our plane ride last week found itself into my intestine, and I spent a not-so-fun morning with my face in the toilet, the sink, the trashcan, any receptacle I could find that would immediately hold the contents of my body that were rapidly spewing out of my mouth. (If you are thinking, “Oh, gross”, well, sorry. If you can’t handle it, you are really at the wrong blog. And no, I’m not pregnant.)

So as I lay dying, wrapped in my comforter and thinking about how much I am dying, DH comes in from feeding Jacob breakfast and says, “Well, I’m going to work.”

No way. Work? He’s leaving me? In this state? Can’t he see that I’m DYING?

I manage a weak protest, and ask him to stay home, because there’s no way I can handle taking care of my child in my current state. He tells me, “You can sleep all day tomorrow. But I have a brief filing today, and I just can’t get away. Jacob’s downstairs finishing breakfast. I’ll try to get home early, you know, around 7:00.”

Tomorrow? Sleep tomorrow? I feel like roadkill RIGHT NOW!

He leaves, even as I start up a constant whimper, and I hear Jacob say to him, “Goodbye Daddy! I’m going to go talk to my Mommy and see what we are doing today!”

I hear the pittar-patter of little feet (they really do make that sound–I love it!), and my 3 year old launches himself up onto my bed and says, “Hi, Mommy! What are we doing today?”

I wanted to say, “You’re lookin’ at it, kid.”

But you can’t say that. As a mom, you can’t tell your child that what you really need is to crash in bed all day with some trashy chick-flicks and the remote control. Kids don’t understand that they really need to bring you drugs and yummy cool drinks in bed and wipe your feverish brow, like you do for them. No, instead, the little ingrates plop on your bed and demand entertainment, and when you tell them that Mommy’s tummy hurts and she needs some rest, they just pull off your covers and say, “Well, we can just play cards in the bed!”

Literally, the only thought that got me out of that bed was, “C’mon, Heather. What would Abigail Adams do?”

Abigail Adams is about the most unwussy woman I have ever read about, and seriously, that got me out of bed. I could hear the woman in my head saying, “It’s just the stomach flu, for heaven’s sake. It’s not smallpox!” So I got through the day, pretending that I was Abigail Adams, pretending that I’m not really a wuss. I miraculously got Jacob to a playdate, and afterwards crashed on the playroom floor while Jacob watched Batman on repeat for 4 hours. But I still feel like a wuss, because Abigail Adams would have milked 10 cows and sewn 12 shirts for “The Cause” instead of sleeping in her child’s bunkbed under the guise of supervising her child while he played in his bedroom with a neighbor.

Aren’t we told the most valiant and strong spirits are saved for these Latter Days, to usher in the millenium? I think maybe some wires got crossed, because in the 18th century, there were some serious kick-butt women. Fast forward to now, and you’ve got women like me who fall asleep playing “Thomas the Train” with their 3 year olds. It’s hard to feel like a great and noble one when you are puking into a toilet with train tracks etched into your cheeks.

Today is my son’s birthday. He is two years old. And yes, he throws tantrums over the wrong color bowl, and invents ingenius ways to climb the pantry shelves to get to the suckers. He is a normal, happy (usually) two year old who has no idea that it is his birthday. He will be content to get no presents, eat no cake, and basically pursue his own agenda of sucker-stealing and hopping.

However, he has two older sisters who are VERY aware that it is his birthday, and are quite distraught that nary a candle has been blown. Where are the presents? We need to go to the store right now! He will be sad! Bring on the cake! Do you think he likes chocolate best? While I’m thinking “Hmmm….maybe I’ll just allow him to get to the suckers and call it a day,” they’re wondering which kids to invite to the party.

I guess this means I have to acknowledge his birthday in some way. I was planning on simply having family over on Sunday for cake and ice cream, but that’s not nearly enough! That’s 4 days away! He can’t wait that long for presents. It’s simply inhumane, and my girls are going to call children’s services on me, just as soon as they learn how to read the phone book.

Maybe I can just wrap up an old toy of his, and bake blackberry cobbler for his cake. (I am, after all, the master of growing blackberries) Maybe that’ll satisfy the little social workers. But it doesn’t take a fortune teller to see that there’s a trip to the toy aisle of Wal-Mart in my future. And I don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that trip will probably include lots of whining for various girl toys on display, totally inappropriate for a two-year-boy who doesn’t even know it’s his birthday.

As mentioned previously, I have done some serious vomiting in my life. I thought that puking on an airplane and missing the lavatory would be a serious all time low. I was wrong. Having a child miss the airsick bag and puke on you on the airplane is much, much worse.

Yes, Jacob and I ended our 3 week stint sans Daddy with a bang, I guess you could say. The night before we left, he puked every half hour for about 4 hours, beginning at 3am. My mother insisted that I try to get a later flight, but c’mon, everybody knows that in this post 9/11 atmosphere, the flights are always overbooked, and trying to get 2 seats on a later flight is about as likely as flying to your destination using your own two wings. And I was so absolutely done that I needed to see DH, pukefest or no pukefest. So I boarded the flight with lots of plastic sacks and papertowels, and filled my seat pocket in front of me with lots of airsick baggies. Yes, I had to use them all.

We persevered, cleaned up a lot, Jacob slept a lot (which I guess is a good thing. It almost makes up for me having to clean up a lot of puke), and we made it home.

I’m never getting on a plane again. Ever.

One of the things that irks me sometimes as a stay at home mom is Happy Fun Dad. DH comes home from work, and the party begins. Never mind that I’ve been doing all the work all day–Jacob only has eyes for Dad. They play fight, they play pirates, they play hide and seek, and both of them seem absolutely thrilled to do it. Dad does all the things that Jacob has been bugging Mom to do all day, and the result of that is that dad is SO much more fun than mom. Can’t beat mom for healing and kissing the boo-boos and the owees, but if you want some serious lightsaber wars, Dad is the go-to guy. One time DH said to me, after a particularly rousing wrestling match with his offspring, “Do you ever do this with him?” After my emphatic no, he asked, “Don’t you ever actually play with your son?”

Sadly, the answer to that is also no. I rarely play with my son, just because there is always so much to do, and his need for play long outlasts my endurance and energy for such. I feel like I try to take Jacob fun places and give him lots of educational and exciting experiences, but when it comes to just plain old one-on-one, I’m afraid I fall rather short. And of course, the guilt about that is constant. But I try to tell myself that Dad is so much more fun because he hasn’t been hanging out with the little bugger all day, and hasn’t been slowly worn down after 8-10 hours of dealing with the energy of a 3 year old.

Now, this week we have been enjoying the beauty and adventure of Aspen Grove, the BYU family camp where you get to dump your kids all day and go pretend for a week that you are a real adult. You can do whatever you want, from sitting like a lump and blogging, to playing cards all day, to the adult slip-’n-slide down the hill. The kids have structured activities in their age groups, and hopefully, they have some fun too (although at the end of the day, I suspect it really amounts to creative day care, at least for the little ones. But I’m not complaining!) One day, after not seeing Jacob for pretty much the entire day, I was thrilled to hold him, to hug him, to swing him upside down, and we played superheros for a good 30 minutes, just me and him. I thought, “Hey, look at me! I’m being Happy Fun Mom, and I’m actually ENJOYING it!”

So I’m thrilled that my guilt assauging message to myself about dad being so much fun because he doesn’t do all the work all day is actually true. Not seeing your kid so much actually does make you more fun! Not that I’m saying we should dump our kids on somebody else all day. Kids need more in a parent than just fun. But it did make me feel better about the marked disparity of my behavior towards my son and my husband’s. It also makes me wonder how exciting he would be after a day of hanging out with nobody else but a 3 year old. It makes me smile to think of him saying, “Thank goodness you’re home! Take this child now, I’ve had it. I need a break. I’m going out for an almond steamer and a pedicure.”

I have decided that my youngest’s motto in life is: Why walk when you can hop? He is almost two, and he loves to hop and jump (along with saying his “word” for “jump”, which you would not know is “jump” unless you are his mother, or possibly, his father).

When he is hopping, he is more joyful than I usually am in an entire day. Maybe an entire week. And depending on the month……And this is telling me that once again, I have something to learn from my children. Because joy is everywhere, if only you can remember your motto: Why walk when you can hop?

My 6yo’s current motto: Why not ask? You might learn something. (and, as a bonus, you might drive your mother crazy in the process.)

My 4yo’s current motto: Maybe if I say, “But I don’t WANT to” loud enough, I will make my imbecile parents understand that some things just aren’t fun. Because they keep asking me to do stuff that isn’t fun. And if it isn’t fun, forget it. Also, some people think 4 yo’s can’t do stuff that 6 year-olds can do. They are SOOOOOO wrong.

My husband’s motto is, I believe, (and this is without consulting him) adopted from the movie “The Incredibles.” It goes as follows: “Kids..listen to your mother.”

And my motto? It changes daily. Sometimes it’s to find the gratitude moments, sometimes it’s to live more in the moment, sometimes it’s to plan better, and sometimes it’s to make it through the day without hurting somebody. I think I need more consistency. Maybe that’s it. Find one thing, and stick with it. Maybe I’ll try that hopping thing.

I stumbled across Adrianne’s Stay at home non-mom blog the other day. Interesting blog. I don’t agree with most of what she says, and even drafted an angry response to some of her stuff to be posted here. But I decided to let the post sit for a day, re-read it today, and now want to talk about something different. She has two posts that are particularly controversial, I guess you would say, and I was originally going to talk about her post “Stay at home mom=slave” . (No, that’s not meant in a cute, ‘I need to vent about my life’ way. She actually thinks we are slaves. Yeah, I know, whatever.) The post I wanted to focus on was the one titled Why I will never have children. She lists her reasons for not having children, and ends her post with this:

“After reading this the majority of people will scream that I am selfish, because our society has taught us that not sacrificing and having children is in fact selfish. Well I think it is more selfish to have children if you cannot take care of them properly, to fulfill your own needs, to live vicariously through them and so on. So before anyone calls me selfish perhaps they should examine why they had children themselves. Of course it was for selfish reasons as well. At least I am honest about being selfish and don’t try to give anyone a line like “I wanted to bring life into this world.””

Instead of drafting my own reponse, I thought I’d throw the question out to all you fellow slaves. Why did you have kids? What were your reasons? Did you do it because you felt it was your divine duty, a fulfillment of your divine heritage? Did you do it because holding your newborn nephew made you think it would be fun? Did you do it because you felt you had no choice? I’m interested. Tell me why you started your families, and don’t leave anything out. It can be for as many selfish or silly reasons as you want, because really, at the end of the day, I don’t think it matters why we chose to have a family, but rather what we do with the choice once that kid shows up. That’s just me, though. And what do I know? I’m just a stupid slave.

When I was in the Young Woman’s program, my young woman’s leader told me that the most beautiful time of a woman’s life is when she is 30. I haven’t done the math, I have no idea how old my leader was when she told me that, and she could have just been saying that to convince herself that being 30 doesn’t actually suck rocks. Nevertheless, the conversation stuck in my 15 year old brain, and has ruminated there ever since. This woman told my gawky 15 year self, who was desperately trying to figure out when her boobs were going to come in (yeah, um, finally gave up on that one), that there is something about a 30 year old woman. She is wonderful, radiating confidence, finally satisfied with who she is, what she has accomplished, and she finally understands what it takes to make her beautiful. A 30 year old woman is, simply put, stunning, both inside and out.

All I could think of at the time was something like, “Puleeze. 30 is, like, WAY old. Whatever. At least when I’m thirty I might have boobs.”

15 years and the same bra size later, I look at myself at the mirror as I rapidly approach 30 and think, “Hmm. Is this really as good as it’s going to get? This is my prime? Well, crap.”

Not that I’m totally dissatisfied with where I am. I’ve done some interesting things with my life, and I am basically where I thought I was going to be. But there are some things that I would have hoped I would have gotten over that still seem to rankle the soul. And I sure haven’t figured out what makes me beautiful, having just gotten a hair cut that I now despise. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m just counting my blessings that hair grows. I mean, c’mon, I’m almost 30! I’m supposed to be in my prime, people! You would have thought I would have learned what NOT to do with my hair. (Ok, so maybe this post is really just all about my bad haircut, but bad haircuts can serve as jumping off points for many a soul searching rant, right?)

I guess I just thought I would be…more grown up when I got to 30. I don’t feel much different, really, and in some ways, that makes me glad. I’m still me–hooray! In some ways, though, I think, “Hey, I’m still me. What’s up with THAT?” Is that what is going to happen when we die? We meet God, we get our celestial bodies back, and think, “Hey, I’m still me. What’s up with THAT?”

Side note: The whole getting our bodies back when we were in our prime thing. Does that mean I should run a marathon now so that when I get to the celestial kingdom, I get to have the body of a marathon runner for eternity? Just wondering.

My MIL, loving, generous, woman that she is, volunteered, yes, VOLUNTEERED to take my child for a few days while I went galavanting about with my side of the family. I was touched by her generosity, and it took me about 45 nanoseconds to accept her offer. She originally understood that the trip was only 2 days, and paled a little when I told her it was actually 3 and a half, but, like the trooper that she is, she perservered and survived. Now, it’s been literally years since I have left my son overnight with a grandparent, and I was a little worried about the whole thing. I mean, I guess I knew that everybody would be fine, but I wondered if everybody would still LIKE each other at the end. I worried about the tantrums, the not eating, and my son’s penchant for violence towards bad guys that sometimes extends behind smacking inanimate objects–you know, the usual stuff.

The little demon, apparantly, was perfect.

Did he ever cry?

MIL:” Well, once when he saw you weren’t there, and once when he didn’t want to go to the park, but I just told him that we either go to the park without crying or stay home and cry. That’s what I said, and he dried right up. You just have to give him choices, and he’s fine.”

Choices. Right. You think I’ve never tried that? Whenever I say something like that to him, he flings himself on the floor and wails like he’s being tortured, and twitches his body likes he’s trying to imitate sausage frying in the frying pan. It’s not pretty.

Did he eat?

FIL:”He ate great while he was here. We don’t believe in letting kids snack, so he got hungry and filled up on all the good food that we gave him. He just gobbled everything up, every night.”

No snacks. Hmmm….Clearly, Jacob did not turn on his whine, which is so annoying, so piercing, it feels like you have a bell tolling against your eardrums, and you will do anything to MAKE IT STOP, including tossing anything edible into the back seat just to keep his mouth occupied, as gagging him with a rag and duct tape surely falls into the category of child abuse.

And apparantly there was no violence, no pain, no injuries of ANY KIND. Truly, I wondered if it was my son they were describing. This is the kid who has pulled off the skin of both his toes, because he was running really fast chasing imaginary bad guys, and crashed into our cement steps at home. Cement vs. kid is never really a winning combination, unless, of course, you’re the cement and you like having a toddler’s blood smeared on you, but really, let’s just not go there.

So, I’m back, my in-laws have gratefully relinquished the parental duties, and Mommy is in charge again. I’ll have you know that in the 6 hours I’ve been in charge of my son, he’s whined at least once, threw himself on the floor twice, has injured his cousin, and refused to eat anything but lettuce and 3 bites of chicken at dinner. (”He loves corn on the cob” is apparantly true only when Grandma is in charge. When mom’s around, he feeds it to Grandma’s dog.) I’m trying really hard not to think his bait and switch behavior is a reflection of my mothering skills. But after hearing what a great job he did at my in-laws, I might have to think about another vacation, say, to Hawaii, or the Bahamas, with just me and DH. We wouldn’t be gone too long– just maybe, you know, until Jacob can vote.

This weekend was a busy one. We had a wedding (ceremony and all), a baptism, and three baby blessings. While at the last baby blessing of the day (and two sacrament meetings is so far past the limit for my toddler, BTW), my daughter pointed to a woman across the aisle.

“Is she pregnant?”

“No, honey.”

“Why does she look like she has a baby in her tummy?”

“She’s just overweight.”

“How do people get overweight?”

“Ssshh. They’re starting to bless the baby. I’ll talk to you about it later (with me fervently hoping that ‘later’ meant she would forget about it)”.

During the sacramnet hymn:

“Now can you tell me how people get overweight?”

“Well, there are lots of different ways. One is that they eat too much of the wrong kinds of foods and don’t move their body enough. One is that they get sick and certain kinds of medicine make them gain weight. Or sometimes it’s just in some people’s genes, and there’s very little they can do.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, like you have dark hair - you didn’t choose that, that’s just how your genes are. Some people have genes that make them overweight.” (keep in mind that this is all being whispered during the hymn)

“Which one made her like that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never met her. But she has a walker, and she had a hard time bending over to pick up a piece of paper that fell, so I think she just has some health problems that make it very difficult for her to move her body at all.”

She seems to accept this. Fast forward to the luncheon after the blessing, which happens to be in a basement apartment, with table set up outside. It is fast Sunday, approaching 5:00, and I’m starving and trying very hard not to lose it.

“Why can’t we go upstairs? Where is the upstairs?”

“They live in the bottom part, and somebody else lives in the top part.”

“Why?”

“Instead of an apartment building, they chose to live in a place like this.”

“Don’t they have enough money to buy a house?”

“Not yet. They haven’t been married very long. Daddy and I lived in a basement apartment like this when we first got married.”

“Was it this one?”

“No.” (Where is the food? - I’m past the point of caring whether or not my fast is righteous at this point.)

“Was it exactly like this one?”

“Pretty close, but a little bit different.”

“Maybe the people that live upstairs are mean.”

“I doubt it.”

“Do they have a downstairs?”

4yo comes over “I want to see the downstairs.”

“There is no downstairs. They just live on this level.”

“When will they get enough money to buy a house?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are those sharp things on that tree?”

“I don’t know.” (Turned out they were chestnuts. Who knew chestnuts were so lethal looking?)

At this point, my husband sits down next to me and asks:

“Hey, is that fan a mini-swamp cooler, or just a regular fan?”

I lost it.

“I don’t know. And if you ask me another question today, I will explode. Do you understand?”

“Hey, just asking.”

Well, I just have to celebrate just a wee bit. After listening to Heather get all excited about the cucumbers she’s grown in her garden, listening to her talk about Spinach/Artichoke Dip (which is just SO good, I can’t even think about without getting hungry) made with fresh grown spinach, and reading about Nate preparing fresh salsa - again, with home grown ingredients, I just have to end this endless sentence by saying - I HAVE SOMETHING GROWING TOO! SO THERE! NYAH NYAH!

The bonus part is, I didn’t plant it, I’ve never weeded around it, heck, I never even knew it was there, and now I’ve just discovered it, just at the perfect time as it’s ripening beautifully. Now I know you’re all dying to know what it is in my “garden”, and do I have life insurance in case it turns out lethal. Well, folks, here at the Wiz’s house, we have freshly grown, beautifully plump, perfectly sweet, perfect-for-cobbler: blackberries!!! And I could not be happier about it. They are so tasty, my girls love to help pick them (despite the thorns that accompany them), and now I have an excuse to make more cobbler than should legally be allowed. But I have a great cobbler recipe, so if you ever want to stop by, chances are I will have some on hand. (unless DH got to it first.)

Plus, now I get to ignore all the stands selling fresh blackberries, and just laugh at all the poor little people who didn’t have enough sense to stumble upon unknown blackberries in their yard. Poor souls.

Also, on the top of my “hill”, in my “garden” (which I always thought before was just vines), we have chives! Who knew? Not as appealing to the youth in this household, but still very fun to have in the “garden”, and perfect on baked potatoes and such. Maybe there’s a way to store them that I don’t know about. (Hint:If you have advice on how to store chives, I just blatantly asked for it. Also blackberries, although we seem to be consuming them at an alarmingly high rate.) So, if we ever have to use our food storage in earnest, well, since we pretty much just have wheat and sugar down there, I just hope it will be in the summer, and I will be able to say: “Let them eat cobbler.”

So the other night, I was awoken in the night by one of my children. While not unheard of, per se, this is now a relatively rare experience. It was my oldest, explaining that she had a scary dream, and that she needed to snuggle with Daddy because Daddy knows how to make scary dreams go away. ????? Daddy has this skill? He should market it, or something, because when she came in she awoke me out of a scary dream, and I’d been with Daddy all night, and he’d done NOTHING about it! He owes me! He was duly punished the next morning.

But why, I wonder, does Daddy get the kudos for the dream-fixing? When Blue Eyes is in our bed, she mauls me just as much (if not more!) I’m the one with her all day, I drive her to her various classes, I gave BIRTH to her, I breastfed her, I changed most of her diapers, and when she’s scared, she runs to Daddy? All I can say about that is…..I’ve done my job well. (insert maniacal laughter here, possibly with a Mr. Burns-esque “excellent.”)

The best thing to do, ladies, is to make your kids “Daddy’s girls” or “Daddy’s boys.” You will still have to do a lot, if not the bulk of, the work, but in the middle of the night, if either parent will suffice, or better yet, Daddy is preferred, then SCORE! The last thing you want to here is “No, I want Mommy.” Because that just does not go away.

Of course, if you have power issues with your spouse, or just with people in general, (and you know who you are) you might secretly like it that you’re the only that can comfort your child. (Hey, whatever floats your boat.) And of course, during the breastfeeding time, you really ARE the only one that can meet immediate needs. But not every cry is hunger, and sticking a boob in the kid’s mouth isn’t going to fix everything all the time (even if it does get you out of Sunday School occasionally).

So leave the kids with Dad. Often. Constantly. As much as you can. Don’t let him refer to watching his own children as “babysitting.” It’s not “babysitting,” it’s “parenting.” Make him change diapers, put the kids to bed, and just generally be there, as much as scheduling will allow. (I understand when work schedules get in the way, and there is some leeway here.) And when the kids cry because they’re hurt or scared, don’t rush right over if Daddy is just as close. Let him rush, so they learn that he can comfort just as well, if not better. Both the kids and the dad will benefit. Not to mention Mommy. She might just get time to get a haircut (dare to dream). Hey, he might even develop the skill of making bad dreams disappear. I’m still trying to figure out how to cash in on that one…..