Credit Card: REVOKED! May 28, 2008

I cut up the Princess’s credit card yesterday.

No, obviously not an actual credit card, she’s only 8, geez how crazy do you think I am? It’s a metaphor. Make yourself comfy and I’ll tell you the whole story.

Nearly two years ago I sent to Princess off to her first full day of school. She was a big girl, she was in first grade, she was six. Being the exemplary mother that I am, I packed her newly purchased Disney Princess lunch-box with a healthy, nutritious lunch, I even wrote her a loving note on the napkin just like the mothers of the girls who weren’t me always did when I was growing up and I wished my mother did too (in her defense my mother may have done something like that when I was in grade school had she made my lunch, but since lunch making was one of the morning chores for myself or one of my six siblings she wasn’t really in a position for writing napkin notes.) I loving placed said Disney princess lunch-box in my darling daughter’s Disney princess backpack and sent her off on the bus to school.

Fast forward a few hours and I got a phone call from the Princess. She had hurt her arm- that’s right she needed first aid in the first grade (10,000)- So I went to the school and picked her up. As we were driving home I asked, “did you like the lunch I made you?”

“I didn’t eat it.”

“What do you mean you didn’t eat it?”

“I went through the line and they gave me pizza.”

Pause. “Sweetheart, they don’t just give you food, you have to buy food and you didn’t have any money.”

“They said I could bring money tomorrow.”

And so began my daughter’s education in buying on credit. SHE WAS SIX!!!!!

I realize that it was only $1.20 but that is SO not the point. The point is that the school, an institution I’m trusting to teach my daughter, has just taught her that she can get what she wants now and pay for it later. Gone are the days of sending your kid to school with lunch money which they handed over to the cashier at the end of the lunch-line. Now you send money in to the schools and it goes in your child’s account. they they go get their lunch and give the “cashier” their account number. I’m completely serious.

In the intervening nearly two years Sean and I have done what we could to disabuse her of the notion that she can’t just get lunch on credit to no avail. She is currently in charge of making her own lunch, something she does about four days a week. The other days I plan for and send money. But some days she makes herself a lunch and she doesn’t eat it!! She just eats in the cafeteria. And the school sends notes home telling us that we owe them money.

And they’re mean about it, collection agencies have nothing on Unnamed Elementary for getting their money. They take the Princess out of class and have her call home to remind- by remind I mean tell, since the note that they sent home with the Princess is still in her backpack- us that we owe 20 cents. 20 CENTS!!!! You’re calling me at home to demand 20 cents?!!!!! Is the school system really that hard up? (Again not the point but I couldn’t help but mention it.)

But we can’t not pay it. We live in a very… (how do I put this?) non-affluent area. There are a lot of kids at that school who are on reduced or free lunch, there are a lot of kids there for whom the meal(s) they eat at school are the best meals they’ll get all week. We can afford the lunch, we can afford one for her and one for a friend. I would just like to afford it ahead of time.

Yesterday I got my big break. Instead of the Princess calling me about money owed, the “lunch secretary” (I kid you not) called. “The Princess didn’t bring her lunch today and she’s going on a field-trip but she already owes $1.00.”

“I didn’t know about the $1.00 (I really need to be better about making her clean out her backpack when she gets home) but I was actually aware that she didn’t bring her lunch today. The note that was sent home about the field-trip said that lunch would be provided.”

“It’s provided but it’s not free.”

Am I stupid that I thought “Lunch will be provided” meant that it was free? It’s ok, you can tell me if I am. But If I had known that I would have had her make a lunch. (No, it’s not about the $1.20, it’s about the fact that I’ve never been that impressed with the nutritional content of the school’s lunches anyway- tater tots are not a vegetable)

“Ok, well since I misunderstood could you go ahead and give her lunch today but since I have you on the phone can I request that you not extend credit to her.”

“So if she doesn’t have money you just want her … to go … hungry?” Asked the lunch secretary clearly aghast at the very idea.

“YES!!!”

She’s a sturdy girl, one missed lunch isn’t going to hurt her and maybe we can undo a little of the damage you have done by giving my six-year-old a credit card. I guess we should have called the school to ask for this before. I’ll admit the idea did occasionally occur to me but I didn’t think there was any chance that they’d go for it. Now that I know they will, well let’s just say that the Pea will be eating the lunch I make him on his first day of first grade.

Do the Children Come First? May 26, 2008

I’m going to call this a guest post because that lets me pretend that I’m cool enough to have guest posts. In reality it is a repost of my brothers. He blogs here and most of his blogging focuses on mortgage rates and the bond market (whatever the heck that is) and is therefore more boring than dirt not always my favorite thing to read. But when he posts about family he just gets it so right that I feel compelled to share it.
Oh, and don’t skip his blog just because you are also unaware of what the bond market is or does, just browse the archives you’ll find some really really good stuff.  I should also mention that his wife, Jeanette, is currently pregnant with their 8th child so he does actually have some experience with this parenting stuff.

Last week the best woman in the world, my wife, spoke at the Utah County Women in Business Conference as part of a panel of experts on family/business balance. She talked about traditions and how to handle things when your plans get disrupted by sick children, and things like that. She is, indeed, an expert on these things. The panel was well received, as was the presentation by Miss Utah, Jill Stevens, about her experiences in Afghanistan as an Army medic. It was great stuff. Estrogenous, but great.

After the presentations, as Jeanette and I were headed out to the lunch, we were stopped by a lady who said she’d been hoping to catch my wife, because she wanted to ask her a question. “How,” she said, “do you keep your marriage fresh with so many children? I’m just a newlywed myself, but I worry about that. How can you do it?”

We smiled at each other, because hey, part of the answer was right there in front of her. I go to my wife’s presentations, even on workdays, even when things are so hectic we can’t see straight. She’s more important to me than anyone, and there’s only one way to show that.

But there are other things, too.

A couple days ago I read an article about out-of-control birthday parties for children. Some of this stuff you cannot believe. There are the parties where the 1-year-old sleeps through the proceedings while 60 - that’s SIXTY - guests open their gifts to him. Parties where the kids are registered at Amazon.com, where the invitations specify that the gifts be worth at least $35, where the mothers complain that the gifts aren’t even worth the cost of the event. Well, imagine that.

There are hundreds of sites devoted to filling every moment of children’s time with activities from Tae-quan-do to cello lessons. With spending thousands of dollars a term on prep schools to get them prepared to go to Harvard or Yale. The modern generation of parents is obsessed with pouring half the national GDP into spoiling their children. If I were a psychologist, I’d suggest that this is a manifestation of repressed guilt over neglecting the things parents know are truly important. But I’m not, so I’ll just point out that if you don’t buy a kid’s clothes at Nordstrom, it’s much easier to not have to have both parents working.

Anyway, one of the things we told the lady was that we protect each other by being very explicit with our children that they are just not that important. Let me repeat that: our children have been told, in so many words, that Jeanette is the most important thing to me and that they aren’t. You’re welcome to call us and get the whole speech - I’m sure my kids can quote it to you - but the gist of it is that the kids are rentals. We get them for a while, then they’re gone. Only Jeanette is forever.

Now, the lady wasn’t shocked to hear this, but she was a bit taken aback. There’s a lot of crap out there about how kids have to know that they are the most important thing in the world, because otherwise it impacts their fragile self-esteem. This is a wet load of steaming horse manure. What kids need is stability, not lies or a false impression of their importance in the world. Our kids don’t feel less loved because they come second. Quite the contrary. They feel much more at peace because they know that the foundation of their world - which is the relationship of their parents - is solid and doesn’t crack.

We do not have perfect kids. They have inherited many of the worst characteristics of their father, and the only flaw in their mother (not much ability to sing). But our kids do not do drugs, and they don’t sass their teachers or Heaven forbid their mother, and they can work hard. They get good grades, and they love each other. They fight rarely and never yell. They sleep three, even four or five to a room and don’t complain. They wear old shoes and old hand me down clothes without whining. They play hard and they pray hard and they know their parents aren’t perfect, so if they want perfection they better look to Christ. And they do.

What do children need today? The same things they’ve always needed. Love and attention, and a stable place in the world. Some sticks and a ball to play with. Important work to do and adults to do it with. A roof and four walls, food and water. Interesting things to learn and interested people to learn from.

And that’s it. Everything else is gravy, and probably gets in the way of one of the things above. How do we keep our marriage fresh? We remember that the marriage is the entree, and children are the salad on the side. And we make sure our children understand this.

Of course, we love salad.

He IS a Boy Afterall May 24, 2008

Irish1 was playing out in the yard this morning. I went out to check on him and I found him crouched down, looking intently at something on the driveway.

“Onsie,” I call (’cus that’s his nickname of course.) “Whatcha got there?”

He looks over in my direction. “Sbleh bleh,” he says standing. (Most of what Irish1 says sounds like Sbleh bleh, it’s a pretty versitle term, kind of like smurf or dude.)

“Sbleh bleh?” I ask as I walk over to him.

“Sbleh bleh,” he confirms crouching back down and pointing.

I peer intently, my gaze following his finger.

“It’s a spider,” I say.

Now I am female but I find that I don’t get all that worked up over spiders. In fact I had a very live and let live attitude even toward spiders in my house until I found a black widow. A big black widow. On my mop handle. About half an hour after I finished mopping (it had, very obviously been on the mop since I pulled it out to mop that morning). When I was six months pregnant. Since then I kill the arachnids in my home. But I still don’t get too worked up about seeing spiders.

And this is the smallest spider ever. It is the size of an ant. Not one of those big ol’ army ants, one of those teeny tiny itty bitty ants that you almost can’t see. How this thing ever attracted the attention of my two-year-old son I have no idea.

“Sblehbleh,” Irish1 repeats. (Obviously he was saying sblehbleh rather than sbleh bleh, silly mom.)

“Did you find a spider?” I ask.

“Yeah.” (Probably the only word he says that someone who doesn’t live with him would understand.)

“Is he a little baby spider?” Of course I’m talking in high pitched baby talk voice.

“Yeah.”

“Is he cute?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you like that little spider?” I ask innocetly.

“Yeah,” he says. And then stands to his full hight of nearly two and a half feet. He lifts his cute little size 6 sneaker. And stomps on the spider.

*sigh*

____________________________________________________________________

In other news Irish2 slept from 11:30 until 9:00 last night!

If only Irish1 hadn’t gotten up 3 times…

Be Careful Out There May 20, 2008

Warning: This is NOT a humorous post. You will not come out of this one laughing, you probably won’t even be smiling.

About a year ago I walked down a hallway carrying a fourteen-month-old baby in my arms. A baby who would never get a day older. This sweet child was dead and I was taking his body to his mother.

It’s a sad story. The saddest part is that his death was totally preventable. He was run over by a family member in his own driveway. This man had simply not seen the child and backed his truck right over him.

I’m not trying to lay blame. If the glimpse I got of this man in the aftermath of this tragedy is any indicator, he’s laid enough blame on himself to last a lifetime. I’m just trying to… raise awareness, I guess.

Every spring and summer the company I work for, in conjunction with several other corporations in the area and across the country, runs a campaign called Spot the Tot. The idea is very simple. Walk all the way around your car before you back-out.

I know, you’re tired and harried and it’s hot and you’ve just buckled 87 children into various car-seats and boosters but it’s that 88th kid, that neighbor kid, that kid who came over because he heard your brood outside and he’s looking for someone to play with, who’s going to be where you just can’t see him.

If you’re lucky enough to be going somewhere without your children make sure that they didn’t follow you out for one more kiss before you drive off. (Also, if your children are anything like mine you might find that walking around your vehicle that one extra time saves you from running over a bike or scooter, or doll or what have you more than once this summer.)

There are lots of other common injuries that I could warn you about. I could tell you not to let you underage kids ride four-wheelers alone but I’m afraid I’m fighting a losing battle on that one. I could tell you to be so so careful with your lawnmowers but I’m hoping none of my readers are dumb enough to let your kids ride on the engine block while you mow. (Yes, it happens. No, it’s not the only way kids get injured by mowers and you do still need to be careful because lawn mowers do not make for pretty injuries and they often result in amputations.) But these injuries are not as frequently fatal and to my mind the are somehow slightly less… tragic? Senseless? (I’m not sure what the word is and I’m not sure why I feel that way. I’m sure I wouldn’t if one of these others happened to my kid but there you have it anyway.)

I could tell you to get one of those safety-net things for your trampoline or better yet not to have one at all but the fact of the matter is, I think breaking an arm or two is almost a rite of passage for a kid.

It’s the things that stop passage that haunt me. Please, just be careful.

Happier posts to follow, I promise.

Virtually Free Stuff! May 15, 2008

Or I suppose Free Virtual Stuff is more accurate. Back to the point.

You asked for it. You got it. Toyota. (That reference is a little more obscure so I’ll offer $10,000 virtual dollars to the first person to name it.) Actually, only one person asked for it but I’ll offer it to all of you just the same.

What is it? You ask.

Only the most great, collasally stupendous thing ever! Something you’ll love an cherish for the rest of your days. Something that you’ll want to share with all your friends and neighbors, something so great you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Actually I’m finding now, that I feel a little silly for having talked it up so much. What if you don’t like it? Or what if you do like it but it’s not that big of a deal? Maybe I should have downplayed instead. Maybe if I didn’t act like it was that big of a deal then once you got it (If you even want it) you’d be blown away but not necessarily because it’s so good, just because it’s pretty good but you had no expectations. Overthink much?

Well, what I’m offering is *Deep Breath* my book. (Technically it’s a manuscript but who’s counting?)

For any of you interested, I’m offering a virtual copy of On The Table a novel I wrote about three years ago.

On the Table is a cozy mystery about young widowed mother who works at a children’s hospital and is blamed for the near death of a five-year-old patient. As she tries to clear her name she also finds herself caught up in her sister’s problems with a premature baby, an interesting love triangle and threats on something more important than her life, the safety of her only son.

It’s really good (my mommy told me so) and even kind of funny. I like it and I’m really proud of it and I thought I’d offer it to anyone who wants it. (Please please, don’t steal it. I’d be really sad and I’m sure I’d cry. But I’m gonna be honest, if you stole it and got it published there would be a part of me that was just proud that I had written something proved publishable even if it didn’t have my name on it anymore.) I was going to post the first few chapters on another page here but I haven’t worked out how to do that yet so for now Just leave me a comment and I’ll email it to you and then you can gush about how good it is and what a talented writer I am and nominate me for a Pulitzer prize.

Thank you and goodnight.

PS Yes, I know that they don’t give Pulitzers for books. I don’t think.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream May 14, 2008

My kids don’t sleep.

It’s only in the last two years or so that we got the Princess and the Pea out of our bed (I was pregnant with Irish1 and we started locking the basement door because just locking the bedroom door wasn’t effective) but now we’ve got two more kids who think that my bed is their bed.

We’ve tried the whole “you can sleep in my room but not in my bed” thing but I ask you what do you do when you finally pull yourself to full consciousness and realize that you’ve been horribly uncomfortable and sleeping very badly for the last two hours because your child ignored you and climbed into your bed anyway and they now have a foot in your armpit and a finger in your eye?

I’ve already been up twice to feed the baby, three times to put the baby’s pacifier back in his mouth and once to make the initial “sleep on the floor” pronouncement. Which was met with weeping and wailing and not a little bit of gnashing of teeth. I could do it again but there’s sure to be a repeat performance, probably with the same underwhelming results and it’s 4:00 in the morning and all I want to do is sleep.

We’ve tried taking them (well, him really, Irish2 still sleeps in our room) back up to his own bed but first of all, we sleep in the basement, he sleeps upstairs. Stairs in the middle of the night? Seriously? I’m completely blind without my glasses (as in can’t read the bedside clock form the bed, blind) and I can’t find them in the night (because I’m blind) and I’m not really known for my coordination even when I can see, quite the opposite really. And he won’t stay unless we do and his floor is really hard. And even if we do stay until he falls asleep and quietly sneak out (a feat in and of itself given the volume of trains, cars and dinosaurs on the floor of the bedroom he shares with the Pea) and get back in bed, he’s sure to be down again in fifteen minutes or so. Just enough time for me to start to fall back to sleep…

So sometimes I just let it go. In the middle of the night I so desperate for them to sleep that I ‘ll let them do whatever works. Play with knives? Sure If that’ll do it. Guns? Will you sleep? Run with scissors? If you promise to fall down from exhaustion. I’ll even let them sleep with me.

Oh well, I suppose it could be worse. This woman’s kids puke all the time, and this one can’t potty-train to save her life. (love you, Mel) But I’m getting really tired

Not Another Mother’s Day Post May 11, 2008

It occurred to me today that I do things for funny reasons. Let me ’splain. No is too long, let me sum up. (A thousand virtual dollars to the first person to name the movie.)

As I was driving home from my mother’s on the major freeway in my area there was a highspeed wreck in front of me. I saw the car swerving and my first thought was that it was going to be spinning in my lane as I got there. Instead it spun across my lane and hit the divider.

Naturally, I had slowed when I thought I was in danger but after I saw it hit I made a split second decision. I pulled over. Here I was, a woman alone in a mini-van with four kids. Not the ideal help-out on the freeway situation (although I wasn’t pregnant and I wasn’t with my two pregnant sisters, but that’s another post) but the thought hit me that I do work in the medical field and I’m ok in a medical emergency (something that’s been tried and tested) and I guess I want to be helpful and serve my fellow man (I mean I really, really do want that, mom). But neither of those are the real reason that I stopped.

I stopped because I want my kids to grow up to be the kind of people who stop to help other people and they won’t be those kind of people unless they see me doing it.

It’s possible the same sort of reasoning goes into my eating all my vegetables at dinner, and not flipping off other drivers, and …

So how about you readers? (Yes, you three, I’m talking to you) Are there things you do just so that your kids (nieces, nephews, random children, girlfriends… whoever) will see you doing them?  How about things you don’t do?

Hey, look at that I guess it’s a mother’s day post after all.

Putting Out the Welcome Mat May 10, 2008

Two weeks ago the relief Society president in my ward outed me.

I type up the announcements for the RS every Saturday but this week my printer was on the fritz so I emailed them to her to print. However, my emails go out with a link here in the signature so she got this address. She even visited. That was fine, the latest post when she came by was the now infamous (in my mind anyway) Costco post. She even commented, she’s the one who strongly suspects (as I do) that the Pea is going to kill me off. So I was fine with the idea that someone with some authority in my spiritual life had, in essence, read my diary.

Then she got up in front of the entire RS and said something along these lines “I don’t think that you all know about Alison. She writes up the announcements but did you also know that she has written a novel? (no one in the ward did. I was somewhat embarrassed about it when I wrote it, I don’t know why, and while I’ve gotten over that it’s still so much cooler to have written a novel that’s been published than one that I practically have to beg people to read that I haven’t exactly advertised the fact either.) And she writes this blog about herself and her kids and so I’m announcing that she has to put the address in next weeks RS news.”

As an aside I’d like to let you know that that particular woman has since been released from her calling. I’m not saying I had anything to do with it. I just thought you should know.

Umm, ok. It’s not like I don’t want to increase my traffic here anyway (especially if I could get those who do come by to COMMENT). But the last post I had up before the Sunday in which the entire RS was supposed to get my blog address was The Princess In Search of the Kingdom. Probably not the best way to welcome the whole ward here.

So instead of giving up the address for nothing I decided to use it to bargain (and to buy myself some time to bury the past so to speak) I held it hostage. My terms being that anyone who sent me an item for the announcements, which I’m always desperate for anyway, would get a link here.

I’ve only had one response as of yet but as I was sending the email with the link it occurred to me. Unless I posted something else (this) the lady(ies) in the ward were going to be greeted by Heaving Bosoms. Do I really need my whole ward to know that I, on very rare occasions, read bodice ripping romance novels?

I’m not sure I do.

I’ve written plenty of posts that I have no problem with the ward reading, like this one, or this one, or even this one. But really this is the post I’d like the members of the ward to read as they step into the Wonderland.

The Princess was such a joy today. I did have to remind her about her chores but when I did so her sweet face fell. She was so sorry that she had failed to remember them herself. So to make it up to me she not only cleaned her room, the play room and the bathroom as she has been assigned, she then dusted and vacuumed the front room and swept out the carport. All with a smile on her face, singing to herself as she went.

The Pea, being his incouragable self, spent part of the morning out in the yard climbing trees (while I was inside reading my scriptures, of course) but when I called him to come in and get his room clean and his chores done he didn’t give me any trouble.

All the chores being done I quickly and easily got all four kids into the immaculately clean van to go to the Princess’s and then the Pea’s soccer games. They both played spectacularly well and when they weren’t playing they sat quietly and cheered for their sibling or helped entertain Irish1 who occasionally gets a little bit restless. And I, of course, did not forget to bring the teams treats for after the game.

I’m so glad every moment that I get to be the mother to such wonderful children and not a minute goes by when I wish that I had chosen to do anything different. I find my job as a mother constantly fulfilling and I love that I can always see the difference my help and teaching is making in the lives of these beautiful souls.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Heaving Bosoms May 7, 2008

So I picked up this book at work last night. I won’t reveal the title nor the author (professional? courtesy) and all I have to say in my own defense is that I don’t usually read romance novels but it was 3:00 in the morning.

Back to the book. This thing is the quintessential trashy novel. All male bodies are bronzed and rippling with muscle, all females have full well rounded breasts and fiery spirits. All the characters are intelligent, something that we’re told regularly but is never actually displayed (I don’t think that leaving your home with no notice and them marrying a man whom you’ve known for about 2 days (and who is the father of your daughter’s fiance) is particularly intelligent but I probably just don’t have the correct sensibilities.) Oh and the girl apparently has great breath, her breath is mentioned “her breath, fragrant with an intoxicating promise, caressed his face” multiple times.

The sex is not overly graphic (and all participants are married (yes, to each other) so that makes me feel a little more virtuous) although it may get more so, if the skin showing on the cover is any indicator (and it is an indicator) but I once met a woman who wrote erotica and she thought nothing of it so I suppose it’s all relative. I have a friend who jokingly calls these books soft core porn. She’s not too far off the mark.

What gets me about this book is just that it’s really poorly written. We’re told about the electricity that he feels when she’s around. This book is set in the early 1800’s what does he know about electricity? The two main characters are British (what else in a historical romance?) and titled of course (see previous parenthetical statement) and yet the Americans are always calling the chick “lass”. What is that?

Maybe I have an inflated opinion of my own talents but I believe that if I could bring myself to write romance novels I could get published. It’s just that my mother is going to read anything that I get published, my father already does read what I write, I just can’t do it. He told me after I finished my novel that whatever I wrote was being added to the collective American culture and I wanted to be lifting culture rather than bringing it down.

But sometimes I just can’t help but read this stuff.

PS I did plan to write a REAL post today but it’s one that was going to include a lot of pictures and my free 30 days of photoshop ended yesterday.

Why We Do What We Do -or- The Princess In Search of the Kingdom - Part Deux May 4, 2008

I decided to let it go.

The Primary president in my ward called on Thursday and told us that the stake hadn’t planned a baptism for this month (resisting the urge to make a sarcastic remark) and so she was putting it together and what would the Princess like us to sing and who would she like to speak and so on and so forth.

That evening I still had not quite reached the zen point that I’m at now (that construction looks and sounds so wrong to me but I can’t come up with any other) so Sean and I snipped and sniped about it a bit that night but by Friday evening I decided that I needed to let it go.

I could have spent the whole baptism complaining about the lack of organization, I could have apologized, in that way that’s not really apologizing, to all the people that I called to invite last minute and made a big point of explaining why it was last minute. But I made a conscious decision not to do that. It was the Princesses baptism and I didn’t want that negative spirit with me. (Which is probably why I had the day that I had because let me tell you It was a SERIOUS struggle. But that’s all I’m going to tell you because I’ve let it go. oh I do have to tell you that I rode to the church with a very horrific smile that I didn’t feel on my face because I heard somewhere that physically smiling even when you don’t feel like it actually does improve your mood. I’m not sure if it worked but I think it scared Sean a bit. But I’m just telling you that because I think it’s funny)

And my decision to be happy worked.

It meant that I had to let a lot of other things go as well. Normally I would have made a big point of making the Pea sit there with us so that he could somehow be a special witness to this decision that his sister was making but I decided that this was about the Princess not the Pea so I sat with her and to be honest I’m not sure where he sat for the first part (I strongly suspect that he spent a fair portion of it in the hallways with some of his cousins) I don’t care. I sat with my beautiful daughter and held her hand.

The service itself was not the quiet reverent thing of one’s mental picture but with my new zen/karma thing going on it didn’t bother me. I have 25 nieces and nephews, 15ish (the math is too much for me at this point) of whom are under the age of 8. They weren’t all there but the Princess wasn’t the only kid getting baptized. There was another kid from our ward and he had family there too. The point is that there were other noises other conversations going on, people going in and out with their kids, babies what have you and it didn’t bother me.

I have family, Sean has family, family is loud and messy and noisy but they were there to watch my daughter make a very important decision and the fact that that circumstances leading up to the program weren’t perfect didn’t matter at all. We could have waited, we could have done it next month when we would have had time to put together just the perfect thing and some if not all of the Princesses grandparents could have been there (none of them were due to various circumstances) but she didn’t want to wait and it turned out just fine.

See how happy she is

(No comments on Sean’s hair please.)

And as Big Idea says, that is why we do what we do.

It doesn’t matter that the Pea and his cousin, Jack, disappeared after the baptism, but before the confirmation (something that worried Jack’s mother considerably, she had reason, she knew about this) and it doesn’t matter that I had to run home to get Sean a change of underwear (he apparently forgot that he’d be getting all wet) or that … I can’t think of anything else.

There probably were more but I’ve let them go.