The Post Without a Moral, Almost.

There is a lot of funny going on around here lately.

Like when when the whole family was driving around during Christmas break and Blake started crying because Trevor, 10, took his nose and wouldn't give it back. I told Trevor he already had a nose and didn't need Blake's, so he gave it back. Blake's cry turned into a grateful whimper and he said, "Thanks Treb."

Rilee and Trevor have been having a blast this week making winter camp fires in the backyard. I'm probably going to regret that.

Speaking of regrets, I thought I was so cool because I was totally going to follow the "Asking Jane" protocol about iPods and phones. No phone until 16, no texting until 18, and no Ipods until 14. But somehow, I gave into peer pressure and now everyone here has an iPod and Rilee, almost 13 got a phone! We had a deal that if she got one she could only call me. I added to the list her dad and the Grandma who arm wrestled me and won to get her the phone. The Ri asked if she could just have one friend to text. I agreed because I like the friend and her mom is strict like me, she doesn't have a phone. So Rilee comes home today begging for two more of her friends to be able to text her. Being a mom is hard. She has never really had a group of friends until this year and WE ARE SO EXCITED! But I'm also very cautious about everyone having access to her all the time. What am I doing? It is all spinning out of control! I hope I am not making a mistake. She is a great kid, so does she deserve to have a phone because she is, or is she a great kid because she is so sheltered? THAT is the question.

I found a magical fairy called the "Flylady". Do you know about her? She is crazy and distracted and her house used to be CHAOS like mine, so she understands my problems, and she magic-ed a way to keep our houses clean! And so I am figuring a few things out I didn't know and couldn't do before. I was doing great all through the surgery, then Christmas vacation hit and when the kids went back to school on Wednesday, I literally cried because of the mess they left me in. I called my BFF and she came right over and pretty soon I had HER crying while she was folding my clothes. It was a bad day. But my dear love came home last night and fixed a bed and put in a light and started putting more shelves in all my closets, which he finished tonight before he finished my baseboards in the living room. Swoon, he just made everything better, enough that I can see the light again. Plus also BFF cleaned and organized my master bedroom closet for me. I was just going to throw in a match and shut the door.

So a day after one of the worst in recent years, I am at peace again. NOTE: I am noticing a little imbalance now and then from the thyroidectomy/hormone pill situation. You should keep that in mind for a while.

Well, the boys are on my bed with some glow sticks they found. They are fighting over who's is the grandpa and then they are cutting each other up with them, so I need to get off and laugh and stop the pending fights. Wait, now the glow sticks are reindeer antlers, and they are fighting over who is Santa and who is not flying the sleigh the right way and how Santa is out of presents.

Aren't you glad to have a post from me that DOESN'T have a moral to the story? And no order? I know my kids will be. Rilee told me I ruin all the movies because I point-out or create life lessons from them so then every time she watches it again she thinks about the lesson, and it ruins the movie. I can't help it, I'm a teacher, without a degree. And that is why I should have finished college, and THAT is now the lesson to this post.

The Keys to the Wild Side

I have a problem and its name is "I can't find my keys for three days". I usually lose my keys three times a day, but never once for three days. I have looked everywhere and after several heart-felt prayers, with really good life or death reasons about why I need help finding my keys, I have come to the conclusion that the Lord is not going to enable my habit of careless key-keeping anymore. I think he is letting me feel the consequences of irresponsibility. That, or Brock and Blake have magically disappeared them, and not even divine intervention can help me now.

Because losing my keys is a daily occurrence, I have found them in strange places before, like the storage room downstairs, and in the bathroom cupboard with the central vacuum hose. They have been  in the laundry basket and once while being buried in the back yard. But I have gutted and cleaned the entire house. And nothing.

Ok, here is what you are thinking, "Doesn't she have an extra set?" No. I lost it 8 years ago when I first got the dang car and because I had another set I didn't worry about finding them. Plus also I'm dangerous, a rebel. I like living with the thrill of knowing if I lose my keys, it means I don't drive anymore.

But, while I was putting on Brock's jams tonight, I got a lead.  I asked him if he knew where my keys got lost and he said in the berry bush. Then Blake agreed. So I went outside to the berry bush he pointed to and he pantomimed Blake holding the keys over the giant, overgrown bush of some kind and did Blake starting to fall then dropping them in the bush! Knowing I could believe Brock because he is now 4 and trustworthy, at 11:00pm we put the truck lights on the shrub, and I set to work chopping down the bush to find the keys (which will cost $160 to have re-made)!

Now I have an ugly stump in my front yard. And no keys.

What got chopped off.

What is left.

Update: The keys were located this morning in a basket buried in folded little boy pajamas.  I'm sorry, berry bush.

Things I am Not Going to Miss -Part 2 (and some that I will)

More complaining.......spills, purposeful dumping, hitting each other, take home reading books, science fair projects, people dragging food through the house, all my furniture slimed all the time (wait, when I get my own web cast, that is going to be the title, "Slimed All the Time".  Everything is gross, the walls, the furniture, the fridge, the floor, the table, the door jams, the windows, my clothes, the light switches, the door handles, the glass panes on my hutch, the toilet seat, the side of the tub, the tv, the vcr, the carpet, the toys, the car.....Slimed All the Time.)


I am not going to miss everyone's junk in my room, or Brock dumping out the laundry soap, the chocolate milk mix, or the garlic salt. I'm not going to miss changing diapers or feeding people or kids throwing the pillows and cushions off the couch. And I am ready for the bed wetting to stop.


But I am going to miss the minute I get my 2 year old out of bed when his face is hot and he smells like lotion and baby morning breath. Oh, it's like Christmas every day for one minute. I kiss his squishy cheeks, and when I say kiss, I mean I bury my whole face in one of his cheeks and I kiss and kiss and kiss him and close my eyes while I inhale him. I know, sounds a little creepy. He does this funny thing where he pulls his jaw forward so his teeth are straight up and down and he makes this hilarious strained face, then he closes his eyes and puts one of them on my nose. I don't know why. But we both love it and melt into each other. I feel bad for everyone else in the world. Yah, I'm going to miss that. 


I'm also going to miss watching them play 
soccer, volleyball, tennis, golf, dancing, singing and playing the cello. I'm going to miss how they all climb on my lap still. I am going to miss sitting around the table talking at dinner (I won't miss cooking the dinner or the dinner fights over chairs, though). I am going to miss being the most important person in the world to 5 people. Nobody in the world is loved more than I am. I am going to miss being the first one they want to tell about all the great things in their lives and the first one they want when something bad happens. I will miss Bob making no-bake cookies and them jumping up every 2 minutes to see if they are set up yet. I'm going to miss the screams coming from my room during Sunday Night Wrestling with Dad. I'm going to miss their little voices and that innocent way they look at things they have never seen before with wonder and awe. I'm going to miss Lenny the Leprechaun, Easter baskets, Christmas Eve and having my 
very own monsters on Halloween. I am going to miss Brock climbing into my bed while it is still dark and falling back asleep while he is laying on me. I am going to miss Whitley's confident little laugh and wit and how her feet turn in and she runs so cute. I am going to miss Trevor's innocence and naive goodness and how purely beautiful he is. I am going to miss Rilee calling me every day from school to chat it up and how she puts flowers next to my bed everyday after school. I am going to miss watching them all play at the river, and Rilee figuring out how to skimboard. I'll miss their little kid giggles and how they are positive I make the best Snicker Doodles in the world. I am going to miss watching them barrel down the giant water slide and when they laugh with each other. I am going to miss round squishy faces, button noses and long eyelashes. I'm going to cry when Brock stops the "I love you more" battles, he really thinks he does! I am going to miss playing "Down By the Bank" after we have family scriptures and prayers. 

 I am going to miss them.

But I am NOT going to miss making them clean the house.

Whitley Chews Her Toenails

Well she does. And I know there are people out there saying, (well, just two people, since nobody knows I have a blog yet. Anyway, you are probably saying....) "I would NEVER let my child chew her toenails!" But until you have lived with a child as stubborn as Whitley, you can't judge me for being a hygienically challenged mom. When you see us in the ER because she has a staph infection, judge not. Now, I didn't always have this "Don't judge another mother" attitude. One of my best friends has a beautiful little boy that at 3, we thought was possessed. He would sprint through the chapel on Sunday laughing at the five of us who were trying to help his parents catch him during the sacrament. He peed in his mother's refrigerator drawers. He threw rocks at other kids' heads. He was a wild man. Every day, all day. And I swore, that kid needed more....something. Patience, discipline, beatings, less TV, incentive, more stimulation, less stimulation. I didn't know what, but I would speculate, and judge. And then I had Brock.
One Sunday, Brock headed up the isle in church. I thought,"He'll get to the front of the SUV district (the overflow that holds the big families with all their loud kids) and get nervous and come back." But he didn't. So I started to stand, because when I stand, "even the flies are too scared to fly" (in the words of Tevya from Fiddler) and I thought, "When he gets to the front there is no where to go, so he will run back, especially when he sees I am standing up!" But instead, he looked back and...... "snickered", (I guess is the word for it), and started up the stairs to the pulpit, and I thought, "There is no way he is going to see the Bishop sitting up there and not have some kind of stranger-danger moment!" PS, this is all going on during the talk of our former bishop, the city councilman. So the worst mother of the year, the #1 failure of the parenting cage fight, LONI, puts her head down so no one will recognise her, and makes the long, humiliating walk to the front of the chapel, where Brock has now seen me and is hurdling over the choir benches behind the pulpit. He gets to the center of the back pew, and nose dives into the alcove. All you see are his shoes flying up in the air as he disappears. Oh he was so smart! He found the one place his three year old evil-genius mind knew I could not possibly reach! I grabbed an ankle and yanked him out. Yes, I could hear laughing coming through the speakers, from the speaker. Yes, I could hear the roar of the congregation. And I was DYING by now. I remember closing my eyes, dreading that it was now time to turn around and face the ward so we could make our curtain call. Brock was kicking and fighting as we walked down the steps and to the door, then as a last ditch effort, he started screaming, "No! I don't want to go! I want to stay, I WANT TO STAY!" To which the speaker said, "Loni, Wait! He wants to hear the rest of my talk!"

So, I don't judge parents anymore. We have tried everything on the face of the earth with this child and I can tell you this for sure. Every child was made differently. I have three children older than him that are quite well-behaved. If they get reprimanded at school, they nearly cry. But he is different, and he is three, and last month, he slapped the first counselor in the primary presidency in the face when she tried to help him to Sunbeams. And I was mortified. But the more angry I get, the more angry he gets. I have to be careful not to give him any more ideas. So I try to stay calm. I have been judged by a lot parents that don't get it because they have never had a child like Brock. But they don't love him like I do, and they don't have access to the Spirit concerning this little boy like I have. So I ignore them, and I do what is best for Brock. I see that most families will never have a child that is obsessed with knives and matches and running away. But I do. Fortunately, since I have 4 other kids, I can see how much behavior has to do with parenting, and how much it has to do with the spirit Heavenly Father created. He totally built Brock like he is, I didn't do that. And I know it, because if I look at Blake with a frown, he might cry, and I didn't do that either. My job here is to teach all of my kids about the Savior and to teach them to control themselves. That is a different level challenge for each personality. I love this crazy little boy as much as anyone loves their perfectly obedient child. I need to be with him forever. As parents, our challenge is to figure out each child's secret combination that only our Maker may know. So it takes lots of prayer to understand. I have used up 16 of my life years since 3 year old Brock was born, I am sure. But I have learned 16 years worth of lessons about people from him. So if you see me and I look 50 instead of 34, don't tell your friends how washed out I look for my age. Go get me some Nelson's Frozen Custard, Chocolate, hard packed. ASAP.