Buh, Bye Blogger!

I don't think I'll miss you!!!

So I did it. I made the switch. Come visit my new site at http://emlouisa.com Bookmark it. Change your blogrolls. And say goodbye. You'll never have to visit this site again!!!!

Emily

So Sunday Was One Of Those Days...

where A-Boy just cannot quit talking. And singing. And talking. All through sacrament meeting. I made him sit on my lap during the sacrament prayer. He sings (yells) "WHERE IS PUMPKIN, WHERE IS PUMKIN, HERE I AH! HERE I AH!" I ask him to be quiet, he keeps singing. I put my hand over his mouth so it sounds like this, "WHRR IFHFF PMMMKMMPMMM.." He does not shut up. Or stop moving. I seriously wanted to punt the kid across the chapel, that's how annoyed I was. I didn't want to leave though since when we leave A-Boy thinks that is fun.

Behind us is an older lady. Her kids are grown, she is very quiet. You never can tell what she is thinking, and therefore I assume the worst. There is an elderly couple sitting beside her. Behind them are 3 other rows of elderly people. I feel their eyes watching me try to control my child. I feel my face get hot as he makes such a scene and I blink back tears.

We make it through the sacrament, barely. Testimony meeting begins. I really feel the urge to stand up. I push the feeling away. It doesn't go away though, it just becomes stronger. I get up and go to the front. I bear my testimony. At the end I say that sometimes it is hard for us to want to come to church because our little boys act like terrors, but that I know we are doing the right thing by coming. My voice gets all wobbly. I close and sit down.

A-Boy is trying to run out into the aisle so I block him with my legs. He throws toys and books into the aisle. I pick them up and quietly scold him. The older lady behind us hands me a note.

Dear Emily,

Your children are wonderful (and normal!). You may regret that you brought them now (just because you are frustrated) but I promise you, 20 years down the road you will be so grateful you hung in there. We all understand and we've all been there too.

Sister J

I cried.

Sister J one of those older ladies that all the young moms feel judged by. We all suck in our breath when she comes in the chapel, and pray that she doesn't sit within Cheerio-hucking distance of our children.

It was really, really nice of her to write that note. I may laminate it and put it in my scriptures.

Pounding The Pavement

So I did it. My 5k. I ran my little heart out.

Before I tell you all about it though I have to apologize. There are no pictures! I know! I was sad too! Greg and I ran out of the house so early this morning that we didn't even THINK about the camera. Before we left we went through the list of things I needed to run: Watch, check. iPod, check. Water bottle, check. Sunglasses...shoot. I ran in and got the sunglasses. We didn't think of the camera.

What we didn't know is that we would get there 40 minutes before the race would start and that we probably had time to go get the stupid thing and be back before the race even began. Oh well.

So I had butterflies before the race started. Greg was helping by saying things like, "Can you believe it? You are here to run a 5K!!!" and I would say, "Heck, ya!" and then be nervous. It probably would have helped if I hadn't gotten there so darn early.

They gave us a five minute warning and we all lined up. My iPod ear thingys kept coming out of my ears, but I fixed it. The race started and I was off. I thought it was totally weird to run with so many people around me. I can't say I enjoyed that part all that much. I worried that I was going to make someone trip or that someone else was going to make ME trip. And there was a gross dude that was wearing teeny tiny gold silk running shorts and nothing else. He looked very...breezy. I tried to avert my eyes when I saw him so that I didn't throw up.

I hadn't even gone 2 blocks of the race when I started getting teary-eyed. I was doing it! I was running! Me, Emily. The one that before March could never even run 2 minutes without feeling the barf coming on. And now? I was running 3 miles! It was a very emotional experience for me and it was all I could do not to lose it.

I wanted to whoop and holler. When I reached the 2 mile marker there were two people standing there, directing us where to go. The lady clapped her hands and I yelled, "WHOOP!" and pumped my fist in the air. She was surprised and we all laughed. (Well, they laughed and I tried to breathe) It was the motivation I needed though, the race information said that the track was flat and easy and there were hills right at the end. Small hills, but hills none the less. I am used to running on completely flat streets of subdivisions, so this was a lot different.

Right before the last little hill I looked to the left and saw Greg and the boys. A-Boy and Mini-Man were both saying, "Yay, Mom!" and clapping to their hearts content. I got all teary again. After the race a woman came up and asked me if those were my kids. I told her yes and she said that she was ALMOST to quit but when she passed them they cheered her on and she kept going. Yay for my boys!

I made it to the end in 32 minutes. Not great, but great for me! By the time I made it to Greg I had full-on tears streaming down my face. He was worried until I told him they were GOOD tears. I did it! My first 5k.

Spending the last five months training for this day has really taught me a lot. I have learned that if I set small goals each day, I can achieve them. On the first day of training I couldn't even run a block, let alone 3 miles. Life is not much different. If we have a goal that seems unattainable, we just need to take it step by step. If we work on it little by little every day, we can achieve our greatest desires.

I have truly found something that I enjoy doing. Running has become such a release for me. I love getting out there in the morning, nothing but me, my iPod and a pair of shoes. I love it.

And I can't wait until the next race.

Five Things I Have Learned This Week

--I should never sweep the floor while my boys are awake. Because when I finish sweeping around the garbage can and move to other areas of the house, THIS suddenly appears. Funny how that happens. Do you know how hard it is to get tiny pieces of styrofoam off of the floor? The stuff sticks to everything. Not to mention Mini-Man thinks it is a culinary delight. The picture doesn't do it justice, probably because the pieces are so TINY that they are hard to photograph.

--A-Boy is starting to talk in more than two-word sentences. Today I was making the bed and lifted up the sheet. "Are you tired, mom?" he asked, thinking I was just about to crawl into bed. "Nope, just making the bed look nice," I told him. "Oh, okay. Cool," he said, then ran off to play. And I smiled. It is so cute when he talks like he's so grown up. Now if he'd stop with those pesky tantrums we'd be just spectacular.

--The new Chocolate Chex Mix? Amazing. The Turtle flavor is probably the best snack food ever invented. It may sound gross and a little weird, but trust me. Run, don't walk, to the nearest grocery store and pick some up. You will be both grateful and annoyed at me for introducing you to such a wonderful and evil product. Try some. Like, right now.

--When you say something like, Carol Brady I Am Not you spark all kinds of interest in people. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone that responded. I read all your comments, I pondered all your comments. And you are right. I am learning that I don't need things to be perfect. It's okay to have bad days. The one thing that really stuck with me was what Heather said. (By the way, who are you, Heather? You aren't clickable and I wanted to click on you! You have good advice that should be spread with great bounty all around this land of blogdom!) She said that we shouldn't PLAN to be good moms, we should have the GOAL to be a good mom. Baby steps. I can do baby steps. Line upon line. Anyway, thanks you guys for all the kind words. And besides? Didn't Carol Brady have like, really awful hair? Ew.

--Tomorrow is the big day. My 5k. The one I have been training for since the end of March. At the first of this week I hurt my tailbone somehow and after going to the chiropractor decided it was not a good idea to run it. I cried a lot. I have been waiting for this day for so long and I am READY! But by Thursday evening my bum was feeling a lot less sore. I decided to try going on a short run to see if I could do it. I TOTALLY could. I didn't hurt at all. So, I am doing it. I am so very very very excited about the whole thing. I promise to let you know how it went the first chance I get. Hopefully Greg will take lots of pictures. And hopefully you won't judge the beautiful red face I get when I run. Seriously, its bad.

Wish me luck! Hope you have a fantastic weekend!!!

Carol Brady I Am Not.

When I pictured myself as a mother when I was younger it was always the same thing. Me, sitting with my kids, laughing and playing with them. Reading books together, pushing them on the swings, happily making cookies together, etc. I was going to be the patient mom. The BEST mom.

I feel like I am failing as of late. We read books, but I'm hurrying through them. Pushing them on the swings? I'm too tired and it's too hot outside and I have too much to do. Making cookies together? It's easier to do it myself. I don't have TIME to clean sugar and eggs off the floor, not to mention the Crisco that gets painted all over the cupboards. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I want to chuck things across the room.

This is not good.

This is not the life I want for my kids. This is not the life I want for ME. I want my children to feel safe in our house and safe in my arms. I want to be their refuge from the world. I want there to be a spirit of love in our home. I realized today that I am not giving it to them and that needs to change. Like RIGHT NOW.

I don't want them to look back on their childhood and think, "Man, my mom really hated being a mother. I was just a thorn in her side, an annoyance." I want them to look back and smile and remember that they have a mother that loves them more than they could ever understand.

How do I do this? I am asking you, Oh Internet. Help me become a better mom.

My Wittle Baby Bwother

An excerpt from an email I received this week from my little brother who is on a mission in South Africa:

On a different subject, it's my year mark... and I was just wondering.... Jeff has a tribute to him... I have.... habba who wha??? Oh yeah.. Nothing. :) Just a thought.

I ask you my friends. Is it polite to ASK to have someone write a blog about you? Hmm. I think not. However, I DO love my little bro and since I miss him SO much I will oblige. He is one of the rare members of my family that "hearts" my blog anyway so that gives him all sorts of points.**

So let me tell you the stories I remember about my little brother Andy. I will leave out the one where he embarrassed the heck out of my 11-year-old self by getting naked then shaking his gibblies in front of 8 of my closest friends during a slumber party. Yeah, I'll leave that one out.

Anyway, he's got this dark red hair and light skin that just begs to be sunburned. I helped him out in that area when he was 3 and I was 10. It was summer and my mom left me to watch him while she did some things. Usually not a horrible idea since I was a pretty good babysitter even at 10, but hey. Everyone has an off day. Andy wanted to play outside in the wading pool so we got in our swimming suits. I looked EVERYWHERE for the sunscreen and couldn't find it at all. I noticed that my mom had some lotion that said "contains sunscreen" so I figured it was just as good as Coppertone and rubbed it all over my little brother. We stayed outside in the hot sun for at least four hours, probably much longer.

The next morning we heard screams coming from Andy's room. My mom ran in there and he kept saying that his back hurt. She tried to lift up his shirt and couldn't, it was stuck to his back. She peeled it away a little bit. He had blisters the size of quarters all over his shoulders! She took him to the doctor where they sat him in a whirlpool and scrubbed them off every day for two weeks. YEOUCH!!!

Needless to say I never forgot to put sunscreen on him again when I watched him and my mom never forgot to make it easily accessible. I always have so guilty because of this. At the time I didn't know any better but still, I feel bad for making him hurt. Luckily he has forgiven me and only brings it up when he is trying to guilt me into doing something for him.

Since Andy was a lot younger than Jeff and I (like 7-8 years), we liked to play jokes on him. When we were in our late teens we drove around a little Dodge truck. We had four people squished in the cab and told Andy that if a cop drove by he was going to have to duck so that we wouldn't get arrested. So we are driving down the road and we drive by a cop. We tell Andy to duck, then Jeff decides to make it fun. He pulls over really quickly and tells Andy that the cop has his lights on behind us. He tells him that the only way we won't be arrested is if Andy opens the passenger door and sneaks out before the cop sees him. He tells him to hide in the bushes and we will come back for him later when it is dark. Andy is FREAKING out. Bawling. He panics but says he will do it. We start laughing and tell him it was a big joke. We laughed and laughed.

He didn't talk to us for a week and I can't say I blame him. It's a miracle that he still talks to us now after all the stuff we pulled. But he has to admit now, even if it was mean it was a LITTLE funny. A small, small small smidgen funny. Admit it, Andy. It was a smidgen funny.

Excluding the "Cop Story", Andy is great at putting a positive spin on crappy situations. Unfortunately he had a lot of crappy situations in his life that warranted such optimism. Our parents got divorced when he was 9 because my father was abusive. My mom got remarried a couple years later to a man who seemed to be great but ended up being not so great. He battled with alcoholism. Andy spent 8 years of his life living with someone that not only ignored him, but blamed him for everything that ever went wrong in his life. It was not easy for him.

Still he laughed and joked about it. Sometimes I think he laughed to keep from crying, but he made the best of things and came out of it with a great attitude and a desire to be better person. I admire that in him.

Andy is the youngest in our family so he has to put up with a lot of garbage from all of us. Lots of older siblings telling him what to do, trying to parent him. Lots of older siblings determined to help him make better choices than we all made. He would get good grades. He would go to college. He would gain a strong testimony of the Gospel. He would go on a mission. He would not rebel. We talked to him a lot about stuff. Greg gave him the "Don't Fornicate" talk every time he saw him. (Fornication sounds more evil and less exciting than sex, haha) Andy was a good sport about all of it. And except for the good grades thing he did pretty darn good.

Andy has lots of talents. He loves singing and performing. I remember seeing him as J. Pierpont Finch in "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying" and just being blown away at how well he did. The kid stole the show! Also, he is funny. Hilarious, actually. You know those baby pictures you can get with the angel wings and soft lighting? Well, my 19-year-old brother made one of his own. It is grossly funny and I would totally post it here except for the fact that in 10 years he might not want it to be traveling the email circuit and people, it WOULD be traveling the emailing circuit. It is email-circuit worthy. I know some of you have seen it though. Is it not hilarious?

Andy came up to visit us about a month before leaving for South Africa. I was due with Mini-Man the week he was scheduled to go the MTC so it was the last time I got to see the kid in person for a while. I cried a lot. Later he told me that he didn't know I was crying because he was leaving. He thought it was because I was pregnant, haha. Anyway, we had a great time when he was here. He played a lot with A-Boy. I took him to get a missionary haircut since his was a tad innappropriate for entering the MTC. (Just a tad, don't you think? haha) We watched lots of movies. We stayed up late talking. I have always loved staying up late talking with him.

He's been out for a year now and is doing very well. He is teaching lots of people and eating lots of disgusting things like sheep eyeballs and yak heads. He is having lots of growing experiences. It's hard having him in the most dangerous countries in the world, but I know that he is being watched over. This year certainly has gone by fast and I can only hope that this next year goes just as quickly. I can't wait for him to see him again and for him to meet my little Mini-Man.

Take care, Elder Andy. Love and miss your guts.

**I print out my blog and send it to him, lest you think he is breaking rules and surfing the internet.

Things I Have Learned This Week--Birthday Edition

I know that I just blogged about stuff I learned but hey. give a girl a break. I've been really busy this week and when I haven't been busy, I've just been tired. I know, I know. I need to quit whining. But really. I've been TIRED.

Moving on now...

---My kid looks dang cute whilst covered in chocolate cake. A little gross perhaps, but still cute.

Mini-Man turned one recently and much to his father's dismay I dressed him up like a farmer before I let him properly destroy his birthday cake. He looked squeezably adorable, at least BEFORE the smearfest. Is this not the cutest little dude you have ever laid eyes upon? I
thought so.

---The "Happy Birthday" song is...okay. But the "Happy Birthday" song on the kazoo? Seriously folks. I am a GENIOUS for thinking that up. This may go down in history as the best "Happy Birthday" rendition ever. EVER. Note the harmonizing and prepare to be amazed.



Video Hosting - Upload Video - Photo Sharing

---Birthdays are never as perfect as you envision them to be. My 27th birthday was this week. We celebrated by going out to lunch at a yummy Mexican restaurant. Mini-Man? Screamed and hurled food the entire time. It was really quite thoughtful of him. Then he took a 45 minute nap instead of his usual 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours. I'm sure it is because he didn't want me to be alone on my birthday. That or he was/is still bitter that I left him in the care of his beloved Grandma for a week while I went galavanting around without him at Girl's Camp. I tried not to cry since I really really needed a break and instead plopped him in front of Blue's Clues like the good mother I am. Then I read a book.

The eve of my birthday I was exhausted but Greg talked me in to meeting his sisters for pie in celebration of the Most Fabulous Day Ever. He said it would be "good for me". After a 45 minute delay while Greg fixed our flat tire we were off. This time it was A-Boy's turn to freak out in the restaurant. I actually left the table in the middle of dinner in an effort not to strangle the poor kid. By the time I got back there was a new seating arrangement that involved NO kids around me, which was probably best. A-Boy was busy eating handfuls of honey butter. Whatever keeps you quiet, Little Dude. We got home at 9pm. I dragged myself to bed and crashed until the next morning. Ah, birthday sleep.

---Sometimes I emphasize the negative too much. Because even though my kids acted like terrors on the Big Day other people were nice to me. Greg bought me flowers. He even got me a card which was a big deal since he thinks they are a waste of money and environmental commodoties. The Perfect Lady who now has her own blog, by the way, made me this delicious cake. My friends bought me Baskin Robbins Pralines and Cream ice cream and some bright pink flip flops. My visiting teacher? Cupcakes. A little girl I taught at church last year? A Twix bar. The Relief Society Presidency? A Crunch bar. People called from far and near to wish me a happy day and to bring me foods high in caloric content. I felt special and loved. Just not from my kids.

---You absolutely cannot eat cake for two meals a day and feel good about it. You just can't. And after you eat the cake for dinner you will never be able to justify having 3 scoops of ice cream for dessert, even if it IS your birthday. I've been on the cake and ice cream diet for about a week now and am to the point where I can actually FEEL myself getting fat. My 5k? In one week. We shall see how this goes.

So there you have it, my Week-O-Cake and other various foods that are bad for me. I still have half a cake left. Applemom (The Perfect Lady) says that birthday cake has no calories, so I'm sticking to that story. It'll be gone by Monday, mark my words.