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Here’s to You, Birthday Blues
When I married into a Chinese family, I learned that the number four is very unlucky. I thought it was maybe just my in-laws, or maybe it was just a Cantonese thing, but it wasn’t. I learned this one day when I wrote a check (it was the 90s, we still did that back then) at my local Chinese restaurant (Chop Suey Louie’s) and the guy almost didn’t take it because it was check number 444. The problem is that the Chinese word for “four” is a homophone for the word for “death.” I wrote a death death death check. I’ve been thinking about this because I just had my…
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When You Get a Divorce…
But the rest of the sticker still applies!
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Improvising
If everything had gone according to plan, I would be in southern Utah tonight with all my boys, celebrating Wensley’ fifteenth birthday. But Wensley’s kidneys gave out in February. I kept the trip on the books because I’ve been so sad without him and I thought it would be good to get away. Then last week I experienced both my first pandemic and my first earthquake. It was like a biathlon of terror. After Wensley died, I had been saying that maybe we would get another dog for Christmas, after a good long grieving break. Then school was canceled and Matt, Ethan, and I have been stuck at home getting…
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Wicked Stepmother
Ethan (seven) has been having a little trouble at school. He’s bright and motivated and his teachers love him. He has lots of friends. AND (I’m deliberately not saying “but”) he has really big feelings. He gets frustrated when something happens out of the usual order and he doesn’t feel prepared, for instance. We (both our family unit and the family unit of his mother’s and stepfather’s house) have always made sure he knows that it is okay to cry. We set the example; we show our emotions and encourage him to check in with and express his own. Unfortunately, some of his fellow classmates (you couldn’t hear it but…
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Thanksgiving Crafting
Growing up, Thanksgiving was spent with my large extended family and, while food was the main event, football was also central. If my uncles didn’t get into a fight about something (it’s not just drinking families that argue; Mormons do it, too), like which of them loved Ronald Reagan the most, then they would hunker down around TV and the children (and there were oodles of us) needed to stay quiet. If not quiet, then in the basement. Preferably both. One year we did a craft around the kitchen table while the menfolk watched football and talked politics. And I loved it! I couldn’t figure out while we weren’t doing…
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Chicken Tenders
The other night, we were having roast chicken for dinner. Matt went back to carve off some seconds. Ethan (age 7): Dad, are you cutting the off the chicken’s “tenders”? (“Tenders” is his word for the male genitalia, which he learned from the Kung Fu Panda Movies). Matt: Chickens don’t have “tenders”. Ethan: I eat chicken tenders all the time! Me (putting my hands in the air to make the “time out” gesture): Wait… wait… wait… this whole time you have been eating chicken tenders, you thought they were a chicken’s “tenders”? Ethan: Ye-ah! (Said in two syllables, like “Du-uh!”) Oy Vey. I blame Jack Black.
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He’s Back! (And so am I)
I took a hiatus from blogging for a bit. I’ve been traveling for work and for fun and it’s been difficult to write. I’m home for the foreseeable future, however. So here’s to getting back into the routine! More importantly, Owlbertson is back! I saw him in his tree a few days ago! I stopped to get a photo of him to post here, but as soon as I got out of my car he jumped down into the hole he likes to perch in and disappeared. So maybe that’s why I haven’t seen him in such a long time; it turns out he has a basement! So, no photo.…
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An Update on Frog
Last year, I wrote about my nephew, who we call Frog. He was born early, at just 25 weeks, weighing about 2 pounds. I had just come back from meeting him and was feeling assured by his fighting spirit. I’m happy to report, a little over a year later, he is home and thriving. He had is first birthday over the holidays, when he was still wearing 9 month old clothes, but he’s happy and goofy and a delight to be around. My sister just sent me this photo of him playing with the felt activity book I made for him last Christmas. Apparently he is a big fan of…
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My Pioneer Stock (A Pioneer Day Re-post)
Ever since I left the Mormon Church to join the Church of Sleep-in on Sunday and go to Brunch, I have experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still love my Mormon ancestors. I am particularly proud of the Mormon women. The men did a lot of interesting stuff, and the polygamists are just wacky fun. But the women? The women could give birth in a back room with nothing for pain management but a stick between their teeth and not even wake up the other wives sleeping upstairs. And then they got up and washed the sheets. Those women were ballers.…
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None Shall Pass… Without Cake!
When I asked Ethan what he wanted his 6th birthday party theme to be and he said “knights,” I had to double check that I understood. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he responded, “Nocturnal.” “Knights? Like, Knights of the Round Table?” I asked, knowing there was a better way to phrase this to a kindergartner. “No,” Ethan said. “Like knights that fight.” “Okay,” I said. “I got it.” I was a little concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find good decorations easily. At least, not as easily as if he said, “Starwars,” for instance. But it…