A Child's Nightmare

Alecia left the relatively light upstairs to brave the dark, scary downstairs in order to get to my room during the night last night, because of a nightmare.

When I was little and had a nightmare, I always went into my parents' room. I never ceased to be amazed at how the nightmare instantly vanished as soon as I went in. It was as if the nightmares knew they weren't allowed there. If it had been too many nights in a row that I'd had nightmares, I would feel bad about waking them up yet again, so I'd just curl up in a little ball at the foot of their bed. It still made the nightmares disappear. I even did it after the time my dad went from sleeping curled on his side to sleeping flat on his back, thus booting me off the end of the bed. I think it traumatized him much more than it did me.

When Alecia came into my room last night, neither of us said a word. I just scooted over and lifted the blankets, and she crawled in beside me. I knew she'd had a nightmare because I felt her little frame trembling as her head was cradled in my arm. Within seconds, the trembling stopped, and her breathing became a slow sleeping rhythm.

As kids get older and they become more self-sufficient, and as more of their day is spent away from us, as a parent, it can feel like our power over things in their world constantly dwindles. It's nice little reminder to know that as parents, we still hold power over the nightmare.

Photo Tag

I'm it. I was tagged by sweet friend Tammy (who posted an unbelievably sweet picture of her newborn), and I'm finally getting around to answering the tag.

The tag involves finding the fourth picture in your fourth picture file. My pictures are in a state of folder / sub folder disarray (organizing them is somewhere on my to-do list, I'm sure!), that I modified a bit. I chose the fourth picture I came to that had a 44 in the filename. Here it is!


I get thirsty just looking at it! Makes me want to stick my face right in there and take a huge drink. It makes me want to take of my shoes and stick my toes in it. It makes me want to reach in there with my hands and feel how slippery those rocks are. It makes me want to go up in the mountains right now, and find myself a stream! (Click on the picture to make it bigger, and you'll want to stick a body part into it, too.) Watching water is more captivating to me than watching a fire, and I think I could sit and watch all day. I'm pretty sure this one was taken at the waterfall on G mountain. Ahh. Good times, good times.

Always Check Your Child's Homework

My mom sent this to me, and I thought it was hilarious!


(Here's the reply the teacher received the following day)

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it.

Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith

Irrational Fears Theory [Part 2 of 2]

Before I get to my irrational fears theory, I need to illustrate something with a story. An irrational fears story.

A while ago, I had a fear that spiders liked to hang out in the basket of dirty towels in the downstairs bathroom. “That’s just a silly, irrational fear,” I told myself. “It’s not like we even allow spiders in the house. [We have a state-of-the-art invisible force field holding them out. It’s quite effective.] And really, what ARE the chances of a spider actually being in there?” Eventually, the sane me convinced the arachnophobia-ed me that it was right. I stopped worrying. The next time I was doing the laundry and grabbed the towels with reckless abandon, a HUGE black spider crawled out from it’s towely nest and crawled right onto me!

Then that irrational fear went away, never again to resurface.

Shortly thereafter, it was replaced with another. The toilet paper roll in our downstairs bathroom doesn’t have a holder. It just sits there. I had a great fear of a spider hanging out in the middle of the roll. “That’s silly,” I told myself. “We don’t allow spiders in the house. Besides, what ARE the chances of a spider actually being in there?” Finally convinced I was up in the night, I picked up the roll of tp, and a SPIDER WAS INSIDE! I chucked the roll clean across the room. (Then I wondered what I was going to do without it....)

After that, I did not fear that the toilet paper roll was a spider playground.

I had kids waking up during the night for nine years. When I got up with them, I was so thirsty! I filled up a cup of water and left it on the edge of the table to drink in the middle of the night. I always made sure that the cup was see-through. Why? So I could hold it up toward the light that shone through my front window from the porch, to see if there was a spider in the cup, of course! “That’s silly,” I told myself. “We don’t allow spiders in the house. Besides, what ARE the chances of a spider actually being in my cup? It’s so relatively small. It's really rather unlikely.” Then, one morning I woke up, and there was a spider in my cup. Not kidding.

That fear went away.

The current fear? A spider in the toilet. Now, before you go thinking what a silly fear it is, I’ll have you know that it is something that happens! They crawl in for a drink, and have a very hard time getting back out. And, really, I’m not afraid of a spider in the toilet during waking hours. It’s the middle of the night that it’s going down. The bathroom by my room is very, VERY dark. So dark, in fact, you cannot see inside the toilet. So dark, in fact, that you definitely do NOT want to hurt your eyes by turning on the light. Every time I sit on that toilet in the wee hours, I have visions of a black widow viciously fighting its way up toward my exposed fleshy posterior.

Now, what can we learn from this? Two things.

• A. That I should definitely be taking a flashlight with me to the bathroom.

• B. That maybe irrational fears aren’t really irrational.

Which brings me to my theory.

Like most people, I have irrational fears. And, like most parents, the hugest bulk of my irrational fears have to do with my kids. The others are spiders, as we’ve established, and being trapped in small spaces. Or, you know, being trapped in small spaces WITH spiders.

I could tell you stories of parents who grew up as germaphobes, to be blessed with a child whose needs required them to be a germaphobe. Or of parents whose biggest fear is of their child being kidnapped, and their watchful eye is what kept it from happening. But those kinds of stories are scary, and too close to the heart.

So, we’ll stick with spiders and being trapped in small spaces. Strictly theoretical, of course. Let’s just assume, for a moment, that I have a very adventurous personality (‘cuz I think I did once upon a time). Then let’s say that without my irrational fears to stop me, I was met by death at an unfortunately young age while spelunking. No, not a cave in. I was just deep in a cave. It had a lot of tight spaces going in, and I really had to suck in to get to the nether regions of it. While back there, I was bit BY A POISONOUS SPIDER! There was no way to make it out before I succumbed to the poison of the vile beast. In the end, it’s the irrational fear of both that saved me from my untimely demise.

Don’t you think that maybe we were given irrational fears as a way to ensure that we are extra vigilant in some areas? Maybe, just maybe, they are really there to protect us. So I say, “Respect the fear!” And when the threat is gone, the fear will be, too.

At least, that’s my theory.

Spindly Legged, Exoskeletoned, Swollen Abdomened, Mobile Miniature Vials of Poison [Part 1 of 2]

Note: There will be NO pictures with this blog post. I realize this will make some people sad, and others very grateful. I happen to be staying in the "I would never be able to visit your blog again if you included pictures" camp.

I sort of have a fear of spiders.

Notice how on the screen, even the word Spiders is creepy looking? Fitting, I guess.

I haven't always been afraid of spiders. I distinctly remember being about 4 years old, and pulling the legs off of a live daddy long legs spider one at a time. Ew. I think I was 5 or 6 when my arachnophobia started. The incident involved a black widow, a five-gallon bucket, and my head. The fear has been renewed several times over with incidents involving four different siblings and a dad (separately and usually on multiple occasions), black widows or brown recluses, and many hospital trips.

What bothers me so bad about them?

Maybe it's the two extra legs. Six legged creatures don't bother me at all. Those eight legs make them able to glide so silently and gracefully toward their prey. Kinda like the old men in Hush. Well, except for those little spiders that move like you are watching them in the dark with a strobe light.

Or maybe it's the crunchy exoskeleton. I was running down the hall when I was a kid, and accidentally stepped on a crunchy spider bare-footed. Yeeaaggghh. [shudder, shudder] Twenty-three years later, and I can still remember what it felt like. And it still gives me the willies.

No, it has to be their abdomen. It's so big and puffy and always looks like it is about to burst and spew infection-looking goo everywhere. But worse than infection. Poison. Spiders are like little vials of poison that are mobile, with a mind of their own. A mind that makes them want to hide so they can jump out and scare you. Or maybe even so they can bite you, and then scurry away before you've even noticed them enough to do anything about it.

How are some people not completely weirded out by spiders? I'm just glad that I don't live somewhere where they are more than miniature vials of poison. I don't think I could handle a rat-sized mobile vial of poison.

And I don't care what psychologists will try to tell you, I don't believe irrational fears are as irrational as they would have you believe. I'll explain my theory tomorrow.

When Goals and Homework Collide

So, one of my goals that I listed for this year is to write a fantasy novel for middle grade kids. I didn't have a story idea in mind, but I planned to work through it soon.

I went to my first writing class of the semester last night. Guess what our homework is? To write a fantasy book! Or, at least the first 26,000 words of it. (A book for middle-graders is around 40,000-50,000 words.) We have to turn in 2,000 words every Monday night (about 10 pages), with NO SLACKING!!! (Thank you Erin, for ensuring that I got into the no-slacking-no-matter-what, hard-core novel writing group of workshoppers.)

That means that I have until Monday at midnight to outline an entire story!! That's the part that is the hardest for me. Yes, I'm a little stressed. Anyone have any good story ideas?

Is that some very impressive planning ahead, or just a clever attempt at skipping school?

Scene: Me, sitting on Cory's bed at bedtime, telling Cory and Alecia about the next day.

Me: Tomorrow is a school day... Oh, and while you guys are at school, the auto glass guy is coming. So, when I pick you guys up, that crack in the windshield will be gone!

Cory: Oh! I really wanted to be here to watch that! [He was imagining the guy breaking the glass to get it out, and wanted to witness] Will you please check me out of school so I can watch?

Me: Really, Cory. It won't be that interesting. He's just going to carefully pull out the old one and put in a new one. Nothing exciting.

Alecia: But it's really important that I see it, so will you please check me out?

Me: Why is it important for you to see it?

Alecia: [earnestly] Because I need to watch him so I'll know if auto glass is what I want to do for a living when I'm older in case my husband gets really sick and can't work. So will you please check me out?

Impressive Planning for a 6 year old, or Clever Excuse? What do YOU think?

How I get my news

Project Complete

After I came across some fabric with Lance's favorite team on it (go Tennessee Titans!), I decided to make him a quilt. After several months' worth of Girls Nights, I am done!

He got the quilt for Christmas, and he got the binding on it for New Years. :-) I think he was just impressed that he got the binding before NEXT Christmas!


And if you are admiring the fabulous machine quilting, the lovely and talented Kellie Mellott is the one to think great thoughts about. I know I do! Thanks again, Kellie.

Resolute

res-o-lute [rez-uh-loot]
–adjective
1. firmly resolved or determined; set in purpose or opinion.
2. characterized by firmness and determination, as the temper, spirit, actions, etc.

I’m not going to list “resolutions” this year. Mostly because to me, that word means “something you start in January and then ignore completely a week or two later.” So, instead, I'm going to list things that I am resolutely committed to doing.

I heard somewhere recently (sacrament meeting, last Sunday) that if you write down a goal, you are THREE times more likely to accomplish it. And I heard somewhere not so recently that if you share your goals with others you are more likely to accomplish it. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and post my resolutions so that I can multiply my chances of accomplishing them!

Because I am RESOLUTE!
Feel free to check up on me as time goes on. :-)
Here goes:

1. I’m going to use a kind, loving voice with my kids and try very hard to banish my ornery and / or annoyed voices.
2. I am going to write a fantasy novel for middle grades that will hopefully be interesting to people outside of my three kids. (Although, if they are the only ones who love it, that’s okay, too.) Oh, and I’m going to do it while I’m learning from a master writer who I secretly hero-worship a little. I’m a bit excited. Okay, who am I kidding? I’m a LOT excited!
3. I’m going to go through my house and add tons and tons to my yard sale stash. Then in the spring, I’m going to have the mother of all yard sales! Or maybe just the puny little brother of all yard sales. Either way: junk out of my house = me happy.
4. I’m going to repaint Kyle’s room. When it’s done, it should feel like you are stepping into outer space when you walk through his doorway.
5. I’m going to plan a vacation (and then go, of course!) with my family that involves an airplane. We’ve had enough sky miles for about a year... but you see, I’ve only been on an airplane once in my life. I didn’t plan that trip, so the planning is more than a little overwhelming to me. This item on my list may just be the hardest for me to do!

And, did you know? “People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don't explicitly make resolutions.” So, I’m 10 times more likely to attain my goals because I explicitly made them. Then, I’m 3 times more likely for writing them down. And X times more likely because I’m sharing them. The combo factors of posting resolutions on your blog makes it almost sound like a done deal! Hmmm.... Makes you want to make a list with some really BIG stuff on it, doesn't it?