Traveling Zoo

I'm in the car. In the passenger seat. Brad is driving [as always], and Grace, Claire, Karlee are spread out on the seats. There's a lizard hiding somewhere in here too. He (or she, I guess) is meant for a cousin we will see on the other side of this ridiculously long road trip. I have heard, though, that lizards are skittish. And if this one does not have a particularly strong constitution, Claire's rhythmic, ear-piercing screams may already have scared him to death.

Lucky.

Is it wrong to give your children Dramamine?

We stopped in our hometown of Carlsbad last night. We have good friends here who always let us stay with them. During our eight hour stop, Brad snuck to our house and picked up his turtles. He didn't tell me until we'd started off this morning that they are in boxes in the back. Occassionally they start to scratch and Karlee demands of Brad how he can be so sure that they won't scratch through and eat her.

I'm ready to arrive.

Reasons Not To Work (Part Two)

I took last Tuesday off for an extra long Memorial weekend. And it became the first time I'd spent 4 days in a row with my children since Christmas.

Yesterday, after getting back to the working grind, and having an unusually rough commute home, I ate a late dinner and got Grace ready for bed. 

As we knelt together, she said, "I love my Mommy. I want her to stay home forever. Amen."

Me too, honey. I'm working on it.

Just Can't Get Enough

I need to get professional photos of these girls sometime. 

But still--aren't they cute?

Perspective

I never wanted to be a Nursery worker. I thought of it as the ward's black hole. Announcements don't get to those Nursery people sometimes. And when they start missing Enrichment meetings, the rest of the ward starts to wonder if they're still active.

I didn't ever see Nursery as particularly spiritually uplifting or mentally engaging, either. At least not for the leaders. They seemed to constantly be breaking up fights, wiping noses, and singing songs to staring and/or distracted little children.

I substituted. And I made thank-you gifts for the Nursery workers. 

But I kept my distance.

And then I was called as a counselor in our ward's Primary Presidency. I was completely, ridiculously, out of my element.

I'll write a detailed list of my failures in that capacity later. There are many.

But I found myself very comfortable in the nursery. And I liked the extra time with Claire. And so whenever they needed extra help, I volunteered. 

I found myself longing for the Nursery.

Today our Presidency was released. And I got a new calling.

I'm a Nursery Worker.

Today my Bishop asked my mom how I felt about the calling. She said, "Well, you know, about three times this week she's randomly said, 'I just can't tell you how excited I am right now about my new calling!'"

It's true. I'm elated.

Weird.

Reasons Not To Work (Part One)

Morning good-bye-ing is becoming more difficult. It's not getting easier, as I would have expected. Most mornings the girls follow me out to the car--still in pajamas, Claire with bits of oatmeal stuck in her hair. I call to my mom and Brad and then march my daughters back to the porch so they won't chase my car up the street (as they have occasionally done).

And now Grace has also taken to calling me at about 5:00pm. She asks if I've left the office yet. And she stays on the line until she sees my car in the driveway.

Mostly she says very little. She just holds the phone to her ear while she goes about her business around the house.

Yesterday she asked, "Mom! Are you bouncing?!" Bouncing? I was confused.

"What, Grace?" Bad question. When I say that, Grace tends to think I'm deaf.

"MOOMM!! ARE YOU BOUNCING?!!!?"

"Well, no Grace, I'm not bouncing."

"Well, don't you feel the phone bouncing?"

If only phones were so advanced that I could feel her bouncing it. Then she could have felt me hugging her back.

Stress and Boredom

Yesterday, Brad insisted I had a small patch of white hair in the back of my head. I didn't believe him. I'm 26 for Pete's sake. So I sat very still while he pulled out a strand as proof.

I was incredulous. I grabbed the hair and carefully examined. The bottom half was brown, but the piece coming from my scalp was stark white. I laughed at the contrast and the surprise. Brad pointed to the place the colors met and said, "And...that's where you started working."

Maybe so.

Working at a mindless job can create a lot of problems. Like white hair, evidently. And lack of family time. And tiredness. And a complete lack of creativity.

The last is the main reason for my rare posts. I think of little else but office politics, excel spreadsheets, phonecalls, emails, and... sleep. Oh, how I long for sleep as I stare blankly at a screen while entering numbers.

And so, you see, I have nothing to write about. I have, in fact, fallen asleep twice while blogging.

I bore even myself. Speaking of which...

Is that you snoring?

Night, night.

More later.