More Fish Stories

Our world is turning into spring and we've been outside a lot lately. The other day, Curtis waylayed a heavily tattooed fisherman at the lake who took pity on him and gave him a worm for his pole (which he ran home to get). He then showed Curty exactly where to cast and in less than a minute Curty had hooked a monster minnow (at least 3 inches!) The fisherdude was using the little fish for bait, so Curty would hook them and then fisherdude would take them and cast them out for bass and catfish.

This was such a positive experience that we are now obsessed with fishing (we, not really meaning me, but it's nice to sit out on the grass and read while the kids are having fun.) We also discovered from this that a cup of worms, purchased at Wal-mart, is a great tool for keeping a two year-old entertained. The possibilities are many and exciting! First, while in the store, if the two year-old is ready to climb out (which is always!) you can open the cup of worms and let him spend many happy minutes poking the worms and watching them squirm. Later at home, when he's bored or cranky, open up the fridge, pull out the worms and repeat the poking process! What fun! At the lake, he will discover that pulling them out of the cup with pliers is endlessly exciting, but cutting them into pieces with scissors is also highly diverting! Ah, the cup 'o worms, a must have for every toddler's household! =D

After our trek to Wal-mart for worms, we went fishing again and Curty caught 8 fish in a row (to be released back in the lake.) Jonah and Cody showed up later and caught a few also. I tried and failed, as did Ren. (We were using Eli's Lightning McQueen fishing pole which he got for his birthday, so I'm happy to blame it on the pole.) I'm not sure I see the appeal in catching oodles of little fish only to throw them back, but I have to admit I had hoped to feel a bite on my hook.
I'm sure we'll continue to fish until the blazin' hot sun forces us back into our cave. Then those poor little fish can nurse their sore lips in preparation for the next fishing season. Do they tell stories too about the worm that got away or their adventures out of the water? Those would be fascinating fish stories for sure!

Talk about a Weird Weekend!

My mom spotted this little guy in my potato bin. She named him Quid and gave him a body and a hairdo. I think he's symbolic of the weird happenings of: 

MY CRAZY WEEKEND WITH MY PARENTS

Just a little update. My mom was here for two weeks and on Valentine's weekend my Dad flew down to join her. Some of you may recall that this is surreal because last year at this time, my mom was here and my dad flew down to surprise her for Valentine's Day. That night she got desperately sick and by the next night was in a coma at Mercy Gilbert Hospital with spinal meningitis! It was scary, bizarre and tragic, believe me. After two weeks in the hospital and another month of recovery we sent her home and she's been recovering ever since. 

All of us recognized that it was a little eerie repeating the experience, but I figured it would be much better to rewrite history with a great Valentine's trip from my dad, one in which my mom actually spent it healthy and happy in my house. (It's not too much to ask for, right?) Things didn't start out well. Ren was supposed to pick my Dad up from the airport Thursday night after teaching a class in Phoenix. Unfortunately, he locked his keys in the car and called me to rescue him. I got stuck in traffic on the way, then after picking up my Dad and driving to Phoenix to unlock Ren's car, my Dad and I got lost on the way home. I got a little disoriented in the dark (on a freeway I don't drive very often) and missed my exit, heading to Tuscon.  My Dad's plane had landed at 7 p.m. but we didn't get to my house until after 11 p.m. 

Over the weekend we had many exciting adventures. First there was the bathtub overflowing and leaking  into the basement.  Then we were waiting, waiting, waiting to all go out to lunch when Zach and Hannah had a break in their drumline practice. When they called, they only had fifteen minutes to eat so we threw everyone in the car and made a crazy run with all 11 of us to get them food. Ren drove his car so he could take them back quickly, but he got into a fender bender in the parking lot. That afternoon my Dad wasn't feeling well. He ended up passing a kidney stone later that day and missed Zach and Hannah's band competition. 

We had a great Sunday with Jonah and Cody getting the Aaronic Priesthood as deacons and passing the sacrament for the first time (it's a church thing) and Zach becoming a priest (another office in the priesthood in our church -- for the 16 and 17 year-old boys.) But on Monday we were late getting my parents back to the airport and my Dad missed his flight home. He and mom were stuck in opposite sides of the airport (they had flown separate airlines because of utilizing two separate travel credits), but unable to see each other. He didn't want me to feel bad, so he didn't call me to tell me he was stuck in Phoenix all day. 

Whew! It was a strange whirlwind three days -- not the tragedy of the year before, but not the ideal picture I had in my head that was supposed to replace last year's experience. Oh well. Note to self:  I should stick to my policy of no expectations and enjoy what may come. Thanks for coming Mom and Dad, craziness or not, it was fun to see you both.

My Valentine's Present to the World -- 25 Random Things about Me!

LOL!!! Just kidding, I just thought it would be a departure from the norm to be totally full of myself on Valentine's Day and post something about me, me, ME! I've been tagged 23 times on Facebook to do this, so I'm finally giving in. (I needed a long time to think of 25 things -- I'm getting older and slower, dontcha know?)

1. I once worked as a phone solicitor for a funeral home/cemetary. I only lasted about 3 weeks, but I managed to sell my parents a plot. My employers were sad to see me leave, they said I was the best they'd ever had! (I'll put that on my resume!)

2. I have recurring nightmares about being a cheerleader again, only I'm pregnant and when I try to do a toe touch, I fall. Everybody else is still cute and young and I don't make the squad.

3. I got my first ticket a week after my license. I saw the lights flashing behind me, but I thought they were an ambulance and was shocked when the car pulled up behind me and shone that horrible floodlight into my window.

4. I think my hubby looks most hot when he's all dressed up in a jacket and tie. Mmmmm....love it!

5. I love cold cereal but it can NOT be soggy! I will eat at breakneck speed to finish before sog sets in, not stopping for phonecalls, crying children or blood! I think Peanut Butter Crunch is my favorite.

6. I often wish I lived back in Victorian times and could dress up in those fancy dresses with the bustles, you know, like Kiera Knightly in The Pirates of the Caribbean (before she lost her clothes.)

7. When I was six I decided not to like hamburgers or pizza, just because I wanted to be different from everybody else.

8. I have always loved Donny Osmond and still listen to Donny & Marie on itunes.

9. I can only snap with my right hand -- what's up with that?

10. Also when I was six, my best friend Allison and I performed a dance show for the neighborhood to songs from my Chipmunks album and we called ourselves "The Stripettes" because we had long striped socks, only we spelled it "The Strippetts".

11. I've read Trixie Belden mysteries over and over again since junior high (I have like 40 of them). I even made my husband read the first two over with me when we first got married (I think he liked it.)

12. I have a strange lump on my head right at the top. I asked a doctor about it, because it's pretty big and I was worried. Her amazingly sensitive response was, "I've seen worse."

13. I really hate cactii, which makes it kind of a bummer to be living in Arizona. I'm more of an English garden kind of girl.

14. My dream car is a yellow toyota truck.

15. I was Salem's Jr. Miss and a finalist in the Miss Teen of Oregon pageant.

16. I'm a peanut butter fiend, I've even started adding peanut butter to all my smoothies (yesterday's was peach, strawberry, peanutbutter -- it was yummy!)

17. I didn't like little kids when I was a teenager and hated babysitting! Then some inner switch got flipped in college and I said I wanted 10. Then I had my first and decided I only wanted five. I ended up with seven (and only one girl!)

18. My sister Sherrie and I, dressed in matching blue jumpers, rode in a parade on the hood of my Dad's green Datsun truck with a "Das Gutas Speisahaus Deli" canopy on it. (My parents owned a deli at the time and the truck was for catering.)

19. When I was three I had a make-believe boyfriend named Bradley. I made up stories about him saving me from lions, tigers, getting trapped in the car-door etc...

20. When I played Barbies as a little girl, Ken's only job was to carry Barbie from one place to another, cradled in his arms. When my cousins came and my cousin David wanted to play with Ken, my aunt had to pay me to make me relinquish him.

21. When I grow up I want to write music, be a portrait photographer, write a syndicated humor column and do graphic design. I'm afraid though, that by that time, I'll be too old and tired.

22.  I want to be a dog lover, but I find that I hate the slobber, the smelly fur, the crotch sniffing, the neediness and the fact that they don't grow up and move out. So I guess, those things kind of get in the way of my ever being a dog lover. Oh well.

23. Dogs always like me as if they sense I don't want anything to do with them and they must sniff me to win me over.  I hate it. ( see above.)

24. I'm a convert to feta cheese, hummus, and kalimari olives. Greek food is divine.

25. I'm so much happier being almost 40 than I was at almost 30 or almost 20. I love having a little more wisdom, a little more confidence, a little more inner peace and a little more understanding of my relationship with God and man. I just wish I had a little less flab and a lot less wrinkles.

Eli, My Life Coach

It's Eli's birthday today. Oh wait, it's not. His birthday was actually yesterday, but we couldn't seem to find even a five minute increment in the day when the whole family would be home at once to celebrate his birthday. So we adopted a "don't ask, don't tell" policy and it worked out well. He never even thought to ask if it was his birthday. Thank goodness 4 year-olds don't really have a sense of time yet, but we'll need some luck pulling that one off again next year.

So, on this happy occasion of it almost being Eli's birthday, but not, I am posting the last of my "cheater blog posts": little articles I wrote when I was writing a humor column for 3 months and then found myself without a magazine to write for anymore. After this, I might have to actually be creative again, yikes! It's all about Eli, written several months ago when he was going through a phase that I had to make funny or it would make me insane! So, Happy Birthday Eli and thanks for growing out of this particular phase of your life. Four is already a happier, gentler age (for now.)

Eli, My Life Coach

**********

I have acquired a life coach. I know, I know, it’s so Hollywood of me. I have to admit I’m a little put off by his age; he’s so young to be such an authority on my life. But he seems so dedicated to pointing out all my faulty paradigms, he’s hard to ignore. My life coach is my 3 year-old son, Eli.

I’m pretty sure I never asked him to be my life coach, it seems he just felt inspired one day to take it upon himself to give me advice. Well actually scream advice at me, while I was working out. I had just finished doing the first part of my P90X workout (working every little unknown muscle in my triceps, biceps, and chest) and I had moved on to AB RIPPER X. It is as hard as it sounds and I was doing my darndest to rip my abs, or whatever it was I was supposed to be doing to them (seeing how long I could endure intense cramping before I keeled over groaning in agony). Eli had been irrationally grouchy all morning and for some reason only known to him, and maybe other 3 year-olds across the world, he did NOT want me to work out. He’d been yelling at me all through the first part of the workout, but I was able to tune him out. It was only while I was lying on my back during AB RIPPER X that he came over, laid down next to me and started screaming repeatedly in my face, “YOU CAN’T DO IT! YOU CAN’T DO EXERCISE!!!!” It was a little bit hard to ignore and after several minutes of enduring this abuse, I started chanting the words in my mind. That was when I realized he must have been using some kind of reverse psychology to get me to work harder. He was so intent on (de)motivating me that he continued to scream at me from the stairs when my husband removed him and sat him in time-out. That’s dedication.

Over the next few days he followed me around, jabbing me here and there with verbal assaults that must have been designed to tear me down, so he could build me back up. Like the next morning when he told me, “Mom, you’re annoying my ears!” I couldn’t help but retort, “Well, you’re annoying MY ears.” But that only gave fuel to the fire as he just screamed it back at me, “NO, YOU ARE ANNOYING MY EARS!!!” Later, I was helping him get in the car and he protested in his best mini-adolescent whine, “Mo-om, you’re squishing me!” I said, “Oh, sorry.” To which he quipped in a voice that dripped with what sounded way too much like sarcasm, “Yeah. Really, really sorry.” Hmm. He even helps me stay in control of my eating habits. One afternoon I just casually mentioned to the room at large that I was hungry when he immediately quipped, “No you’re not!” Huh? I’m not? See, the kid just has my best interest at heart.

After a week or so of this verbal sparring it started to wear on me. His methods confused me. What was it he was coaching me to do? Although he seemed sincere in his efforts, one can only take so much crankiness. I did my best to stay the course, but one final incident forced me to question whether I should listen to the fascinating observations and advice of a 3 year-old. It was following the afternoon of The Haircuts.

I take it upon myself to cut my family’s hair: all seven boys. My daughter I happily send out, but I have the boy hair thing down to a science. Somehow they manage every time to all need their hair cut at once. (Probably because I wait until they resemble Elvis with his muttonchops or the Elves from the Lord of the Rings with their pointy sideburns.) So, every few months I announce that it is haircut time, we stick a movie in the DVD player and I start frantically snipping hair, my shears flying through the air at the speed of…a mom who has 96 minutes to cut seven heads of hair! Eli usually goes last because he is the hardest to convince that getting your hair trimmed is a good thing. Given his current disposition, that haircutting task was Herculean, but I managed it (Yay me!) and I thought his haircut turned out really cute. I even told him so. Well, that night he was in my bedroom with me and stood looking in the big mirrored doors of my closet, pulling a lock of his hair up to examine it, when out of the blue he started yelling, “I DON’T WANT A HAIRCUT!” “But Eli,” I responded, “Your hair is so cute now.” He replied in disgust, “I want cool hair! This is cute hair! Cute, cute, CUTE!” Then he ran down the hall yelling it over and over, “I WANT COOL HAIR, NOT CUTE HAIR! I WANT COOL HAIR NOT CUTE HAIR! CUTE, CUTE, CUTE!”

I’m guessing he’ll probably fire me as his hairdresser; well that’s fine. I’m going to fire him as my life coach. It turns out I don’t like his methods; they didn’t inspire me at all. I think I can capitalize on them though. I’ll just send him off to the CIA and see if they can use him on one of their interrogation teams. As long as they don’t call him cute, the arrangement should work perfectly.

Pretty Much Just for Parents

Recently Curtis did a science experiment for homeschool and we made a little slideshow about it. This will not win any awards for best documentary, but it might be fun for the grandparents to see. He took colored tablets and put them in milk to dissolve. The milk keeps them from dissolving very quickly (unlike when we put them in water). But when you put in a drop of liquid detergent it goes crazy! He and Eli also discovered that milk makes very nice bubbles and insisted I take pictures of each bubble they made! Scintillating.  

The Book of Mom

After a long summer cooped up in the house, my seven children have become immune to the sound of my voice. Like the Children of Israel in the Bible, they are beginning to rebel against my commands, being lifted up in all manner of exceeding rudeness. As you can imagine, this has driven me over the edge of insanity a few times. (Who am I kidding? I have lived teetering on the edge of insanity every day since February 2, 1997 when my twins were born!) Every child in this house takes a turn in the let’s-make-mom-crazy game, but Gideon (almost 2) is usually the biggest culprit. He tears through the house like a tornado, leaving half-eaten granola bars and leaky sippy cups in his wake. Last week, while trying to pack for a weekend trip, Gid was in fine form, running through the house like a madman, undoing piles of folded laundry, getting into forbidden cupboards, beating up his big brothers with an oversized, red toy shovel and committing all manner of toddler crimes. Well, I finally cracked. And while suffering in this chaos-induced state of craziness, I laid down the law. I wrote up a Momifesto if you will, or more fittingly, some scriptures from the “Book of Mom”. As I wrote, I felt a frenzied inspiration fill my mind with more and more commands for all of my children. It was exhilarating and liberating! I feverishly wrote down my reasonable expectations for the Children of Byers. All I ask is that they study these words of wisdom and apply them to their lives (if they want their mother to remain the lovely, sweet-tempered woman they know and love.) Maybe someday when the “Littles” can read, they too, might actually comply.

Cease to whine!

Cease calling “Mo-om!” more times than is needful (which is more than one.)

Cease to pour the new gallon of bubble solution out on the ground and then come sobbing to me that the bubbles are all gone.

Cease to pull off your poopy diaper and leave it on the front porch.

Cease to spread my box of 300 Q-tips all over the bathroom.

Cease to throw toilet paper rolls into the guest toilet.

Cease to throw every new toy I buy into the window well within minutes of taking it outside.

Cease to huck croquet balls at your brother’s head.

Cease to scale the cupboards in search of the sunscreen so you can meticulously squirt it all over each brick paver on the back patio.

Cease to crush pink packing peanuts into smithereens on my living room floor.

Cease to consume a sleeve of crackers while hiding under my sheets.

Cease to take a bite out of every apple in the fruit bowl.

Cease to climb on the table.

Cease to pour the entire contents of the saltshaker on the table after climbing on said table.

Cease to immerse the cable remote control in a large glass of lemonade.

Cease to strip off your diaper and clothing, flinging them over the bars of the crib, before you nap naked.

Cease to scold me for singing along with the radio.

Cease to run around the house naked after stripping to go potty, submitting to a wiping only when I chase you down and end up wiping you as you assume the downward facing dog position in the middle of the kitchen.

Cease to correct me when I call you your brother’s name (you know who I mean ZacCodJonEliGid – Curtis!)

Cease to put pretzels in your pockets, which then end up in my washing machine causing a catastrophic laundry backup (because heaven knows I can’t handle any more issues with the laundry).

Cease to ask, “Is there tofu in this?”

Cease to sit on the pot longer than is needful (because I know you’re in there and the pans will still need washing when you’re done.)

Cease to teach your three year-old brother songs with the words “stinky” and “poo” in them.

Cease to carry on all conversations with each other by quoting movies I have never seen.

Cease to call me while I’m at a movie with your father to ask me if you can have a cookie.

Cease to text me from your bedroom.

And did I mention…Cease to whine!

Thus sayeth the Mom, “So let it be written, so let it be done!”

The Well-Trained Puppy

The kids have always wanted a pet. I have always had another child instead. The two things don't work together, so we are petless. But it's all working out for the best, because lately we've had two puppies crawling around the house. Gid and Eli love to play puppies! In the picture above they are drinking water from their puppy bowls and LOVING it! So far it's been cute and I've even enjoyed seeing them crawling around, barking at each other, wagging their little hineys with their tongues hanging out of their mouths. But now it's gone too far.

Gid is puppy trained. Puppy trained is good for a puppy, not so much for a two year-old. This week he started going outside to poop. Hmmm. Where would he learn such a thing? The dangerous facet of this behavior is that once he poops, he pulls off the diaper (and all the clothing he's wearing in the process) and leaves it all on the patio. Then I look out and see him streaking across the back yard and I know what's going on! I've tried to catch him in the act, but amazingly, I don't always notice him slipping out back to do the dirty deed! Sometimes, he strips and then poops. I find the little poop logs outside, where any good little puppy would deposit them. It's like having a well-trained puppy, but oh so wrong! I could look at it this way: he's showing some signs that he might be ready for potty training. I've done the potty training thing many times, but I've never had to undo the puppy training before beginning the process!

It never fails that with Gid I have to throw out my well-used, offspring owner's manual and make it up as I go! He's unlike any other child I've had. He's crazier, more independent, more coordinated, louder, funnier, and bigger. I'm too old for this.