Howdy, Pardner!

This week is Nevada Reading Week. This is a thing designed to torment mothers with special requirements for their children to wear each day to school. Yes, today is Western Day. Here is Diana looking rather cute I have to say. Of course we did not have the boots or the hat, which required a trip to Wal Mart last night in preparation for today. Oh well, maybe we can use it as a Halloween costume next year.

Little Update

I haven't had a chance to write very much this week. We had a very nice quiet Christmas. I have some pictures to post, but they are in Las Vegas on my computer and I am in Spanish Fork, so I can't post them right now. We drove up to Utah, yesterday. Happily it was a very quiet uneventful trip. It is kind of disconcerting to watch the temperature drop as shown on our car thermostat. When we left Vegas it was 47 degrees. At some point past Cedar City it was -12. Marion kept saying "Are you sure you want to go where it is going to be so much colder." The answer is "No", but sometimes we make sacrifices for family we love. Here is Spanish Fork it is about 20 during the day and it was 5 when we pulled into town last night. We will be here for several days so that Marion can help my brother with some electrical work in his basement.
Last Sunday, Diana threw up for about the second time in her life. I heard her running to bathroom and went to check on her. Bad news, good news--she didn't make it to the toilet, but the boys had left all their towels on the floor after showering, so clean up was a breeze. As I was helping Diana back to bed, she said me "Boy I sure am lucky I live right next to the bathroom," She didn't feel well for the rest of the day, but then she woke up on Monday and informed me that she felt better and wasn't sick any more. Knock on wood, none of the rest of us have gotten sick, yet anyways. I am sure now that we are on a trip, it will start. Isn't that the way it always works.
On another topic, I was noticing that I have 37 posts this month. Go me!! So this will be 38, maybe I can post twice more and make it to 40. That would be very exciting.

One down, three to go!

Last night Diana had her Christmas concert for the Clark County Children's Choir. It was titled "Do You Hear What I Hear". Everyone did a fabulous job. I love these things while I am watching them, but they seem to entail a lot of stress. Making sure that you have the right socks and hair and everything can be a bit taxing. And so I am glad to say that the first thing is done. Now Trent has his concert next Thursday night. I need to get his Tux to the cleaners before then. Jared's concert is on the 18th. He is probably going to tell me his shoes are to small 30 minutes before the concert. I should check on that sooner. Then Diana has a program for her school on the 19th. She needs a black dress for that. The miracle this year is that for the first time in about 3 years, none of the concerts are on the same night as each other or enrichment. What a relief that is. I really don't know how the stars have aligned to make this possible, but I am grateful for it nonetheless. And this does not include the program at the ward party tonight or the ward program on the 16th. Yay for lots of Christmas music this time of year.

Life at hyper speed and Betty Crocker

So I would like to know what is the deal with putting out the Christmas stuff before Halloween is even over. Is it really going to make or break these stores if they waited two more days to put out everything for Christmas? And is anyone going to buy Christmas stuff when they are still in the middle of celebrating Halloween? Is it just me, or does this seem to happen earlier and earlier each year. Pretty soon you will have to pass by the Christmas stuff when trying to buy fire works for the Fourth of July. Sheesh. Or perhaps they will just be out year round.

On a different topic, Diana was looking at my blog of her school picture. She misread the comment line to be complement. She asked me why she only had 2 complements and looked down at other posts and was equally disappointed to find zero complements there. I was cracking up because only she would just assume that people would be giving her complements. Saturday afternoon she engaged in one of her activities again. As I was laying on the couch half asleep, she informed me that she was making a cake "with or without me". I said "OK, I pick without". She proceeded to do just that. I did have her bring me the box and the measuring cups. Then I would hand a certain cup to her and say "Go put this much oil in". I don't remember being involved in the baking part of the project. Perhaps her father helped her, I can't be sure. But here is the result. It is a bit flat and over cooked, isn't it? I questioned her about it and she told me that she decided to put in extra oil. Next, I tried to explain that although individuality is a wonderful, even desired quality in many areas such as fashion, cooking is one place where one must conform to the recipe. I don't know if I convinced her, but hey at least this nap didn't come with the price of any colored substance being places that are not meant to be colored. I am still finding green food coloring in my freezer. Somehow it keeps coming back to haunt me. Oh well, there are perks to having an independent child. At least that is what I keep telling myself, to keep my sanity.

Lady in Red

Yesterday after school, Diana proudly gives me her school picture. I am excited to see how it turned out. Remember the picture day, the same day I went to traffic court? Well refer back to the post titled Traffic school Graduate, if you didn't read about all the trauma we went through the morning of her picture. Let me just say that I did not send her to school wearing a red scarf. So when I saw this picture, I was a bit stunned, shocked, perhaps even horrified. Had I know that this accessory would be added, I might not have chosen purple for the background color. I questioned her about the scarf. She informed me that "Oh my friend Bianca let me borrow it." Now it might just be me, but I think this scarf might fall into the "big bowl of ugly" category. (can you tell I have been watching to much Hannah Montana) I'm not really sure how I will feel about putting this picture on my wall and seeing it every day. I guess that is just what you have to deal with when you have a child with her own sense of fashion. I wonder when picture make up day is, perhaps we should try again. But then I have to go through the "morning of picture day" marathon again. Perhaps I should just call it good enough. And know that each time I see this picture it will bring a smile to my face because I have such an independent child. Who knows, she may grow up to be a famous fashion mogul someday.

Ghosts of Halloween Past!

So I thought it might be fun to look at all my old Halloween pictures. What do you think? I even found two pictures from my chilhood. I remember how much I loved being Mary Poppins, as she was/is one of the people I would like to be. My mom did her best with the costume and even if no one else could tell who I was, I loved it. I had an umbrella that is not in the picture.

It is a bit sad that my boys have faded from the past few years of pictures. But hey, I think that has been purposeful on their part. Also at fault seems to be the fact that I haven't taken any pictures at night for the past few years, so they weren't there when I had the camera at school for Diana.

In 1998 there is the picture of Jared as Spider Man. Some of you might remember that year as when we moved to Las Vegas on October 31st. In the process of packing the house in California, we/I lost Jared's mask for his costume. This was of course the end of the world for him, but he survived and will probably only require a few years of therapy to recover when he grows up.

Another noteworthy costume, would be Diana's Little Bo Peep. There are 10 yards of lace on the pantaloons alone. This was back in the day when I actually used my sewing machine for more than a place to store my dirty laundry. The first year she wore it, I only made the pants and hat because we had the dress. The second year she wore it, I made the dress to go with the rest of it.

Also notice that I have been very guilty of/good at recycling costumes. Several of them were used multiple years and for multiple kids. Ah, good times.... once they are over and you can look back at them. I guess like most worthy things it does require some effort and stress to make these things happen.

Science project gone wrong.

We had no school on Friday in celebration of Nevada Day. It was a nice relaxing day, but of course this means the kids have extra time on their hands. Diana did have some friends over in the morning which provided her with a nice diversion. Marion was working on an electrical job up north a bit and he got done about 1:00. Diana and I went up and met him at my favorite restaurant "Sweet Tomatoes". I had a coupon that will expire this week and so we had a fun, yummy lunch. After that I sent Diana home with Marion and I went next door to my favorite store JoAnns where I also had a coupon. I may be going broke saving all this money with coupons. JoAnns was having a midnight madness sale in honor of Halloween. I can't remember the last time I went there, but I spent a good hour drooling over the many craft choices they have to offer. I spent most of my time in the scrapbook section. Ignoring common sense that tells me I have enough scrapbook paper to scrapbook for my entire ward, I gave in a bought a fun Christmas paper stack. How can you pass up 180 pages of Christmas paper for $12.00? Obviously I could not. Perhaps when I die, I will have to buried with all my paper, because there is no way I will ever use it all up. It is kind of a good news/bad news situation. I have replaced my fabric addiction with a scrapbook supplies addiction.

Friday night Marion and Jared went on a scout camp out. I went to a very fun adult only Halloween party. Thanks Shauna, I don't when the last time was that I laughed that hard. Probably, at girls camp.

So that brings us to Saturday. After soccer I told Diana that we could make sugar cookies. I figured that it might be easier to get that project done on the weekend, instead of after school. So with her eager help, we mixed up the dough. At one point a friend called her and she was trying to talk on the phone and crack eggs with one hand. I think only a few shells fell into the cookies. So what I hoped would satisfy her craving for kitchen activities only wet her appetite. I was attempting to restore order to the kitchen and rest of the house. Taking leave of my senses, I left her concocting an experiment in the kitchen. She was raiding my cupboard for ingredients. Perhaps I should have been concerned when she asked for a canning jar, but naively I filled her request. I didn't pay much attention to what happened next, but it involved a lot of food coloring and sprinkles. In fact I decided that a short nap would be nice. So while I was laying down, she decided to move onto a new project called "Let's paint a rock from the front yard to be a Halloween decoration." She has been complaining all month that we do not have enough decorations in the front yard. What a rough life to be stuck with a mother lacking in Halloween spirit. So I wake up from my nap to find that she has cleared off the craft table in my room and covered it with a towel and an entire roll of paper towels rolled back and forth over the table. I am less than thrilled with this and ask her why isn't she doing this down on the kitchen table or not at all for that matter. She doesn't have a good reason. A little while later, another friend came over to play. I was now absorbed on the computer with the project of trying to print out my blog. So Diana has Alison make a science project also. They then decide that they are going to paint some more. I tell Diana to help find some painting clothes for Alison and figure that they are painting in the kitchen. I then had to leave and take Jared to his last Lacrosse game. That went well and I returned home and go upstairs. I find Diana in my room with about 10 paper plates covered with paint. There was a lot of paint on the towel on the table, the light switches, bathroom floor, and my bathroom sink looks like something Picasso would be proud to call his own. Also two additional towels are covered in paint. Oh Mylanta! I throw all the plates of paint away and get most of it cleaned up. Unbelievably there doesn't seem to be any paint on my carpet so I make it through one more day of keeping the commandment "Thou shalt not kill". I think I am going to throw all my acrylic paints away. Why store dynamite near an open flame, right? But chances are if you throw out all your paint, some kid will need it at 11:00 pm to complete some project for school that will determine his grade and future success in life. Good thing Wal Mart is open 24 hours a day and is just a mile from my house.

So Saturday night about 10:00 pm Jared asks if we can make sugar cookies to take to his priesthood lesson the next day. Normally I would have shot this idea down, but the dough was already in the fridge, so it was his lucky day. I did have to make a late night trip to the grocery store because as fate would have it, we were out of powder sugar. Inconceivable! I also made some cookies for my class as well.

Sunday morning, we were hurriedly frosting the cookies and guess what I don't have any food coloring left to make orange for my pumpkins. Good Grief! Oh well, they still tasted good no matter what color the frosting is. But it would have been nice if my brain was functioning and I had realized this would be the case. Then I could have bought some more the night before. Oh well maybe that will be on the list of banned substances for my house. On Sunday afternoon, I was cleaning the kitchen, AGAIN, and it occurs to me that I have not seen any canning jars filled with disgusting colored liquid anywhere. With a feeling of dread and despair, I question Diana about the location of her "science project". She gladly shows me that they put them in the freezer. Oh, of course, where else would it be. So now we get to experience the law of science that says that a liquid will expand when frozen. We also learn that frozen water is stronger than glass and will crack a jar. This then means that blue ooze will run down over all the frozen food in the freezer. So right now I could be cleaning out my freezer, but it is so much more fun to be writing about it so all of you can share in my adventures. And the batteries on my camera are dead and I have no new ones yet, so sadly I missed this photo opportunity so you will all just have to use your imagination. And perhaps I need to be better at supervising my child, huh.

Queen of Denial!

Ok, so I don't think that we own any cats, but these pictures seem to prove me wrong. Yesterday I was sitting out on my patio, and the cat kept coming around. I told it in no uncertain terms "You DON'T live here" It just looked down its nose at me like cats do. The look on the cat's face seemed to say "You go ahead and think that lady, if it makes you feel any better, but I know differently." I guess if I really don't want to have a cat, I am going to have to be more proactive about it. Not wanting to expend any effort to de-catify myself, I have been hoping that they would just go away. You see how well that is working for me? We still are not feeding it, but it must be finding food somewhere. And it does get a fair amount of attention, ie holding, petting, and rides on the slide, so maybe that is enough to keep it coming around. Not to mention it has taken to napping on my patio furniture. Aye carumba!

Halloween Preview

I wasn't sure about posting this picture before Halloween, but chances are that if you let a kid pick out their costume at the beginning of October, they will change their mind before Halloween comes. So this may not be the final costume. But as of today, Diana has decided that she wanted to be a witch, this year. I was at Savers and found this great dress for $6 and hat for $1. We added a wig from Smiths for $4 and stripped stockings for $2. So this was the dress rehearsal last night. Diana was very pleased with how it looks all put together.

Pushing the Button!

I was reading through some of my old e-mails and found this one about a plane trip I took in March of 2000. Reading this made me appreciate my recent trip all the more. At the time I wrote this, Diana was 8 months, Trent was 9, and Jared was 6. I thought it was kind of humous and so I thought I would post it here.
"Diana and I had a pretty easy time getting to the airport and on the plane. Once I got on the plane I started thinking about how pleasant it was to travel with only an infant. For instance I actually got to push the elevator button myself. This is a simple pleasure in life, I rarely experience. Usually the elevator scenario plays out like something akin to World War III. It begins with a mad dash to the elevator with a fair amount of pushing and shoving. Then the winner pushes the button, and the unlucky loser proceeds to fill the air with wailing and gnashing of teeth that sound something like "Why did he get to push the button, I wanted to push the button, I never get to push the button, he pushed it last time, he always gets to push the button" etc. etc. I think you get the picture. Why does pushing the elevator button carry such importance that it is worth such great turmoil? Does it say somewhere in the rules of life "Try to push as many elevator buttons as you possibly can." Is there an unseen counter somewhere that will some day say "You have pushed the elevator button 300 times and so you win a prize, but sorry you only pushed the button 250 times and so you are out of luck?" Gosh you would think lives or money were at stake with the way these kids fight over "Who gets to push the button." Perhaps I am missing out on something and need to get in on the fight. If anyone has any insight on this phenomenon I would love to be enlightened.
And then once the elevator scuffle is over, we move on to the "Who will push the stroller" battle. I never seem to learn to "just say NO" to the request to push the stroller. So I stupidly watch as my precious daughter is rushed off for another adventure in a strange version of roller derby/bumper cars. the stroller bumps into garbage cans, walls, or worse yet an unsuspecting pedestrian. I am sure that most people walk carelessly down the airport corridors, with out even a worry that a child wielding a stroller is closing in on them much like a shark closing in on its prey. It is at this point that I chase the stroller down and relieve the offending child of his stroller licence. But this did not happen on this trip as I enjoyed the simple pleasures of pushing an elevator button and the stroller all by myself.
But the fun did not end once we were on the plane. A young girl about 19 or 20 sat by me and actually used the phone from the back of the seat in front of her. I had to stifle my first impulse to say "Do not touch that phone if you want to keep your hand attached to your arm." You see Jared is obsessed with those phones, and every time we fly I spend much of my time and energy keeping him from even touching, let alone using the phone. I say over and over and over "No you can not call your friend, or Dad, or anyone for that matter, because we would like to have some money left to buy groceries or pay for college or something like that." My sister informs me that you must activate the phone with a credit card, but I was not aware of this, and had been worried that just picking it up would incur some outrageous fee and I can not even explain the amount of energy I have spent keeping him from even touching the darn thing over the years. Perhaps in the future I will not be so worried about it, but in the past it has been a big concern and so you can see why it seemed such a luxury that the phone could be not only touched, but used and I was not required to say or do one thing about it.
I got to Seattle about 5 and got home just in time for dinner. My sister and her 2 kids came over as well. After dinner we were having a nice time visiting. There was a vase with pussy willows sitting on the counter, and my nephew, who is five, took one of the fluffy buds and put it up his nose. It only took 3 adults, 30 minutes to remove the thing. I was glad once again that I was an impartial bystander instead of the parent. And I did not have to wonder just how much the emergency room would charge to remove a pussy willow from a child's nose if I could not get the thing out by myself."

Like Mother, Like Daughter

I was going through some pictures to scrapbook and found these two. The picture on the left is of me. It was taken in my Grandma's kitchen. This house has since been remodeled, and this kitchen is completely different. I love that this picture reminds me of the way things used to be. So many great memories took place in that kitchen. You could always find my Grandma in the kitchen creating the yummiest food. Often she would have us grand kids help out. I don't imagine this was really helpful to her, but I am grateful for her patience and teaching at these times. From this picture, I wonder if I have been a closet cat lover my whole life.

Now the picture to the right is Diana, of course. When she was this age, she would always hold the kittens by the neck this way. Before the kittens could walk, I would always try to protect and rescue them. But once they learned to walk, I figured they were on their own. It is not like they didn't know what would happen if they let Diana get a hold of them. I wonder how many cats, Diana will have when she has her own place? Isn't interesting how similar these pictures are? I always knew we were kindred spirits. What a blessing that child has been in my life!

Bald as a ping pong ball!

One thing I love about Jared, is his goofy and adventurous nature. Sometimes he likes to be silly. I think that he will try anything once. Last summer while we were in Utah, Jared decided that he would let my brother shave his head.

This was back at the end of July. I am amazed at how fast boys hair grows back. By the time school started he had his hair back. Here is a picture taken of him on September 15th.

No kidnapping, but there may be a murder.

Jared did not come home from school today at the usual time which is 2:45. Yesterday, he stayed after school to help set up chairs for the orchestra performance at open house last night. We found out from our next door neighbor that the bus was 55 minutes late getting to the school to take them home. Our neighbor Tanner, actually got so tired of waiting for the bus, that he just walked home.
Today, I was over at a friends house where Marion was doing an electrical job. Their son, who is Jared's age walked in the door just as I was going home. Jared and Jake are on the some bus so I expected to see Jared when I got home. When Jared wasn't here, I called Jake to see if Jared and Tanner were on the bus. He told me that they weren't on the bus. Jared's cell phone is sitting on the table, so of course I can't just call him and see where the heck he is. I next called my neighbor to see if Tanner was home. She said that no Tanner wasn't home. Now I got in my car and drove up the street to see if I could see the boys, no luck. While I was driving and looking, I called Jared's school to see if they could shed any light on the situation. The person I talked to put me on hold, but came back and said that as far as they knew, all the buses were on time. By now it was time to go and get Diana. So while I drove to her school, I called Jake back and questioned him further. He then told me that originally Jared and Tanner had been on the bus, but that someone came on and took about 15 kids off of that bus and put them onto another bus. So now as I wait for Diana to come out of her school, I call Jared's school back and I tell them this story. I am now beginning to be a bit concerned. Did some strange person kidnap 15 kids off of the bus? Finally the dean gets on the phone with me. He tells me that he was upset by how late the bus was yesterday. He was told that the reason for the bus being late was that the substitute driver got lost. How is that for reassuring information? So he personally watched today as all the buses were loaded. He said they all left the parking lot at 2:25. I say to him that it is now 3:25 and so why has it taken a whole hour for the bus to bring my son 2 miles home. Now I am really beginning to worry. And I have a few words with this administrator about what kind of place is he running where a whole busload of kids gets lost for an hour. He tells me that he will call transportation and gives me the number so I can make a complaint as well.
Next I get a call from a number I do not know. And wouldn't you know if it isn't Jared calling to say that he and Tanner decided to walk home. Apparently they have had a fabulous time making several stops along the way. Also they tell me that Jake had to have known that they were walking, because A) they told him they were going to walk when they got off the bus and B) Jake made the L for loser sign to them when the bus drove past. When we asked Jake why he didn't tell me, he said "Oh, I forgot." So I guess the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Next I made the slightly embarrassing call to the school to apologize. "Sorry to have alarmed you, my son isn't kidnapped, but his punishment for worrying all of us may be the death penalty." Now, that I know he is alive, I may just kill him.

Toddler Follies

An elephant may never forget, but boy thank heavens mothers do. Living with two small children for the past two weeks had brought back a memory or two that I could have done without. If Mothers remembered for long some of the things their children put them trough, I am sure we would all have one child at the most. Let me just say that my two nieces are adorable, like most small children. This does not however mean that they do not engage in normal behavior for toddlers. My niece Allie who is almost two has more energy than me at this stage in my life. In the past week she has done a few things that my sister and I could have done without. But we do want to experience both the good and the bad that children have to offer, don't we? Here are just a few of the things she did this week that gave us pause to worry. On Sunday she ran away from us into the street, once coming too close for comfort to a moving car. She also did not get her normal nap due to church time being changed. This made for a child who had a very hard time going to sleep Sunday night. Monday we went to the mall because it was raining and they have a small play area there. My sister and cousin went to bath and body works to check out their sale. I watched Diana and Allie in the play area. Allie kept losing interest in the play stuff and kept darting out of the enclosed area. I would then have to chase her down. Finally we decided to try to find my sister. On our way there Diana found a store that she wanted to look in. This was not a wise choice because it was full of purses, hello kitty stuff, Dora stuff, and princess stuff. At one time Allie emptied a rack of the Dora purse things and was carrying them around the store. By the time we got out of there a necklace from the clearance rack had been pulled apart. I am not sure if Allie did it, or if it was already broken. The store did not make us pay for it because it was on the clearance rack. That night I took Diana and Allie up to take a bedtime bath. We opened the bathroom door and Allie ran right over and stuck both of her hands in the toilet. It was crazy how fast she manged to do that. I got her hands washed off and started the water for the bath. Diana helped by taking off her diaper, but I did not realize that it was a dirty diaper. Then I had to hold onto her hands while we tried to find some wipes. It seemed fairly crazy. Tuesday night Diana woke me up at 3:30 because her leg was hurting her. I had her lay next to me in bed while I tried to massage the cramps away. After about 20 mins she went back downstairs to the couch. Then she came back in at 4:30 saying that she couldn't sleep and needed help with the tv. I helped her. Then my sister woke me up at 6:30 or so to get Allie's milk from downstairs. I needed to do it so that Allie did not wake her up. Diana has been woken up early before and is quite cranky. So I got the milk. My sister and Allie stayed up stairs for an hour or so and then they went down to get breakfast. One of us had not closed the cabinet under the kitchen sink all the way so that the child latch fastened all the way. Allie beat my sister downstairs and went right over and sprayed Lysol in her mouth. So then my sister got to call poison control. Come to find out Lysol is one of the best poisons that your child can ingest. So be sure to keep that one in the front of the poisonous cleaning supply cupboard. After that was over Allie proceeded to come upstairs and get the door to my sister's room open. The door has a childproof guard on it, but it doesn't work if the door is not pulled closed really tight. Of course she went in and woke the baby up. Now it is 7:30 and I hear all of this commotion going on and so I decide I better get up and help. Next we decided it really couldn't be that bad to take all of us to Wal Mart, and so once every one was buckled in we headed out. This actually went better than I might have thought. The baby slept during all the shopping. The only bad incident was when we handed Allie a bottle of bubble bath to put in the cart. She proceeds to open it and dump half of the bottle on the ground. I waited for someone to say "Clean up on aisle 10, Herb" but there was a worker close by who just took care of it. What kind of crazy place does not have a foil seal on top of the bottle anyway? Today Allie was trying to follow Diana into her room when Diana was going to change. Diana closes the door and Allie's fingers got smashed. I suppose it is a bit of a wonder that this only happened once during the two week episode. All in all I can honestly say that I do not miss the days when all you think about is whether all the doors and cupboards in your house are closed tightly. I have had my turn and well I will leave that fun to people who have more energy than me. They really are darling girls and some day Allie will grow up to be a very sweet young lady.

Yesterday we had a very low key, relaxed Fourth of July. Here is a picture of all the little girls. We had our cousin over and she made marvelous dutch oven potatoes and dutch oven pineapple cobbler. We also had ribs. Later that evening we were entertained by the $5 worth of fire works that I had bought. It was just perfect for it to last for about 15 mins.



Here are all the girls. With Victor gone much of the time it was quite an estrogen party.

Cougar Fanatics

I tried to put this on the side of my blog, but it is too wide and Marion was cut off, so now I will just put it as a post. I loved the idea of showing our cougar pride in this Christmas card picture. The boys in my family were less than impressed. But that is OK, I am used to it. I love that I have brainwashed my kids to like BYU football. Recently Trent's high school let the kids wear UNLV t-shirts to school, which usually would be against the dress code, but it was allowed this day due to some show of support for UNLV's basketball team. Of course Trent was thrilled with the opportunity to not have to wear a polo shirt , but he of course wore his BYU shirt.

Copier Karma

When I was a teenager, (many, many, years ago) I had several jobs in many different offices. Invariably part of that job would entail engaging a copy machine. And I don't mean a proposal of marriage. Oh, no this is a proposal of an entirely different kind. As I progressed through several jobs, I became better acquainted with various kinds of copiers and their unique quirks. Little did I know that these jobs were preparing me for one of the daunting jobs of motherhood: PARENT HELPER.
At the beginning of each year, I arrange with my children's teacher to help in the class for an hour or two each week. This decision is based on the advice of a wise friend and mother that volunteering in one classroom is less draining than volunteering for the PTA. And yet a useful way to show my child that I value their education and want to contribute to their success. Although I did help with the PTA for the first two years Trent was in school, I have found it to be a vortex of endless need I need to avoid like the plague. And just like avoiding a black hole, I have avoided what I fear may drain my last drop of life source I like to call the "will to live." And so instead I have helped in my child's classroom pretty much each week. I guess I believed all that stuff they send home saying that studies show that children whose parents are involved in their education do better. This is probably just propaganda produced by the school system facing budget cuts and looking for free labor, but I digress.
Each week I show up and almost with out fail the teacher will say "Could you make some copies.?" And this is where I often foolishly say "Sure how many do you need?" And then I am laden with several workbooks with sticky notes sticking from the pages I need to copy and several reams of paper weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of a ton. And yes you must haul your own paper down to the copy room, because paper is a valuable resource not to be left unguarded near the copier where hapless oafs can waste it all. And off I go wondering the ever pressing question "Will I have good copier karma today or not?" Yes over the many years that I have dealt with copiers, I have come to find that there is such a thing as copier karma. Whether or not you have good copier karma will determine your copying experience.
Will it take 15 minutes or 3 days?
Will the two sided feature actually work or not?
Will you burn various parts of your arm as you unjam page after page of crinkled, ink smeared paper?
Will you run out of paper and have to walk the mile back to the room to obtain the last 2 pieces you need to finish the copy job?
Will you accidentally push the enlarge button and only copy the right had corner of the 120 page book you are copying?
Will there be a line around the school yard just to get a turn on the copier so you can find out the answers to the questions already mentioned?
These are just a few of the things good copier karma will determine. I am constantly amazed at how different my copying experience can be. Whether I am done quickly and have a great feeling of competency and accomplishment, or whether I stand there so long I loose the feeling in my feet and wonder how someone smart enough to earn a college degree can be stupid enough to show up week after week to be defeated and frustrated by a machine all in the hands of copier karma. Copier karma, you either have it or you don't. If only there were some sort of chart that could be consulted or a gauge on the room of the copier room wall. You know kind of like a radioactive gauge or something. Anyone else had similar experiences, or is it just me?