Father/Son Campout

And let's just go ahead and wrap up the campout idea with the Father & Son Campout.

I don't remember many details about this...other than they stayed up until some ridiculous hour like midnight or something. Hello! That's something that would've never happened with the moms there. Ha ha! Oh, the difference between Michael and I. Parker looks pretty wiped here and I seem to remember him coming home a beast. But they had fun, of course.

Parker didn't own any shoes, besides his Crocs, when they went. And Michael didn't want him wearing his Crocs. So I sent him with these shoes that I thought were a little too big. When they came home and I saw the size, I realized they were about three sizes too big. And when I saw these pictures for the first time I realized, yes, those look like clown shoes on him. I'm glad he didn't fall and get hurt!


The pterodactyl nest. Or that's what they called it. They found an egg shell in there. Michael thinks something like an ostrich. Hmm. This look on Evan's face - typical. That's just the kind of kid he is. I'm glad he has a friend like...

Noah! He's a happy kid. I think Evan needs him to balance out his negativity. Ha! While the boys were gone for this campout, Maren and I went and had manicures and pedicures at the beauty school nearby and then we went out to dinner. WAY FUN! I wish she and I could do stuff like that more often.

Daddy/Daughter Campout

Maren was completely thrilled to find out that our ward would have a daddy/daughter campout this year. I was thrilled, too. She needs that special time with Dad and I needed the time with the boys. Well, Evan mostly. But Parker is always a fun date.

They said everything went great...except the movie projected onto the sheet outside. Should've been a good time, right? Until Maren saw that the movie was (drum roll) Tangled! Yes, Tangled. Every little girl's dream movie, except mine. For some reason she is horrified by that movie. HATES it. I think it's because the villain is hiding under the guise of being the princess's mother. Sometimes she acts motherly but then she turns cold and mean. I think that's why it affects her so much. It's not like she's overly scared of Ursula or Scar or any of the other Disney villains. Anyway, apparently when it showed up on the screen she started screaming and crying her eyes out so Michael had to take her inside for the next hour and a half to do something else with her. Ha ha!

Michael had this fun idea to take a bunch of nail polish and get all the dads to do their girl's finger nails and toe nails. Unfortunately, they ran out of time so Michael came home and did Maren's anyway. He loves to do that kind of stuff. When I was pregnant with Evan and my two BFFs were also pregnant, all three couples got together for dinner here at our house and Michael pulled out some foot soak baths and had all the husband do pedicures on their pregnant wives. Ha ha! I'm not sure what the other husbands thought of that but I thought Michael was pretty studly. :-)

Despite the movie fiasco, it would be safe to say that both Maren and Michael can't wait for next year to do it all again.

School, School, School!

This picture is from the last day of Kindergarten with his teacher, Mrs. Hugelier. She was wonderful. She is totally in the right profession for her. She is kind and caring and has very good, creative solutions for dealing with crazy kids. Ha! Evan truly loved her and so did I.

He completely exploded in his reading around the middle of the year and over the summer he read all 46 (47?) of the Magic Treehouse books. Plus all the research guides. Plus probably 15 more chapter books and tons and tons of picture books. It's been hard to keep him in books and to find ones that are at the right age level that are interesting to him that he hasn't read. But it's exciting!

This is from his first day of first grade! This picture totally cracks me up! They wear uniforms and part of that is no Crocs. Well, that's about all Evan would wear if he could so we actually had to get him some socks (thanks, Sarah!). So here he is with his socks meeting up with his shorts. And even better than that...his church shoes! I was in complete and total denial that school was starting so soon and I didn't have him try on his shoes from last year (that literally just about never got worn) until the Sunady before school started. They didn't fit very well and I wasn't able to go get him new shoes before the first day of school. With my level of denial, it's a wonder I had his school supplies, lunch packed and the right clothes set out. Ha!

So he's going to a Spanish immersion charter school called Arco Iris. It's a small school, only first through fifth grades, with smaller class sizes than the rest of the public schools are sporting right now, it seems. I'm happy about that. I'm also happy that he's learning Spanish. I think he and Michael are really going to enjoy this together. Plus, it's a challenge for his brain. As he stated, "Mom, I haven't learned anything since preschool." Unfortunately, that's pretty true. When he has hard days at his new school I just remind him that at least his brain is being challenged right now. I also like the philosophies of their math curriculum, Singapore Math. It's been a rough start to the year (seven hours in school instead of only 2 1/2, the Spanish immersion is really hard and frustrating the first couple of months) but I'm hopeful for the rest of the year.

The Magic Penny

Maren swallowed a penny (accidentally!) this summer. Thank goodness I'm married to Michael. I figured we needed to take her to the hospital but he said we just had to search through her poop. Oh, whew. And, luckily for me again, Michael has no aversion to doing it. It took four days to make its trip out (which worried me a bit and I was getting ready to call the dr.) and we had a nice little family celebration about it. I think Michael enjoyed donning his work gloves and digging through the poo a little too much. I don't think Maren will be doing that again any time soon. As a side note, we've been parents for nearly seven years now and this is the FIRST item swallowed. Not bad, eh?

You've always wanted to see something like this, haven't you? Truthfully, it's pretty cool...lots of neat colors. So interesting what goes on inside our bodies.

Blog Time Out!

I deserve a time out for my lame-o blogging this YEAR. Ha ha! But I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks trying to get some stuff up here, for posterity's sake, after my work is done in the evenings. I actually finished all of my work this afternoon so I've had since 9:00 tonight off. Got the dishwasher running, toilet cleaned, carpet vacuumed, family room cleaned...feels good. I wish I could do this every night. We could actually have a clean house!

Anyway, what's been keeping me away lately? Stress. And busyness. Between my last post in May and now, I became a licensed Zumba instructor and have taught as many as nine classes in one week (that was only once and it nearly killed me - but once I realized I was pregnant that made a lot of sense). School ended and we made the most of summer. Did we have a big vacation? No, we sure didn't. But we hit the library and parks a lot. We got together with friends and family. We went swimming, to the beach twice. I don't know what else but it seemed like we never stopped going. It was really, really, really awesome. I LOVED not having school to worry about and getting to spend all day with all of my kids. I really did! I wish it was always like that. Everyone gets along so much better and the kids enjoy their time together. Anyway, we also had the stress of starting at a new school (for Evan) with a longer day and uniforms to purchase. And work. Lots of work. How about some beach pictures? They don't need any captions. Just to enjoy...





Parker wins for most pictures. He was just so dang cute playing in the sand!

Mysterious Answer to Prayer

Well, I can't believe I that the last time I blogged was four months ago. I have a list of about 50 pictures to put on here and some catching up to do. Maybe I've lost all my readers (ha ha - this may be a joke in itself). That would be okay this time because this one's pretty personal but I can not let this go without writing it down.

The short story is that I had a miscarriage four weeks ago tomorrow. Here's the long story about how a miscarriage was an answer to a prayer:

Shortly after Parker was born, I wanted to know whether we were done having kids or if we should have one more. There were many, many reasons to be done but I am a mother with strong maternal voices going on in my head. I wondered if we could have a sister for Maren (my sisters are so important to me!). I figured that if we were going to do it, we should just get it done soon since we weren't getting any younger (surprise, surprise). I prayed about it. I fasted about it. I took it to the temple. I talked to the bishop (can you believe he wouldn't tell me if we should have another child or not?!?! Ha!). And you know what? I never felt like I had an answer. I have never been so confused about anything before. Finally I told Michael that we needed to just make a decision. It didn't take a whole lot of thought to decide to be done. There are a whole lot of things that make this the right decision. So that's what we decided. And as much as I knew that was right, I have had "what if" questions in my mind for the last year or more. I wasn't sure I would ever be able to be 100% content with our decision. Plus, I never felt like I had the confirmation from Heavenly Father that we had made the right decision.

Michael and I found out I was pregnant on August 4th. It was a surprise, considering our precautions. And possibly miraculous? I don't know. Anyway, I never thought I could find out I was pregnant (this was the 6th time!) with anything less than pure joy. And it was very, very strange to me to find that I didn't feel joy. I felt fear and anxiety. For the next 6 days that I was pregnant I worried about 100 things. Although I figured that I would come to acceptance within a day or two (I mean, we were having a baby! That's something to be excited about!), I never really did. That's why when I had the miscarriage on the 10th, I was actually more relieved than anything. Now, before this experience, I may have assumed that anyone who was relieved about having a miscarriage was something of a monster and must not really love kids. Not so with me! I was shocked to be a witness to my own emotions.

And then I realized that before that happened, I looked at my friends who were pregnant or with new babies and I was jealous. I wanted back in the club again. I wondered how another baby would affect our family and our future. I thought about sisterly love. But after the miscarriage, all of that went away. Seriously, it went away that very day. I no longer have any "what ifs" go through my mind. It no longer bothers me that my sister has a new baby and I don't or that my BFFs have more kids than I do and I'm not quite measuring up (delusional thoughts on my end, not theirs!). It's gone. And then I realized that the miscarriage was the answer to my prayer. If I hadn't had that experience, I would've been asking what if for probably the next 20 years. Now I know for a surety that we have made the right decision for our family and, you know what? Our family looks that much more beautiful to me now. I could not be more grateful for the Lord's mysterious workings in my life. What I struggled so long to understand could not have been understood any other way. I am grateful that Heavenly Father knows us better than we know ourselves and he will send us the trials we need (and it was a trial even though it was a relief!) to understand answers to prayers and to grow and understand his power in our lives.

11 Years Ago at this Time...

I was in labor with our first child. It's strange how about a week before his birthday every year my subconscious starts to replay the events leading up to his birthday and, whether I'm prepared to or not, I end up having to face those images and memories head-on each year.

I was induced on Sunday. And the whole week before I had stayed home from work sick with a cold. That's a long time to stay home from work sick but I was really that sick. The crazy thing is that Michael was really sick, too. I think he's only been that sick a couple of times in the 14 years that we've been married and other than that, he's only been marginally sick a handful of times. So we spent the better part of a week sitting and laying on the couch together with a box of Kleenex on the edge and mountains of snotty Kleenexes on the floor around us. We watched lots of movies and TV and talked a lot. I've been thinking the last few days about how nice it was that we had that special time together (even though we felt so lousy at the time). It was a really, really nice calm before the storm and I think it brought us together in a strangely wonderful way. I'm really grateful for that.

So on that Sunday I realized that I hadn't felt the baby move for a while and tried the old tricks...drink OJ, lay on left side...to no avail. We went to the hospital and our lives came crashing down around us as we saw Dallin in the ultrasound with no heartbeat. On this day...11 years ago. And somehow my mind remembers all of the pain and plays through it every year at this time. Earlier today I was crying uncontrollably and poor Michael was at a loss because when he'd ask me what was wrong, I couldn't tell him because I didn't know. Oh, I knew a few things hadn't gone right today and I was a little frustrated about some others. But I just couldn't put my finger on it. Until I realized. Oh, yes, this happens every year without me realizing it's going to happen. It's a doozy.

Tomorrow is Dallin's birthday. He would be 11. It's also Mother's Day. Bittersweet. We had his graveside service and burial the Saturday after he was born and the next day was Mother's Day. That was hard. 11 years later it is still bittersweet but now there is much more sweet than bitter. Time does heal...never all the way, but it sure helps. And having three other happy, healthy children is really a miracle in my eyes. They help tremendously, too, although they have never and could never replace Dallin. I'm happy to say that I have four children. That's what I always wanted. I'm happy that the other three know all about him and can't wait to see him again. I'm happy to be able to celebrate Mother's Day tomorrow with a smile on my face and love in my heart for all of my children and for the honor it is to be their mother. And I'm happy that we can take flowers and the pinwheels that the kids picked out to the cemetery tomorrow. It will be a special time.

Last year, for his 10th birthday, I was going to make a blog post but I never did because I was afraid of the emotions. Today I'm going to make it. You see, I was a pretty normal weight when I was pregnant with Dallin...small and cute. After he was born, since I had no baby to nurse, the weight stayed put and somehow (though I barely remember eating for the next two months) I added much more. For all these years I've carried that weight around. Oh, I've dropped some pounds in the past, only to have my fertility jump-started and get pregnant and put it right back on. But I think I've carried it around because of the emotional baggage that I have from our loss. I decided that for his 10th birthday it was finally time to say good-bye to the weight and, thus, round out my healing. But I guess it just wasn't time. Now it's time. Doing Zumba twice a week and Curves three times a week is making me feel better about myself and my body again. I've got some seriously killer muscles under all this fat! :-) When I started on the Curves machine for the first time, the trainer asked if I was an athlete. I told her I used to be a professional dancer and she said she could tell. That made me feel good. I'd love to have my dancer body back. And, finally, 11 years later, I'm ready to face the challenge of letting go of the weight and letting go of the hurt.

Great Wolf Lodge 2011

In March (yep, a little behind) we went to Great Wolf Lodge. We just could not pass up a screaming group discount deal! Seriously, I wonder how that place makes money when you go with a group. Two days at the water park plus a great hotel room for less than a great hotel room would normally cost. It's crazy! Anyway, we had a blast, of course! Evan's favorite things were body surfing in the wave pool (see chin and rib abrasions in above pictures as proof), going on the big slides with me (because I act scared and he eats that up!), and racing me down the tandem slides repeatedly. Maren's favorites were also body surfing (she was so scaring me without a life jacket. She was totally reckless and crazy but loved every minute), going down the tandem slides for her first time and going across the lily pads in the deep pool. She was too short for the big rides but next time we go she will be a lot of fun to ride those ones with. She's our adventurous one! Parker just loved everything about it. The water, the slides, the ice cream truck "ride" in the arcade. He was a pretty happy dude. You'd expect nothing other than the last picture at the end of all of that fun. We can't wait for the next trip!

Parker - (almost) 22 Months

"One of these kids is not like the other. One of these kids just isn't the same..." Yeah, that's the song I sing a lot around this house...about this particular Rico Suave. Don't let his devilishly good looks fool you. He's a couple handfuls. The crazy thing is, who would believe me? When we're home he's wild, crazy, into EVERYTHING, loud, talking, running, etc. etc. But when we leave the house, he's a total mute, barely acknowledges other's existence and rarely moves from where he is put down. Ha ha! He puts on quite a show.

The truth about Parker is that he is so not mellow, it's ridiculous. Evan and Maren, it seems, really eased us into parenthood. Yes, they were pretty typical babies and toddlers but they didn't absolutely destroy the house on a daily basis. Parker, on the other hand... Let's see, yesterday he got into a lighter and razor blades, and dumped a bunch of that pink baby lotion on the carpet. Today he dumped out a box full of sewing pins. A couple of days ago he was in time-out three times before 9:30 a.m. - spitting, hitting, you name it. I sometimes wonder why I clean anything up because it just gets undone, and worse!, shortly after. Maybe I should let everything go until Parker turns three and then try to reign it all in again. Ha!

The good news is that that's not the only blessed thing about Parker. Although he's a handful for us, I realize that he doesn't scratch the surface of how mischievous some other kids his age are (hi, Beth). Some even call him tame. Okay, then. So what are the fun things going on with Parker right now? Well, first of all, speech, of course. He didn't have quite as many words at 18 months as the other kids did, but he's quickly catching up, probably adding about five new words a day. I LOVE this stage! Some of my favorites include, " 'mon" (come on), "where is?" (where is it?), marbles, apples, bubbles, I love you, thank you. Oh, there are so many! The thing that cracks me up is that if he's talking about an object, it is usually plural. Well, unless it's a ball, I guess. Everything else has an S on the end. Cuteness!

Parker, of course, called me Mama for the longest time. Just this past week or so he's realized he can just call me "Mom". Which was sweet. The first day. Now I would definitely say that my name is being taken in vain. "Mom?" "Mom." "Mom, Mom, Mom." "Mom?" Yeah, I'm grateful to be loved but maybe you could just call my name when you actually need to show me or need help with something, Buddy. I must say that he says it with the sweetest little voice but that word has been draining this week. And it's especially grating when it's being screamed at the top of his lungs from his crib when he wants out. Ugh.

Parker likes to do anything and everything that Maren and Evan do. No surprise there, right? He's at that age. The beautiful thing is that he's usually allowed into the group and everyone gets along swimmingly. Have I ever mentioned that the other kids adore him? Oh, yeah, guess I have. Well, it still hasn't worn off.

One of my favorite things is Parker's running and, even more, galloping. Oh, I could watch that galloping body all day long! He's so stinkin' cute. And to catch his cheeks bouncing up and down as he tears down the hall is hysterical. He also loves to dance and is getting into spinning in circles with the other kids and doing really fancy tricks like putting his head on the floor and only holding on with one hand. He's also trying out the crab walk which is quite cute and comical. Of course he always wants an audience when trying these fantastic feats.

Parker loves baths (what kid his age doesn't?) and is an absolute terror during them but you can't help but laugh. He gets water everywhere!! On purpose, of course. He thinks he's quite hilarious. During prayers, though, he is quite a reverent little boy...only unfolding his arms if there is some really, really good food really, really close that is just begging to be eaten.

While I do look forward to the day when he doesn't feel like he has to scavenge into every nook and cranny of our house in search of fascinating things to carry around all day, he really is a dream. He's funny and loving and silly and sensitive. Oh, talk about sensitive...the other week during a particularly PMSy moment with tears, he came over to me and wiped the tears off of my face and said, "ssssshhhhh". Oh, the sweetness. It's amazing how quickly toddlers learn about emotion. That pretty much made it all better. Anyway, Parker (sometimes known as curmudgeon or hooligan), we are so blessed to have you. We love you every second of the day!

Brothers Forever

I was just reminded of something that happened with Evan a couple of weeks ago that I realized I had to get written down so we could always remember it.

It was a Saturday and everyone was bustling around except Evan. He seemed kind of quiet. I passed him on my way to the laundry room and saw that he was taking our Dallin scrapbook down from the shelf. I gave him a little smile and went to do my thing. A few minutes later I came into the family room and saw him sitting on the couch with the book in his lap and tears in his eyes. Oh, to say it was heart-wrenching would be an understatement. I asked him what was wrong and he said he missed his brother and wishes he were still alive. We had a small cry together as I told him that I did, too. I told him that I often wonder how our lives would be different with a 10-year-old in the house and we talked about how Dallin might do things with Evan.

Even now it's really emotional to think about that time we spent together looking through those pictures. Are we so blessed to have three healthy, living children? Yes. Do we still feel a loss in our family, like someone is missing? Yes. And not just me and Michael. We all do.

A couple of minutes into our chat, Michael and Maren happened to be walking by and they stopped to talk with us about it. We all ended up hugging and comforting each other. It was a really special time. It has seemed to me on many occasions, but was confirmed to me that day, that Evan has a real and special connection with Dallin. We are all comforted to know that we will see him again and we'll never be separated again. For Evan (yes, and us) it seems like such a long time away. But, like I tell the kids all the time, it will be here quicker than you think. That's how it always happens. Before I know it I'll be old and gray(er) and ready to leave this life. It's comforting to know that some of my family will be there waiting for me.

Maren's Turn - Age 4

Oh, our beautiful Maren! This girl has changed SO much in just the last couple of months. Everything had been so the same for so long and now we're getting into new (sometimes exciting, sometimes crazy) things with her. It's a lot of fun! Very excitingly...she's grown finally! Half of the clothes she wears are even 4T. Until a few months ago she was wearing 3T and still some 2T. It's been exciting to see her grow out of clothes that she's worn for a year and a half. Ha!

One thing that hasn't changed about Maren is how loving she is. She is usually just a ray of sunshine...saying things to make us feel good, giving physical affection, drawing pictures for us (yes, still of our family...and now Rapunzel!), and helping anyone who needs help. She insists on holding the door open for people to walk out of church or, oh, yeah, anywhere. Even if there are no people walking out at that moment, she'll wait in hopes of someone needing to walk out in the next five minutes, before I yell to her to stop holding the door and get in the car. She is always self-sacrificingly generous with her brothers. Sometimes I'm glad about that. Sometimes I'm worried that she's being and is going to be taken advantage of. It's a hard and a happy thing to watch.

Her favorite movie at the moment is (surprise, surprise) Tangled! Can you blame her? The funny thing is that she is terrified of the non-mother motherly bad lady. (What's her name again?) My girl who once used to sleep nicely in her bed, wanting the lights off and sleeping with the door shut, is now scared in the nighttime because we watched it a week ago. I'm thinking that that wicked lady is one of the tamer Disney villains. So I've been thinking about it lately and I think it's because she's a mother figure to Rapunzel and she's so mean to her. She's sensitive, that Maren. I can't wait for that last movie viewing to wear off so we can get back to normal sleep again.

One thing that has changed with Maren is her listening. Well, now it's not listening so much. Now she's usually got her own agenda so when I'm asking her to do something, she's thinking about what she wants to do and I end up getting frustrated having to say the same thing seven times. Ugh. I'm sure this too shall pass. She REALLY wants to do everything herself right now. She's making her own sandwiches and she wants to unlock the doors and get the mail. She wants to be the DJ on my iPod. Pretty much everything. Do not do it for her!

Maren has been getting a lot of crushes lately. It's so cute...she'll just out of the blue say that she's got a crush on somebody. The other day it was my sister's whole family. "Aunt Danica, I have a crush on your whole family." I love it! That's some serious affection!

Maren is still a happy napper. And she needs it, too. If she doesn't get her afternoon nap, everyone feels it into the evening. I'm definitely on borrowed time but for now everyone is happier when Maren has a nap.

(Yeah, we do super fancy cakes around here - ha ha!) Maren continues to love preschool and dance class. She's super excited for her Disneyland-themed recital next month - and so am I! Songs from The Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean, princess songs, etc. I'll probably cry for just wanting to pack her up right there and jet on over to Disneyland for some real live action. Anyway, there's sure to be ridiculously cute video next month on that!
Maren is getting really good at reading and writing. She even thrilled herself today by reading some signs at the grocery store. It sure is fascinating to watch a child learn to read. And her writing is just fun, fun, fun. She's got the basics down. She's written a few books and always has something to tape up on the wall. One of my favorite things that she's written lately was during Sacrament Meeting at church. She realized that she hadn't brought her scriptures and, not wanting to be loud (yeah, I'm sure that's it - wink), she grabbed her notebook and wrote, "I dot hav mi scriphars". Not bad, though I, for a newly 4-year-old. Oh! I just found the original. Here we go...

Oh, that's good for posterity. I think I'll have to scan some more for my records. I'm really bad at keeping this kind of stuff. Anyway, Maren is the sunshine of the family. Always happy, always helping. Every family should have one. And without her, we'd wither away to nothing - she is so loved!

Evan P.S.

Oh, boy, I forgot one thing that I wanted to mention about Evan that I just have to have recorded! It's about the...

A couple of months ago we were at my mom's house and Evan pulled out a science book to look through and, unbeknownst to us, he found anatomically-explicit pictures in there and some discussion about the birds and the bees. Did we plan to start talking to our 6-year-old about sex right now? Negative. But Evan is a curious kid and he had a lot of questions and would not let up on them. So, Evan had to take him upstairs and explain some things. And then we got home and the other kids were in bed, we had to explain more things. Heaven help me. I thought I had a couple of years to prepare for that...how to talk about it with my child without turning beet red in the face. But now he knows. And hopefully he'll always feel comfortable enough to come talk to us whenever he has questions. Sex talk part one, check!

Evan - Age 6

It's been a while but I'm back (couldn't blog all these months without some decent pictures!) and it's time to do some updates on the kids. We'll start with the oldest.

Evan has been busy since October! He's doing really well in school and has a fun time being there. He and I finished going through the reading lessons we were doing probably two months ago. It took us a little over a year to get through 100 lessons. Ha! We weren't very dedicated. He's a natural. In the last three months or so he has amazed me at how quickly he picks up on new rules to reading and new exceptions to the rules that I hadn't gotten a chance to let him know about yet. He now can pick up pretty much anything and figure it out really quickly and fluidly. It really is amazing to me how easily it seems to come to him. But he sure loves to read.


Not only does he love to read, he also loves to write...and illustrate. When asked what he wants to be when he grows up lately, it is most often an author and illustrator. He creates at least four books a week and we are absolutely busting at the seams with his creations. I recently bought two reams of printer paper that I'm hoping lasts a month. Yikes! But it's fun to see how much more detail and creativity is going into his books now than just a month or two ago. Things sure change quickly when kids are this age.In December he lost his very first tooth...with his siblings and cousins surrounding him at the bathroom sink. Ha! That thing was loose for weeks and weeks and it was a blissful event when it finally pretty much popped out. He has since lost his other bottom tooth and looks pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself.


Evan is participating in the chess club at school (started by two stellar dads from church - thank you!). Even though it starts at 7:00 in the morning, which is before he's usually even awake, he's really enjoying it. Just to prove it, here's a picture from the paper of him on the first day. Ha ha! This is typical Evan. Even if you're having fun, pretend you're not. I don't know why he's like that. Anyway...


Evan and I enjoyed applying for a couple of private schools in the area. Well, okay, Evan enjoyed going to the schools, visiting, having a mock school day and playing on their ridiculously huge and fun playgrounds and I loved the thought of sending him somewhere that doesn't have budget trouble and where he could start a second language and have a well-rounded education better tailored to his needs...but it was stressful with TONS of paperwork, questionnaires, etc. Anyway, the application process for these two schools (Catlin Gabel and Oregon Episcopal School, for my remembrance) took up the better part of my life for two months and Evan came along for the ride with me. Although we didn't get into either two (they had between ZERO and four available slots for 1st grade with a ridiculous number of applicants!), we enjoyed some one-on-one time together during the process. I'm not sure what we're going to do about next year because I'm ridiculously unhappy with our school district and all the things that are going to fall off next year due to budget cuts (less teachers, less special classes like music, PE, etc., less of the good stuff, more of the bad...). I have never been so conflicted about anything. We'll see what September brings.

Evan is a great brother to Parker all the time and a great brother to Maren when he's not focused on being the mean older brother. Ha! He's been praying lately for me to have another baby...a brother who is just like Parker. Yep, not surprised. He loves his parents like crazy and wants to cuddle in our bed every night. This is nothing new as we've always had a hard time keeping him out of our bed. The challenge is getting him to go to bed in his own bed and stay there. Sometimes we jokingly ask him if he's still going to be climbing into our bed when he's 17 and he says, "Yeah, probably." I actually wouldn't be surprised, buddy.

Although he won't admit to liking girls, on his class picture he put hearts around a certain girl's face which gave me quite the jolt back into the reality that I have kids who are going to grow up to be teenagers and want to kiss members of the opposite sex - who aren't their parents! TERRIFYING!

In less stressful news, Evan loves Star Wars although he's never seen it. I don't know how boys just learn about Star Wars by osmosis. He's always asking to see it and I'm always telling him he'll be at least 12 before he does but Michael likes to humor him with things like this to keep him excited.


Evan rarely likes what we're having for dinner, always wants to eat breakfast burritos, pizza or macaroni & cheese (NOT homemade!), and expects dessert every night even though we have dessert only about once a week. He's a good helper...uh...when he wants to be. And he still loves playing with Play-Doh.

I SO Love this Guy

Making Change Happen

I could make this a very long story but I'm going to try to keep it concise. This is something I want to always remember. About Evan's first year in school. It started at the ice cream social a couple weeks before school even started. I met Evan's teacher and happened to ask her how many kids were going to be in Evan's class, to which she told me 28. And though she didn't whine about it, she didn't look too happy about it either. That seems awfully high to me so I chatted with some of my education-educated friends (you get that?) who confirmed that that was a pretty crazy number and hoping that she had a full-time assistant. It wasn't more than two weeks into school when I got to meet with his teacher again and she let me know that there were now 30 kids in the class and she did not have a full-time assistant. I was really getting concerned about this situation.

I came to realize over the next couple of weeks that a) a kindergarten class with that many kids in it can be total chaos, b) the teacher was feeling like she was putting out fires more than she was teaching kids, and c) I was completely unsatisfied with the way Evan's schooling was going thusfar and I needed to do something about it. I know, I know, it was a few weeks into his kindergarten year and I was having issues. It's strange to me, too. I don't know what it is about education. I am just uber-passionate about it. I know that Evan has huge potential and I want him to have every opportunity in life to reach that potential. I don't care what he does with it. As long as he learns as much as he wants to learn and has every opportunity to learn, that's all I want.

So I wrote a letter to the principal and asked her to forward it to the district. I politely stated my concern about there being too many kids in the class without an assistant. I also praised the teacher who I feel is remarkable at what she does. And I asked for someone to get back with me to let me know that they at least read my note and had heard my concerns. A month later no one had responded. And I'd been in the classroom four times since that first letter and witnessed just the saddest scenes. The the teacher trying to get through a lesson with four to six kids totally running amok. I figured that 20% of the class was taking up about 75% of the time in having to be redirected, moved to a different spot, told to keep their hands to themselves, etc. I felt like the kids were at a disadvantage and the teacher was being abused. So I skipped the principal and sent a second letter to the superintendent. Within a day I had a voicemail and an e-mail from him telling me that another lady from the district would be calling me to discuss the issue. Well, she called last week and let me know that the average kids per class for elementary is 27.5 right now due to budge cuts. Ugh, budget cuts. So the idea of splitting the class was completely unrealistic (sounds like heaven to have 15 kids in a kindergarten class, but maybe that's just me). But she said that because of my letter there was going to be a meeting to discuss the possibility of adding an aid to the classroom. She told me she would call me back this week.

Since then I have felt like a complete lunatic. Why? Because I just can't stop thinking about this situation and being really, really disturbed by it. And then I was frustrated that I was disturbed by it. Why can't I just send my child to school and not worry about it like some of the other parents? Why all the inner turmoil? Seriously, one day I was bawling my eyes out over the whole thing. I was talking to all kinds of parents...parents of TAG kids, parents who decided to homeschool, parents who are happy with the school system. I was entertaining all kinds of options, including but not limited to homeschooling, private school (we make little enough to get a scholarship - not the other way around), moving to another state with better education, moving to another district in hopes of getting into the charter school I'd like him to go to, um, yeah, hold on for this one, telling them they can let the janitor go and I'll do his/her job in the evenings so they can afford another teacher. Yeah, like I said, I felt like a complete nutcase. Happily, I have calmed down the last few days and realized that until I am able to make any sane and rational decisions I will just continue on with what I've been doing...sending Evan to kindergarten and then doing stuff at home afterwards. We do reading and he's halfway through the 1st grade math curriculum and we'll do experiments and stuff. That way I know his brain is getting the challenge that it needs.

Anyway, I'm back down to earth now and got a call from the district lady tonight. She let me know that they have put a cap on the number of kids in Evan's class and if anyone moves in they will find another school close by for them to attend. They are also bringing in a full-time aide starting Monday. Hallelujah - I'll take it! Someone to help with crowd control so the teacher can actually get some teaching done. Someone to break the ratio down from 30 to 1 to 15 to 1...more individualized time for the kids. More time for the teacher to get to know them and their individual strengths and weaknesses. I'll just take it.

So I learned today that I can make change happen. And the crazy thing is that what I did, being so passionate about something that I fought this hard, goes completely contrary to my nature. I almost always have the feeling that everything will be fine. Everything will work out how it's supposed to. Not this time. And I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I stepped way out of my comfort zone to help the students and the teacher who couldn't do anything to change the situation themselves. I'm grateful to have learned that I can do hard things. And that what happened today is a solid reminder to Evan of my love for him.