everything you need to know about self-esteem, you could learn from William

"Mom! MOM! Today at preschool, I JUMPED, jumped high on my KNEES and went down the SLIDE, it was so funny, Mom."



"sounds funny."



"Yep. Yep, it was. And I jumped like this, and slid down on my knees, and EVERYONE was in the room, they all saw. it was SO FUNNY."



"and everyone laughed?"



"No. I think they were all sick."

he's not going to love this story one day

Months ago, after I tucked Michael into bed one night he told me, "When I grow up, I'm going to get married in the temple and have babies."

"Yes," I replied, "I think that's a good idea."

"I think I'll marry you, Mom," he said, and smiled his most charming smile. it made me sad, for moment, all that beautiful transient love, but I smiled, too.

"You can't marry me!" I exclaimed. "I'm already married to Daddy. You'll have to marry someone else."

"Oh," he said. He thought very seriously for a moment. "Maybe I'll marry Ivy," he suggested.

"No, that won't work either. Ivy is your sister. You can't marry your sister."

He looked at me. "Abby?" he tried. "Maddie?"

"No, sorry. They're already part of your family. You marry someone who's not part of your family and you start a new family. Then you get to have two families." I thought for a moment and added, "Three, if you have good in-laws."

He brushed past that. "Then WHO am I going to marry, Mom?" he asked in exasperation.

"Well...I guess you could marry Katelyn, or Maddie from sunbeams, or Mia, or Mara--she likes you. But probably you'll marry someone you don't even know yet, someone you won't meet for a long time."

He thought about that for a minute, then nodded and sighed.

"I guess I'll marry Mara," he said.

and that was the end of that.


kind of.

Because I did what I think many people would do in this situation: I told Mara's mom about the conversation the next time I saw her.


And she told Mara about the conversation.


And Mara was delighted.


Yesterday, Mara came to play at our house for the first time in months. She was a little shy at first, but soon they were running around like usual. They ran upstairs and I could hear them jumping off the beds and laughing. A little while later, Mara came creeping down to find me.


"Hi, Mara," I said. "What are you guys doing upstairs?"


She smiled, a secretive, excited smile. "We were getting married," she told me.


"Oh, really?" I replied.

"Not really married, just pretend married," she said. "And then we twirled around and around until we were dizzy and fell down." She laughed and demonstrated the falling down, laying on the floor in ecstasy, an enormous grin on her face. "It was so wonderful."


Oh, the effect this boy has on us ladies.

from yesterday

haven't finished going through everything, but these caught my eye:

storytime

after we clean up the toys, Michael and William go sit on the couch in our darkening family room, whispering to each other and giggling. "Come sit with us, Mom," Michael calls after a moment. "I'll tell you a funny story."

"Me, too," adds William. "I'll tell a story, too."
So I settle down between them to listen.

Michael's Story: I went to bed and I heard something outside my window and it was morning. It was a bird singing. So I went outside and the bird was eating a COOKIE. And while the bird was looking at something else I sneaked over very quietly and I took the cookie and I ate it, and the bird looked back but she thought I was eating a grape and she didn't know I ate her cookie...

(Me: I feel sad for the bird. I bet she was sad that her cookie was all gone.)

...so then I came inside and I sat on the couch and I thought 'what Jesus would like to do' and I felt in my heart, and I hurried and made more cookies and took it outside and then we were all Happily Ever After.

William's Story: We're driving in the car and Mom is trying to give me a granola bar, but then it's too messy so instead she gives me a mango. Two mangos. Then she gives me lots of mangos and a cookie and I eat them all gone in my tummy, they are so delicious. the end. BEEP BEEP.

all three

studio time

After my friend Natalie finished her new studio, she very generously invited me over to play with it:
(she also took this picture of me from behind. I suspect she picked up my camera and thought, "I wonder if this thing actually works?" before taking a test click.)





she even let me shoot with her camera, since mine is a wreck and really ought to be retired.



I have a serious case of camera envy now.
also, a serious bias towards black and whites with a lot of gray. I don't know if you've noticed.
let's talk about how handsome Michael is for a second.

and now, for all the people who tell me I never put pictures of Ivy on my blog:

take that.
much more from this shoot later.

Thank you, Natalie!

Ringpop!

because there's no tragedy a Ringpop! can't fix.

william, king of the world

William has recently become very concerned about being a Big Kid, so when my friend called me to say that one of the kids in their neighborhood preschool had moved, and did William want to go once a week?, he was ecstatic.
Preschool! Just like Michael! Just like BIG KIDS!
this morning was his first class. He came home with a crown and big smile.
(not for the camera of course, that would be letting Mom win.)






"I not smiling, Mom. I not."

Things William has recently declared he will do when he is "a grown-up Dad like Daddy":

• buy mangos, eat them all gone in his tummy, they will be delicious
• use a hammer, fix everything
• go to the gym
• have a baby in his tummy

I tried to tell him that, as a matter of fact, he will not have a baby in his tummy when he is a grown-up dad, because he is a boy. And only grown-up girls have babies in their tummies. WOW, did that make him angry. "I WILL, MOM," he yelled. "WHEN I A GROWN-UP DAD, MOM!" and then he proceeded to vigorously ignore me for the better part of 30 minutes. It was fantastic.

(as a matter of fact, it was so funny I couldn't really resist taunting him. a little. "Hey, William," I'd say, "are you talking to me yet?" he'd glare for a minute, then turn his little nose up in the air and walk away. he snubbed me. oh, man. It was so great. I wish you'd been there.)

(also, I'm super excited to tell him this story in ten years.)

initiation

tangents

I'm really tired right now because last night I read this ridiculous book about zombies* and so of course I was thinking about zombies** while I fell asleep, and I then proceeded to dream about zombies for an hour or so until I was woken up by an earthquake. Yes, you read that right, AN EARTHQUAKE. Not a big or destructive earthquake, but it did shake us hard enough that Christofer and I both shot upright, full of adrenaline, going what the hell was that?***

***excuse me. That is, of course, what I was saying. Chris would like you to know that he did not, and would not, condone the use of such unfortunate language, even in face of natural disasters. I apologize.

**What I decided last night is that I'm just not a zombie person. In books, in movies, in stories, I think zombies make for really uninteresting bad guys. I like my antagonists to have a little more in the way of character and motivation, and BRAINS! doesn't cut it.****


****except in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies."

*It is five days into the new year, and I have read: (1) book about zombies, (1) book about a princess, (1) book about a retired hero, and (1) book about angels and devils. I'm just going to go ahead and declare January the Month of Fantastical Escapist Reading. Any good recommendations?

crazy

every time someone asks me to take pictures for them I'm like, "yes! of course! it'll be fantastic!" and then I go home and think about it and start feeling sick because what if I mess up? what if they hate the pictures? what if this was their only chance at immortalizing THAT SPECIAL SPECIAL MOMENT, oh, man, I just know no one will be happy, I will be a failure, everyone will hate me, I will be alone and friendless and miserable and probably destitute, too.
anyway. whatever. even if they don't, I like these.