What Can I Say? My Daughter is Cute.

This may have been cooler in real life, but watch as Hazel (third from the right) gets her broom taken away and looks for another one. Everyone in the audience was cheering for her. I love how she just walks off the stage afterward, totally unaware that the whole place was going wild for her. Ah, what a sweetie pie. (Note: if this happened at home, with Holden taking something from her, that sweetie pie would have turned into the devil and Holden would not make it out of the skirmish without a scar.) Sorry this is so long. I thought that interested parties, like grandparents, might like to see the whole thing.

Pig Flu Article

Swine flu is RIPE for parody, and we all know it! Here's what I wrote for the local newspaper about it:

Revenge of the Pigs

I’ve been dreading this day, the day that the pigs would exact their revenge. It’s been coming for a long time now, so it really should be no surprise. Did we think we could continue to eat the amount of ham we eat without any repercussions? Did we think we could mess with the pig genome, engineering the perfect pork chop, without the pigs getting angry? And what of our excessive consumption of bacon? I currently have three pounds stored in my freezer, and to be honest, I wish that number were higher. And have you seen the filth that pigs are living in? Or worse, the factory-type farms where genetically improved pigs are being kept? Their entire existence is confined to a small crate. It’s like something from “The Matrix,” these pigs living in little cells, being fattened up, only to take the longest walk of their life onto a truck bound for the slaughter house. Let’s face it: when it comes to eating pork and mistreating animals, we humans are a bunch of pigs.

Now it’s payback time. With the swine flu in 30 U.S. states and 19 countries (probably more, by the time this is published), these pigs are taking their revenge in a cold, calculating manner that betrays their seemingly simple-minded existence. Perhaps one or two of them got their hands on a copy of Animal Farm and felt that they should strike while the socialist iron is hot in our country. This begs the question, could liberals somehow be behind the swine flu? A serious investigation may be required. In the meantime, I only hope that our strict adherence to the rules of washing our hands and covering our mouths when we sneeze will be enough of a weapon against this attack of the pigs.

Perhaps a more aggressive approach would be better. Maybe we should be eating MORE pigs to wipe out the disease. If that is the case, then I personally pledge to increase my pork intake by at least thirty percent. It will be a sacrifice, but if the nation needs more committed bacon-eaters, then a committed bacon-eater I shall become.

Then again, perhaps we should try a more diplomatic approach. I’m thinking we could drop pro-human pamphlets onto some pig farms, just to remind those pigs exactly where their slop comes from. Actually, some good diplomatic efforts have already been made in the most unlikely of places: my daughter’s preschool. All this week they are discussing pigs—pig characteristics, pig sounds, pig food, pig behaviors, etc. I’m glad that my daughter is being prepared for the worst. It’s a comfort to know that, should the need arise, she will not only know how to recognize a pig by sight and sound, but also how to oink right back at it. We need more of this specialized education if we are to beat this battle against the boars.

Whatever we do, it better be fast, because the pigs will just keep coming at us, snorting and coughing and sneezing their way across the globe.

I'm not a morning person (or, an apology to my husband for saying "butthead" when he asked me to get out of bed yesterday morning)

Ever since I was little I have hated waking up in the morning. High school made the problem worse, combining my teenage moodiness with 7:30 a.m. classes. I always dreamed that one day I would become an adult and then I could wake up any time I wanted. This dream was realized briefly in college, when I had the freedom to schedule classes in the afternoon and evening. Those were the good old days: waking up at nine or ten, lying in bed while doing my homework, taking a leisurely shower, then sauntering off to school in no particular hurry. I miss those days.

Now my morning life is really bad because I have children. Luckily, they aren't the type of children who wake up at 5:00, but for me, 6:30 is the new 5:00 a.m. Anything before 7:00 is unearthly and simply immoral.

So the first thing to happen at about 6:00 or 6:30 is I hear Ruby cry. This automatically fills me with rage. I usually lie in bed for a while, pretending to be asleep and hoping that Mike (a total morning person) will go get her first. Then as I am lying there, pretending not to hear my baby crying in her crib, I begin to feel resentment over having to make Holden a lunch. Making Holden a lunch consists of about thirty seconds worth of work: spreading some peanut butter on bread, getting a juice box out of the fridge, putting it all in a bag. Zipping up the bag. It's not hard and it isn't complicated. But at 6:30 in the morning, while I am lying in my bed listening to Ruby cry and wondering when Mike is going to go get her, this is an insurmountable task. How can I be expected to do this?

Then there's Hazel, whose morning whims are as unpleasant and dangerous as they are varied. She'll be crying for ice cream, noodles, mac and cheese, jolly ranchers, skittles. Whatever. She'll want cereal with no milk. She'll want a different spoon. She'll want to eat her shredded cheese out of a ziplock bag instead of a bowl. I tell you it's a NIGHTMARE. Furthermore, I can count on at least one dramatic moment involving her choice of clothing, which, these days, usually consists of pajama bottoms and a mismatched or seasonally inappropriate top. I have completely given up on her hair, which hangs in her face in disgusting, food-ridden tangles. The other girls at preschool arrive in perfectly coordinated outfits with their hair in braids and buns and bows. Hazel inevitably has her shoes on the wrong feet, but insists that they are the right feet. I give up.

If I can get Holden out the door and on his way to open the chicken coop and walk to school without snapping at him, then I consider it a successful morning.

Is there any hope for a hideously non-morning person such as myself? I'm willing to try almost anything. So far I have tried: avoidance, diet coke, going back to bed for short intervals between meal prep and diaper changes, and lying on the couch while the chaos increases around me. I can't believe that none of those things work! I need your suggestions, you morning people. But, please, let's be creative here. What I am trying to say is please don't talk to me about getting up earlier than everyone else to exercise.

What You Should Do This Weekend

First of all, see this movie. Then get yourself some dang Five Guys.

Chicken Article

Chicken: Man's Other, Other Best Friend

For the past six months I've been running a futile pro-puppy campaign against my husband. At thirty years old, I still haven't lost that childlike zeal for house pets, and even though the rational adult in me knows that the best dog we could have right now is NO dog, I still try to wear down my husband every chance I get. Hey, I wore him down enough to get a Wii (still working on Rock Band, though). Yet my husband remains steady and stalwart in his assertion that the family just can't handle one more unpredictable, incontinent, wood-floor-scratching, fun-time-ruining, paw-print-leaving, barking, slobbering, animal (our three small children are enough). It would take nothing short of a pre-trained dog sledding team of Alaskan Huskies, a tricked out dog sled, and a five acre farm in the country to convince this man that a dog is a good idea.

So, what's an animal lover like me to do? Cats are NOT an option. Reptiles and fish just don't love you back. Small rodents are an abomination that belong in science labs and/or sewers, not in clear plastic bubbles in people's houses. Naturally, we turned to chickens. I know chickens seem unlikely pets, but they make a lot of sense, especially to the practical-minded, like my husband: they produce eggs, they only require food, water, and lodging. They need absolutely no training, they provide excellent fertilizer for your garden, and they can be quite companionable, though not as companionable as a Golden Retriever. We figured that chickens would require much less money and effort, and would actually contribute to the support of our family. They seemed to be the perfect pets.

With visions of Martha Stewart-like domestic bliss in our minds, we set out to get our first batch of chicks. We found them on Craigslist, sent a rushed email, made an excited phone call, and made the pilgrimage to a small farm in Shelley. The chicks we bought were Buff and Blue Orpingtons, two dollars apiece, and had not been "sexed," therefore we ran the risk that some of them might turn out to be roosters. Knowing that we could only have five hens in town, my husband insisted that we buy ten chicks. After handing over the twenty dollars, we headed to the farm store, where we shelled out about fifty more dollars on a huge bag of "start and grow" feed, a heat lamp, a feeder, and a waterer. At this point I began to realize that the purpose of raising chickens is certainly NOT to save money on eggs.

We brought our chicks home, and took a little while determining the best place to keep them. "I just can't bare to have them in the garage," I said, so we put all ten of them in a shallow tupperware container right in our kitchen. The heat lamp was suspended by a shoelace and some dental floss, and we lovingly spread out four layers of newspaper for our new pets. They really did brighten up the kitchen, the constant chirping and flapping making us feel positively springy, even though it was still the middle of February.

The next two weeks were spent agonizing over what to name the chicks (Susie, Zen, Zoey, Babs, Edwina, Matilda, Happy Feet, Ginger, and then there were two that looked so much alike that we never really named them), and agonizing over the copious amounts of excrement that seemed to come forth with little or no warning, ceremony, or afterthought, and that caused us to change the layers of newspaper in the brooder multiple times a day. (Ten chicks: $20, food, water, and housing: $50, chicken poop sprayed across the walls of your kitchen: priceless.) We wised up about the newspaper, and purchased fancy cedar wood shavings and a chicken wire floor for the chicks to walk on. This greatly improved my quality of life. We also wised up and moved the chicks out of the kitchen, first down to the basement, and finally out to the garage, although we had to buy a sheet of blue foam insulation board to put around their brooder, just to be sure they were warm enough.

In addition to agonizing over names, waste management, warmth, and location, we also read every chicken-related website we could find on the internet, and believe me, there are a lot more of these websites than you might think. www.backyardchickens.com is a favorite, with people posting minute-by-minute chicken updates, chicken photos, and chicken questions. Apparently there is a large underground chicken movement in the United States and the UK, and we're proud to be a part of it.We've also noticed that raising chicks is quite popular here in Rexburg. Two of our close neighbors have chickens in their backyards, our good friends are starting their own chicken adventure, and the Valleywide Farm Cooperative can't seem to keep enough baby chicks in stock. Apparently, raising chickens is the new cool thing to do. We may even join the Orpington club and there has been some talk of turning our little brood into a group of award-winning show chickens. But we'll see, one three-toed step at a time.

After two months, about four of our chicks have turned out to be roosters. There was a brief period of panic when it was suggested that we could kill and eat these roosters. "But that would be a betrayal!" I cried. Luckily, because of this underground chicken movement, we were able to give the roosters a "good home" with kids, where we know they will be treated right and loved. We turned to craigslist, and within twenty minutes had found a suitable home for Babs, Matilda, Edwina, and No-name, now referred to as Barry, Rooster Cogburn, Foghorn Leghorn, and Little Jerry Seinfeld. After giving away these roosters, we decided to buy three more chicks, which are back in our kitchen again, and the circle of life continues.

Two nights ago we were at dinner with some friends, and found ourselves gushing over our chicks. I had sworn I would never be that kind of pet owner--you know, the kind that carries a photo of her dogs in Santa hats with her everywhere she goes? But I guess that's who we are now: chicken people. There are dog people, cat people, no-pet people (don't get me started on them!), and then there are chicken people. We have become insane chicken people, interviewing candidates for a decent chicken sitter when we go out of town, discussing the various benefits of different breeds, rushing to the farm store to see the new batch of chicks. We figure that by the time we build our chicken coop, the total amount of money that first egg will cost will be close to one thousand dollars. The way some dog-owners splurge on sweaters, collars, and vet bills, we splurge on electricity (to run the heat lamp), building supplies (to build a cute coop), poultry vitamins, and organic cracked corn. Is it worth it? I'll have to let you know when we taste our first egg. For now, the little puppy-sized hole in my heart has been filled with a small group of pecking, feathery hens.

Mother's Day Article

A “Tribute” to my Mother

Mother’s Day is fast approaching, everyone, so you’d better start thinking about an appropriate gift. I was reminded of Mother’s Day when I was standing in line at Porters and saw someone gluing the letters that spell out “MOTHER” onto some painted blocks. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that blocks are the most appropriate gift for a mother, even if they do announce to the world what her role in life is. If we are going to be honest about the role of a mother, then perhaps a more fitting message on the blocks could be something like “Urine Cleaning Specialist.” I’d like to get that in vinyl cursive letters and put it on the wall over my bed, just in case I ever forget why I am around. But I digress.

Thinking about Mother’s Day gifts got me thinking about my own mother, who, for as long as I can remember, has loathed Mother’s Day. It’s not that she’s being humble, or shy about all the attention she gets on the day. My mother actually hates it because it makes her feel guilty. She goes to church and must sit patiently as people (who usually are not mothers themselves) go on and on about how fantastically amazing mothers are, and she feels like a big failure. I never understood how she could feel this way, until of course I became a mother myself.

I think the problem is that we honor a fictitious, Donna Reed-type mom on Mother’s Day (the kind who cleans her house in a skirt and high heels, who makes cookies for her children every day after school, and who has dinner—made from scratch--on the table by 5:00 p.m. every day no matter what). The Donna Reed mother never yells, never gets confused about how to raise her children, and never complains about the drudgery of her domesticity. This mother has an endless capacity for love and patience and is never caught in an act of self-indulgence. She sews and cooks perfectly. She irons. She scrubs the baseboards on a regular basis. She does windows! Worst of all, she would rather listen to soft classical music than rock and roll. Does such a mother exist?

We need to start looking at Mothers as the individuals that they are, rather than lumping them all into the same category of angelic perfectness. Who can live up to that? Is there really a mother out there who never raises her voice, never burns dinner, and never makes a terrible mistake? Mother’s Day rhetoric leads us to believe that these perfect mothers exist--indeed, they are everywhere!—and that we are the inadequate mothers who are missing something. We hear the talks in church on Mother’s Day and wonder if there is some secret we are missing out on, or if we are just more depraved than every other mother in the world. It’s a shame, a guilt-inducing shame.

I can’t say I would give up the Mother’s Day presents, but I sure wouldn’t mind giving up the Mother’s Day guilt (there I go, being selfish again!). So this year, instead of giving my mother some tacky reminder that she isn’t as awesome as the Mother’s Day rhetoric says she should be, I am going to write her an Anti-Mother’s Day Tribute right here in the Standard Journal. Thus, without further ado I give you
Ten Reasons Why I Love My Mother

10. She has a raging crush on Van Halen-era David Lee Roth (ripped spandex pants, long, shaggy hair, etc.).

9. She keeps a running list of all the Baldwin Brothers on the white board in her kitchen (“Eric, Alec, Billy,??”).

8. She watches reality TV only to be shocked by how disgusting it is (“I can’t believe that Flavor Flave!! He’s so barfy!”).

7. She can fall asleep at any time, in any place, and in any position.

6. Her idea of a good sled substitute is two layers of garbage bags.

5. She fostered our senses of humor by allowing us to stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live.

4. She concocts the most elaborate, bone-chilling, and exciting Halloween scavenger hunts on earth (just ask the hundreds of 12-18-year-olds who have been accosted by Freddy Kruger on Elm Street in Provo).

3. On an ordinary day, she may burst into the house singing “If you want my body, and you think I’m sexy, come on, baby, let me know!” (She went through a Rod Stewart phase, too).

2. She is never in too big of a hurry to stop for Milano double chocolate cookies.

1. She taught me the value of hard work, humility, kindness, peanut M&M’s, always doing the right thing, mashed potatoes and gravy, humor, and Elvis Presley.

This Mother’s Day I hope we all take a moment to think about our moms as real people, not just the angels we proclaim them to be. Do that, and then buy your mom a glorious five pound bag of peanut M&M’s. I think she will appreciate that.