So Very Sad

Let me tell you how sad I am this morning...I can't find my camera.

Now, let me tell you how happy I am that this is the only thing I'm sad about today.

But because I can't find my camera I can't upload pictures of my beautiful children. I have gone Thanksgiving, decorating the tree, and now Fremont's Holiday Parade without any pics of Ellie's firsts! And I'm close to having a panic attack. I'm already behind on Mena's scrapbook (please don't ever let on that I STILL haven't scrapped her first birthday and have to get pics from Aunt Allie to boot). But now I'm REALLY behind on Ellis. And I love that little sweetie pie and want to scrap it!

Ellis is my pretty, pretty princess. Mena I've always called my little pink princess and now we have a pretty, pretty princess. She totally rocks our house! When she makes noises to be fed at 3 in the morning, you go to get her, and she's kicking and giggling. No joke! It's hard not to like those early mornings when she makes them so pleasant. She only screams when she's super hungry. And well heck, that just makes her a Wylykanowitz...

It's funny, but all she asked from Santa was a cropper hopper 24 drawer scrapbook organizer. And that lucky girl is going to get it! She whispered in my ear to tell Santa that her greatest Christmas wish is to help Momma clean up her supplies so that she can have a super duper baby book.

But I can't find my camera!

Her Ruby Slippers

So I've finally started working on a story that's been percolating for over a year. And Stephen King says that you shouldn't share ANYTHING that you write until you have finished and done an initial editing, but....

Here it is. The story is about a woman who is looking for herself again after 15 years of marriage and two kids.

Her Ruby Slippers

Chapter 2:

When Taylor was around five, she asked me, “Mommy, is Daddy your prince?” Of course I said yes. What do you say? “Well actually sweetie, River Pheonix was my prince, but because of a particularly stressful, college freshman, dying mother, day I led your father astray under the stars in the back of his pickup truck. I used the line that I was so cold that March night and needed his body heat. I was real smooth honey and now my prince forgets to take off his black socks when he changes into shorts after work.”

It makes me smile to myself when we receive wedding invitations that say things like, “Now I marry my best friend”. Really? Does he just love to go shopping with you and listen to you prattle on about weight loss/gain and the fashion industry’s vanity sizing? Can you just not wait until he gives every last minute detail of his fantasy football team and his standings in the league comprising of every known male relative in a tri-state area? Because honey, that’s marriage.

If you’re real lucky you might like a couple of the same shows in which you will belabor plot and character to death just to avoid the boredom of talking about the kids…again. So if you’re truthful that invite should read, “Today I marry someone I think is relatively attractive and who isn’t repulsed by me”. And when the gods look favorably on you and your significant other, ten years down the road you can say, “I’m married to a great guy who is sometimes the only person who is friendly to me when I’ve been acting like a real shit”. I love Tom. And thank heaven for “Law & Order” or I’d have to hear about every single old lady patient who forgot to turn up her hearing aid, and I’d be left to anecdotes from the produce section.

p.s. Jacob LOVES karate, Mena is still in heaven as our little ballerina, and Ellie is a giggling, smiling doll who is just the joy of our home. Will post pics very soon. Really looking forward to BGSU's writers weekend, Winter Wheat, tomorrow. Here's to crossing my fingers that I got my 1st pick for classes.

What is a blog?

I never wrote further about Mena's dancing, because the last time I posted it wanted to underline everything. And I couldn't have that.

I have been so restless lately. I'm just a bundle of nerves. I've restarted Weight Watchers again because of a friend's little girl who asked when the other baby is going to come out of my tummy. My friend thought this was cute and passed it on thinking I would laugh the same way. I didn't. I smiled for her sake, and have been just furious inside. Mad at her for passing along something hurtful, and mad at myself for just not taking care of something that has bothered me ever since it was brought to my attention in the fourth grade that I'm soft. I have spent the first half of my life eating as a way to...survive? Emotionally? I don't know, but I don't want to waste the second half like this.

Another thing that's taking up useful brain cells is my writing, or lack there of. I have excused myself for not working on my craft by writing (usually) witty little notes on facebook. I've also not blogged because these fb sentences have felt creative enough. But there not. Of course there not. Nobody pays you and publishes your facebook sentences. I'm constantly whining about my financial situation (which drives my husband ABSOLUTELY bonkers! I might add) but at the same time I don't want a "real" job. I want to be a writer. I want to publish and walk in literary circles. I want to be a visiting professor at universities, discussing the actual craft of fiction. The importance of setting, character and plot. The boring yet pivitol need for well maintained sentence structure. How varying sentences size and style lends itself to a reader's understanding of character.

So it's 5:43 a.m. and I'm thrilled because I've gotten up the second day in a row before the gym to work on writing. But instead I signed up for BGSU's annual writer's weekend next week. I hope I get all my first choices for workshops, I'm very excited. And now it's time to go work out and be proud of time well spent, blogging and FB-ing. The novel will just have to wait until tomorrow...again.

Mena, Mena, Ballerina

Pics of my darling little Mena in dance class on Wednesday the 14th of October.

Upon the roles of the church she'll be known as Ellis.

On Sunday, September 27th, Ellis' dad Phil, along with Grandpa Elison, Grandpa Ridoutt, Uncle Ron, Uncle Ammon and Uncle Robert and Branch President Smith gave her a special blessing conferred upon an infant. In it her full name, Ellis Grace Wylykanowitz, is stated so as to be placed upon the roles of the church.

This blessing is special because it is the beginning of her journey in the gospel. Though she won't be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until she accepts baptism, her name is now recorded for genealogy and posterity. Then the blessing continues and a child is given specific blessings according to how the Spirit inspires the priesthood holder administering the blessing.

The morning I dress my babies in their blessing clothes I try to take a quiet moment alone with them to think of how special their little spirits are and where they have so recently come from. I also think about how this white outfit is just one of three very important spiritual experiences they have the opportunity to partake in. Their blessing, their baptism, their marriage through the sealing ordinance of the temple.

Ellis' blessing gown is my favorite of the three. Jacob's I bought at Deseret Books in Portland, Mena's was a dress I had found in a thrift store when I was 20 and had held onto all those years in the hopes of someday having a baby girl, but Ellis' was handmade by her Aunt Emily and the "E" on the bodice came from the monogrammed handkerchief of my Grandma Elizabeth, the mother of my mother Joan in California.

This morning my little family will gather in our back room on the red couch and listen to General Conference being broadcast from Salt Lake. These semi-annual conferences are like holidays for me. They are my favorite four days of the year. It's a chance to truly feel like our home has a place in Zion.

In the Book of Mormon, Mosiah, Chapter 2, versus 5-6, it reads,

"5: And it came to pass that when they came up to the temple, they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family, consisting of his wife, and his sons, and his daughters, and their sons, and their daughters, from the eldest down to the youngest, every family being separate one from another.
6: And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple, that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them;"

That's what General Conference means to me, it's an opportunity to sustain living prophets and to turn our home towards them and the words they share with us. Words that lift and inspire us to be better in all that we do and that help prepare us to be an eternal family.

First Day of School Pt. 2

Mena started school last Wednesday, September 9, 9009. She is in Miss Dori's class and her assistant Miss Kris. Her good buddy from church, Alexa LeJeune, is in her class. And so far her favorite part of school is playing outside. She also likes the puzzles and reading time.

We were a little worried that she wouldn't be going to pre-school this year because over the summer she kept saying that she didn't want to ever leave me. But we said she had to give it one week. If she really wanted to stay home this year she could. She is only 3! And barely three at that. But she really likes it, except for having to do her hair ever morning, those la-la's come out the minute she comes in the door.

She's our little cutie! And such a big girl, even though she is the smallest in her class and her book bag is almost as tall as she is, LOL!

First Day of School Pt. 1

What a handsome big guy! Jacob's been doing some growing this summer.

He now has two little sisters who he has said he'll "lay down his life" to protect. (he gets his flair for the dramatic from you-know-who) On Saturday he rode his first "adult" ride at the county fair with a wristband saying he's TALL enough for the 42" rides. And today he went off to school for his first full day and a lunchable in his backpack!

We'll also be working this month on having him walk home by himself. Even though we live across the street I have been trained by the news and NCMEC to be a fearful mother. He did walk home alone by the end of last year but I stood on the porch until he was in front of the house and then I'd walk him across the street. He also was let out with only other kindergartners. This year he'll be walking home with big kids as old as 6th grade! But in talking with my friend Kristen Truong and having been doing a little self-educating, I'm ready (sort of) to assist my children in being free range kids.

I don't know how my mom was able to put Emily and me
on a airplane by ourselves at 7 & 5 to fly each summer to visit our dad. (I do know she couldn't sleep the week before and often spent her nights crying) BUT she did it none the less. I walked to and from kindergarten, 3 blocks away. I've moved all over the country, many times just me and a pal with a loaded down car or truck. I was a free range kid and I'm very self-sufficient and independent. Yet, as a mother I'm a hoverer! Completely! Especially after the broken arm.

But here he is, the first step of the rest of his life as a full-time little man!