Not Off the Face of the Planet

Contrary to public evidence on this blog, we are not dead. We have not fallen in any black holes recently. My fingers have not been chewed off by rabid squirrels. There is only one key missing from my computer keyboard (the “s”), and it is still possible to type without it. So essentially life has, in fact, been continuing along for our little family. You just haven’t been hearing about it.

We’ve actually been up to excessive amounts of stuff. We’re talking big stuff here, people. Coriel has been going to preschool. Addra is learning to say important words like “money” and “shoes” and “banana.” Brice has been going to work conferences and schmoozing. I have been alternately working on my novel and panicking because I’m not working on my novel. We’ve been avoiding weeding our garden. We’ve been traveling—to Utah, to Guatemala, to Texas (that last one was just Brice). We’ve even been doing laundry!

I’d like to say that I will neatly arrange everything into well-organized and chronological blog posts for you to see and read about. But that would be a lie. If I do that, I will never EVER get any of it written. So here’s what we’re gonna do instead: I’m going to randomly write up bits and pieces of our last few weeks, with little to no order or sense to it. And I will post it whenever I feel like it. You can love it or hate it or ignore it.

So there.

And just to prove exactly how randomly all of this blog posting is going to take place,
I'll start with this picture. Pongo and Perdita out on a date.

Coriel being fancy. Again.

If you can't tell, Addra is wearing at least three outfits here. Coriel helped her dress.

CORIEL POSTS

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Guess that hymn!

Coriel has taken to trying to sound out all the words she sees, thinks, hears, notices in any way. It’s fun to see, and she comes up with some pretty fabulous stuff. A few days ago she sent me this email from my email account (yes, an email to me from me):

dear mom ples km to th TPOTE  LOZ

Translation: Dear Mom, Please come to the tea party. … Love

Isn’t she marvelous?

So, below is a picture of her rendition of a well-known Latter-day Saint hymn. Can you guess it? (I confess, I don’t think I’d be able to tell if I hadn’t listened to her singing it as she went along.) I will give you a few clues.

1. Her letter “v” often becomes an “s” or a “z.”
2. It’s a short hymn.
3. The most coherent sections are the very beginning and the second half of the third line. Most of the stuff in the middle is sort of, um, garbled.
4. The part in the different colored ink isn’t part of the song. Although you really should be able to tell what most of those words are.

Any guesses?

Mittelschmerz: The Good, the Bad, the Exceedingly Whiny

Warning: If you are inclined to blush over words like “ovulation,” you may want to skip this one. Also, if you want the short version, skip down to the recap in the last paragraph.

When in doubt, add a cute picture of your child in a box.

Several months after I gave birth to Addra, I started noticing weird cramping—weird because it kept convincing me that my period was coming, but then nothing would happen for another two weeks. This went on for several months before I realized this probably meant something. It was another several months before I realized it had a name: mittelschmerz, for middle pain. It’s a pain like menstrual cramping that comes around ovulation time. Apparently it’s normal for many women, and according to the Googoracle, it lasts up to two days.

Or in my case, three.

And then, in July, six. Only on and off, but six days did seem a little excessive.

I have a family history of trouble with all those “female parts.” Ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and fibroids, oh my! So I figured it was about time I get things checked out. An appointment with my doctor (who, in the midst of the ever-lovely pap smear, said everything seemed fine) led to an ultrasound just in case.

Which is where the real whining in this post starts. Also, as I have mentioned before, perhaps you think I talk too much about pee? If so, you should just skip this paragraph. … (Go ahead, skip it.) … Are you aware that one hour before getting this sort of ultrasound, you’re supposed to drink 32 ounces of water and not pee? Good golly, I probably don’t even drink 32 ounces in a day (and I don’t need any posts commenting that dehydration is probably exactly what’s wrong with me, thank you very much). I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea how bad. We’re talking I’m-driving-to-the-appointment-approaching-tears-because-I’m-going-to-explode-and-I-don’t-think-I’ve-peed-my-pants-since-elementary-but-I-might-break-that-streak-today kind of bad. The receptionist blandly declared that she’d never had any problems with drinking this much water for an ultrasound, but she knew other people sometimes did. And then, noticing that her statement was not comforting and I was still looking at the clock every 15 seconds, she took pity on me and said I could pee a little tiny bit if I thought I could manage it. Oh yes, believe me, I was going to find a way to manage it. That was almost worse (almost, but not quite) because I had to start and then stop. Do you have any idea how hard that is? The self-control! The angst! Ah, but afterward, so. much. better. I still couldn’t sit, though, and I was still pacing a bit. This had led me to a conclusion that I have often suspected (see here for evidence). My bladder really is itsy bitsy. It’s just a fact.

So, moving on. Got an ultrasound, external and internal (fun times!). Got the results. Little tiny fibroid, but nothing else (and little fibroids are quite common and not a cause for concern). Soooo…. (drum roll, please!) … There’s nothing wrong with my physical health as far as we can tell. (Snide remarks about my mental health are unnecessary.)

And here’s where I do some more whining and recognize that it’s incredibly super-duper lame-o-rific whining. First of all, I really am very grateful there’s nothing seriously wrong and nothing I need to get surgery for; given my family history, it was a real concern. But. I also really wish I understood why my body has decided to go all spazzy on me. Or rather, I really wish my body wouldn’t decide to go all spazzy on me. And I feel whiny about it because, of course, pleeeeenty of people have it far worse than I do. (Just ask, for example, my middle sister. Egad is all I have to say on that subject.) So I should really just buck up and be happy and deal with it, you know. Which is mostly what I do. But I still really wanted to whine about it a bit.

Plus, being whiny improved the title of my blog post. It wouldn’t have felt right as “Mittelschmerz: The Good, the Bad.” … Something’s just missing there. And I certainly wouldn’t want to ruin my blog post’s title by having a good attitude! Ah, the suffering I do for my craft.

So, the recap: I appear to be reasonably healthy. (Ish. But maybe I should start drinking more water?) I do still have annoying cramps, but since they’re not completely debilitating, I’m mostly quite grateful. Except for occasional bouts of extreme whininess.

The End.

Hands on the Altar

A couple months ago, Brice and I were kneeling in the temple performing sealings for the dead.* As part of the ordinance, we hold hands, and sometimes another individual joins in to take the part of a child being sealed to his/her parents. I am drawn to those other hands. They are always unique. Men tend to have shorter, rougher nails—and for some reason, flatter ones too. The women often wear jewelry, have their nails manicured. Some hands are old and covered in soft wrinkled folds, dark spots sprinkling their skin. Some are young, firm, waiting for age to change them. All are beautiful in different ways. I always imagine the stories those hands tell, but I never have the chance to know them. Where did he get that scar? Who gave her the ring she wears? Is he a violinist or a pianist? I like to imagine who these people might be, based on their hands.

This time, though, it was Brice’s hand I studied. I knew some of its story. I remember the first time I saw him when he’d returned from his mission. We’d written the whole time, usually about once a week (I’ve never, before or since, been such a faithful correspondent). No promises were exchanged; no future plans were made. We just wrote. And I waited and wondered and hoped. I remember arriving at his house after he’d returned from the airport. I remember walking into his kitchen, full of nervous excitement. He was not yet released from his calling, and the moment was beyond awkward. I remember… a handshake. It was just a handshake, but for me the earth shook too. I wanted to keep holding on until my heart stopped quaking, which would take approximately forever.

I knew the stories of our dating years too. I remember the first time he held my hand, how it seemed to act of its own volition, tightening around his fingers in a perfect instinctive response. And then how I proceeded to sweat and tremble nervously until the natural was taken from my grasp and all that was left was the awkward. But still we held on. I remember the way, years later, his hand fumbled in his trench coat pocket, searching for a ring box. My heart raced, knowing what was coming, as he knelt in the drizzling rain. I remember how, seven years ago, we were kneeling across from each other to be sealed and how silly-giddy I felt when afterward I couldn’t fit his wedding band over the knuckle of his left forefinger; he had to do it himself.

And here we were again, and his hands are just as marvelous as they were then. A little different, though. On his left hand is still that wedding band, but it sports a killer tan line beneath it. His right holds my hand, steadier, more confident. I’ve seen now that it is gentle enough to pat a screaming child into happiness. Strong enough to pick up another screaming child and hold her close. It has a few new, assorted patches of vitiligo. Maybe a little more tan. A pea-sized scar on his pinkie where he scraped off a chunk of skin during the installation of a stove in our first condo. Invisible things like the countless baby diapers he’s changed or the efforts spent in clipping little baby fingernails or the times he stroked my hair while I cried.

I could read our history together on those hands.

What will they be like ten years from now? Fifteen, twenty, forty? What stories will they tell? I am sure they will say more of service and love and generosity than I could ever put into words. I hope they will speak more of joy and my love for him. I know they will still fit perfectly with mine.

Happy anniversary, love!

*Sealings are an ordinance that members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints perform in their holy temples. We can be sealed into an eternal marriage and family when we are married, and we also perform this work for the dead to give people who have already died the same opportunity. If you have other questions, see http://mormon.org/church.

Harelips!

I have discovered another eight-letter word that uses each finger exactly once when typed on a QWERTY keyboard. Oh happy days.

Photos 1500–1588*

It turns out that very few unusual things happened over the course of pictures 1500–1588. 

 Coriel eating her dinner (actually, that’s not all that usual).**

Coriel painting my toenails.

And treating her unicorn like the family pet (and yes, in case those of you who read my Facebook post are wondering, this is the unicorn that apparently has been cooking Coriel her dinner).  

Addra playing in a very organizational manner. She has a pretty amazing cleaning streak that must have come from some seriously mutated genes.

Singing and dancing awesomeness.

And of course, amazing accessories. No day at the Stay household is complete without accessories. The more, the better.

Pretty much the only thing out of the ordinary was the making of some fabulous peach melba—poached peaches and raspberry ice cream (usually it’s vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce, but we decided to take a walk on the wild side). You are now permitted to be jealous. 

*Can I mention that I am jazzed that I got my blog to do an en dash?

**(It should also be mentioned that she doesn’t always show it off to us in such a charming fashion.)