Sunday Scribblings: "The Monster"

I am a person who thinks about something for approximately 2.3 seconds and just dives into it (or just doesn't) but I refuse to ponder on things for too long. It's that impatient, restless being of mine. This Sunday Scribbling, however, I did ponder about. I immediately thought about my loveable monster....my youngest, three-year-old Mikayla, but after thinking more about the prompt, I thought about a true monster in our society: the way women are portrayed in the media.

I taught 8th grade English for five years. Are there any more difficult years than that of adolescence? A young women has so many hormones and insecurities WITHOUT looking in a magazine and seeing what is impossible to achieve. I know there are girls out there that have a size 0 or 2 body without trying, but why is that the goal? What is wrong with a perfect size 8, or 10 or 12 for that matter? Why is a size 2 the goal? It is causing turmoil in this crazy world of ours. I look at my sweet daughters and just get so nervous about what is in their future.

As my (extremely underweight) daughter stepped on the scale at the doctor's office today, the nurse said, "Oh my Goodness, I had the scale at 50lbs., but you haven't even hit 40 yet...are you really five?" and after my confused daughter stuttered that she was indeed five, the nurse finished, "Oh, well Lucky You! You barely weigh a thing." I saw the wind deflate from her sail as she slumped back to her little check-up room.

You see, I've been trying this reverse-psychology thing to combat this crazy media of ours. I constantly tell my girls, "OH YOU ARE SOOOOOOO BIG! OH, YOU'RE FEET HAVE GROWN ANOTHER WHOLE SIZE, LET'S CELEBRATE! AMELIA YOU ARE AT LEAST FOUR INCHES TALLER THAN THE NEXT KID IN YOUR CLASS....YOU ARE THE QUEEN! EAT YOUR VEGETABLES SO YOU CAN GROW BIG AND STRONG AND BE HEALTY!" When people comment to me, "She's so tall!" I turn to Amelia and whisper, "You are so lucky to be so tall. Don't feel bad for the little kids in your class."

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that there is only so much I can do....my girls who watch almost no TV can still tell me that blonde hair is best and will tell me that the big girl on TV is "not fashion." I try my little reverse-psychology thing, "But look at her hair, isn't it beautiful? Look at her smile, doesn't she look happy?" But, they know. It's a monster....and it is going to creep up on my little girls, and I'm scared.

My Job

Mikayla enjoying the library center.

Okay, I just need to take a minute to tell my friends about how excited I am about my new job. I really didn't want to go back to work until Mikayla was in Pre-K five days a week and Amelia was in Kindergarten. I thought I had it all worked out, but the director from Amelia's preschool called and asked if I would take the 3 year old, 3 days a week class. I decided to do so, because I have to pay for both girls preschool this year and it would also be fun to be there with them.

We COULD NOT get the alphabet up above the cabinet, until we remembered we had AMELIA to climb up and help!

I've already written about how much I love this school, but I can't believe how nice the teachers are there. Everyone is so excited to be there. I woke up so excited to go to work...this is just the teacher week without kids. The best part is my friend Steph is my assistant teacher, so I get to work with someone that I love. She's so creative and very patient with kids. The other lady who teaches on Tuesdays and Thursdays is new this year too, but has taught preschool for many years.

They let me bring my kids, so they just run around and play and paint...and destroy what we put together. Amelia is our preschool consultant. She was there last year so she knows it all. Mikayla is the same age as the kids I'm teaching (but she'll be in the other class), so we can use her to measure how high to put things and whether or not a three-year-old can REALLY cut out a circle (they can't). It's fun to be out using my brain (surprisingly coming up with a center/play based curriculum based on monthly themes, shapes and colors was a little difficult). Most of all, it's fun to be at work WITH my kids. I'm so excited to meet my 12 little three year olds and embark on this adventure together!

This is the bulletin board where we are going to put the kids pictures in the frames and let them decorate them with circle buttons for the first day of school. I have 12 kids and the Tuesday/Thursday class has 12 kids.

This is the monthly big center we have set up...Home and Family. The kitchen and tool area is so cool! The bottom picture is where the kids are going to decorate frames for their family pictures. The other board is our circle time board with the date, star students and weather.

Sunday Scribblings: The Inner Life of Pets

It all started one morning when these guys came and took us out of our home in Hurricane, Utah that we had been working on for months. They stuck us in a little tube and put the tube in an envelope. The next thing we knew, we were in a very hot, dark place for about four days. We ended up in a mailbox in Cumming, Georgia.

This really nice, beautiful lady came and rescued us. She put us in the fridge for 10 minutes, which was pretty shocking and actually pretty rude. However, she carefully dumped us in to this sand habitat. Now I have these two little girls that come and watch every move we make...every tunnel we dig, every grain of sand we carry. They bring all their grubby-fingered friends to come and see us. They feed us and give us water. They really love us. We are pretty happy, although our life expectancy was drastically decreased, but with the good care we are getting, we think we will live longer than out in the wild, even in this hot and humid environment. Well, we better sign off. We have tunnels to dig and work to be done.

Where's my Boy Doll?????

Mikayla could pick anything she wanted at Toys R Us last weekend and ALL she wanted was a "boy doll." I didn't know what she meant until she told me that her Barbies needed a boyfriend.

Anyway, I thought it was cute and they had three boys to choose from. She chose Surfer Ken. She carries him everywhere and sleeps with him. If she loses track of him she cries, "WHERE'S MY BOY DOLL?????" She keeps life exciting!

Sunday Scribblings: Who Else Can I Still Be?

Who else can I still be? So many answers to this question, but the one I will write about today is:
I can still be a PHOTOGRAPHER!

Okay, I know it's not profound or too exciting, but I want so badly to capture my kids just being kids....letting their personalities come through and preserving them forever in pictures. However, looking at my picture albums, nearly every picture is posed...there are my girls, usually in front of the fireplace with big smiles on their faces.

I have a new resolve...I will capture my kids in the moment. Here is my first attempt at Amicalola Falls in Dahlonega, Georgia with friends Jesse and Stevie:

Sunday Scribblings: Who Else Might I Have Been

If life is a road, there are constant forks in the road that one encounters, and a choice must be made which direction to travel. Some of these choices have little impact on where one will end up; some will change that life forever. Sometimes it is not even possible to understand how important that choice is at the time...it's only after the fact that it is realized how important that choice was, how turning left instead of right at that particular fork changed that person's life forever.

I am just not one to live with regrets or what ifs...I think I would go crazy and always second-guess myself. When I am faced with a decision, I sometimes think long and hard about it, and I am sometimes quick to decide, but I am pretty good about living with the decision. What is amazing to me is to look back on my life and see those crossroads, those forks in the road, where I made a decision or a decision was made for me that impacted my life and changed it forever.

Now I will ask what if...
What if my mom hadn't married my dad?
What if we wouldn't have left St. George?
What if I wouldn't have decided to go back to St. George for college?
What if Chelie had gone home that first day and not introduced me to Dave?
What if I would have gone to BYU instead of the U?
What if I had become a lawyer instead of a teacher?
What if I didn't have a miscarriage?
What if I would have given up and not tried for any more kids?
What if I would have stopped at one kid?
What if we wouldn't have moved to Georgia?
What if I weren't so curious and didn't read so much?

My life has it's ups and downs, but overall I am happy. I've made good decisions and bad decisions. They have all made me who I am, and I'm pretty happy with who I am and where I've been.