Piano Recital

Jay and Rose had their yearly piano recital at 7pm on Saturday, May 19th. We had spent the bulk of the day at our ward’s annual walk-to-the-park activity, where we all walked 2 miles to Sunnyview Park and had a picnic. The kids ran and played and rolled in the dirt for a few hours before we hitched a ride back to our car with some friends. We were all hot, dirty, and tired when we got home sometime after 1pm. In preparation for the piano recital, Jay and Rose took turns showering all the dirt away. We then spent a wonderfully restorative quiet afternoon with art projects (Rose), a good book (me), a nap (Amber), computer time (Jay and Rose), and a movie (Jay picked out The Princess Bride and I swelled with pride at his impeccable taste).

After a brief dinner of leftover turkey burgers, Jay and Rose donned their finest clothes and practiced their memorized songs one last time before the big performance. I recorded their performances at home and took some pre-recital pictures of them (the recital venue has notoriously poor lighting for my limited photography equipment). They both played their songs note-perfect from memory. We loaded into the car and drove the 4 miles to the church. Amber was a little crazy-tired in spite of her extended nap because it was her bedtime as we were arriving at the recital.

Jeff got back from his last track meet of the season (cue the trumpets and confetti!!!) with just enough time to walk across the street from the high school to the Presbyterian Church for the recital. Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie drove over from Grandview to sit nobly through the 50 minute recital, supporting their oldest two grandchildren. We met this trio at the door–sunburned Jeff in his school-logo track coach clothes, Leslie in her cheerful bright colors, and Dan with his wide grin and open arms. The church’s bells rang us into the building (we arrived barely in time, right at 7pm) and we took our seats in the pews with the other families.

Our piano teacher, Rebecca Cook, has recitals down to a science. She schedules several recitals and assigns each student a time slot, distributing the skill levels evenly across the groups. Each recital lasts just under an hour from start to finish. I love it! No sitting through endless recitals for us! Our recital had twelve performers each playing two songs. The program started with the newest beginner and worked all the way up to the most advanced students. As second year students, Rose and Jay were in the second and fourth slots on the program this year. We happened to know half of the students playing in the recital from our old church ward, so that peaked my interest as well.

When it was her turn, Rose quickly walked up to the piano and confidently dug right in to her two songs. She did great! She grinned proudly and took her bow. Our Rose-girl has come so far with her piano playing this year! She always works so hard at learning her songs and exudes JOY when she plays, except the times when she weeps/snarls in frustration. The highs and lows of piano practice are real. Perfectionist Rose especially takes pride in following Sister Cook’s instructions to the letter. During the weeks of prep leading up to the recital, Sister Cook gave her different performing tips to work on. One of the tips was to smile when she goes up to perform. Rose was so intent on implementing this tip that her smile progressed more into an amusing fixed grimace the farther along in her song she played. She was so serious about smiling! I quietly laughed to myself at her intensity. Eventually she learned that she didn’t have to smile for the whole song.

When it was his turn at the recital, Jay went up and played his songs very well. Jay doesn’t love piano but he doesn’t hate it either; he just does his duty, puts in the practice time, and improves steadily. It has been fun to watch him progress from shaky beginner last year into a more confident music-reader this year. Every morning before school, he starts his 20 minutes of piano practice at 6:50am. He chose that time as the ideal piano time because it’s not too early but he can still finish practicing with plenty of time to read and play before school. Jay was not quite as enthusiastic about all of the nifty performing tips provided by his teacher. Smile? Nah. Graceful hand-lift after each song? 50/50. I love Jay for being so dutiful and non-complaining about piano. Way back at the beginning, we explained how GOOD it was for him and he just does it without a fight.

While I sat in the piano recital, I marveled at the raw courage all of the students exhibited. There were plenty of mistakes and hesitations, but even when they had to pause and think a little before resuming, the kids just kept on playing. I tried to take heart and really internalize the fact that making mistakes does not need to be paralyzing. I tried to pep talk my nerves into believing that playing piano up front is no different than playing at home. There are still 88 keys to choose from whether I have an audience or not. I am starting the mental prep for our primary kids’ Father’s Day singing early in hopes that I will not have a total anxiety-freeze-up during that performance!

INTENSITY is her middle name.

 Jay’s salute to his piano duty.

Indoor pictures with poor light always look better in black and white. The walls were paneled in a very orange-looking wood.

Look at that cute batch of fresh happy pianists!

 Post recital pictures with their certificates.

Feel the music!

Before school

Jay and Rose got ready for school with relative ease this morning, leaving themselves nearly 40 minutes of playtime before we had to leave for school. They took full advantage of the idyllic 65 degree May morning and went out to play in the bright clean sunshine. A little while later, a glance at my watch told me that the playtime had elapsed. It was 8:28am: go-time (school starts at 9am and it takes 6 minutes to drive there plus 15-ish minutes to get everyone into the car--my least favorite 15 minutes of the day). I mentally tightened my mom-armor, took a deep breath, walked outside, and said the dread words.

"It's time to get going!"

The kids' reactions were exactly as I anticipated.

Amber squealed and ran away.

Rose ignored me.

Jay sighed reluctantly and tried to squeeze in a few more shots with his bow and arrow, asking me to take a picture and a video of him. Since Jay usually rolls his eyes when I take pictures, I couldn't resist taking a picture of him that he volunteered for. So I whipped out my phone and obliged briefly with a few pictures and a quick video. At the end of the video, Jay got his foam arrow stuck high on a tree branch.

After I took the pictures for Jay, I went in search of Amber, who was still in her pajamas and saggy nighttime diaper. She evaded me in her usual crafty fashion, requiring me to walk down the basement stairs, out the garage, and halfway around the outside of the house before I found her. Clamping my hand onto her forearm so as to be able to wrangle her sneaky squirming, I marched her into the house for a diaper change. 

Once I had Amber dressed, I called out to Rose to COME GET YOUR SHOES ON NOW. Rose's agonizing daily ritual slow motion shoe tying commenced (carefully untie yesterday's triple knot, slowly put on shoe, meticulously tie a fresh triple knot, repeat with other shoe). To save time, I decided to go get Amber buckled into the car while Rose worked. Amber had slipped away during the 22 seconds it took me to throw away her old diaper and call Rose in for the shoe-ritual. 

When I looked out the window to locate Amber, a scene straight from my nightmares accosted my gaze. Amber was standing across the road on the edge of the canal-cliff, leaning out over the ledge. My mom-armor either raised its sword and shield or fell away completely--I'm still not sure which. I dashed for the door, ran across the yard, and grabbed Amber's outstretched hand with a cry/growl of worry-anger-frustration-relief. Then I saw the reason for Amber's unprecedented canal-cliff-leaning.

Jay had scrambled down the steep canal bank and was at the water's edge, reaching out over the water towards a lost ball, which he had been using to try and knock his arrow out of the tree.  The tableau slowed to half speed, with Jay down there by the water while I was in the process of saving Amber. Then frantic-frustrated-freaked-out Shaina busted through.

"What are you DOING?? Get OUT of there! AHHHG!! That is so DANGEROUS, especially with Amber watching--what if she FOLLOWED you down to the water? She might FALL IN, even if she didn't follow you! What if YOU fell in the water??" My throat actually felt slightly raw from this extra-long extra-loud exclamation. Suitably abashed yet still slightly defiant and determined, Jay scrambled a few steps farther along the water's edge.

"I can almost...reach...it!" he grunted, stretching his arm out towards the bobbing ball.

"NO! NO!!! GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW!" I squeal-shouted from the canal ledge six feet above Jay's head. He finally began the careful ascent. I turned to Amber, my eyes still flaming.

"WATER IS DANGER. NO WATER. TIME OUT. You need to stay in the yard. No going in the road. NO WATER." I picked Amber up and carried her around back to buckle her into the van while she sobbed. After a minute or two, her unintelligible sob-words became clear: she was not upset at being scolded or even at being forcibly removed from the water's edge. She was upset because the ball was still lost.

Heaven help me, living with this child on the edge of a deep canal!

With Amber buckled in, I pulled the van around to the side of the house to pick up Jay. He jumped into the van and we waited for Rose. When she finally appeared, slamming the house door behind her with the usual bang, she announced that she needed to do her homework on the way to school.

"You didn't do your homework?" I asked in deflated dismay.

"I forgot!" Rose replied. Obviously.

"I did my homework yesterday on the bus with my friend," Jay contributed. A little red flag popped up. I paused and tried to examine it, but my mom-armor was still in flux after the recent canal crisis, so I less-delicately, more accuse-a-tor-ily said,

"You didn't cheat, did you? You didn't let your friend copy your homework, did you?" Right when the words left my mouth, I realized that I should not have been so accuse-a-tor-ish myself. Ugh. 

"I do a few problems and get the answers, and he writes them down, then he does a few problems, gets the answers, and I write them down." came Jay's matter-of-fact response.

Trying my best to reign in the deadly accusation in my voice, I said, "but that's still not all your own work!"

"I get the answer in my head to make sure they are all right." said Jay in a "calm down, mom, it's ok" type of voice.

"But it's still not good to let anyone copy your work. Always do your OWN work and never let anyone copy. It's a bad habit to let people copy your homework. It's not honest." I may have been a little too heavy on the serious-Shaina tone, but copying homework is something of a sore spot dating back to my high school experience... 

{flashback: it's the year 2000, before Algebra class and a group of students is feverishly copying one kid's homework before the bell rings, all of them annoyed/judgmental that I wouldn't speed up the process and donate my homework to the pool. 14-year-old Shaina sits alone feeling shunned and alienated because she laboriously did her homework the night before and wouldn't "share" it. UGH.}

Even though I did not go into the details of my high school experience at the time, I think Jay began to see my point. But he still seemed so nonchalant about the whole affair. I gave him some space and let it go while we had family prayer in the car. 

While we drove the six minutes to school, Jay chattered in his usual way about inventing a long claw to fish things out of the canal. Rose tried to convince him to be her partner for her homework (the directions said "write a question about the graph and have your partner answer it"). Whether he was feeling a bit traumatized about homework and partners or just being a stubborn big brother, Jay refused to answer Rose's question. 

"But IT SAYS I need a partner to answer this question!" Rose complained. "Will you answer it, Mommy?"

"I can't look at the graph while I'm driving," I said. "Why don't you just answer the question and if your teacher asks you about it, tell her your big brother was not in the mood to be your partner." Rose hunkered back down in the back seat to finish her homework.

As we pulled up to the school, I felt the need to make sure that Jay knew:

1.  I wasn't mad at him.
2. His actions (both with the canal-reaching and homework-copying) didn't affect my love for him.
3.  I had confidence in his ability to make good choices.

That's a lot to fit into one parting sentence! As I gave him the daily one-armed backwards hug and cheek kiss from my spot in the driver's seat, I said "You know I still love you no matter what, right?" He nodded, and I continued. "I know that you can make good choices." 

"Yes," Jay said, and with that, he climbed out of the van and walked into school.

Meanwhile, from the back seat, Rose finished writing on the worksheet with a flourish, explaining "I wrote my teacher a note so she knows about me answering my question." Good ole Rose, living the letter of her teacher's laws. Rose crammed her homework into her backpack, nearly forgot to hug me, then clambered out of the van a full minute after Jay had disappeared through the school door. Halfway across the sidewalk between the van and the school, Rose suddenly sat down. I don't like driving away until both kids are inside the fence or the school, so I stopped and waited.

One of Rose's shoes had come untied. She carefully tied it back into a triple knot with her usual agonizing meticulousness. I shrugged and shared an amused grin with the teacher-greeter standing by the school door. At last Rose was on her feet again, trotting into the school and out of sight. 

Total elapsed time from "go-time" to school drop-off: 22 minutes. I felt as though I had aged a week during one short morning routine. Some days require cramming a week's worth of parenting into 22 minutes!

PICTURES:

Jay got a Faux Bow Pro last Christmas. First it was too cold for him to want to use it, then it got too wet, then it was way too windy! This week he finally used it for the first time, and I was relieved to find that it really is as fun and awesome as I thought it was when I bought it six months ago. Note to self: outdoor toys are anticlimactic as Christmas gifts.

Arrow retrieval crew with my favorite background view.

Arrow retrieval part II: the long white arrow is at the very top of this picture horizontal in the tree. That rainbow soccer ball is probably floating somewhere miles from here now, and the arrow is still in the tree. When Jay started throwing the ball at the tree, I almost launched into an explanation about all of the possible negative outcomes, but I stopped myself for two reasons-- one: I had to get the girls ready for the day, and two: the best way to learn is by trial and error. (until it involves climbing down into the canal!!)

Rose was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk outside the school for so long I had time to shrug at the door-teacher and then take a picture of her. I should add that she was wearing a purple plaid skirt and a purple floral shirt because they were both purple. Even after my mild style guidelines of "plaid and flowers are a better separately," she insisted on wearing them and accessorized her self-made side ponytail with a purple headband bow. Another real-time lesson for me that sometimes the best way is to stand back and let them be, even when it's hard/overly purple!

Amber's current diva-hairdo is amazing--we're on day three of this same exact ponytail and it's still going strong, and she can actually see out from under her curls! Hah! The minute Amber and I got home at 9am, I sat down to vent the rigors of the morning via typing since all of my go-to phone-call people were busy. Amber, however had different plans. She was "super hongwy" and pestered me for a full half hour before I got up and made her a peanut butter Nutella sandwich. She ate the entire sandwich long before 10am. The girl has opinions, and in her book, lunch is best eaten right after breakfast, before 10am. I'm trying my best to remember just to roll with it. {parenthood in a nutshell}

Less than a month left of school. We can do this.

Extreme Sports

Often people assume that because I enjoy running I also enjoy other sports. The truth is, I know impressively/embarrassingly little about other sports, both the rules and the mechanics of them. I grew up in a basketball family, with my dad and four siblings all total basketballers. Basketball has always seemed too extreme for my taste, what with all of the loud shouting and biased coaching, not to mention that large hard ball flying at my face repeatedly.

During third grade I played one season of basketball to prove to myself and my enthusiastic dad that it was not for me. The first time I found myself alone with the ball during a game, I knew I had to get rid of it fast before the other players attacked me, so I desperately heaved that heavy sphere up towards the nearest basket, achieving a spectacular air-ball on the opposing team’s hoop. That was the only shot I ever came close to taking, and it was equally terrifying and mortifying. At the age of eight I permanently and gratefully retired from the chaos, noise, and pressure of basketball. To my family’s credit, nobody ever asked me or expected me to play basketball again.

When I was trying to think of a caption for my beloved traditional [chaotic] Mother’s Day picture with my kids on Sunday, the phrase “motherhood is an extreme sport” kept coming to mind. Motherhood is totally an extreme sport! Just like basketball, motherhood is loud, exhausting, endless, messy, stressful, confusing, and demanding. Unlike basketball, motherhood is worth it all and more. Thankfully, motherhood also includes sweet quiet happy delightful parts alongside the chaos (unlike basketball). I know that basketball is not widely recognized as an extreme sport, but it is the most extreme sport I have ever participated in and it sure felt extreme to me.

Motherhood is the only extreme sport I’m interested in!

MOTHER’S DAY 2018: All I ever really want for mother’s day is a kind note from each of my kids and a picture of me with all of my kids. I would love to have a “day off” but that is not realistic. I know from experience that wishing someone else would clean up breakfast milk puddles does not make it happen! So on Sunday morning I cleaned up the breakfast dishes and milky drips. I know from experience that when a toddler removes her own poopy diaper on the carpet, there is zero time to sit back and expect someone else to take care of the situation. So when Amber dropped her full dipe on Sunday morning, I jumped in there and cleaned it up.

I’m starting to realize (however reluctantly) that Mother’s Day is not about giving the mom a break. It’s about showing love for her. One way to show love to the mom is to give her a break, but (sigh) that is not the only way. Showing love to the mom looks different in different families and changes with the stage of life the family is in. It’s the thought that counts. And the yearly picture!

Here’s how the rest of Mother’s Day love looked in the White house this year:

• Jay and Rose gave me cute notes that they wrote at school.
• My sweet mother in law gave me beautiful peonies which opened up into enormous puffy pink plumes.
•  Jeff gave an excellent talk at church about personal revelation.
• The kids sang to the mothers in front of the whole ward with my shaky piano playing in the background.
• At the end of church, everyone went to the gym where the kids sang “Mother I Love You” and handed all the women potted flowers with homemade cards stabbed in the soil.
• For lunch, we ate the food my dear mom brought us when she visited the day before.
• Rose and I clipped some of our early pink roses and brought them to Grama Leslie at the family dinner.
• We had a pleasant White family Mother’s Day dinner in Grandview at Grampa Dan’s house.
• At home before bedtime, we watched some baby videos of cute little baby Jay, Rose, and Amber.

THE PICTURES: Corralling Jay, Rose, and Amber (mostly Amber) for five entire consecutive minutes to snap a picture proved to be too difficult, so we did two mini 3-minute photo shoots with a run-around-the-yard intermission between them. Honestly, that run-around-the-yard intermission was not exactly planned, but when it happened, we rolled with it. Since we took the pictures right after breakfast, I forgot about the magical motivational properties of sugar during family photo-thons. In lieu of bribing the kids with candy, we set the camera on rapid-fire and Jeff held down the button.

Rose made me two cards and even gave me three crumpled one dollar bills, refusing to take them back when I offered. She gave me her $3 with all the love in her big heart, cutie pie. In their notes, both Jay and Rose mentioned how I like horses. I think it’s so cute how kids view affirmations of their interests as compliments. They know I loved horses when I was growing up, so they made sure to add that detail to their letters.

Jay and his faces! I don’t know if he thinks he’s smiling or if he’s just rebelling against the photographic institution. Jay is mysterious like that.

Amber was in rare form, dashing away at such speeds that made it difficult for adults in Sunday clothes to catch her.

 My non-twin twins, born 20 months apart.

The goofy pictures almost always end up being my favorites because they are bursting with personality.

*disclaimer: my opinions of basketball are my own, and I realize that millions of people feel differently. I still love you, Dad! It’s ok to like basketball, and it’s just as ok not to like it! Live and let live.

Nevertheless

One of my witty cross country teammates in college used to joke about the saying “shoot for the moon and you’ll land in the stars,” replacing it with “leap for the stars and you’ll land in the trees.” Jeff and I still chuckle about that, because honestly “landing in the trees” is so much more true to real life, especially when clumsy runners are involved.

In an excellent blog post, pro runner Lauren Fleshman posed a thought-provoking query: “what if I am brave and still fail?”

This question haunts me every now and then, both with running and in other situations (especially when I consider my bigger life dreams and ambitions). Of course the answer is that I am enough, whether I reach my lofty goals or not. I rarely question my worthiness or “enough-ness”. However, I do question my ability to “succeed sufficiently” though!

* * *

Now for two situations where I put my lofty-goal-leaping courage to the test in recent real life:

I. The Sage Rat Half Marathon

Yesterday (Saturday, May 12th) I ran our local Sage Rat Half Marathon. I diligently trained for it, completing six consecutive 30 mile weeks. I carefully planned out time to squeeze in four extra long runs to prepare. I gained a lot of fitness along the way and learned how to fit 30 miles of running into my everyday life. It was great! I felt great! I was ready to make an attempt at a sub-1:45 half marathon!

Race day dawned and I toed the line feeling fresh and springy. Jeff followed the point-to-point course in the van with my mom and the kids, stopping to cheer me on every few miles. A mere quarter of the way through the race, however I started to lag. The sun got hot and baked me on the shade-less bike path for the rest of the race. I stopped sweating around mile 8 and it got even harder to continue. For the final five miles, my family’s cheering, the water stations, and sheer willpower were the only things pulling me along.

I crossed the finish line dried to a crisp, sunburned, and so, so tired. My time was eleven minutes slower than I had hoped for, but I gave my best effort under tough conditions. I was satisfied with my 1:56:29.

“What if I am brave and still fail?” This time around I set a lofty goal, did my realistic best to work towards it, and then fell short on race day.

* * *

II. Mother’s Day Piano Performance

Today was Mother’s Day–the day I had been dreading for weeks. As primary pianist at church, it was my job to play two Mother’s Day songs while the kids sang in front of the entire ward.

My hands were clammy. My heart was pounding. I was simultaneously a rope stretched taut and a soggy spaghetti noodle as I walked up front at church and sat at the piano. Over the past few weeks I had practiced the songs dozens and dozens of times perfectly at home, drilling my brain nigh to insanity with them. When it came time to perform, I was at the mercy of my spaghetti-tight-rope nerves. The kids standing up to sing along with my playing blocked my view of the chorister, so I was even shakier and less certain. My hours of practice did allow me to recover from all of the [many] wrong notes my shaky fingers hit and continue through the song, but by the end I was ready to hide behind the piano rather than walk my six foot tall frame in front of everyone again after such a patchy piano performance.  I miraculously survived the terror of playing the piano and walking back to my seat, but it was scary and hard and not as successful as I wanted it to be.

How can I be so dust-humbled by something that I was never proud of to begin with?

“What if I am brave and still fail?” I practiced those songs till my eyes crossed and my fingers could play them without my brain’s help. My accuracy and confidence in my at-home playing piano was at an all-time high. During regular Sunday primary singing time with the kids, I was nailing those notes. I had shot for the moon and was soaring through the stars…until it was time to get up in front of 150 people and play, when I suddenly came crashing down through the trees and landed in the prickly bushes.

* * *

It is scary to set a lofty goal and go all out in the quest to achieve it because I may not make it. I may not run the fast time I want. I may not manage to play the piano well at church. I may not finish that project in time. I may not handle that parenting situation as gracefully as I want to. I may not _____ (fill in the blank). I may shoot for the moon but land short of the stars, somewhere tangled in the trees instead.

But I also might fly!! It is so hard and scary to jump, to take that risk, put myself out there, set that goal and strive towards it. But the journey is more important than the destination. Along the way, in the middle of the work, sweat, and striving, growth happens. That sticky tricky middle part is where I am taught and stretched and changed. So no matter what happens at the destination, I can draw comfort from the raw experience and hands-on lessons learned along the intense, wild, difficult, refining journey.

My two recent back-to-back experiences with running and piano-ing are prime examples of setting lofty goals, going all out to work towards them, and then falling short at go-time. I did not fail to complete the challenges set before me, I just didn’t do as well as I wanted to or as well as I thought I should be able to do, based on the high level of effort I put into my preparations. I shot for the moon, fell through the stars, and landed in the trees instead.

“What if I am brave and still fail?”

“The race always hurts. Expect it to hurt. You don’t train so it doesn’t hurt. You train so you can tolerate it.” —Mark Rowland

“Falling down is life. Getting back up again is living.” —Jose N. Harris

Going through challenges is refining. It’s the journey, not the destination that matters. I wrote this as yet another reminder to myself of that truth. It stinks to work-work-work towards a goal and then fall short of the initial dream. But it is not the end. It is only the beginning!

“What if I am brave and still fail?”

–“Nevertheless, I went forth” —Nephi

All chipper and cheery at the start in Sunnyside, high-fiving Rose. The Sage Rat race runs along the bike path from Sunnyside and through Grandview, finishing in Prosser.

 Leaving Grandview: Rose had to tell me all about something as I ran past (not sure what it was).

 Sweet angel of mercy handing me a cup of lukewarm water. Bless her.

Entering Prosser: almost done! My knee-high compression socks were lifesavers. I’m sore everywhere from the knee UP, haha.

Crossing the finish line. Jeff did such a thorough job of photographing and spectating this race! My superstar husband-coach.

Did they custom-make this sage rat costume? Before this moment, I had never touched a sage rat before. I wasn’t so sure about it. How many other sweaty runners had he already hugged in that fur?

Post-race-post-shower couch snuggles with my dear mom, who left home at 5am and drove 2.5 hours just to watch my race. She stayed with us for a few hours after the race, reading stories, filling our fridge with tasty homemade food, and admiring the scenery behind our house before heading back home again that afternoon. We did not want her to leave! (Jay was off playing somewhere at photo time, plus a girl-picture seemed like a good idea.) ONWARD!

Sources of inspiration, because I like to have them; cited Shaina-style since this isn’t English class :

·        “Are you afraid of the dark?” by Lauren Fleshman: http://www.oiselle.com/blog/are-you-afraid-of-the-dark

·        “The race always hurts” from Coach Mark Rowland:   https://www.runnersworld.com/race-training/best-running-advice-ever

·        “Falling down is part of life” by Jose Harris in his memoir, Mi Vida (which I must confess I have not read yet; I read the quote and loved it so much I tracked down its origin since Pinterest and various memes lamely labeled it anonymous):   https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/4631437.Jos_N_Harris

·        “Nevertheless, I went forth” from 1 Nephi 4:7 in The Book of Mormon:   https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/4?lang=eng

Switcheroo

Time for a switcheroo: I am changing sites from Blogger to WordPress for this blog. It's been so long since I changed anything on my blog and it feels a little sad to abandon such a beloved little internet nook that I have inhabited for the past decade. But I transferred all 10 years' worth of posts from here over to WordPress so nothing will be lost! And I still have the same intentions for my blog: post stories and thoughts whenever the mood strikes. So the only thing that's really changing is the site name and how it looks. Still. Sniff.

Right now I have done my best to make the new site look as much like the old one as possible, (a difficult task using different/foreign tools and templates). I'm still puzzling over certain details on WordPress--total rookie here! In the future, I will be tinkering with my new site until I have found a look that fits my taste best in the new space. 

While I was setting up the new site last week, I did a mini-post on the new site as a trial run. So far so good.

Here's the new blog address:

www.thewhitethings.com

The Majestic Mud Puddle

After lunch yesterday, Amber employed her most persuasive devices to get me outside with her. She brought me my sandals and tried putting them on my feet. She tugged on my elbow saying "you want to go outside wif me, Mommy?" She climbed behind me in my chair at the kitchen table and pinched me all over, saying "c'we go on a walk? cu'we-cu'we-cu'we? Kleeeease!" (cu'we, c'we, or cuh-we is her funny way of saying "could we" really fast, and klease is how she says please). Finally I finished up on the computer and agreed to go on a walk together.

"Let me go get my shoes on first, ok?" I told her. 

"Kai go outside?" she asked

"Wait for me outside; I'll be right back," I called over my shoulder as I dashed downstairs to grab my running shoes (experience has taught me that sandals are not sufficient for an Amberamble). 

When I emerged from the house half a minute later, Amber was nowhere in sight. I called out to her and heard nada. Predicting her route, I began power-walking around the house toward the canal road. There she was, off in the distance, chugging along in her pink boots. With a mischievous glance over her shoulder, she gleefully maintained her distance from me, putting on a burst of speed every time she noticed me gaining on her. In a few minutes, we made it around the canal road bend and down the side hill to the ditch-creek. I named this irrigation ditch Willow Creek last summer, but due to the deep, thick suction-y mud that lines its banks in some patches, Jay has started calling it The Swamp/The Fuming Waste/The Accursed Area (depending on his mood and how deep his boots mired most recently). Amber trotted along in the bright sunshine with me ambling in her wake. Every few steps, she paused to play and after about ten minutes I realized that I had forgotten my book. It's not like I managed to read much last time we went on a ramble like this, but it is a comfort to have the possibility tucked under my arm. 

Bookless, I turned to my phone camera for entertainment. I snapped a few pictures of the lovely puffy clouds against the blue sky, then took a couple of Amber with that idyllic background. But my interest faded; it seemed like I had already taken these same pictures a hundred times. I trailed along after Amber, watching her scamper and caper about happily. I drank in the view and the fresh air. I admired clusters of tiny green specks in the bordering vineyard--embryonic grapes. Still Amber played and ran and played and ran. It was peaceful. Sometimes it's nice to simply BE. I was almost bored, but it was such a pleasant 70 degree sunny day that for the most part I was ok with just wandering through the countryside behind Amber.

Dirt, sweet dirt: Amber's one true love.

About half a mile away from home, we discovered a massive mud puddle. It rained hard for nearly 2 hours last night (a rare occurrence at this time of year here), resulting in this beauty of a puddle. Amber was enchanted. It was love at first splash. I stood back and watched the progression of her puddle-acquaintance:

• First, she skirted around the edge of the puddle, tentatively dipping her booted toe in every few paces. 
• Then she tossed rocks and dirt clumps into it, reveling in the splash.
• Next, she carefully waded across the puddle, clearly concerned about getting her boots stuck in mud. She did not want that to happen again! Amber prefers to be in charge of the situation.
• Amber knelt down at the edge of the puddle and played in the squishy wet mud there.
• Then she leaned forward and splashed her muddy hands into the puddle, ginning at the satisfying spray of water.
• She stood up, trotted down to the far end of the puddle, turned around, and slowly jogged through the long middle of the oblong puddle.
• This was so much fun, Amber started doing laps: through the puddle, turn and run back to the starting point on dry ground, then run through the puddle again. Her running became faster and more energetic with every lap, eventually splashing muddy water up over the top of her boots and down in onto her socks.
• She paused, removed her boots and emptied the water out one by one, then put them back on again and did another splashy lap through the puddle. Pause, remove boot, dump out water, remove other boot, dump out water, step back into boot 1, step into boot 2, resume running. I watched, mesmerized as she repeated this process over and over.
• Eventually, Amber left her boots off and ventured forth into the muddy lake-puddle in her previously purple Cinderella socks. Amber is proof that princesses can get muddy!
• After more stomping and wandering in her stocking-feet, Amber peeled off her socks and began washing them in the puddle in a flailing motion, clearly enjoying the effect of her movement. She rubbed her socks on the muddy bottom of the mud puddle, further changing their color from purple to brown. 
• Abandoning her socks by the wet wayside, she squelched her toes in the mud and wandered around the puddle back and forth, taking in all of the squishy sensations.
• Next, Amber sat down in the middle of the mud puddle. She scooped up mud from the bottom and painted in onto her legs.
• I stopped her right before she rubbed mud onto her face. 

The Majestic Mud Puddle happened to be located a ways back behind our bishop's house, and he happened along in his family sized Gator vehicle with two of his cute grandsons who are Amber's age. Those two little boys looked on in wide-eyed amazement at Amber's antics as she swam in the murky mud. We asked them if they would do that, and they shook their heads quickly "no way!" 

When our visitors drove away, I realized that Amber was minutes away from a full frontal laying down in the mud puddle, so I hauled her out. I helped her down into the deep ditch next door and sat her in the fast moving water, scrubbing mud off of her pants, sleeves, and hands. The ditch was about six feet deep with steep rocky sides and the stream at the bottom was shallow and narrow. I was on unsteady footing as I got as much mud out of Amby's person as possible. At last I slid her boots back on and helped her up the steep bank to solid ground once more. I count it as a small miracle/major success that I did not get muddy Amb-prints all over my pants! I did get covered in mud up to my elbows as she grabbed at my arms for support as we scrambled up the ditch-bank, but my clothes stayed mostly clean.

Next step: walk half a mile home. Our kind bishop had offered us a lift home when he stopped, but we were in this for the long haul, and I politely declined so as to get Amber the most exercise and adventure as possible. She sloshed along in her galoshes, water streaming from her soaked pants and collecting in her boots. We paused twice to dump the accumulated water out of her boots. We took the short cut home: instead of going up the hill and around on the canal road, we cut across the field behind our house. I headed straight for a set of tire tracks that pressed the tall grass and weeds down and created a trail through the thick weeds, but Amber forged her own path. 

"Follow Mommy? NEVER! Shoulder-high weeds? Bring 'em on," thought Amber. 

I successfully made my way through the field and stood at the edge of our yard waiting for Amber, watching her golden curly head bobbing along through the tall weeds. Every time she tripped and fell (which was every third step or so), she disappeared from my view. She got tangled in the undergrowth several times and had to alter her course. When she was almost within arm's reach of me, she got stuck again and reached out a hand with a plaintive "help me, Mommy!" I reeeeached over, grabbed her little hand, and dragged her through the tangle out into the open. Somehow her boots stayed on.

"We made it!" Amber trilled. Home at last.

We walked up our sloping lawn to the side door, where I stripped Amber down to her skin in broad daylight (there was mud in her swollen diaper) and led her inside to the bathtub. Mud clung to her curls, dangling in front of her face where she had swiped her hair out of her eyes during her sojourn in the Majestic Mud Puddle. This was going to be a full on head-to-toe Amber-wash. I moved as quickly as possible, working against my fatigue. A quick spray-down, soap-up, scrub-down, and wash-off later, Amber was lounging contentedly in a slowly filling bathtub. In another burst of kindly maternal indulgence, I had decided to let her fill the bath tub and play for a while. The water suddenly turned yellow. 

"UGH! AMBER, you just peed in the bath! Don't do that!" I groaned.

She rolled over onto her stomach in response, more fully coating her freshly washed skin in pee-bath-water. Yuck. I braced myself and plunged my hands up to the wrists into the warm pee-water, fumbling for the plug. The thing would not come loose! I wanted my hands OUT of that water! Finally I got it unstuck and sprayed Amber down with the shower-hose again while the bath water drained, rinsing off the pee-water. At last I got her dressed and combed out her wild tangled curls. From there, I bundled Amby into her kitty blanket and tucked her in bed for a nap. 

Elapsed time: 1 hour, 45 minutes. WHEW. Maybe I need to stop running so much to train for races and just follow Amber around instead. She'd probably whip me into better shape than any of my carefully crafted training plans!

PICTURES: the muddier Amber got, the more interest in photo-taking I reclaimed.

That tiny pink speck is Amber's retreating figure. 

Amber's silhouette emerging from the shadows in the distance to the right.  

 In the absence of rocks, throw dirt into the stream.

Usually this road is pure fluffy puffy dust, but after the late night rainstorm, it was a satisfyingly damp smooth paste. Amber appreciated it greatly.

 Double-fisting that dirt

Teeny baby grapes! 

Running between the dirt and the sky, grapevines on the right and ditch-creek on the left, our house waaay out in the background.

 Starting slow...

 ...speeding up.

 Cinderella princess socks in the mud: the epitome of Amby.

 The wash-off. She was a little cold, but this saved me a lot of mess and trouble once we got home.

That tiny head bobbing through the grass in the distance! 

All tangled up and tuckered out, reaching for my hand.