Cheezit the Wondercat

Seven years ago, we took our then three children to the Humane Society "adopt-a-pet" day to pick out a dog. After hours of petting, barking, and licking we came home with this guy:

We named him Cheezit and embarked on the first of many cat adventures. A couple of years after we got our kitty friend, Cory started telling the kids "Cheezit the Wondercat" stories at bedtime. These stories revealed that Cheezit was actually a crime-fighting feline who defeated a variety of animal nemeses along with the aid of his sidekick, Dumb Dog. It turns out Cheezit speaks with a British accent. Two years ago, Dumb Dog was replaced with our more recent pet addition, Grendel the Dog.

Last week, we took a sick kitty to the vet and discovered after a number of tests and procedures that he had very advanced cancer. We had to let him go humanely on Friday.

We are all still very sad here, although probably none more than me. It's still hard to write or talk about it. We got the cat for our kids, but as it turns out, he became more my pet than anyone else's. I guess that is the natural result of being the one to take care of all of his needs. Over the weekend, I began writing what basically was becoming a cat eulogy and decided that I didn't want to post it here. I'll save it for my kids. I wrote it for them because I know they will forget their first pet soon...which is as it should be. Still, I want them to remember something, and I want to remember too. Right now there is a very present but absent weight at the foot of my bed when I lay down at night.

I hope there's a place in heaven for good pets. And I hope that "Cheezit the Wondercat" will survive to fight another day...one bedtime story at a time.

Birthday and Baptism

This week I am having hardwood floors installed in the living room and dining room on the main floor. This means that every day this week, I have to be out of my house from about 8 in the morning until dinner-time. It also means that most of the furniture on the main floor is now crammed into the family room. With the exception of my grand piano. Which is upright in the office about 18 inches from where I sit typing. Basically I'm living out of my car for a week. Seriously...if you could see my car right now you would likely exclaim, "Sheesh! It looks like someone's living in here!" Anna and Isaac suggested this afternoon that we install a refrigerator and a washer and dryer. "Because," as they reasoned with impeccable logic, "we already have a TV." (All they ask for in life is food, clean clothes, and mindless entertainment...oh...and drive-through dinners.) In a word, our home life at the moment is chaos.

In addition to this, our family is suffering a personal tragedy at the moment. I will post about this soon, but today's post is about something more important. So, even though I clearly should be using the precious hours I have in my actual house to do something like...laundry...or T.V. viewing, I am taking the time to write about this past weekend of events.


Isaac turned 8 on Saturday, and by coincidence, our Stake Baptism day fell on the same day! So, just like his brother Noah, he got to have his birthday and baptism together.

Lots of wonderful people came to share the special day with us. Grandma and Grandpa Frey drove out from Sparks on Friday even though they had to turn right around and drive home on Sunday. Aunt Carrie-anne and Uncle Ryan and their kids Emily, Jacob, and Joshua drove up from Toquerville; Aunt Callee and Uncle Jeff came from St. George with Max, Sam, and McKinley; my cousin Gretchen and her husband Ryan drove up from Orem with their 6 kids; and Aunt Kim drove over all the way from Sandy...okay 7 miles, but we were grateful just the same. He was baptized at 9 a.m. by his dad, and in addition to the family who came, two families from our ward were there as well. The Cleggs--our home teacher--and the Prices.

After the baptism, we drove down the hill to our ward building and had a fun brunch. The kids ran around to their hearts' content while moms and dads chatted and caught up, and we all ate a lot of muffins!

After the brunch, Mom and Dad took Isaac to pick out his birthday present...a NEW BIKE! He had asked weeks before so sweetly if he could ever have his very own bike instead of a hand-me down. In the afternoon, our family and most of the cousins watched "Planet 51," per the birthday boy's request, at the dollar theater. This was followed by "make your own pizza" night at home (18 different personal pizzas, yikes!) and cake and ice cream.

It was a wonderful weekend and a special day. There is always a special spirit at baptisms. Even when there are a lot of noisy cousins and siblings around.

Isaac confided in me before he went to bed on his eventful day the following:

"I actually got baptized when I was 7, because I was born at 9:30 at night so I won't turn 8 until tonight!"

He is such a dear, cheerful, sweet little boy!

Four Eyes

In January, I got a letter from the elementary school informing me that Anna had failed her Kindergarten vision screening. I was completely surprised so I asked Anna about it. She casually replied that, "I can see out of this eye," (pointing to her right eye) "but not out of this eye." (pointing to her left eye). So I did my own little eye test right there which consisted of 15 different permutations of the question, "How many fingers am I holding up?"

After extensive and exhaustive research I came to the following conclusion. She can see fine out of her right eye but not so much out of her left.

Cory was harder to convince. He somehow doubted my optometric methods. So at dinner that night, he conducted his own version of the "How many fingers am I holding up?" diagnostic. To his own surprise, he confirmed my earlier findings.

So the next morning, I looked up a pediatric opthamologist through my health insurance provider list. There were 8 names...5 of them had the same number listed. I called them first. The number had been disconnected. The second number I called told me they don't work with pediatric patients. The third number had a recorded voice message telling me to call back during normal business hours. I was calling at 10:15 in the morning, so I'm not sure what that means exactly. Finally the last number I reached told me that they do in fact take pediatric patients, but that the number I had dialed was their business office so they couldn't set up an appointment. Maybe our current administration is on to something with this health care reform agenda.

Luckily, the last office redirected my call to someone who could actually help me. The soonest they could schedule an appointment was six weeks later. So I took the appointment and moved on with my life or at least my morning.

I didn't think about it again until 5 weeks and 6 days later when I got the reminder call. So on a Monday afternoon, I trekked to downtown Salt Lake City and spent 20 minutes driving around the Primary Children's Hospital parking structure looking for an empty spot. Finally, I called the office to say I was going to be late or possibly a no-show because there was never going to be an empty spot in that parking garage ever again. They told me an alternative place to park. Finally I walked into the office 65 minutes after I had left home and 5 minutes after my 1:30 appointment time.

Cory called and told me he was going to come meet us for her appointment. I told him I had managed to do 347,210 doctor office visits on my own in my career as Mom so he didn't need to worry about it, but he insisted. And then I remembered Anna's role as "Baby Princess Only Girl."

In the office we waited with one other patient. We got called back to one room where a technician ran a number of vision tests. We went back to the lobby and waited a little longer. Now there were half a dozen patients. A nurse called us back to another room and ran a number of vision tests. We went back to the lobby and waited even longer with about 10 other patients. An intern called us back to a room, ran a number of vision tests and dilated Anna's eyes. We went back to the lobby and waited...a really long time with every last pediatric opthamology patient in the state of Utah. I was obviously not going to make it back to the elementary school in time to pick up the car pool at 3:10, so I made a phone call to a friend to see if she could get the kids for me. Then we waited some more. Finally, we went into yet another exam room where now the doctor ran a number of vision tests.

To make a long story long...the findings? Amblyopia, or lazy eye. Basically she can see out of her right eye but her vision in her left eye is 20/600. So 2 1/2 hours into our appointment we got a prescription for glasses and a request to come back for another exam in May. Good times.

In my heart of hearts I feel a little sad about getting glasses for my 5-year-old. I have always thought she has such beautiful blue eyes and now they are obscured by mismatched lenses, making one eye appear abnormally large. I know it's good that we caught this early and that eventually it will either begin to correct itself, or she will get old enough to wear contacts, but the feminine and vain part of me wishes my only daughter didn't have to take on this particular accessory.

Anna, on the other hand, loves it. She had to wait a week for her glasses to come in, and wore me out with the question, "when are my glasses going to be done...I'm tired of waiting?" The first day she wore them to school she came home and said she "got too much new friends because I have glasses." I thought once the novelty wore off, it would be hard to keep her in them, but it's been 3 weeks now and she wears them from the moment she gets up until I make her put them away and go to bed at night.

She still looks pretty cute.

Math Counts

The Olympics are over so I can return to my life. I have been woefully absent from my blog this year. The whole reason I started this was to motivate myself into journaling on a regular basis, and keep my extended family involved and up-to-date in my life. Then my life got in the way of my ambition.

I am re-committing to my effort...and I have many things that really need to find their way into my "memoirs." But since I only have 12 minutes before I have to pick up my daughter from school, I'll start small.

To say that my oldest child is good at math does not quite define the scope of his natural ability. So I have a couple of anecdotes to illustrate his innate understanding. (Look out...here comes the obnoxious mom side of my blog.) 1-When Zachary was 5 years old, we were driving around in the minivan running errands and to distract him, we started playing the "doubling game." We started with the number 1 which doubled to 2 which doubled to 4 and so on. He didn't stop at 32 or 64...he got into the millions...in his head...his 5-year-old head. 2-Around this same age he began his obsession with professional sports. Cory was watching March Madness one Saturday, Zachary came in, planted himself on the floor, looked at the screen and casually announced, "Duke's up by 17 huh?" We discovered that in any basketball game, he could seemingly instantly tell you the point spread. 3-His 1st grade teacher called me one day to say that Zachary had "figured out" multiplication on his own. Not in the sense that he had started memorizing multiplication tables, but in the sense that he sat down and described an array to her. She challenged him with a few multiplication facts and said his answers were instantaneous...almost as if he could "see" the solution in his head. 4-Last year when we tested him for the magnet junior high, he missed 1 question on the math section. This is the test they give to kids 2 grade levels ahead of him.

When we decided to send him to that school, one of the defining elements of our decision was a homeroom called "Math Counts." It's a math competition program akin to debate or athletic olympics. It combines his love of math and his hyper-competitive nature...a perfect alchemy!

In January, he attended the District Competition...competing against 7th and 8th graders from 16 junior high schools. In typical Zachary style, he never even mentioned it to us. He just walked in from school that afternoon holding the 5th place trophy. The top 10 go to Chapter competition.

Chapter fell on a Saturday in February. Cory took him to the event and was taken aboard to help score tests. They take a preliminary test, and the top 10 students move on to a head to head competition. Cory texted me in the middle of his grading to tell me that the questions were brutal...he thought he could probably figure out 1 out of 5. There were 45 questions...the highest score he saw all day was 10. Zachary got 21. With no outside help or practice, he finished 8th. I came to watch the head to head and my brain is still reeling. I got 0 answers sitting in the audience and half the time, kids were ringing in on the buzzer before I finished reading the question. Top 10 go to state. Zachary couldn't be more excited!

Then, the Monday after the competition, Zachary came home visibly upset. State competition is the exact same time as his little brother's baptism. He won't be going to State this year. It was one of those times when as a mother, I could literally feel my heart break for my child. I consoled him as best as I could, but I know he is still disappointed. I hope that this experience with disappointment will help him in some way. I hope that he won't resent his younger brother. I hope this will help him to understand the value of family and the priority we put on that in our home. But mostly I really, really hope that he makes it to State next year. I don't think either one of us could handle a second heartbreak.