May Day! May Day!

I have so much to blog about, but I'm still up to my eyeballs in end of the school year mayhem and foolishness. I honestly think that May is busier by far than December. I am on my way out the door to Dodgeball/Pack Meeting/Ballet Recital, but thought I'd drop a little line just to remind myself in some future day how crazy life is in this wonderful stage of life. And as a reminder to get caught up on this blog at some hopefully soon date. But then again, I haven't read anyone else's blogs for weeks...so what are the chances that when I finally find a minute I will spend it catching up on my reading instead of my writing. Hmmm...

Wedding Day

Congratulations to my youngest sister who got married this past Saturday in Nevada. It was a wonderful, wild, whirlwind of a weekend!

We drove out Friday and arrived in Sparks in the late afternoon...just in time to offer our help in wedding set-up and to find out it was already all set up. Timing has always been a point of pride for me.

So instead, we checked into our hotel and then headed over to wedding planning epicenter...my parent's house. It was chalk full of extended family members..including uncles and cousins I haven't seen in 7 years. Anyone acquainted with the Frey family will tell you that we're not a quiet, observant bunch so it was happy, noisy reuniting all around. A very loud and rejoicing pandemonium.

I got to meet my newest niece for the very first time...Danielle...who was almost born on my birthday. I'll never forgive her for that 2 hour lapse in judgment. Okay, she's very cute so I guess I can forgive her after all.

I chatted with my cousin Jessie who is significantly younger than I am. And now she is a college graduate and oh so chic. I am so old!

We had a rehearsal dinner scheduled for 6:00 and since we had well more than an hour to get ready to go, we were of course late.

The groom was out barbecuing at the church, and that's where I met him for the first time. It's a surreal experience to have your sister marry a complete stranger. I got married when my older sister was on her mission, so I guess my experience can't really compare to hers, but it's still weird. However, Brian seems like a very kind, good, hardworking person. I look forward to getting to know him better in the future. He understandably did not have a lot of spare time to spend chatting with me, so I moved on and continued catching up with other family. And began meeting the extensive family of the groom. We ate steak and chicken and salad and baked beans and conversation.

On Saturday we ran some last-minute errands until our "help" became too much. So we took all the kids out for ice cream to get them out of the way.

The wedding was at 4:30 and was simple and lovely. The sweetest moment was when Lenaya's 2-year-old daughter walked down the aisle in her "princess" dress and saw Brian and yelled out, "hi, Daddy!"

What followed would be described as "a million pictures" by my husband and children, but I think we were only actually in about 5 of them. Then the reception followed.

Now was my chance to see old friends from my home stake. Many of these people have been lost to me since I graduated from high school in 1994. They would say things to me like, "You haven't changed at all." And I would respond, "I know...can I introduce you to my nearly 13-year-old son?" Still, it made me feel young to see so many faces from my past. And Cory said only about 5 people confused him for my sister's husband. When they said to him, "Your new baby is so cute...you're sure taking good care of Larissa," he would respond, "Actually, I sent Larissa away to Colorado so I could live with her sister, Cami."

It was a late night. We all boogied. And ate...a lot...my mom made her now traditional wedding cheescake tarts. I personally had three of them. Along with what was the most delicious wedding cake I have ever tasted.

On Sunday, we got up and dragged our children to church, then went back to the now demolished wedding zone aka my mom's great room. We chatted with now dwindling numbers of family as one by one they headed out in various modes of travel. Finally, we pulled our own children away from Grandpa's pool table and headed out at the very practical hour of 1:45 (that's 2:45 Draper time). After a long drive home, we went straight to bed, knowing that school and work would wait for no wedding. Cory got up early Monday to go the airport for business that will have him in San Francisco until Thursday. And I began damage control...and unpacking.

I am so happy for my sister. I am so grateful for the chance to see so many people that I love in one weekend. But mostly, I am so exhausted.

Un-Spring Break

I would like to acknowledge that I have a murmuring problem. Not all the time, and not about everything, but there is one area of my life where I find myself endlessly complaining. So this year, I made a concious effort to overcome this fault. Oh the times I longed to grumble! But I just bit my tongue until it bled. I think I did pretty well...until Spring break...because my old nemesis decided to taunt me mercilessly. That's right...you know what I'm talking about...SNOW! It's one thing to be cheerful and accepting about winter while it's winter...but in April?

My kids had a short Spring Break...they got out the Thursday before Easter and went back the following Tuesday.

On Thursday it snowed.

They really needed to go outside and run off some energy. Seriously. For their own health. Or I was going to hurt them. But instead, I took them to an afternoon matinee of "How to Train Your Dragon." Cute. Fun. But zero energy burned.

Friday it snowed again.

Four children trapped indoors...day two.

Good times.

So attempt number two to get the devil out was to drive over to the local aquarium to see the brand new penguin exhibit. We found ourselves in line with every other child on Spring Break in the valley. Then we waited in lines to see everything from penguins to jellyfish. Fun? Yes. Crowded? Absolutely. A chance to de-ants the pants? Alas, no.

Friday night, my sister-in-law and her family came to spend the night, increasing the grand total of kids stuck indoors to 7.

Saturday...no snow.

Just really, really cold.

I love General Conference weekend, and it really was wonderful. However, Conference means we don't go anywhere all day, and my stir-crazy kids begin to implode. Callee wisely departed with her family early to return home south where the sun is more than just a mythical anomaly.

Sunday. Easter Sunday. Snow. Not just a light dust, but 6 heavy, icy, drifting inches. The kids woke up thrilled to find their Easter baskets, looked out the window and wondered if maybe they should be looking for Santa-filled stockings instead. I didn't even take a picture because I was too depressed. And I was trying to hold firm to my no murmuring resolution. Ha!

We still had a pleasant day with an egg hunt, Conference, and a nice holiday dinner. Of course, now we had 4 stir-crazy children with about 14 pounds of sugary candy inside of them.

Monday. You guessed it. It snowed.

I decided to run errands. I had become so snow-addled that this was an exercise in futility. I drove all the way to Costco where I waited in line to get gas. Finally, after 15 minutes it was my turn. I stepped out with my purse and noticed I had left my wallet at home. After driving back home, I now no longer had enough time to go back to Costco because I had to get kids to piano lessons. So instead, I decided to do the grocery store. Where I promptly forgot the 3 most important things on my list. I scurried home where I got my kids to lessons...late. I then needed to go pick up something I had ordered online that morning. It was that online ordering that had caused the wallet-less Costco episode. I drove over to pick it up, and discovered that somehow I had not ordered from the store closest to me, but from one all the way across the valley. So you know what I did? I started laughing...long...and hard. Maybe there's hope for this murmuring trouble after all.

Tuesday it snowed. The kids went back to school.

Finally, it warmed up this weekend. My trees are budding. The annuals are poking their heads out of the soil. We cleaned up the yard and cleaned out the garage. We pulled out our bikes and our sandals.

Today?

Snow.

And if you can't say anything nice, then you better not say anything at all

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.