The Evolution of Kev's Facial Hair

Kevin went to Scout camp the week of the 4th. He came back that Saturday with a beard, which I told him to get rid of. He had me take pictures throughout the shaving process, the wise-guy. I don't know what the deal is with the eyes-- he thinks it makes him look intimidating or something.

This one made me laugh-- kind of the Hulk Hogan look.

Although, this was Kevin's favorite-- he dug the sweet mustache. One friend said, "Hey it's Wesley from The Princess Bride!" Oh my gosh, I think he's right!


Much better. :)

Allie-isms

We've been trying to get Allie to clean up her room for over a week now. Most of her toys have been sitting in a trash bag in the prison otherwise known as the garage. I feel like we've tried every tactic known to man, but I just tried a different approach.

"Allie, your room looks like a pigsty!"

"Yeah." She giggled.

"Does Aurora live like a pig?" Aurora is her new favorite Disney princess.

"No."

"Does Aurora live like a pig, or a princess?"

She dodged the question, quite skillfully, I must say. "No, Aurora doesn't live like a princess! She lives in Florida... with Aaaallie... and she's wearing a BYU shirt." No kidding, Allie!

Then yesterday as I sat at the computer making a grocery list, she wandered in and pulled at my arm. I asked her what she was doing.

"Mom, if you want to watch cartoons with Aaaallie, you have to go clean my room!" I busted a gut.

Pool Fiasco

Today is one of those days where I truly feel like it's the worst day ever. Of course it's not, but emotionally, I feel like my world is ending.

We just got home from the community pool. Let me explain... This morning the girls had their swimming lessons. Monday was their first day for the session, and for Allie's class they had all the preschool-age kids meet together to sort them out into classes according to skill and willingness to take risks. I had put Allie in lessons in May, and they had put her into the beginning class out of the three. For some reason, this time they put her in the third class with all the five-year-olds. So yesterday she was jumping in the pool in the 5 ft. end like a maniac. Made me nervous, but I was glad she was doing it and having fun, 'cause the minute she gets scared, then she stops being cooperative. Today she decided she was scared, and all I heard throughout the lesson was Allie screaming about not wanting to cooperate. Lovely. It always makes me want to hold my head up high when my daughter isn't cooperating with authority. I sure hope you sense the sarcasm in that. Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention the battle we had this morning just trying to get the kid to put her swimming suit on so that we could even go in the first place. She wanted to go, oh yes, but just had no concept of time-- that the class would start at a certain point in time, with or without her.

Anyhow, as we're driving home from their lessons, I try asking Allie why she was feeling scared, but, darn it all, she still hasn't grasped the meaning of the word "why," and couldn't give me a helpful answer. Arrrg! I suddenly got the idea to stop at the community pool to practice. So, I asked her if she wanted to do that, and she was game, so I raced home to grab Sami's floatie and we drove back to the pool. There were a few other kids there, but it wasn't too crowded, thankfully. We jumped out of the car, just to get to the pool with Allie holding her crotch.

"Allie, do you have to pee?"

"No," and she starts peeing.

"Allie, stop! Let's go the bathroom." She stopped, and I grabbed her hand, all while holding Sami, and getting a fake smile (which was really a look of disgust) from the other mother in the pool. Allie peed in the toilet, and we got in the pool. She wanted to push off the side of the wall and swim to me, so I let her do that several times. Then I randomly floated on my back and kicked up some water. Allie squealed and asked me to "sleep on my back again" without kicking. I did... just to be stirred by some thrashing and a woman on the side of the pool yelling. Allie had been trying to swim to me. I grabbed her and she was fine, but the woman, who is a neighbor, was pretty concerned and said, "She needs to get some floaties!" A comment that I took as, "If you were a good mom, you'd get her something so she wouldn't drown!" I wasn't in any kind of emotionally stable state to be taking comments like that.

We moved on to Allie jumping int the pool from the side. After about five minutes or so of that, in helping her back onto the side of the pool, I felt something in her swim shorts. That's right-- the little dear had pooped in the pool. I said, "Oh no." And she looked down, ashamed. I pulled her out of the pool and told her not to move. Of course to her that means, "Pull the poop out of your shorts and throw it on the pavement." As I grab Sami and hop out I tell Allie to not move again and my neighbor sees and says, "Oh no!" Did she or anyone offer to help me, as I'm juggling a baby and trying to clean up the mess? Not really. I run and get toilet paper, and my neighbor suggests that her son bring me the trash can. I said I'd just throw it in the toilet, so he didn't help me, but according to him the trashcan was too hot to move anyway. Wimp. No one helped me, no one acknowledged my distress or tried to sympathize at all. They just all hopped out of the pool, totally disgusted with me and my children. You know, the "My children would never be so unruly and disgusting" looks you get. I was mortified and came home and sobbed on the kitchen floor. But now more than anything, in reflection, I'm pretty darn angry at all those people at the pool who didn't bother to lift a finger to help me-- not even the one dad who was there with his son.

I know I'll laugh about all this later, but I haven't gotten to that part of the healing process yet.

Am I a Good Mom?

Warning: This post may offend some people, but that honestly isn't the intention. I'm just trying to keep it real, yo.

I know I've essentially said this before, but one of the hardest things about being a mother for me is knowing that my children's poor behavior reflects on me-- but not as much their good behavior as the opposite, because, see, no one really notices too much when your child is not being a disturbance as much as when she is. I'm sure there are an innumerable number of people in the ward who, while they may like Kev and I as people, think we bite as parents considering the way Kev and I spend the entire meeting holding screaming children in the foyer during Sacrament Meeting. Case in point...

Kev's parents had to take the girls to church without us while we were in DC. Sacrament Meeting went for them how it always goes for us-- you're lucky if you catch two words of anything. After the meeting, an older sister in the ward came up to Mom Smith and said, "Don't feel like you're a bad grandma because of the way they're acting-- they're just as bad when their parents are here." It doesn't help that this is coming from a sister whom I think doesn't really like me much anyway.

Another example... Today I took Allie to swimming lessons. After all the classes for that time had ended, a small group of us stood underneath the umbrella getting kids dry and gathering our things. One friend carried her 21-month-old out of the pool, as the little girl cried-- seemed like she didn't want to leave the pool. Mind you, it wasn't the screaming and thrashing that comes from Allie if you have to take her away from something she's enjoying, so I really didn't think anything of the crying-- I figured, she's a kid, and what kid ever understands why you have to stop doing something fun? However, my friend lamented about her daughter having issues with obedience at the moment. Then another friend praised her efforts in teaching obedience to her daughter. Okay, I know my friend is very consistent, admirably consistent, but I honestly think I work just as hard-- her daughter is, however, naturally more obedient and cooperative and amiable than Allie, which many kids are, I think. She knows that her daughter tends to be pretty easy-going, and fully admits this, by the way. Perhaps I was being a bit sensitive, but I just felt like that compliment to my friend was also a shot at me, since that complimenter actually spends time with Allie once every week and ends up telling me about all the bad things Allie does. If Allie ever does anything good, it's because she was being asked or even compelled. She makes it seem, unintentionally, like Allie is never good on her own, which I know is not true, especially considering I know she behaves better for people who aren't her parents.

You see, many parents tend to expect perfection out of their own children-- they believe that their kids, and every other kid, should fit into this mold, and then get after them them when they think they're faltering. Are my friend's kids good kids? Yeah! Perfect? No way. Is that acceptable? You bet! And as much as she may doubt this fact when her kids make a mistake, is she a good mom? Of course.

I realize I shouldn't get annoyed when people judge me as a mother according to Allie's actions-- bad or good. Although I realized it's usually just the bad. After all, who are they to judge? So many people who are good parents, just as I think Kev and I are, just have easier kids. No offense, but it's true. Although, many good parents have difficult children as well. We happen to have both. However, Sami is developing an ornery streak in her. Parents can't look at how their kids turned out and say, as long as they tried to be obedient to God, that it was either all because of their hard work, or all their fault. That's a load of garbage. While Lehi and Sariah were parents to a prophet, they were also parents to some wayward sons that led a whole line of descendants astray. How should we label them? Or how about the ultimate, perfect parent-- Heavenly Father? A third part of his children rebelled, one of them being the leader and becoming a dude badder than bad. Would anyone care to judge the Almighty as a parent? I didn't think so. The point is, kids have agency-- it's a gift we've all been given. We can teach them obedience, but they still have the agency to say, "I know you want me to be obedient, but I'm going to do what I want." That's their choice. Of course, we discipline. But the idea of discipline is not to compell your children to be obedient, but rather to show them that there are consequences for their actions. Who wants their children to be mindless robots? Obedient, sure, but do they think for themselves? I want our kids to be obedient because they want to be obedient. It's hard as Allie gets older, and choosing my battles is difficult to remember. I look forward to day when that becomes second nature.

It's funny, I started out this entry feeling a bit sorry for myself-- like if everyone else believes I'm a bad mom, then I must be. But now, I think I actually feel sorry for those that have sat and judged me, because most likely, they're judging themselves in exactly the same way. They watch their kids' actions and grade themselves accordingly. That puts a lot of pressure on the family. The parents expect perfection out their kids, which makes the kids expect perfection out of themselves, or perhaps the children rebel, believing they can't do anything right, so why try? Either way it leads to poor self-esteem.

So, in conclusion, I'll think I'll just give myself a grade as a parent... Kidding.

"Happy" 4th!

The girls and I spent our 4th of July once again with the Goodiers, Jill Terry's parents. It seems to be a tradition now that Kev will never be around for that holiday ever again. Seems to be tradition with the Scouts in our ward to sign up for this week of Scout camp-- the leaders don't have to use up as many vacation days. It's been great going to the Goodiers' house-- we get to be with friends, swim, eat really tasty meat, listen to Nancy tell stories (to where her plate full of food ends up practically untouched), and watch Kim's hubby and Russell light fireworks (hey, some were legal). Oh yeah, and there always seems to be some glamorous ordeal dealt my way. I told Jill, "I don't know what it is about your mom's house, but I always have some crazy fiasco here!"

She replied, "Maybe it's actually just because Kevin's gone-- a test to prove how strong you really are." Perhaps...

Last year I decided to bring some homemade lemonade as my contribution-- heck, lemons were all we really had on hand, actually. We pulled up to the house and I began unloading children and bags. I had placed the pitcher on the floor of the front seat, completely surrounded and held steady by bags and towels. In grabbing things out of the front seat, I completely forgot that the bags were the support-system for that pitcher. Yeah, I pulled at a bag, and watched the pitcher tip over, as I reached for it yelling, "Nooo!" I swear it was all in slow motion. The floor turned into a lake of lemonade. I rushed to the door with my children, and after a quick greeting and introduction, asked if they had any spare towels to soak up the mess. We all laughed, and Kevin (Terry) and I spent the next hour cleaning up the mess. Thankfully, the Goodiers happened to have a carpet cleaner on hand.

This year, I skipped the lemonade and cut up a cantaloupe instead. What on earth could go wrong with a cantaloupe? Nothing. And nothing did go wrong... with that. After we had all eaten, the adults sat around talking and resting before the "good" fireworks, the boys were outside messing around with the smaller ones, and the babies ran around the house looking for trouble. Allie was out on the porch, alone and minding her own business, entertaining herself with the toy space shuttle that had been sitting on the table. She's obsessed with space shuttles. I had just brought Sami into the dining room and given her a cookie, when Kevin T. walked out to the porch. Suddenly he poked his head inside.

"Uh, Krissy, can you come out here for a minute?"

"What's wrong?" I walked out, and he picked Allie up and turned her around. I gasped. Her shorts and the backs of her legs were covered in poop. She had gotten the runs, of course, while wearing underwear since she is finally potty training. Pooping in the toilet has yet to happen, though, and having diarrhea while being stuck on a porch all by herself doesn't help anything. Kevin carried her to the bathroom, placed her in the tub, and I proceeded to strip her down and wash her up. Unfortunately, she had used the spare pair of underwear in the bag, so I had to put her in (ugh) a diaper, since it was all I had. Jill had gone and fetched my bag of, well, everything for me, and tried to do all she could to help the situation. After washing Allie and rinsing out her clothes, I then had to scrub the tub clean with Soft Scrub-- you can understand why.

I'm just wondering what will be thrown at me next year while Kev's away. Actually, I don't even want to think about it. I'll deal with it when the times comes.

Oh, and to top things off, I counted eleven mosquito bites on my arms and legs from last night.