But you knew that already, right? Here is today's reason. A year and a half ago we threw a "good-bye diapers" party for C. It was a celebration of his potty-training achievements. The very fact that we threw him this party is sounding crazy to me right now, but too late. We gave him a little gift - this stuffed animal triceratops, whom we named "Topsy-Turvy" and who immediately became C's indispensable companion day-in and day-out. I thought the name was clever and sweet. I think I probably mentioned this at some point in the past year of blogging, but C fell in love with this show called Dinotopia. Yes, I remember now that I did already tell this story, but too bad. In the show the hero helps deliver a baby dinosaur, and cheekily names it "26" because it was the 26th egg or something like that. C totally latched on to that and poor Topsy Turvy has been 26 ever since, causing much confusion to many people such as his preschool teacher. "Uh, C kept talking about 'his 26' today. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about!" Things like that. Well, today we were driving to the library, and 26 was sitting on C's lap. 26 accompanies us on many outings, waiting patiently in the car until we return. C was fondly stroking him and said, "His real name is still Topsy-Turvy, huh mom." I started laughing at myself because I immediately felt this wave of peace and happiness...what is my problem? I can't believe I'm blogging this - I'm such a dork! I guess I spend a lot of time with this little stuffed creature and I hated his name change. Why do I care? I don't have an answer for that, but I was happy to know that deep down, 26 will always be Topsy-Turvy. I told you I was crazy. Maybe I should get out a little more often. I feel like I'm a prisoner in a jail cell and have been there so long I have named all my toes and they've come to life in my head or something. Okay, I'll stop talking now.
Now that we've been home almost a week, I thought I might write about our trip last weekend! While I was on the trip I kept thinking of all the funny little incidents that I wanted to blog, but now that it's been so long and I have a head cold, that information has departed my puny brain. And my little RAP has been quite a challenge this week. QUITE a challenge. That probably started with the trip, because of course I couldn't keep her from having naps in the car, and that plus the excitement of the trip made her so hard to get to bed. I am really glad I went. I took the kids down on Friday. The rest of the family was coming on Saturday and going back home on Sunday, and I didn't want the kids to do that drive twice in two days. The drive down went pretty well, though it is hard to drive and parent at the same time. 
I had looked online for a motel that had an indoor swimming pool, and found one on St. George Boulevard. It was kind of an extended-stay deal, and it was pretty slimy. But, it was cheap and had a pool. I went swimming with the kids three times in twelve hours, and they loved it. We got some park time with Peter and Sheri and baby Siena before the hoards arrived, which I was so glad about. Sheri's sister got married that weekend, so her family was totally crazy with wedding stuff plus the blessing on Sunday. They were a little short on time. So Friday afternoon at the park was fun, plus we made the obligatory visit to the Pizza Factory. Can't go to St. George without a visit to the Pizza Factory! I have to share my favorite park moment - though you'll think poorly of me because it made me laugh. R was happily climbing all over the playground equipment by herself, and decided to take one of the slides headfirst. At least I think that's what happened - I wasn't looking until I heard her crying. She was sitting at the bottom of the slide with a face-full of wood chips. I've never actually had to pull those things out of one of my kids' noses before. Her mouth and nostrils were pretty packed with them. Luckily the injury wasn't serious and once I had excavated her orifices she was ready to play again. There was also a very good moment at the Pizza Factory. If you've been there you know about their gigantic breadsticks served wrapped around a dowel and standing upright in a pewter mug. We ordered one for each kid and when they arrived their eyes lit up like someone had just handed them the best treat in the world. C went to gnawing on his like corn on the cob, and R took to hers like it was a lollypop. Luckily I brought the camera.
"Yes, would you join us?"Troy and I immediately had to purse our lips to keep from laughing. Oh, he's refined, I tell you. Troy graciously accepted and C fixed him up a cup as well. I'm sure part of the reason C loves the tea parties is the sugar bowl, but I make him fill up his cup almost to the top before he adds the cream and sugar, and he can't have more until he finishes the whole cup of tea. I think it's probably a good way to keep him hydrated.
Anyway, on to the "happies." Our first happy this week was to C - happy fifth birthday! When we got home from our trip on Sunday night, he received his first big gift: a leopard gecko. He's wanted a real lizard for a long time and we got one. It's quite young and small, and very wily, making it hard to hold, but we're hoping to help it learn to be calm eventually. Our friends the Grundvigs have a leopard gecko that's about three times as big as ours, and she's totally mellow. Being C's lizard, we gave him the honor of naming him. First he chose "Polka-Dotty-Dot," but happily he moved on to a much better name: "T-Rex." I think it's pretty cute. The name, I mean. Actually, the lizard's cute too.
On Tuesday we had a birthday party for C. I invited nine kids - many of the kids C plays with also have siblings he plays with too, so there were three sets of siblings. It was kind of crowded in our little house, but the party went great. The kids were invited to wear their costumes, and almost all of them did. Pretty cute! Parties are hard, you know? Last year I made some key mistakes. First of all, I went a little crazy on the decorations - I actually paper mache'ed balloons and painted them like dinosaur eggs - stuff like that. Also I had made the party two hours long which is definitely too long for a little kid party. This year I reeled it in on the decorations and only had the kids for 1 1/2 hours. Also my mother-in-law gave me this book she had when her boys were little - Betty Crocker's Parties for Kids book or something like that. It's from 1964, and is totally awesome. There are like 50 pages of games in there, so I prepared the games a little better and we had a good time. 
It's funny how kids will get so specific about what they're interested in. C really wanted a "kimodo dragon" party, but I talked him into a general "reptile" theme. I made a snake cake - cute and easy, except that I suck at making frosting. Someone please remind me that I need to follow a recipe, okay? What I made ended up looking like melted green marshmallows. Yuck. But the cake was cute and the kids didn't care.
And then there was Halloween. We had had such a big week with the trip and the birthday that I just thought we should hang out quietly in the morning of the big day. I still maintain that this was a good idea, but the kids did go a little nuts. Finally at 4:30 we garbed up. I had been planning on participating in the holiday - I borrowed this big poofy princess dress from my mom, but I just wasn't feeling it. My inner child did not feel "princessy" in any way. So I bagged it. The kids looked great. C had his pterodactyl costume, and luckily we had a kitty costume for R, so even though her witch costume is still in the mail I didn't have to buy yet another costume for her. Our first stop was Morris & Carol's - they always love to see their grandkids in costume. My sister-in-law Kathleen was there with her two boys, and C ran around the street with them trick-or-treating at every house. I'm so glad they got a chance to do this - it seems as if trick-or-treating (man that's a doozy to type) is becoming a thing of the past. Carol likes to keep count of her trick-or-treaters every year, and this year she only got 9. They used to get 60 or something like that. Anyway, it was really cute to see the boys running so excitedly from house to house. It seems like trick-or-treating is a more honest way of getting loads of free candy. 
Do you know what I mean? At the trunk-or-treat, which we headed to next, you get so much candy so fast, and the traditional method at least has you walking farther than 100 yards. Anyway. I'm glad that C got the chance. R wasn't too interested, she was feeling shy and buried her head in my shoulder. She didn't emerge until the sun was going down, and suddenly her second-wind kicked in and she went nuts. Running, twirling, jumping, hollering... Here's C at the second trunk-or-treat we went to, put on by a student ward at a building in the avenues. They have a pretty elaborate set-up in the parking lot, plus a "carnival" inside. This is the "mummy wrap" station, which C got a major kick out of. Well, that's all I can think of. We pretty much came home and crashed after that. We're still recovering a little bit. What I can't believe is the HAUL of candy we pulled in - now in a GALLON container on top of the fridge. The kids have already kind of forgotten about it, but I sure haven't!
You know, I probably should have blogged daily while I was there because there were a lot of fun things that happened, but now that I'm looking back on the whole week it just seems like a big fun loud messy blur. I would say that the highlights of the trip were RAP finally making friends with her uncle Adam, of whom she has always been very shy. It turns out that Adam is absolutely darling with kids. I kind of knew that already, but watching him with R was charming. On Friday evening one of Whit's friends held a "Witches Night Out" and Mom and Whit and I all dressed as witches and went - it was really fun. Adam totally handled all four kids, putting three to bed easily plus hanging out with R all evening. She had a nap every day of the trip so I didn't get her to bed before midnight a single night. But they just happily hung out, and she totally adores him now. That was fun.
The Witches Night Out was also a highlight, minus the degradation of my very silly costume. I'm definitely going to host one next year if I can - we all dressed up and hung out eating yummy treats and then we told scary or embarrassing stories. I of course told my classic and still super-great embarrassing story of walking on campus at USU with the entire back of my skirt tucked under my backpack. Let me know if you haven't heard it.
Other highlights? Well, Smith and C were kind of a highlight/lowlight situation - they'd play their hearts out together for hours then just totally melt down. Whit and I both got quite frustrated trying to keep them well behaved. I'm afraid my mom saw more than she wanted to of our, uh, firm parenting. I'll just say that by the time Friday night rolled around both Whit and I REALLY needed the night off. I wasn't sure what my mom was thinking until I asked her if she were horrified (both Whit and I had been totally frustrated with our boys because they were screaming and crying and unable to focus on us enough to let us even finish a sentance. I'll admit that voices were raised....) and she replied that she couldn't do anything but laugh. I asked her if she had ever just totally lost it, and she asked if I didn't remember the time we were fighting and she actually climbed up on the table, stood up, grabbed our crayons and THREW them on the floor. I'll admit that I have no memory of this, which is probably good. It might mean that my kids won't remember me losing it either. And it filled my heart with a warm flood of joy knowing that my own mother, so sweet, optimistic, cheerful and loving, lost it enough to actually stand up on the kitchen table to yell at us. I imagine her up there like mighty Zeus, fist raised above her head, clenching not bolts of lightening, but our beloved crayons, her eyes blazing....warm joy, I tell you.
Baby Laine is such a sweet happy baby. She was fun to spend time with. She doesn't have much stranger anxiety. She's also tiny. I mean itty-bitty, but she's trying to learn how to walk. She's only 8 months old, and she scoots and climbs and pulls herself up and is really trying to take a step. Sorry, Whit.
Of course the party was a highlight too - Whit put so much effort into the details. The decorations were so carefully crafted and the food was terrific - she needs to be careful, or they'll never release her. She's too good. Adam dressed up as Nacho Libre and was totally hilarious - I think he won funniest costume. I went as a troll - a costume mom purchased from a SLC theater company. Mom couldn't resist her Halloween fetish and dressed as "Red Death." She had a red cloak with hood, long red gloves and a scary sort of ghoulish face. She wanted me to paint her as the figure in the painting "The Scream" but I talked her down. I wanted our children to not be traumatized. This is an improvement from ten years ago when she wore this costume but also had a skeleton face, skeleton hands, a scythe, and she wore dry-waller stilts so she was about 7 feet tall. My mom has a Halloween problem. I think it's because it's the one day a year she feels that she can misbehave.
Okay, on to the explanation of this lovely photo of my son. On Thursday my good friend April convinced me that I could handle a few hours at the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. We drove down after school and it was actually very fun. Here's CTP after a trip to the fishing pond, displaying the array of little gross Halloween things he caught on the end of his fishing pole. Most of them have already been placed in the trashcan, but please don't tell him about that. So the festival is a school fundraiser for my friend Paul's school (he's the principal) and it's a very big deal. They have about 10 of those huge vinyl blow-up toys you climb on and through and down. RAP fell in love with two aquatic themed slides - a shark and a whale, both of which you climb inside up a huge stair/ladder thing and then slide down the tongue and out the open mouth. I wish I had a picture of her on these things, but I don't because I was with her on every slide. I think I burned at least 1,000 calories clambering up and through, over and over, hauling my 2-year-old along. She's still asking for the shark and the whale, and I'm trying to break it to her gently that they just won't fit in our back yard.
If you ever get the chance to attend this festival, it's pretty worth it. They have everything. Face painting, pony rides, wagon rides, food, games, a really dorky juggler (okay, skip that part), a climbing wall, a haunted house... The last of these C really wanted to go through, but when I tried to accompany him R just freaked. C decided to go ahead on his own - I waited at the exit, listening for a panicking child, but he came out looking somewhat wide-eyed but very proud of himself. We really had a pretty good time. April's kids are younger than mine, so she had to take off an hour or so before we did, but we stuck it out through the cold evening, a very persistent wind and empty tummies to have every last bit of fun we could stand. By the time we were done we were tired, frozen and hungry. We stopped in at the food stand for corn dogs, which the kids devoured before we were five minutes out of the parking lot, and were begging for more food. There was an Iceberg on the way back to the freeway, so we stopped for more quality nutrition - I think I should starve my kids more often because they just ate and ate and ate. By the way, Iceberg french fries are delicious. I felt I had earned them after 20 trips up and down the whale.
Last week we spent two separate afternoons up Milcreek Canyon. The first day was a whole week ago - a pleasantly cool and rainy day. I think we went because of our failed "leaf time" from the week before. I'm not super familiar with Millcreek, so I wasn't sure exactly where a good wandering/leaf-collecting trail would be, so we just randomly pulled over at a trail-head. Elbow Fork? I can't quite remember. Anyhow, the trail turned out to be a pretty steep one, with lots of switch-backs, but the kids did great! We just walked up the mountain for half an hour or so, pausing to take pictures, jump over things, throw rocks, and collect leaves. We of course didn't actually make it very far along the path, but we did make it to the crest of one little "mountain," and CTP was so proud! I must remember how well they did walking along and take them for more hikes as the weather allows. It made me wish I was up there with just the dog. Funny, I'm not usually the kind of gal who's in the mood for a good hike, but now I'd really like to go. Maybe next week. I did love that RAP insisted on bringing along her baby, who also seemed to enjoy our outing.
What didn't we do yesterday? Hard to say, seeing as how I felt like we did it all. What a fun day. The weather couldn't be better - it's so fresh and cool outside, still warm enough for short sleeves, I just love it. I was having a quiet morning when my friend Misty called to let me know that the pre-circus elephant parade was happening down town. I guess every year when the circus comes they do a little parade on the first day. I have zero plans to take kids to the circus this year, perhaps some other year. But it was really fun to head down to the gateway and sit on the curb surrounded by many excited kids and watch the elephants go by. You're not going to believe this, but I actually took CTP to school one hour late so he wouldn't miss it. I know, it was only a five minute parade, but it's a little sad when your baby gets big enough to start missing all the kinds of things you used to take him to. I even offered to let him take the day off because he's been reluctant to go lately, but he really didn't want to miss school altogether, so after the parade we hustled to drop him off. I'm glad he likes school.
so he let us through. It wasn't a great spot either - no trees covered in beautiful leaves or trails to wander on. We just walked down towards the water as close as we could (I took one step closer than that and ended up ankle-deep in mud) so we could throw rocks. You may be aware that rock throwing is among the most popular pastimes of all children. At my house, anyway. We threw rocks for a long time. But, I still wanted leaves. I thought, "Ah ha! Millcreek Canyon is not far away!" We were already there before I remembered that they too have a fee-station. Next time I just need to stash a check-book in the car, don't you think? By this time I was defeated, and we just headed to the oft-requested "Sunnyside-Up Park" for a romp on the swings and slides, and of course a few minutes ruining our clothing in the pine-tree cave.
To finish off my evening, I walked up to the Football Facility for night two of the women's football clinic. I'm really enjoying it so much. We did a little less touring around the facility this time and got more information from coaches. We heard from the head of the Athletic Trainers and then we listened to both the Offensive and Defensive Coordinators. Quite an honor, really. Not to mention a lesson in penalties from Coach Whittingham himself. It felt pretty similar to getting sprayed down with a fire hose. So much information, so fast, every moment realizing more and more how much there is to know about football, and how little of it I understand. Sounds depressing, but really it was a blast. I am slowly understanding a little more about the complexities of the game but mostly I just feel like I need to buy a book that slowly spells it all out for me. And eventually I would like to be able to watch a play and know where the ball is. That's still my biggest difficulty! It's fun caring, though. As we were leaving we caught Coach Whit in the stairwell. Poor man - these guys just do not get a break during the season and he looked so darn tired. But he was gracious and friendly and was perfectly happy to have his picture taken with us. When Troy saw the picture he laughed and said it was a good thing that I didn't do this with Urban Meyer because I would have blushed like crazy. It's true. I totally had a crush on Coach Meyer. I took it very personally when he left me. I mean when he left. Anyway, I reassured Troy that I'm developing a new crush on Coach Whit. Troy thinks it's cute when I get crushes on these guys.
Other events of the weekend included a totally crazy birthday party for one of CTP's schoolmates. The party was at a nicklecade on Redwood Road, and I must confess that I really didn't want to go. I tried to think of a good way to get out of it, but really, I knew how bad CTP would feel if he knew he missed it. So we went. Wow. Never been to a nicklecade before - quite the experience. I've never heard bedlam like that before in my life. After cake and presents in the party room, we were set loose on the games with a plastic cup full of nickels. C just about went berserk. The lights flashing and whirling, the constant pinging, dinging and ringing of all the games - he didn't know which way to turn. He'd stop at a game and just shove nickels in, and he'd give the thing about 10 seconds. If he couldn't figure it out by then he'd whip around two or three times until another game won his attention. No chance he'd give a game a second try to attempt to do better at it, one chance was all anything got. 
That is until he found the Lost World game, in which you sit in a booth and shoot at dinosaurs with a red or blue plastic gun. It was in use when he saw it, and was willing to wait for about 15 minutes for a turn. When we finally got in the thing gobbled up nickels so fast we were done in about 2 minutes. C was disappointed but coped well and didn't flip out when I told him our lack of nickels meant it was time to exit. R was with me too and she bopped from game to ride to game almost as quickly as her brother, just usually in the opposite direction. By the time we made it to the car I had a pretty ringing headache, but was happy all the same that we went because the kids had a great time. Oh yeah, I did try really hard to help them earn some tickets. You know, you play ski-ball or something and if you do well a little slot spits out orange tickets at you. People were walking around with streams of tickets wrapped up in their hands. I obviously don't have the nickelcade-knack, because despite my best efforts we wound up with a total of 33 tickets, and that's after four of them were donated to us. At the little shop at the end of the room, we were able to purchase 33 tickets-worth of plastic crap. Luckily 33 tickets buys you only very little crap. One blue sticky hand, one plastic diamond ring, and one miniscule green spider. I must say, I'm a little tempted to go back and try again on that ski-ball. I'm hoping to up my prize to a blow-up hammer, which costs 250 tickets. It's going to cost a lot of nickels, I think.
Dad's going to kill me, but I also must confess that I think he must have done something to make my mom very angry, and she has taken sweet revenge. Just kidding. Really what happened is that they both love Charlie Chaplin, and there was some sort of Chaplin night down town. There was a movie playing and you could go see it for the very 20's price of two bits, and dressing up was encouraged. I'll have to save another blog entry to describe my mother's Halloween-tick, but she ADORES dressing up. Dad - not so much. But he adores my mom, so when she wanted to dress up, he said okay. I don't think he realized that she would be getting him a chain-gang outfit, not a dapper 20's golfer or gangster or something like that. They came over on Friday night to show off their costumes and they both looked great, though Dad had a bit of a grim set to his mouth. As it turns out, not many of Salt Lake's Chaplin lovers share my mother's passion for costumes, and my parents were one of maybe 20 other people who got gussied up. As Halloween approaches, perhaps I will blog an ode to my mom and her many costume episodes. I love you both.
"Yeah, it's the letter Me!"
"Can we go to Sunnyside-up park?"
"Look! I'm so naked!"
Be prepared. If you want to come to our house to play, you're going to get filthy. Absolutely filthy. I have a theory that it is literally impossible to come over to our house and stay clean. The dirt in our back yard is just too alluring. The dog hair is just too abundant. My theory has been proven true time and again - kids come over, and I feel I need to have their parents sign a waiver or something so they won't make me pay for the clothing that is about to be destroyed. I know I should say no to the dirt-play, but I just can't. I don't think there is a healthier pastime out there. I just love watching kids having the time of their lives, their creative juices flowing, their imaginations creating new worlds. I guess I love it except for the nerve that starts pulsing in my temple when I think about getting them clean before their parents get here. 
What's that famous saying? Something about "Pride goeth before the whuppin'?" Yeah - what a fun football weekend! As you should already be aware, the Running Utes were set to play UCLA this weekend, and I was afraid we were going to get creamed. Forgive my lack of faith. UCLA is ranked 11th in the country. Correction: WAS ranked 11th. We've already had a tough year with two losses and four injuries to starting players. I could hardly stand to watch. Troy even got tickets to go see the game - his buddy Mike gave them to him because Mike was going to Florida to watch Urban Meyer coach the Gators for a game. Mike mentioned that this was a game he was okay to miss - he just couldn't stand to watch the bloodletting, and Troy wasn't that excited himself. While he and another high-school friend went to the game I tried to listen on the radio and catch a little on the tube while the kids played. I get so pumped during games - I actually made Romney cry twice when I yelled. So, we basically killed them - 44 to 6. They didn't get a single touchdown, just two field goals in the first quarter. I was bouncing off the walls with energy, waiting for Troy to get home so we could jump up and down together. When he finally came in the door, he didn't look that excited. He was totally in shock. He had these big wide eyes and raised eyebrows - he just looked like he couldn't believe it. What a fun game. I hope the team's confidence and energy continues for some more W's for the season.
