to yell or not

I blogged previously about a parenting class we had for a Relief Society activity. Recently I've been thinking about what the teacher said about the ratio of positive to negative things said, and I've been wondering whether it's better to be neutral when I'm scolding Kevin or if I should say it firmly or yell. I have a good friend who I have always admired as a mother because of the way she handles disciplining her children. If they are doing something wrong she gets their attention, makes sure they are making eye contact with her, and takes time to talk with them about it--what they did wrong, why it is naughty or hurtful, what they should have done, if they should apologize, etc. Before Kevin was born I remember watching her and thinking how much I would like to be like that and not yell at my kids very much. As Kevin got older and was walking and started getting into all sorts of mischief, I started scolding very firmly and also yelling. I think it was because he did the same things over and over again and I felt like if I didn't yell or make something about my voice different then he wouldn't realize that he had done something wrong.

But recently I've been thinking about the importance of being positive, and also I've been remembering what the teacher said about how kids would rather get negative attention than no attention. So the last couple of days I've been experimenting with modifying my reactions to Kevin's misbehaviors. Rather than yelling or saying "No!" or "Stop it!" I've been trying to keep my voice more neutral and just steer him away from the bad behavior. I think my main observation so far is that it has more of an effect on my attitude than on Kevin's behavior. What I'm starting to realize is that Kevin will probably turn off the computer and throw food and try to color on walls whether I yell or ignore or tell him in a neutral voice to stop. I'm not sure why he does those things, because even at this age he shows some evidence of knowing he shouldn't do those things. The main difference I'm seeing is that I have a different attitude when I am purposefully not yelling. I am able to be more patient with him, and I can deal with it all a little better. And I am happier. Something that seems to naturally come from not yelling is that I give him more positive attention. For example, if he's gotten a hold of a permanent marker and is trying to color on the desk, I will take away the marker and show him how he can color on some paper with crayons or a pencil, and stay and help him color (so the crayon only goes on the paper and so he doesn't eat them). I think this is different from rewarding him for bad behavior. I'm finding that it takes more work to correct him in a neutral voice rather than in louder tones. I have to keep a close eye on him when he eats so that I can intercept flying cups or food and move them out of reach, for example, and I have to make a conscious effort to tell him calmly, for the zillionth time, that it's not okay to throw food when he's frustrated or done or bored. A lot of it involves taking more preventive measures, like putting things out of reach or locking doors or being fast enough to stop him from grabbing or throwing or breaking something. But something I've noticed is that often the right parenting technique is the one that takes more work and more consistency--and the reward is that you will get better outcomes and both you and your kids will be better people.

Have you thought about this problem? What were your conclusions? What worked and what didn't?

throwing away the dresser

A couple of days before Christmas, we decided it was finally time to throw away the dresser. It had three drawers, but two were broken, and it also had some doors with handles that were painful to use because they were sharp.

We frequently see furniture and other items left out by the dumpsters. We've even made some pretty good finds there. But we also see a lot of junk. Ripped up couches that are getting moldy because it rained on them. Tables with broken legs. Dressers with broken drawers, and the unbroken drawers won't shut. Bags of worn out clothes and pots and pans. Sometimes I make comments about how it is obviously junk and they should have just chucked it in the dumpster instead of leaving it beside it in case anybody wanted it. This is stuff that is not worth repairing, so don't leave it there to be an eyesore and make our nice apartment complex look like a scary place. But at the same time I can understand their thought process. It's furniture. It was expensive. It might still be useful to somebody if they were willing to put some work into it.

We were thinking similar things as we dismantled the dresser to take it to its final resting place. We had no intentions of leaving it beside the dumpster because it was junk. But it's still kind of hard to throw away furniture. It feels like there ought to be some use for all of the materials used to make it. People less fortunate than we are would love to have that dresser and use it until it disintegrated completely.

Then we wondered how we would get all the pieces to the dumpster, and we remembered the metal cart that used to be used for carrying in groceries, except the wheels started breaking and the handle would often bend. We were tired of the broken cart too and figured we might as well leave it with the dresser. So we loaded all the planks from the dresser into the cart and headed to the dumpster.

By the time we had made it halfway, we were wondering if the cart would make it to the garbage. Every time there was a bump that was too big, the handle would bend and the wheels would bend and it would get stuck. One wheel was dragging and leaving a continuous black mark along the sidewalk. About 100 feet from the dumpsters, the metal handle broke completely off, and we knew the cart had gone the way of all the earth (not that we needed evidence). If an inanimate object can ask to be thrown away, this one had done it. So we honored its last request. (Yes, Gina, it was your cart, the one you gave us before you moved. Hope you're not heartbroken.)

It feels good to throw things away. When we came back to the apartment I did a brief mental tour of our apartment and realized that I like our apartment better now that we have a little less stuff. Having stuff requires some mental energy. To some extent you think about it every day. And if it's something that probably should be disposed of, it's kind of a drain to still have it and to still be thinking about it. It's nice to get rid of a burden like that.

ICEs

In the class about teaching that I took at North Carolina State University a couple of years ago, one of the things they kept telling us we needed to do was to try to have the students figure out the concepts on their own, rather than just handing them the definition or telling them how things work right away. To demonstrate what they meant, they would give us activities to do without giving us enough background information. We spent the entire hour and a half doing the activity before we figured out what was going on, and it was incredibly frustrating, and in the end I only felt like I had picked up a couple of small concepts. Or they would tell us that instead of directly giving the answer to a student's question, we should ask them questions to guide them to the answer or have them keep trying or only give small hints. I never felt that it was effective when they used this method, nor had it been effective when I had tried to use it as a TA for Physical Science 100 at BYU.

Now, I don't want to completely discount what they were trying to encourage us to do. I do believe that there is value in giving students opportunities to discover concepts on their own. I think what was frustrating was that I believed they had a point, but I had never really seen anyone effectively use this principle.

This semester, I think I finally saw it happen, though. My mineralogy teacher uses this method effectively, and it doesn't even take 10 times as long as just giving a lecture. For most of our classes, he gave us In Class Exercises (ICEs), which we worked through with a partner while he and the TA walked around answering questions. The ICEs were generally about 6-8 pages long (it took a couple of weeks to get through one ICE), and they guided us through the process of figuring out the concepts he wanted us to learn. He gave us background information throughout the exercise, and he also asked very effective guiding questions that helped us apply the things we already knew. We often figured out the new concepts ourselves as we answered the questions on the ICE. Every so often he had "STOP!!" printed on the page, and when we got to that point we stopped working until everyone had caught up (we generally didn't have to wait very long). Then we discussed it all as a class to make sure everyone got it right or to get help where we all got stuck. So instead of handing out a lab with no background information and telling us to figure it out in an hour, he had a lesson plan that built up the concepts as we went along, so that we were still learning at a reasonable pace and not getting bored or too frustrated, and we were discovering things for ourselves. I found that classtime usually whizzed by and I felt actively engaged in learning the concepts.

I've been really excited to learn about this way of teaching. It's shown me that it really is possible to facilitate students figuring out new concepts themselves rather than just telling them everything. I guess in my heart I still see myself teaching science if I end up needing to get a job, because I find myself conjuring lesson plans in my head and thinking of ways to use ICEs to teach my students. Then again, I'm not so sure I want to go back to high school, not even as a teacher.

our little hamster

Today I was eating some cooked vegetables and Kevin wanted me to share. He was devouring them quite eagerly, shoving them into his mouth before he'd even finished the last mouthful (which is quite typical of him). I was pleased that he was eating vegetables so eagerly. Eventually he had had enough and was drinking some water when Ryan noticed his cheeks were puffed up. "Does he have something in his cheeks?" he asked. "Maybe one or two pieces of carrots," I replied. As Ryan squeezed his cheeks to check, Kevin stuck his tongue out and all the contents of his mouth fell all over the floor. Every single carrot he had put in his mouth had been stored in his cheeks. They weren't even chewed.

32

3336633

happy news

Now that I've heard a heartbeat and had a midwife appointment confirm to me that everything is okay, I feel like I can share that we're going to have another baby sometime next June. I told several people early in the pregnancy because I just wasn't feeling very well and I had to have somebody to talk to about it, so I know the rumor has already spread a little bit among my friends here. But I haven't wanted to post anything about it on here yet because I was kind of afraid that I would make the announcement and then find out something was wrong and have to write on my public blog to explain before having a chance to process it all. I don't know why I was so worried about it because there wasn't any indication of a problem. At any rate, today I was finally able to see a midwife after having to reschedule my first appointment due to "inclement weather" (a light dusting of snow), and there is a heartbeat and it's nice and strong. I was really expecting that once I heard a heartbeat it would start to feel real that we're going to have another baby, but even now it hasn't fully sunk in. We're very excited.

In answer to some of the questions you will probably want to ask . . .

I'm about 3 1/2 months along. Kevin and the baby will be about 23 months apart.

I've been feeling sicker this time around than with Kevin. The food aversions are a little bit worse and I kind of just feel blah. But it's getting better. I've even been eating chicken this week.

We will probably have an ultrasound next month to make sure everything is okay, at which point we will also find out if the baby is a girl or boy.

Yes, we've thought of some names, but we're keeping that a secret.

I am getting prenatal care at the Women's Birth and Wellness Center. It's a different group of midwives than I saw last time. I think I will really like this place. They do all of the same tests and checks as the other midwives did with Kevin, but I feel like the attitude of the place is different. There's more emphasis on allowing me choices in my care and explaining the purpose of various procedures and tests, and my comfort is really important to them. And when the baby is born they do everything for the baby right there in front of you, often with the baby in your arms. Even if the baby needs a little oxygen, if they can they bring the oxygen to the baby rather than taking the baby away somewhere. Sometimes with Kevin I felt like I had to work pretty hard to get the nurses to bring him back to me if they had taken him somewhere for a bath or whatever, so I really like this way of doing things. The person who did my blood work today was awesome--I only felt a tiny prick, so I assumed she had changed her mind and hadn't put the needle in yet, but then I looked over and realized the needle was in and she had taken most of the samples already! I barely felt a thing! They have also been very up front with me about how much things will cost and what the costs are for, which I thought was awesome. Nobody ever told me anything about that when I was pregnant with Kevin, and it was very frustrating for me to have no idea how much things were going to cost. The only answers I could ever get were that it's hard to say because people have different insurance and every pregnancy is different, but I always felt like I should have been able to get a ballpark estimate for what a normal birth costs. I don't understand why cost always seems to be a taboo subject with healthcare.

I breastfed Kevin until I was about 2 1/2 months pregnant, and at that point he stopped on his own. I was thinking of stopping earlier than that because I was afraid that it was making me feel even more sick (although he was only nursing for a couple of minutes per day), but after praying about it I had a feeling that I needed to continue a little longer until he was ready to be done, and for us it worked out really well. If we had stopped earlier, I would have felt really sad and Kevin would have had a hard time because he wasn't ready. But after only a few more weeks Kevin was ready, and when he was done I felt satisfied too. I didn't notice any difference in morning sickness before and after we were done with breastfeeding. So that was my experience with breastfeeding while pregnant. It's been a great relationship-building experience for both of us and has provided us both with many benefits, and I am grateful that for Kevin and I breastfeeding was such a positive thing.

sweet potato fries

Recently I found a recipe for sweet potato fries and wanted to try it out. It seems like usually yams are a sweet dish (they are sweet potatoes, after all), so it's kind of fun to have yams with salt on them for a change. Here's my recipe (modified to bake in the oven).

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Cut up 1 lb. of sweet potatoes (one large or two medium). You can cut them into fries or cubes or slices. 

Place the sweet potatoes in a bowl, and mix in 1 Tbsp. of olive/vegetable oil, 1/2 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper.

Spray a cookie sheet lightly with cooking spray.

Bake fries for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. They are done when they are softened. You can bake them a little longer or broil them for a couple of minutes to get them crispy.

books and school and Christmas prep

A while back, I wrote a couple of posts about The Goose Girl, by Shannon Hale. (here and here) I was pretty critical of the book. But I went on to read the second and third books in the series (Enna Burning and River Secrets), and I actually really enjoyed them. They were annoyingly descriptive like The Goose Girl, and sometimes there was some really awkward and out of place dialogue (like that weird "red egg of the omen" thing in Enna Burning--I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was just really awkward). They were a little sappy sometimes. (Ryan couldn't stand to listen to them when he was in the car with me.) They're definitely young adult fiction. But I really enjoyed the plots of the books. I thought they were original and interesting and I enjoyed seeing the conflicts unfold and get resolved. I particularly enjoyed Enna's perspective as she struggled to control her firespeaking abilities and ended up hurting other people and struggled to forgive herself. I thought it was very realistic and said a lot about the way we feel when we sin, especially when the sin hurts those we love the most. Both books give some interesting insights into temptation and what can happen if we let our temptations get control of us. So I don't know that I'm retracting my previous thoughts about The Goose Girl, but I thought I should add that I have enjoyed the next two books in the series, and will probably try to find the fourth book. The audio book version is actually quite good, although the voices tend to augment the sappiness and awkwardness sometimes. They have a different voice for each of the main characters of the story, so it's kind of like listening to a play instead of the same person reading all the parts.

We watched a clip from MSNBC the other day that showed excerpts from an interview with Sarah Palin, followed by MSNBC people's thoughts about what she said. (Sorry, I have no idea where it is because Ryan was the one who was reading the page.) Sarah Palin was asked about what she likes to read, and one of the things she said was that she enjoys reading C.S. Lewis when she wants a little inspiration. One of the guys on MSNBC laughed really hard about that and thought it was really funny that she gets her inspiration from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--because, after all, that's just a kid's book. Obviously he hasn't read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or the rest of the series (which are inspiring books, especially the one he made fun of), nor does he know about Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and other books that C.S. Lewis wrote. They're not quite the same as Junie B. Jones or The Magic Treehouse.

I've recently been reading Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series. I've never read them before, but I think they are great. The story is original and intriguing and I find it very inspiring.

Schoolwise, the semester turned out pretty well. I got good grades in both of my classes and I'm still sane. After a review for my mineralogy class, I asked my teacher if I could get some help with a couple of concepts that I didn't quite understand, so he handed me his tinker toys (very helpful when you're talking about the structures of minerals, actually) and helped me figure it out. Then when I was done, he told me I'm doing well in the class and that I'm one of the people he would like to recommend to people who are looking for undergrads to do research with them. He said I really should start doing some research and even introduced me to a professor. I could either do research for pay or for credit. So I'm going to start looking at some of the different faculty members here and what they are studying so that I can start doing that too. It would probably only be a couple of hours a week. It will be helpful to be involved in something like this while I'm here so I can get a better idea of what I'm interested in and also be more qualified to work if I need to once I'm done with school. I really feel blessed to have these opportunities available to me right now.

One of the difficult things about being in school is that it makes it kind of hard to get ready for Christmas because the first half of December is consumed by finals and other end-of-semester type things. Now that my finals are all done I finally have some time to do some shopping and preparing. Next year maybe I should get all the shopping done before school starts, although it's kind of hard to know that far in advance what someone as little as Kevin will enjoy. We still haven't decided about a Christmas tree yet because we know Kevin will probably tear it to bits, but I'm starting to feel like I would at least like one for a few days. We've at least taken out the advent calendar--and we hung it up quite high because we quickly realized Kevin was just going to pull on it if we left it in its usual place. We took Kevin to Target and let him play with a few different toys, and then we chose a couple of the ones he liked the most. Ryan and I got some Christmas presents, but it seemed kind of silly to wrap them up when we already know what they are and they are things we just want to start using. It's a lot more fun to give presents to other people than to think of things you want yourself, I guess. The only thing I can think of that I want is some new clothes, but the main problem with that is that the clothes in the stores are all so ugly. Is a plain t-shirt that's thick enough to be worn by itself too much to ask? Because it's been a long time since I've seen one. I've seen a lot of skulls and leopard prints, though.

how to prepare for college

I've been thinking lately about some of the things I would or wouldn't have done differently during high school and my first couple of years of college, and I thought I would share my list and some suggestions since I have several relatives, including one of my sisters, who will soon be in college.

• One of the things they told me a lot in high school was that if you want to get scholarships or get into a good college, you have to be involved in lots of clubs. Yes, it's important to be involved. But if I could do it again, I would have aimed a little harder for quality instead of quantity. I wouldn't have bothered to stay in the clubs that had a boring meeting every week but did nothing but have a few uninteresting activities every school year. The best clubs were the ones where I participated in most of the activities, had a leadership role, and had a good relationship with the adult leader. Those were the clubs where I made good memories, felt like I was making a difference, built up experiences and accomplishments that were worth mentioning in scholarship essays, and found people who would write good and meaningful letters of recommendation for me.
• Same goes for service. Definitely do a lot of service, but make sure it's meaningful and that you feel like you're making a difference. One of my favorite service projects was Lunch Buddies, where I ate lunch a couple of times per month with the same elementary school girl, who needed an opportunity to have the good example of an older person.
• Take the hardest classes your school offers (without overloading yourself!). GPA is very important, but so is your ACT or SAT score, and if you take higher math classes and other difficult classes, it will help you learn to think about more difficult concepts and the ACT and SAT will not be as difficult. Also, I felt that because I had taken the hardest classes I could, the transition to college was not as difficult for me. Difficult exams were not new to me in college because I had already been taking difficult exams in high school.
• Do some research before taking AP classes or classes that offer credit for both high school and college. See if the colleges you are looking into accept those credits, and also find out if those credits will be useful in college (i.e. if they will count as a general education class or a class for your major). Also think about if you're planning to take more classes in that subject. I took Spanish for dual credit in high school even though I figured I would probably take more Spanish in college. Then when I got to college I realized it was a waste of money to pay for those credits when I knew I would be taking more Spanish. I also took a class about computers for dual credit, and it has never counted as anything useful--general education or major classes. However, dual credit or AP classes can be useful--for example, if you have an idea of what you will major in and you know you will not need more math classes, then it's a good idea to take a dual credit math class while you're still in high school because that will save you time. Most people don't have a hard time getting enough credits to graduate from college--and if you do have some more credits to earn before graduating, then you can use that for something fun or useful.
• Stay close to your high school counselor. I went to my counselor at the beginning of my junior year and explained to her that my parents probably wouldn't be able to contribute very much money to my education, so I would need all the help I could get with scholarships and such. She often called me in to her office to tell me about a scholarship I could apply for or a job I could try to get. Most of the scholarships I received were ones that she had pointed out to me.
• Save money to pay for your education. Don't just rely on your parents or grants or scholarships. Your education will be a lot more meaningful to you if you have been working hard to pay for it yourself. I saved almost all of the money that I earned through my jobs, but I often wonder if I could have found more ways to earn money if I had just looked harder.
• Try to decide on a major before starting college. It's really helpful to be able to jump right into your major when you get there, rather than taking lots of different classes and hoping you'll find your passion. One really useful thing that I didn't know about was that you can look up the classes that you have to take for the different majors. At BYU they're called MAPS, at other schools they're called degree audits or other things. Look at the various majors and read through the list of classes that you have to take for each major, and also look at possible careers that major could prepare you for. However, it's pretty common for people get to college and then after a year or so realize that they actually want to do something else. I went through all of high school thinking science was awful, and then I got to BYU and took some science classes from people who were actually good teachers, and I realized that I actually really like science, and now I am studying geology. What ended up happening was that I have all of my general education requirements finished (because I was trying to at least accomplish something while I was figuring out what to major in), so now I'm doing just the science classes, which can be kind of draining.
• Make your college education useful. Choose a course of study that will make you a better person, enable you to use your talents to help other people, prepare you for a job, etc. It's a big investment, so think of it that way, not just as the next thing after high school.
• Don't rule out a technical or trade school. There's nothing wrong with studying to be a mechanic or a construction worker or whatever else you can learn at a technical school, and you come away with valuable skills that enable you to work.
• I felt that in high school a lot of learning was by rote memorization. College learning is more conceptual. You've got to understand concepts and be able to apply them to many different problems. If you can figure out how to do that, you will be much more successful, and your education will also be a richer experience.
• Learn how to cook and buy food before you go to college. Homemade food is cheaper and healthier than prepackaged or restaurant food, and if you are already confident with cooking a variety of foods, then making your own meals will not be hard. Also, once you're in college, try to have a little bit of food storage. I'm not necessarily talking about 50-lb. bags of wheat. But I found it comforting to have things like a couple of extra cans of spaghetti sauce or extra bags of rice or pasta.
• The For the Strength of Youth pamphlet still applies when you're in college. Watch wholesome movies, listen to clean music, look for uplifting entertainment, and even when you start to date exclusively, continue to follow the standards given by the church leaders. I know that might seem kind of obvious, but I was very surprised when I got to BYU to find that there were actually a lot of people who seemed to think that those things didn't apply anymore, or not as stringently. In particular, I found that the sections about dating and sexual purity were very helpful when I wanted to know what the limits should be for a boyfriend and girlfriend or two people who are engaged. I had a wonderful roommate who told me about "Celestial dating," and I strongly believe that Ryan and I were blessed because we "dated Celestially" as we prepared for a Celestial marriage in the temple.

Knowledge, a Gift of the Spirit

Today we talked about gifts of the Spirit in Relief Society. It was a lovely lesson and I learned a lot from all that was said.

One of the topics that came up was the gift of wisdom vs. the gift of knowledge. Ever since I was in Young Womens, when we read that there was the gift of knowledge and the gift of wisdom, the explanation I got was something to the effect that knowledge is good, but it's useless unless you have wisdom, and wisdom was defined as actually applying the knowledge. This was the explanation that we got again today, and of course this also led to a discussion about the problem of being "learned" but not hearkening to God, as explained in 2 Nephi 9:28:

"O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish."

I do agree that it is a problem to believe that we are smart enough that we don't need to hearken to God anymore. I don't want to give the impression that I disagree with that.

But as I listened to this discussion today, I got the feeling that this was wrong in the context of discussion the gifts of the Spirit. I don't think we are completely understanding knowledge if we always dismiss the gift of knowledge when we discuss gifts of the Spirit. If knowledge is a gift of the Spirit, then it must be something that God would want us to seek, something that we can use to build His kingdom and bless other people and draw closer to God.

I felt that I should look it up in the scriptures and found that knowledge has an entry in the bible dictionary, which transformed my view of what the gift of knowledge is. I encourage you to look up the entire entry yourself, here. Here are some things that I learned:

• Knowledge is essential for our salvation. If we want to develop a divine nature, to be like God, then we must have knowledge.
• We cannot be saved in ignorance--we must have knowledge of God, and of his ways and works. This knowledge does not come in one revelation, not even for a prophet. It comes line upon line, a little at a time.
• From what the BD says, my conclusion is that the knowledge we are talking about when we discuss gifts of the Spirit is spiritual knowledge. It is the knowledge that we gain by studying the scriptures and the words of the prophets, and by seeking and following personal revelation that reveals eternal truths to us.
• In the verses in 2 Peter (cited in the BD entry), it says to "add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge . . . " The way he says this suggests already having faith and virtue, and then adding the knowledge to those. This suggests to me that the knowledge he is talking about is not something that is unused--it is something that is received after we already have faith and virtue, which are characteristic of action, and therefore I would think that knowledge is also a principle of action.

I guess after learning these things, I'm still left with the question of, "What is the difference between the gift of knowledge and the gift of wisdom?" In fact, it seems even more complicated than before. So I guess I'll have to do more studying, because I don't know how to answer that question. Maybe the line between knowledge and wisdom is kind of fuzzy. I just wanted to point out that it's important to understand that the gift of knowledge is very important. It is something that involves learning incredible and beautiful things--things that are essential to know if we are to become like God and achieve our full potential. I think in the scriptures the word knowledge means something somewhat different than the definition the world would give it.

I also would like to add that I am not saying that secular knowledge is bad or not worth seeking. I do think that spiritual knowledge should have a priority over secular knowledge, but I believe that God wants us to also seek out secular knowledge as much as we can. I will never forget the video I saw once of President Hinckley, in which he marveled at the many things we have learned about chemistry and the many ways that knowledge of chemistry has blessed us in the latter days. My studies of geology have truly increased my faith in God. There have been many times as I have walked out of a class or a lab that I have paused and realized that I could feel the Spirit. At those times I felt even more awed at all of the things that God knows, and all of the planning He did to make a place for His children to have mortal lives. From my own experience I know that if we approach secular learning with a humble attitude and faith in God, the secular knowledge will make us better. Neal A. Maxwell said something once at Education Week that explains this very well:

"I now hasten to add, having said these preliminary things, that the role of secular knowledge is very important. Latter-day Saints should have all the genuine excitement others have in the traditional adventure of learning, including learning secular truths, and we should have a little more. In fact, when we are so learning and so behaving, we are truly “about [our] Father’s business.” This should bring to us a special and genuine zest for learning.

"Furthermore, those of us who have spent much of our lives involved with traditional education regard it as one of mankind’s most useful, productive, and cost-beneficial enterprises. It is even more beneficial, however, when it has the added spiritual dimension. Moreover, secular education wisely does not pretend to give us answers to the great “Why?” questions—any more than you and I would read a telephone directory in search of a plot." (Neal A. Maxwell, "The Inexhaustible Gospel", Ensign, Apr. 1993, 68)

oops

I pushed the Publish Post button instead of the Save Now button while I was working on my previous post. I've added more to it. So if you read this blog by Google Reader or email you might want to go to the actual post to see the rest of what I wrote.

Well, this afternoon was my Calculus final. Unless I did a really horrible job on it (i.e. less than 50%), I should pass the class. So I sold my book back on the way home. We already have two other Calculus books, so I'm pretty sure that will be enough for me to use in the future if I need to look something up. It's quite a relief to be done with this class. It's been a hard semester. But I'm done with all my math for my degree. I still have two semesters of physics (probably calculus-based) and another chemistry class to take, so the really hard classes aren't over yet, but I'm over one of the highest hurdles. It's pretty neat to think of all of the things I've learned since high school. When I graduated, I would never have expected that I would go on to take Calculus 3 and several of those really hard science classes and major in Geology.

We had our quarterly Relief Society activity on Thursday. It was a beautiful program with a reader's theater featuring several of the women in Christ's life, as well as several musical numbers. I ended up volunteering to play the piano for three of the pieces (one women's trio singing Mary's Lullaby, one soloist singing Gesu Bambino, and one flutist playing Bring a Torch, Jeanette Isabella), so I was kept busy throughout the week with practicing those, and I am also on the Relief Society activities committee, so I also helped decorate and "undecorate" the Relief Society room for the activity. When it was all over, though, I was grateful that I had helped as much as I could even though I had a lot of studying to do. I could tell that many of the women who came had felt the Spirit, so that made it worthwhile to me, to know that I had helped other people draw closer to Christ. It was also very fun to spend time talking with my friends in the ward and eating all the yummy treats--we had a lot of really delicious food! At the last minute I asked Ryan to come help with the nursery because we had had a hard time finding men from the Elders Quorum to were able to do it (because they were all taking care of their kids at home so their wives could come), so Ryan and Kevin came along and helped watch kids, eat the leftover food, and take down decorations.

Yesterday we had the new sister missionaries over for dinner. Again, even though I had studying to do I was grateful that I had taken the time for something spiritual. They left a spirit of peace in our home. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but recently I have noticed that the missionaries have been doing a lot more to encourage us to think about ways to share the gospel. For example, when we had the elders over for dinner a while ago, they asked us to specifically think of people who would be receptive to the message of the gospel and write their names down along with a way we could help them feel the spirit. I'm a little more used to them saying, "Well, if you know of anyone who would like to talk to us, feel free to let us know," but I think this new approach is good because it has helped me to feel even more that it is my job to find people for the missionaries to teach, and to think of specific ways I could bring up the gospel with people I know who are not of our faith.

Telling the stories of Jesus

I've been thinking this year that I wanted to do something Christ-centered with Kevin in the days leading up to Christmas. I've seen people who do some really cute things, and maybe in future years I can see myself doing that, but for now I just can't see Kevin appreciating those things. He doesn't have a very long attention span, and the cutesy things would just get torn up or he wouldn't notice. But I still wanted to do something. I wanted him to feel the Spirit testify to him of Christ this year. So I've been pondering about it over the last few weeks.

One night I was lying in bed thinking about it again, and for some reason I heard Elder Neil L. Andersen's voice from his talk in General Conference in April 2010, saying, "Tell Me the Stories of Jesus." (I must really like this apostle, I guess, because his talks keep coming up when I need some answers--like when I blogged about it here.) And I felt that I should tell Kevin a story about Jesus every day as we get closer to Christmas. So I decided to use the gospel art book, and every day I will use one of the pictures and the story that goes with it and tell Kevin the story. It will probably only last a minute or two most times because that's about what his limit is.

Today Kevin was getting frustrated. He was trying to play with a little riding toy, but it was hard when it bumped into things or when he had a difficult time climbing onto it, and it eventually melted into Kevin kicking the toy repeatedly and crying, and then getting mad when he looked up again because the toy was still there and still being uncooperative. At this point I remembered that I was going to start telling him the stories about Jesus today and felt like maybe I should do that now and then put him down for a nap. I wasn't feeling too optimistic considering his emotional state, but I figured that it's good just to do it, so I got out the gospel art book and flipped to the first page with a picture of Jesus. On the left side there was a picture of Jesus, and on the right side there was a beautiful picture of space with dust clouds and stars and galaxies and another picture of the earth from space. So I sat down in a chair with the pictures and pointed to the picture of Jesus and said, "Look, Kevin. This is Jesus." And I told him about how Jesus created the earth for us, and how he also promised that he would come live on the earth himself and suffer for our sins and die for us so that we would be able to repent and be resurrected. You know what? He actually calmed down and stood there and looked at the pictures, and somehow I knew that he had felt the Spirit. It was such a wonderful moment, and I was grateful for the guidance that I received to do this with Kevin. I don't know if every time will be like this, but we'll do our best, and this was a confirmation to me that Kevin really is getting something out of it.

a little guessing game

Guess how much I spent for all of this food.

Yes, that's Ryan's head in the top left hand corner. He thought it would be funny to jump into the picture.

I've been getting a little disenchanted with couponing lately. It's not so much that I don't like clipping the coupons and making the list. I still enjoy seeing how much I've saved. I do feel like it has made a difference in our budget and that it helps us have more money to spend on things like produce. It's just that it's getting harder to find a good time to go grocery shopping. A grocery trip usually takes a couple of hours, whether I clipped coupons or not. That's time that could be spent doing homework or getting dinner ready on time or spending quality time with my friends or with Ryan and Kevin. If I go during the day, Kevin has to come, and that's a pretty long time for him (for those moms who do it with three kids or even more, I really admire you). And it's hard to find a good time to get my list and my coupons ready. If I can just get some uninterrupted time, it doesn't take very long, but if Kevin is underfoot then it's really stressful because he will reach up and take/crumple/scatter everything. Lately I've been getting groceries late at night because Ryan is home and Kevin is in bed, but I don't like to go out in the dark or lose my evening with Ryan. Plus, at night the grocery stores generally just have the self-checkout lines open, which I think is a pain, especially when I'm buying enough stuff that there's not enough room for it in the bagging area, and if you try to move things the computer tells you to put it all back. I ended up doing two transactions because I knew it would never all fit.

So anyway, because of all those things I've found myself skipping grocery shopping lately even if there are some good sales, because I just don't feel like going. But today I decided to make my grocery trip anyway, and when I walked out I realized I had gotten a ton of stuff and hadn't even spent very much. So I guess I'm going to keep watching sales and matching my coupons after all.

My total spent was $18.93. How much would you have guessed?

"sublime"d Cool Whip and stale(r) croutons

We had Thanksgiving with a huge group of friends this year. One of the things we signed up for was the salad (because even though nobody really eats salad for Thanksgiving, you still to have one or it would feel kind of weird). Salads for holiday dinners need to be nice, so of course we bought some croutons to put on the salad. Croutons from Costco. So we now have a huge bag of croutons.

When I was growing up, croutons were for very special occasions. I always wanted to just get a handful of croutons and just eat them plain, but my mom generally said I couldn't. Croutons are for salad. Not just any salad--special salad.

So now I have a huge bag of croutons, but I feel like I can't just eat them plain even though I'd like to. Croutons are for salad. Special salad. So I feel like I need to save them for special salads.

I explained this to Ryan, and he said, "I know. That's why I'm eating them. Because if we don't eat them, then they'll just sit in the pantry and go staler than they already are."

This led to a comparison to what happens to Cool Whip in families that don't use it very often and save it for special occasions. The special occasion just never comes up because they don't use Cool Whip, and then several months later there is freezer burned Cool Whip in the freezer and it gets thrown away. Or there's a mysteriously empty container of Cool Whip that still has the plastic seal around the lid. (This is a process called sublimation, where solids go directly to the gaseous phase. It really happens--watch the snow disappear even when it's never gotten warm enough for it to melt.)

So we made an executive decision, and the executive decision was that we are going to eat our croutons--plain, on our salads at dinner every night, whatever. It will be hard. We may feel guilty at first for being too casual with our croutons. But that seems better than letting perfectly good croutons go stale(r).

True story: My mineralogy professor accidentally dropped a white board marker on his white sweater and then in his frustration he rubbed the eraser all over it (for dramatic effect, I think). Next time we were in class, he informed us that the sweater had been ruined. So then it occurred to me to send an email to him with the subject line "saving your sweater" and suggest that he try rubbing alcohol, hairspray, or oxyclean. He thought it was so hilarious that he was receiving laundry advice from a student (and said he would try it). What can I say--I'm not just a student, I'm also a mother.

I think I'm finally starting to get a better perspective about why I'm really supposed to be in school. I've been a straight A student since 9th grade, and I largely attribute this to all the effort that I put into studying and doing my schoolwork. But this semester I am starting to find that straight A's may not be a possibility for me anymore. It's been really tough this semester to not have a lot of time to study. It's really hard to get much done when Kevin is awake, and by the time he's in bed I don't have a lot of mind power left to study. I'm also taking some really hard classes, and a good portion of the rest of the classes I will have to take are also very difficult classes. It's also been very frustrating to walk out of tests feeling very confident that I got a good grade, only to get the test back and find that I didn't get a very good grade, and all the points I lost were due to dumb mistakes, not because I don't understand the material.

But one thing I'm finally starting to realize is that it doesn't really matter if I get perfect grades in my classes. Even if I don't get A's this semester, that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything. Honestly, I think this semester has been the most uplifting one of my college career, and I have never learned as much in any semester as I have learned this semester. And because of that, breaking my 4.0 isn't as devastating as I thought it would be. I'm still an intelligent person, I still understand the material, I still did my best, and I'm still getting a lot out of my education.

The other reason it doesn't bother me is that I have a better understanding of what this life is about, and even though it's important to learn as much as I can while I am here, my grades are not going to be a factor in whether I receive exaltation. Maybe the world cares about that kind of thing, but God doesn't because he knows what the desires and intentions of my heart are. He knows how to judge me fairly and impartially and he sees me as a person of worth.

Something I hear all the time is, "You're so lucky to get to go to school right now. I miss being in school so much. If I could go back to school, I would really treasure the opportunity. I would work really hard to get good grades and get as much out of my classes as I could."

It's a very good point. It really is a blessing to be able to go to school, to have an opportunity to keep my mind bright and to prepare to get a good job if I were to ever need to work and to learn more about the way this earth works.

I have a hard time keeping that in mind. Honestly, I'm really tired of being in school. This is my fifth year of being in college, and by the time I'm done I will have been working on a bachelor's degree for at least seven years. I'm tired of deadlines and going to lectures and having tons of homework and readings to do all the time. I'm tired of having to put studying before having a clean house and clean laundry. I would really prefer to be simply a stay at home mom, not a mom who's trying really hard to live like a stay at home mom even though I'm actually a mom going back to school. And then I would have time to pursue other interests I have, like music and sewing and cooking and reading.

But despite my frustrations, I do still feel I need to keep going. I have some really great opportunities right now. I get to do things I never would have expected, like look at very thin slices of rocks through a microscope and learn how to identify the minerals that way. Those are things I probably couldn't learn on my own--I just don't have access to that kind of equipment. And as stressful as all the homework deadlines and tests are, I know that if I were to try to learn these things on my own time I would not move through them nearly so fast. I'm learning a lot more in a smaller amount of time than I would if I were just doing it independently. And even though I complain, I do like it. It is making me a better person, and I have felt the Spirit as I study. I will sure treasure my degree when I have finally graduated.

It's been a while since I blogged, but now that I've got a couple of tests out of the way I'm going to make an attempt to catch up--I have five recent blog posts that I started but never finished.

Here's a really long post about what Kevin's been doing lately. I wonder if our future children's lives will get even a fraction of the documentation that Kevin's life has had.

Kevin learned that trick where you use your fingers to pluck your lips and make that Bbbbb, Bbbbb, Bbbbb sound. I am doing a horrible job of describing it, but I have no idea what it's called.

He will also sometimes "tell" us that his diaper needs changed. Or, if he has access to his diaper, he will even try to do it himself. Which is why I love jeans on toddlers.

His favorite book is Moo, Baa, La La La by Sandra Boynton. He loves the animal sounds and asks us to read the book again and again. It didn't take too long for us to memorize it. Any book with animal sounds is interesting to him. He doesn't repeat the sounds, but he does like to hear them. He also asks for If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and Big Red Barn multiple times a day.

Kevin likes to pick up books and "read" them aloud, which is very cute. Once I let him go to bed with a book, and when he woke up I heard him reading to himself in bed. And, knowing that most people do not get the privilege of enjoying Kevin's cuteness as I do, I was even thoughtful enough to do a video of it. (You do not need to watch the whole thing. A couple of minutes will be enough to see him read and jump on the bed a couple of times.)

He is becoming more interested in the process of getting dressed. He will try to put on shirts or shoes and socks.

He knows where his nose, ears, mouth, and head are. I didn't even know he could understand that, but Ryan taught him how and he learned quickly.

Here is a long video. Do not watch it all the way through. It is seven minutes long and mostly consists of boring stuff. But here are some cute parts to skip to:

• The beginning where he is bouncing the ball is cute. Running towards the door and then bouncing the ball off of it is one of his favorite games.
• At about 1:43 he suddenly figures out how to spin in circles.
• At about 4:25 he asks to go to bed.
• At about 5:10 you can hear one of his latest and favoritest vocalizations: "Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh!"
• And the rest of the time he plays with the broom, which might be interesting for a little while, but not for nearly two minutes. (He had been doing so many cute things, I was waiting to see if there was anything else!)

And some cute photos:

(He climbed in himself.)

This was Kevin's Halloween costume. He was very cute. We had very grand plans to make a ragged lab coat from an old button up shirt and spike his hair, and he would be a mad scientist or something and we would be his minions. But I got tired and didn't feel up to driving to the PTA thrift shop to try to find a button up shirt, so this was our backup, and we got lots of comments about the cute Krispy Kreme boy. Kevin did a little trick or treating at the ward trunk or treat party, but he got tired early, so we didn't do any actual trick or treating on the day before Halloween, when several friends in our apartment complex had arranged to have trick-or-treating since Halloween was on Sunday this year. (Besides, I was alone with Kevin because RT had gone to be with his family.) I wasn't really planning on taking him trick or treating anyway. I mean, when you have someone knock on your door holding up a 16-month-old, you know perfectly well that the candy is for the parent, not the child. If I want a bucket of candy, I'm going to buy a bag of candy bars, not go around getting a huge collection of hard candy, which I hate.

You know, I could keep our house a lot cleaner if it weren't for Kevin. Back in my premotherhood days, it was so much easier to clean up after a meal. It consisted of maybe wiping some crumbs or a little bit of sauce off the table, and then dishes and such. But now, after every meal, there's so much cleaning to do! There's the high chair tray, there's his seat where a lot of his food fell, there's the chair that the booster seat rests on, there's the plastic mat under his chair, there's the area that the mat doesn't cover, there's the dishes Kevin got dirty, and then of course there's Kevin's entire body and his clothes. By the time I've cooked dinner, I do not have the energy to clean all of that up as well. And then there's the rest of the living room, where Kevin is not content to play unless he's sitting in a pile of books, paper, cords, and toys. And the amount of time spent on any cleaning endeavor is at least tripled if he is around. I've been giving myself a lot of grief over the last few months over having a hard time keeping up with it all, but thinking a little harder about it, maybe I need to give myself a little slack considering how much my housework load has increased (and that I'm also taking two difficult classes). I still need to keep trying, but I guess all that cleaning, after every. single. meal. would be a little intimidating to most people.

Another thing that has been on my mind is all the food that is wasted by children. At any given meal, a good portion of Kevin's food ends up on his clothes or thrown on the floor and can't be rescued. And then there's also the food that I cooked but then couldn't eat because of food aversions when I was pregnant with Kevin. Then again, Kevin also does a very good job of disposing of leftovers.

Kevin's vocabulary has really grown lately. He knows several signs now: eat, drink, more, nurse/milk, all done, and hot. When he signs hot he also blows on his food, which is very cute. It's very convenient that he understands the concept of hot now, because he realizes you have to wait for the food to cool down or it will hurt to eat it.  He has also started saying a couple of new words (which are not terribly recognizable if you don't hear him saying them all the time). He will say thank you when we give him something or put him to bed, and also sometimes if he gives something to us. He will also point up at the shelf where we keep our Scripture Stories books and say "scriptures" (we read to him from those every night--I guess he is getting something from it after all!). He also says Mama and more, and has started saying uh-oh. You probably wouldn't recognize it as uh-oh because he is actually saying mmm-mmm, but he copies the pitches of the sounds and regularly says it when he drops something or he falls. Saying words has been a very recent development and kind of caught me off guard because I didn't think he was interested in that yet. It has been very helpful for him to be able to communicate most of his basic needs to us.

Kevin has been very interested in fine motor activities lately. For example, the other day he was trying to put a lid on a bottle of baby lotion that he had found (it was still sealed, so spilling it wasn't a concern). It was very frustrating for him if he couldn't hold the bottle still and get the lid on just right, but when he got it on he was very pleased with himself and would clap and grin. He also tries to put together the edging tools on the vacuum. It's fun to see the things that he is learning to do, but it's also hard sometimes because when he can't do the things that he wants to do, he gets really mad and yells and screams. But he's also perseverant, and he will generally calm down and try again and again.

Fairness

State Fairness, to be precise.

Fairs are near and dear to my heart. Starting at age 7, and up till I finished high school, I entered 4-H projects into the Twin Falls County Fair every year. I always entered a sewing project and a cooking project, and I also dabbled in some other projects, like ceramics, babysitting, quilting, and consumer skills (which, at the time, I thought was about how to be trendy, or at least how to be humble about not being very trendy--hence, not my favorite project). My 4-H projects took a lot of effort and preparation, and it was fun to have something to exhibit at the fair (I also got some pretty cool awards over the years). There was an entire 4-H building.

The Twin Falls County Fair was largely about animals. There was a building for cows, a building or two or three for horses, a building or two for sheep and goats and pigs, a building for poultry, and then there were other miscellaneous animals.

We had things we always did at the fair. We always rode rides. We always looked at the animals and our 4-H projects, and the other buildings if my parents could convince us to be interested. We always ate dinner at Papa Kelsey's--individual pizzas or pizza subs and a drink. This was one of the one times we went out to dinner each year, so it was big. And the pizza was really good. The missionaries were generally there helping to serve the pizza, which we thought was pretty cool. We always got balloons. And we always went to see the trains (a pretty neat model train setup which we loved). When I was older we also helped at the 4-H food booth on a different day of the fair.

Our state fair is a great state fair. It's not the Twin Falls County Fair. But we had a good time. We saw a lot of interesting things.

Most people say you go to the fair for the food. They basically sell deep-fried anything you can imagine. I think that's what most people go for--that and the rides. We didn't feel especially interested in eating deep-fried stuff or riding rides, so we mainly went to look around at the exhibits. (This is when I realized that the fair exists so people can advertise their stuff--the steer they raised to be slaughtered, their landscaping business, the handwoven basket business that they run in the middle of nowhere, and so on.)

Near the gate, Ocean Spray was handing out free samples of their new line of juice which has a blueberry base instead of a cranberry base. They were begging people to try all four samples. They were all good.

The first place we went to see was the Village of Yesteryear. It was probably my favorite exhibit at the fair. Basically the building was full of booths where people were selling their crafts, and generally also making the crafts in traditional old-fashioned costumes. Some of the things we saw were people making soap, weaving baskets, polishing rocks, tatting, making chairs, carving wood, and making beautiful things with glass. They were very eager to show people how they did their work. One woman even gave a lady her phone number so that the lady could try a new technique with the craft and call if she had any questions. When I paused to watch a woman doing some tatting, she showed me the basic knot and how to leave loops so that you can make a little flower. She made a flower using larger thread than she normally uses, and once she had finished the flower, she snipped the threads and said, "Here, have a flower." It was very nice. I had to wonder if a lot of these people are the ones that live out in the middle of nowhere and have a shop on the side of their house where they sell all this stuff the rest of the year. Driving in the country, we often see signs advertising different crafts for sale.

We looked around at the landscaping setups that various businsesses had arranged. There were a lot of interesting things to see.

There was a bluegrass group playing on the back porch of an old building. We stopped and listened and enjoyed for a while. I think there are a lot more good bluegrass groups out here in the East. It's a music style that has grown a lot on me since we moved here. One thing that Ryan and I have talked about a few times lately is the way people sometimes say that America has no culture. We do. We have blugrass and country music. We have rodeos and square dances. We have our heritage of pioneers and exploring new territory. We have our deep belief in liberty.

Here's a video of the group:

We looked at the animals. I was underwhelmed. There were tons more animals at the Twin Falls County Fair. Kevin wasn't really interested in the animals.

We looked at a lot of produce. There was more produce than animals. I think this is more of a grow things type state than a raise livestock type state. But I come from more of a grow things type farming family than a raise livestock type farming family, so I can appreciate produce.

To give you an idea of scale, the cucumbers are normal sized. The watermelon is enormous.

An 800 pound pumpkin. I thought it look like a very old, very obese old man. It was so big that it wasn't even nice to look at anymore. But I was still impressed.

Lots of apples.

There was a very interesting exhibit about bees to the side of all the produce. They had a hive and there was a man in a cage surrounded by bees who was talking about beekeeping. They were also selling their honey.

They had some 4-H projects. It was mostly clover buds (the little pre-4-H kids). Like I said at the beginning, the Twin Falls County Fair had an entire 4-H building, so I'm probably hard to impress. But there were also several sewing projects submitted by non-4-H-ers, and those were fun to see. The dresses below were all made by adults, but still, they are very impressive and well-done. I thought my grandma would enjoy seeing them.

The pattern for this red dress was designed by the same person who sewed it. Very neat dress.

Some cakes:

I'm afraid we didn't eat anything deep-fried. Everyone seems to think it's a necessary experience, but it didn't interest us much. There was a lot more food at the state fair than there was at the Twin Falls county fair, and it was spread throughout the entire fair.

A bunch of people were eating these turkey drumsticks. When I was pregnant with Kevin, I tried making a turkey in the crockpot, seasoned with onion soup mix. I had to cut it up and cook it in stages, and it took a couple of days to get it all cooked. By the time the turkey was cooked, I loathed the smell of it, and I couldn't stand turkey until after Kevin was born. The smell of these turkey drumsticks brought it all back, and I did not enjoy it.

Just to give you an idea of the massive amount of people there and all the food they had, here's a couple of photos:

The entire time we were at the fair, Kevin was sitting quietly in his stroller sucking his thumb. Maybe there was so much to see that he didn't have much to say. But once we were in the car, away from the lights and the people, he couldn't stop laughing. It was so hilarious!

I rather enjoyed it when he ripped the window shade. It was a very cheap Babies R Us advertising thing that came with a bunch of samples and a diaper bag a few weeks before Kevin was born, and it ripped before I had even successfully put it on the window for the first time (only about a week before the state fair). The frustration of mounting it on the window was all compensated by being able to see its demise.

So we had a really good time at the state fair. There were new and different things to enjoy that weren't at the Twin Falls County Fair, but it was similar enough to bring back good memories. Next time I think we'll try harder to arrive in the morning, though. The crowds were crazy.

notes from parenting class

On Thursday we had a Relief Society "Parenting Class." The teacher had some really interesting ideas that I thought I would share (and record for future reference).

The first thing she talked about was increasing your ratio of positive things said to negative things said. She said a good goal is 4 positive: 1 negative. The main thing is to try to pay a little more attention to the things you say to your children (and this also works for husbands). You also get positive points for things like making eye contact, spending quality time with the child, and sincerely listening. (And things like continuing to check your email and occasionally grunting to show the child you are "listening" count as negative points.) She said that once they start paying more attention to it, many people start to realize what a big difference negative words and actions can have on a child's behavior and on the parent's relationship with the child.

Another thing she discussed is preventive parenting. This means discussing with the family beforehand what the rules are and how certain behaviors will be handled, and often the children can do a roleplay. One example she gave was for a child who hits his sister and refuses to apologize after doing so. If this is a situation that happens more than once, you talk to the child about it at a time when he is not angry at his sister. You explain to him that it's not nice to hit, and tell him that if he hits again, then he needs to apologize to his sister and tell her he loves her. And then he can practice. "Pretend you just got mad at your sister and hit her, and now she's sad. What do you need to do?" And then he practices apologizing and telling her he loves her. This is helpful because he can practice apologizing when he's not actually angry, so he can think more clearly about it and understand better why it's important to apologize. If there has been some kind of ongoing problem, it's okay to sit down with the family or with the child who needs corrected, and explain that the family is going to change the rules and do things a little differently from now on when that situation comes up. And the roleplaying can also be used for situations that aren't necessarily bad behaviors. An example might be discussing with a child what he would do if he was at a friend's house and they started watching a bad movie, or if there was a new kid in his class who seems very shy.

She also talked about time out. She said that it's important to not make it something shameful by, for example, facing the child towards the wall and scolding in a negative way. You want to choose a place in the house that's very boring and not social. When the child has to be put in time out, you take the child there and nobody talks to the child for however long the time out lasts. If the child runs away, you pick him up and put him back, but don't say a word or even make eye contact. This way, time out doesn't become another way to get attention, because nobody pays any attention to the child and it's very boring. Many children would rather get negative attention than no attention. She said that time out works for children ages 2-12, and after age 12 privileges are a more effective motivation for good behavior. Also, one way to determine how long time out will be is to make it as many minutes as the child's age. When time out seems appropriate, one thing that is helpful is to present a choice. "Remember how we talked about apologizing? Well, you just hit your sister again, so you can either choose to tell her you're sorry, or you can go in time out." Sometimes it's disappointing if they choose time out rather than doing the right thing, but it's also important to let children use their agency to choose. It's important to be consistent with time out, so that they will know to expect it if they do something wrong.

I realize that not all children are the same, and maybe these things won't work for everyone, but I thought she made some really good points. I especially liked the idea of the children practicing what to do before they are tempted, so that when the situation actually comes up, they have made a decision about what they will do, and they are a little more comfortable with doing what's right. It's very good for their brains for them to think about what choice they will make in a certain situation, and it's also a good way for them to develop a clear idea of what the family rules are. I'm also trying to notice whether I am being positive or negative.

On Tuesday night we found out that our niece, Allison, passed away after being hit by a car while she was riding her bike. It came as quite a shock, and all of us are feeling very sad about it. It's hard to believe it. You never expect that kind of thing to happen. Even though our families are spread throughout the country, I think we all still feel each other's love and support for each other, and especially for Allison's family. I've been doing a lot of pondering about the Atonement of Jesus Christ since we heard the news. I thought about what Elder Oaks said in his talk in General Conference in May. When we heard that she had been in the accident, I know all of us had enough faith that God could heal her. But for some reason that wasn't what was supposed to happen. Sometimes we have to suffer in this life, because if it was all happy and easy we wouldn't be able to learn and grow from our trials and sorrows. I thought about Alma 40:11: "the spirits of all men, as soon as they are departed from this mortal body . . . are taken home to that God who gave them life." Allison's parents were married in the temple and their family is sealed together, and I know that one day they will be reunited with her, never more to part. And I know that Christ has the power to raise Allison from the dead through resurrection, and that one day he will do it. I know that Christ loves Allison, and all of us. That is why he suffered in Gethsemane, and that is why he died and was resurrected--because he loved us so much that he was willing to make that sacrifice so that we would have repentance and forgiveness available to us and so that we could all be resurrected. I have no doubt that these things are true. It makes a lot of things seem much less important when you remember what this life is really about, and what we have the potential to become.

another haircut

No, sadly, I still haven't gotten a haircut.

Saturday I cut Ryan's hair for the first time. Following the instructions that came with the clippers, I began with a 6 on the bottom near his neck, then tried the 7 a little higher up. All I could think was that it looked really strange and I had no idea what I was doing. Then we realized how long Ryan's hair was on top and decided to do an 8 there. I ended up doing an 8 all over his head, and then redoing the 6 and 7 and doing things around the ears and taking off the neck hair. Next time I'm going to ignore the instructions and just start with the 8 in the first place. Once it was all a manageable length, it was much easier. Considering that it was my first time giving a haircut, I think it turned out pretty nicely. And, best of all, he didn't go to the barbershop and get his hair cut 1/8 of an inch long like he normally does (which is why we bought the clippers).

Ryan is great. There was no worrying about me messing up his hair or not doing a good job. I guess we figured that the worst thing that could happen would be that we would have to just cut it all 1/8 of an inch long, which is what he would have asked the barber to do anyway. I'm grateful that he's so supportive. Honestly, it wasn't me saying I wanted to try cutting his hair and Ryan being reluctant. It was Ryan saying it was time for a haircut and me being scared to death that I'd ruin it and he'd hate it.

Tiny hairs all over the bathroom counter provided a good excuse to clean the counter. I'm always amazed at how little time it takes if I just make myself do it.

Ryan refuses to cut my hair. If people are impressed by my long hair, maybe they don't realize that I haven't had it cut at all since a month before Kevin was born. Other things just seem more important, and I still need to find somewhere better than Supercuts without spending more than $30.

I also managed to vacuum on Saturday. It would be a much faster process if I didn't have to deal with Kevin throwing toys all over the floor as fast as I try to pick them up, because then I could clear the floor and vacuum it and be done.

In a Don Aslett book I read a long time ago, he talked about how you should clean your bathroom and vacuum the floor every day. In some ways it makes sense because if you do it every day it would be a quick process. I learned pretty quickly when I worked as a custodian at BYU that you don't have to mow the carpet every time you vacuum--most days you can just get the visible stuff. But I still feel like I would be a slave to the housework if I tried to do it that way.

God sees things differently

During my senior year of high school, I had a lot of great experiences and opportunities. I was very busy. To name a few things, I was preparing for a senior recital, taking oboe lessons (which was made possible by a scholarship that paid for my lessons, books, and reeds), playing in a community symphony, learning an oboe piece for the Idaho state solo event, applying for scholarships, and taking the most difficult classes my high school offered. So I knew it was a little crazy when for some reason I felt like I should also participate in the Miss Kimberly scholarship pageant. I knew it would be a big time commitment. But looking back I think there was some encouragement from the Holy Ghost involved. So I did the Miss Kimberly pageant too. I worked very hard to prepare for it. The night of the pageant came, and all of us girls had a really good time presenting it all.

I didn't get a single award. All of us had become good friends and we had such a good time that I drove home feeling happy because it had been a good experience and a fun evening. But I was trying really hard not to feel disappointed. I had kind of been expecting to get the Talent award, and I was really confused when another girl's performance of the first page of Fur Elise was more impressive to the judges than my piano piece, which was more difficult than Fur Elise. But like I said, we had all become friends, and I wasn't bitter against any of the girls who had won awards. Mostly I was wondering if it had been pointless to even participate. I was wondering why I had bothered to do the pageant, especially when I was working on so many other things that I felt were more valuable experiences to me (largely because I had been given so many amazing opportunities to develop my talents on the oboe and piano that year).

And here is where I am reminded of the men in Zion's camp, who walked miles and miles every day  and got sick and endured hunger and fatigue, expecting to be able to fight to save the people in Missouri, and then when they arrived Joseph Smith received a revelation and learned that they were not to fight. Well, was it worth it to go? Yes. Many of the men that were faithful during Zion's camp became leaders of the church with strong testimonies. They did not take back Zion, but it was a training experience and a test to see who would be faithful despite those hardships. So in the Lord's eyes, yes, Zion's camp was worth it.

I don't want to compare the Miss Kimberly pageant to Zion's camp, because my experience wasn't nearly as difficult as Zion's camp. But what I gradually realized was that even though I didn't get any awards and didn't even feel that I had learned very much from the experience, God saw things differently. Just as for Zion's camp, he had different motives for me than what I had expected.

Soon after the pageant was over, I realized that things had changed between me and one of the other girls who had participated. We had silently been rivals for several years, probably since elementary school. We were both very good students and also talented musically. It didn't make a lot of sense, because she was a singer, and I played the piano and oboe. How can you have a competition to see if one person is better at singing than the other is at playing the piano? It's not that we hated each other. We never fought or gossiped about each other. It was just this silent tension that I often felt. If the choir teacher asked me to sing a part for the alto section, I sensed that this girl was feeling a little resentful towards me over in the soprano section. But somehow, working together and spending time together as we got ready for the Miss Kimberly pageant changed our feelings towards each other. We enjoyed talking to each other, and I didn't feel like I had to write a better essay than she did for AP English.

So the reason it was worthwhile for me to be in the Miss Kimberly pageant was because it helped this girl and me to forgive each other and become friends. All of that effort and memorizing and practicing was not so I could become more confident or be a better public speaker or become passionate about my platform topic. It was so that this girl and I could have an opportunity to change our relationship.

Overcoming this problem also helped prepare me to go to BYU. I remember when I arrived there, it seemed like everyone thought they were talented. They had been in 20 AP classes and had received such and such award for playing the piano and they were in the madrigal choir at their high school and had played the lead in the school play and on and on. And then after a few weeks, a lot of these people were devastated because they realized that everybody else did the same thing and is just as talented. Well, I think that learning to respect my friend from the Miss Kimberly pageant, and being able to wish her well in her musical career without having to compare myself to her, prepared me to go to BYU with a more humble attitude. It didn't matter so much to me if I was better at the piano, or if I was a better singer, or if I got a better grade than someone else. My worth doesn't depend on being better than someone else, and I didn't feel a need to prove to people that I was smart or talented.

So even though at the end of the pageant I was asking myself if it was worth it to participate, God knew how to make it a valuable experience for me. It wasn't awards or admiration or getting skills of some kind that made it valuable to me. God had more eternal lessons in mind for me to learn. "The world" might look at the time I spent on the pageant and say, "Look, you didn't get anything. You didn't get any awards, you didn't learn anything, and in the end it cost you a lot of time that you could have spent applying for scholarships or doing homework." But God looks at all that hard work and says, "Look at the results of your labors. You forgave someone. You learned to want her to succeed. You learned to be humble and recognize that you don't have to compare yourself to other people to feel good about yourself." In God's perspective, those lessons are truly valuable and worth the effort I put into the pageant.

a website I like

Project Vote Smart

I used this website for the last election to help me make educated votes. My favorite tool on the website is the Political Courage Test. Candidates are given questions about their positions on key issues. If they respond with definite answers, they get a good score on the political courage test. I find it very useful because it requires candidates to be straightforward about their positions. Many people who run for political positions are so vague about issues that are really important, so I love that this is a way for me to see if a candidate is willing to give a definite opinion and find out what that opinion is. The candidates will also sometimes have comments to explain why they have a certain opinion or how they would solve a specific problem.

Project Vote Smart also provides other information, such as how a candidate voted on a bill, statements a candidate has made, and which interest groups they support or don't support.

For the last election, once I had a sample ballot from the Daily Tar Heel (with all of the Democrats' bubbles already filled in--thanks, but I'll think for myself on this one), I looked up all of the people on Project Vote Smart. For the people who weren't on Project Vote Smart (or who declined to take the political courage test), I googled their name to find their website and other resources about them. I ended up voting for some Democrats and some Republicans, and for some I didn't vote. It felt good to cast my vote and know that I had put some effort into my choices. The political courage test on Project Vote Smart was helpful in speeding up the process because a lot of the information I wanted about the candidate was right there on one page.

I think it's interesting and really annoying that UNC and NCSU both send me spam. They've passed my email address on to all the apartment complexes and stores around. I can't think of any other way that those people could have gotten my email address.

There's a girl and a guy in my mineralogy class who act like they're dating, or at least working toward that point. I personally wish they would stop sitting by me so that I could actually get a partner to work with on the in class exercises (because they obviously always pick each other).

Sunday we found out that our stake is changing the boundaries for several wards, including ours. I was very sad to find that many wise and kind people who I admire are no longer going to be in our ward. We will be more of a student ward than ever now. One thing that is very positive about this is that it sounds like one of the reasons they felt they needed to change the boundaries was because the church is growing here. That is great news.

I remember when I was at BYU it seemed so weird when people in my classes were married and they would talk about their husbands. Now I'm on the other side and I'm the weird married person talking about my husband and my son. I'm sure it's even less common here for undergraduate students to be married, so it's probably really strange when people in my classes find out that I'm married. The other day I was on the bus with Kevin, and a guy from my mineralogy class got on the bus with a friend. He was really surprised to see Kevin on my lap. He said, "You . . . you have a child! Where did he come from?" (At which point his friend slapped his forehead.) I told him he's mine. I always feel like I need to clarify that I'm married and that we were married before we decided to have kids. I probably don't have to feel obligated to explain anything, but I don't like the idea of people making assumptions about me that are completely untrue.

Kevin has recently started trying to feed me. He thinks it's a very fun game. It started a couple of Sundays ago when he started offering me pieces of a blueberry muffin. One day I got to eat some stale cheerios covered in pears and blueberry yogurt. Um . . . yum? At any rate, it's very sweet of him. Sometimes I am very pleased to find that he is "sharing" food that he stole from me.

Kevin is starting to sign "eat." I had practically given up on him ever doing any signs because he just wasn't interested in repeating them, but I guess he finally realized it would be a useful skill in order to communicate his most desperate needs, which of course are food and cheerios. Now he signs "eat" whenever he thinks about it, and I find myself wondering if he's been starving all along or if he just thinks it's fun to be able to ask for food and then actually get it. He also will do the sign for "more," but he kind of seems to think that "more" means cheerios. "All done" looks the same as when he waves hi. He does the sign for "eat" and "drink" the same way, which I guess is understandable because when your hands are that small the signs do kind of look the same. It's fun that he has a way of communicating without whining, though. I think he will like it. Lately I kind of figured it wouldn't be too long before he started saying words or signing, because it's been getting very frustrating for him to not be able to tell us what he wants.

The things he is learning lately have been really amazing. He has really developed a lot both physically and mentally in the last couple of months.

Kevin loves to bang on the keyboard and click with the mouse, and somehow he actually seems to manage to do things . . . like make my emails disappear. A few weeks ago he somehow changed the language on the computer to Finnish. He also discovered a neat trick for us. We already knew that if you press Ctrl+F then you can search for words on a page. But if you want to close that bar on the bottom of the page you have to click the X. But there is a Quick Find, which you bring up by pressing the / button and then typing what you want to search for. And if you don't type anything for a while, it just disappears. Kevin figured out how to do that for us, just by banging on the computer.

On Sunday morning Kevin sat on my lap and ate my oatmeal with me. It was a sweet moment. I found myself thinking we were experiencing a bit of Heaven. Things got sweeter when he got his hand in the brown sugar and ate a handful.

Then I came in here to add that little moment to this post, and as I typed it, Kevin stood here right beside me drawing on the desk with a permanent green marker. So sneaky. I had no idea he was doing that. (By the way, rubbing alcohol works great for removing permanent marker from surfaces.)

When Kevin goes to sleep at night he likes to suck his left thumb and hold a blanket with the same hand. Sometimes he goes and gets his blanket and asks to be put to bed. Okay, Linus.

I've been trying to implement a new rule where we only eat at the table. We always eat meals at the table. I've been finding lately that even though it may be convenient to just hand Kevin a cracker and let him loose, or give him a bowl of something to eat by the kitchen gate so he's happy while I'm trying to make dinner, it seems to cause a lot of hassle. At least if Kevin throws his food at the table, it's only at the table. This afternoon we came in from playing at the playground and I was going to give Kevin some Cheerios as a snack, but he threw the Cheerios all over the floor, and then as I was trying to pick them up he got ahold of the box and dumped the entire box all over the floor and was running his hands all through those trying to scatter them everywhere. Well, I decided he had earned a time out in his crib. And I picked up the Cheerios and put them back in the box. It was a pain. Every time I forget and let Kevin eat somewhere other than the table, I regret it. So even if it's just to eat a cracker, I've decided that it's got to happen at the table. If he really is hungry, then it shouldn't bother him to eat in his seat.