Dropping the Subject

Lately Kaleb has had a really hard time accepting decisions of authority figures (aka Karl and I). For example: he really likes to be tucked in by Karl and I. So we both tuck him in, then he gets out of bed for some reason, and wants tucked in again. So he'll ask: Tuck me in Mom? and I say: No, I already did. So he repeats: Tuck me in Mom? again and again, for about 5 minutes, until Karl or I get frustrated enough to threaten that he will lose his privileges, at which point he stops, for at least a minute or two before starting again.
I find this really annoying and have been struggling with it, especially for the past week or so. Finally I realized what to do about it. I taught him the skill of "accepting no". This is how I taught him the skill:
1. Ask the question
2. Listen to the answer and accept it.
3. Say Ok.
4. Drop the subject.
Kaleb is doing great with this. He is having a hard time recognizing what the answer is, so I clarify: the answer is no. He says ok, and then holds out a fist, fingers down and opens his hand, so it looks like he's dropping something. I'm not sure where he got this idea from, but it works, and he doesn't bring up the topic again.
Kaleb is getting some awesome benefits from this. The first is that he has happier parents who aren't frustrated all the time, and the second is that I actually say yes more often because I'm not frustrated.
Awesome skill to have.

Gratitude

Last night something sad happened. Our TV broke. Our nice 50" TV. I was really sad, and frustrated until Karl looked up our warranty and found out that it was covered. The TV repairman should be here in a day or two, but we decided to bring our small TV out of our bedroom so we can watch TV until then. So after Karl brought it out and set it up I started watching the TV show I wanted to watch.
At first I was amazed at how small the 26" widescreen TV was. Then my attitude changed. I remembered the 20" TV Karl and I bought when we got married. We used that for 4 years and were happy with it. Even our small TV now is bigger than that one. It just made me grateful for the blessings I have.
What blessings do you take for granted?

Cravings

I think cravings are really interesting. I've heard of people who crave pickles or ice cream while they're pregnant, but I haven't had those cravings. The interesting thing about them is that I always thought that you craved something and then when you had it the craving went away. Maybe that's the case for some people, but not for me.
When I was pregnant with Kaleb I craved steak. I wanted it ALL the time. We would buy roasts and have the butcher cut in into steaks so it wouldn't be very expensive. There was awhile during the pregnancy that I would eat steak 3-4 times each week. The funny thing about this is that I really didn't like steak, either the texture or the taste, but I WANTED it!
Von's pregnancy I craved 2 things. For the first 4-5 months I craved Panda Express Chinese Food. I had some from other places and it didn't satisfy me at all, it had to be theirs. During this pregnancy I was working, so each day I worked I would have Panda Express for lunch. It was delicious. Eventually this craving wore off and I started craving vegetables. I wanted lots of them. The one I wanted the most was carrots, or steamed cauliflower.
So far this pregnancy I have had 2 main cravings as well. The first was fruit. Mostly mangoes, apples, dried apricots and grapes. There are still few things that satisfy me like a big bowl of red grapes. For the last month or so I've gotten a new craving: Water. Not just out of the tap though, it has to be COLD. So I fill up my water mug with filtered water, and put it in the fridge overnight. During the day I put a bunch of ice cubes in and wait for them to make the rest of the water cold.
This craving has a negative side effect, especially since I'm drinking at least a gallon of water everyday, most of which happens to be in the evening. So I wake up a lot in the night too.
At least this craving is inexpensive, all it has cost so far is $1- for the new ice cube trays that actually let the ice cubes out.
What crazy cravings have you had?

Honesty

Karl and I took the boys to get new coats at Sears today. Kaleb's coat from last year had a tear in the lining, so I was planning on taking advantage of their kid-vantage program. This is a program they have that if you buy something and it wears out, you can get another of the same size, for free. I thought it was only valid for the same kid that you bought it for in the first place, but had decided to pretend the coat was for Kaleb, even though it was for Von.
After trying on coats Karl said we really should just buy each of them a coat and forget doing the kid-vantage. I really didn't want to buy 2 new coats, but I thought he was right. So I decided to clarify my understanding of the program.
I asked the cashier if the kid-vantage had to be for the same kid, and she said it only had to be the same size. Hooray!
So both my boys have new winter coats, and we only had to pay for one. I'm glad we were honest about it, and that it worked out to our advantage.

BTW, as we were leaving Sears I saw Melanie Farnsworth. She's in town for her son's wedding next week. How often do you randomly run into someone you know that happens to live in a foreign country?

Learning from Experience

Throughout my life I have learned a lot of things from experience. The first thing that comes to mind is cars. This is what I've learned from my experiences with cars:
-Running out of gas is embarrasing, but causes no damage to the car.
-Running out of oil is NOT like running out of gas. It is not only embarrassing, but it also turns your engine into a really expensive piece of useless metal.
-Running out of transmission fluid is bad for your transmission, if your car isn't shifting gears smoothly, check the transmission fluid.
-Using expensive window cleaner that has a lower freezing temperature is worth the price. It really stinks to have to pull over every five minutes to throw a snowball at your window because your windshield is dirty and your windshield cleaner is frozen.
-If your car is rocking up and down while you drive down the street, you probably have a flat tire.
-It is important to have a jack in your car, and a 4 way lug wrench. The 4 way part is mostly just important if the nuts were put on too tightly.
-Highway patrolmen are really nice about changing your tire for you when you don't have a lug wrench (at least the one that helped me was).
-Having your car looked at occasionally by a good mechanic can save you some serious money and frustration down the road.
-Maintenance is less expensive, and better timed than getting stuff fixed is.

So that is most of what I've learned from experience about driving cars. The important thing about all of these is that I learned from them. I am probably more careful about checking oil than any person I know.
While it's important to learn from your own experiences, there is something more important: learning from other people's experiences. These experiences usually don't have as huge an impact on your own life, and as such they are harder to remember, but if you try, you can learn a lot from other people.

Stress Reduced.

The last 2 days have been crazy! It all started with an email from UVU saying that I owed $150 for tuition. I couldn't figure out why I would owe ANY since I had paid tuition last week and according to my receipt had a zero balance.
After looking at my email more closely I realized that I was only signed up for 5 credits. Apparently one of my classes that I thought was a 3 credit class is only 2 credits. Thanks to student loan rules and grant rules I have to have at least 6 credits each semester I go to school. So I was one credit short. I looked up classes and found what I already knew, there were no classes in my major that were less than 3 credits, (how did I luck out in getting in the one class that is, without knowing it?) The only classes I could find that were possibilities were some type of PE class. If this was next semester I could add an aerobics class and be fine, but I don't think baby Eddie could handle that right now.
I emailed my advisor and asked for ideas. She suggested a class from the college learning success field. I found one I thought would work and got ahold of the teacher. She agreed to let me add, if I promised to be caught up by the 19th. She even said she would take care of the adding so I wouldn't have to deal with getting an add card signed and everything. One headache over.
Once I was successfully added I checked my tuition balance. Now instead of owing $150 I owed about 3x that. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!! Karl wanted me to call the school and find out why it had gone up so much, but I was worn out from everything else and figured no one would be at the school that late anyway.
This morning I was about to call the school and decided to pull up my account so I would have all the information in front of me while I was asking questions. Something had happened to my account overnight. The $150 grant that had been taken off my account was added back on, and my other grant had raised. Apparently adding 2 credits made a difference in how much grant money I could get. So now my account balance was again zero.
I printed it off so I would have proof that I had a zero balance and looked a little mroe closely at the summary. Sometime soon I should get a refund for part of the tuition I already paid!
This is one of those times that while I was frustrated and stressed I know Heavenly Father was taking care of everything. It helps me know that getting this degree is what I'm supposed to be working on right now. And helps me remember that he is in control.

ZZZZ, They fell asleep how?

I have an ability that is quite useful sometimes and really frustrating at others. I can fall asleep anywhere. Church meetings and school are the easiest, but I'm getting better at staying awake at both.
My boys have inherited this ability from me. They have fallen asleep almost everywhere, including the playhouse in the backyard, under the table, on the kitchen floor at my friend's house while we were canning, and quite often on stairs. Here are some pictures of them sleeping:







This one is about 10 minutes later








During a haircut