Fourth of July on the Pier

Whistling for Fish

I am totally convinced that fishing is a genetic thing. Either you understand it at a primal level -- or you don’t. I always thought that Brett got all the fishing genes for the entire family, but last week I suspected that perhaps I ended up with a few left over fishing chromosomes. It happened like this:

When school was finally out on June 22, we decided to get away to our new favorite playground … CANADA!

We drove along the majestic golden coast highway admiring the fjords and mountains until we arrived at our first camping spot .. Alice Lake.

I untangled the 6 bicycles tied to our 4 bike rack, and the kids were off! Zach and Alex to Jack’s Trail, a narrow path over rocks and slippery tree roots which I found a little challenging and Zach pointed out was only a green circle (“easiest”).

After thoroughly exploring the area on bikes, the two kids who HAVE the fishing gene, Alex and Nigel, wanted to give it a try. I sat down on a bench and after about 20 minutes I was able to successfully tie on two hooks and bait the poles. About that time, Julia wandered down to the lake to see what this fishing thing was all about.

Compared to Julia who has zero fishing experience, I am a relative expert (meaning that even though I never catch anything I have spent lots of hours hanging out on docks and shores talking with the guys and I have spent several hundred dollars on bait and hooks) and I patiently explained to her that fishing consists of (1) casting (keep it out of the trees) (2) waiting for an eternal 5-10 minutes until you reel in your line to discover that the weight you felt pulling your line was really just a twig and (3) untangling your line and replacing whatever got lost. If you are lucky it is just your bait, if you are not you have to re-tie a new weight, spinner and hook. I then showed her a sample cast and handed her the pole while I turned back to setting up two more rods for the other two boys who would be along shortly.

Julia took the pole and said, “So what do I do now, just sit around? Maybe I should go get a book.” Just then I noticed the tip of her rod jerking back and forth and side to side, easily the most lively stick I had ever experienced. “I think you have a fish!” I yelled.

“What do I do next?” Julia asked, panicked. “REEL it in!” “How?” “Turn the handle!”

Well you’ll never believe it but about 30 seconds after the cast hit the water, we had pulled in nice fat rainbow trout, Julia’s first fish – ever!

That was when I first suspected that perhaps there were a few latent alleles of the fishing gene in me after all. I got so excited, I hooked up the remaining poles and all the kids began casting wildly. Tim’s first few casts were in the tree, but hey, he had to learn somehow, right? Similarly Nigel had several snags which required me to retie his whole setup, but he is only 4 so I tried be patient. Zach crossed Alex’s line several times requiring me to cut the line, and as I tied more hooks and replaced more bait I became increasingly frustrated. Every cast seemed to result in a snag requiring me, the only one who knew the fishing knot, to re tie. This went on for several hours until I had completely exhausted the large supply of hooks and bait in the yard sale tackle box. By that time, my enthusiasm for fishing had wilted considerably. Still we ended up with 3 nice rainbows. Julia baked one in the coals stuffed with bacon and onions. The next two we ate for breakfast.

The next day dawned cloudy. I have read that in Alaska, the Eskimoes have over 20 different words for snow. In the great Northwest, we have over twenty different words for rain. A typical description of a camping trip might be like this:

On the first day, it started out lightly overcast but we caught a couple of nice sunbreaks in the afternoon and it only drizzled through the night. The next day was grey, but we got by with light jackets and it cleared up considerably by evening. We saw white clouds and blue sky on the third day.

I realized that I was indeed camping in the great northwest when I saw a group of Canadian kids trotting down to the lake with their damp towels under a grey and dreary sky for a nice swim in 60 degree weather.

In other words, in the great northwest, we deal with the rain by pretending it is not there. That’s what we did when we decided to bike all of Jack’s trail. Slinging down the slippery tree roots on my bike and thinking about the x-ray of the broken collar bone which our home teacher proudly showed us kept me on my toes (literally). I kept wondering, as Zach and Alex barreled down the hill in front of me, how I would be able to carry a kid and two bikes down the mountain if someone got injured. I answered this question by reasoning that this scenario was unlikely, since if anyone was going to be injured it would probably be me.

Through a combination of luck, minimal skill and walking on the steepest and slipperiest parts of the trail, we made it all the way down and Julia met us in town at the bottom of the mountain.

We bought several more packs of hooks and bait and went back to fish. After several more hours of tying line, breaking hooks, re tying and untangling snags, I decided that any fishing gene fragments I had probably came from fishermen who used NETS rather than LINE. We didn’t catch anything, which I found reassuring to be back to normal. The previous day had been like a bad fever -- hot in order to burn away any desire to make fishing a way of life.

That night, it rained. Now, for many campers, the fact that your tent has puddles in the corners and water is soaking in to your clothes would be a deterrent to further camping in the great northwest. We just call it sleeping in a waterbed.

We packed up our wet stuff and headed for our second destination – Whistler. Julia had carefully researched lodgings and had reserved a fabulous campsite right next to the river – coming straight off the glacier. The day was cool and overcast and with out wet tent and bags, the prospect of getting rained on again was daunting. But, in true pioneer spirit we refused to turn back and considering our options and being resourceful, we quickly upgraded to a cozy heated cabin.

That night, as we sat in our cabin playing games after warm showers, Nigel prayed that the next day “the rain would go away and the blue sky would come” and so it did. Our prayers were answered with a glorious day biking in Whistler. The highlight came at the end, when two bears walked right by us on the bike path. We went to Whistler village to watch the extreme biking championship and topped it off with dinner at the old spaghetti factory. Everyone slept on the 3 ½ hour drive home and they all missed some of the most incredible scenery I have seen as I watched the sun set on the Howe Sound.

All in all it was a great family vacation and I now feel that summer has finally come.

PS On the Fourth of July I discovered where my latent fishing talent lies. We threw our crab pots off the pier and went biking and in a few hours we had caught 9 crab. Nobody else on the dock caught much at all. At the barbecue that night we all ate as much crab as we wanted and there was lots left over for crab pasta and crab salad the next day. I never thought I would tire of eating crab, but we have about ½ pound in the freezer for the first visitor who wants to come to Whistler with us.

Parenteen

I'm trying desperately to escape the smothering, gooey, coax-and-coddle parenting so popular with my generation but I just can't...overcome...gravity... And so tonight I found myself doing something my parents would NEVER have done. Try to imagine it--my mother, 10 pm on a school night, hunched over the computer anxiously helping type up reams of "Campbell for Secretary" stickers. Dad helpfully coming home early from work to brainstorm campaign strategy. Yeah.

Anyway. Tom is helping Zach write a speech. I am helping him design a poster. Tom and Zach have invented a slogan. I put the slogan on a poster-sized sticker (yes, they really have these. Fred Meyer. Quick stop on the way home from Cub Scouts/Activity Days/Primary Presidency Meeting.) Now the slogan has been supersized and put in a slogan-appropriate font, Zach is trying hard to hide his consternation. I see it dawning. Mom and Dad have seemed a little less smart lately, but suddenly he KNOWS it. He really, really KNOWS it. If they ever had to survive a day in the halls of middle school, they would be teased. Humiliated. They would eat their lunch in the library. They have NO IDEA HOW TO SURVIVE. And if he takes their slogans and spiffy ideas anywhere near Shuksan Middle School, he will be ANNIHILATED.

He's backpedaling, pretty graciously for a seventh grade boy. He's offering his suggestions while trying to defer without giving in to the parental ideas. *Sigh.* Who knew this campaign was going to be so hard. But he's definitely showing his political savvy. Go Zach.

I realize two things, as I tenderly tuck my seventh grade boy into bed and quietly toss the darling "Zach's Got Your Back/Mumford for Secretary" half sheet stickers with black and white line-drawn head shot (seemed like a good idea at the time...really) into the garbage.

Number one is that by the time you get a teenager to parent, you're forty or pretty close. You've lost it, if you ever had it. You're tone deaf to the language of thirteen year olds. You are not cool--or you probably are because *cool* is not cool. You need to let your teenager handle his own campaign.

Number two is that if I had to walk in the doors of Lincoln Middle School again tomorrow, I'd be just as miserable as I was the first time around. I have learned very little in life that would make me better at middle school. Thank goodness.

May I be graceful enough to keep my mouth shut, remember where the trash can is, and have faith that Zach will do better all by his little lonesome self than he ever will with two meddlesome forty year olds running along behind plying him with pathetic slogans that probably would not have elected anyone even in the 80s.

Snot & Boogers

What Tim doesn't get, honestly, is why people think it's disgusting. "I mean," he says, "they just go down your throat the backwards way anyway, so when they come out your nose, why shouldn't you recycle them? That's not gross, it's just natural."

Squeamishness is such a satisfying state of mind, but squeamlessness is more lucrative. Think dentistry. Sure, marketing managers get to wear Brooks Brothers and comprehend The Office, but do they make as much as Urologists? We may as well focus on the positives of squeamlessness, because Tim is what he is. Now and forever. And fortunately, we have, this very week, seen one of the brighter sides of this personality trait. Tim narrowly missed suspension (for a third incident of fighting on the playground) thanks to quick thinking plus the contents of his nostrils.

The problem was simple. A girl--a girl--challenged him to a fight. Never mind what for. Nobody seems to know. But we DO know that equality of the sexes means you pretty much have to fight all challengers, even the ones in eighties style ruffled micro-minis, and somehow refusing to fight a girl makes you even more than just the ordinary kind of chicken. As Tim earnestly explained, "I know I'm not supposed to fight girls, but I had no choice. It was an impeachment to my honor."

So, standing there on the playground nervously facing a girl, caught between the principal and at least a month without dessert on the one hand, and a lifetime of his classmates' scorn on the other, Tim needed a little miracle. Fortunately, this all happened on his birthday, and as he puts it, "I had a bit of birthday luck."

Just as the efficient machine of womanhood (this is second grade, remember, when the boys still lag behind the girls in both size and coordination) charged him, a brilliant thought occurred. Standing his ground, no doubt with that unholy and gleeful smile I love on his face, Tim quickly emptied the contents of his nose into his palms and held them straight out in front of his body. According to him, "It stopped her in her tracks!"

So much for Lorian, terror of the second grade. And if any of you wise guys have visions of explaining to Tim that "suspension" means a day off school ("This kid was so bad, we're going to give him a FREE VACATION!"), think again. Do it and I'll assign you to "office support duty" during the next playground incident crisis.

I noticed this summer when Tim visited Brett and Alison that suddenly Brett had all the great stories and I had none. I really am tremendously indebted to this creative, insightful, lovely child of mine. The ten minutes I spend tucking him in to bed are always richly repaid. I just hope that somehow, someway, I will be given the wisdom to help him connect with something that will lead him into the amazing adulthood he deserves. The fear that I may not be able to do it keeps me awake nights. I'm glad he has more than just me pulling for him.

Rivers of Mucus

Let that title be a WARNING to you. If you have a weak stomach, don't read on.

I've been overwhelmed by slimy green goop, which has in the last 24 hours pretty much solidified to the consistency of double bass rosin. Okay, so you've never seen a tub of double bass rosin. It's so viscous that it appears solid, but if you tip the little canister it comes in, you'll discover that over a period of hours it responds to the forces of gravity and moves into a new shape. Last night I lay down on my left cheek and over the eight hours that I slept (remember Mother's Day. They let me sleep in.), the approximately one gallon of semi-solid mucus in my head shifted left, leaving me with a terrific headache and a lopsidedly swollen face. Ugh. This is just the second sinus infection of my life, but I'm starting to understand why people go to such weird extremes (snorting the contents of a neti pot, installing eucalyptus steam jets in the shower, submitting to that surgery where they chisel out your sinus cavities) to try to avoid sinus problems.

Anyway. Done moaning, but trust me, I needed to.

New topic. I loved Women's Conference! The conversation started at the Seattle Airport, wove in and out of the next two days of classes, and didn't truly stop until we were back at the Airport. It was hard to say goodbye. The classes were good--inspiring, motivating, full of insights--but the company was the best. Hurrah for eternal and amusing families! This time I felt that power of sisterhood and it was more than a cliche. How amazing to be there with thousands and thousands of women dedicated to service and righteousness. I've never been able to see that beyond the outward stuff that bugs me, but this time I really got it (as Kim can testify--I was moved to tears in the the crocheted mittens line).

I also thought (during Women's Conference) that I had made a marvelous new health breakthrough--sudafed plus as many ibuprofen as necessary (a cocktail recommended to me by Brett a long time ago) doesn't just make you feel better--it RESTORES YOU TO HEALTH!! You can ignore that pesky little cold that was keeping you down. Travel, stay up all night, eat mint brownies, be merry, for tomorrow there will still be sudafed and vitamin I! Ah, the body takes its ultimate revenge. My sudafed no longer comforts me, and my ibuprofen no longer makes me well. I have come to the valley of the shadow of secondary infection and I have learned my lesson. I know, Dad, I know. I was driving the combine with the air conditioning on and the stereo up full blast. I won't do it again anytime soon. I am forty and I know it.

Hubris

While sitting at the organ today, I looked lovingly at my husband and three youngest children and thought, "Just look at that! Only three short years ago, we were the subjects of an entire fireside addressing irreverence in our ward. But NOW! Look at us! WE ARE SO REVERENT!"

At that very moment nemesis was lurking under Timothy's shirt in the form of a white plastic electronic disk out of Nigel's Tweety Bird birthday balloon.

It carried on lurking right through the first two speakers and a lengthy musical number, but about five minutes into the High Council talk, Tom discovered it and yanked it out. It was motion sensitive, of course, so Tweety immediately announced in a loud voice:

"A witto biwd told me it was yow BIWTHDAY! (singing, obnoxious Tweety Bird voice)
Happy Biwthday to you,
Happy Biwthday to you,
Happy Biwthday witto tweety,
Happy Biwthday to YOU!
A BIG Happy Biwthday fwom a witto chick!"

The entire Mumford bench collapsed into a heaving, soggy pile of hilarity. Both adults were seized by the fatal combination of deep mortification and uncontrollable giggles. Without fully thinking things through, Tom attempted to muffle the singing (it was pretty loud) and as a result set the whole song off for a second time.

Tim and Nigel were both laughing--loudly--and Alex was trying to crawl under the bench. Tom and I were both hiding our magenta faces from each other and the rest of the congregation. Taking it out while it was in full voice was impossible, but the song lasted an unbearably long time. The High Councilor valiantly pressed on with his talk, although it was nearly inaudible.

At last, the song ended, and Tom and I started arguing, sotto voice, about who should have to carry the salad-plate-sized object out. It wasn't something you could tuck under your arm or in a bag--its extreme sensitivity to motion meant that it needed to be carried like a stick of live dynamite, S L O W L Y, S L O W L Y and
G I N G E R L Y down the aisle. The ultimate humiliation.

Alex at last took it. It didn't go off until he had (barely) cleared the chapel door. So much for the Mumfords and reverence.

When we got home, Tom asked Timmy sternly whether or not he had learned his lesson. "You'll never do something like that again, will you?" he asked, iron in his voice. "You've learned that it isn't worth it, haven't you?"

There was a long pause while Tim quite obviously considered whether it was more dangerous to tell a bald-faced lie, or whether he ought to risk the wrath of Dad by admitting that it was about the most worthwhile caper he had ever attempted.

"I think," he said at last, "that I won't try that idea again."

There's a ward fireside tonight--no kids, just parents. Wonder what they're going to talk about.

In other Tim moments:

Tim wasn't just pathologically irreverent in Sacrament meeting, he was miserably bad in Primary, too, so Tom and I had (yet another) big talk about reverence when we got home. Tim said, "Look. I've learned all there is to know at my level. I'm ready to move up."

"You have not!" Alex, who was illegally lurking, said. "Who wrote down the Book of Mormon when Joseph Smith was translating?"

"Well," Tim replied, "at first it was his wife, Emma, and then it was Oliver Cowdery."

Also, Wednesday night, he told me that he had written a "lyric poem" about his future. I asked him what the poem said.

"It's just about how I'll feel when at last I'm in my room with all my materials, inventing," he said.

"But Tim," I said, "What materials do you need? I'll get you stuff so you can start inventing now."

He sighed. "Sorry, Mom. That won't work. Eight is too young to weld."

Just Thoughts

One of the counselors in our bishopric bought a house in another ward (okay, it was my fault, but let's not go into that) and gave his farewell speech today. He made the BEST comment ever. He said: "Most of you are pretty weird. Maybe no one's ever told you that before, but it's true." Then he went on to talk about our terrific ward community. Well, what he said is absolutely true. Our ward is full of weird people. I'll frankly admit to being among them, but if there is such a thing as a weirdness level that goes from, say, believing that if you say your prayers out loud the devil can capture them (this would be a high level) or denying the truthfulness of plastic refrigerator dishes (still high for me) down to a propensity to sing certain hymns with a bluegrass twang (I would call this lower on the scale, if perhaps slightly more annoying in sacrament meeting)...um...this sentence is developing BOM proportions...IF, I say, there is such a sliding scale, I think the Mumford family is slightly below our ward median of weirdness. That is, we have a lot of people who believe, say, wear, and eat VERY weird things. But after our bpric member made this comment, I reflected that I would much rather have a weird ward than an ordinary ward.

We've LOVED our weird wards. In the ordinary ones, I think there is too much conformity of thought, which leads to both boredom and a stultifyingly orthodox culture. Narrow minds! Sleepy gospel doctrine classes! Uneducated youth! Etc. So give me the weird. A big group of people preaching their competing far-out gospel ideas makes for great table discussions at home.

It was a beautiful Easter for us. Long live the sunrise service, although Nigel fell asleep IN church, and Tom and I fell asleep after it.

I'm finally starting to prepare for Cub Scout Day Camp this summer. The theme is the Middle Ages. I have a problem with these themes. They sound fine in theory: last year, Pirates. Arrrgh! But after you've pounded together some treasure chests, what are you going to do with this theme? Next, we'll learn to rape and pillage on the north lawn! Well, the middle ages are just more of the same. I've never been too excited about the middle ages, to tell you the truth. All those SOCA dudes in their period dress with period names, heavy swords, and reenactments, they make me nervous. I've never liked dungeons and dragons either, or tae kwon do, and I'm going to freely admit (although I think I probably shouldn't) that all this stuff goes together in my mind. Anyway, I've been avoiding it for most of my life. I have a big historical hole from about the fall of the Roman Empire straight through to the Renaissance. I've always felt fine about this. Isn't that the definition of the dark ages--a historical hole?

Anyway, I just checked out a boatload of books from the library and pulled a bunch of relevant looking things off my own shelves to start doing my homework (Tom's comment: "You're reading Idylls of the King??? Who reads Tennyson to prepare for Cub Camp? I'm scared for those boys!") And guess what? This is going all the way back to the middle of the last paragraph where I observe that the middle ages is more of the same. WAR WAR WAR. Play war. Real war. Weaponry. Building castles for protection. Building trebuchets and swords and long bows and armor for attacking. Practicing the art of war by hunting. Feasting your friends and then (if you're a Campbell) killing them in the night because you decided they were actually your enemies. Oh, we can wring a few puppet shows and maybe a juggling class out of the lighter side of the middle ages, but let's face it. The whole period is death and destruction.

When I first heard about the theme, I thought we'd get creative and do Gallileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, but of course all the good stuff is the RENAISSANCE...the END of the middle ages. Why do we choose these stupid themes for our boys? Because nobody is THINKING about the content of the program. They're just thinking that the boys like to play sword fighting. Duh. If I hear one more thing about jousting with fun noodles, I'm going to scream. Our Day Camp program is supposed to be designed around 12 character connections like citizenship, compassion, and cooperation. I'm not saying compassion was not present in the middle ages. I'm just saying that a lot of these character points were not hallmarks of the age. Maybe we could find better themes? Just a thought.

Work

No new comments from Tim. Zip. He's mainlining books. That seems to provide sufficient social interaction.

The neighbors hired Zach and Alex to dig flower beds around the edges of their front lawn. This involves removing quite a lot of sod. This has reminded me that Alex loves to dig. When he was a little mite of two, he used to walk crisply out the door each morning and go straight to his "office," a little hole in the dirt right next to the house. His "work" was digging. When I say that the hole was right next to the house, I don't mean roundabout. And when I say he worked...well, anyway, he successfully laid bare about a yard's length of the foundation, right down to the foot, of our little house on Radford Drive. He loves the neighbor project too. Today he got off the school bus, dropped his backpack, started digging, and didn't stop until called for dinner at 6:30. (Of course, he left his backpack in a heap right next to the piles of sod, see previous post.) I wonder profession this indicates?

Nigel, at any rate, is going to be a fire fighter. This was always in the cards, but then we went to the fire station on a preschool field trip today. Those field trips to the fire station are always fine--all the moms get scared and collect the red dots for the windows; moms are also the only ones who ever ask questions and the questions are always about pulling over in traffic and whether or not Firefighter Jeff REALLY wants us to sit tight in the left hand turn lane when we hear the siren. This time, though, the station boasted only two firefighters (budget cuts) and either because they are both naturally great with kids, or because the lack of laughing peers reduced their inhibitions, they did a terrific job. One donned all his bunker gear and crawled around on his hands and knees, sounding exactly like Darth Vader, smiling through the mask and urging the kids to pound on the floor so he could find them and get them out. The other took us out to see the vehicles. He let the kids sit in the ambulance, crawl around the engine, open doors at will, sit in the drivers seat and wiggle the wheel, and finally lined them up against the wall, opened the bay door, turned on the truck, and fired up the lights and siren. The moms then asked their questions, murmured approvingly to each other about the obliging firefighters, and turned to go. At that very moment, just like they had one of those "page me" buttons Brett is always talking about, their radios crackled to life and they got called to a fire. They said a speedy goodbye, donned the gear, jumped into the truck, and sped off, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

I've been thinking that it's not a bad idea. You sit around, do preschool shows, tidy up the gear, shine up the truck, have competitions to see who can get on the gear fastest, and then every so often speed off to a fire. Might work out for Nigel. Thank goodness, since I think he's completely and totally sold.

Goodbye, Part II

It's not over until the faith community sings, apparently. Since I was present at the coin toss of the IFC Festival, the new Stake Music Chair felt that it was only appropriate that I stick around to award the trophy...so to speak. So today, I carpooled a big group of youth down to Assumption Catholic Church and stuck around for the half hour first rehearsal, the one and a half hour second rehearsal, the insane 15 minute snack and potty break, and the one and a half hour concert.

Actually, since the terrific youth pianist/organist who played for Stake Conference had a doctor's note, I filled in at the piano too. I wasn't sorry to be at the party. The youth sang beautifully. They sang "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need." Set in the middle of lots of befuddled modern music accompanied by everything from electric guitars and bongos to shekeres, their pure sound was extraordinarily beautiful. After they finished singing, the audience literally sighed before applauding wildly.

Not that the rest of the concert was bad. On the contrary, I think this was the best year ever. The 300 voice mass choir sang two Shaker hymns and Vivaldi's Gloria, which I hope was as fun for the youth as it was for me. And many of the choirs, despite their bizarre musical choices, sang well and entertained. One of the greatest moments was at the end. I had looked ahead and noticed that the last choir was singing one of Tom's favorite folk songs, originally written and performed by a local musician who has made it sort of big. About 10 minutes before they came on, I realized that SHE was going to sing the song, and she did. She plugged in to her massive sound system, did a quick sound check, and launched into a fantastic performance, backed by the 40 voice Unitarian choir. They mostly oohed and aahed, and she mostly played and sang a solo. She sounded even better than she does on the iPod. I was so sad that Tom wasn't there--he has supported me every year for this extravaganza, in whatever way seemed most helpful. This year, that meant staying for the last two hours of church and putting Sunday dinner on the table. He's an incredible husband and a wonderful friend.

All I have to say about the Unitarians is that they win on the music. Between David Wilcox and Tracy Spring, they must be singing the flavor of philosophies of men mixed with scripture I love best. I don't think I would give up Mo Tab and Mack Wilberg for that, especially not on a Sunday morning, but... I'm going to have a hard time agreeing with the Stake President that our youth were the best ones on the program. I get his point, though.

In the rehearsal room before the concert, Zach locked his knees, felt queasy, hyperventilated, and fainted. He clonked his head pretty hard on a folding chair and got up disoriented and with tears in his eyes. And was his mother there to hold his hand? Of course I wasn't. When he went down, Rob said, "Keep singing." So I kept right on playing and let Zach sort himself out. He claims he's RELIEVED that I didn't run to his side, but am I real mother? I'm the one that rushes my bashed up children to the tub before examining their wounds. I don't want them to bleed on the carpet.

So now I'm left with a slightly queasy child who has a large bump on his head, a car full of granola bar wrappers and empty foil drink packages, the usual stack of music mixed with programs and maps of Assumption, and my memories. This really, finally, does feel like the end. Good thing, too. I'm tempted to ask Tracy Spring if she might be willing to sing with US next year.

You Are Not Going to Belive This, but...

I was talking to Tim last night at bedtime. It was a very emotional conversation about what goes on at recess. Tim's best friend moved last year, basically dissolving the club they had together. It has now come to light that this club was called "The Bomb Club." You can guess how thrilled Tom and I were to hear it. The whole thing was pretty innocent--they pretended to blow up inanimate object like rocks and trees--but they might as well have called it the "Please Suspend Me Club." This would have been a sleeping dog except that Tim revived the club this year with a group of extremely impulsive and intense little second grade boys. The result has been trouble. Tom and I have been trying to get him to dissolve or at least rename the club (The Demolition Club?) but he has stubbornly refused. Tearfully, he told me that it was his last link to his best friend and no matter what he would keep the memory alive.

Anyway, last night I was taking another crack at it, which lead to a tortuous discussion of all the ins and outs of second grade male playground culture. I was asking him about different kids, including one I've never met named Justin.

Mom: How about Justin? Are you friends?

Tim: Nah. I never was much friends with Justin. He's all about the army. Me, I'd like a quiet life in a room full of gizmos and gadgets, inventing, while he's using my greatest inventions in the field of battle.

You think I'm embellishing this, but I swear I'm not. I had to break off the conversation to run out of the room and write down what he said word for word.

PS--Are the words in this post going to get my blog monitored? Will I end up on the no-fly list like Colin? I think I'm going to post anyway, which should convince you all of how much I love you.

Singing a New Song

Today I was released as the Stake Music Chair (except it has some newfangled title which I can't remember--never mind. It ought to be "chair" since chairs figure large in the calling). This calling (that I didn't want) was the conduit for so many blessings in my life and today it was just a little sad saying goodbye.

The drive from my house to the Stake Center takes 12.5 minutes. I have driven it coming home from 6 am Stake Council meetings, praying fervently for all 12.5 minutes that somehow the children had awakened and gotten themselves ready for church since Tom was already at WARD council meeting and I needed to load up and get to our building in time to play the organ for a sacrament meeting that was starting right away. That particular experience was too painful to blog. I have driven it while overcome with the spirit, driven it while overcome with gratitude, driven it in apprehension and exhilaration, while filled with chagrin, amusement, and exhaustion. I have driven it--often--while listening to the combined BYU choirs singing "Redeemer of Israel" (I can definitely carry the alto part while driving). I have driven it at 6 am Easter morning while praying that somehow the members of the Stake would wake up and get themselves to the sunrise service--and I have realized, in a way deeper than words, that though they might not, even if we had prepared only for the Lord and for ourselves, the preparation was justified, and sanctified. I have driven it while practicing something I intended to say, while singing something I needed to (somehow) play, while weeping over musical beauty I hadn't imagined could exist among a little group of rank amateurs, myself included.

And I drove it again today, 12.5 minutes home from Stake Conference, singing along with the BYU choirs and realizing, incredibly, that this whole experience, this four years of what I often considered challenging service, was really, in fact, for me. I was the one all along. These four years were not my gift to the Lord. They were the Lord's gift to me.

Explosive

Nigel finally learned how to blow his nose. It was just one of those things I could never get him to understand. I've done everything--jumped up and down, involved supernatural animals (Be like a dragon! Blow up the kleenex!), the neighbors (Blast me all the way to Jackie's house!), the brothers, myself (this is a little like smelling dirty clothes--you forget what a bad idea it is until after you have emphatically blown mucous all over your face). Every method worked once or twice, but then lost its effectiveness before the cold was gone. He just didn't like the feeling of blowing his nose, and he couldn't or wouldn't do it consistently.

It was one of life's minor frustrations--the downside to my lovely o/c child who washes his own hands, wipes up spills on the floor, and changes out of dirty shirts. I was getting ready to train him on the bulb aspirator when a miracle happened.

Seen the TV show "Mythbusters" yet? It's pop science on steroids. The hosts set out to bust age old myths and urban legends using a combination of fast-talking entertainment-world smarts and uber-handyman building skills.

They're not scientists, but they think they are. They know all. They doubt the veracity of everyone's assumptions but their own, which can make the two of them a little hard to take. For me. Not for my boys. The boys love, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this show. Mostly because of the explosives.

If Jamie and Adam (we're on a first name basis) can work it in, and they usually can, most myths will at some time or another require explosive force to be used. One day Nigel was watching the show while J & A were attempting to bust the myth that you can paint with explosives. I still think you might be able to, but they couldn't build a contraption to get it done (therefore proving that no one can). The myth busting required a lot of big bangs. A few hours later, I found myself holding a kleenex to Nigel's nose. "Blast me," I suggested automatically.

"Uh, wif explosuvs?" he asked in astonishment. "Like dhe myfbusters?"

My eyes lit up. "YES! YES! LIKE EXPLOSIVES!" I yelled.

"Fire in dhe hole!" he yelled back cheerfully. And blew his nose.

It's been more than a week, but the novelty hasn't worn off. He blows his nose regularly and explosively. No questions asked.

And I...well, the boys were out in the snowy back yard today (another topic, 8 missed days of school, summer starts July 6 now) doing a "science experiment" involving diet coke and mentos. Thanks to the popularity of this explosive experiment with all boys everywhere, the manufacturer of Mentos has doubled--DOUBLED--its US sales. Diet coke and mentos are the new black powder. Let me tell you, boys do not have to be urged to science when it involves explosions. It's one of those things I just don't get--the joy, the thrill, the power of the blast. It leaves me mostly thinking about cleaning up the mess. But I've decided that the side effects are worth it. Clean noses forever! Fire in the hole!

Elementary

It has snowed again in Bellingham--a scant three inches, but enough to cancel school. Our final day for the year is now in July. Bummer.

Yesterday morning there was just a skiff of snow and thankfully school was held as usual. My kids with difficulty found adequate snow gear and got themselves out to the bus stop at the end of the driveway in good time. About four minutes later, however, Alex came bursting into the house yelling something about Tim's footwear at the top of his lungs. I raced out of the house and got to Tim just as the bus came over the top of the hill (this is referred to as "seeing the bus in its full splendor" in the ritualized and super-competitive points game the boys play every morning).

Tim was wearing aqua sox (black, women's size 8) over bare feet to combat the snow. I dragged him into the house, him wailing all the way about missing the bus. After I'd calmed him down some, he explained that one of his every day shoes had a hole and the snow was getting in. I asked if the water shoes were working better.

"Worked fine for me," he said defiantly.

I asked if he had ever seen ANOTHER child at school wearing aqua sox. He admitted that he had not. I asked him why he thought he hadn't. He replied with a remark denigrating parents, their knowledge, and their open-mindedness. I asked what might prompt parents to ban the aqua sox in cold weather.

He replied, "Mom, if you're going somewhere with this, could you please just take us there, because I don't have any idea what you're trying to say."

We've discovered with Tim that either he's thought too much about something (the aqua sox) or not enough (the day after I switched some dresser drawers around, he came down dressed in Nigel's clothes. He hadn't noticed a problem.)

And then there are the pure Timmy world moments, like last week when he came upstairs to discover that I had popped open a tube of ready made biscuits just a moment before. We almost never have popping tubes, so he was extremely disappointed. He stood holding the empty tube for a few minutes, and finally said, "Mom, why do they make these things, anyway? To entertain tired old ladies?"

I guess I know what I am!

We are rich with joy. Christmas was packed full of it. We especially loved having all 22 Mumfords (plus three dogs!) who could make it here for New Years Eve. That was a great celebration. Everyone left on New Years Day at almost the same time. Within ten minutes, I walked into my room and discovered Nigel thoroughly asleep on my bed. He slept for five hours!

It was a great way to start 2007.

Flooded

Okay. I realize three blogs in three days is just excessive. But I finally have stuff to say.

Tom was listening to 1776 this morning and feeling kinship with George Washington, who apparently was so discouraged at one point during the Revolutionary War that he wanted to disappear to a wigwam in the wilderness.

Our basement flooded, meaning that late last night Tom and I were wading around in rubber boots ripping up carpet and padding while pondering the injustice of the world.

I went and rented a dehumidifier and blower from Master Rentals this morning. On the way back, I started thinking, perhaps inevitably, about that old incident with Grandpa Campbell. How clearly it comes back to me! The sheer frustration of wet vac-ing the carpet over and over again for hours, drawing out about a teaspoon of water each time, but never being able to stop because I could always get SOMETHING out.

How cathartic it was last night to pull up the carpet and rip out that sopping wet pad. I felt vindicated 24 years later. You really can't dry out a carpet pad with a wet vac. Of course, Grandpa was pretty much right, too. Utah in the summer is so dry and hot that my endless vacuuming plus evaporation got the job done, and nobody had to retack the carpet.

As I thought about that in the car, it came to me suddenly that had he been here, I might have had to put in longer hours on the wet vac, but then he would have been out in my back yard with a backhoe and a large work crew of conscripted teenage relatives, digging out a new drainage system to make sure the carpet STAYED dry.

How much I miss him, his wisdom and his love--how much I miss all my grandparents. I wish I'd done a lot more listening when I could.

Home

Remember the camper?

Probably not. We aren't going to be allowed to forget it, though. Tom bought it from a homeless, slightly crazy woman who had posted a sign in the window that said: "$300 by 3 pm." She was taking off for Alaska and needed to sell her domicile before she left.

Tom's heart, always very soft towards homeless people, led him to not only purchase the camper and transfer the title, but to take the woman to an ATM, get her cash so she could make her plane to Alaska, and put her on a bus to get her there in time. Then he prepared to salvage the 60's era camper.

When you opened the door and put your full weight on the driver's seat, the camper would tilt dangerously. Starting it was a smoke-filled adventure, and driving it...well, Tom only ever drove it distances measured in yards, mostly to avoid having it towed before he could sell it.

Actually, I take that back. He did take it on one road trip...to the dump. He backed in and just started shoveling out the interior. After a few minutes, though, he noticed mementoes and documents surfacing--school and family pictures, things written by children, birth certificates. So he slowed down and saved out what he thought might be important.

Later I spent an entire morning boxing the stuff up and shipping it off to Alaska.

I thought we would never get rid of the truck, but we did. Sort of. Tom sold it to a homeless man, who was SO happy to have it! Tom filed the bill of sale, and we thought that was that.

Not so fast. First of all the boxes came back from Alaska. We had to send them again. Then, we started getting parking ticket fines in the mail. We called the city and explained that we didn't own the truck anymore.

Then there was a brief respite. Just yesterday, the ghost of the truck came back in the form of a nasty letter from a collection agency. "Our" unpaid traffic tickets are past due. We must immediately remit $67 a piece or risk permanaent damage to our credit report and time in debtors prison.

I started calling people this morning. Turns out that, unbeknownst to us, the state DOL declared our report of sale invalid because we failed to report the address of the buyer. This meant the city kicked the fines back into the collections process (without telling us, of course).

I called the DOL to explain that we couldn't report the address of the buyer because he was homeless. There was a long pause. "I don't think you need to talk to me, honey," the employee said. "I don't know who you need to talk to." Then she put me on hold, where I was finally told by a mechanical voice that "call volume is unexpectedly high right now. Please call back later." Click.

Think how much we could have saved--time, money, psychic energy--if Tom had just GIVEN the lady $300 without taking the camper. Sigh. But then she wouldn't have her children's birth certificates and baby pictures, and a homeless man wouldn't have a place to call his own. I remember Tom saying (when attempting to justify the whole experience) that when he saw the lady with her camper he felt like he was the one--one of the few people who might have come along who had the cash, the skill to get the title transferred quickly, and the streak of insanity necessary to help--really help--a complete stranger.

For his birthday, his partners and paralegals gave him a picture of the truck sitting in a parking lot with its "$300 by 3 pm" sign visible in the window. There was lots of laughing over the gift, but I wonder if they knew how truly that camper represents him.

Loud Speaker

You know what they said about Italy under Il Duce. The trains ran on time.

I hate to compare myself to Mussolini, but I have to admit that I've given in to the craving for law and order. Totalitarianism has been born in the Mumford household.

You know how it is...you just need a little propaganda tool. A little happy music and some well-chosen incentives to create cheerful workers for the state. Sounds creepy, but it's working for us.

Back in mid-80's China, one of the things I found most bizarre was the loudspeaker mounted on every pole. All speakers were definitely tuned to the same frequency. At 6 am every morning they started blasting "Dong Fang Hong." We all rose from our beds, beaming, and reflected that Mao Ze Dong was indeed our sun rising red in the east...I think. I never got what came after that and eventually I stopped wondering.

Until now.

A few weeks ago we stayed with the Dixons and discovered the most incredible tool for child mind control. It's called Children's Miracle Music. You just pop in the CD, press play, and suddenly...lunches in 3.26 minutes! Beds made in 1.59 minutes! Clothes on, teeth brushed, breakfast eaten, hair combed, EVERYTHING GETS DONE! If Mao can use this concept to get a billion subjects ready every day, where's the challenge in motivating four boys?

It really works because the Miracle Music lady has the sweetest, sweetest Utah drawl. I think Zach is hearing his old teacher from SLC. And the music is very, very well chosen. No matter how you feel about it aesthetically, bodies move when it starts to play.

Tom is not on board. He never wanted the trains to run on time. He didn't even want a schedule. He wants RESULTS!! But without structure. I understand this, but the reality of seminary + his incredible 80 hour work weeks is...I NEED THE MIRACLE. I've gone over to the dark side. Anyone wishing to liberate my children can make an amphibious landing through the large puddle in the back yard. You have to promise to brush everyone's teeth afterward, though.

Hyperactive

Next weekend our various stake and ward organizations are sponsoring the following: 7 pm Friday night--Family History Night for the ward where the young women will share brief vignettes about bizarre or famous twigs on the family trees in the ward forest. 9 am Saturday Morning, and I am not joking about this, the Elders Quorum will have a "tie exchange." First elders quorum activity ever not involving some form of barbecue. Tom says he's only going if he can sneak in a basketball and HE'S an elder who could stand to exchange a few ties. Someone's wife is definitely at the bottom of this one. Unspecified time Saturday: building cleaning. Our ward has decided to assign that by organization, so the Elders Quorum, Relief Society, Primary, and Youth each take turns. Maybe in theory the whole organization is supposed to gather at the church and experience camraderie while they learn industrial cleaning skills. In practice it means that each week the harried organization head runs through the phone list, hitting the likeliest targets, until they find someone home and willing. I have recently discovered that this family has somehow infiltrated every ward organization, so our turn has been coming around quite regularly. At 1 pm is the Stake Relief Society conference, theme "You're Not Alone," which should be subtitled "But You Are Exhausted." Church as usual on Sunday, I assume, with a Stake Priesthood meeting that night.
Can you remember where I was going with that? I can't, except maybe to bed.

Ahh...Winter at Last

It's just a perfect Sunday afternoon in October. Daylight savings time, so it's nice and dark at 5:30 pm. Chilly, grey, and rainy outside. Inside, we've got a great fire going, and I'm curled up by it in the big reading chair. Everyone is supposed to be writing letters to Grandma right now.
I've discovered by watching my slightly older friends that kids who don't know how to write letters when they leave home do not discover this skill in the MTC. They have no phone, you get no information--just one side of 5 x 8 sheet torn off a mini legal pad and covered with cliches. A kid who has avoided writing his whole life is not going to start writing just because the little white book says he should. Unfortunately, the joy of writing letters is communication. Nobody writes letters anymore, so the kids don't get the whole feeling. But I'm banking on the Grandmas eventually responding. Letter quality is low right now, but I'm trying to get production going before I address quality.
Alex wrote the letter right after lunch. He's going to be a great missionary letter writer. He's now curled up in the other chair reading the New Era. Nigel dictates, so he's also done. Zach is trying to procrastinate by sitting at the piano picking out "Captain Vegetable." Tim is half way done but has been distracted by the nerf six shooter and is standing in the kitchen firing off rounds of suction cup darts at the white board. With every hit, he sucks air in between his teeth, shakes his head in amazement, and says "Whooooah!" It's all very peaceful. I love it.
It occurred to me this week that Tim has a date with the WASL at the end of next year. They're not going to like each other. He brought home a math paper this week that emphasized the problem of evaluating Tim using a standardized test. The assignment was about tally marks. The upper half of the page was a data set shown in tally marks. Then there were five or six questions about the data. Every question was marked wrong. None of the questions required difficult reasoning--all subtraction and addition. I sat down with Tim to try to figure out what went wrong.
"Well, Mom," he said earnestly, "I have curly hair and so I wish that more kids were like me. I don't like all the kids to have straight." I looked back at the data set, and sure enough, the two categories were "Straight" and "Curly." And now I also saw that a number of tally marks had been added in pencil to the "curly" column. I soon discovered that Tim had rectified the anti-curly bias by evening up the numbers. Then he went on and did the problems based on the corrected data. The final question asked the student to consider whether the interviewer would get the same data if he came back and recounted in a month.
Tim's answer? "No. Egzapl. I hv crlee hr normule but I cut it swt [short]."
Sigh. I talked to his teacher about the worksheet and she smiled. "Yes, I know that's what he did, but I'm trying to help him realize that sometimes he just has to work according to the rules."
Other Timmy moments: he was a dementor for the church trunk or treat. He had a hooded cape, which I told him he couldn't pull over his face.
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because. No masks at church."
"But this isn't a mask," he pointed out.
"Yeah. But still," I told him.
He thought for a minute, then said, "I'll wear a nametag. Will that help?"
Another night we were bashing through yet another wrong math paper, this one a story problem. It was a clock problem with hours being added to hours as a whole day was described. He just kept getting confused, and finally I had him circle the important parts of the problem. He kept circling unimportant details, and I said about 15 times, "NO, Tim. What kind of ice cream they got is NOT important!" and he would answer, "Well, it's important to me!" Finally he caved in, circled the number details, and easily solved the problem. He looked at me thoughtfully and said, "It wasn't my mistake of misunderstanding the clock. It was just my mistake of getting too interested in the story."
Final random Timmy moment. As I was cooking dinner, he came up and asked me (out of the blue) "How do dinosaurs fit into God's plan?

The Program

People love the primary program. They love the singing. They love the little four year old girl who has every word of her scripture memorized. They love the sweet little voices and the songs. And, let's face it, they love Tim. When he stands up and begins to approach the microphone, you can sense the anticipation.

The lips on the microphone thing doesn't have anything to do with overall Tim syndrome. It's hereditary. You can see where it comes from if you ever let Tom get his hands on one of those FRS walkie talkies. He immediately begins channeling BJ and the Bear with the walkie talkie pressed to his lips. Anyway. At least you can HEAR Tim, and believe me, the entire congregation WANTS to hear him.

This year he did a beautiful job. He had his talk memorized and he delivered it beautifully, right up to the part in the story where he says, "I went to find my shoes. When I came back..." loo--oo--oo--oo--oo--ng pause..."the car..." pause... "was GONE." What a ham. Everyone laughed, but I'm happy to say that he didn't lose his cool and he finished the talk under control. Even a year ago, that much laughter response would have sent him straight to monkey.

We did best, worst, and weirdest for the wedding weekend (bwwww) at dinner today. Tom's best was the Cougar football game. Tim's best was the return of the Rollens Club. (Tim's worst was (no words used) pie in face motion with sound effects. This incident won't soon be forgotten.) Zach's best was game cube with Uncle Nigel. Baby Nigel's best was playing "wif all the kids who are my cousins." Alex's best was hanging out with Seth and Jared. We all had a great weekend. Thanks everybody.

ThirTEEN

Saturday was Zach's birthday party, and I gained a lot of useful information.

1) Just barely teenaged boys don't eat as much as just barely teenaged girls, BUT they like it either full of sugar or covered with orange fake cheese powder.

2) Standard seventh grade type gift: cash or gift certificate. Only kid toting actual object was a sixth grader playing up.

3) There is a gene for playing pro sports. One kid at the party flies all over the country playing competitive tennis and is projected to go pro within 2 years. No other tennis players in the family, but dad played defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons and brother is probably going to play PGA golf.

The tennis star situation made me nervous, because we threw a big liability party: jumping on the (three) trampolines, biking through the trees and over the bmx dirt jumps, skateboarding on the driveway. In the end, thank goodness, no-one even got road rash.

The kids all had a great time, and I had fun meeting them. Nice kids. They did eat a 6x batch of homemade oreos, 2 pounds of doritos, 3 pizzas, and 36 pops. The ruffles and the bowl of apple slices remained virtually untouched.