January 27th

It is Bart’s birthday today. He turned 37. I was reading another blog where the woman tried to come up with a picture for every year she and her husband were together. It was funny to watch the changes of hairstyle, clothing, shape of glasses, etc. as it went on through their relationship. (They started in jr. high)

Not dating but having fun in Thailand. I am on the left. Bart is in the middle.

It got me to wondering if I could actually FIND a picture of Bart and I during every year that we have been together. Then I had to admit that I could probably find A picture of us every year but would I allow it to be presented for the public eye. Lucky for me, I am the mom and the mom gets the wonderful job of staying behind the camera for the most part. However, it is more than that in my case. Never in all my years have I been photogenic. I can count the pictures that I truly like of myself on all my bodily digits. My youngest son on the other hand was born making love to the camera. He is so photogenic he looks better on film than in real life.
Anyways, back to the birthday boy. We have been married for 13 years and I have to admit that there have been quite a few boulders and sharp rocks in our trail. Especially in the beginning but things have smoothed out quite nicely and mostly I feel gratitude and wonder that I married this man. I am very much of the mind that you really can never tell who you are marrying. (Unless you marry about 40.) There is always that mid life crisis, the having children changes, the decades that must be lived and days determined by which way the wind blows. Looking back, I acknowledge the changes and the growth that he has made. (It is easier to see his growth than mine.) And I may not agree with all of them but the core part of Bart is something I want to be associated with. I do look forward to the day when it is just us two again and we can enjoy each other more….if I ever get him off a snowmobile.

1993


















1994
















1995 This was just 5 days after Chase was born. Impressive, huh?

1996


















A very distorted scanned picture at Wheeler Farm in 1997.








I know that I have a picture for 1998 but it isn’t here while I am doing this post so I will go on without it. This is 1999. We didn’t make Chase start snowboarding until he was 4. And he turned out to be pretty good at it.




I am going to scream. I do not have the Disneyland picture for 2000. Some of you will think that I am purposely leaving it out because of what I look like in it, however, it was the end of the day and I was secretly pregnant with Cooper. Obviously then this is 2001. Ryan’s baptism. Probably the best picture out of the whole bunch. Of all three of us!









SLC Olympics 2002. USA TODAY and Clyde Benton, my deceased boss was very good to me with the tickets. We went to speed skating, men’s figure skating and closing ceremonies. And look at the good friends that we made along the way!










2003: Every year we go to the zoo on Thanksgiving. It was a tradition that started in Maryland and has continued through to Salt Lake City. My in laws have ventured out and all Solomon children show up if they are here in the valley. Very important note: Chase purposely crossed his eyes. As he tries to do this in all family pictures starting in 2003 I need to make this clear now before you see other pictures.







2004: Good thing we make it to the zoo, huh?

2005 is a “self portrait” in the back of our house on a lazy Sunday afternoon watching our kids play on the Slip and Slide.










2006 at temple square.

Happy Birthday Bart! And many more to come! And I make a promise that in another 10 years I will have more pictures of you and I for the next birthday picturama. I love you!!

Over the Top

I think I can honestly say that fighting the beast is not working at this time. I am fighting the beast in that I am getting out of bed each morning. I am going to work every day. I am feeding my kids each day and amazingly, I have managed to do a couple of loads of laundry as well. Last night, Ryan, LaRae and I went and got a facial. From the outside, I am still a contributing human being. Inside is another matter all together. I am a mass of raging, writhing, seething, mishmash of all things unhappy. Imagine all the emotions in the movies Ransom, In Love and War, The Patriot, The Green Mile, The Deep End of the Ocean, Legends of the Fall, Of Mice and Men and Murder in the First and you may have an inkling of what is going on in there. Note from the author: These emotions are completely understandable and quite cathartic when faced with a child kidnapping, a ruined love affair, a civil war, an unjust murder trial, another child kidnapping, etc, etc but there is nothing like any of these things happening to me this year or even this decade. Therefore, rationally I must come to the conclusion that these emotions are not what I should be waking up to every day.
Needless to say, just because I am getting through the day in no way means I am nice to be around. I mean, porcupines get through the day as well but they still are prickly. And that just makes it worse because my life is good and I am in no position to appreciate it. But one can only bitch about it so long in a blog before even the blogger (me) has to say "Sheesh! Get some pills and stop whining! Enough already!"

Orange

For the most part I have very easy going children so when they develop and/or cultivate their own harmless preferences I cater to it. My youngest who is 4 has had an obsession with the color orange since he could name the colors and tell us about it. Although he now will say that his favorite color is orange AND red AND black, there is a very noticeable influx of the color orange in our house.
Take for instance our choice of snacks. Our all time favorites are Clementine oranges, puffy cheetohs and carrots with “white sauce.” I cannot keep enough Clementine oranges in our house. No seeds and very little rind make these disappear like magic. Believe me I am not complaining but 6 pounds of oranges a week should be enough for 7 people. No, there is no empirical evidence that these snacks were deemed the favorite because of their color but they certainly are always in our kitchen now and never before.
Lead the way into Cooper’s closet. There you will find an size 5 orange fishing vest, an very well worn orange hoodie, 2 orange long sleeve shirts, 3 orange short sleeved shirts and 1 orange hat. Many of the blue and yellow apparel hanging up in the closet have borders and decals that are the bright color that we love as well.
Lastly, the refrigerator. Here is where we put up all the school art projects. Currently there is a picture of a rudely cut snowman that is colored orange. According to his teacher when she asked Cooper why the snowman was orange he replied, “Because he drank too much orange juice this morning for breakfast.” Baby Jesus was sporting an orange swaddling blanket, the planets in the galaxy all have large orangish rings around them and Paul Bunyon changed his big ox’s name from Blue to Orange.
If you think that we can find an unused orange crayon in our house, you didn’t read the above. If you think that we didn’t have a discussion when that boy auditioned on American Idol with his matching orange shirt, belt and socks, you come and ask Cooper why his mom is so mean. And he will tell you that I told him that I would not allow him to accessorize with orange socks at so young an age.......And probably as long as he maintains the male gender.

Vacancy at The Peterson Hotel

An update for the curious minds that want to know.

Last week Carla jetted away to India for 3 weeks for her work. She has known about this little jaunt for several weeks but I think she was a little nervous when she finally boarded her plane. She has called and said that all is well and things are going fine. Her room is open for the next two weeks though, if anybody has a need.

If you remember the whole habaloo about Bart's cousin from Washington that Carla wanted to come and live with us. In the end, she moved into our house the end of November. Well, she came home last week and announced that she had gotten a job back in Washington and would be leaving as soon as she fulfilled her two weeks notice. This Friday is her last day here at her work and in my house. It was quite unexpected and I find myself actually sad to see her go. Don't get me wrong. I am excited to gain a guest room with an empty closet and storage room under the guest bed. However, she is pretty fun and follows through with things. I like hanging out with her. So I wish her all the best and hopefully the comment "If things don't work out, I'll be back." won't have to come into play at all.

The Question of the Day

Why is it that children not only want you to clean up after them, remind them to brush their teeth, buy them the very latest games for the computer, do all their laundry, not yell at them for not putting the laundry away that you have worked to clean and fold, have a tasty dinner on the table, always have snack food in the pantry for them, help them with their school homework, magically make them KNOW their multiplication tables, play 20 questions with them in the car every time, listen to their station in the car, read 4 books to them before they go to bed, get them a glass of water after you have put them in bed they also want you to be happy, understanding, funny, cool, sympathetic and loving but not too much and not when they don't want to be?

Is that right to demand all of that?

I want to see the contract.

The Day After

So, yesterday was the beginning of my new year. I watched American Idol. It was great! I found out that my old boyfriend is actually married. I really liked thinking that he was not married so I am still working this out in my mind. I went to the gym and worked out. I am on the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia which makes me think of what I am going to look back on at the end of my life. (That is as big as spoiler as you get.) I have not made any new year’s resolutions yet and I feel very bad about that. I don’t want to make silly little wishes that I am not going to stand by and commit to for 365 short days. And yet knowing me, myself and I, I am afraid to put anything out there because I don’t feel like I can commit to anything long term. Long term meaning longer than 2 weeks. Not going to the gym, not reading my scriptures, not finding a new job, not working on my landscaping, not learning to play the piano again.

There. There are my resolutions. If I do not write them out like a resolution and commit to them they will just stay inside my head and float around banging on the sides of my skull until I am black and blue from the inside.

This is really for Jen

I love these pictures. I think I love them now more than I did when we first took them. I can't believe that 2 of the couples are married to each other! I mean, this was the first year of college that we took these pictures. I am ashamed to admit to how many people I am now longer in touch with. So, if you know any of these fine looking gals and guys, send them my way. I would love to catch up!

Nocturnal life

I feel like I am living in a dream. I have been doing a route at night and listening to The Chronicles of Narnia on CD. I am into book 5 right now. Every night I spend 2 hours with Aslan, Lucy, Edmund, Prince Caspian, dwarves and talking mice, beavers and all other sorts of animals. Coming back to our world is sometimes a little hard. Especially when it involves a sprinkler box.

The other night I was doing the route. It is mostly home delivery and so my window is open as I plow along the roads to the next house. The volume on my stereo is up very loud so I can hear what Lucy and Edmund are saying through the wind and snow. I came to a house that I have to porch the paper. I decide that it will only take me a second to get out and back in so I leave my door open, stereo blasting through the night and run up to the door. Right at the door, I turn my ankle and fall down on the snowy grass. Underneath the snowy grass is their sprinkler box that is probably 5 or 6 inches above ground. That is what cushioned my bum’s fall. Oh, the pain. I had to lay there for some asinine amount of time breathing in and out holding onto my bum and my ankle. All the while the stereo is blasting out Vanessa Redgrave doing a shrill impression of the warrior mouse Reepicheep starting a fight with a sea serpent. I’m sure I prayed to Aslan that nobody would wake up and call the police about a dead body lying in the front of the lawn and the 100 decibel noise that was going on throughout the neighborhood. And the neighborhood did sleep on and finally I was able to rise and get in my car and drive on.

The next night I turned off the stereo when I made my way out of the car to porch the paper.

7 more days

Forget Jan 1st. The real new year has not even started. It will start January 17th.

Shouldn’t that be enough? Everybody should know what I am talking about. My family does. It is the American Idol premiere!!

Secret shame or not. I LOVE it! I LOVE it! Admittedly, I would not love it half as much if I didn’t have TIVO and could not fast forward through commercials. I have no patience for 4.5 minutes of commercials every 11.5 minutes of a program. But I do and it works and so I go on loving the competition.

I LOVE Simon Cowell as well. I like somebody who calls it as they see it. I don’t always agree with him but I think that me watching a performance on TV and him watching it in person probably is so very much different. He says that he thinks that this is the best year yet. Have heard that one before but I think that last year was the best year we had seen so I am willing to believe that the competition got stiffer this year as well. He says that the boys are stronger this year. (I love Bo Bice. He should have won.) He also says that there is a lot of younger talent this year. This is where he and I don’t agree. I think that there should be an age minimum as well as a maximum. (Diana DeGarmo needed to finish school instead of be on American Idol. Of course, she is debuting on Broadway as I write this post so what do I know?) I can’t remember the name of the other young chickadee but it was painful to watch her not be able to cope with negative comments and getting cut off the show. I also heard a rumor that somebody from Utah made the top 12 this year. It was so fun to cheer for JPL (Idaho) 2 seasons ago. His Elvis song rocked.

So, next Tuesday night.
7 more days.

What world do you live in?!?

This semester Ryan had a mandatory choir class. Most of her grade was based on a Christmas concert that occurred this last month. I signed up to help out at the rehearsal. The teacher wanted “bouncers” at the doors to stop kids from coming in and interrupting and to help kick kids out that were interfering with his rehearsal. A very good example of negative reinforcement. He kept threatening them with failure from the class if they ruined his program. I was very unimpressed.
There was one other mother there. It turned out that she was the mother of one of Ryan’s pretty good friends, Sharon. I asked her if Sharon was liking 7th grade and getting accustomed to junior high school. She said “Yes, her only real problem is dealing with Ryan and Theresa.”
“What do you mean?” I asked absolutely stumped.
“Ryan and Theresa are her two best friends. But they are always fighting and it is very stressful to her.”
“What?!?” I had never even heard of Theresa. “What are you talking about?”
Sharon’s mother then regaled me with tales of name calling, gossiping, back stabbing, yelling at each other down the halls and even crying. All the tales were told with such detail that I believed her hook, line and sinker. My blood was in my face and I was embarrassed, angry and upset. I was appalled at Ryan’s behavior. And even more surprised.
Yes, I know about the blinders that parents wear but even so, yelling down the hall and name calling across the lunch room was so not the Ryan that I knew. And being the assistant coach of her soccer team for the past 6 years and her church teacher for the past 3 years on top of being her mother and chauffeur I figured that I knew her pretty well. She just didn’t have enough time to have that much of a different life. Still as I said before, I just couldn’t ignore the consistency and the detail of the stories that I was being told. I managed to tell myself that even if it was true, my yelling at her would not change anything. I told myself to calm down a bit. I am truly so much the parent that does not acknowledge that the daughter is her own person now. I want to be in control forever and make sure the daughter does not make any wrong decisions or make any mistakes along the way. I want the daughter to live the life that I wanted to have. Wow. Is this a hard perception to break away from!
I managed to bite it all back until we had dropped off the rest of the kids in the car. Then I said “Tell me about Theresa.”
“Oh, she hates me and I hate her.” This was not a good start.
“Why?”
“I don’t know why she hates me. She always is talking about me to Sharon.”
“Do you talk about her?”
“No.”
“Do you yell at her in the cafeteria?”
“No! I don’t ever even talk to her.”
I told her of the stories that Sharon’s mother shared with me. She was aghast. She denied it most of it. I said “Ryan, where would these stories come from? Either Sharon is lying to her mother or her mother is lying to me or you are lying to me? I think you had better talk to Sharon and find out who is the one here telling lies.”

The next day:
“Did you talk to Sharon?”
“Yes. She said that her mother exaggerates quite a bit.”

Sometimes simple is the best

Men are simple. Simple and outright. No guessing involved. Sometimes I appreciate that.

My husband just called me and asked what our plans were for tonight.
We have both been feeling sick and his friend just got a new snowmobile so I made no plans for the two of us this weekend. All I have to do is take Ryan to basketball, take Chase to his football camp, teach at church and LaRae wants to scrapbook cards.
“I don’t know. Do you have an idea of what plans you want to have?” I ask.
“Well, do you feel good enough to go out to dinner and have sex or do you just want to have sex?”

I know he would be good with either choice because men are simple.

The Real Reason We Got A Maid

Felix and Oscar. Kim and Bart.
Felix and Oscar. Kim and Ryan.
Felix and Oscar. Kim and Chase.
Felix and Oscar. Kim and Cooper.
Felix and Oscar. Kim and Carla.
Felix and Felix. Kim and LaRae.

I was outnumbered 2 to 5 and I didn’t like the odds.

Being a bitch vs Being bitchy

My definition of being a bitch: being bitchy and being proud of the fact. I know women like this. I abhor those license plate holders that say “zero to bitch in 60 seconds” but it explains it perfectly.

My definition of being bitchy: what I did this last weekend AND then feeling remorse.

We went to the cabin Wednesday to Sunday. My mother, father, brother and sister in law, my sister and her boyfriend all came up Wednesday to Friday. I was proactive and brought up a friend for all 3 of my children. That means that I was responsible for 6 children and the above 6 people were responsible for none. I really have immersed myself in parenting and have completely forgotten what not having children is like. My siblings reminded me. If you are on vacation AND you have no children, you are children yourself. Hedonistic children. And there is nothing wrong with that. It is just very annoying to the one sibling that has children.

Add to that a husband who also was on vacation and did nothing but snowmobile and watch football and I was feeling (and acting) very bitchy. We had invited 4 family friends to come up for the weekend. My bitchiness continued through the weekend party and I am sure that they will never go anywhere with us again.

Bart called it “cabin fever” which maybe it was…..to a point. I was “stuck” in the cabin. I had not brought a book. I cannot sit down, “enjoy myself” and ignore chaos going on around me as I was on call for all children issues. As well as kitchen duty. And I can only take football for an hour. Not 3 days. Mostly I concentrate my “pointed silences” and my “drop dead looks” to Bart who after 13 years is very used to it. He ignores it. As soon as I got home and was
able to be in control?
Not be responsible for the going ons at the cabin?
Watch something besides football?
Focus on something else besides my expections of Bart
that he was definately not fulfilling?
Did not have to work at having fun?
Who knows?
I was just fine. Except for that remorse. Which hopefully makes me not a bitch.