Will, 4 Years

This is painfully overdue. Please excuse my tardiness and celebrate this amazing little dude with me. W turned four a couple months ago. He is enjoying being a Sunbeam in our ward's Primary; I sat in on singing time today, and was so gratified to see him sitting reverently and singing all the verses to "I Am a Child of God." He gave his first talk earlier this spring. I'm so excited for the Primary Program this fall, his first ever. His very on-the-ball Primary Presidency handed out CDs today to all the Primary kids of all the songs they'll be singing for the program, so they can practice at home.

Recently, to my great surprise (as I have not been on-the-ball enough to be teaching him), we discovered that W can do basic math in his head. We were in the produce section of the grocery store a few weeks ago, and I told W we needed six tomatoes; I already had two in the bag, how many more did I need? I don't know why I asked him this--I wasn't expecting any answer and wouldn't know the first thing about teaching math. But he promptly answered "four," and deposited the necessary tomatoes into the bag. Thinking this was perhaps a fluke, I asked him a similar question while making dinner with him a couple days later. "Will, I put two of these carrots into the sauce already. How many more do we still have to put in?" "Two." Again, a quick response. When I told Chris about it, he had an even more impressive story of his own. He'd been playing a game with W where they were imagining underwater creatures. Chris asked, "So, what do you see?" W: "Sharks." Chris: "What kinds of sharks?" "W: "Red sharks and blue sharks." Chris: "How many are there?" W: "Twenty. Ten are red and 10 are blue." What?!

On top of this, the other day I was teaching him rhyming sight words, and within just a couple minutes of grasping the concept, he was quickly reading, "sun/fun/run/bun/gun, hit/fit/bit/sit, hat/fat/rat/sat/bat, etc." Then when I asked him to spell words, he was able to do so--and continues to sound out more and more complex words as time goes by. I am truly amazed at his ability to learn and understand. I have never known such a smart child, and it's humbling to me to be blessed by his abilities.

Thanks to his brilliant Aunt Laura, and her concept of the "chocolate chip game," he is also rapidly learning the geography of the Western US. In a nutshell, find a placemat-size map of the states. Place a chocolate chip on one of the states. They don't get to eat it until they correctly name the state. I promise; it takes only a couple times of you eating the chip for naming the state for them to consistently remember.

Here's a brief day-in-the-life:

*Wakes anytime between 5:30 (ouch) and 7:30; comes to the living room where he whispers to himself loudly enough to wake us all (dear child).

*"Eats" breakfast, joins me in my daily exercises. "Mom, can we go for a walk/play the Wii Fit/Dancing Game/Zumba/Yoga today?" He keeps me fit. Bless him.

*Watches a show with Ada while I get ready for the day.

*"Eats" lunch

*Has "quiet time" with me while Ada sleeps. This usually consists of scripture time, a quiet chore, reading time, and on really rare days, preschool time.

*After Ada's nap, depending on the day's menu, we'll either head out for a brief walk or begin making dinner while listening to the Family Folk Station on Pandora (best ever). When a song we all know plays, we stop our prepping and dance and sing around the kitchen. It's my second favorite time of day.

*Plays with Chris when he gets home from school/work

*"Eats" dinner (truly, if you have the magic formula for getting a super active 4-year-old to eat well at meals, please clue me in)

*Has clean-up time, followed by more playing with Chris, reading stories, etc.

*Prayer, bed, then my very favorite time of day: Snuggle time. Recently I have discovered that W is a much more cooperative boy when we have snuggle time at bed time. I think in the muss and fuss of the day-to-day that much tenderness is lost; this snuggle time is good for both of us to feel good about our time together. Especially as he recently developed an aversion to "kisses germs." Oy.

I'm beginning to get a better handle on what makes this boy tick. He appreciates predictability--so many of his tantrums (which, thankfully, seem to be slowly decreasing in number) seem to arise out of a break in routine or when plans fall through. Understandably, he hates getting his hopes up only to have them unfulfilled; it's a condition of life, but seems particularly difficult for him to deal with. His remaining tantrums seem to arise from not being able to do things as well as he'd like; he's very hard on himself for small things like not being able to stack all the blocks before they fall over or spilling his drink at dinner time. It has taken me a long time to discover, but he actually dislikes high praise. I think this is why potty training took so long--all the literature says to make a BIG DEAL out of every successful attempt, but he sincerely hates the attention. I think he may have avoided going potty so he wouldn't have to be the subject of spotlight. He'd much rather have a quiet high five and a hug; what a sweet kid. (The same thing happened the first time he sounded out a word on his own; I didn't even know he could do it; he just pointed to a word on a mug and sounded it out. I freaked out, I was so proud of him, and he refused to sound out any more words for an entire month.) In terms of temperament, I think he's an introvert like me--and I'm so thankful we're living through a time when being a introvert is no longer considered something that needs to be fixed. He seems even more introverted than I am, so I am having to learn his preferred ways of meeting the world. It's not that he's shy; he just wants to get to know people one-on-one instead of in a crowd. I can absolutely relate to this.

He is strong-willed, and while I don't want him to run headlong into foolishness, I really believe that this is a gift that will serve him well if I can teach him how to harness it. It's no wonder he turned out this way with two such parents. One day we were having a play date with friends and W and I were disagreeing about something. My friend observed, "I love how he is sticking to his message, and you are sticking to yours." This about sums it up. Much better to make him think the right decision was his idea all along. He seems downright impervious to influence. This is a blessing and a curse. But I can't help but think how well this will serve him in his late teen/early adult life. I don't want to "break" him. He has such a wonderful spirit; I think I'd regret it my entire life if I somehow smashed that right out of him. Perhaps it's folly, but I think I'd rather teach him how to temper his will so he won't be a slave to it--rather than rub it out of him entirely.

Lately, he's just been saying the sweetest things. "Mom, you are my beautiful pirate princess," etc. I am so grateful to be his Mama, to have him as my little companion and helper. He has such a genuine love for mischievous humor and imaginative play. "I am IronMan" are words we hear on an almost hourly basis. Here he is, heating his dinner with his IronMan lasers:

Words, Words, and oh, Look! More Words!

Lately, I've been getting back into the world of words.

I have always had a special connection with words--from the stories I wrote in grade school to published poetry; from winning spelling bees (I only ever lost to Brian Criddle! But thankfully, not often...) to editing manuscripts; from.... Well, you get the picture. Me and words: We just like each other. They speak to me, tell me their secrets, and I do my best to uphold their integrity (which is why I rarely listen to pop--and for Heaven's sake, certainly not rap! Do I sound like an old schoolmarm yet? Good. Better the librarian than the bimbo.).

Let's play catch-up real quick: Several months ago, I got a part-time, at-home freelance proofing gig. I get about a project a month from a marketing firm, and every project is large in scope and meaning--even though my part of that is minimal, it's truly a blessing to be part of what's going on. I couldn't have asked for a better client/boss. This has reawakened my love for editing and proofing. Then there are the conversations I've had with this Katie and this Katie (it also seems I'm blessed with a special affinity for "Katies") about writing, working, mothering, and what it all means.

To sum up: I'm back in the world of words, which means that if you continue to read this blog, you will be, too, because I want to start writing about the things (in addition to motherhood) that make me tick. You can expect more lists of grammar errors that drive me bananas (this day is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Anyone else out there associate this more with Mindy Kaling from The Office rather than Gwen Stefani?); you can also expect just random bits of writing/editing/other word-smithing gems I happen to be thinking about lately. None of us needs this except me. Most of my very good friends are also word nerds. I'm writing down this stuff to keep it in my consciousness--and if a good discussion comes of it in the comments section, then so be it! It's so fun when editors argue. Oh, the ego! Especially when one is used to winning said arguments (I know I should totally be over it by now, but I still get enormous satisfaction from the time that I bested my managing editor at the Chronicle in just such an argument--it was her misfortune that our faculty advisor happened to be walking in during the debate, and without evening hesitating, sided with me, using the very same logic I'd been using. It was about capital letters: yes, or no? And yet, winning said debate brings me joy and pride not in proportion to the circumstances. Whatever! I won!). So, if I state something that you disagree with--by all means, say so!

The cardinal rule here is that it's not OK to poke fun at my own grammatical mistakes (remember that ego thing I mentioned before?). Seriously, though, if there's one rule every editor knows, it's what? Anyone? You always have more than one pair of eyes look at a document. That's just the way of it.

Who knows when I'll post again. But in the meantime, if you are interested in the world of words, you ought to take a gander at my updated blog roll to the right. You'll notice some literary-themed blogs, all of which I read and recommend, particularly Pub Rants and Query Shark. You won't get better information on the publishing industry. I don't know any of these bloggers in real life.

A word of caution: My editor's "voice" is different from my everyday, tra-la-la Becca voice. Editor Becca is enormously snarky. I find I have to do this to keep my sanity--you can't have a job that is all about nitpicking without that impetus to correct attention to detail creeping into your personal life. So I developed an alter-ego. She's a lot more sophisticated and witty and mean than everyday Becca. That said, I think you will enjoy her when she pops up here from time to time.

Why Jane Austen Matters

As you may well be aware, today marks the 200th anniversary of the first publication of Pride & Prejudice. Much is being said on the matter, especially by frenzied fans of the films. I enjoy the films very much myself; however, I am frustrated when people (fans and indifferents alike) reduce to her work to be called "romances," or label it as interesting/ relevant for women only. Then there seems to be the sort of confused group of people who scratch their heads and wonder why on earth she is praised both by intellectual circles and pop-Hollywood productions--how her work can be treated both so seriously and flippantly (a word I learned from Jane herself).

Literarily speaking, what she ought to be most praised for is the invention of the English-language novel as we know it. It's a huge claim to lay on her shoulders, but it is in fact accurate. Have you read any novels written before about 1810? There's probably good reason for that. The novel was still a new and somewhat unaccepted art form when Jane Austen came on the scene. The novels written prior to Sense & Sensibility's first publication in 1811 (Oroonoko, Gulliver's Travels, Robinson Crusoe) are meandering, poorly focused, contradicting tales. This doesn't mean that the stories are necessarily bad or that the writers were bad writers--rather, that no one had been able to take the concept of the novel and say, "Here is this art form. This is what works, this is what's important. This is how to provoke your reader." She knew which elements to expand (character development, action) and which to contract (physical descriptions of what people look like, where they live, etc.). She was able to harness the concept of a long fictional story and make it complete--not a word wasted or superfluous or boring.

Consider her contemporaries, like Mary Shelley or Sir Walter Scott (who was a great Austen fan). Her work is enormously different from theirs. Where Shelley and Scott are often repetitive, unfocused, or convoluted, Austen is direct, concise, and funny. She knows it's more important to describe character rather than person, allows her characters' actions to speak for themselves rather than belaboring a point.

Just a generation later, when the Bronte sisters wrote, the novel had become a much more sophisticated beast. Charlotte Bronte in particular turned her nose up at Austen as being a bit too prim and pressed, probably not considering that her own highly skilled work depended on the foundation of literary techniques that Austen was first to define.

On top of all this, she wrote characters who were multi-dimensional. Read Robinson Crusoe, for example--it's a marvelous concept for a story, and often I couldn't bring myself to put it down. But what one really longs for and does not get is a character that seems like a real human being. It would be wonderful if we were all born fully-composed people, knowing who we are, what we want, and how to get along with each other. But we aren't this way at all; we're lucky if we have a sense of self and an average ability to get along with each other. Even with these things, of course, we all know ourselves to be not only fundamentally flawed but curiously contradicting--how often we want two things at once that are simply mutually exclusive (like my deep desire to return to pre-pregnancy weight, and my just-as-equal-sometimes-greater desire for chocolate chip cookies...). Austen was able to write characters who were both flawed and attractive, whose motives ought to be other than what they were. Yet, we still like them, still root for them.

Another (and perhaps the most important) reason Austen matters is that she was skilled at observing and relating human behavior and emotion. No matter how well-written her work, if her subject matter did not continue to strike a chord with people, her skill would perhaps not mean much of anything. No matter who you are and where you come from, one thing that all human beings can relate to is the concept of home and family--even if you are without both, your relationship to them has informed who you are. Austen writes about these things that everyone has in common. She writes about a world that is bound by structure and rules, and characters are defined by which rules they choose to keep and which they choose to break.

Last night, Chris and I watched a program about her on PBS, where we learned that she has a substantial male following from a group of intellectual elites called the Janeites, of which Rudyard Kipling and F.R. Leavis were both members. Kipling even wrote a short story about the Janeites. We also learned that her work was enormously popular with soldiers during the world wars--who wanted something to read in the trenches, wanted to read about home, and found their solace in Austen's clean, structured, sunny world.

It's the propensity of fans and filmmakers alike to mistake her clean and direct writing, her happy stories as "simple." They do whatever they want with her work; sometimes, of course, it's brilliant (Clueless is still one of my favorite adaptations of her work); other times, like the Keira Knightley P&P, it's a mixed bag. (Oh, I could write an entire essay just about that...) The greatest sin of all, in my book, is to polarize her characters--Elizabeth Bennet is no angel, and she's certainly not Darcy's moral superior, as is often seen in adaptations. Mr. Bennet is far from a charming, perfect father. Mrs. Bennet, however aggravating, works tirelessly for the welfare of her daughters who otherwise would literally be homeless without marriage upon their father's death. It's not as though Mr. Collins has the generosity of heart to care for them. Actually, I think that in any adaptation, the only character consistently well-portrayed is Mr. Hurst. How sad is that, when her characters are so delightfully relatable just the way they are? And when, in fact, the story's power is derived from the friction of these characters' desires and shortcomings?

In any case. Still more than all of this is that her language itself is delightful. It's impossible to come away from Pride & Prejudice without feeling uplifted, and this is perhaps her greatest gift of all: to make people feel better. Even Winston Churchill once credited reading her work for curing an illness he was suffering from. She's delightful and funny. She has given me hope when I was lonely, entertainment when I've been bored. I love her. And I don't care who knows it.

Resolute: 2013, "Just One Thing"

It's that time of year again; that time when we set impossible standards for ourselves, then banish ourselves out of guilt for not living up to them. I would say I am an above-average goal-setter/achiever. I say this with humility, as I feel fortunate that goal-achieving is a skill I was taught well by parents who are even better at it than I am. I say this with humility, because not everyone has the advantage of goal-setting-achieving being part of their nature. I say this with humility, because good as I am at it, I still (very often) fall short of attainment.

Usually, I love setting my New Year's Resolutions. I can't wait to come up with the new me on paper. This year, however, I've been dreading it; dreading it because, (in spite of my previous protestations) it's been a while since I've accomplished a NY resolution that actually changed my life. I was mulling over why this was, and trying really hard to not fall into the "easy" trap of blaming my motherhood. While it's true one can't be all things at one time, it's also true that I can usually accomplish a few things if I really set my mind to them. I've been examining my past resolutions, trying to figure out why it is they (and I) succeeded or failed. I've been reading a lot of blog posts about others' resolutions, and some more academically minded articles about finding success or failure in those resolutions. I'm trying to figure out what the golden key is here --and I think I just may have found it for myself.

Just one thing.

That's it. In the past, my most successful resolutions are the ones that have been singular and relatively easy to meet. Case in point: One of my very most successful resolutions was the year I promised to sing every hymn in church. I'd been in my student ward for a while, and was starting to get lax about not singing in meetings; it started with choosing not to sing the songs I didn't know, and had gotten to the point where I didn't sing simply because I didn't feel like it (which was happening more and more frequently). So I told myself for one year I was going to make myself--no matter what. By the end of the next year, I was surprised to see how much more I enjoyed singing, how many new hymns I'd learned (and even learned the alto line!), and how my overall sense of the Spirit had grown.

Another valuable lesson from the hymn experiment was that it pretty much didn't get easier to make myself sing the hymns until I was nearly to end of the year. The lesson? It's hard to change habits--but even if we have a hard time changing who we innately are, we can still force ourselves to make choices that we really, really don't feel like making. Maybe the core of who we are will never change (I'd be lying if I didn't also mention that while I still almost always sing hymns--unless I'm sick--there's very often that part of me that groans and throws a stink about it); but maybe making the decisions to negate who we are become just a tiny bit easier every day.

There are some things we can do to help in this process that I personally think make quite a bit of difference in how well you stick to your goals. Basically, this boils down to rearranging your life so that the single most essential goal is always fits into the mix (with all the other essential things in your life). With singing hymns, this meant that most Sundays I tried sitting next to my friend Elizabeth, who loves to sing, is a wonderful singer, and from whom I could learn the alto lines, simply by sitting next to her. Plus, I know she's got gumption enough to encourage the person sitting next to her to sing. Second, I brought cough drops to church when I was sick. Or breath mints. Or gum. Whatever. Basically, I just didn't give myself a reason to make excuses.

This also usually means cutting other things out. For me, that means cutting out other resolutions. I've never been successful when I've had more than one. Usually, the demands of one end up invalidating another. Pick one, rearrange your life to suit it, stick with it.

With that said, this year, my goal is to take care of my body. That's it. I have an entire year to get the baby weight off (and there's thankfully not too much of it to lose in the first place; an entire year is entirely plausible). What this actually in-the-real-world means in my life is that I am giving myself permission: Permission to exercise at 2 in the afternoon if that's how long it takes for me to finish my morning routine with the kids. Permission to look "ugly" on those days when I exercise later and don't want to apply makeup/do my hair for the 2 remaining wakeful hours of the day. Permission to neglect social media (including this blog) if it means I get to brush my teeth or prepare a healthy snack or read an inspiring article. Permission to say "no" to social engagements with friends if it conflicts with exercise, healthy food prep, etc. I'm just going to make it happen, and try to get back to living in a body that feels good to live in.

What will you be trying to accomplish this year?

Christmas 2012

This Christmas was just lovely. It's the first year since we've been married that we stayed in our own space; last year, we woke up here on Christmas morning, went to church, then hit the road for a family vacation to AZ. This year, we got to have a nice Christmas morning in our own space and on our own timeline. It was lovely. In the afternoon, we went to my brother's in Ogden; he took over doing the shrimp feast my mom always prepares on Christmas Day. It was great to just hang out with family and relax.

There are a ton of pictures on my real camera, but guess what? I don't feel like uploading them right now. So you get some awesome iPhone pics which I'm not even going to edit for you. Feeling special yet?

Well, here are the highlights:

1. Ada and Eloise Aspen, her cabbage patch doll. I may or may not have cried in the middle of Costco when my mom and I found Eloise. I loved my own cabbage patch doll (Patricia Myrtle) so much I couldn't wait for Ada to have Eloise. Then I panicked that maybe Ada was too young for such a doll and worried I'd become one of those moms who insists on her daughters being exactly like her. But no worries: Ada and Eloise are bosom friends. I've never seen a little girl love her doll so much. And it's so fun seeing her push Eloise all over the house in her teeny tiny stroller (which, btw, W insists on using as a vacuum/lawn mower/rocket/etc.).

2. D&G. I can't stop smelling myself. Even in public. Yes, it's embarrassing, but I don't really mean to. I just look around for the fantastic smell I caught a whiff of, and guess what? It's always me! Thank you to beauty magazines for making me feel like having a "signature scent" is crucial to knowing who you are in life (sarcasm).

3. Ada's mid-morning meltdown when we explained there would be no more chocolate until after lunch. Chris and I couldn't stop laughing. Her reaction was so immediate and so sincere; I actually felt sorry for her (but didn't give in!).

4. Chris and I decided to do a handmade gift exchange this year. I decided to take my hand to my own melted crayon art. I am not crafty or artistic. This, however, was pretty awesome. I used crayola metallic crayons, and it was magical and ruined my blowdryer, to boot. But when all was said and done, I felt like Picasso, which is a new experience to me.

This year, I was unable to get Christmas cards out in the mail. We've been sick for more than a month, so consider yourself lucky; I don't know if germs can be carried by letter, but if they can, you'd all be miserable right about now. 

Merry Christmas!