How do Mothers do it on days like these?

The following story happened to Christy this past week. She shared it with me already and then she had to share it with her professor for a class she is currently taking. I am amazed at how much stress she can handle and how calm and collected she can be. I'll stop talking now and just paste the email that she just wrote her professor.

Hello Professor Ringel,I am writing to inform you that I have the flu as well as a sinus infectionand therefore am not going to be attending class tomorrow evening. (1/30/08)
I did do the assignment however and will just type it now for you to sharein class or just for yourself- however you were planning on us using theseexperiences.
My stressful "event" was more like a stressful day. I have two little boys-one who is three years old, and the other is one. After waking the baby upto take my 3 yr old to pre school, we pulled into the parking lot to realizethat there was no school that day and somehow I missed the memo. Since wewere all up and out and about, we proceeded to Costco to get our list ofitems. Costco is never a fun place for anyone and even less fun with twokids. AFter shopping for over an hour, having a big bottle of pine sol fallout of our cart and spill all over the floor all while the baby has beenscreaming for the past 20 min, we proceed to checkout. The checkout linewas long and after ringing up 450.00 worth of merchandise, I swiped mycard. The machine said my pin number was invalid. Yes, the baby is stillscreaming and my 3 yr old saying repeadedly, "when are we doing to be done?"I begin to sweat. The noise from all the people and crying from my baby isdeafning. I try the card again. Still not working. I don't have acheckbook. I call the number on the back for customer service which justtransfers me to more and more voice machines. I just wanted to talk to aperson!!!! At this time, I am frustrated and angry already with whomeverI'm going to speak with on the other end b/c there is no way this should behappening. We have money in our account, and it wasn't like the card wasdenied, it was a pin number error. Was I supposed to have changed it in thenew year or something? I would have appreciated a letter or phone call ifthat was the case...... (so racing thoughts as to what is possibly going onand what I can do about it).After 15 min and the woman telling me to go to an atm and put in my pin andit'll work, I do that. I push my full cart to the ATM and wait in yetanother line. The baby has lost it by now. I pick him up and hold him inone arm and try to use the ATM with my other. ATM is not working- says it'san invalid pin as well. I pull out another card to just take out cash topay and get the heck out of there and the ATM says it's all out of cash.So, now I have a baby who is falling out of my arms b/c he is throwing amajor tantrum. Luckily the 3 yr old was a good trooper. I go over to thecashier, explain my situation and apologize. They now need to empty my veryfull cart. I have wasted over 2 hrs at costco. I get the kids coats on andrealize I had opened a box of granola bars and given one to each of my kidsto distract them while shopping. I tell the cashier I owe her for thegranola bars b/c they are opened and have just enough cash and change (tothe penny!!!!! ) to pay. So, I leave costco with one box of granola bars.The lady tells me to go to another ATM and come back with cash. They'llwait a while until they unload my cart. So, that's what I do. But, but thetime I come back and walk the mile it seems to take from my car to the storewith my cranky kids, the cart has been unloaded.During my costco fiasco, my emotions cycle rapidly. After I get off thephone with the lady about my pin number, I start to tear up and feel sohelpless and out of control. When I see there is no cash in the ATM, Istarted to laugh and said to my self, "of course....why not?" in a sarcasticmanner.It's nap time for the baby (and has been for a good hr) and yet I have nomilk to give him b/c we were going to buy some at costco. I stop by aneighbors house and fill up a sippie cup of milk breifly explaining my sagaand promise to repay her the few cups of milk I'm borrowing.Once at home and warming up the milk, the baby begins to scream from theother room and the 3 yr old shouts "Bryce fell on the toy!" Blood isgushing from his mouth. I pick up the baby, run to get a wet rag andpopcicle for his mouth to stop the bleeding an swelling. After calming himdown a bit, I check the damage and he's cut his stringly thing on the toplip that connects his top gums to his top lip pretty badly. Bleeding is notstopping. We call the pediatric dentist. She tells us to come in rightaway b/c he may need stiches. Back in the car we go. Still no naps......I grab the sippie of milk for the baby, a couple pieces of bread and abanana for lunch for the 3 yr old and baby - (if he is able to eat.)While driving I realize I haven't eaten all day and my stomach starts togrowl. I am surprisingly calm. I think more exhausted than anything atthis point. At the dentist, she determines that he doesn't need stiches andno teeth are loose. Back in the car, home, nap time. Baby in bed aftertylenol and the 3 yr old watches a movie and I crash on the couch. Ithought I had lots of energy which I did at the time, but after sittingrealized how exhausted I really was. I fell asleep- so did my 3 yr old.Upon waking and realizing I still had no milk or ingredients to make dinnerwith, I went to the store. I felt like a walking zombie. SO TIRED!!! Notjust sleepy tired, but whole body tired. Carter - the 3 yr old was up until10 that night b/c he took a nap, but after he was asleep, I slept sosoundly. Two days later I got the flu. 103 fever, aches, cough, chills,sore throat, runny nose, congestion, headache..... My body feels like I'vebeen hit by a truck. More stress b/c now my husband needs to take off workto care for the kids when he has no vacation days left and we need to savefor this summers trip to see his family in Idaho. More stress b/c I don'twant to get my kids and husband sick. More stress b/c I'm missingclasses.... So, my life seems like a big ball of stress right now and I feellike there is nothing I can do about it. I'm being forced to rest by beingso sick and hate it. Oh well....what do ya do?So, there you have it Professor Ringel. Probably more detail than you'dlike, but writing about it has actually been pretty theraputic. HopefullyI'll be in class next Wed. Thanks Christy.


It's moments like these that I realize, I am married to Superwoman.

Today Attitude Matters

One thing I really like about my new job is the fact that they pick a business related book for everyone to read and then they discuss it one afternoon six weeks later. This is the first book I've had the opportunity to read titled "Today Matters" by John Maxwell. Overall it has been an inspirational book and one that leaves you wanting to improve your life.

The book isn't only geared toward "business" people, but for all people. It basically covers 12 areas of focus for readers to improve on daily in order to achieve success. Of the 12 areas, 4 have really struck me as significant in my life, areas where I feel I can improve on the most in order to live a more successful life.

Attitude. I remember my dad speaking to me once when I was still in grade school, I had been sent to my room for something I did that apparently was a display of bad attitude. He came in after some moments of reflection and asked me if I knew what attitude was. I think my response was that it was how we act. He then mentioned to me that attitude was one thing that we could always choose, no matter what was going on around us. We could choose our attitude. I wonder if he even remembers that conversation, but I sure did. This book really hits it home with how having a positive attitude can not only improve your life but others that come in contact with you.

Some of the things he mentions are "When you spend time with others do they walk away feeling better or worse? Do you clear the air, giving them a fresh perspective and positive encouragement? Or do they go away feeling gloomy? Watch how people respond to you, and you''ll know which kind of person you are.
Looking for the positive in every situation helps you see opportunities that you would otherwise miss. Being positive with people prompts them to be positive with you-and individuals who interact well with others have a leg up on people who don't.
Many people in this world mistakenly believe their attitude is set...But that's not true. Your attitude is a choice. If it's not good now, you need to change it, here's how...If you desire to change yourself, then start with your mind. Believe that you can improve, that you can change into the person you desire to be. "

He further mentions how to accomplish this, by being appreciative and grateful for the little things instead of always finding something to complain about. If attitude is an area we really want to change then we need to work at it. Make a conscious effort to start out the day having a positive attitude. For myself, it is hardest when I am tired (which is another of his 12 areas, being healthy, but not one of the four I feel has impacted me the greatest). Other things he mentions are finding someone positive in every situation, "draft" off of them the way racers do and help each other stay positive. Say something positive in every conversation. Remove negative words from your vocabulary. Doing these things will help train our minds to think more positive.

The remaining 3 areas I will have to write about later are priorities, thinking, and growth.

What is your sleep number?

So finally after a year and a half, we are using the paint that we purchased at Home Depot to do the boys upstairs bathroom. Christy also bought some in-expensive wood floor looking vinyl stick on tiles that we can update the bathroom floor with. I finally was able to caulk for I think the first time in my life as I re-did the caulking around the shower and tub. We are still working on the floor and we need to put up a duckie wall paper border, but we have at least painted most of it. Being an adult has its perks...I used to dread doing home projects when I was a kid...but now I rather enjoy it. Kinda funny how lots of tastes change the older we get. Even things I didn't think were fun to learn about have become interesting to me.

We had a great Christmas and it was fun to stay at home and have the boys come downstairs and open up gifts. I think that the boys were on present overload (mostly Carter because Bryce is too young to yet know what is going on). But after he opened gifts here from Christy and I and his Aunt's, Uncles, Cousins and Idaho Grandparents, then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house where he got more gifts, and there was still one gift that Christy and I had bought as a joint gift for him and Bryce that he didn't open before we went over to the grandparents house, and when we came home to open it, he didn't seem all too excited. Makes me think we are really spoiling our children. But then I think that he will have these toys for years and they will replace other toys (hopefully).

We have been trying out a sleep number bed and after getting our 30 days extended for another 30, it is time to return it. It was a nice enough bed, just too expensive and I don't feel that the marginal gain of a good nights sleep on a new sleep number bed is enough to justify spending more than for a new mattress. So there was some frustration dealing with the return of the sleep number bed, but after spending some money on the return shipping, we are resolved. Now thats something to sleep good to.

We went Christmas caroling on Christmas eve at a retirement/nursing home. I remember being scared of old people (I don't know if that's the best way to refer to them (and again the "them" as if they are different than us)). Christy did a great job in prepping him for what it would be like and how they were lonesome and how he could color pictures to give them. Well Christy's sister ended up bringing lots of drawings or homemade Christmas cards and I was proud of Carter how he went up to people and handed them a card and would say "merry Christmas." It was inspiring to see how their eyes light up when they see the children or how they would long for them to touch them, give them a hug, or even a high five. How that must be to see a whole lifetime and future ahead of a child as you are looking back from the very end of yours.

We only had one snow so far this winter season. Carter, Bryce and Christy took advantage though.

Some recent family photos

Thanksgiving is o'er

Now tis Christmas time. Christy is out shopping with Carter today and left me home to clean and be with Bryce. To set the record straight, we have two sweet little boys. They both have good hearts and Carter has quite a lot of manners for a 3 year old. Maybe it's because I expect so much of him and when he does fall short that I tend to feel frustrated. But he is only a kid. I already know that I am much milder with Bryce now that I know what to expect (or not to expect) out of infants his age.

I will start a new job on Monday. By a new job I also mean a new career. I am leaving the accounting world as I have known it and am going to work with a financial planning company! I am excited for the change as I haven't really felt a passion for accounting necessarily and hope that I feel more passion for this new career.

Christy loves the holidays. It's great to be married to a person who loves the holidays as much as she does. I remember feeling as a kid the excitement in the fall air during Halloween, or the peaceful spirit of Christmas. She definitely brings holiday spirit into our house and I am grateful for that.

Christy bought the Christmas classics that we knew as kids. We watched Frosty the snowman last night with Carter. I can't believe how cheesy these films are and how much I used to love watching them at Christmas time. It was these films that helped bring in the holiday spirit into my life as a kid.

So I found a mouse in our basement a few days ago, and the day after Christy found two baby mice in our washing machine! How did they get in our washing machine?! After I removed them from the washing machine I thought I'd better put it on spin cycle to see if it filled the washer full of more mice. It didn't. Then I went out and bought a tomcat mousetrap kit. Two glue traps, two snap traps, and an animal lover friendly catch and release mouse trap.

So I put a glue trap under our stove a few days ago. I was checking it yesterday to see if we had caught anything and I didn't really want to get down on my belly to look under the stove. So as I was bending down with my hands on the floor, I realized that I could be squatting and put my elbows just inside each kneecap, and lower my head close to the floor without touching anything but my hands to the floor. But to do so I had to lift my feet off the floor and stick my legs out a bit to keep a perfect balance. "This is pretty cool" I thought. I'm like Ethan Hunt from mission impossible using his strength to balance without letting anything touch the floor (my hands didn't count). As I leaned forward just a bit more I lost my balance and my head was about to hit the floor. I couldn't stick out my hands to prevent myself from hitting my head because they were what was holding my body up braced into my knees. Needless to say, I crashed in a heap onto the floor. Christy came running into the room to see what had happened and I was rubbing my knee.

Then we decided to have a quick little contest to see who could balance the longest in that position, I won. And she says she knows Pilate's and has a good sense of balance. Actually she does as witnessed from our indoor skydiving video below. Our instructor told us that people with good balance can fly well. And I thought that it was just falling through the air... Christy goes first in the video below and I follow.

I'm going to cut your butt off

This is the newest thing said around our dinner table by our 3 year old. Christy tells him it's "potty talk" and that if he wants to talk like that he can go into the bathroom. He knows it's something that he shouldn't say yet he continues to ask almost every night at the dinner table, " Cut your butt off is potty talk huh mommy?" After which she politely says "yes, that's potty talk" and he'll ask one more time.

I let little things like this get to me more than I should. I feel like he knows not to say it but likes to see that he can get away saying it by posing a question. Christy washed his mouth out with soap the other day for saying he wanted to kill his little brother. Kids shouldn't be saying these things. They are sweet and innocent! And should always be that way.

Carter used to go around singing "dangit" because Christy told me to not make a big deal out of it after I already had a time or two. He used to sing it to get a rise out of me. For those of you unfamiliar with this song, it's really easy to learn. It goes something like this, "dangit dangit dangit, dangit dangit dangit, dangit dangit dangit, (then the chorus, which is the same. Sometimes there is variation with a dramatic pause and a look at me to see how he is performing, then the smug smile as he continues his singing) " The kid sure knows how to push my buttons, or better said, I sure know how to let him push my buttons.

I go into his room at the end of the day when he is in a deep sleep and I stroke his hair and tell him I love him. I am too hard on him too often. I haven't quite learned what battles to surrender or which ones to wage. It's a hard balance to know when to react and dish out punishment or when to let things go.

I guess as Christy has pointed out, there will be far worse things he could say and will learn someday, and to let him know we don't approve of it but not to come down hard on him. I guess in high school if he is still only saying "I'm going to cut your butt off!", then he's doing pretty well dangit!

Embarrassing Dating 101

I remember my cousins teasing me once when I was younger and I said something mean to tease them back. They continued to tease me until I got mad/hurt and started to cry. My dad heard me and called me over to tell me that if I am going to dish it out then I have to be able to take it. To me feeling embarrassed is similar. If I'm going to put myself in a situation to cause myself to feel embarrassed, then I have to take it.

I've felt embarrassed at various times in my life. I guess that's saying that I've allowed myself to get into situations where embarrassment is inevitable. This one has to be the worst embarrassing moment I've had and the hardest humble pill to swallow. Here we go...

I attended Ricks College before my mission back in the summer of 96. I was a freshman and thought it would be a good idea to take a dance class, so I did. I danced with a girl a few times during the course of the semester. All I knew was her first name. And that was all I needed at the time for my shy teenage hormones to devise a plan to ask her out to the up coming dance without having to do it in person.

I put it off until a week or less before the dance. I still didn't have the courage to do it on our last day of class before the weekend dance. So now I had to call her, but I didn't have her number. Ricks college had a nice system in place where one could look up fellow classmates class schedules, addresses and phone numbers by either typing in their first or last name. All I had was a first name, so I methodically went through the list of 100 Amy's to find the one that was in my dance class thus giving me her number. I found only one on the list whose schedule matched mine and guess what, there was no number listed on her schedule. But now I had a last name to go with, so I simply called the school operator and told them the first and last name and they gave me a phone number.

I was running out of time and I knew I needed to ask soon. So I mustered up enough courage to call figuring that she'd already had been asked to the dance by some other guy by now, but figured it was still worth a shot. After all, I had worked hard to find out her number, so I called her.

I was very nervous when she answered the phone, my heart was about to beat out of my chest and kept crawling up my throat blocking my words. I told her I was Brady from her dance class and asked if she knew who I was. I mentioned that I was the tall one (I am about 6'5") and she said that she thought she knew me. I asked her if she would like to go to the dance and to my surprise, she said yes!!! I then got her address to come by and drop off her matching shirt (it was a matching shirt dance). I hung up the phone feeling on top of the world!

Somehow in the next day I managed to brag to everyone that I had ever talked to in my life, that I was going to the dance with the hottest girl (My wife is so much prettier and I'm glad my realationship with Amy didn't last long or else I wouldn't have met such a high caliber of woman as my wife!) I wish I hadn't told everyone, because when I went to her apartment to drop off the shirt, one of her roomates answered the door and I said, "Hi , Is Amy here?", (two other roomates were on the couch giggling at me), the roomate who answered replies with a confused look, "I'm Amy!" To which I hurridly say "Um, here's your shirt, I'll pick you up tomorrow at 5! Bye!" and I hightail it out of there. Not the Amy I was expecting to see.

So I get to my apartment that night and she calls, tells me she thinks I have the wrong Amy. I lie and say I was nervous. She calls my bluff and says "No, I think you meant to ask someone else out." I finally decide to come clean and tell the truth. The truth shall set you free right?! What they should say is the truth shall set you free after you pay any due consequences. We'll I tell the truth that I did think I was asking out another Amy. She gets defensive and says, well, you can find the other Amy and ask her out then! I (feeling so humiliated at this point) tell her that it doesn't matter who I go to the dance with I just want to go and that I would like it if she would like to go with me still.

She does and long story short, it was the most akward date of my life! Lesson learned. No wait it wasn't...I called my wife to ask her out on our first date. But for those of you still dating, ask girls out face to face when possible. And if calling them to ask them out, make sure you have the correct number. So now that I just dished it out, feel free to post your embarrassing moments. I can take it.

Skiing, nail guns, and pivot lights

After my mission in 99, I returned home and secured employment with a family connection working for a small construction company in Idaho. We built most of a house before I was pulled off the job to build 2 large potato cellars (It was Idaho you know). During that summer I became friends with a few of the other guys on the crew and we hung out after work some, going golfing, boating, or to going to single adult activities.
It was that summer that I was introduced to the nail gun. The other guys on the crew would tell stories about who nailed what body part with the nail gun. Our boss once nailed his knee while kneeling down and it locked it in place. He was up on the roof at the time and somehow he had to be brought to the hospital to have it removed. Or one of my friends told me about the time he nailed two of his fingers together. The stories abounded and I guess it was only time before I had my run in with the nail gun. I ended up shooting my self near the palm of the hand right where the thumb begins. I hurriedly pulled it out and the veteran carpenter who was with me looked at me like "Why did you stop nailing?" And I held up my hand and he sees the nail sticking out from my glove and he says "hold on" and starts to set down whatever he was holding. We'll not wanting someone else to pull the nail out I quickly yanked it out with my un-maimed hand. I was lucky. It didn't go very deep at all for my thumb bone had stopped it in its path through my hand. It really would have wigged me out to see it going in one side and coming out the other, so I'm glad it didn't go that far. Now if I had only shot myself that summer, that would have been one thing. But to have shot one of my friends is another.
Greg was watching me nail some boards with the nail gun a month or two later and was standing above me looking down at the brace boards I was nailing in place. I didn't have the vantage point that he did so I had to guess where the other side of the board was I was nailing, then when I was finished, I could look on the other side to see how many nails had missed the board. We'll doing this one time he make a comment that I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and I playfully went for his foot with the nail gun. To my shock I had the trigger held down so that when the barrel of the nail gun touches against something, it fires a nail. It did so at this time nailing my friends foot to the board he was standing on. He couldn't move. It took me a second to realize what I had done, then that sickening feeling of horror mixed with embarrassment washed through my body. How could I have been so stupid and careless! "Oh my gosh Greg did I get you!" I couldn't quite tell if it had gone through the end of his foot near his toes or if there were some slim chance it had gone between two of his toes. He stood there dumbfounded and said in shock "I, I uh, I don't know!" We quickly got the attention of the whole crew and Brian one of the veteran workers came over with his cats claw to retrieve the nail. If blood came out on the end of the nail, that would be the tell tell sign. Brian gracefully withdrew the nail, and it was bloodless! Greg then removed his foot from the shoe and there was just a minimal amount of blood on his sock as the nail had luckily scraped the side of one of his toes as it passed by. Tis just a scratch and not a flesh wound like we had all feared. I was so relieved yet now the wave of embarrassment was reaching its peak. I was wishing that I could be one of the kids in "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" and shrink down to the size of an ant. Of course my friend would probably have squished me, so he just decked me in the face and broke my nose instead. Okay okay, he didn't hit me and didn't break my nose. But that adds more drama to the story. He quickly forgave me and we finished out the rest of the summer without any more accidents.

For the record, my wife has heard me tell the story briefly many times and it frustrates her how I tell people I shot my friend in the foot with a nail gun and nailed him to a board. She points out that I didn't shoot him in the foot, just the shoe. While she is right, I tell the story as it seemed when I was going through it. I had indeed thought I had shot him through the foot. To tell the story the other way would be like hearing a story backwards. "I shot my friend's shoe with a nail gun.(People not amazed at story) His foot was in the shoe at the time (This story is boring). The foot was slid perfectly so that two toes were placed between the nail. (Can you shoot me with a nail gun?) How lucky we were that I didn't shoot his foot with the gun huh? (Can you please tell me an accounting story? That would be more exciting.)

I am an accountant. I have to hold on to the precious story gems of my youth. Remind me sometime to write about lacerating calves (green cheerios) or castrating pigs. I couldn't believe what a huge hit these stories were at work when I told my co-workers here in the D.C. area! When you tell another Idaho farmer a story like that, they don't even bat an eye.