Welcome to the teen scene!

May 26, 2017 By

From teen back to toddler, that’s how I’d discuss this phase of our parenting journey. Once out of the irascible toddler years, I thoroughly enjoyed elementary school and watching these kids of mine flex their independence and grow. But with Hadley finishing seventh grade and Bode starting Middle School next year (don’t get me started about my displeasure that it is grades 6-8), I’m bracing myself for even more tween/teen angst and meltdowns reminiscent of the toddler years.

To be fair, Bode is still really delightful and naive to all the drama and I’m honestly not sure what his teenager years will bring. He’s smart, kind, helpful, thoughtful and happy 99% of the time. But he’s also really sensitive and cares a little bit too much about his grades and I worry he’ll have a nervous breakdown working himself to death. And I’m sure he’ll be moody because what teenager isn’t?

Hadley’s first birthday as a teen was a testament of the roller-coaster we’re on. She wakes up at 6:30 a.m. for school and I gave her a backrub to ease into her day and then some apple-marmalade crepes before driving her to the bus stop. I would have driven her to school for her birthday but she actually really love the bus(?!) and her friends (including some really cool high school boys in our ward) sang her “Happy Birthday!”

After school, she opened her presents: New clothes from Jamie’s mom and a huge make-up case from Aunt Lisa. We gave her a new sleeping bag and pad, a pillow top mattress for her uncomfortable bed and the most exciting (for her) of all: a phone plan. We can’t afford to get her a new phone and frankly, I don’t know that I really want to at this juncture so we’re updating her iPod to include texting and Internet. I’m easing her into social medial with Instagram and will ease back out just as quickly if this proves to be premature.

At her request, we signed her up for rugby, which she doesn’t like because she doesn’t want to get hurt. I’m a “I paid the money so you’re going” kind of parent but didn’t force it on her birthday because I figure it’s the one day of the year to have fun.  She didn’t want a party with friends and said she just wanted to go to dinner at Tucanos for her birthday so we’re doing that tonight. For her actual birthday, I had suggested we have a quick dinner at home and then go see “Guardians of the Galaxy 2″ at our local theater. As we were driving there, we pulled up to the theater and she said in disdain, “I don’t really want to go here.” “Why, what’s wrong?” “It’s not a nice theater and I don’t really want to see the movie after all.”

Now, we haven’t yet been to the theater and I’m sure it’s a small-town one without all the fancy bells and whistles she’s used to in the big city but it seemed like a rash judgment without actually seeing it. Keeping our cool (it was, after all, her birthday), we asked what she wanted to do and she said “Let’s just go home and rent “Allegiant.” The problem: That movie is not yet rentable so we ended up watching “Fault in our Stars,” which is actually a really great movie about two star-crossed cancer-stricken teenage lovers…funny, heartwarming and depressing all at once.

Welcome to the teenage years.

=====

My Facebook memories for today when life’s problems could be solved with Twinkletoes and Fat Kitty!

Filed Under: Hadley, Humor

Happy 13th Birthday, Hadley!

May 25, 2017 By

Dear Hadley,

I never thought I’d be relieved to see birthday #13 but your 12th year of life was a huge roller-coaster and I, for one, am glad to put seventh grade behind you. It was a tough year for sure. Moving away from the friends you’ve known since birth and getting thrown into the lion’s den of middle school is not for the faint of heart.

(Chief Mountain Summit)

The long delay in selling our house had its advantages: it meant one last summer to spend with your Colorado friends and you played ’til your heart’s content with parties and fun. You went to High Adventure Girl’s Camp in Leadville, summiting your second 14er. You then flew out to Utah the following week to attend Girl’s Camp with our new ward where you made some awesome new friends and camped in the Uintas.

You went to Canada, fell in love with wakesurfing on the lake, played in the mud, stampeded and were your usual unconquerable self. Later in the year, you had some other memorable adventures like getting “Maximum Interlodged” (snowed in) at Alta, flying back to Colorado Springs for the Great Wolf Lodge grand opening and spending New Year’s with our besties in Colorado.

Even after we moved from our beloved Colorado home and had those two months of commuting from Park City, you adjusted well. You made new friends at school and church. You went above-and-beyond in your academics and landed on the honor roll for the first time. You became newly obsessed with your appearance and spent hours doing your make-up and hair in the bathroom and are turning into a beautiful woman.

Things were really going your way until they weren’t. Call it hormones, call it “Pomegranate” boy drama, call it being 12 and in middle school but your self-confidence tanked, as well as your happiness and grades. Those few months were some of the worst of your (and my) life and you’re slowly clawing your way out. I’m not sure what happened to trigger everything and maybe I’ll never know. Maybe it’s just all a part of growing up in a messed-up world where your every insecurity is compared to those gleaming, filtered examples in social media. Maybe it’s just part of leaving your childhood behind. video games, technology held zero appeal to you but you have turned into a full-fledged teen this year with YouTube and texting obsession on your iPod. My hope is you will find some way to reconnect with those passions. Like your Grandma B., you were born to create, to imagine, to dream. I’m hoping your newfound interest in photography will be a way to fill that void.

It’s all part of growing up and I’m trying to grow up along side of you but it’s painful to watch your beautiful daughter struggle to figure out her place in this world. The one thing that has been repeatedly confirmed to me is that you will not do anything unless you want to do it but when when you’re on fire, you’re unstoppable. You fell in love with volleyball and are constantly setting the ball against the wall. You’re going to a couple of volleyball camps this summer, as well as Keystone Science School where you’ll backpack, rodeo and kayak your way through Steamboat Springs.  Your love affair with skiing is still going strong and we sprung for season passes next season (or at least our credit card did and we’re slowly paying it back).

You have also recently started playing in a girl’s Rugby league this week (what could possibly go wrong there? :-) and on Saturday, you and I conquered Utah Zipline’s Adventure course where I saw you leap off a daunting platform and careen down the longest zipline in the world over water. That was not for the faint of heart–and neither is being a teenager–but I hope you’ll embrace these next years with the same bravery and confidence that have brought you to this point in your life.

Channel your resolve, embrace the suck of these years and, remember these wise words from S.C. Lourie:

Be confused, it’s where you begin to learn things.

Be broken, it’s where you begin to heal.

Be frustrated, it’s where you start to make more authentic decisions.

Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our hear’ts wisdom through it.

Be whatever you are right now.

No more hiding.

You are worthy, always.

And no matter how tough that road may be, please always remember that you are loved.

Love,

Mom

P.S. For a stroll down memory lane, read letters for your 12th birthday, 11th, 10th, 9th,  8th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd and your birth story.

High Achieving Week at Outdoor Lab

Hiking Chautauqua

Deer Valley hiking

BYU football with Coscmo

 

Filed Under: Hadley

Nacho Libre

May 20, 2017 By

My friend Cheryl has been a longtime devotee to the 2006 American sports comedy film, Nacho Libre.

If you haven’t seen it, Jack Black plays a character who works as a cook in the Mexican monastery where he grew up. The monastery is home to a host of orphans whom Nacho cares for deeply, but there is not much money to feed them properly. Nacho decides to raise money for the children by moonlighting as a Lucha Libre wrestler with his partner, but since the church forbids Lucha, Nacho must disguise his identity.

I know your life is totally changed from reading that paragraph.

I’m not one for stupid humor and Napoleon Dynamite is one of the few corny cult classics I enjoy but the kids and I decided to watch it one evening and laughed our heads off the whole way through.

Apparently Jamie was remiss to miss out on the fun so he announced to me a few weeks later that he, too had watched Nacho Libre.

“Do you feel like your life has changed?” I asked.

“I now feel equal to you.”

Apparently, we have a very low bar for equality in our household.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

That time we were featured in the Wall Street Journal

May 17, 2017 By

A few weeks ago my friend Eileen Ogintz, founder of Taking The Kids and a syndicated columnist, emailed to ask if I could put the word out to my friends that a reporter from the Wall Street Journal was looking to interview families who let their kids help plan the vacation. I put the word out on Facebook but nobody responded so I acquiesced to be interviewed by Sue Shellenbarger. I really didn’t think much would come of it–maybe she’d include a quote in her article–until she emailed me again in a panic saying her editor wanted her to interview my kids as well. So on Friday after school, Bode and Hadley casually talked to the a reporter from the biggest newspaper in the United States. No biggie.

If you are questioning the reliability of journalism in this day and age, rest assured the Wall Street Journal is the most fact-checked newspaper I’ve ever seen. For our small quotes in the article, Sue emailed me several times.

Anyway, here’s the link to Dare to Let the Children Plan Your Vacation and I’ll include screenshots and our quotes below.

And yes, Bode totally talks like a 40-year-old man.

 

 

The Johnson family of Denver is planning a car trip to western Colorado this summer. Amber Johnson says her daughter Hadley, 12, persuaded the family to go jet-boating, racing over the Colorado River at speeds of up to 40 miles an hour in boats driven by professionals.

It’s a plan Ms. Johnson and her husband Jamie would never have chosen for the family. But Hadley sees children’s museums as cheesy. “I’m kind of growing up and everything,” Hadley says. “I’m a little more crazy and adventurous than museums.”

Bode, 10, says he was nervous at first about jet-boating. But Ms. Johnson reassured him that the boats have seat belts and life jackets. Now he’s on board with the plan. “I think I might actually learn something, including having a positive attitude and being willing to do new things,” he says.

Giving the children a voice keeps them excited and interested, Ms. Johnson says. It also means suffering through their mistakes. Bode and Hadley picked a hotel online for a road trip last summer because it had a big pool, says Ms. Johnson, editor of Mile High Mamas, an online community. She suggested they might want to do more research, but “they jumped on it because it looked really fun,” Ms. Johnson says.

When they arrived, the pool was closed for renovation. Ms. Johnson sees such “soft failures,” or missteps with minor consequences, as learning experiences. “We would call ahead and do more research” next time, Hadley says.

 


Filed Under: Bode, Family travel, Favorite Posts, Hadley, Utah

The Glories of Rec Soccer

May 10, 2017 By

“If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

The same can be asked of if a blogger fails to write about the last several months, does it mean it ever really happened?

I’m long overdue on an updates post that will probably be a compilation of pictures and narratives. We’re in the middle of landscaping hell; Jamie has been living it since we moved in but the real push will be the next couple of months as we finish putting in the sprinkler lines in the backyard and seeding it, sodding the front and planting everything. We ran out of money we’d set aside from the sale of our house last week so we’re scrimping and saving to get at least the basics completed. Oh, the joy!

My intention was to write about Bode’s last soccer game yesterday but then I realized I didn’t even write about the first one! If you’re in fifth grade and above in the Heber Valley and like soccer, you play competitive because recreational soccer only goes through fourth grade, and then 5-7 th graders are co-ed because there aren’t enough players. We missed competitive tryouts for this calendar year and when I tried to sign Bode up for the co-ed league, he was too young so he’s been playing with the fourth graders on the rec team.

The good: He is a very skilled ball handler and a smart player. He’s incredibly strategic and always makes smart passes and is very coachable (his hardcore coach a couple of years ago said he was the one kid on the team who would listen and implement what he instructed). But he has never had the big kicks and scoring ability of the superstars so he’s always been very middle-of-the-pack in the Denver leagues. But playing in a small-town rec league, he’s been one of the strongest players so has had a chance to shine. Plus, playing with the fourth graders, he’s no longer the smallest on the field.

The bad: The level of play is waaaaaay lower than his previous league so he isn’t progressing like he would be if he was in a more challenging situation.

Competitive tryouts are next week and I’ve been vacillating on what to do.  If he was a prodigy and wanted to keep pushing himself, competitive would be the obvious choice. But he’s not. He enjoys playing but isn’t obsessed with it. He could no doubt make the competitive teams here but he would no longer be the superstar, would have way less playing time, we’d be traveling every Saturday, he’d practice several times a week, it’s a full year commitment and it costs a lot more money.

Can you tell I REAAAAALLY don’t want him to be competitive?

I was relieved when he says he’d just like to stick with rec and so next fall, he’ll be playing co-ed with girls. If nothing else, it will be great blog fodder because if the kid can’t string two sentences together to talk to a girl, what will it be like to play with them?

Here are a few pictures to commemorate the season.

Jamie has been bossing people around from the sidelines for many years. It’s about time he made it official. #CoachJamie

I realized during our final game, I hadn’t taken any other pictures so snapped a couple of them. This one was taken of Bode (on the left) moments before he took his worst shot on goal ever.

Fortunately, he later redeemed himself and went on to score three goals, the final one was the most impressive of his soccer career.

And you can’t wrap the season without a shot of Team WhatchaMaCallThem. Unlike in years past when Bode named the name (Angry Piggies was a favorite), these dudes went unnamed.

See our goalie on the back row in yellow? He got Scott Sterling-ed yesterday with the most brutal soccer ball kick to the head that knocked him senseless to the ground.  He was fortunately OK but after the game when Jamie asked him if he was blindsided, he replied, “I saw it coming but I felt like a paper doll and couldn’t move.”

The Paper Dolls. It kind of has a nice ring to it.

Filed Under: Bode, Humor

The Mile High Mamas Miracle

May 8, 2017 By

I was biking home after dropping off my kids at school when my iPhone rang. Little did I know that message would be the makings of The Mile High Mamas Miracle.

Every Mother’s Day, I issue an invitations for Denver moms to tell their story.  One year, it was their own experiences in becoming a mother; for another, it was their favorite mom moments. Last year, I launched a Mother’s Day contest where entrants wrote an essay about their Mom Hero–whether it was their own mother or a peer or someone they admired.  All of the entries were so inspiring and I published 20 of them the week of Mother’s Day.

With so many amazing stories, I knew I wouldn’t be able to choose (plus, I felt I was biased because I knew some of the women who submitted). The Grand Prize winner would receive a day of pampering for two at Allure Skincare and Lash, True Bliss Massage AND Rooted in Tradition Acupuncture so I asked the PR rep of the salon to make the final selection.

She chose Brenda Lane’s My Mom, My Hero, Advocate and Artist.

As a side note, I was in the middle of a very stressful season of my life. We were [unsuccessfully] selling our home, permits were delayed on our new one, I had umpteen end-of-the-year responsibilities–from recitals to graduation parties to assisting at a wedding reception to my daughter’s own birthday bash and Sixth Grade Continuation.

The timing is an important note in this miracle because it was almost two weeks after Mother’s Day when I finally emailed Brenda to let her know she had won.  I didn’t hear back from her. Five days later, I emailed the PR rep to see if she had made contact. She hadn’t so we resolved to call her.

That was before I received the message on that fateful day while riding my bike home. It was from Adriana, Brenda’s partner of 15 years, who requested I call her back because she wanted to to share the beautiful backstory of Brenda winning the grand prize.

The experience that unfolded was the makings of miracles.

Adriana shared that just eight weeks ago, Brenda’s mom Sylvia had been living a busy and happy life as she finished illustrating a children’s book when she experienced some back pain. The next weeks that ensued involved a visit to the ICU, a nursing home, hospital visits and finally, her health had declined so rapidly that it was time to send her home with hospice.

The family was gathered together with her mom on the brink of death when Brenda received my email that she had won the Grand Prize. She didn’t have the strength to tell her mom but it was a hospice worker who said, “Brenda, you have to share this with her. This is your moment.”

So Brenda stood by her Mom’s bed and shared the news that her “Mom Hero” entry had won. Adriana read the essay to her mom in what would become her final lucid moments.  “It was the last gift, the last words Brenda was able to share with Mom,” said Adriana.

Sylvia Lane died four hours later.

“So, I just wanted to thank you for this. This miracle,” Adriana told me during our phone call. “Tomorrow is Sylvia’s service and we will read that essay. This has been the one thing that our family and close friends keep talking about. This was the perfect moment for all of this to happen and has helped us come together as a family.”

Here’s the thing. Our Mother’s Day hero contest wasn’t some big nationwide competition but for this family, it was a touching reminder that by small and simple things, miracles happen.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Just Two Bananas

May 2, 2017 By

A couple of weeks ago in Relief Society, my friend Katie shared the story “Just Two Bananas” that has made me resolve to do better about befriending those who may have been overlooked or forgotten. You never know the difference a little bit of kindness can make in their lives. 

-Church News – week ending May 21, 1988:

Several years ago a volunteer worker at Welfare Square in Salt Lake City shared a true experience with her associates at a devotional meeting. It is a story worth re-telling in her own words:

“A few years ago while on a trip our family stopped in a small town to visit a friend we had not seen for a long time. As we drove up in front of her home, she was just going out of her gate.

The first thing we noticed about her was that she had two bananas in her hand. We got out of the car and chatted with her for a moment. When I asked her where she was going with two bananas she explained that she had made a fruit salad the day before and had borrowed two bananas from her neighbor and was now on her way to return them. She said she would wait and return them after we left so she could visit with us. At that point, my 6-year-old son said he would be glad to return the bananas. He said he ran errands all the time for me, and would be happy to explain who the bananas came from. My friend was impressed by his eagerness, so she gave him the bananas, pointed out the house, and off he went across the street.

We were in the house visiting when my son came bounding in, and with excitement said to my friend, ‘Hey, that guy said to tell you thanks a lot. He loves bananas.’

My friend looked puzzled, and said ‘He? My friend is a widow and has no husband.’ She thought for a moment and then said, ‘Oh, I’ll bet it was one of her sons. They come to see her often.’

I thought my little boy might have gone to the wrong house, so I asked him to come outside and point out the house where he had taken the bananas. He said he had taken them to the white house with a bush in front of the window.

My friend became rather upset, saying that of all the houses on her street that was the last one she would take anything to. The man who lived there was very repulsive. No one could stand him. His wife and family had left him, and he had lost his job. The only person who ever came to see him was his daughter, and she only came to see him because she felt sorry for him, not because she loved him.

As we walked back into the house, listening to her tell about the man, it seemed to me that he had no redeeming qualities at all. I wondered to myself what he must have thought about suddenly getting two bananas.

We continued to visit when my little boy looked out the window and said to my friend, ‘You know that guy I took the bananas to, well, he’s coming through your gate right now.’

My friend was uttering a few inaudible words when the knock came at the door. She opened the door, and her neighbor stood before her, tears in his eyes, finding it difficult to express himself. He finally was able to thank her for the two bananas, and said he was glad that someone cared enough to think of him. He thought no one even cared about him anymore. He handed her a sack of freshly picked vegetables from his garden and some plums from his tree. He told her that he had not been a good neighbor, but from now on he would try to be better.

About two years later we again dropped by to visit our friend. We told her we couldn’t stay long because it was late in the day and we wanted to set up camp before dark.

My friend begged us to stay and meet her home teacher who was coming by that evening. She said she had the greatest home teacher. ‘You remember that man your little boy took the bananas to? Well he’s my home teacher now and I have never had a better one. The whole direction of his life changed when he thought someone cared about him.

She went on to explain that he had gotten his job back, his wife and family had come back to him, and everyone in the neighborhood liked him. She said she wished he could always be her home teacher, but she was afraid he would be released because two weeks ago he had been sustained as a counselor in the bishopric of their ward.

This touching story reminds us as we keep the second great commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves that even small deeds can produce great results. Even two bananas!”

Filed Under: LDS