A Utah Family Travel Writer's Adventures with Altitude
There was an immeasurable amount of screaming when Bode scored the first goal of our very first game of the season. 
There was an equal amount of screaming at the lunatic mother who ran out on the field to snap this commemorative picture.
Killjoys.
As I posted on Monday, Haddie recently competed in a Destination Imagination tournament. Two days before the competition, the DI groups at her school convened to perform for each other. Parents were invited but Hadley told me to hold off until the tournament because she wanted to fine-tune her acting.
And so the parental rejection begins.
When I picked her up from the rehearsal, I noticed that many of her peers had over-the-top costumes whereas Haddie’s monarch butterfly was straightforward with simple black wings. DI is completely kid-driven and parents are not supposed to be involved but the competitive side of me kicked in. Knowing Haddie had a central role in her skit, I wanted her to shine so posted this picture on Facebook asking for advice.
The overriding consensus? Bling the wings. I’m not exactly a bling kinda gal so I turned to my neighbor Meredith, whom I call the craft goddess. Not only is she extraordinarily talented in all things crafty and creative but she has an entire room that is wall-to-wall with thousands of craft supplies. Hadley thought she’d died and gone to heaven.
I was in crafting hell.
However, it was all worth it. Meredith had some fabulous advice and more glitter glue than Michaels. Cute bows down the spine and on her dress completed the outfit and Haddie was thrilled.
With all the effort that was put into the wings, I suggested to Haddie that she should be a monarch butterfly for Halloween as well.
“I was actually thinking I want to go a ghost,” she said.
Now, that’s a costume I can get behind.
I get invitations to participate in a fair number of blogging campaigns but I turn most of them down because, while worthwhile, they’re just not something I’m passionate about.
ConAgra Foods’ Child Hunger Ends Here campaign is different.
I live in a relatively affluent area so I was surprised to learn about the large number of my daughter’s classmates who qualify for free or reduced lunches. Then I was dismayed at these statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture: 17.2 million American children struggle with hunger (that is 1 in 4). In Colorado, 13% of children live in poverty.
I would expect statistics like this elsewhere but certainly not in my own backyard.
That is why ConAgra’s campaign to fight hunger resonated with me. They are partnering with Feeding America and are issuing a call-to-action that is as simple as buying the foods you already love at the grocery store. Here’s how you can help:
Go Grocery Shopping
From March through May 2011, ConAgra Foods will embark on its largest branded initiative to fight child hunger in the United States. Consumers can purchase select ConAgra Foods brands and, when they enter their code online, the company will donate one meal to Feeding America – up to 2.5 million meals this during the time period. Visit www.childhungerendshere.com and enter the eight-digit purchase code found on specially-marked packages. Participating brands include: Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Healthy Choice, Fresh Mixers, Kid Cuisine, Marie Callender’s and Peter Pan. Every code entered is another meal that ConAgra Foods will enable Feeding America to secure through local food banks. Codes on specially-marked packages can be redeemed through August 2011.
Text to Donate
Consumers can make a financial contribution to Feeding America through a mobile giving campaign. Simply text “FEEDKIDS” to 50555 to make a $10 donation directly to Feeding America through June 30, 2011.
Spread the Word
Individuals can get more information on the child hunger issue by following ConAgra Foods on Facebook and Twitter. When you become a fan at facebook.com/ConAgraFoods, you can see how your donations are making a difference and share your own photos and stories. You can also follow the issue and get the latest information at twitter.com/ConAgraFoods. The Twitter hashtag is #ChildHungerEndsHere.
Over the next few months, I’ll be heading over to the local food bank and posting about simple yet worthwhile things we can all do to help child hunger. Please join me in helping this wonderful cause in whatever way you can!
Disclaimer: I am participating in a campaign to help end child hunger through ConAgra Foods. All recommendations are my own and
Yesterday, I wrote about the skit Hadley performed for Destination ImagiNation “Big Bug’s Bad Day.”
Now, I’m here to tell you about Fat Kitty’s Bad Day.
Everyone worships that big, lovable, gentle slug. As much as the dude loves to cuddle, he adores being in the backyard even more. The house rules (that I instituted) are that someone needs to be back there monitoring him at all times.
Yesterday, I broke my own rule. He was meowing incessantly to go outside and Bode was doing the same for some lunch. I thought I solved both of the problems: I let Remy go outside with the mental note to keep an eye on him while I prepared Bode’s lunch.
And then I forgot.
A half-hour later, Bode just happened to be looking out the window and saw Fat Kitty (somehow) jump onto our generator and hop over to the other side of the fence. I raced out there like a banshee, screaming at him to come back. Frightened, he gazed up at me and tried to jump back up to our side but his claw-less paws slid down the fence.
Between our property and the hobby farm behind us is an easement that snakes through the area. It is overgrown with weeds and trees, rendering it nearly impossible to navigate. I recruited a couple of guys working at our neighbor’s to corral him but extremely stranger-shy, he took off. By the time Jamie was able to help, traumatized Remy high-tailed it through a hole in our neighbors Steve and Angella’s fence and he was M.I.A. the rest of the afternoon.
The neighborhood was canvased, tears were shed, prayers were uttered and there was a pending doom about breaking the news to Hadley. An overreaction? Not really. With a coyote den in the nearby Open Space and a Rottweiler for a neighbor, outdoor cats don’t survive in our neighborhood. A fat, claw-less cat would make for a tasty meal.
OK, meals.
Then came the golden phone call from Steve: He had spotted Fat Kitty trying to hop his fence. When Steve tried to approach him, he ducked under the deck into an inaccessible cement hideout.
That is when the circus began. Haddie, Bode, his buddy Noah, Jamie and I tore down the street to confront our now-terrified cat cowered down in the hole. For a half-hour, we begged, bribed him with treats and tried to poke him with a long stick. Nothing worked. I attempted to offer Steve’s 1-year-old Dylan up as sacrifice to go in after him. Though Dylan was willing, mom Angella wasn’t.
Gotta love overprotective parents.
But in the end, it was Angella who came through when she had the idea to spray him out with water (which he absolutely abhors). We positioned ourselves strategically around the porch as five preschoolers blocked the brunt of the yard (a strategic move on my part because if there’s anything Remy hates worse than water, it’s mauling toddlers.)
Steve set up the hose….
…and Jamie started spraying. I’m told that Remy’s initial reaction was shock but then he gave Haddie and Jamie the look: “Has it really come to this?”
It was the same look my mother gave me the entire duration of my teen-age years.
Fat Kitty was covered in dirt and the water formed a mucky coat. He streaked outta there and tried to hop the fence before I mud wrestled him to the ground. His paw was bloody and he voiced the Meow of Death, which was duplicated when I unceremoniously bathed him.
After recovering from the trauma of a *real* bath (he spent about three hours licking himself), he camped out by the back door. In a decidedly Huckleberry Finn move, he longingly gazed outside, no doubt reminiscing about his big escape to the Last Frontier where, if only for a short time, he was free from civilization’s traps.
Too bad he didn’t get farther than three houses away.
Last weekend, my first grader Hadley competed for the first time in Jefferson County Schools Destination ImagiNation Regional Tournament at Alameda High School.
Not familiar with Destination ImagiNation (DI)? Join the club.
Actually, “club” may not be the correct word for this international organization that caterers to kindergarten through university students. The concept is simple: teach life skills and expand imaginations through team-based creative problem solving.
Last year, our good friend Marshall Haymond’s fifth-grade team took it all the way to the top and placed second at Global Finals in Knoxville, TN. His positive experience motivated me to sign Hadley up when a notice was sent home at the beginning of the school year.
There are many different levels and newbie Haddie became part of the Rising Stars (kindergarten-2nd grade), the only non-competitive branch in DI. Four other classmates joined her after school each week as they formulated a skit based upon an official theme: “Big Bug’s Bad Day.”
The kids did everything themselves: researched the bugs they wanted to be, made their costumes, choreographed the script and memorized lines they made up. Parent-volunteer Lance Antieau was only there to guide, not instruct.
Which, let’s face it, is needed. First graders aren’t exactly known for staying on topic.
Leading up to the tournament, I have never seen Hadley more excited. Keep in mind this is the girl we’ve exposed to a myriad of activities like dance, skiing, swimming, soccer and art classes.
The difference, I believe, was that she ownedthis. She’s an imaginative and spirited kid who, for the first time, didn’t have a grown-up telling her what to do and how to do it. Instead, she spent the better part of the year making magic happen with her teammates on their own terms.
And you know what? They did on the day of the tournament. Haddie was the “big bug” (a monarch butterfly) whose bad day consisted of flying into a tree and breaking her wing. Her teammates’ role (a spider, katydid and stink bugs) was to fix it using their natural resources.
It wasn’t polished but it was informative and charming with first-grade potty humor thrown in for good measure (kind of hard to resist with stink bugs).
The second part of the day was an Instant Challenge that was designed to teach students how to quickly assess problem components and the steps necessary to resolve short-time issues.
For the competitive teams, only the students are allowed in the classroom but for Haddie’s level, parents were allowed to watch. Prior to doing so, each of us was required to raise our hands and make a pledge that we would not reveal the topic so as to give other teams an unfair advantage.
Silence ain’t exactly my virtue and I asked if there was a blogger clause (turns out there wasn’t).
During the Instant Challenge, I was thrilled to watch my take-charge-kinda daughter (read: bossy) work synergistically with her teammates. It was rewarding for me to see her newfound maturity and ability to take something ordinary and make it extraordinary.
The day ended with a rockin’ dance and awards ceremony. As we were driving home, I asked Haddie the best and worst things about her experience. “The best was doing our skit!” she exclaimed. “And the worst thing?” Long pause.
“Probably that we had to perform in a little classroom, not on the stage in front of a lot of people.”
Look out, Broadway.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AT MILEHIGHMAMAS.COM
Jenna Jones (comedian/writer/singer at The Daily Show & cool LDS chick) said it best via Twitter:
Mormons don’t participate in lent because being Mormon is like lent 24/4. The only thing left to give up is dessert. NO ONE’S TAKING THAT FROM ME.
I finally broke down and went to the doctor yesterday. Six weeks of off-and-on illness sent me over the edge.
And the fact I was almost out of my prescription codeine-laced cough medicine.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
My cough was so bad I started to worry I had bronchitis but turns out it’s just the flu and a killer sinus infection. The cough was a result of all the drippage. Allegedly. I’ve been so stuffed up I don’t know how any drippage is possible. Or, in the doc’s words as she looked up my nostril:
“Geez, I can’t see up there at all. No wonder you can’t breathe!”
Validation is important at the doctor’s office.
I came home with hard-core antibiotics, couch medicine, nasal spray and a new outlook on life (albeit a fuzzy one due to all the drugs).
For those not aware, I have some pretty bad nose problems over the years. I even have a couple of failed surgeries under my belt, which resulted in a hole in my deviated septum. As a result, I blow my nose all day long, even when I’m not sick (this makes me totally endearing to my beloved James.)
When I am sick, I debate taking out stock in Kleenex.
My snot could make me a very rich woman.
The doc and I also discussed returning to get some blood work done so we can figure out what I’m deficient in and why I somehow catch every infection floating around Colorado.
I told this to my neighbor Steve who was watching Bode while I was at the doctor’s office.
“Yeah, it could be that,” he asserted, “Or may you should learn how to take it easy every now and then.
I wonder if there’s a cure for that, too.
The good news:
For once, Hadley was not ravenous when she returned home from school.
The bad news:
It is because she (and a few boys on the bus) ate the graham crackers and marshmallows off her 100-day project, the World’s Biggest S’more.
You know. The ones cemented on with glue.
So, I’m sick. Again. For anyone keeping track, this is the third time in just five weeks which has to be some kind of record for even me.
Rather than whine and complain about the state of affairs in 2011 (make no mistake it has sucked), go on over to MileHighMamas.com to see the controversy I’m tackling today about Hiroshima Mom.
Life is returning to a degree of normalcy this week. I’ve been asked by numerous people what is going to happen to my knee surgery. As some of you know I was supposed to go under the knife last Wednesday, the day after Jamie’s heart surgery.
Obviously, it didn’t happen and has been postponed indefinitely until we can pay off Jamie’s humongous medical bills. He feels horribly about this but I would have felt horribly if I’d had my knee surgery and then we would have had his heart fallout. Talk about being in dire financial straits.
My silver lining, though: Thanks to some unused travel vouchers and some major miracles, the kiddos and I are going on a Disney Cruise to Mexico during Spring Break…for just $49.
No, we can’t afford to bring Jamie who has to work. The situation is not that miraculous. 🙂
On another good note, the weather has been ideal–sunny and in the 60s so the kiddos and I have been venturing outdoors every day. Whether it’s doing our homework in the backyard on the grass or playing at Prospect Park….
Or hiking Red Rocks.
Not to mention playing with BFF Seanie at our favorite haunts in nearby Golden (which we fell in love with last year). Activities included playing at Lion’s Park playground, biking along Clear Creek to the secret slide, throwing rocks for hours, and picnicking by the pond.
Call me crazy but does this picture disturbingly resemble an engagement photo?
To save face, I’m calling it a good ‘ol boy headlock.
Hands down, our favorite pastime is visiting the chickens at the Clear Creek History Park.
Yes, that sign does read “keep off fence.”
In their defense, neither of them can read yet.
Parental supervision: fail.
