Just Today

I have decided that I don’t always need to have photos of the fun things that we do in order to blog about them.

I have decided that it’s ok to post about fun things without trying to be clever or witty.

I have decided that it’s important to write while things are still fresh in my mind, or else I will forget about what made them special.

 

Today we went skiing. It has been at least 15 years since I last put on a pair of ski boots. My kids have never gone. I wanted them to at least try it.

I loved it when I was younger. I had no fear. I used to ski fast. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t ski fast today. I was scared. I’m getting old.

For Christmas, Steve’s mom got passes for Me and Jonathon and Thomas and Hannah to go to Sundance. Thank You Mom!

There was no school today. We thought there would be new snow, but the forecast was a little off. We got there bright and early. It was 3 degrees.

I did remember to take the camera, I just didn’t remember to take it out of the car. Later, I did remember that I could take pictures with my phone, but it was out of batteries. No pictures today.

We headed off to ski school. Thomas and Hannah were together with their instructor. Jonathon and his friend with another instructor. I was all by myself with my very own instructor.

It was hard not to think about how the kids were doing, but I had to focus on making my way down the hill without getting hurt. My teacher was very patient and helped me remember what I was supposed to be doing.

I did get to see the kids in action a couple of times. I could watch them from the lift as we headed to the top of the run. They were doing so well. I wanted to yell at them and cheer them on, but I didn’t think it was such a good idea.

We met up at lunch time and ate frozen ham sandwiches that had been waiting for us in the car. We decided that we needed some hot chocolate, but it was so hot that we couldn’t drink it. It was a good thing that we could take it outside to cool it down a little. I was worried that the kids would be ready to go home. No worries. They could barely finish their lunch before they were ready to go up again.

On the way back up the mountain, I told myself that I needed to remember to go slowly as we headed down so that I could make sure the kids were doing alright. Whatever, they passed me right up and then had to wait for me to get to the bottom.

Conditions today were less than optimal. It felt at times like I was skiing on sheets of ice. After three runs down the slope I was ready to go home. The kids were not. So we played on the bunny slope for a while. Hannah was amazing. I thought she would be the first to say she wanted to stop. She was an expert at using the tow rope to take her up the bunny hill. I was impressed. She lasted longer than I did, I decided to take a break and watch for a while. My legs were tired.

The boys didn’t last long at the tow rope before they decided to head back up the big icy mountain without me. Such a long wait – up the lift, down the hill – waiting, waiting, waiting. Hey, guess what they made it down safely. I don’t even know how to convey the stress and anxiety that I experienced while waiting for them to get back.

We lasted until 4pm, but then it finally got too cold for us. I figured that I would be a little bit sore tomorrow. I didn’t have to wait to find out. It only took the 20 minute drive home for my body to start to rebel.

Luckily Steve let us get fast food for dinner so that I didn’t have to worry about it. I’m beat. I can’t wait to do it again.

Holy Moly, He’s 14!

Jonathon turned 14 on the 23rd. We started celebrating early, because the week of his birthday was busy for us and we didn’t want him to feel like he was forgotten. It was almost like Magical Birthday March. Two weeks early we took him out to dinner and then shopping with just us and Henry. We also went to see Rango the weekend before and then we took the whole family out to dinner on his actual birthday. He had presents from all directions and got everything that he wanted.

He chose the same cake he has every year. I know why though, it’s amazingly tasty. How can you beat a pan of brownies topped with Oreo ice cream and covered in hot fudge and more cookies?

Really, I am blown away by the fact that it has been 14 years since we entered the wild world of parenting. How can my very first little boy be so big?

Oh, the memories. Since I didn’t write any of this down when he was a kid, I am going to dig deep and write a few things about Jonathon that I still remember. Warning: This gets kind of long.

For the first year of his life, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with Steve’s brother Paul. I could put Jonathon in his swing and he would sleep for hours. Sometimes I had to force myself to turn it off and wake him up so that he would be able to sleep at night. He was such a good little boy, but I really had no clue at the time. I figured it out later though, after I had Thomas.

When he was a year old, we bought our first house. He had his own room, and his own TV and VCR. His collection of video tapes was quite extensive, and he watched his favorites over and over. He could name what movie we put in for him almost before the first image would appear on the screen. He amazed us when he learned how to work the VCR by himself, and just started  watching his movies whenever he wanted.

One day I found him sitting near an open window with his face pressed up against the screen whispering loudly to the outside world, “Somebody help me, please get me out of here.” I have no idea if he was acting out something from a movie, or if he really felt that he needed someone to come and save him. He sounded very convincing though, so I had to get him away from the window before someone actually heard him and called in the authorities.

Jonathon also learned the art of video game playing early on in life. It was so cute to watch him play. He started off slowly with computer games – one of his favorites was a Little Critter story game - but it wasn’t long before he had mastered the Playstation. Anyone who has spent any time with Jonathon knows that he loves talking about his latest game – now you know that it’s really our fault, we led him down that road.

Over the years, we have found that Jonathon does not really like to play sports. He has been on a team for soccer, T-ball, and basketball. He did not enjoy any of them but was a good sport and went to all his games and didn’t complain nearly as much as I did. I have been surprised this year, because he has been playing all sorts of games during PE and talks about how much he enjoys it.

Speaking of PE, it reminds me of a funny story. When Jonathon was in the 6th grade, he only had to go to PE once a week, but he still had to change into gym shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t have an extra pair of tennis shoes, so he just wore his regular shoes in the gym. Well, when winter rolled around, he started to wear his snow boots to school. One day he came home and told me about how he had to play volleyball in his snow boots, because he didn’t remember to take his regular shoes to school. He said it was no big deal, but I felt so bad for him. The next week I made sure that he had his shoes in his backpack and sent him on his way. Later that day he came home and told me about how even though we had remembered the shoes, he forgot to wear regular socks. The morning was chilly, and so he had left the house in a pair of Steve’s heavy wooly winter socks. They were so big for Jonathon that they went up over his knees. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him to take the socks off, but he didn’t. I just picture poor Jonathon running around the gym in his shorts with fat socks pulled up over his knees and the heel of the sock sticking out of the back of his shoes while he played. It cracks me up.

That is Jonathon for ya – or Jon as he is now called at school. He also goes by Lauer, Jonny, Jon Jon or just J. He reminds me so much of myself when I was his age. He loves art, especially drawing and in my opinion, he is very talented. He is usually in a pretty good mood and looks forward to life with excitement.I can always count on him to help me out when I need it.

There is so much more to write about him, but I will save it for another time.

Happy 14th Jonny – we love ya!

Jonathon - It’s not always about you!

Well, we officially have a teenager in the house. Even though he just barely turned 13 on Tuesday, we have been experiencing teenage behavior for a while now. In my opinion, teenagers (well, at least Jonathon) think the whole world revolves around them. Steve and I can not have a quiet conversation without Jonathon asking what we are saying about him. If I get after the kids for not cleaning up, Jonathon gets mad because he thinks I am speaking directly to him. If we make any plans, go anywhere, do anything, we have to make sure that it’s all right with Jonathon first. He even thinks that all phone calls are either for or about him.

This week, however, was actually all about Jonathon.

Last Friday kicked off his Magical Birthday Weekend. I’m not sure how many times I heard him say that he didn’t have to do something because it was his Magical Birthday Weekend. Steve even wondered if we should ban the whole magical weekend thing between the ages of 12-18. I’m not sure if we need go that route, but we will have to make some adjustments for the teenage years.

Friday was spent at another friends birthday party and on Saturday he went to see Diary Of a Wimpy Kid with his friend. This meant that we lost our babysitter for the whole weekend – Oh the sacrifices we make for our kids! Tuesday was his actually birthday and so I took him down to Salt Lake to a book signing at Desert Book. We bought the 5th book in the Fablehaven series and got it signed by the author. This was exciting for Jonathon, but for me, and Henry, and Jack, it was a long wait in line. Now I have to decide if I should read the Fablehaven books, or the Percy Jackson series first – any thoughts?

I swear this picture is almost the same as last year. He wanted the same ice cream brownie cake as the last two years. I don’t care though, because it’s the best. I invited neighbors over so there wouldn’t be any left over to pig out on the next day.

This week was also the Regional Science Fair. So we went to BYU to set up on Wednesday and then Jonathon presented his project on Thursday. There was an awards ceremony that night too. I am truly amazed at the amount of talent and imagination kids have these days. Jonathon didn’t win anything, but our neighbor McKay took second place in his category. So way to go McKay!

When I think about how fast the last five years have gone by, I get worried that the next five will go even faster, and he will be 18 before I know it. Jonathon is my best helper even though he complains the whole time. I can count on him to do a good job babysitting when I need to go somewhere. He does good in school and I don’t have to badger him about doing his homework. I know he is a lot like me when I was his age and I love to see how he copes with the challenges of daily life. He makes me proud to be his mom.