For Erin

I got a text from a dear friend this weekend that said "you haven't blogged for over a year, you know".  I do know.  I just am busy.  And sort of boring.  It is hard to know what to write when you are busy, boring and not certain anyone cares about your blog.

But Erin does care.

So this is for Erin.

I have some very talented cousins who keep amazingly interesting and well-written blogs who have been doing a 30 day writing challenge.  Because of my aforementioned plights of being both boring and busy I have neither the time nor talent to come up with anything original to write.  At least my answers will be different (until I get really lazy and start copy and pasting their New Yorker worthy answers into my own blog. . .).

Day 1 (we will see how long this lasts. . .)

Ten Random Facts About Yourself

1.  I hate chicken pot pie.  It is really the only food I hate.  I actually really love food.  Good food.  I really hate chicken pot pie.

2.  I love to try new things.  Anything new.  I rarely stick with anything long-term but I am always up for a new experience.

3.  I love being outside.  Doing anything.

4.  I am not good at keeping my house tidy.  I wish I were.  I think this is tied heavily to #3.

5.  I get mean when I am hungry.  Someone once described the emotion as Hangry.  I loved that.

6.  I love having kids over.  All kids.  Almost any kids.  I love to teach, play, get messy and snuggle them.  Bring your kids over. . .my house will not be clean but I will have snacks.

7.  I do not like movies.  There are very few movies that I think were worth watching (for me).  I have some favorite TV shows that I will watch over and over but compared to most people, I don't like very many movies.  In the past 4 years I have been to the theater 5 times (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Harry Potter 7 part 1, Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock 2, Hunger Games).  I do love plays and have seen almost all of the local high school productions (and some professional)  since I have been in Utah.
Incidentally, my least favorite movies are super-hero or comic book adaptations and war movies.  Imagine my reaction when my husband put on Captain America one night promising me that 'you will really like this one. . .'  Hmmm. . .can't we just watch Scrubs again?

8.  I love words.  I love books with beautifully written sentences and new words.  I like knowing where words come from.  I love playing scrabble (even though I am not good.  At all.) and I love teaching my kids new words.  There is power in an expertly turned sentence.

9.  I often come upon jobs or opportunities by accident.  For instance:
9a.  I was recruited to the University pole vaulting team when the captain saw me diving at the pool.  I was very enthusiastic and couldn't wait to try.  It turns out I couldn't run fast enough to generate the speed needed to vault me over. . .anything.  
9b.  While searching for jobs for my siblings online one day (because I am nosey like that) I came across an ad that read something like "Need writer for my art book.  Not interested in your past publications or resume.  I will send you art.  You write snarky, Far Side-like caption.  I will pick the best one for job.  Cat lover a plus."   Seriously.  I submitted my entry along with 20-30 others and was hired to caption 85 paintings for a Japanese artist.  I am now working on book 3 for him.
9c.  I started exercising with a woman.  She signed up to run a marathon.  "I will just run with you until you start going over 8 miles" I said.  Then one day I ran 10 with her.  "I will just run with you until I don't want to and will walk and you can leave  me."  I never walked.  We just kept on running.  Then, one day she was joking with some people that I was training for an imaginary marathon.  One of the ladies said she had entered the Ogden race but didn't train over the winter.  I bought her entry for a fraction of the price (those things are PRICEY!  Who knew??? ) and now find myself running an accidental marathon in 3 weeks.  I figure with my health I may never be at this level of fitness again and I most certainly will never be able to run a race this cheap again.

10.  I can whistle on a straw louder than anyone I have ever met.  Drinking straw.  Ear-splitting.  I will show you sometime.

Guess Who

Guess who has been gluten-free for a whole year?

This girl.

What a star.  Yeah, she has a lot of sass.  I think you have to have sass to pull of pink cowgirl boots.  I just cannot believe how grown up she is.  The past year has been a great change in our family's health.  It  is astounding how something so hard became something so easy in only a year.  I guess that is what happens with habits.  Do you think keeping my house tidy would be the same way?  I may never know. But I do know how to make gluten-free crepes, gluten-free chili relleno, gluten-free sweet and sour chicken, gluten-free cookies and homemade corn tortillas.  I've done more math and chemistry in the last year than I did in college (and I was a chem minor!) and I have watched my underweight, withering, sickly, migrane-suffering daughter flourish, grow and heal.  What a year.  What a girl.

Here are a few quirky things I love about my sassy cowgirl:

On Thursday, Lily got to go to a real high school science class to decorate heart (as in human heart) shaped cookies.  The HS student paired with Lily was adorable and in an attempt to bond with Lily said "I really love princesses, who is your favorite princess?"  To which Lily answered honestly:
"I don't really like princesses.  I like dinosaurs.  And you left off that valve, there."

Last week I made pancakes for breakfast.  This might not sound like a grand gesture but when making gluten-free pancakes that 1. don't taste like sawdust and 2. have any nutritional value it is.  There are weight conversions and multiple specialty flours involved.  I knew Lily would love the treat.  She did. . .and then she said:  "Thank you for these pancakes, Mom, but could I have some vegetables. . .like celery?"
(Don't worry, though, while she is a pretty good eater, she once told my mom that her favorite vegetable was french fries, so. . .yeah)

She will play princesses with her friends. . .if she can be the cat. . .or the chameleon. . .or the royal bat-eared fox (only for African Savannah Princesses).

She sang her talk in Primary two weeks ago.   I was not expecting that.  But it was adorable.

She is currently writing her first book.  A first in a series, she tells me.  The title is "the big Bager"  BYe LiLY  (The Big Badger).  The illustrations are adorable (I would post pictures but I can't even take a picture of my own daughter, let alone her book.  I had to steal the above pic from my Mom's blog)  and this is the first chapter (I will type it how it is  written):

The Big(backwards g) BADger (spelled right this time and with right-ways g)
ONce a UpoN a TiMe Thaere was a BADger he live iN a forest wiht a raBBit and a Skunk
One Day a Skquierl came to visit hes freid
hes fred was the skunk.

The friends go on to have problems of not enough food, hunters coming to the forest etc.  It is so adorable I want to cry every time I read it.  All the chapters have names like "The Problem" or "The Berthday".  Look out J.K., Lily is on the horizon.

Lily loves words.  She likes to learn new words and phrases and use them (mostly correctly) later in casual conversation.  This cracks me up all the time.
Yesterday:
L:  Did you make me a GF cookie to take to the party?
Me:  No, I am sorry you will just have to take the store-bought (aka disgusting) ones.  You can just lick off the frosting if you want.  I am sorry.  I didn't have time to make the GF Chinese New Year food AND the cookies.  I just didn't have enough time.  I wish I did, sweetie.
L:  Maybe if there was a way you could be nocturnal, then you could stay up at night and do it.
Me:  But then I would sleep during the day and I would miss you.
L:  Maybe if you could find a way to be nocturnal AND diurnal.  That would work.
Me (in my head):  So. . .like a vampire????

One of Lily's biggest irritations is a messy room.  She loves to organize her stuff (but she is a hoarder so it is hard) and keep her room tidy.  She often nags me about my neglect of the rest of the house and tries to motivate me to clean up more or suggests family organization activities.  It is both amusing and embarrassing that my 5-year-old is neater than I.

Lily loves to dance.  She dances around the house all day long.  Recently we have been watching Singin' in the Rain and she tries to mimic all the dances.  The funny part is. . .for all of her talents and gifts, dancing ain't one of them.  She tries, oh, the girl tries but natural grace is not hers.  She flails around, mostly kicking and jumping and falling on the floor and spinning.  It is. . .a sight.  Perhaps grace can be learned?  We will see.  Either way, I am not going to tell her she looks like a broken marionette.

Lily loves her sister and is very protective of her.  She is personally offended if someone even hints at Noli being annoying, troublesome, bad or anything negative.  I love this because I feel like Noli may need an advocate later on as I am guilty of calling her all of those offending names. . .and more.  And I am her mother.

Lily asks deep questions like:
How did God make the sun if there is no solids there?  Where did he get the gases to make it?
If people from Russia came to America to escape a war, why didn't they all come?
How many layers of sky are there?

And deep statements:

Even when there are no people around you, you are never alone.  The Earth is always with you.


Lily loves stuffed animals.  Ugly ones.  Ones that look like they were made by a one-armed orphan in China.  And if it were, she would love it even more.  Lily is obsessed with China.

Lily has a pet spider.  It lives in her room.  It is named, Purple.  She loves him.

There are many more amazing and quirky things I love about Lily.  I wish I had the brain space to remember them. . .or even to remember to write them down.  But, as she will tell you, I am not the most organized person.  So, I will just end with this:  Man, I love that girl.  I bet you would, too.

Kitty Party 2011

It is all a sad dream now but at the time it was all so very magical. I thought about even the smallest details and executed every whim of my soon-to-be five-year-old.
When I asked her what one did at a Kitty Party she said:  Paint faces like a kitty, play a game with yarn, play a Kitty Kitty Doggy game, eat cupcakes out of dishes like a cat and crawl around in kitty houses.

If you are wondering how to throw a kitty party, here it is:


1.  Use vintage invites from a summer yard sale and do your best to copy an illustration from 'Millions of Cats' on the envelope.

2. Prepare the goody bags. Gather random small trinkets and roll them up into a ball of yarn. Include kitty buttons and washable markers to use on wash and write kitties.

Inside the yarn: a bell, a ball, a sparkly ring, tiny stickers, a mint, and a nickel.

3. Sew 6 white stuffed kitties.

4. Have your super talented and ever generous neighbor hand paint a sign. Lily still has it in her room. Notice the eye color (like Lily's) and the kitty color(sniff).

5. Hang pennant banner and draw kitty prints leading to the door.

6. Have same talented/generous neighbor stay up waaaaay too late constructing a kitty city out of cardboard. Include residences, town hall, school and other important town amenities. Hand paint city.

7. Display poster from preschool.

8. Hire 14 year old to play the part of 'vet' and give darling and totally hammed-up check up to newly decorated kitties. (I have been told this is very much like Build-a-Bear but since I have never been to B-A-B or heard what they do there, I am still taking credit for this part) Eliza did so great. The kids loved holding their kitty's paw during the shots, picking out a sparkly bandaid (sticker) and giving medicine (m&m's) as well as getting their very own adoption papers signed by a vet.

9. Have previously mentioned hired help string 6 pieces of yarn throughout house for kitties to follow to a treasure. (8b should be paint faces of party-goers to transform them into purrfect meowers)

10. Take treasure (kitty dishes full of stickers) to table to decorate while Birthday Kitty opens gifts (no kid wants to sit and watch another one open gifts)

10b. Let little kittens help.

11. Have a kitty race. 11b. (not pictured): Play Kitty, Kitty, Dog (Duck Duck, you get it)

12. Eat cupcakes out of newly decorated dishes.

13. Move into the Kitty City.

14. Have Daddy bring down a special surprise real pet kitty. Name kitty Willow. Be speachless. Love your life. For three whole days. Man, we are still all so traumatized by the loss of our little kitty. It is embarrassing how sad I still feel about it.

15. Have the happiest little feline in the world.

Not pictured: Reading a kitty story, setting up Willow's pad, weeks of playing in the Kitty City, 3 of the houses crushed and loved to death and covered in snow in my backyard.

Was this party expensive? NO. Did it take a lot of prep time? YES.


Everyone's question: Are we getting her a new cat?
Not immediately. She hasn't asked for one. We are letting her figure out her grief and give it time to heal. She still talks about Willow everyday. She prays that Willow and Orangey will be doing well in heaven. . .everyday. She names herself Willow on Halloween (kitty costume) compares every cat she sees to her late friend. She doesn't cry, though. She is at peace with it but it is still very much on her mind. My good friend brought over a beautiful book "Cat Heaven" by Cynthia Rylant for Lily who has it memorized now. It was a godsend.

Holes

Today I dug a hole. I don't use a shovel very often. Not to say that I don't work hard. I do. Or, at least, I feel like I do. But I don't often build, move earth or otherwise have reason to wield large tools regularly. That fact became clear the moment I lifted the handle. The old, sun-bleached wood mocked me like an old horse mocks a new rider. "You don't really know how to use me do you?" it seemed to say. I thought instantly of the last time I had used a shovel. Early in the spring I got a wild hare and decided to dig up a portion of my front lawn (the only part of my lawn not drenched in plant-killing shade) and the shovel mocked me then, too. All day long it laughed at my tender palms as I painstakingly ripped out sod to replace with herbs, tomatoes and few flowers. Somehow, though, today's hole seemed harder to dig. I could blame it on the ivy or the tree roots I chose to dig around, but I know that isn't it. The fact is, the hole I dug today although only about 3 feet deep and 1 foot wide had to hold a portion of my daughter's heart, one of immeasurable depth.
Today Willow, Lily's new kitten, her birthday kitten, the kitten we got 3 days ago, died. She just laid down and didn't get up. I tried feeding her with a dropper. We tried cuddling her. She would not get up. And then, a couple hours later, she was gone.
So, I dug a hole. We picked flowers. She drew pictures. We both cried. And I filled the hole.
Lily is still empty. Two years is a long time to wait for only two days with a kitty. I have a feeling she will be walking to the back of the yard and sitting near that filled hole several times in the next week. Slowly the hole in her heart will heal. Kids are strong, and she is strong. I know that as a mother, this is only the beginning of watching my daughter's heart break. She will be hurt many times and every time I will dig a hole. Every time I will try to something to help her heal. Something tells me that the kind of digging mothers do don't build up calluses. I bet it hurts just as bad each time. The holes, I expect, get bigger with age.
Poor Lily.

Clarification

Our new kitty did not run away.

When thinking of getting Lily a kitten for her birthday I was on the fence. I knew that the main reason I wanted to was for a big 'Ta Da!' moment at the party. I thought it was likely I would regret the decision a week or so later.

I was wrong.

I regretted it 5 minutes later.

The 'run away' lesson was mostly a joke between Chris and I so we could have an 'out' from the cat.

But, we really aren't that mean. And I really don't regret the cat. . .too much. Of course I am typing this at 3:00 am because I have a kitty who wants to sleep on my throat.

Lily is over the moon and that makes it worth it. Am I feeling the need to compensate all the attention Noli demands of me by getting my 5 year old a kitten? Yeah. But if you listened to her talk about our cat that died everyday for the past 2 years. . .you might break down too. It was pretty cute to watch Lily color her new kitty paper with little Willow sleeping on a pillow next to her.

Caring for a Cat

Kitty Party 2011 was a huge success. I will post details about the party later. Maybe. For now, we are working on teaching Lily the rules of caring for her birthday present. . .an 8 week old kitten. The top five rules we have given her:

5. Don't squeeze too hard.

4. Empty the litter box only when Noli is asleep. Noli must never know of this pile of sand.

3. No screaming.

2. Kitties sleep a lot so they need not be carried, coddled, cushioned, caressed or dressed 24 hours a day.

And the number one rule we introduced to Lily today:

1. Kitties sometimes run away.

I Once Had a Cat That Was Orange

by Lily

I once had a cat that was orange. It was a good cat and a bad cat. It was very very nice and I loved it. Orangey was good and very very nice. I loved it more than anything and it was very very very good. I love the cat.
My cat is now writing on paper with his claws. He was a very good eater. He liked his treats and just a minute let me think. . .and if he did not find a treat I throwed he will just look at me and I will just throw him another one and he will eat it. Orangey sang to cats. Now that's a good cat. I miss my cat. He was not a good hunter. Pedro was his mom. She was a good hunter. She once caught a cricket. Orangey died on October when I turned 3. I would like to have a new cat. I think it will be the same cat as Pedro but a kitten. I think it will be so cute. I think one is so cute that I saw. I am very good. I will name my kitty Black-Orange and that is the end of my story.
by Lilikoi Clara Nilsson
The End