My Kid

You are beautiful. Inside...outside...everything-in-between side. As your sixth tooth fell out this morning, my heart started accepting the fact that you're really not a little kid anymore. Somewhere in the business of life, you dropped the 'little' and started encompassing the 'kid'. I get it now. I get that soon you'll be a big kid...and sooner you'll be a tween...and soonest you'll be a teenager.

But, for today, you're a kid.

My kid.

I love this you. This starting-to-understand-real-life you. You approached me this morning while I was in a meeting and quietly waited by my side until I finished what I was saying to the other ladies around the table. "Excuse me," you said, "may I have a chip?" I didn't realize you had been listening the thousands of times I asked you not to interrupt me...

We went shopping the other day, and I sincerely took your fashion advice. You had adult-like reasons for your choices...and, besides, I think we both have just as much sense as the other when it comes to fashion. I had fun, McKenzie. Real fun with you.

But, by far, the experience that has touched me the most about your personality lately was watching your pure, innocent joy as your brother learned to ride his two-wheeler bike. Not 24 hours after you took your own training wheels off, you were right by Carson's side with praise and encouragement. I watched with mild discomfort as the neighbors gushed over Carson's accomplishment in your presence - worried that you would feel the thunder behind your own accomplishment stolen away. But you never hung your head. You never looked angry. Instead of feeling jealous, you felt pride and happiness for your little brother. Days later, I watched you run to a friend and exclaim, "Guess what my brother can do?!"... and it touched me to tears. Well, Kenz...you worked hard to be able to ride on two wheels, too! I'm proud of you for that. But I'm mostly proud of you for the heartfelt support you gave your brother in what could have been a frustrating time for you.


This may be the best phase (though I admittedly say that about every new phase you enter). Your independence is strengthening, your mind is hungering for and swelling with knowledge, your greatest desire is to make me happy, you delight in the time we spend together. We play house (even though I mostly insist on being the maid who needs to get the dishes done), and learn the piano together. We paint our fingernails and toenails while listening to Junie B. Jones in the CD player. And when I laugh at a funny part, that makes you laugh even harder. There are moments of calm sadness when I think of the cute little snippets of you that have been left behind...but I genuinely relish in your growth.

I am so proud of who you are.

Anyone else see a resemblance?

I think he fits right in.....

I can't find it...

...but it's there. It's certainly there. Making itself known every time I step into the entryway; greeting every visitor who comes inside.

The smell.

The smell of death and dying and decomposing and disgusting.

I can't find it...but it's there.

I spent two hours (two hours) yesterday moving couches, tearing apart closets, emptying baskets, pulling up rugs, washing fabric. And it's still...THERE!

What IS it? WHERE is it? Brian says the crawl-space is clear and free from any rotting carcasses; it doesn't seem to be coming in through the vents; that leaves the attic...something might be dead up there - - - but we can't get up there without a long ladder, which we don't have. And then, what if that ends up being clear? What's the next step? Ripping down the walls?

Oh dear.

My olfactory system and I are not happy right now. *sniff*

Any ideas?

Becoming the Man

I watch you. A lot, actually - like, every minute of almost every day. But sometimes, I just sit back and watch you. We're buddies, and I am your favorite person in the whole world. You look to me for protection, for nourishment, for laughter. For clean clothes and companionship. For extra quarters to buy gum and remote-smarts to turn on Tom and Jerry.

You live in the world of a boy - dirty much of the time, running, playing, building, jumping, jumping, jumping, skipping and pushing your trains along in front of you. I wish you could stay here forever. By my side. Holding my hand as we cross the street. Sitting on my lap through your favorite stories. Laughing at my pretty lame jokes. I love being your world.

But, if you stayed here, you'd never see the other world - the world of a man. Of using the potty every time you need to go; of thinking rationally and controlling the urge to tantrum. Of sacrificing your own happiness for the happiness of another. Of working hard to make yourself succeed. Of feeling the love in your heart that only your own little baby can bring. I love thinking of you in that world.

And, little by little I see it happening. Flakes of little boy blowing away in the breeze, slowly revealing the man inside. The man you will become.

Love'm. Love'm all - Part 4 (The Final one...I promise!)

Sorry - I got a bit sidetracked with what I like to call 'my life' and haven't finished up our Utah vacation. :) Here is a sample of our last two days in pictures and a couple of words.

Our last day in Yellowstone

McKenzie and her cute cousin, Sofia

And, our last day in Utah:
We went back to Midway to spend the final day with my family. First we went to the Heber City Fair where Carson loved the rides so much that he wasn't very successful in trying to hide his smile behind his lips:


And, what an awesomely creative name this one has: The FUN slide! Oooooo, I bet that's fun.


That night, we went to the Heber Valley Rodeo. I haven't seen the kids enjoy themselves that much in a long, long time! My little sister happened to have two cowgirl hats lying in her bedroom...so we gave the less-girly one to Carson, and they wore those hats the entire night!

Doesn't she kind of look like Jesse from Toy Story 2?

The End

Of Silly Bandz and Bananas

My stomach growled.

It was 5:00 on Monday night, and McKenzie and I were still 30 minutes away from home. I wandered up and down the isles of the craft store with McKenzie in tow - I, looking for a nice shelf to hang on the wall, and McKenzie begging for just one of each treasure she passed. We were both discouraged because neither of us could get what we wanted, and as my stomach gave one more protest of it's emptyness, I decided to call it a day. "What?!" McKenzie exclaimed. "We're not going to buy even one thing?"
"Nope." I said. "They don't have the thing that I need."
"But, we've been here forever! We can't walk out without buying something!" she glanced to her left at the glittery-pens, "Can I get one of these?"

Being the awesome mother that I am, I said no to the glitter-pen and jumped on the teaching moment. "Kenz, I came here to buy a shelf...I didn't come here to by something. And, since they don't have the shelf I want, I'm going to save my money so I can buy it later at a store that does have it. If I bought something else here, then I wouldn't have any money left to buy a shelf when I found it." It was evident that she didn't appreciate or understand the lesson when, seconds later, we passed the packs of silly-bandz near the front entrance. With a jump in her step, she ran, "Oh! But can I get one of these?! Please, mom? Please?" I thought of the 59 silly-band bracelets she had at home and it was easy to say no. I turned around the corner to exit through the front doors as she stood admiring the packs of plastic bracelets that are unfathomably popular right now, and just as I was about to walk through I turned around to see that she still hadn't caught up with me. "McKenzie? Come on, dear. Let's go." "Kenz? Come on." She popped out from behind the kiosk with her hands in her pockets and a funny look on her face. "Okay," she said. "I'm coming." She passed by me quickly and walked out the doors without another protest.

I knew. I just knew. Not because of McKenzie's personality . . . in fact, I was shocked . . . but I still knew.

"Hey," I called after her. "Hey, do you have something in your pocket?" She kept moving quickly toward the road and I stopped abruptly - no question left. "McKenzie! Come back here, right now." The stern tone of my voice surprised me a little.
"What, mooooom?"
"I said come here."
She walked back, her eyes rolling so hard that her head became involved in the circular motions, "Whaaaat?"
"Do you have something in your pocket?" I repeated.
She pulled her left hand out of her pocket and unclenched her fist to reveal one, yellow silly band.
"Did you take this?" I asked.

Busted. And she knew it. The frustrating thing for me, though, was that the only remorse I could detect was coming from the fact that she was caught... not that she stole.

"I'll go put it back," she huffed. "I know exactly which pack I took it out of, so I'll just put it back." We walked silently back into the store and my mind raced through the different options I could think of on-the-spot. I wasn't sure which option was best, so I guessed. "I want you to get the whole pack of silly bandz that you took that one from and bring it to me." I went to stand in the long line, and when she brought the pack to me she complained again, "Mom, why can't you just buy this for me?"

I crouched down to her level and looked into her eyes. "McKenzie. Do you understand what is going on here? You just stole a silly band. That is unacceptable, and I'm very disappointed in the choice you made. There is no way I will buy that pack for you. When we get up to the front of the line, you will explain what happened to the cashier and give the pack back to her."

When we reached the front of the line, McKenzie looked at the cashier and said, "I accidentally....um. I took this," and handed the pack across the counter.
"That's okay," the cashier said, "as long as you brought it back."

We walked back out of the store, but I still didn't feel settled about the whole thing. Returning the band was too easy for McKenzie - - - I felt the consequence hadn't fit the crime yet. Once in the car, I explained to her that because she had taken a band out of a 12 pack of silly bandz, she would have to give me 12 of her silly bandz once we returned home, and tell Daddy what had happened. There... this consequence fit the crime a little bit better.

I didn't have to ask her again to give up 12 of her silly bandz - she did that as soon as we arrived home - and I finally saw a little remorse when it came time to tell Daddy what had happened. It took her 40 minutes, with the privilege of dinner being held hostage, before she worked up enough courage to come into the dining room and, in her own words, explain what happened.

Her confession was met with love and understanding from Brian - I love him so much - as he praised her for fixing her wrong choice and helped her understand that the bad feelings she had felt were coming from the Spirit because he was trying to help her see that she had made a wrong choice.

And the next day..............


Target was ridiculous.

It took most of my concentration to push the red shopping cart through the mobs of people preparing for the start of school: elementary school kids grabbing pencils and glue, high school kids grabbing binders and pens, college kids grabbing bookcases, beanbags and futons - it was seriously a madhouse. I needed a total of four things, and finished my shopping quickly...which was good, because Miles was trying to climb out of the front of the cart and into my arms, Carson was complaining about having to share the basket of the cart with a big box, and McKenzie was walking along beside me getting distracted by everything (which was a big issue because of the people, people, people! And, she almost got run over once by a high-school student going crazy with one of those motorized wheelchair/cart things). It's quite possible that I have never been more grateful for the express checkout lane, for while it was about 10 customers long, at least everyone only had a few items.

As we pushed our cart out into the parking lot, I vaguely heard McKenzie and Carson arguing as I tried to keep everyone with me and away from all the cars while we made our way to the van (which was parked clear in the back of the parking lot because of . . . you guessed it, the crowds).

Carson: "Yes there is."
Kenzie: "No, there's not!"
Carson: "Yes there is."
Kenzie: "CARSON! NO THERE IS NOT!"
Carson: "Yep."
Kenzie: "Mom, are there bananas in the cart?"

This is a common conversation in our house right now. Carson will start riling McKenzie up about something ridiculous and she falls for it every time. We all knew that I hadn't even approached the food side of Target and that I never even came close to the bananas. I've told McKenzie time and time again that she should just ignore him when he says things like that. And, this time, I decided to take Carson's side to try to show her the silliness of it all.

Me: "Yep. There are bananas in the cart."
Kenzie: "Moooooom! No there are not. We never even went close to the bananas!"
Carson: "See! There are bananas here!"
Kenzie: "Are there really, Mom?"
Me: "No, McKenzie. You know there aren't. You saw everything that we bought, and did you see bananas?"
Kenzie: "No."
Me: "Okay, then why are we arguing about it?"
Kenzie: "Cause Carson said there were."
Me: "Do you think he could be playing a trick on you?"
Kenzie under her breath: "See Carson. I told you there weren't bananas in the cart."

We made it to the van, and I buckled Miles into his seat. I started lifting Carson out of the basket and he handed me one of the bags and said, "Here are the bananas, Mom."
"Carson, that's enough," I said.
"Really!" he insisted. He shaped the bag around the item inside, and I had to do a double-take because it did look an awful lot like bananas.
"What?" I said. I grabbed the bag and looked inside. Sure enough, two bananas sat snuggled at the bottom. "Where did this come from!?" I said. It was a rhetorical question, of course.

So, what do you do?

Well, I'll tell you what I did. I threw the bananas in the car with the kids and the other bags and I drove home. It seemed too monumental a task to get Miles back out of the car, take everyone through the dangerous parking lot again, and brave the long lines and crowds again just to return two measly bananas that seemingly jumped into my cart after they were bagged anyway.

I kind of stole two bananas - but I strangely don't feel very guilty about it. Sure, I wish it wouldn't have happened, but I really don't feel compelled to make the 75 minute round-trip to Target to return them today.

Sigh. Am I living a double-standard here?

And, please tell me you've had children who have stolen something - - -

Love'm. Love'm all - Part 3

You know, I've never really been to a family reunion before as an adult. I have a few scattered memories of family reunions growing up (unless you count the annual Christmas Eve party...then I have some pretty solid memories), but I was always, of course, playing the role of the grandkid. Being an adult was actually quite fun! And what was more fun was to see my kids having fun with their cousins.

I have a lot of cousins. Like, a lot. So many that I wouldn't even be able to give you an exact number even if I thought about it for a while, and I certainly couldn't name them all. My dad is the youngest of 8 children, so most of my cousins are quite a bit older than me. Not so with my own children. They only have three cousins, and they all live in Sweden. So when they came to America for a visit, my mother-in-law jumped at the chance to plan her first Alder family reunion, and we were thrilled to jump on a plane to see them.

And so, driving up to Yellowstone, began the first reunion. It actually started out a little rough, with a trip to the emergency room with Carson. He was screaming (literally screaming) for two hours because of abdominal pain, and I thought for sure his appendix was rupturing. Turns out it was constipation... so that was fun to take care of.

But, we made it. And Yellowstone was beautiful. Absolutely, gorgeously beautiful. From the tiniest flowers growing wild and free in the forests..


...to the perfectly pillowy clouds fluffing along in the sky.

I seriously cannot believe I came home without a good picture of the clouds. I should have taken thousands! How could I have not pointed my camera up at those clouds? Every time I'd point another one out, Brian would roll his eyes..."you and your clouds," he'd say. It's true. I have a weakness for clouds. Always have. And, I don't get to see many in North Carolina. First of all, they don't have awesome clouds very often...and when they do, you can't see them very well because of all the trees that are blocking your view of the broad horizon. *sigh* I guess I'll just have to feed off of the pictures my brain took...

We rafted down the coldest river in the history of rafting down rivers -

Brian's little brother, Dave. Too chicken to let the water touch his skin...

Miles was out on this raft with Brian. He had a good time.

Samuel was exhausted after sitting in the cold water for a little while.

The first night we were there, we saw a mouse run underneath the stove...and the next morning found these inside the slightly opened marshmallow bag:

Yes, I'm pretty sure that is a mouse hair wrapped around that first marshmallow...

But the Alders didn't let that stop them from diving into the rest of the bag for the games that night


*Photo courtesy of my brother-in-law, Chris*

Miles had a fantastic time playing outside and spitting in Grandpa's face





And one morning I woke up at the middle-of-the-night hour of 5:30 to go into the park early to see something beautiful. I was not disappointed.

I would like you to meet the buffalo that almost chomped my ear off. I was leaning slightly out of the window in the cab of the truck, trying to get a picture like this:

When this nasty buffalo came right up to my open window without me noticing (because my eye was behind the lens....) and snorted in my ear. I was much too scared of him to try to get a good shot, so I clicked the shutter button once, and this is what we got:

YOU CAN SEE HIS TONGUE HANGING OUT! GROSS!!!
Man, if I ever start feeling down about the way I look, I'm just going to think of this nasty buffalo.

We met the rest of the family at Old Faithful to see the famous eruption. I must say...it left me quite lacking. That was it? I must be missing something.


I know I've said it before here on the blog, but I really do have wonderful, wonderful in-laws. The kind that you would hand-pick if you were given the choice. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Alder family for making the reunion so much fun!