Follow That Dream

 Has anyone ever seen that Elvis movie?  I haven't.  It's just in my DVD collection.  My husband likes it...

So I was watching "Boy Meets World" while my children napped (ah, relaxation!) and it's the episode where Eric becomes a weather man.  *SPOILER ALERT* Turns out he can either be a weather man or graduate from high school.  He talks about how it was always his dream to be a weather man.
I started to think about my dreams, what I always wanted in my life.  Here's my list:

-Graduate (high school and college)
-Get a good job that was fun
-Fall in love
-Get married
-Create a home
-Have children

Those were the big highlights.  Well, I'm 26, and I have accomplished all of my list.  Done, fin. So now what?  I feel a little silly, being an adult and trying to come up with new dreams.  What now?  I have the most wonderful husband (THANKS MEGAN!), 2 gorgeous children, a great home, a degree, and I turned down 2 different job offers in my chosen profession-HR, feel free to laugh and make funny faces, you wouldn't be the first.  Are you ever too old to dream?  Too old to come up with new goals?  I never imagined myself at this point.  I always thought that dreams were life long, that you had them, and they never ended.  But how exciting is this?!?  I have already accomplished so much, and now I can come up with a whole new set of goals. Goals are really just dreams written down, right?  I want to run a 5k, I want to grow a garden, I want to take my children to see magnificent places, I want to get old with my husband, and play with my grandkids, I want to go on a mission for my church, I want to do whatever I want!  Make your dreams monumental, you can do it!  Dream whatever you want, and then do it. Follow that dream :)

Finally Friday!

This week has been quite the week.  I am oh so happy to see it go.

In an effort to end this week on a happy note, here are some delightful links.

I'm kind of addicted to pillows.  Also, blankets.  It's a real obsession and I have to actively keep myself from buying more pillows.  And blankets.

I also am a big fan of bags that say things. Generally from TV shows and books.  The nerdier, the better.

Have you seen GeoGuessr yet?  Maybe it has only solidified my desire to travel and confirmed how utterly unfamiliar I am with most of the world, but it's still fun and there are points to earn!

And thanks to Miri, I now know this exists.  Jinni.com, which is basically like GoodReads for movies. Just my cup of tea.

Apparently, I am also into looking at photos of other people reading.  That sounds kind of creepy and stalker-like, but it's totally on the up and up because Jill is into it too.  I go for the Tumblr "Awesome People Reading" and she goes for "Underground New York."  Both are more interesting than you would think, I swear.  If I'm being totally honest (speaking for myself), maybe I hope to end up on a page like these one day.  Just randomly captured immersed in an awesome book.  Of course, with my luck, I would look like a hobo. 

Last, but certainly not least, this picture sends me into great fits of laughter every time I see it.  You are welcome.

On Being Married to a Person

It was about to be my fifth wedding anniversary when I started writing this post, and I was really glad to come across this article at such an appropriate time: "The Most Difficult But Greatest Lesson I've Learned in One Year of Marriage." It's a lesson my husband and I have learned (and, honestly, are still learning) as well—that we are married to people, not stereotypes.

From the article:

I grew up hearing that men and women are so different. Opposites. Things about Venus, Mars, and spaghetti.

Men need sex. Women need emotional intimacy. Men only need respect. Women only need love. Men watch sports. Women go shopping. Men are doers. Women are feelers.

Over the weekend I read yet another Christian list of "10 ways to show love by respecting your husband!" Be kind. Don't interrupt him when he's speaking. Show interest in sex. Join him in activities.

And as I read this list, I thought, "Wait. I want every single one of these things from my husband."

If certain writers of certain books were to hang out with Mike and me for a few weeks, I think they might be a little confused by our life. Like when Mike does all the cooking, because I hate/am terrible at cooking except for special occasions. Or when I really, honestly don't care whether he gets me a gift for my birthday, or our anniversary, or Valentine's Day, and actually he's the one who would be hurt if we didn't make a big enough deal out of the day. Or maybe especially when we talk about our plans for the future, and how Mike would prefer to be the stay-at-home parent, while I know now that I never could be.

When Mike brings me flowers, of course I appreciate it, but that gesture means a lot more to him than it does to me. I, on the other hand—at the risk of telling you too much about our personal life—am the one who needs physical intimacy. Mike doesn't watch sports; I don't like shopping. We're both "feelers." We both have the same annoying instinct to offer solutions to the other person's problems, when the other really just wants to rant. We're both pretty insecure about certain things, and we both have a really hard time talking about our emotions. Basically, in the seven years we've known each other, we've spent a lot of time laughing about how the two of us do not fit the stereotypes of our genders. (One of my personal favorites is parking, at which Mike, by his own admission, sucks, and I am really good. When we were dating and I lived in an apartment in crowded south Provo, Utah, he would often get out of the car and ask me to park it for him. He still would, if we lived somewhere where parallel parking was an issue.)

"The God of the universe has not created more than 9 million species of animals, only to create two types of people. He has not created more than 315,000 species of plants, only to create "a man" and "a woman." He has created, instead, billions of wildly unique individuals."

If Mike and I went into our relationship expecting each other to behave like "a man" and "a woman," it didn't take us very long to realize how little those stereotypes have to do with either of us as individuals. Instead, we've gotten to know each other as actual human beings, and what we've found out is that, far from being opposites, we are a lot alike (even in some bad ways; see the previously mentioned insecurities, oversensitivity, and difficulty talking about our feelings). In some ways we are very different, too—but I am much more like Mike than I am like plenty of other women, and the same is true for him with other men.

We have hugely overlapping interests, and we have similar personalities. We both have reclusive tendencies, which works out well when we want to spend the weekend hanging out in the library or snuggled on the couch with snacks and The Big Bang Theory. We have different ways of arguing, which are very obviously traceable back to our families and the different ways we grew up; we've both had to adapt in order to make our arguments constructive. (If we thought those problems were just the innate differences between men and women, would we work to change them? Can you change what planet you come from?)

We each have quirks, faults, and strengths that are very particular to us as individuals. Long before I am "a woman," I am Miri. Long before he is "a man," he is Mike. Our relationship is far from perfect. But it's our relationship, and so far as I can tell, it bears very little resemblance to that of Mars and Venus. 

Confessions of Potty Training

Motherhood is wonderful, but it isn’t all fun and games. I deluded myself for the first two years of motherhood into believing I was in control. These thoughts were soon dashed when I delved into the world of potty training, which has been bringing parents to their knees since the beginning of time.

She had such a promising start, showing interest in the potty very early.

I confess:  my potty training challenges were 90 percent mental. I’d entered in thinking that she would master the task with the same genius that she’d mastered everything else to that point.  She walked at 9 months, she was speaking in full sentences by 13 months, she not only knew the alphabet song, but she could identify letters phonetically and visually by the time she was 19 months, heck she even climbed out of her crib, onto her dresser which required her to clear about 18 inches of space at 15 months. With that kind of ambition and dexterity, how could I NOT have high hopes for her potty training? She would master the potty in record time and those people from the secret baby Olympics would once again hand me a medal and say “well done, your child is extremely ahead of the curve.”

Watching me go through several unpleasant months of morning sickness was confusing , and this is how she reacted when I gifted her with her own personal throne.

I confess that I expected too much out of a person who was still trying to get a grasp on personhood. Did my genius child get it right away? Yes and no. We followed the potty training bible faithfully in hopes that in three days she’d be a pro. Those were the darkest three days of my parenthood to that point. Have you ever spent three days glued to another human in anticipation for their bodily need? No phone, no internet, no venturing into the outside world? I don’t know how I even managed to care for my other child, who was a month old at the time. After three days of frustration, exhaustion, and fading hope (on both sides), she mastered potty training just as the manual said she would! Huzzah! Wait, nope…I’m forgetting something. Oh yes, after three days FOUR MONTHS OF TORTURE FOLLOWED.

I confess I broke the cardinal rule of the potty training bible. The potty training bible dictates that you must never become frustrated, no matter how long it takes, no matter how many accidents you clean up, even if they are five minutes apart and you’ve just pontificated the virtues of the toilet for the millionth time.  Don’t ever show frustration, AKA don’t show them any sign of weakness. I cracked.

At least she had good literary taste? 

At the first sign of weakness, I’d given her leverage. Suddenly, the two year old was in charge. She realized that she held the trump card. Every time I had the audacity to suggest a nap, or put her in time out, or scold her in any way about anything she would immediately have an accident. “Don’t hit your friends.” Accident. “It’s time to leave the park.” Accident. “You can’t watch TV today.” Accident. If you think I’m kidding, you should have seen the smug look on her face pre “accident.” We should have started calling them purposes. Clearly, anyone who uses their bladder for emotional warfare is in need of a communication outlet. 

I confess that potty training took over my life, seizing the corners of my brain and disrupting every process of thought. This might seem dramatic, but it’s totally true. I’d be watching a movie and think to myself “Julia Roberts totally learned how to use the potty. My kid can too.”  As irrational as it sounds, those thoughts comforted me. Every single person I came into contact with I was silently admiring their parent for successfully training them to use a bathroom.  This was also evidenced by the fact that when I’d look at my darling newborn baby I’d silently resent her future toddling self for needing me to teach her how to use the potty.  

I confess that after four months, I gave up. One day while cleaning her up and trying to control my anger/frustration a voice came into my head that said “Put her in a diaper. It’s not worth it.” I’d had friends, parents, people I’d met on the street and their dogs tell me this relentlessly for months, but this voice in my head made me stop. It came again “Your relationship is not worth it.” So I put the diaper on, sobbing. She cried too (of course she did, I’d taken the trump card away).  It was a turning point for me.

I confess that every time people would say “It’s easier to train girls than boys,” I had to resist the urge to assault them. Because you know what, every kid has their struggles, no matter age, gender, and disposition.  Every parent has their struggle as well.

I confess that in spite of all my efforts, doubts, hair pulling, and sob sessions, she finally got it. A few months after taking a break, I told my daughter she would be going back to panties. She was very excited, and I think she was just ready to embrace the responsibility. We put her in panties, and never struggled again. Sure she’d have the occasional accident, but it was very rare and not frustrating in the least.

I confess that in spite of my potty training horror story (start to finish—it took nine months, people) I have high hopes for daughter number two (no pun intended). Like I said, every child is different. It may be better, it may be worse…the one thing I’ve learned is that every person is different, and even though you think you may be in control you can never force a person to sleep, eat, or go potty, so going into this knowing that SHE’S in control and most of it will be up to her helps me to relax a lot more. 

Library Love

As I was driving home from the library tonight, I knew I had to write a post proclaiming my love for libraries. I've always loved the library. When I got hired at the library, that love grew. When my son started to love the library, it made me love them even more.

If you're not a frequent visiter to your local library, I implore you to visit and see what they have to offer. You might just be surprised at the value of library use. The obvious benefit is not having to pay for every book or magazine you want to read, every DVD you want to watch, or every CD you want to listen to. You might say that you have an e-reader or an iPad now and don't need your library. Guess what? Most libraries allow you to download eBooks or eAudiobooks. My local library is even offering a way to download magazines now. We've offered free music downloads for a long time as well. Some libraries even offer passes to local museums or state parks. We were able to get into two state parks on our last road trip for free.

If you have children, the library is even more valuable and important. It's important to have a personal library of children's books, but the library allows you to have variety. Currently, my son is obsessed with the Scaredy Squirrel series by Melanie Watts and the Elephant & Piggie books by Mo Willems. There is no way I could afford them all when I know he'll have a new favorite within a few months.

Generally, libraries have amazing programming for kids- story times, puppet shows, movie nights, etc. My library alone is having multiple science activities throughout the month of June, preschool fitness, a program called Bedtime Math, a magic show, and a juggling event.

Most libraries have summer reading programs where adults and children can earn prizes for reading or even have fines waived for reading. If we've met the criteria at the end of the summer, we both get to pick out a free book (or a fine waiver) and we get a free pass to our local natural history museum.

And as for what specifically inspired my post tonight, my son was able to check out a bird backpack for a week. The pack comes with a book about wildlife in your own backyard, two bird field guides, a bird call identifier, a pair of binoculars, and a list of local hikes. How freaking awesome is that!

If you haven't been to your local library lately, please check it out and see what it has to offer you. If you already go, let me know what you love about your local library.

"A library is not a luxury, it is a necessity."

-Henry Ward Beecher