I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again

I just sent Ryan a final email with instructions for while I am gone. He really doesn't need them, but they make me feel better. He is in L.A. right now and our planes will cross in the air when he arrives back home and I am just beginning my voyage. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have such great friends to help me out and a husband to let me go and witness the next best thing to the births of our own children. My sister is having a baby any minute and I can't wait! I'm hoping that this time I will make it through security at the airport without them finding a steak knife in my carry on. Not kidding.

I won't bore you with the color coded list of where our children will be and on what days but after seeing that one and reading the email that Ryan just received, I realized that I shouldn't go out of town too often. I might annoy people with my anal retentive/not quite organized enough ways. I know, a strange and dangerous combination. Read it and you'll see what I mean.

To my V-Chassised-Love-Nugget,

I changed the verizon account last month because of your overage charges. I need you to check on that and see if we should change it back or if you need more minutes every month. You need to do it asap before we stay on that plan longer than necessary. It is quite a bit more.

I have readied Crue and Lennon’s clothes for every weekday that I will be gone. They are in order (top to bottom) hanging in the Ikea hangy things in their closets. If Lennon fights you about her clothes, let her wear whatever she wants (except on Thursday because she has a field trip). I don’t care what she wears, I am just trying to make it a little bit easier for you.

The kid’s Sunday clothes are going to be hung in our closet. Crayton will need a brown belt, a tie, and if you can find them, brown socks. Otherwise, I have gotten out Navy ones for him to wear.

I will print out a final draft of the schedule for the kids this and next week. I will hang it on the fridge and leave one on the counter for you to keep in your car. It has the phone numbers of everyone who will have the kids.

I will make lunches for Crayton and Piper for every school day that I am gone (minus weekends). You will just need to make sandwiches and add a fresh fruit or veggie. They are welcome to try hot lunches again if they dare.

Lennon is acting like she is possibly starting to fight a cold. If she is coming down with something, so are the rest of them. However, it is probably a side effect of the button that was stuck up her nose for who knows how long. But if it isn’t a button-up-the-nose side effect it is a cold. So at minimum give them all their vitamins everyday (green drinks would be even better, and green drinks with fish oil would be best). The big kids get 2 vitamins, Lennon gets 1. Crue needs more teeth so he gets none. Slide him a green drink though. The green drink can’t be mixed with citrus so use the apple juice.

Please be mindful of bedtimes (start at 6:30). They will all be so off of their normal schedule, going from house to house, and it gets really hard on their little bodies if they aren’t getting enough sleep.

I forgot that Piper has a birthday party on Friday afternoon. The invite is on the fridge. She needs to get Lizzie a gift. In other words, you need to get Lizzie a gift.

Also please buy the Lounge Sofa from Crate and Barrel and a new car while I am gone. I'm not kidding. It won't almost cause a divorce this time, i promise ;)

I think that is it for now. As I think of more I will let you know. You are the best husband ever!!! SeRIoUsLy! I love you so much. I hope you are getting some rest in L.A.. You’re going to need it.

Xoxoxoxox,
nat

My Name is Natalie Kidd and I Am a Meany

So, anyways what is my problem? I have always been tender-hearted. The thought of harming anyone or anything is unbearable and has been since I was a child. I remember being at my grandparent’s house and a bird flying into their back window. It didn’t fare well. I got a box and nursed that little tiny bird until it took its last dying breath. And I wept. And wept. Likewise, when I turned 16 I hit a bird while driving. I swear that thing was suicidal. It came out of nowhere. If only I had some warning. I certainly would have gone against everything that my rotten driving instructor taught me about not swerving to avoid wildlife. Whatever. That same driving instructor also appreciated the way that the hoity toity girl that took driver’s Ed with me drove. “See, Natalie, look how her hands are at 10:00 and 2:00. Now, look how she is going below the speed limit. See how calmly she handles the residential area in Sun City?” Then the jerk took me downtown DURING rush hour in Phoenix! And then kept slamming his brake pedal and giving me the tisk, tisk face. So annoying. I digress. Long story short, I hit the bird and pulled over to cry. I just prayed that the scripture that says that God knows when even one sparrow falls was really true. Even now, I slow down and honk at the pigeons that aren’t bright enough to get out of my way. Ryan just rolls his eyes and the kids ask from the backseat “Mommy, did it move?” So back to my problem…As I have grown up I have realized that Buddha was one heck of a guy. (No, that is not my problem) He taught such peace, such tranquility, and such wisdom. Learning some of the Eastern thought had caused me to place my desire for animals and insects to live in peace in a special category, it’s the ‘Buddha wouldn’t kill that bug for no reason’ category. Because of that, I have, for a long time, put spiders outside (unless they are poisonous) instead of killing them. They aren’t hurting me. They scare me but they don’t hurt me. Crickets, they bug me but they don’t hurt me. Bees make me cry and feel heart palpitations but I wouldn’t kill one because we need bees. Except the one that flew up my pants, stung me and caused me to moon Ryan’s whole entire family at the family reunion. Bear Lake 2006. That bee died. Strangely enough, over the past several months I have been finding myself constantly feeling more and more agitated with bugs. I have been talking to them. In angry, angry tones. Take last spring for example. The ants were back in full force and had hatched from their creepy larval state and were taking over my life just in order to take what ever goody they could pillage back to their greedy queen. I found myself killing them and saying things like “I hope the greedy queen starves because you won’t be bringing that back to her. Ha! You just made your last trip for food, sucker!” Or the most angery toned repeated statement last spring to the ants “Take that! Dumb ant” as I sucked them up with the Dust Buster. Not very Buddha-like, is it?

Last night I found myself in my closet getting ready for bed. Not any sooner than I had taken my shirt off and was looking for something comfy to wear, I hear a chirp. Instantly, I start talking in harsh tones to the cricket hiding in my closet. “Oh that’s brazen of you. Just start chirping like you aren’t even scared. You should be scared. You should be very scared.” Then, just to show that thing who was in charge in this closet, I hit the wall on which it was hiding. It didn’t even stop. My conversation continued. “You’re lucky that I am tired. Because if I wanted to, I could hunt you down and squash you.” The chirping stopped. So I continued, “I know that tonight you will stay in my closet and think that you have escaped a certain death. Well, don’t be quite so confident because I happen to know that tomorrow you will venture out of my closet and into the middle of my bathroom floor where I can, and will end your life. This is your last night so you might as well enjoy it. Chirp away little cricket. Tomorrow you die.” It began chirping again and I wondered if I have peaked in meanness. And if I needed to go walk a labyrinth or light some candles or meditate.

So anyways, what is my problem? Am I losing my heart? Have I turned to the other side? Should I join the NRA? Would I even feel guilty if I wore a fur coat? Do I need a more healthy way to release stress? I think I need some more sleep. And a massage. And a facial. And a pedicure. Could even those luxuries cure me of my meanness? Maybe. I’ll give them a try. For the sake of Buddha.

And Poof You Realize You're Lucky

Two weeks ago I had the chance to take Crayton far, far away to the dentist to get a spacer put back in (thanks Mike!). I have to be honest and tell you that I invited Piper to come along just to ease some of the constant chatter that comes from my most intense of children. She declined so Ryan wished me luck and patted my rear end on the way out the door just to help me get my game face on and face the double header coming my way (one hour there (header one) one hour back (header two) DOUBLE HEADER). Now don’t get me wrong…I delight in my Crayton! He is pure delight. However…as of late he is talking. A lot. And not that I don’t like talking myself but Crayton is talking about 8 year old boy things. And that includes A LOT of hypothetical situation story telling conversations. That is if you can call them conversations. I believe that by definition a conversation has to have two people involved. They usually start out something like this: “Mom, hey mom (said three times fast) Say there was this guy that could jump from a building and he jumped and then when he landed on the ground he accidentally landed on this lady and she saw him coming and she said “oh no I’m a goner!” And then she died and then that guy stood up and then he realized that he landed on the lady and killed her so he had to get out of there really quick so he jumped back on top of the building…..” (Keep going with more action packed situational intensity for about 30 minutes while maintaining DIRECT eye contact or the story starts all over again and you get a tiny taste of Crayton right now. I found it too painful to bear. I really mean it.

(**My game face**)
So with my game face on, off we went. After about 3 minutes in the car with him alone I realized that I was a terrible person for feeling so little desire to listen to him for the trip to the dentist. I know. I am really a horrible person. As soon as we started talking, I became the most grateful mom on the planet to have this little guy all for myself. His mind is incredible. His spirit even more-so and his humor and whit are just too adorable to put into words. If you take away the intensity of our every day life where we can both just calm down a little bit and listen to each other we really find each other quite delightful. We had the best conversations on that little trip. I had the chance to ask him about his first experience with the Holy Ghost and he willingly shared his sweet testimony that he knows that the Holy Ghost came and comforted him at a hard time. He said that he felt peace and knew that the Holy Ghost was real. Talk about priceless. We talked about friends at school, inventions that he would like to make, the importance of saying no to drugs, politics, and religion. I got to hug him when he was sad and crying (don’t ever tell him that I told you that) because he found out that he needed a root canal. And I got to hug him until he was done being hugged. Not just until the phone rang or until Crue started crying because he bumped his head or until Lennon needed her bum wiped or Piper needed help with her homework. We talked some more and sang really loud to the radio and shook what our mamas gave us when ‘I’m Too Sexy’ came on. Then we laughed until our faces hurt at the silliness of the song and the silliness of the dance moves. And we laughed some more at made up jokes and statements made with some serious notes of sarcasm. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect time with a more special person. We even went to IKEA. And he liked it. Mostly because I bought him a cinnamon roll.

I am so very, very blessed to wake up every single day and share in his life. It is humbling to think about the magnitude of Crayton’s spirit and the expanse of his potential. It is joyful to watch him grow up and figure things out. Really important things like kindness, respect, compassion, responsibility, a recognition of the Spirit, a knowledge of the scriptures, patience, a respect for and love of life. He is one of my greatest instructors while I walk this earthly sojourn. I keep with me a constant prayer in my heart that I can serve him well all the days of my life. He deserves that.

My favorite conversation of the day went like this:

Crayton while walking through IKEA- “I wish that I were magic and I could just go poof and we could be rich and poof we could be done shopping and poof I could eat a whole pizza and poof I could have 89 fudge brownies.”

Me- “And poof you have a heart attack. At least humor me and tell me that they were organic brownies.”
Crayton giggling- “Nope they were made with growth hormones and lard.”