My Greatest Accomplishments

The other day I was bemoaning the fact that some people choose to discount two of my greatest accomplishments as a mother (giving birth without pain medication) without giving it a second thought by saying things like "You must have easy labors." As if that is the only way a woman could ever say no to the epidural. There is really no way of knowing if my labors are harder or easier than anyone else's. For all I know they are easier, it just irks me for that to be the only explanation some people can come up with.

Today I added another feat to my list of greatest accomplishments as a mother. I dare you to discount it with thoughtless one-liners. Today I let Reasor play in the pantry while I finished the corn bread and put it in the oven, figuring everything in there was edible and pantries are safer than ovens. I heard him smacking his lips, but didn't think much of it. He is generally smacking his lips. After the oven was safely closed I went over to get him and found him grasping a roach. A roach. A roach! My presence startled him and he relinquished his hold, whereupon the roach skittered away and I stomped on it with only my slipper to protect me. (That was the feat. It fits snugly here in the middle of the story.) As I cleaned up the roach guts I hoped for all I was worth that they were roach guts and not baby drool. And then I saw it, an open container of raisins. Now dear readers, please join me in hoping that that was what the lip smacking was about. Please let it be raisins. Please.

This might make you mad at me

Our society seems to believe that any advance in technology is good. Those who don't subscribe to this view are often seen as old-fashioned, behind the times, or if one is trying to be offensive, close-minded. (Side note: It's interesting to me that being called close-minded is one of the worst insults of our time. Its common use can be defined as "you refuse to agree with me.")

I'm not going to write about iphones and GPS. I'm not going to write about texting rather than conversing with people in the room. Somebody else can and has done those things. I'm going to write about something a little closer to my mind these days: technology in child birth. Those of you who are creeped out by the most miraculous of all of the processes God has built into our bodies now have permission to stop reading, (as if you needed it) but I promise not to be graphic.

First, let me fend off the inevitable initial response from most the general public. I agree that advances in technology have made childbirth much safer for mothers and babies when complications arise. Lots of people used to die giving birth or being born. Far fewer people do these days, and that is due to miraculous scientific and technological discoveries of how to fix things that go wrong. I am extremely grateful to live in a time when fear of dying during childbirth doesn't actually have a place in my thoughts and feelings. I'm grateful to live in a time that when a baby comes too early, there is often something that can be done to save his life. I'm grateful that there is no chance anyone will be performing surgery on me without anesthesia, and that Doctors and nurses now understand the importance of washing their hands. There are many cases in which technology is called for and beneficial to say the least. However, I do contend that our cultural love affair with technology doesn't always make things better.

Let's take for instance the epidural. When people find that I'm not planning on using chemical pain relief in labor, many seem to find it difficult to come up with a reason anyone would make that choice other than being crazy. I find this response even more prevalent among men, which is interesting to me. (I guess there are also more men who own a GPS.) To me the reason seems obvious, but perhaps it's because I'm not as fully enamored with technology as a good American should be. The reason is that with every medication there are risks and side effects. We tend to assume that our Doctors would never allow us to take a medication whose risks and side effects outweighed the benefits, but we seem to forget that we only see our Doctors for, like, 10 minutes at a time, and different people respond differently to different medications. We also seem to forget that Doctors get paid more the more they do, and they are forever trying to come up with the money for malpractice insurance, whose premiums have gone sky high due to our society's second love: law suits. (This is especially true for OB/GYN's) Also, "pain relief" as a benefit is extremely subjective, so why should our Doctors decide if the benefits outweigh the risks? Mainly, though, it's the lack of time that prevents our overworked Doctors, and nurses from giving us all of the information. Therefore, we must take responsibility to research risks and side effects ourselves, especially when we have plenty of time beforehand to do so. Like 40 weeks, people. And especially when you can come up with a list really quickly by googling or following links on a random blog post. (I didn't list side effects in this post in order to keep my previous commitment to not be graphic.)

Please don't misunderstand me. I don't look down on people that choose chemical pain relief. As I said earlier, in some cases the technology is called for and beneficial. I do, however, think a person ought to do some research before pumping chemicals into themselves and their babies. (Yes, epidural chemicals enter a baby's body, and with limited metabolism, the chemicals stick around more than twice as long as they do in the mother.) Sometimes it does more good than harm, sometimes it does more harm than good.

Epidurals aren't really what gets me worked up though, it's induction. Once again, induction is a wonderful development when there is a good reason. However, Mr. Doctor, Sir, "it's been 10 days" is not a good reason. Especially since I just read in Gentle Childbirth, Gentle Mothering that the average healthy woman of my race actually goes 41 weeks and 1 day before giving birth. And furthermore, "You've been here a long time, we'd like your baby to be born sooner than it looks like he's coming. We sort of need the bed." is also not a good reason to start the flow of medications and the cycle of more medication to treat the side effects of the first medication, or to perform major abdominal surgery. Just so you know where I stand on that issue. I've decided to abruptly stop there so that the comments on this post favor the "Why would this make us mad at you?" rather than the, "You bet this made me mad!" variety.

(But, if you'd like to read more about real reasons for slow and stalled labors generally treated in our hospitals with Pitocin these days, "Ina May's guide to Childbirth" is the place to look. Did you know it used to be common knowledge among Doctors in the 19th century that labor could be slowed or stopped due to an abrupt arrival on their part? So they always asked permission from those attending a woman in labor before entering. That'd be nicer than the *knock knock* *door bursts open* common in hospitals today. Wait, some hospital practices actually cause complications in labor they then treat? YES. That wasn't a very good abrupt stop. My apologies)

Dear Mr. President,

Some children don't have the benefit of caring adults who have the time, resources, knowledge and patience to provide them with real life learning opportunities / one on one attention / enriching educational experiences. Therefore, let's keep all of them, including the majority who do have those benefits, cooped up in classrooms all day everyday where they don't have the resources or staff necessary to provide them with all of those things. What? That doesn't make sense?

P.S. Oh? You have an idea as to how to get them the resources? Ha. Haha. Hahaha. Riiiiight. I trust your financial decisions about as often as I let my 2 year old eat silver dollars covered in used motor oil.

P.P.S. In case you're wondering, I never let her do that.

P.P.P.S. Performance on standardized tests does not indicate actual knowledge, critical thinking skills, creativity, ingenuity, or other vital skills for making it in a 21st century global economy. It indicates performance on standardized tests. Also did you ever think that perhaps our reliance on standardized tests has harmed our education system? Didja?

P.P.P.P.S. What may be good for inner city Chicago can in many cases be bad in small town Utah. Perhaps that's why the founding fathers left educational decisions to the states. *Shrug* They may have been on to something. And by that I mean get your enormous, smelly, federal feet out of local government problems and allow the critical thinking, ingenuity, creativity, and hard work of the American People solve them without any more nice-idea-rotten-implementation-federal red tape. Please.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease

That's what they say anyway. For much of my life I had my doubts. I always thought a more truthful maxim would be "the squeaky wheel is the one everybody thinks is annoying." I grew up in a family where most of us didn't know how to squeak. My mom does a pretty good job, but the rest of us are highly practiced at muffling in order to avoid being the squeaky one.

Many of my childhood friends were excellent screechers. Thus many of my childhood friendships consisted of me doing everything my friends said whether I wanted to or not. I would continue to do so for months or years until my mom, who has spend much of her life trying to decipher muffled squeaks, would figure it out and go squeak for me. (Note: I'm not talking about bad things. I didn't usually do those...well at least not because my friends wanted me to. When my friends wanted to do things I thought were wrong I was often found hiding in the bathroom hoping everyone forgot about me so I wouldn't have to be a squeaky wheel.)

Now, it's to my mom's credit that she works hard to try to understand the muffled creaks. I have found that, in general, squeakers assume that if you're not squeaking, you haven't got anything to squeak about. Case in point: Once on vacation one of the activities was to go see the sea turtles in a little bay while they were fed. My friend and I decided not to go, based basically on our non-squeakiness. We knew that we would go there and then get shoved and jostled to the back where we couldn't see. Our other friend told us, that if that happened to her, she'd just push her way back to the front. She didn't understand that we just couldn't do that. It wasn't the kind of thing we did. In fact, she assumed that because the people she would have pushed in front of didn't say anything, they didn't mind. It's hard for us to understand problems we don't have. In fact, I'm sure she would have thought I was insane had I divulged the fact that had someone stepped in front of me and asked if I could still see, I probably would have fibbed and said I could. She might have fainted in disbelief had I told her the true story of how my sister, when at a friend's house, said "no thank you" when someone offered her mayonnaise in order to avoid even the slightest creak.

Mufflers on the other hand seem to have a much better time hearing silenced peeps. If not hearing them, they are at least much better at realizing that there's probably some silent peep-age going on and to do what they can to grease those silent wheels. That's why Daddy-o's got the advantage over mom on understanding the things we don't say. However, it would be an extremely rare occasion for him to go squeak for you like mom did. He did sometimes, and he was good at it, but mom was the one people expected to squeak for us. (She was also the one a 13-year-old girl occasionally had to pretend she didn't belong to in order to avoid inevitable adolescent embarrassment.)

Of course, we don't live in a world where you can categorize people into two easy groups. People are willing to squeak in different situations. My mom spoke up for us a whole lot more often than she did for herself. I wasn't ever too bad at whining about things to people that weren't involved and couldn't help me. (This is known as gossip.) There's a girl I know that I find really squeaky, and someone that knows her very well thinks she's too much of a push-over. I bet I could find lots of people who can stand up to their own mom, but not their mother-in-law, or visa versa.

I, coming from a family of mufflers, had a difficult time entering a family of assertive squeakers. Kevin knows me well enough to feel the vibrations of my squeaks before they make a sound (That's probably in the top 5 reasons I married him), but you can't live your life waiting for someone to squeak for you. "Hey! Would you give her some grease already? She's not making any noise, but she sure could use some." You especially can't do that among assertive squeakers, because they look at you and their eyes say, "Why didn't you just say something?" and then you feel all pathetic. I feel I've made great strides in my squeaking ability since joining the Wongs. I consider that a good thing. I just hope it doesn't interfere with my desire to always consider the mufflers, nor do I want to become the annoying wheel.

It's a little embarrassing to admit this, but probably the main reason I did natural, epidural-free, childbirth, is because I didn't want to be hooked up to a bunch of stuff and have to ask somebody when I needed things. (I wish I could claim it was all about Alena's health...) 29 hours of labor was easier for me than pressing that red button and squeaking. Someone asked me if Kevin was a good labor coach. He didn't count my breathing for me or anything, but he did a fabulous job squeaking for me, which is exactly what I needed at the time.

Finally, to the event that got me to write this enormously long post that I'm sure Courtlin didn't read because she only looks at the pictures. I just want to announce that when recently in the hospital, I pressed the red button and asked if someone could unhook me from my various cords so I could go to the bathroom. Then, when they didn't come, I did it again. AND when I spilled a bucket of water on the floor while in there, rather than trying to mop it up with toilet paper as my old muffle-y self would have done, I hailed someone in the hallway to let them know that there was a mess in there. My conclusion is, the squeaky wheel is the one that gets the grease, and the one everyone thinks is annoying. Sometimes it's worth it. So, thank you, Wongs. I give you the credit for the fact that I didn't wet my gown. I'm sure the nurses thank you as well.

Christmas Conspiracy

Last year we never sang my favorite Christmas song, "The First Noel" in sacrament meeting, in Relief Society, or at the stake sing along activity. I was sort of bummed. I mean, really, there are only so many Christmas hymn in the book, we should have sung it at least once. Of course I sang it myself, but it's different to sing it with a few people than to sing it surrounded by dozens of people singing with you.

This year I took matters into my own hands. I'm the ward choir director, meaning I get to choose one of the songs for the stake sing along. I had it chosen months ago. Perhaps I would have preferred to sing it as part of the congregation, but I wasn't going to chance a Christmas without it again.

About an hour before the stake sing-along the stake music director called as asked that we change our song, as another choir was singing "The First Noel" for their choir piece, and I just had it down as the sing along with the congregation piece. Kevin took the message (I was napping), meaning I had zero chance to defend my case. (Granted, I probably wouldn't have anyway.) So, we sang Joy to the World. I like that one too, and we still had another Sunday to sing my song in sacrament meeting.

Turns out the choir that had asked we didn't sing our song, sang a Christmas medley. Please! They sang, like, the chorus and that was it. And I didn't even get to sing! Plus, would anyone really mind singing the song a choir had sung a snippet of? I would wager at least half of the congregation wouldn't have even noticed. (I realize that my arguments are purely selfish in my desire to get to sing my song with dozens of people. I also realize that there is a counter-argument. However, I am choosing to ignore it as they appear to be napping rather than defending their case.)

So, it was down to the wire yesterday. Would we go two Christmases in a row without singing the best Christmas song in the book? I only had 2 chances, as the choir was singing the intermediate hymn, and I don't get to go to Relief Society anymore. The answer is yes. Two very sad Christmases in a row without getting to be surrounded by dozens of people singing my favorite Christmas hymn together. I can't even believe it. How could it happen twice in a row?!

If there are dozens of you reading this and feeling the anguish of a noel-less Christmas, meet me at the church at midnight. I know someone with a key.

Wait just a minute...

Before you decide you're not happy with our president elect and you're moving to Canada, read this. (Fair warning: if you're like me you might wish you were listening to fingernails on a chalk board rather than reading it.) I know it's close to home and you won't have to learn another language, but you might not find what you're looking for. (That is if you're looking for someone more conservative than Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Reid.) Is there a place where capitalism is alive and well? A place where people don't hate the rich purely because they have more money than you have? A place where hard work is rewarded and we don't despise those who have achieved the American dream and tax them until they lose it?

Although Courtlin thinks I'm crazy far right, I want you to know:

I'm not joining any anti-Obama facebook groups. I think that's in poor taste, not to mention completely useless.

I'm still hopeful. The constitution is inspired by God. He said so. And in it are measures to make sure that the president you disagree with can't go too terribly far.

These election results have kicked me in the behind to get my food storage. I fully expect a massive decline in the GDP and a massive increase in inflation due to the bailout + the unwise Obama tax policy. Anything that inspires you to do good, right?

I also remain an optomist and feel that some good will come of this. I have a whole post planned about that, but I don't think I'll write it today.

And, I voted for 2 democrats. I'm not one of those silly people who think that a little 'R' (or a little 'D' for that matter) means someone must agree with me.

Boiling

I was talking to my liberal/hippie sister the other day about how we disagree on a whole lot politically, and that's a credit to our parents for teaching us how to think. Now, of course, she thinks wrong, so that's not much of a credit, but . . . ;) Just kidding, Brecken.

One thing that really gets my dander up is politically indoctrinating children. Especially when it's done in public schools. Children are really good at pointing out supposed breaches of the separation of church and state, but I'm pretty sure they don't catch on to when someone is trying to get them to believe in communism. For instance, once a student in my classroom in a casual conversation to another mentioned the role of Diety in the world. Another shushed him, looked around hoping no one had heard, and said in a whisper, "You can't talk about God in school or you'll get arrested." These were not 5 year olds, in fact they were 12.

I don't really have any personal experience with political indoctrination, but I can imagine how it would go. As a very loose example, when I was in 4th grade my teacher, on a tangent, talked about her beliefs about taxes (a typical middle left ideology) and for years I just assumed that everything she had said was right. She was my teacher and I loved her, and it all sounded right. I don't think she was trying to push her ideas onto us, but that was the effect.

So, my blood really started to boil when I read this article. It's a long one, so let me summarize the part that got to me. Whether or not Barak Obama is friends with Bill Ayers, while serving with him on that school comittee (Chicago Annenberg Challenge education-reform project) the comittee gave $1,056,162 to the Small Schools Workshop, a program Ayers and Klonsky (a man more communist that the current Chinese government) founded together. Their program supports schools that urge "teachers not to mince words with children about the evils of the existing social order. They should portray 'homelessness as a consequence of the private dealings of landlords, an arms buildup as a consequence of corporate decisions, racial exclusion as a consequence of a private property-holder’s choice.' In other words, they should turn the little ones into young socialists and critical theorists." (As observed by Sol Stern.) Obama went on to serve on the board of the Joyce and Woods fund which gave more money to this indoctrination system. All together Obama participated on boards that gave $1,968,718 to turn children into socialists.

Let me be clear. People have a right to a socialist or even a communist ideology if they so choose. However, it is NOT acceptable to buy children's minds to indoctrinate with your ideology. The article did not make it clear of these schools were charter schools (basically public schools with a twist) or private schools. At least I couldn't find it. If they were charter schools I consider the activity dispicable. If they were private, my view depends on where the money came from originally. However, in either case I can no longer support any part of Obama's education plan.

Am I alone?

Am I the only one that thinks that taking $10,000 out of your retirement account right now (as Barack Obama said this morning he wants to allow you to do without a tax penalty) is a really, really bad idea? To take out that huge chunk of money now, when your retirement account is worth less than it has been worth and (hopefully) than it will be worth relatively soon. Taking out that huge chunk of money from what you're saving for your retirement. Who's going to help you when you retire? Social Security? HA!

Am I the only one who thinks if you need $10,000 to "cover your bills" you have bigger problems than the stock market crash? Perhaps a more helpful suggestion would be to cut out expenses, rather than destroy your future? In my calculations, $10,000 taken out today to "cover your normal expenses," if left in an average 401k for the next 15 years, would become $36,425. Most people will leave that money in there if the tax penalties for withdrawing early are left in place. Even people who don't take the 30 seconds to find an online 401k calculator. I would go so far as to predict that, left alone, some people would decide to stop charging their plasma TV's to credit cards, and maybe not buy another one rather than pull money from their retirement in order to support their consumer addictions. Wouldn't that be a better idea than bleeding your retirement savings?

Don't tell me that we need people to buy plasma's on credit card in order to save the economy. Baloney. Debt is what got us into this mess. Bleeding our savings will only deepen the crisis individually and nationally.

Campaigning

This song is great fun! My favorites:

"Unless you want this liberal wuss in command."
"Like the change we must change to the change we hold dear."
"Then we spin you around and poke you in the rear."

For those of delicate ears, someone does call another person a donkey named Jack.

http://www.peteyandpetunia.com/VoteHere/VoteHere.swf

Alena has just watched it intently 3 times in a row and keeps begging me to turn it on again. I guess she is a prodigy in political satire, not zoology.

Hypocrisy Politics

It's interesting to me that the conservative response to the whole "Bristol Palin is 17 and pregnant" thing is to point fingers at liberals and cry hypocrisy. It seems to me that by doing so, we avoid the real issues, and, at best appear, at worst become hypocrites ourselves.

For example:
Liberal: Having a 17 year old pregnant daughter should disqualify Sarah Palin . She should withdraw.
Conservative: But you didn't care that Bill Clinton was unfaithful, and it was him who was doing it, not his daughter. So, you're a hypocrite, and Sarah Palin rules!
Simulated liberal response: But you didn't like the whole Bill Clinton thing, so why do you still think Sarah Palin rules? Hypocrite!

I've seen many conservatives react this way, even when there's no liberal around. Perhaps we should concentrate on why this issue isn't an issue for us. There are lots of legitimate reasons to forget about the whole thing, for instance:

• It's not Sarah Palin's mistake, it's her daughter's.
  
• Bristol is taking responsibility for her actions and has chosen to act responsibly, and *gasp!* so has her boyfriend. That changes a whole lot. Even the evangelical right believes in forgiveness.
  
• It's not Sarah Palin that's pregnant. (I realize that's redundant, but isn't that the point?)
• It's opening a huge can of disgusting worms to decide that parents are responsible for all of the mistakes of their children. I think most parents, when asked if they would like to take that responsibility would say no thank you. There are loads of good parents whose children make big mistakes. Adam and Even had one.
  
• Bristol is not running for vice president, her mother is, and her mother is neither 17 nor pregnant.
  

Now, those of us fanning the fire of this hot "news" story should be ashamed of ourselves. (I guess this blog would be included in that.) For once the candidates have got it right, and they agree with each other. The media, and the rest of us should leave the children out of it. When I read that Barak Obama had said that, for the first time in my adult lifetime I was really proud of him.

Isn't it always...

Isn't it always the day after you deep clean the kitchen that you drop a ham on the floor and fling split pea soup all over the counters?

Perhaps I compromised my coordination when I opened a closet door directly into my forehead this morning. It would be an even better excuse if I had a pregnancy to blame this klutziness on.

Let's just hope Alena got Kevin's genes in this area.






(Prediction: at least 3 people will ask if this is an announcement in direct defiance of my post last year about nosiness and pregnancy.)

Disney's Line Conspiracy

They think they've tricked me, but I'm on to them. Those Disney guys, they think they're so smart. They think if they move me to another room, I won't realize that I'm still waiting in line. They think if they have us stand in a clump we won't realize that we're still waiting. Even Alena figured them out.

We happened to walk by the "Honey, I shrunk the audience" attraction a few minutes before it was going to "start." According to the brochure, it would start on the hour, but the announcement inside informed us that it would start half an hour earlier than that. The brochure was right. What happened 30 minutes before was they herded us into a smaller room, repeatedly told us to stand closer and closer together. Then they turned off the lights and, as far as I could tell, the air conditioning. It wouldn't have been so bad except that strollers were not allowed. Now, I can hold a baby for half an hour, but I had left the blanket in the stroller.

Why on earth would I want a blanket in a crowded, dark, room with no air conditioning in Florida? I wanted a blanket because in North America it is culturally inappropriate to nurse a baby without one. If Disneyland were in South America, Africa, or the Pacific I wouldn't even have brought a blanket with me, but that's a different discussion.

I noticed I had forgotten the blanket when the baby started crying. I was hoping it was because she was hot, but no such luck. She was hungry. Now, had I figured out beforehand, that we weren't really "almost in the show" I could have just gone and gotten the blanket. However, the Disney Line Conspiracy was not yet clear to me, and they truly had me believing that the show was about to begin. I actually had about 20 minutes. The baby cried harder and harder, as the crowd pressed closer and closer, and the room got hotter and hotter.

I've learned to nurse discreetly, and I figured if they'd just let us into the room with the chairs and dimmed the lights I could nurse and no one would be the wiser. I tried to wait, but the baby cried harder, the crowd pressed closer, and the room got hotter. I finally gave in. I handed the baby to Kevin, opened up shop, took the baby back and fed her. Right there. Standing in the middle of dozens of tourists and their cameras. And do you know what? I didn't show any more skin than many of the others there, and considerably less than some. For about 30 seconds I was probably showing more than I was comfortable with, but I was certainly less scandalous than a great many people I saw on the trip.

Now, Disney, despite being deceptive in their lines, did have a nice thing set up for families with children under 42 inches. It's called a switch pass. This is how it works: one waits in line to go on a ride while the other stays with the shorties at the end of the ride. When the first parent finishes, the second goes through the fast pass line. The only way to improve that as far as I'm concerned would be to let us wait in line together. That would be more fun. It's no fun to wait in line by yourself, especially when your less than 42 in conversation starter ("How old is you baby?") isn't with you. You get used to having that social buffer with you.

Chivalry

Chivalry, some say, is dead. I've long thought that if that's true, feminism killed it. In my Florida adventure, I found some loosely linked evidence to support my theory.

Chivalry in the LDS, Hispanic, Miami culture I saw is still very alive. For example: two different gentlemen opened the car door for me to get out of the car. I wasn't even on a date with them. I don't think that has ever happened to me before. I felt so very special. (Not "special," Dad.) However, I'm not sure it was worth the tradeoff.

Both of these gentlemen waited at the table to be served by their wife/mother, who had prepared, was serving, and would perform all of the cleanup of the meal. One of these men even told Kevin, upon finding out he cooked that he should have burned it the first time so he wouldn't be in his current predicament. He said it in jest, but after his wife named the two things he would do for her in the kitchen, I could see the truth in the joke. Don't get me wrong. Both were good men, kind men, intelligent, interesting men, they just didn't help out around the house, despite having excellent manners.

So I guess the question is whether you'd like your man to always have a hankie to offer you, or if you'd like him to help you fold the laundry and do the dishes. If you're especially lucky you might find a compromise: a man who can offer a Kleenex and opens your door to get in the car, but not out, and a man who cooks and cleans.

It appears, dear friends, that I win. Neener neener.

Dolphins and body image

Here is the beginning of my vacation review. I'm not going to give you a play by play, because even if I were doing it for family history purposes, I would never read it again. Not to mention that Kevin already has the play by play in his journal. Instead I'm going to write little snippets of the things that crossed my mind in the course of our travels.

I think the highlight of the trip for me was fulfilling a dream I've had since childhood. I wasn't one of those fourth grade girls that loves horses, and I never wanted to become a marine biologist, but I DID always want to see a dolphin. You'd think I'd have done that in New Zealand or Fiji, but no such luck. So, when Kevin asked me what I wanted to do in Orlando, Disney World was not the answer. I told him I wanted to see a dolphin. When I told him I'd always wanted to, he took me seriously. Good for him. So that was the first thing we did in Orlando. I'm serious, we went into SeaWorld and headed to the dolphins. (OK, we stopped to look at the sting rays for about 30 seconds, but only because it was on the way.) I was so very excited I couldn't even take my eyes off of them. I was like a little kid, and it was so fun.


Now, I'm sure you've seen Lisa Frank dolphins, and dolphin charm necklaces, and pictures of dolphins in many different places. They seem to be everywhere don't they? There's plenty of dolphin publicity. They are slender, graceful, beautiful creatures according to everything I had ever seen. What surprised me most when I saw the real, live dolphin was that it was not slender. Dolphins are fatsos. That's just the way they're built. They ARE, however, graceful, beautiful creatures. Isn't it lovely that they can be fatsos and graceful, beautiful creatures at once?

I was thinking about that idea quite a bit throughout the rest of the trip, in which we went to the beach several times. The thing about the beach is that you can't really hide anything. No matter how many times you've watched "What Not to Wear," there's only so much you can do with a swimsuit to flatter your body type. My mom used to make us wear T-shirts over our swimsuits (for the sun) but even that doesn't hide anything when it's wet.

Women in swimsuits are perhaps even more highly publicized than dolphins are. (Although I've never seen one on a Lisa Frank pencil box.) They are slender, bronze, cleavage-laden creatures. However, like dolphins, what you find in the magazines is not what you find on actual specimens at the beach. Some are slender and bronze, some are bronze and cleavage-laden, and some are just cleavage-laden. I did not see even one who had all three characteristics. And the only ones with flat little tummies were about 17 years old. However, there were many, many beautiful women there at the beach. I think in making this observation I have discovered a new treatment for poor body image. Attend the beach and do so often. You might just find out that it's possible to be graceful and beautiful and not look like a swimsuit model.

You also might find out how important it is it apply sunscreen to your legs as well as the rest of your body. I know I did.

On a more journal-y note, Alena also enjoyed SeaWorld. In fact, she like it so much that she graced Shamu with her very first applause:

P.S. Check out the new photos in the "photos" tab.

P.P.S. That floppy dorsal fin in not caused by captivity, it's genetic.

Look Out! Political post to follow!

According to KSL news the mayor and city council of LaVerkin, one of the many strangely named cities in this state, have decided to forgo their salaries due to a $200,000 mistake brought to light by an audit. They apparently will refuse pay until the problem is taken care of. There was no mention in the article of a tax increase, although I'm sure that will follow, the key word being "follow," their responsible actions. There was also no talk of sending out tax rebates in order to alleviate an economic recession caused in part by irresponsible leaders leading the country into crushing debt, thus devaluing the dollar. (I realize that my understanding of the economy is simple to the point of probably being wrong. I blame the fact that I took economics at ICC.)

OK, so where did this mayor and city council come from? According to the comments I have read on the KSL website, LaVerkin is full of citizens who would "throw a tizzy" if their leaders said they were going to fix their mistake by having the people pay for it. Which leads me to my main point.

I did not cause the national debt.

If I didn't, who did?

Most likely the people who have, or have had, any control over the national budget. What if we held them responsible for their actions? I wonder what would happen then. I would definately reelect a senator who had given up his $165,200/year salary to put toward the national debt. Which leads me to my next big point.

Why the heck am I paying Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and John McCain $165,200 to NOT go to work this year?

Irony and Pregnancy

I don't remember when I learned it, but I seem to have known for quite some time now that asking about pregnancy is a faux pas. Now, most people know that you're only going to get yourself into trouble if you walk up to a woman and say, "So, when are you due?" Like, duh. However, it seems that far fewer people understand that questions about future pregnancy is also asking for trouble.

Now, I can only speak for the people with whom I come in contact. As you probably know, I'm highly integrated into Mormon culture and, truthfully, still live much of my life in BYU culture, despite having graduated 17 months ago. I see neither of these things as a disadvantage. I love both of those idiosyncratic cultures with all of my heart and am glad to be a part of them. However, they both seem to put an awful lot of emphasis on deciding when other people should be dating, getting engaged, getting married, having children, having grandchildren, etc., etc. Hopefully people know deep down that it's none of their business whether or not Johnny and Suzie should or should not start dating, or whether Helen and Walter's children should be having children by now, but they seem to have rather a lot of difficulty keeping their mouths shut on a topic that is really only the business of Johnny, Suzie, Helen and Walter's children and God. (obviously occasionally advice is warranted, but it seems that you should actually know someone fairly well before butting into their love life)

The advice and interrogation seems to be unending no matter in what section of life you find yourself. Hate to burst your bubble, BYU singles, but people feel they know what you should be doing entirely through the dating, engagement, and marriage processes, and then into the child-bearing years. It doesn't end. I remember that before Kevin and I had even brought up the topic of marriage directly, I was being asked more than daily if I was engaged yet. I started holding up my left hand, pointing to my ring finger and saying, "Naked," as a greeting to people, just so I wouldn't have to answer the question. I was tempted to hold up my naked hand at all times when with Kevin in order to avoid embarrassing situations.

Anyway, I dreamed of the day when people would stop with the, "you've been single for how long? (or short)", "you've been dating for how long? (or short)", "you're going to be engaged for how long? (or short)" Sadly, I found that in order to be done with those, I had to start enduring, "So, when are the little ones coming?", "When are you planning on little ones?", and "You're not ready yet. You shouldn't be thinking of children." Thankfully I didn't wait long enough to get "What is taking you so long?"

First of all, it's none of their business! At all! And I mean even a tiny bit! That would be between Kevin and me and our Creator. Secondly, there is a whole lot that can go wrong in this area, and it tends to be a pretty emotional business. Sometimes I wished I could burst into sobs, and share some made-up story about how we'd been trying for 7 years. Thank you very much for bringing up that subject! While you're at it why don't you give my a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it... Or how I happen to be in the middle of my 4th miscarriage, and if they have any ideas feel free to share, *slap*. I just wanted to teach them a lesson, so they didn't do it to someone who would have a different internal reaction than mine. (Mine being, "None of your business!" )

At any rate, I got pretty used to dancing around the subject, and not actually answering any questions. I say I got pretty good, but the truth is that nobody is actually ever good at that. Not because of their own lack of skill, but because when you refuse to answer a question people make up their own answers and assume that you said them. They don't remember your actual words, they remember what they decided you meant. I found this out recently when people started saying, "But, Talyn, you told me that you weren't planning on children for quite a few years!" No, I never told you that. I told you a silly story about something I learned in my Marriage and Family class at BYU that had very little to do with the subject. I never actually answered your question, because it was none of your business.

Well then, back to the point. When I got pregnant the questions seemed to multiply, and it became harder to dance around the subject. But still, I hadn't even told my mother yet so why on Earth should I tell you, acquaintance from 4th grade? I played the Pollyanna game and found a good thing in the situation. People asking would make it mighty easy to tell people when I was ready. No dice. As soon as I got to the point that I was ready to tell the general public, people stopped asking. (It's probably just the 'watched pot never boils' syndrome, but still mighty frustrating.) I would look for every opportunity to slide gracefully into the subject, and all opportunities seemed to have vanished. Oh, the irony!

In the end, I had to resort to this blog entry to break the news. Kevin and I are having a baby in July! As my cousins said, "Go Mr. Wong!" Any questions? Bring 'em on. I've had lots of practice fielding personal questions, but don't you dare come touch my belly without express written consent from its owner.

Potty Boy and Potty...Girl?

When I was a wee little girl living in a tiny little town in the northwoods of Minnesota, my family used to go for walks. We used to walk down to the river and wander around, looking at cool things there. One trip we took occasionally included a visit to what we called the "Potty Boy." We had a good reason to call it that. It was a little statue of a boy becoming one with nature and letting it go into the river. At the time I thought it was kind of scandalous to have a little naked kid as a statue, but we also thought it was pretty funny. Even after we hadn't made a trip to the potty boy in years, we still talked about him. He became a family icon, if you will. Well, maybe just a family joke.


(Our little potty boy with someone who wants to grow up to be just like him)

This summer I discovered that our little "Potty Boy" is not one of a kind. In fact, there is a potty boy identical to my old friend here in Brussels, only they call him "Manneken Pis." He's right down town and they do a pretty good job making him a tourist trap. They have cardboard Manneken Pises at three times actual size, chocolate Manneken Pises, Manneken Pis pens and t-shirts, etc. Foreign countries who feel sorry for the poor naked boy donate costumes to him and he wears them on special occasions, and once a year he changes from a fountain of water to a fountain of beer. He's become the city's icon.


(One of the tourist ones, at three times actual size, with complimentary Belgian scarf.)

Now, I hear you feminists out there. "We want equal rights!" you say, "If there's a little boy, where's his sister?!" you say. Well, don't worry, the good people of Brussels hear you. Manneken in fact does have a sister named Janneken Pis. She squats at the back of a secluded alleyway behind red bars and surrounded by greenery. (Well, fake, plastic greenery)

Now, one wonders why they - two small, metal citizens - choose to relieve themselves out in the open rather than just finding a public restroom. Where is their mother anyway? "Perhaps the public restrooms are dirty," you say. Occasionally they are, but you can find a clean one without too much trouble. "Perhaps they really are trying to become one with nature," you say. Maybe, but if they were trying to do that, it seems they would choose a location other than the middle of the city, plastic greenery or not. My theory is simple. I think that the children's good mother has taught them the value of being frugal. By choosing a location out in the open they save 20 Euro cents (actually, if their other option were the train station in Luxembourg, they save €1,10). I imagine there are others tempted to join them rather than have to go make change of their 20 Euro bill, and from the smell of the metro stations I can only assume that some have joined the rebellion.

So, as with many things, childhood memories must give way to the reforming influence of two small statues seizing the "rights" that, according to some, should not be protected by the constitution. I for one am in favor of an ammendment to the Belgian constitution assuring me access to a clean, free restroom. Then again, what do I know about politics?