Exploring the Restrooms of the World

#2 was potty trained twice.  She first took an interest at 19 months of age, and I was so happy to give her a packet of "big-girl panties" for her second birthday.  Right about that time, though, she had a series of UTIs that basically undid her new skill and forced us to revisit toilet training for the next year or so until she had it down.

  Notes from my stream of consciousness:

1. This is the first time I've regretted referring to my children as numbers on my blog.  I mean really, does #2 want to be called #2 in a post about restrooms?
2. Do I revert to 13-yr-old-boy humor too often on this blog?  I wonder if I'm the only one to post about #2 in the restroom and pickled toilets.  Huh.

Back to 2002.  When #2 realized the power of yelling from the backseat of the van for a toilet "NOW!", she also realized her opportunity to explore the restrooms of the world.  No matter where we were, who we were with, or what we were doing, if she got bored she could easily get our attention, along with a change of scenery, by holding herself and doing a little jig for the potty.  I can only imagine how fun it must be for a two-year-old to suddenly be in charge of the situation as the adults drop what they're doing and scramble to whisk her away to a previously unexplored restroom.

At this point, I will admit to having a favorite bathroom in my own childhood: the master bath at my grandparents' house in Ogden was huge!  It was so big that it opened with a mirrored, sliding door instead of a hinged one.  There weren't many homes in the '80s that had his-and-her sinks, and certainly none that also had a vintage, standing hair dryer like the one pictured here.  (Imagine it in a pale, '60s green.)  The furry toilet-lid cover matched the room's thick-shag carpeting, which felt absolutely luxurious between my toes.  The few times that I soaked in the pink plastic tub filled with bubbles were absolutely magical!

Well, with my toddler and her pea-sized bladder, we got to see how all our friends and relatives decorated their bathrooms.  We visited restrooms in all (both--we were poor) of the stores we frequented.  When the Wal-Mart restroom bored #2, she discovered the potty dance was equally effective with grandparents at restaurants and the occasional movie theater.  On a trip to Yellowstone with Kent's extended family, the three-year-old made sure that we saw just about every toilet in the park. Perhaps those geysers were triggering her response.  However, I began to suspect that she was wielding her power a little more freely than her bladder demanded.  Still, I was never willing to test that theory, and since she was generally able to produce at least a trickle of a tinkle wherever she "went" (ha ha, potty puns!), we continued our jogs to the restrooms of the world and began a photo portfolio of her toilet trips.  (The restroom pictured here was quite quaint.)

That is, until one day on a drive to California.  

Shortly after a break at a nice rest stop with flushing toilets, #2 grew bored of the prolonged drive and decided she would like to stretch her legs again.  Her inconvenient, desperate plea to go potty instantly sent adrenaline into her parents' bloodstreams.  We knew another rest stop was coming up, and so we helped her count slowly and repeatedly to 20 to take her mind off the urge as we raced down the freeway.  Arriving at the tiny, roadside stop, I unstrapped her car-seat harness in record time, hooked my hands under her armpits, and ran for the deserted shack of a restroom.  It was one of those tiny buildings in the dry landscape of Nevada that had no running water.  She took one hard look at that pit toilet and decided she could hold it a while longer.  The harsh desert had finally called her bluff, and we had very little requests to visit toilets after that!

Driving home this week from our family reunion in Oregon brought back these memories.  #2 dropped her restroom quest a decade ago, but we are now entertaining her father's quest for authentic food in our travels.  After deciding to take a break from our road trip, Kent turned to Yelp.com to find a restaurant serving something other than our usual travel staple of fast-food burgers or sub sandwiches.  

We found a recommendation for the Martin Hotel and Bar in Winnemucca, Nevada, which is known for its good, homey Basque food.  Kent has learned through experience that really good food is found in hole-in-the-wall establishments where the proprietors care more about the food than they do the ambiance.  He was therefore pretty excited as we pulled into the gravel parking lot to find an old building with hitching posts along the porch and Christmas lights drooping from the balcony.  A plate by the front door dated the construction to the 1800s.  The interior, with its outdated carpet covering an uneven floor and its mismatched dining sets, had him drooling!  The tin-plated walls sported shelves holding stuffed toy sheep and plastic plants badly in need of dusting.  We ordered our food and proceeded to the restroom to wash up, not suspecting in the least that we were about to enter a restroom truly worth exploring!

Our entrance was greeted by fake sunflowers on an old dressing table accompanied by metal powder-room chairs.  I had to snap a close-up photo of the floor (shown a paragraph above), which looked like a mixture of gravel and wood chips held together by an epoxy that had yellowed with time.  The stall doors were solid-wood, interior doors, but trimmed short.  I entertained myself in there by examining the old screwholes and outlines in the many layers of paint where a hook, a hinged latch, and doorknob had each previously held the stall closed in their day.  #4 emerged from her stall expressing her amazement at finding a real pull-chain toilet that still operated as such!

While Yelp might not ask for ratings of restrooms, I definitely recommend this old, sheepherders' inn.  The hotel's history, which plasters the dining room in black-and-white photos, old stock certificates, and handwritten letters from the owners' son adds to the charm of the place.  With chorizo hominy and lamb shank that literally fell off the bone, I can recommend the food, too.  Just don't miss checking out the restroom!

A Sorry Apology

Dear Blog,

I'm sorry I've been so distant from you lately. It's not that I don't think about you.  It just turns out that living life has taken priority over writing about it.

*Ouch*  That probably hurt.  I apologize.

The truth is, I've thought about you quite a lot.  My phone is full of photos to show you.  My children have continued to astound the world.  I've written a dozen posts to you...in my mind.  In the wee hours of the morning, as I lay in bed thinking of everything I want to tell you, we've had some great conversations and shared a lot of laughs.  You have even chuckled at my use of "wee" in this paragraph, because of the imaginary post I wrote to you last January...a dozen meta-posts ago.  

I'm not even positive that I'm using "meta" correctly in the previous sentence, but I think it works.

That is precisely why I'm writing today.  Besides my apology to you, I must pay some attention to the meta-writer in me who needs to brush up on her use of the written language.  If I neglect the two of you too long I might end up throwing words around helter skelter and let even my spelling and grammar go two/too/to pot.

I had a wake-up call this week.  A deadline demanded that I write--in real life--a short bio that will introduce me to other business owners and their spouses at an upcoming retreat.  In my two-paragraph autobiography, I claimed to be organizing my life in such a way that I can pursue my love of writing.  But can I really claim author status when my clever posts never even make their way out of my thoughts and into the blogosphere?

Probably not, considering that I've plagiarized half this post anyway.  (Hey, when my sister takes three minutes to write the apology that I owe to you, I'll risk being disowned.)

(Note to readers of http://bodenfam.blogspot.com/: Since my Boden sis is such a fan of recycled projects, let's just assume she'll love that I recycled her post.  It's not like she copyrighted it or anything.  But yeah, you already know the ending to this letter.)

Yes Blog, I'm still here.  Does this random picture from my imaginary "Socks and Sabers" post help?  No?  Well then, I'm sorry some more.  Darn winter/spring/summer just requires so much of my time between the extra job, the yard, the house...and the other stuff.  Don't give up on me, though.  I'll be back someday...soon.  First, I just have three dozen bank statements to reconcile, two dozen pieces of artwork to hang, a baker's dozen of stairs to paint, and a half dozen kids to keep occupied.  (That is NOT an announcement.  Sheesh Blog, don't jump to conclusions.  It just means that I always have extra kids around, so I might as well claim an extra number permanently.)  Please forgive me, Blog.  It seems I have a tendency to start something and not finish it before getting distracted and forgetting wh

No Such Thing as Coincidences

I've had a series of interesting experiences the past few days that I chalk up to little miracles.  They need to be recorded, and now that the news around these events is public, I can share these miracles with you.

Thursday afternoon, my friend, Jennifer's, youngest daughter, called to see if I could pick up her older sister from dance class in half an hour.  She said her mom was not feeling well.  The dance studio is not too far from my home, and I've run this errand before when Jennifer was running errands herself, or when she hasn't felt well.

I became worried, though, after picking up the dancing daughter who told me Jennifer had suddenly felt very nauseated when driving to the dance class that afternoon.  She said her mom's vision was blacking out and she ran into the curb at the dance drop-off.  Jennifer's husband works in Salt Lake, too far from home to get back quickly; so I told her daughter to have Jennifer call me if she needed to get to a doctor or hospital.  I followed up with a text to Jennifer saying that I was worried about her symptoms and would drive her for medical attention if needed.  I also asked if she wanted me to come check on her.

I did not receive a response immediately, so I kept her and her family in my prayers and figured she was getting some needed rest.

Friday morning, I carried my cell phone in my pocket during school drop-off as usual.  When I was walking to my workout class a little later, I realized I had left my phone in my pocket.  I always leave my phone and wedding ring at home because I don't want them getting damaged or lost while I exercise.  I had remembered to take off my ring that morning, but had forgotten about the phone at that habitual moment.  When I discovered the phone in my pocket, I almost turned around to leave it at home, and then thought, "I guess I'll find somewhere safe to keep it out of the hands of the little kids that run around during aerobics."  In the gym, I found a ledge about seven feet off the ground and mentally noted that I would need to remember it was there before leaving.

After the first hour of weight training, the toning instructor turned off the music to swap microphones with the zumba instructor.  The rest of us were running laps around the gym during the transition to the second hour of our workout.  From across the gym, I could hear my cell phone ringing.  I jogged over and saw that it was Jennifer's number.  Her older daughter was calling to say that her dad was already at work and her mom was really sick and needed me to drive her to a doctor.  I quickly gathered my things, jogged home, and drove to their house.

I found Jennifer in her nightgown covered in sweat, wheezing, and looking very ashen.  As she got herself out of bed, she asked her daughter to find her wallet.  Her daughter looked everywhere, with no luck.  I helped the daughter on a second sweep of the house, with no results.  Then I had the thought that the wallet was in the car.  I told her daughter to go look there, and she found it.  We packed Jennifer's purse, got a robe on her, left her daughter with some instructions, and headed out.  Jennifer held a bowl on her lap, and a wad of tissues to catch any phlegm she might be able to cough up.  She explained that a cold had been going through their family that week, and she thought she simply had really bad congestion from that.  She had begun vomiting every hour and had a raging headache.  At that point, she was so weak that she couldn't even cough much.  She felt more sick than she had ever remembered being.  We decided she should go to the ER.

At the hospital, they discovered that Jennifer's oxygen saturation was 25 percent.  That's quite bad.  They began  treating for pneumonia with a variety of oxygen treatments until her skinned pinked up.  After a couple hours, her oxygen was in the 90s, her headache was mostly gone, and she was finally feeling hungry.  Her daughter called to find out what was happening, and I told her they thought it was pneumonia and the doctor and nurse were helping her feel much better.  I also called her husband to fill him in.  He decided to cut some appointments short and meet her at the hospital.

She and I visited for four hours in the hospital.  She told me she wasn't too concerned about her illness, figuring it was the flu, until she received my text saying how worried I was.  Her daughter asked her to call me several times, and was relieved when Jennifer finally said to go ahead.  Ironically, the symptom I was most concerned about was the vision blackouts accompanied by the sudden nausea.  Jennifer chuckled and said she had not had any problems with her vision.  She did bump into the curb at dance class, so her daughter must have concluded that her eyes were not working.  Coincidences?  No.

As it turned out, Jennifer did not have pneumonia.  She had a birth defect in her heart that was finally acting up and not putting oxygen into her bloodstream.  As a result, her lungs had filled with fluid, which caused the pneumonia-like symptoms.  She is still in the hospital, and just finished open heart surgery this evening.  She is in good hands and I know through this series of non-coincidence miracles that Jennifer has angels watching over her.  Let me list them one more time:

1. Her daughter mentioned non-existent vision loss, which raised a flag in my mind.
2. I sent a text that helped Jennfier realize the situation might be worse that she thought.
3. My cell phone stayed in my pocket when it normally shouldn't have been there.
4. When I would have taken the phone back home, the thought came to my mind to just keep it with me.
5. Jennifer's daughter called for help at the only time during the two-hour workout that I could have heard my phone.  The loud music was only turned off for a couple minutes while instructors traded the microphone.
6. I heard the phone from across the gym where a dozen ladies and at least a dozen more small children were running around and being noisy.
7. I knew where to find Jennifer's wallet so she could register easily at the ER.  This allowed the hospital to pull a list of her medications so they could treat her carefully.
8. We got Jennifer to the hospital in time.  With an oxygen level of 25, she probably shouldn't have made it.  When we left, the nurse told mentioned that he had never seen such a low oxygen saturation in someone who was still living.

God is watching over Jennifer and her family.  Please pray for them.

Money Laundering

I never intended to devolve into a life of crime.  I'm truly a freedom-loving, patriotic American.  I've lived my life trying to be a good citizen.  True, our little Provo version of the White House doesn't fall under the same scrutiny as the DC version, so I could probably get away with a bit of money laundering, my morals demand that I come clean, so to speak.

Ironically, this little episode of Inside the White House began while we were attending the Freedom Festival's patriotic "Hope of America" program.  Technically, I guess it began a couple weeks before that.  I just didn't know about Tomatogate until it was too late.

Let me explain.

There we were, enjoying the April 17 performance of The Hope of America.  I've seen this canned program several times now as my children pass through the fifth grade, and the songs and flags still get to me and bring tears of American pride to my eyes.  This year it was #3 rocking it to "Gangnam Style" while the grandma drill team shook their stuff and the 90-something-year-old GG-ma stole the show with the splits.  (I'm including video proof of this feat, in case you don't believe me.  #3 is the craziest kid in the second stripe down, half a dozen students away from the aisle.)

I apologize for wasting nearly a minute of your life with this video.

Like I was saying, there we were enjoying the show, whooping and waving our arms.  As the applause died down, I felt something wet on my lap.  Being past the days when I hold my leaky pukey babies, this was a cause for concern.  I lifted my purse and confirmed that a moist patch was growing on the leg of my jeans.  I dug around in my purse a bit to also confirm that I wasn't carrying a water bottle or hand sanitizer.  (Thanks to #4's science experiment in Kindergarten a few years ago, I don't put much faith in that stuff.  Water: good.  Hand sanitizer: pointless and potentially poisoness.  But that's a post for another time.)  Being unable to determine why my purse had a wet bottom, I did what years of holding leaky pukey babies taught me: I set it on the floor and dealt with it the next day.  (Just kidding.  My babies always got my attention within a few hours.  Usually.)

The next afternoon, I got to work emptying items from the still-wet purse.  At this point I was noticing it's unpleasant smell as well.  (Maybe I should rename this post "A Dozen Ways Your Purse is Like a Baby".)  The Great Gatsby was a little moist.  My leather gloves were pretty damp.  And then I found the presidents who were soaked in the scandal.  Even the Treasurey Secretary was in the thick of it.  That's where the money laundering began.  I couldn't let Washington and Lincoln be defaced in such a manner.  The couple of Hamiltons also needed a good washing.  Turns out baby wipes are great for cleaning more than just infant tooshies.  After scrubbing the bills--and my sunglasses, floss, and notebook--and tossing a handfull of playbills, Ikea maps, and receipts...I discovered the criminal.

Here's how the cover-up went down.  Old purse ended up being thrown under the bus...or rather, into the garbage truck.  With the problem quietly disposed of, a much smaller purse was brought in as a replacement.  My new tiny, vinyl purse guarantees that I will never again be shamed with stinky, leaky tomatoes in my lap.

Give me another decade or so, and I might be willing to hold stinky, leaky grand-babies.

A Distracted Moment

Tip for moms who cut their kids' hair: don't look away from your work.

#5 has needed a haircut for about two weeks.  Despite the Sunday morning rush to get everyone ready for Church, dinner in the slow cooker, lunch in tummies, and a bit of cleaning before hosting the extended family this evening, I thought it would be a good time to take care of the hair.  I may have overestimated my delegation skills as a mom.

You see, my nieces and nephew were spending the weekend with us, and nine kids apparently put me over the top.  I had assigned out sandwich making, sweeping, and laundering Niece 3's peed-in skirt and shoes so they would be clean and mostly dry before heading to Church in 71 minutes.  I had done a pretty good job with the haircut to this point.  I set down the clippers to check my work.  As I ran my fingers through #5's hair, I noticed a chunk near the front that had eluded the cut.  As I reached for the clippers, I looked up to see who was crying or maybe to yell at someone.  I don't remember.  It's all a blur now.  While still dealing with said blur, I set the clippers to his head, and noticed they were tugging against my efforts.  Returning my attention to the work at hand, I discovered that the clipper length guide was no longer attached and I had shaved a two-inch-long rectangle down to the scalp.  My girls gasped.  #5 started crying.  The rest of the children came running when they heard #s 1 and 4 trying to reassure him that it didn't look that bad.  I considered buzzing the rest of his hair, and then remembered that his school uniform policy prohibits such a cut.  I accepted that he would just have to wear my mistake until it grows out.

So I gave up and just put away all the hair cutting tools.  As his sisters consoled my tearful boy, I realized he was crying from pain, as he had no idea yet what his hair looked like.  Those clippers had really tugged at his hair!  So I rubbed his scalp, blew the hairs off his face and neck, and sent him to the shower to rinse.  When he was done with his shower, he came to tell me that he actually likes this haircut.  "It's really unique!" he said.  I'm glad he likes it.  I'm also glad Nephew loaned #5 the Lego tie for Church, as it helped to distract from his bald patch--maybe.

How ironic that my only child to never cut his own hair had it ruined by the family hairstylist.  For the record, though, after taking #5's picture, I remembered that I had skipped the last part of the cut where I clean up the front.  So yes, I shortened those weird, long hairs on his forehead.

Panhandling in Provo

It seems the face of begging in our fair city has changed.

It is not unusual for me to see one or maybe two homeless people asking for help as I exit the grocery store or head downtown for a dinner out.  All my life I have seen beggars with dirty faces and grimy coats sitting dejectedly with a cardboard sign reading, "Homeless.  God bless."  The entirety of their belongings are usually piled in a shopping cart or tied to a sleeping bag nearby. 

As I drove around on a few errands yesterday though, I saw five different panhandlers.  That number alone was a little surprising.  What I found shocking enough to keep thinking about it today is that not one of those people fit the description above.

No one had piles of belongings, let alone a coat on the ground beside them.  Were these fair-weather beggars?  Did they wait for warm temperatures before leaving their house to try their luck on the street?  Three of the beggars fit the dirty description, wearing old T-shirts and ratty jeans.  I did notice a grocery sack and a Super Big Gulp resting beside one man.  (It's a good thing this isn't New York.  That man could have lost his last soda!)  >Sorry.  I couldn't resist one snide remark.<

The one thing all five beggars had in common was the cardboard sign.  But not one of their signs tweeted a story of an injured vet, a wandering traveler, or simple homelessness.

There was one young man who looked like a UVU student.  (I would have guessed BYU, except for his beard.)  He was clean cut and dressed like any of the other 65,000 students in our area.  The only thing to set him apart from his classmates was the cardboard sign he held asking for money.

Then there was the man who looked to be about my age and about my economic status.  With his ball cap, sunglasses, and ear buds, I would have guessed that he just walked out of a sporting event.  The only indication that he needed money was his sign.  It read, "Obama gave me this job!"  He saw me glance at his sign and then look away as I waited in my van at a stop light.  When his clever Obama tactic didn't work, he flipped the cardboard over and nonchalantly waved it to catch my attention.  The reverse side read, "Down on my luck.  Could use some green."  Cute.  A beggar using the holiday for his appeal.

Like I said, these people have been in my head ever since.

My initial reaction was that they all seemed to be able bodied.  Why couldn't they go out and beg for a job?  What happened to the signs that read "Will work for food"?  Maybe Elizabeth Smart's story ruined that tactic in Utah.  Still, I actually found myself getting angry when the driver of a car in front of me handed some bills to one of these guys, followed by a pedestrian who went out of his way to hand the same guy all his spare change before crossing back to the sidewalk he had been treading.  I had hoped that someone would direct that man and his colleagues to the Food and Care Coalition, which was an easy walk away.  I've toured their facility where they provide food to any who come in, free rooms, haircuts, and job leads to homeless people.

I remembered that my tour of their facility had also consisted of a bit of education about homelessness, including the fact that most homeless people struggle with drug addiction or mental illness.  I have no way of knowing if the able-bodied men and women I saw yesterday face those devils in their lives.

Surely, though, the man with the ear buds could have found a job.  His clever signs, citing the bane of most voters in this county, and referencing the current holiday for those who turned out to be Democrat, indicated some level of education.  I found myself wondering why he hadn't sold whatever device his ear buds were plugged into before humiliating himself with begging on the street.  Did he have a family and a house and had possibly run out of unemployment checks?  Why didn't he simply respond to one of the several Help Wanted signs I saw in my errands yesterday?  Was he hoping that someone would recognize his wit and offer him something better?

Joseph Smith, as quoted by Hugh Nibley in Approaching Zion, said, "It is better to feed ten impostors than to run the risk of turning away one honest petition."  I've long believed this as a true principle.  I can't judge others as I don't know their circumstance.  All I know is they want my help.  But I admit that last year when I offered the leftovers of a restaurant meal that I couldn't finish to a beggar in Salt Lake City, it really bugged me that he turned me down and said he didn't want my food.

So while it might be good to feed impostors, is there a better approach?  I appreciate Provo City's stance that panhandling is not a good answer, and that responding with spare change doesn't help the problem for the beggar in the long run.  I like the signs posted downtown by the Community Resource Officers (see above), and often wish that I had business cards with the address to the Food and Care Coalition and the phone number for the United Way.  That is one hand out I would actively give.

What's your answer?

Mourning the Present

It may seem like an exercise in ridiculousness, but this week I've found myself wishing the present weren't so fleeting.

In church last Sunday, I watched the teenagers that I had taught in Primary (youth Sunday School in the LDS Church) when they were turning ten.  They are now on the brink of graduation, serving missions, and going to college.  Later, at a youth fireside that evening I watched--and yes, intervened--as one of my former Bear Den Cub Scouts flirted openly with my almost-13-yr-old daughter.  "Wait!  When did he get taller than me?!" I thought.  "Can he really be in high school already?"

For almost a decade now, we've lived in a neighborhood that embraces the proverb that "it takes a village to raise a child."  As these kids grow up and move on, I feel a little bit like some of my own apron strings are being severed.  I felt sad thinking that these young adults that I've watched grow up will soon be starting adult lives of their own, marrying and raising children of their own.  They will no longer be a part of my immediate neighborhood family.

And so I've turned my attention to my own children's rapid growth.  Doing so has given me more joy in the little moments, while also wishing I could hang on to those moments a little longer.

Where I used to be annoyed each spring by the mud tracks and trails of sand brought in by my kids after an afternoon playing in the adjacent field, this week I just laugh and tell my son he has become the superhero known as Dirt Man.  (It helps that I've learned to shake out all his pockets before tossing them in the washer.)

Instead of getting annoyed that Jedi Dirt Man has once again left his crusty socks on the porch as a greeting to visitors, now I just stop and take a picture.

I do the same when I find my teenager draped on the couch for an afternoon nap with a pointless TV show still running on the cell phone.


























(I knew she was in a deep sleep when I lifted the phone and she didn't even stir.)

With yesterday's high pressure and warm temperatures, my kids thought summer had come.  I came home to find #3 and her friend running a lemonade stand, #5--aka Dirt Man--shirtless and digging a "swimming pool" in the field, and #s 2 and 4 running around in their swimsuits with friends.

Life is good, but as my new gray hairs will attest, it is running by on little feet way too quickly.