Shots, Seminary, Collar Bones and HOT LEGS! I Love Ya Bunny!

We're freaking out over here. Four of the five kids start school this year, and three of them are approaching pretty big milestones: Brennan's first year of high school, Bella's first year of middle school, and Carter's first year of Kindergarten (HA!). Harrison will be in third grade. Four kids, three different schools, fifteen different schedules. Must... not... have... a meltdown.... Can't summer go on indefinitely?

On Sunday night, we went to Brennan's Seminary orientation. I was intrigued to hear that, rather than the stake center, our child will have to find his way every morning before school to another building three miles east of the stake center. Not that three miles is a big deal, but it seems quite far when we consider how far away we are from the stake center to begin with. We're wondering how to solve this situation, with the one-car, hometown-to-work town commute. Hmmmm.

Three Brinatty babies had shots today. Bri had an ingenious plan: Have Carter (the five-year-old) go first. Roz would have freaked out no matter what, but Carter had a chance at receiving his army guys* calmly, if only he could go first and not be frightened at the sight of his little sister screaming her head off. Which, of course, she did. So I took her out, Carter was very brave for his shots, I brought Roz back in and held her for her first shot. She saw the needle coming and fought to try to get away, and now has a bloody little arm for her trouble. Poor thing. Bri had to hold her for the other two. Bella (11) did just fine, of course. She cried more at the thought of cutting her hair and getting a new style ("You're not going to cut it short, are you?") than she did at getting her immunizations.

They're all pretty sluggish and have sore arms, but yay! They're ready for school. Finally.

*Army guys: To prepare our kids for their vaccinations, we tell them we don't want them to die of a bad disease, so we're going to take them to the doctor to get shots. The shots put little Army guys inside their bodies, who will fight the bad diseases if they try to get inside. In the girls' case, we tell them they're getting "Army girls" instead.

For Glittersmama: Why is this bride smiling?


Millie in pre-Millie days, ca. 1990
(Glitter, you didn't want to see me in my wedding dress? Oh.)

This girl doesn't know it yet, but she's not going to marry the Missionary (even though that's why she's buying the wedding dress). She'll meet The Bunny and fall madly in love with him instead. Then she'll feel bad that she didn't just go ahead and dump the Missionary before he left. "SHOULDA DUMPED YOU IN PITTSBURGH!!!" And she'll suffer from guilty guilty guilt for a long time, even after she's married. But at least she won't marry the wrong guy. Phew! Close one.

As glad as I am to be done with all that trauma, there is one thing about this girl that I envy: her collarbones. I want those collarbones. Let's all sing along: "All I want for Christmas is my collarbones back, my collarbones back, yes my collarbones back..."

And: "Chili's... collarbones back... Chili's collarbones back (barbecue sauce)..."

I know that somewhere in this body, collarbones exist. I don't know if I dare say anything like, "By Christmas, I will be sporting a newly-emerged pair of collarbones," for fear that it won't happen. Afraid of failure? Why yes! Why do you ask?

I don't envy her hair, though. I was really into short hair then. I had the skinny face for it. At one point I had it cut so short that my mother told me, "People will think you're Lebanese!" and my Army veteran grandfather said, "Well, I could have done that to you!" When Neenaw saw the wedding dress shopping pictures, she said, "Wouldn't that wedding dress look better with some nice curls?" Which of course made me all the more determined to keep my hair short. I was stubborn like that.

I also don't envy how stubborn this girl is. But I probably wouldn't have dated my husband, if my roommates hadn't told me what a bad boy he was and that I should stay away from him. That was the absolute wrong thing to say. They should have tried to spoon-feed him to me instead - it would have worked much better.
Look at that face. Would you look at that face? Is that a face you could die for?

UPDATE: On our way to Colorado, I sang the praises of Bri's hot legs, and now Tori demands pictures. Incidentally, I can't tell you how dirty I feel, having gone through my husband's MISSIONARY and HIGH SCHOOL pictures so I could let other bloggy chicks drool over his legs. But here they are.


And now I will go stand in the corner for being a bad, bad girl.

How To Enjoy It or At Least Not Offend People (i.e. Me) While Riding the Bus

"The bus! The bus! We need to hear about the bus!"

Well, I'm ready to tell my stories. But instead of rattling off a boring, "first we did this, then we did that, then we found that corpse in the 7-11 restroom" play-by-play, I've decided to present another handy guide, this time for riding the bus without offending nice people (okay, major snobs) like me. I promise that each and every anecdote is true. You've been warned.

~ The window seats are always taken first. If you're interested in sitting by the window instead of on the aisle - and if you're going to be on the bus for 20+ hours, that window starts to look mighty fine - try to find out where people are headed on their trips. As you board the bus, perusing the other passengers and finding the least objectionable person to sit next to, go ahead and be friendly. Strike up a conversation. Say, "How far are you going?" If you're heading east from Portland, steer clear of anyone going to North Carolina. If you're heading west from Salt Lake, the cute 18-year-old going to Ogden is your best bet. When she leaves, you get her seat. No fuss, no muss.

~ You'll probably eat on the bus at some point. Please, for the love of Mike, pick up your garbage and take it with you when you leave the bus. Come on now - you're riding Greyhound, but you're too good to pick up your own Doritos wrapper? How dirty can it be? You just ate food out of it, didn't you? Nothing screams "white trash" like, well, trash. Toward the end of my rides, I was amazed at the sight of the bus floor - it gave a convincing argument that humans are indeed descended from the apes.

~ This point cannot be stressed enough: HYGIENE. Those of us with working smell-buds would really, really, really appreciate it if you would bathe yourself and your children, and don clean clothes (including underwear), before you subject us all to your scent. When I say "some people had B.O.," you would probably assume from that statement that the O. came primarily from the armpits. If only. Other parts of the B.s also contained large amounts of O.; one family possessed so much O. that each time one of them stood up, I was compelled to (discreetly) plug my nose. Pyew.

~ Leave your bosom friend, "Mr. F Word," at home. He's really not as welcome as you might think.

~ Bring a CD player or MP3 player for the inevitable times you'll find yourself riding near other passengers whose constant companion is Mr. F Word (like the "well-known in New York" graffiti artist directly behind me).

~ Better yet, do what another girl did: bring sleeping pills - Lunesta with its green floating butterfly of death is a popular choice - and offer one to these ardent F Word fans. They'll probably think, "Cool, free drugs" and settle down to sleep, giving you at least five hours of uninterrupted, un-F-worded bliss.

~ Try to match your music choices to your reading materials. For instance, if you take along a classic novel like Jane Eyre to read on your journey, perhaps choose something classical like Brahms or Mozart to listen to - "Celtic Woman" also would be good - as opposed to a less obvious choice, like "Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons' Greatest Hits." Somehow, reading of poor Jane and Mr. Rochester's unfortunate situation loses some of its heartbreaking charm when Frankie is screeching "WALK LIKE A MAN!" in your ear.

~ It's rarely necessary to use the restroom on the bus. I didn't use it once. The bus stops often enough that even mouse-bladders like my mom can "hold it" between stops.

~ Forget sleep - it's not gonna happen unless it's a total accident on your part. Remember, the bus is like the hospital: around the clock, about every ten minutes, some annoying idiot (in this case, the bus driver) flips on the lights and announces something, loudly, while your light-deprived eyes screw up in agony and your body crumples miserably, trying to find a comfortable position. Except in the hospital, you're not spooned up next to a 300-pound Neanderthal. If sleep wants you, it knows where to find you.

~ Take copious notes about everything that happens. You think you'll never forget, but you will.

~ If you ever have the opportunity to ride the bus with Carrot Jello, don't let her give you crap about taking copious notes. Tell her Millie said to put a sock in it.

~ Keep your complaints to yourself. No one really cares how upset you are about the lack of restaurant choices in Stanfield, Oregon. They're all having the same miserable time you are, so stifle it.

~ Be grateful for blogging. Thinking, "This is gonna make an AWESOME post," changes your entire perspective.

~ Don't let your kids ask for napkins at the Burger King in Mountain Home, Idaho. The chick with the long dark ponytail is quite the yeller.

~ Where possible, try to discover the state of the bus' wheelchair lift. If it stopped working in Denver, odds are good that it won't work in Boise either. You'll spend 45 extra minutes stopped over in Nampa, where the Nampa Fire Department will have to come and take off the wall of the bus and extricate Scooter Lady from her spot. The upside is that the Nampa Fire Department guys have great attitudes and pass out stickers to the kiddies. Some people would even have called them "attractive," but all they made me think was, "I wish Bunny were here so I could gaze into his crystal-clear blue eyes and bite that big muscle on his knee."

~ When the bus driver turns off the lights for the night, no matter how romantic you find the bus to be or how amorous you might feel, do NOT take this as a cue to get freaky with your neighbor. Like the couple who boarded the bus in Ontario, Oregon, if you engage in "Bill and Monica"-esque behavior in the backseat with numerous children less than three feet away from you, you WILL incur the wrath of the all-powerful bus driver, who will flip the lights on and say, "To the couple in the back seat! CONGRATULATIONS! You have just voided your tickets!" and throw you and your partner off the bus in Baker, Oregon, subjecting you to the stares and giggles of every other passenger. Not only will you be embarrassed, but the passengers will begin to resent you when the bus driver keeps the bus lights on for another hour (just in case someone else decides to take their chances).

~ No matter how much the above situation might amaze, astound, and amuse you, don't call up your poor sleeping husband (who must wake up at 6:00 the next morning to meet your bus) at 11:30 PM and apprise him of what's been going on. Although, I must say I was impressed that Bunny was awake enough to observe, "What - they couldn't wait till they got to where they were going?"

~ Don't pass up the opportunity to commemorate this hopefully once-in-a-lifetime event. I was so inspired by "Bill" and "Monica," I bought a nifty mood-alicious ring at the truck stop in Baker, so I could remember them forever.

Rosalind's Birthday

This morning she had parts of a bagel and cream cheese for breakfast and then wanted to wear a dress. She's wearing her white & red with collar Gap dress (hand-me-down from her cousin). After being dressed, she spent the morning harrassing her older brothers, who were trying to play Lego Star Wars on the Playstation, and was taken to my bedroom for a birthday time-out at 8:43 AM.

9:00-ish: I wrote Grandpa Smith's check and got it ready to send, then remembered that Grannie said yesterday that one of Uncle John & Aunt Karen's kids was about to give birth. I called John & Karen, but no answer; I called Jennifer, who was busy painting her girls' bedroom. Stan and Whitney had a baby boy yesterday, Luke William. Mystery solved.

Harrison and Carter want to go outside, but I told them they have to clean their room first. They are now in their bedroom, arguing and crying.

10:00 - Jen just called back and we chatted for a while about the family. She, Rachael (John's wife) and Dena are all expecting babies in September and the race is on to see which one will get to have Aunt Karen with her during the delivery. Hopefully they won't all go into labor the same day. J & K's family are all coming to the Oregon coast in November and we made plans to meet up sometime during their stay.

10:30 - The kids are all outside - I had Bella take a book so she could read and watch Roz play. I started to pick up the living room, found one of the boys' church ties, went to put it away in the "Church closet" (our tiny hall closet), noticed that the closet doorknob was falling off, pulled the door open and found that the hanging bar had collapsed on one side and all the church clothes were half on their hangers, half collapsing on the boxes on the closet floor. This apartment certainly wasn't meant for a family of seven. Everything constantly breaks. I started moving all the church clothes to the boys' room closet, something I was planning to do anyway, and noticed that Harrison's hamster doesn't look well. He was kind of limping around in his cage and I also saw poop stuck to the side of the aquarium, then noticed the hamster's poopy bum. Uh oh, we're about to lose another hamster.

Dad is taking Isabella, Harrison and Carter to Federal Way, Washington tomorrow for a weekend soccer tournament. They'll be camping with the rest of the team families. It'll be fun but it means I need to start laundry and get some packing done.

11:30 - Some of these kids are TIRED. I just told Bella to turn on the fan, she did, and Harrison threw a big crying fit that HE wanted to turn on the fan! Now he's whining that he doesn't want a sandwich for lunch, he wants Froot Loops. We're listening to "Somebody to Love" and Roz is dancing and twirling in the living room. The laundry is started and the boys' room is finally picked up (they picked up everything but the bottom bunk, which had all kinds of stuff on it). Carter went back outside. I need to wash towels so I'll have a washcloth to clean up the kitchen (our laundry has been neglected for a few days).

12:45 - Folded and put away the laundry that's been hanging around in the dryer for I don't know how many days - life's hard to get back into after you break your foot. I'm still hobbling around here wearing my boot, with one leg "taller" than the other. It doesn't hurt but I miss just plain walking around - I got around much faster. I put the boys' closet door back on its track (one more broken thing) and dragged the tent out for tomorrow's trip. My plan for not having to clean the kitchen was foiled when I found a stray washcloth hanging around in the underwear and socks, so that's next.

Goot is taking her time falling asleep on my bed for her nap. It needs to happen soon so we can put her tricycle together and so she'll be awake and happy when it's time to play in the fountain and have dinner later.

The boys are still outside playing and Bella picked up her room and is now complaining about how boring TV is. We're turning on our DVD of Thoroughly Modern Millie.