Highlights from this week (Susan's version of "Bobby's Sunday Summary")

It's 8:00pm, and Bobby is already asleep in bed. It was an interesting first Sunday as bishop: the sound system in the chapel wasn't working, the bread for the sacrament did not arrive until halfway through the meeting, and the first speaker was too ill to come to church today (luckily, her husband volunteered to pinch hit for her last-minute). The new calling hasn't demanded too much extra time yet, but it's certainly weighing on him/me/us as we figure out this new groove. I'm stepping in for the moment to give a brief summary of the week...

The kids are "in bed", but I hear Alice singing "The Star Spangled Banner" over and over and over again. Her music teacher introduced it to them this week as part of the 200th anniversary of the lyrics' writing. She's been kinda obsessed with it ever since.

Alice's school had "Invite a Friend to Lunch" day and she invited our other next door neighbor Diane P. to come along. Robert has high hopes Alice will invite him next time. I wonder if I could send him unaccompanied...hmmmmm.

Alice wanted to sell her own handcrafted coloring pages door-to-door this week, but I convinced her to start with people we know who might have an actual need for coloring pages. She got our backdoor neighbors to commission a 4-page coloring book for their grandson and she earned a dollar for her labors!

Robert and I took some flowers and tomatoes to our neighbor this afternoon. He apologized for stealing tomatoes from her garden and said he wouldn't do it again. I think the most uncomfortable part of this whole thing was confessing his crime to Diane. One of his extra chores was helping me build up the back corner of the fence so it would be less hoppable in the future. As we worked, we chatted about future scenarios and how he might respond differently if something like this ever came up again. He was cheerful and creative about this problem and suggested we move the large chicken crate away from the fence so people wouldn't be tempted to use it as a fence-hopping stool. Done! Thanks for the suggestion, Buddy!

We had a neighborhood picnic/potluck this evening. Robert ate two plates of potato chips, two hamburger buns with shredded cheese, three cucumber spears, a handful of grapes, three cups of soda/lemonade, and a slice of key lime pie. He's in the bathroom with a stomachache right now. He also got a huge mosquito bite on his forehead that swelled up instantly.

At the picnic, James just kept grinning and pointing at his cup, "O-duh, o-duh." Yes, James, that bubbly drink is called "soda." So glad you like it.

James' vocabulary has recently changed, dropping some of the baby words I adored. For example, Robert is no longer just "Apu". Now he is "Waw-doht" and sometimes "Buddy." James calls Bobby "Dad" more often than "Daddy" now. Water isn't always "bah-bah", sometimes it's actually "wah-duh." And he calls birds "boe-dies" more often than "caw-caws" these days. Sigh. At least his "yes" is still thoroughly a "yeth."

Bobby's work continues to crank up. It's all good stuff, but a lot of responsibility. More meetings. More trips to Chicago. More user group appearances. We both feel like we've been thrust into real adulthood all at once. Out from the sidelines, into the game.

For me, the third trimester "uncomfies" are in full swing (32 weeks along tomorrow!). It's a struggle to sleep through the night and put on my own socks. I feel gigantic. My bellybutton is sore. My pelvis has just started going loosey-goosey on me in a sore and bruisy sort of way. I'm lacking energy and drive. Every day when I wake up, this same tiny conversation pops into my head: "Yikes! Another day in the third trimester." "If I had the baby today, he would probably be X big and be in the NICU for Y amount of time." "Hmm. Best hang on to him a bit longer."

As if I had ANY control in the matter.

Peek-A-Boo is an active little fellow...limbs sliding and spine arching and all kinds of twisty wrestling going on in there. When I wake up in the middle of the night, his antics can keep me just awake enough to hear James' periodic, quiet "sleep shrieks" in the room next door. James has been working on his first 2-year-molar this week...yippee! Once these puppies grow in, he's done with teething FOREVER!

Robert and Alice got their first taste of real Legos today. We've only allowed Duplo up to this point (for several unimportant reasons, mostly cost and mess). They weren't so hot at following the building instructions, but once the cars were made, they easily disassembled them and rearranged all the parts into cool new cars. This might work out after all!

Now it's my bedtime. Gotta get kids off to school tomorrow.

A Sense of Right and Wrong

I'm trying to make sense of a few sad choices that Robert made yesterday...

...he hopped over the back fence
...ran through the block
...raided our neighbor's garden for tomatoes
...and tried to sneak back without me noticing

I'm simply exasperated. Robert can't stand tomatoes. He loves our backdoor neighbor. He knows it's wrong to leave the fenced backyard without permission. What on EARTH did he hope to accomplish?!

I do know he was not alone, but it's hard to know how it all played out. He tells his side of the story like this: his friend wanted some tomatoes, so he told them where to find some. His friend hopped the fence and went looking for the neighbor's garden, but couldn't find it. Robert decided to hop the fence and show his friend where they were. I caught them red-handed as they were all coming back to our yard.

Why didn't Robert come tell me the kids were hopping the fence? Why didn't Robert find anything wrong/illegal/untoward about this whole scenario? Or, if he did know it was wrong, why did he go through with it anyway? Later, Robert told me that this wasn't the first time he and his friends had stolen tomatoes from our neighbor's garden. This was just the first time they had been caught. And he was really sorry he got caught this time.

Really?! Argh!

This is something I'll be able to laugh about in the future. Right now, I'm wondering whether his moral compass is broken, or if I've neglected his moral upbringing, or if I've just gotten lazy and depended on Alice to tell me whenever he was starting to make a sad choice (Alice wasn't outside with the kids yesterday). Why wasn't I out there supervising their play? Well, Robert doesn't hop the fence when he's alone or with Alice. He acts differently when he's with peers and I keep forgetting that.

So, what did Bobby and I do about it? Well, Buddy got a time out right away and the friends were asked to leave. He is earning money through chores to buy replacement tomatoes for our neighbor, which we will be delivering by hand with a formal verbal apology. He lost my trust, though, which is what hurts me most. I can't even trust him to play unsupervised in our own backyard?!

One part of me just wants to punish him and make him suffer for embarrassing me and scaring me. The better part of me knows we need to understand how he saw the situation. The end goal is to help him make better choices in the future, right? It's good we get to practice this while he's four. Maybe he'll get it down before the consequence for poor choices gets much, much worse.

Bishop's Wife?

When the announcement was made at church that the bishopric would be changing, a boy in the pew in front of me turned to his mom and said, "I liked the old bishop!" His mom (my friend), horrified and embarrassed, responded, "Do you realize you're sitting right in front of the new bishop's wife?!" I assured the young man that I, too, liked the old bishop.

I know Bobby can do a fine job as bishop in our ward. He will be working with two very outgoing, dynamic, and deep-down good men, too, which helps a lot.

I, however, feel woefully inadequate to take the "bishop's wife" role. I have this stereotypical image of a bishop's wife as this middle-aged, well-coifed, sharply-dressed lady who is as warm and welcoming as she is firm and professional. She gives hugs and easily chats with anyone who makes eye contact with her. I see her comforting sobbing women. I see her behind the scenes at ward activities serving and acting as the glue keeping it all together.

I don't see her wrestling four young kids of her own. Someone else's kids, sure, but not her own. I think all of hers have grown up. The kids aren't perfect, but at least they're quiet. And potty-trained.

I don't see her as a socially awkward people-phobe who has to give herself a pep talk just to smile at strangers.

I certainly don't see her as me.

I know that I can change with time and practice and lots of prayer. I also know that's it's a lot easier to hide than to change. Let's hope I find a happy medium somewhere in the next five years :)

Five years! Alice will be 12. Buddy will be 9. James will be 7. And this baby I haven't even set eyes on will be walking, talking, dressing himself, and potty trained...all ready for Kindergarten. It seems like an eternity to live through. I'll be 40 years old. Maybe I'll look like a bishop's wife by the end of the term...hmmmmm.

New Bishop

So today they called a new bishop for our ward, and well it's me.  Not sure what else to say, just mostly for your information.

A Good Place

This week I've had several dreams of good times in my life (or good times I would have liked to have in my life). Some of them a little odd (return of the 10th grade crush, anyone?), but each one kind of fun and interesting. The strangest part about all of this, though, is how I felt when I woke up from these dreams. They were all good dreams and I was reminded of good times, but as I woke up and realized where I was and who I spend my time with these days, I was surprisingly happier in reality.

I'm at a good place in my life right now. It's not perfect, but it's right where I want to be, and I like being here in my life more than I've liked being anywhere else in my life to date. The dreams have helped me see that I wouldn't choose to go back to any another time. I am already at my favorite place in the story :)

...so far.