Drops of Awesome

Just Draw a Doggone Dragon

September 26, 2013 by Kathryn

For the first time ever, Magoo has a teacher who is requiring participation in the PTA art competition, Reflections. It’s always been optional for him in the past and when he said he wasn’t interested, I said a quiet prayer of thanks not to have one more thing to mount on styrofoam board and told him that was just fine with me.

Laylee, on the other hand, ALWAYS does reflections. Sometimes she does art, sometimes poetry, and one year she composed a song because, “Hardly anyone does songs, Mom. I decided this was the easiest way to make it to State.” This year, she is using the shotgun approach, entering a piece in pretty much every artistic discipline.

Then there’s Magoo. I asked him what he wants to do and he said, “Make a movie.”

Now, I majored in film in college and still aspire to pick up where I left off and direct documentaries when I grow up, after my kids grow up. However, I was not thrilled with this choice. There are a few reasons for this.

1. The entry is due in four weeks.
2. He has never shot footage of anything other than his own tonsils as he pretends to eat the video camera.
3. He has never used video editing software before.
4. And this is the big one – HE WANTS THE FILM TO BE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT OUR FAMILY A CAPELLA GROUP.

We love a capella. Our whole family loves it. We have not been able to get enough of Vocal Point since they were on The Sing-Off. (GO COUGS!)

And every time we listen to one of their songs and my sweet, adorable and betimes suspiciously-close-to-tone-deaf children sing along with the various parts, I talk about how one day we will have our own VonThompson Family A Capella group. I’m a little bit serious about this, but mostly kidding and I don’t dwell too much on logistics, like the fact that all the females in our family are altos or four-year-olds, and all the males in our family are Dan and Magoo.

Magoo can do a mean hi-hat sound and his beatbox skills grow stronger every day… but the actual formation of the group at this juncture is premature at best, deranged at worst. Making a documentary about the process, which ends with a video of our family performing an a capella version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller? Where all filming, editing, and planning needs to be done by this person?

Oh, sweet mercy!

The problem is not that it will be bad and he’ll feel rejected when he doesn’t make it to State. The problems is that it will be what it will be and he will make it to state because what other third grader is making a film OF THEIR NON-EXISTENT FAMILY A CAPELLA GROUP for their project when they could do a pencil sketch of a dragon and put their dear mother out of her misery?

And I should be excited about this. I majored in docu-freakin-mentary film production, for the love of Pete’s Humongous Reptile! Alas. I am not.

But when I tried to dissuade him, he shed tears, like actual moisture dripping from his ocular cavities. Now, what can I do? What would Martin Scorsese’s mom have done? I guess I teach him how to storyboard and get Wanda into some emergency voice lessons. She turned four earlier this month. Maybe she could be our soprano.

Beautiful

August 28, 2013 by Kathryn

Today, as we’re leaving the soccer field, he asks if he can play at the skate park on the way home. He asks this most days after soccer practice and I always say no. Sometimes we’re in a rush to get somewhere. Usually we’re hungry, and generally there are a slew of tweenish and teenish boys and their female hangers-on doing cool tricks, smoking, and proving that they’re hardcore by dropping f-bombs as frequently as possible.

*Disclaimer – I am sure there are other lovely young people at the park skating, humming Taylor Swift songs, and saying things like “gosh” and “shucks,” and shunning all legal addictive substances, but they just don’t pick up as loudly on my Parental Freakout Meter. I’m sure YOUR kid, if he were hanging out at the skate park, is the Taylor Swiftiest and I’m not accusing you of raising a ruffian. I am accusing the other parents… who are not you. Please don’t email me about this, Citizens of My Town, USA.*

So, Magoo asks why he can’t hang out there and I say that it’s because there are bigger kids smoking and swearing and it’s not a great environment for him. And then he starts asking questions about smoking and addiction and cancer and all things cigarette-related that I’ve ever told him to scare him from ever ever putting a burning bundle of who-knows-what into his mouth and inhaling.

And then he says, “Can, you know, like, beautiful people smoke?” He’s sort of hemming and hawing. “Like, you know, beaut… Like if there was a beautiful…” Here he sort of trails off, gathering his thoughts and starts again.

“Monday at the fair I saw a woman who looked just like you and she was smoking and I was confused because I didn’t think that people who looked like you could smoke.”

I was quiet, trying not to choke up. So, when my eight-year-old boy thinks of what a beautiful woman looks like, he pictures me? I’ve heard stories where old men talked about their beautiful angel mothers and I think it’s sweet but I always thought they had to be old and looking back in retrospect to see their mother that way.

I’m not the hottest chick on the block. Rarely do random men flirt with or even really give me the time of day. I think what’s beautiful to Magoo and what’s beautiful to me about this story is that he knows I love him and that there’s a light in my eyes for him and that I’m trying to be the best that I can be most of the time. Beauty to Magoo is an effort towards goodness and that makes me so proud.

Of course I could not mention this to him. I had to ignore the accidental compliment, act cool, and tell him that, yes, beautiful people can smoke, but that over time it tends to make them less beautiful and more enslaved to addiction and disease.

And then I walked with an extra bounce in my step the rest of the night. That’s what beautiful people do, when they are not busy smoking.

I Tried so Bad!

August 10, 2013 by Kathryn

Lately the kids in our family add “so bad” to the end of any sentence to mean they are really serious about what they’re saying. Examples:

Cousin Ellie while swimming – “Kick so bad, mom. Kick so BAD!”

Wanda – “OH MOM! I’m excited so BAD!”

*First off, I want to say, if you have a fear of spandex, skip this post and come back and read tomorrow. I promise not to post so many pictures of myself in uber tight clothing probably ever.*

So today, I tried so bad! I completed the sprint triathlon. It started with going to bed early last night, only to be awoken by a crazy loud thunderstorm. Stephanie, my training partner, said she got up during the storm and checked today’s weather report, nervous about the swim. I convinced myself that it was just a dream and went back to sleep, a sleep in which I apparently twisted my arm in half and pinned it beneath my body, because when I woke up, I had pain shooting up and down my arm, radiating from the elbow every time I put pressure on my arm to do things like lift a cup, or cut my eggs with a fork.

On a normal day, I would have skipped working out and iced the arm, but today was TRI-DAY! So committed was I to this triathlon, that I asked myself the question, “If I were an 1800s pioneer woman, crossing the plains with ox and wagon, would I keep going with this level of pain, or would I tell them to leave me behind to be eaten by American dingos?” The answer was not dingos, so I knew I had to “tri.” Ah, that pun never gets old. Ever.

We got there bright and early and put out all our gear. I thought it was a good sign that my number was the cornerstone of the standard multiplication table. Then some nice massage therapist guy rubbed my arm and told me to try warming up and stretching. I told him I had been warming up and stretching by walking around laughing at all the thick-necked guys very showishly warming up and stretching. He almost laughed and I started doing tri stretches and waving my arms around like The Phelps. I only almost threw up as I realized that this WAS HAPPENING.

One of my favorite parts of the day has to be when I was taking one last break in the ladies’ room before the race. I’d had a feeling all morning that I’d forgotten something, and when I dropped my drawers, I almost had a heart attack. I wasn’t wearing any underwear! Now you’re not supposed to wear underwear in a tri-suit, but I don’t usually walk around in a tri-suit. You’re welcome. And I was caught off guard. Like, I started a mini-hyperventilation. How could I forget UNDERWEAR!? Oh. I breathed in and out and moved on.

When the swim started, I had planned to hang back and wait before jumping in, but was overcome with excitement and ended up diving into the melee, feet, arms and bodies all up in my face. Pretty soon we all got sorted out and I finished my ¼ mile swim in my fastest time ever! This included the swim and the run up to the transition area, an area that always reminds me of child birth, but only because of the name.

They say that transition is the “fourth discipline”, but I think the real fourth discipline is the massive nap I took when I got home. I did it so well. I even took off my tri-medal to maximize sleeping potential.

The bike was good, but hard. The fastest I’ve ever ridden 14 miles is an hour and six minutes. My goal for the tri was an hour and I made it in 59:17. Yay! I will not tell you what place that puts me in amongst the other competitors because what place that puts me in is – AWESOME! I did a stinking triathlon.

Dan and the kids cheered me on at all the water stations and the finish line and I couldn’t help but run faster when I heard them. At one point, I ran by them as they cheered, took pictures and called my name. I pointed to each one in turn and yelled, “I’m passing you… and you… and you.” They were the only people I passed on the run. But it felt good to pwn them so hard. They were just sitting there, like they didn’t even know it was a race.

A few seconds after I passed by, after I made eye contact with and berated each one of them, Wanda yelled, “Was that mom?!”

It was.

The only time I cried was during the run. I was really struggling to get going. You’re on a bike going a million miles an hour and then you try to run and it feels like you’re in a hamster weel with boneless legs. It’s the oddest feeling. Also, I had not one ounce of energy left. So I started out running, until I had cleared most of the spectators, and then I switched to a busy mom mall walk pace.

Runner after runner passed me, some of them doing the Olympic distance, which is twice as far as the sprint I was attempting. They were like muscly, sweaty gazelles and I was like… not that. I only had to run a 5K to finish this thing and I was walking fast but slower… and a bit slower. Then the awesomeness started. Runner after runner, most of them male and much more fit than me, started saying encouraging things as they passed me.

“You’ve got this.”

“Looking good.”

“Keep going.”

“You’re doing great.”

“Finish this.”

They said these things quietly and continued on their run, but I just had this swelling behind my eyes, overcome with the goodness of people. If I were a hardcore athlete, would I take the time to tell the mom mall-walking her way to the finish line that she was good enough, that I understood she was doing something really hard and needed encouragement? I hope so. But I know these guys did and it made me cry and it made me walk faster and eventually run.

The whole last half kilometer, I chanted in my head over and over again, “Walk in the shape of a run. Walk in the shape of a run. You can do this. It’s just walking in the shape of a run.”

And I did do it.

And I beat every time goal I set for myself.

Over the past two years, I’ve lost 50 lbs. Over the past two months, I’ve gone from a 20 minute ¼ mile swim to a 10 minute. Over the past day, I have become a triathlete.

And like the woman at the check-in table said, “This is your first triathlon? That’s exciting because whatever time you get will be your new personal best.”

You know what? She was right!

Feats of Strength – an Attempt at a Productive Third-life Crisis

August 9, 2013 by Kathryn

I am 34… I think. I don’t have that many fingers and toes so it’s hard to accurately calculate but I’m pretty sure I’m a lot months younger than Dan, who is 35, so I will say I’m 34. Let’s just call it “early 30’s.”

The way I figger, given that I plan to live to at least a hundred years of age, that means I’m about a third of the way through my life and nowhere near a third of the way through the mental list of things I want to accomplish in my life. If you throw my increasing age and possible decrepitness into the mix, I think it would behoove me to do as many of the things on said intangible list before my fortieth birthday as possible. You know? While I can still chew my own food.

This list has been on my mind and I thought it was time I wrote it down, considering I am planning to check off one of the largest items tomorrow morning.

I am competing in a triathlon. Competing is a harsh word. I am going to complete triumphantly a sprint triathlon without injuring myself or any other person.

I’ve been training for months with my friend Stephanie, who is faster than me at swimming, faster than me at running, and who became faster than me at biking when she discovered that shifting gears actually makes a difference. Dang the do-gooder spin class friend who explained this to her!

My original goal for the tri was to finish in something better than last place. Then we looked at the finishing times for last year and my new goal is to finish the tri unscathed. We shall see.

Below is a partial list of other Feats of Strength, Skill, and Whimsy I hope to pull off in the next five and a half years:

1. Fake sky dive (I promised Dan I would never truly sky dive so this will have to suffice unless he dies before me and then the promise is void. I will wait at least one week from his funeral before suiting up and jumping out of a plane.)
2. Sing and play guitar in front of someone other than my own family members
3. Publish a book
4. Digitize and organize our family photos and videos
5. Direct a documentary film and enter it in a festival, hosted by Not My Mom
6. Complete a thorough study of the Bible with supporting documents and commentaries.
7. Scuba dive at night (happening later this summer)
8. Ride in a hot air balloon
9. Drive a car over 120 miles per hour
10. Build a piece of furniture
11. Visit Europe with Dan
12. Design and sew an article of clothing for myself without a pattern
13. Hike (at least partially) Mount Rainier
14. Visit every library in King County
15. Hike to the peak of Mount Timpanogos
16. Do an amazing act of service, something I’ll never forget
17. Teach my kids to flush the toilet

Mistakes Were Made

June 19, 2013 by Kathryn

Sometimes passive voice is needed. Sometimes mistakes are made. Jars of applesauce might even be smashed on the garage floor.

We had a gaggle of delightful family members in town this past weekend for Magoo’s baptism. Yay! He decided to do it. Fun was had by all. Baptisms were performed. Memories were created.

With any big family event, there’s a certain level of stress. Never mind that our parents worked like fairy slaves, fixing fences, hauling junk out of our back yard, cooking food, and replacing shower heads, all while giving frequent gifts to the children and babysitting them so I could get my hair done and go grocery shopping.

The stress builds slowly, almost imperceptibly, until your husband asks you if you’re feeling anxious and you stretch a crazy sort of smile and say, “No. Not anxious. Just alert. I don’t want anything to go wrong.” Then you shove your fingers in your mouth and bite down hard with exaggeratedly wide eyes.

When the baptism was over, the neighborhood lunch was finished, everyone special was made to feel special, we were settling into a nice groove of lying around on the living room floor playing games on our individual electronic devices.

And then I went into the garage to get some pasta. I pulled down the plastic bin, and stuck to the bottom of it was a sticky mouse trap and stuck to the bottom of the mouse trap were two bottles of home-canned applesauce, and stuck to the bottom of the bottles of applesauce was my sanity, because as one crashed to the ground and the other dangled precariously, I lost it. It. Was. Lost.

“Dan. Dan! Hey DAN!” I called. “I need you. I really need you right now.”

He was cleaning the kitchen or rescuing an old lady from drowning or something, but he stopped and came out to the garage, where I stood frozen in place.

“Applesauce is smashed on the ground,” I said, staring at it blankly.

His look said, “So?”

Someone called from inside, “Is everything okay out there?”

“Yeah. Kathryn just smashed some applesauce on the ground.”

“I did not smash it. It was smashed. The mousetrap did it. I did not smash this apple sauce.”

“Ok.”

Awkward silence as we both looked at the broken glass and liquid fruit splatters.

Dan – “Do you need something?”

Me – “I didn’t smash the applesauce. It became smashed. Mistakes were made. I do not claim responsibility.”

Dan – “Ok.”

Me – “And can I have some paper towels?”

Dan – “There’s a roll right behind you.”

Someone else from inside – “Do you need anything out there?”

Dan – “It’s okay. Kathryn just smashed some… Applesauce was smashed. It was no one’s fault.”

Me – You know that’s right.

I didn’t need him to fix it. I just needed him to stand and stare at the sauce with me, to recognize my non-responsibility, to stand and look at me in a way that said, “I know you put a ton of planning into this weekend and acknowledge that the smashing of the applesauce by reason of a maliciously placed sticky mouse trap in no way reflects your abilities as a host, a wife, or a human being. Mistakes were made. You are a keeper. Now, why don’t you take two minutes to wipe it up, while I go back inside and finish saving that old lady from drowning or whatever I was doing?

Product Review – Amplicom Alarm Clock for the Hearing Impaired and People with Little Sisters Who Need More Sleep

June 19, 2013 by Kathryn

I don’t often do product reviews on the blog because that’s not really what this blog is about, but it is about my family and if something strikes me as particularly cool or important or relevant, I’ll blog about it.

As most of you know, my oldest daughter has some hearing loss. She can hear fine *most* of the time, but if I talk softly or if she’s not looking at my mouth when I talk, she has some trouble. She wears hearing aids… when she wears them, and she should probably have an FM system at school but she’d rather not so I don’t push it with her. Our relationship is more important to me than a few missed math instructions.

When I got the chance to try out a new alarm clock, developed for people with hearing loss, I decided to do it. Enter the Amplicom TCL 200 digital alarm clock. Say that ten times fast. It comes equipped with all kinds of cool features that we don’t use. It talks to you and tells you the time. It can be turned up extra super loud and has lights to get your attention. It can even hook up to your phone to amplify the ringer.

The thing we like most about it is the vibrating pad that goes under Laylee’s pillow at night. In the morning, she’s awoken with a gentle vibration under her head. The pad is wireless and comes with built-in rechargeable batteries, and we use it without the audio alarm or flashing lights.

The obvious benefit is – it wakes a person whether they have hearing loss or not. The magical side benefit is – it does not wake up the 3-year-old sleeping on the bunk below. So, Laylee gets a gentle head massage, reminding her to get going and Wanda gets to sleep on in a drooly coma for as long as her little body desires.

Would I spend the seventy bucks to buy one if it hadn’t been sent to me magically for free in the mail? I’m not sure. Maybe in a couple of years. I think alarm clocks are going to be more of an issue as she gets older and I want her to take responsibility to get herself out of bed on time. She currently uses the hearing-loss-friendly, mom strokes your hair and your cheek and whispers loudly in your ear alarm. But she’s getting a smidge old for that.

If her hearing loss were more severe, this would definitely be a great option. I’m not sure how many of my readers suffer from hearing loss or have a loved one who does, but if you do, check out this clock. It’s intuitive to use, durable, and has enough bells and whistles without being overly complicated.

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Sorry Dad and No Little Sisters

June 17, 2013 by Kathryn

A favorite family game we like to play is called Sorry Dad, or as some prefer to call it, Uno. We like it because it lasts for hours and the obvious imminent winner changes back and forth a kazillion times, building hopes, crushing dreams, and making at least one member of our family cry at least once per game.

The name Sorry Dad comes from the first time we allowed Wanda to “play” with us. Dan doesn’t love card games so it’s my diabolical plan to hook all 3 of my children on games early and therefore always have a full table for Rook when I have the hankering. Oh, and I get to hankering sometimes, as many a Southern Alberta Mormon is wont to do.

In this first game of Wanda-involved Uno, I would hand her a card and let her lay it down on the deck. Well, the first time I played a Draw-Two on Dan, I handed her the card and whispered, “Put this card down and say, ‘Sorry, Dad.’”

She laid the card on the discard pile and with one raised eyebrow, AH HOW I ENVY HER EYEBROW MOTOR SKILLS, she said with absolutely no remorse in her grinning voice, “Sorry, Dad!”

From then on, every card she played, whether it was on Dan or Wanda or Magoo, whether it was a zero or a reverse or a six, she would look at Dan as she played it and say, “Sorry, Dad!”

Dan took it like a man, a man that he is, and a new tradition was born.

Now every time any of us plays a card in Uno, we mumble those two words.

It’s very important to Wanda to place the cards in the discard pile herself, to dress herself, to NO NO NO I CAN DO IT! She is quite obsessed with her old and big bigness.

Last week Laylee had a friend over and the friend said, “Your little sister is so cute!”

Wanda considered this for a second, a troubled frown furrowing her brow and after a few seconds blurted out, “There are NO LITTLE SISTERS IN THIS HOUSE! WE ARE ALL BIG!”

Yeah, we are.

Dan Turns Ten

June 2, 2013 by Kathryn

I don’t necessarily love baseball, unless m’boy is playing it. It’s never been a passion of mine. But, I will admit there was something thrilling about running the bases at Safeco Field with Dan. It’s where the Mariners play and where we go once a year to eat hot dogs and ignore the baseball men unless they do something really cool, like score a home run or spit while they’re being featured on the Jumbotron.

Dan hit his 10 year mark as an employee of The MegaCorp with all of his digits, grey matter and scruples mostly intact and so they invited us to a gigantic party at The Field in honor of his… and about a billion other people’s accomplishments.

This party had everything.

Giant shiny numbers.

Homerun contests, bands, food, baseball stars we did not recognize even though they have streets named after them.

Fake mustaches.

Pictures of pictures of us on the Jumbotron. (We were not spitting.)

Caricature artists.

Dugouts full of baseball snacks.

Locker room access.

Slides into home.

Photo booths with signs that said MOM or WOW, which is basically the same thing.

Bored baseball players at press conferences.

Seriously, one of the best date nights ever.

I Taste Gross… RE: My Brains

May 31, 2013 by Kathryn

She’s not little because she’s BIG and BIGGER and she’s “a little bit six” but she’s still three until Subtember.

Today we were walking to the park, when some neighborhood dogs came running up and licked her all over. She did not like this. Stiff as a board, her face lifted high and to the side, she scrunched up her eyes, her mouth and her nose until they were finished with her.

“Mom! Those dogs were licking me all OVER!”

“Yep. You must taste really sweet.”

“No,” she said earnestly, “I do not. I am GROSS! And I’m all filled with brains. Dogs do not like to eat brains. They like to eat food. That you throw at them.”

Mine

May 29, 2013 by Kathryn

One thing is certain. The Nintendo DS is mine. I purchased it with my birthday money a couple of years ago in a fit of My-Parents-Never-Let-Me-Have-A-Game-Boy-And-Now-Is-MY-Time exuberance. Dan said I wouldn’t use it and that I should just buy a couple of new games for my phone. He was wrong. I did use it. For about a month. Then I bought some new games for my phone so I’d have one less device to carry around with me.

Magoo has since adopted the DS and feels strongly that it belongs to him. I will say again. I bought it with my own dee ay em en birthday money. The DS is mine. If I have to battle vocally for it in the back of a hay wagon with Magoo, Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney, and all the surviving Beatles, I will sing with my dying breath, “I’m a lover, not a fighter, but she’s mine. The doggone DS is mine.”

Last week we were chasing the bus in the swagger wagon. We do this sometimes. It’s fun to walk up the hill and get on the bus, but it really gets the blood pumping to drive slightly above the speed limit in hot pursuit of a fleeing yellow vehicle full of bobble-headed school kids, stopping behind the bus at each stop, shoving your kid out the van door and hoping he can run up alongside it and get on before it pulls off to the next stop. Super exciting stuff there.

I kid you not. Sometimes it’s taken two or three of these attempts before the driver has seen Magoo running up to catch the bus so he has to jump back in the van and we squeal out in pursuit again. Radness.

Well this particular morning we caught up to the bus and as it slowed, I slowed and dumped my seven-year-old out the sliding door. He ran like his life depended on it and in his haste, MY Nintendo DS slipped from the kangaroo pocket of his baseball hoodie and crashed to the sidewalk.

DSs are not allowed at school. As per school policy.

DSs are not allowed in his kangaroo pocket. As per my policy.

He knew he was busted. He started moving in slow motion, staring directly into my eyes as he bent down and slowly picked up the device as though trying to hypnotize me into not seeing what he was doing with his hands waaay down there on the ground.

Always maintain eye contact. Never surrender. His eyes were super wide though and he had this half-smile that said, “Oops?”

Then he pocketed the device and ran for the bus, making it just in time for a swift getaway.

The thing is, after I dropped Laylee off at her bus stop, I still had just enough time to drive over to Magoo’s school in the pouring rain and stand be-umbrellaed, waiting curbside as the bus pulled up to the school. As he stepped off the bus, I smiled at him, my palm outstretched. He dropped his head in defeat and slapped the DS in my hand, knowing it would be a long LONG time before he would be reunited with his beloved again.

Hey wait – MY beloved.

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