Dirty Laundry

Our Thanksgiving visitors. This was only the 3rd time I've met my sister in law, Laura. She's a good lady. And, she's pregnant! Pretty exciting. Too bad my little brother gets deployed to Iraq next summer. The thought of him leaving a new baby makes my heart hurt really bad.

Abby had some serious stinkies going on in her diaper. My dad didn't want to hold her.

We put the crib away. Abs got her own, big-kid bed. She loves the fact that she can escape at any and all hours of the night. Good thing for a gate to go across her bedroom door. She can just stand there and cry.

There is a smell in my kitchen that is driving me insane. Problem is, I'm the only one who smells its mysteriousness. It started last night, and I really think I might go crazy if the smell continues. I emptied the kitchen trash, cleaned out the fridge, rummaged through the pantry. I cannot find the source.

That said, my hormones are wacked right now. I'm a mess. I keep crying. The rain doesn't help. It's been a couple of days of "deficiency" noticing. I totally hate that. Normally, I handle my deficiencies quite nicely. But not lately.

At least I'm a good laundry doer. I just put my last load in the dryer. I fold every load when it's still warm, and put mine and Neal's laundry away as it becomes clean. The girl's clothes are neatly folded on my bed, just waiting for the kids to come home from school and put it away. If anyone comes to my front door, they'll smell laundry warmness coming from the dryer vent. I used to love that on cold winter morning runs, when I would run down the street and smell laundry coming from warm dryer vents.

Maybe I should go running.

But back to laundry. There's a conspiracy among laundry soap manufacturers. As the soaps have become more concentrated over the years, consequently making the jugs smaller, the size of the scoops/caps have NOT decreased. This causes most people to still fill their cups up all the way, when in fact, the instructions just call for half a scoop/cap for a large load. They don't fool me! Like I said, I'm a good laundry doer.

Famous Last Words

Neal was spending some of his Saturday cleaning out the garage (while I sat on the couch with the tv on mute, listening to the BYU/UofU football game on ksl dot com. Kind of ruined my weekend). He found a half-empty (ever the pessimist) can of black powder.

"That stuff is dangerous," I say. "I don't want that sitting around in the garage."

"Well," said Neal, "The only safe way to get rid of it is to burn it."

While speaking to our next door neighbors at church the next day, they asked us if we had noticed a big flash and a huge puff of smoke. We explained.

I think Neal's pj bottoms just add to the trashiness of the situation.

I'm very grateful that there were no injuries to report.

Speaking of grateful, we had a great Thanksgiving. My parents and my little brother and his wife braved the roads and drove to Oregon. They really did brave the roads. It took them forever to get here. Forever. And it took them even MORE forever to get home. Road closures, ice, snow. I feel bad because all we did while they were here was cook, eat Thanksgiving food for every meal, and see Harry Potter. Stuff they could have done without driving 1600 miles. But, I'm glad they DID drive here to see us. It was so awesome to have some of my family here for Thanksgiving. It gets kind of depressing for me sometimes around the holidays since we've moved away from my family and all the kids cousins. We've braved the roads twice for Christmas and once for Thanksgiving, but it sucks at that time of year. Especially hauling all the presents both ways.

Ok, now I just sound ungrateful and unthankful.

But I'm not.

I loved Harry Potter, of course. That's the one show we go to the movie theater to see. We're cheap, and I prefer to push "pause" when I get up from a movie to go pee. I can't do that in a movie theater.

It's funny to see our collection of Harry Potter movies. The first two are VHS, and 3-6 are DVD. I'm sure when 7 comes out, we'll have blue-ray. It's like a home entertainment evolution! Occasionally, the kids want to watch a VHS. I finally got rid of our "Land Before Time" tapes. Sarah loved, and I mean loved those shows. We owned 3 or 4 out of the 11 or so that they have. I kept waiting for them to make the final installment, "The Land Before Time: The Great Meteor." But it never happened.

It's crazy to think that when Neal and I first got married, everyone had VHS, nobody had cell-phones (unless they were important), and a blog was nothing more than "clog" misspelled. Evolution is a fact, not a theory.

No Thanks. I'm Not Ready for That.

Health class.

I had Ms. "Baritone-Voice-Bermuda-Short-Wearing"Olsen for 8th grade health, and grody Mr. "Too-Tight-Sweaters-and-Roid-Rage" Brooks for sophomore health. I remember spending a great deal of time trying to avoid learning anything in those classes. Here's what I remember:

Don't drink
Don't smoke
Don' have eating disorders
Look at the picture of the penis (shudder, yet sneak a peek anyway).

Sarah has had health class two years in a row now. I guess they need more of that in these times we live in. I think the curriculum is similar, except they seem to talk an awful lot about bullying. I'm not criticizing or complaining. Sadly, school is the only place many children learn about this stuff.

We talk a lot about those things in our house as it is. Which is good. I feel like we do pretty good at giving our kids the low-down about what's out there. I'd rather be the teacher on those subjects. I have strong feelings that way. And, I'm a real life bully, so my kids are pretty much forced to deal with it on a daily basis. They deal quite nicely and are probably equipped to handle it in the real world.

Anyway, I have this wonderful afternoon schedule that is working out awesome! When Sarah gets home from school, Abby is still sleeping. So, I get a few minutes to chit chat with her before I go get Kate from school. Special laughing time. When I pick up Kate, I get a few minutes with just her. Oh, it's lovely!

Monday afternoon when Sarah and I were having our moment, she brought out a health class assignment.

"Mom, Mom. You have to read some of these questions. They're hilarious!"

"You are at a party with some friends. The boy you are sitting next to says, 'Let's go upstairs and do it.' You're assuming that means sexual intercourse. What do you do?"

We spent the next 15 minutes making up hilarious answers and singing our special tune, "STOP! Don't touch me there! This is my no-no square!" Time well spent.

That night at Family Home Evening, Kate wanted to give the lesson. She was excited to teach us about Daniel and his friends who were living in the kings house and were strict to keep their dietary covenants. She was so cute as she tried to convince us to eat dog food by telling us they were cocoa puffs. Neal actually put one in his mouth (but didn't inhale) and she didn't know what to do about that. Anyway, she offered Sarah some, and Sarah said, with a side-ways, knowing glance in my direction, "No thanks. I'm not ready for that."

We snickered to ourselves. Wait, is it "snickered" or "sniggered?" Aw, who cares.

It's MY Birthday This Time

That's right. 35 candles melting their wax all over the cake.


I blew them out in one breath. That means I'm not too old yet.

The gifts of an aging woman.
What happens when you turn 35, besides miss-firing, over ripened ovaries, saggy boobs, irrational behavior and anti-depressants, is asking for lame presents for your birthday - and totally liking it!!

I wanted more matching service dishes, and was tickled pink when Neal's mom bought me a boat-load. And I also wanted a steamer mop. Mr. Man was afraid to go it alone, so he called me from work on Tuesday to go over the specs I was asking for. He was on his computer, and ended up on Amazon. As he was reading the details of the steamer mop, he said, "what's this '1-click ordering?'"

"Don't touch it!" I said. "You'll automatically order it!"

"WHAT? Oh crap! I clicked it! It says 'Thanks for your order.' What the heck? It wasn't clear! It was deceiving! I'm going to sue them! I'm really going to sue Amazon!"

I was laughing. And I was in the library with Abby for story time as this was all going down. Lucky for me, it was the nice steamer mop that I would have said, "Ummm, maybe you shouldn't spend that much and just get me the next model down." And, lucky for Neal, Amazon was the cheapest.

And what's with the "I'm going to sue them!" weapon? Do all guys do that? If Neal was a mail man, would he have said, "I'm going to lose their mail!" Or a fireman, "I'm going to light their house on fire and be late for the call!" Or perhaps if Neal was a cop, "I'm going to shoot them!"

It was pretty funny. And when Mr. FedEx delivered my accidental gift, I opened it right up and got to work. How lame is it to mop my floors on my birthday!? I loved it. And Saturday I sanitized the heck outta my bathrooms with my new toy.

Come Saturday night, I wasn't feeling so hot. Neal and I were lounging on the couch watching "Prince of Persia," and I started feeling a little icky. The thoughts of our Albertson's fried chicken dinner kept popping into my head. It wasn't too pleasant. Soon, I was over at the kitchen sink with the garbage disposal on, barfing my guts out. Kind, gentle Mr. Man was holding my hair and trying not to have his own vomit.

That kept on all night. From both ends. I'm just getting over the feeling of being hit by a truck. My abs are totally worked from the barfing action. I'm not a gentle barfer. I'm loud and convulsive. I woke up Sarah through 3 shut doors and a hall way.

I'm feeling a little better today. I've decided everyone needs a Neal. He was up with me every 30 minutes, asking if I needed anything. Then, he was at his meetings by 7. He came home, got the girls ready and fed, and then taught my primary class. He made dinner, and had the girls do dishes, and picked up the house. What a nice fella.

Voo Doo Magic

I just realized that this blog is called "The Peton Family." It's really not so much about my family. Maybe I should rename it "The Natalie" blog because, as with most things, it usually ends up being about ME! Me and my doughnuts!! My new besties are the bakers at the VooDoo Doughnuts in Portland. A true slice of Portland weird. I've discovered the best way to eat doughnuts. Buy a variety, and just take one (or two, or five) bite out of each, as you can see I did here. It was like a heavenly doughnut (or as we like to say, "dog-nut") festival in my mouth!

A few token pictures of my children. Ahhhh. How nice. Now back to me. . .

Fall in the northwest is amazing. Sunny, crisp days and the wonderful fall colors. Then about the week of Halloween, the rains come in and make it sucky till about June 15th. But fall is awesome! Notice the snow shovel Kate has? It's a remnant from our days in Utah. We've only used it once while living here.

Monday night at dinner, Abigail was her usual "Helen Keller as played by Patty Duke" self. She caught wind of our plans to go to Papa and Grandma's house after dinner. She wanted to go NOW. So she threw her bowl of chili on the floor. The dog was happy, but I wasn't. I stuck her on her little stool in time out (but I keep the door open for her. I don't want to ruin her quite yet). She was so upset. Neal has trained her extraordinarily in the ways of time out. It's utter punishment and pain for her. She was wailing, "Papa! Grandma! Help me!!" It was hilarious! So I laughed at her. Wait, what was that I just said about not wanting to ruin her quite yet? It's quite possible that it's too late.

On to the subject of future Abigail's -- or hopefully Abigails with weenies --

I'm sorry if you're sick of this, but it's been quite consuming for me lately since I round the bases to another year this Friday. There is hope, and it only costs $9 per month. I start a round of clomid on my next cycle. We'll try that for a while then go from there. Well, clomid paired with sex. Can't leave out THAT crucial element. It should make me ovulate a little better. And possibly grow facial hair a little better, or have hot flashes or make me not only want to rip off people's faces, but actually act out on the urge. It's going to kick my estrogen factory into overdrive. Did I decide to quit the anti-depressants too early?

So in early December, if you catch me shoving my face with hostess products at the Albertson's, you'll know I've been taking the clomid and am just about to ovulate. Just give me a wide berth. Actually, that's good advice for anytime you come across me.

Retraction from the Last Post

"I'm gonna tear out your freakin ovaries!!" One of my favorite movies. Drowning Mona.

So I'm retracting the last paragraph from my last post.

I talked to Herr Doktor this morning. Apparently, all of the tests were NOT normal, and my endometrial lining was not consistent with a 10 day post-ovulatory stage. It's more like a 5 or 6 day stage. Which means I'm ovulating poorly, and the corpus liteum is wussy and doesn't want to produce enough progesterone. Or, in other words:

It's those damn eggs!

I knew it! They're rotten, I guess. Well, rotten enough not to produce enough progesterone to sustain a fertilized egg. I'm thinking of Templeton right now for some reason. . . Anyway, I'm likely having an egg fertilized most cycles, but there's not enough progesterone to sustain an implantation.

That explains A LOT! The tiredness, nausea, fatigue, not feeling well. It comes in waves. Now I know what was going on, and I spent a butt load of money having all sorts of tests to see what was wrong, and ended up on anti-depressants. But I think I kind of needed some anyway, to be honest.

I no longer take those, by the way. I've been drug-free for about 2.5 months. It's going well, thank you. That is, when I'm not wanting to rip someones face off. But other than that, there are some positive things from being off of my little orange pill.

And there you have it. Much too much information, as usual. Critics say I share too much. And I think they're right. But I kind of don't care. And if I were the flipping off type, then maybe I'd extend-a-bird. But I'm not the flipping-off type. Usually. . .

Time Out Under the Stairs

Do you ever watch those ghost hunter shows? Getting a picture of our little ghost was like catching a picture of a real ghost. First of all, she wouldn't hold still. Second, she wouldn't keep her ghost costume on. At all. The longest she managed was about 4.5 seconds. Which is how we managed to get this picture.

The annual halloween dinner.

Kate is in time out right now. Our time out spot is the little closet under the stairs. It's where we put the vacuum. And a little stool for time out. It's very dark, especially when I make them shut the door. It's a bit Harry Potter-esque, don't you think? Kate is yelling, "But I need to go poop!" Neal told her to wait till her ten minutes were up.

Speaking of time out, I went to "Time Out for Women," brought to you by one of my least-favorite places, Deseret Book. I had a friend talk me into it, only because we were going to stay in a hotel in Portland with a few other ladies. That sounded nice. I needed a break from my lovely children and delightful husband. But I was not looking forward to the event itself. In fact, I was kind of vocal about it, in my know-it-all-ish, cocky, opinionated way. Sometimes I get that way and I'm pretty sure there are some people who don't like it. I'm working on it. I just think that I'm smart and right all of the time, so it's hard to keep my opinions to myself. In fact, I'm not even going to explain my beef with the Deseret Book type things in this crazy Mormon culture of ours. It's my problem.

So, how did the Time Out go? I am somewhat ashamed at myself. It was incredible. This orthodox, by-the-book, "don't flood me with empty calories" Mormon girl really, really liked it. A lot. And I'm probably going to the one in Seattle next year.

But, I didn't buy anything. *pat pat on the back*

A couple of nights ago, Neal, Sarah and I were cleaning the kitchen after dinner. Sarah was expressing her frustrations about what was going on in her Home Ec class. They're doing the food portion of the class right now. That was my favorite part of the class. Especially since my group was just me, Paul F. and Rebecca H. All that food for a 3 person group!! The other groups had 5.

Sarah: It's so frustrating because it's like I do all the work, and everyone in my group just sits around and doesn't do anything. They just wait for me to do everything. They don't listen to the teacher, and I do all the cooking, then they just sit and eat it all!

Neal: That sounds like a pretty realistic Home Ec class to me.

Bless your heart Neal! It's so nice to have a husband who can appreciate what his wifey does all day. *smooch smooch smooch smooch*

Speaking of smooching and such, all of those invasive, uncomfortable tests are coming back normal. Which means there is no reason why I'm not getting knocked up. I should be talking to my doctor tomorrow about the next step.

I Love Unicorns

The Infamous Unicorn of 2003

The Infamous Miss Jenny, the kindergarten aid. I think Neal remembers her best.

Halloween of 2003 found us living in Provo, Utah. Sarah was in Kindergarten. This was our first, and only, halloween parade. Why? Because we moved to Oregon where witches and wickens get offended when kids dress up for halloween at school.

Anyway, every time we went to the Costco, Sarah would freak out about wanting the Unicorn costume. I wasn't so sure. She had a way of obsessing about things and not getting them out of her mind. And honestly, I wanted her to be something "more cute." Like the Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl costume Ginger made for the Halloween before. But she wanted to be a unicorn like something fierce.

I finally caved. We went to Costco to buy the costume, and there was only a "too big" costume left. In true Natalie "aw screw it!" fashion, I just bought the big one and decided what the what? Who cares?

She wore the costume every day. Obsessively. I was a little worried? Yeah, a little.

Coincidentally, Sarah had a doctors appointment after school on halloween day. It was her first evaluation for A.D.D. Of course, she wore the costume. It really helped her to get the diagnosis I suspected she had. That appointment will always be clear in my memory banks.

Fast forward 7 years. I look back and I'm so glad she pushed for that unicorn costume. I'm so glad I sat in the pediatricians waiting room with an oversized unicorn who had a dum-dum sucker stuck in her unicorn fur, and was bouncing off the walls and talking to herself and everyone else. And probably a tantrum or two or three in the process. Why am I glad? Because it's a memory I cherish, and it's one of those things I can look back on and say, "I've come a long way. Let the kids be kids and have suckers stuck to their fur." Kids are who they are. Let them be that way. Why on earth should I project my view of "normal" onto them? I'm a freak show!

My own mother must have known that secret when I was about 9. I insisted on being a painter for halloween. I had some white overalls, a can of paint, a painters hat, and a big beard to wear. She begged. She pleaded. She cringed inside, I'm sure, because her other daughters were being cute for halloween. I was being an ugly man in a mediocre profession. She said, "Natie! I had a little girl when you were born. Not a boy!" I'm sure my grandma weighed in on the matter, too. But in the end, my mom let me be the painter. And I'm so glad because it was my most memorable halloween.