Monday Memories - The Nap

Every summer my grandparents took us (my brothers, sisters and two cousins) north to Aunt Jean’s cabin. The boys rode with Grandpa in the station wagon and the girls rode with Grandma in the fancy car. On the way to the cabin, it was best to be in Grandma’s car because she stopped at the drug-store-soda-fountain for black-licorice ice cream cones, but on the way back it was best to be in Grandpa’s car because he could make it all the way home without pulling over for a nap.

Forty-five years later, I am my grandma.

Today is National Napping Day. Since a nap is a human battery re-charger, National Napping Day is celebrated on the day after Daylight Savings begins and we lose an hour of sleep. A few things I love about napping:

• A ten to twenty minute nap is scientifically proven to improve our efficiency. 

•  Some studies show that people who nap and get adequate sleep are less forgetful and have lower levels of stress hormones.

• Napping is an inborn skill.  (Babies are really good at it.)

This weekend I got to babysit my great-niece Sayer and help her take naps.

My grandma was on to something.  Naps are a very good thing.

Monday Memories -- Trophy Wife

Several years ago Cali, Ande and I were finishing up the supper dishes. The girls were talking about “trophy wives” and wondered why some men want them.

When I grew up, my mom stored the trophies we won at school or the fair in gunny sacks. The biggest, newest, brassiest ones sat on the living room shelf for a few months, but they soon ended up in the trophy graveyard with all of the others. Mom wrapped them in burlap feed sacks and we buried them in the dust of the barn attic.

I clearly remember my mother and her friend Josie Pastoor discussing the uselessness of trophies on the phone one day. My mother said, “I just don’t understand why they don’t award the kids something useful like blankets instead of trophies.”

Her tone told me trophies were unproductive and worthless.

Evidently I unknowingly passed down those same trophy sentiments because as Cali and Ande discussed “trophy wives” they echoed my mother’s opinion of our school trophies: “nice to look at, fun to hold, not real useful, and soon grow old.”

Calvin came into the kitchen to get a drink of water near the end of their conversation and the girls blindsided him, “Dad, did you marry a trophy wife?”

They snickered, knowing full well I’m a “blanket” wife.

Calvin was helpless; his mom didn’t store his trophies in a gunny sack. To him, trophies were medals or, at least, wild game big enough to fill a freezer. He grinned from ear to ear and said, “OF COURSE I married me a trophy wife!” and winked.

And I’ve never told him otherwise because Ogden Nash said,

To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup
Whenever you’re wrong admit it;
Whenever you’re right shut up.

*************************************

One day, when we were newly married, Calvin asked what I was fixing for supper. I said, “Tacos.” He was pretty excited when I said I needed to make some shells first. He grew up on authentic Mexican food and now his “trophy” was going to make her very own taco shells. But having never eaten jalapeños, chilies, cilantro or authentic Mexican food before we married, my shells weren’t quite what Calvin was expecting. Each in-law was similarly amazed at our private recipe. As one in-law said, “You know you're a Chadwick if you put ketchup on your crepe and call it a taco.” 

Chadwick Taco Shells

½ cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
Pinch of salt
1 egg
1½ cups water

Sift flour, cornmeal and salt together. Mix egg and water and stir into flour mixture until smooth. Pour puddle of batter (about the size and shape of a pancake) onto a hot griddle and cook until dry on top. Flip and brown lightly on the other side. Serve with unseasoned hamburger, shredded cheese, lettuce and ketchup. If you’re feeling real spicy, serve with diced raw onions, too.

Monday Memories - The Beebee

Blogging is exhausting.  It's taken me 2 weeks to write this post.

Actually it's the indecision that fatigues me.  Bertrand Russell said, "Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile."  Hear, here.  Two weeks of no decisions = two weeks of no memories recorded.

This was my problem:

I had a perfect time with Joe and Ande, Zeph and Ezra last week.  Even though 255 babies are born per minute, 353, 000 per day, it does not lesson the beauty and wonder of a new birth. Ezra Wilhelm is a sweet little miracle and it was special being a part of his first week on Earth. Maybe it’s because of the frequency of being with newborns (eight new grand-babies in four years), maybe it’s because I’m not swimming in postpartum recovery myself, maybe it’s because I’m closer to death than I am to birth, but I better recognize now more than ever before that being with a family as they welcome a newborn is an incredible experience in its simplicity, spirit, and sacrifice. Simply put, birth is a miracle.

But . . .

How do I capture it right?  How do I write about it?  Which pictures do I use to show the process of a growing family?

This one . . .

. . . or this one?

And which picture should I save to remember Zeph meeting Ezra for the first time?

This one where he seems to say, "Oh my goodness, it's a miracle," . . .

. . .  or this one where he squeezes his nose and says, "Honk! Honk!"?

Then there was the decision of which picture to use remembering mine and Zeph's morning walks while the rest of the family was busy.  Should I use this one of the sea water . . . 

. . . or this one of the alligators lying by the fresh water ponds?

Which picture?  The one of Joe and Ezra where all of Ezra's face is visible . . . 

. . . or this one where all three boys are present and watching Curious George.

I really, really couldn't decide between the hat pictures that kept Ezra warm.  This one . . .

. . . or this one?

Joe, Ande, and I spent hours reading to Zeph.  Which picture should document that?  This one . . . 

. . . this one . . . 

. . . or this one?

The day we brought Ezra home from the hospital Zeph said, "the beebee" no less than one hundred times (we counted) as he searched high and low for him.  We had to hide Ezra to keep him safe from Zeph's love.  Which picture best shows how we camouflaged him?  The one where he is swaddled on the bedspread . . . 

. . . or the one where he is hidden among the laundry on the dining room table?

Sometimes, to keep Zeph quiet so Ande could rest in the mornings, we stayed in my room. Which picture best captures keeping him busy?  Pluto and the Puppy. . . 

. . . or coloring all over my list?

There should always be a picture of a child with his handsome father and beautiful mother.  But, again, which one?

Now you can see why I had such a hard time recording this memory.  

There is a sense of wonder to a new birth.  Not only is it miraculous at seeing the body's development from those nine months of pregnancy, but seeing a little spirit and body unite and work together independently for the first time is pretty marvelous . . .    

. . . and I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

Welcome to the world Ezra Wilhelm.  Our family is better because you're here.

Monday Memories - Welcome to the World

December 29, 2014

Ande and Joe have a new baby boy.  He weighs 7 lbs. and 5 ozs. and is just as cute and sweet as he can be.  Ande and the baby are both doing well . . . and so are Joe and Zeph.  Zeph went straight for his nose, tweaked it, and said, "Honk. Honk."  I'm loving being here with them all.

Wilhelm is the name of my smart and thumb-twiddling grandfather (he later went by William). He was a good, industrious man that served others. 

Monday Memories - Preserves

If someone would have told me that my husband would become a scrapbooker some day, I'd have said, "No gonna happen.  No sir, not gonna happen."  And, I'd have been dead wrong.

Calvin made himself a recipe book, using the paper cutter and adhesives.  He didn't want any pointers, so I stopped short of offering him my stash of embellishments and washi tape.  His recipe book has one section -- meats -- and as he carefully compiled it he said to himself, "Someday my kids are gonna fight for this book."  I chuckled and reminded him Xerox has kept hundreds of families out of brawls.  

Recently Grace and I finished Abe's book.  

A few weeks before that I finished Ty's book.  

I am now caught-up on our children's scrapbooks.  I never thought I'd see this day.  When our family was growing, we couldn't afford a nice camera.  I used a little 110, but didn't take many pictures because it was expensive to buy the film and back then you developed each picture on the roll --the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Years later we got a digital camera, but it was poor quality and many pictures were grainy.  Even though I kept journals so the kids would at least have word memories, journals are not as fun and colorful as photo memories.  Several years ago, I told Deb Keeley my lack-of-pictures problem and she gave me an idea of how to capture each child's childhood using fewer pictures.  She suggested an A-Z book with each letter of the alphabet describing a quality of the child with a picture or two illustrating it. For example, the letter "P" in Ty's book is "Persistent." On that page there are three pictures:  Ty learning to ride a bike, learning to roller blade, and wrestling. The journal entry gives details about that part of Ty's personality or stories that illustrate it.  Even though the pictures are taken years apart on the page, they effectively capture the memory that Ty doesn't quit; and in the end, that entry tells a lot more about Ty than if I'd have had a picture of him every Christmas in front of the tree with a new toy.   

The A-Z books were fun to do, but a weight feels lifted now that they're done.  I also did mission and Academy books for Abe and Ty, but Cali and Ande were scrapbooking their own lives by then so I didn't do any post-high school books for them.  

Now it's on to scrapbooking family memories and putting pictures with Calvin's personal history.  I love this kind of stuff.

Monday Memories - This Much . . .

Most kids play it when they’re five or six.  At least that’s when I remember playing it. David Gines, friend and neighbor, and I used to argue amounts. He bragged his dad was older, I bragged my dad weighed more. Certainly things to crow about.

So don’t ask me why Calvin is still playing this game at 63, but some day during the last year when I said, “I love you,” he said, “I love you more.”

And even more perplexing than him saying it is that I took the bait.

I said, “No. No. I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

He replied, “Sure I do. It’s a known fact.”

I asked, “Well, how much do you love me then?”

And just like the childhood game, whatever it was he said, I upped it.

This went on for a several months, when finally Calvin pulled out the BIG number. 

He said, “I love you more than the national debt.” Before I could argue that I truly loved him more than 17 trillion, he finished, “And we both know that number grows exponentially every day so you can't top it.”

He had me. He won.

Until.

A few days ago one of my students told a story of two brothers* who were the age that most people are when they one-up.

The older brother said, “I love you,” to his little 4 year old brother.

The little boy said, “I love you more.”

Game on. The challenge went back and forth it went.

“Nope. I love you more,” the older brother responded.

“I love you this much,” said the younger brother stretching his arms wide.

“Well, I love you this much,” said the older brother stretching his longer arms even wider.

“I love you as much as this room,” the little brother said.

“I love you as much as this house.”

“I love you as much as the whole wide world."

Then came the big one.  The older brother was sure the younger brother hadn't even heard of it.  He said, "I love you as much as the universe.”

But the little brother didn’t even blink, “Well, I love you as much as Jesus does.”

Trumped.  The older brother knew it.  Nothing is as deep or as wide or as constant.  Nothing beats the Savior's love.

I’m ready. I’ve got a new answer for Calvin . . . and a goal for me to obtain it.   

(*https://www.lds.org/new-era/1995/08/i-love-you-this-much?lang=eng&query=I+love+you+this+much)

Monday Memories - Going to Town

Last weekend we butchered one of the steers. Abe and Grace and Ray and Cali came to help. We pushed the old Model A car out of the garage and turned that space into a temporary meat packing plant.

While the men cut the meat, Levin climbed in and out of that old car and played “going to town.” When he would wander back into the garage and get underfoot, Abe would give him a penny and tell him to go to town and buy more hamburger bags, or rakes, or something, and Levin would run out and pretend to drive to town again.

He kept asking, “Gwamma, will you go to town with me?" After repeated askings, I swept out the sunflower hulls and mice rice from the passenger seat and said I would go.

He ran excitedly to the car and I called after him, "You have to be a gentleman and open my door for me."

He stopped, turned back around and said, "Oh! Oh! Ok! I'll be a gentleman," then ran to the passenger side, climbed up on the running board, worked and maneuvered the door handle till it opened, and then got down and ran around to climb in his side saying, “I’m a gentleman” over and over and over. It was pretty sweet.

After we went to town and bought more things (rocks, sticks, wrappers, weeds, etc) from "the lady" he asked me to drive home. I drove making old car putt-putt sounds, moving the gear shift around, pretending to honk the horn, and pushing in the clutch and brake. Likewise, Levin played with the knobs on his side of the car and made his noises.

I don’t care if that car ever runs. It is a great toy just like it is.

I remember when I was a little girl and we had an old pick-up truck parked out by the corrals. The truck bed was filled with syphon tubes. Childhood friends and neighbors, Bryce and David, and I played “going to town” for hours in that truck. I usually brought my doll and her blanket so we could go to town as a family. I waited patiently in the truck and bounced the baby while Bryce or David (whoever was playing the dad that day) drove us to town, went into the store to get tractor parts, and then drove us home. Sometimes we took a lunch with us and sometimes we didn’t. If anybody else wanted to play, they were our extra kids and rode to town in the back on top of the syphon tubes. Playing “going to town” was even better than playing “house.” That's why I'm so sure that Model A will get plenty of miles whether or not it ever sees the highway.

Monday Memories - Sunday Dinner

Sunday dinners are one of my top 100 "good things."  There is nothing quite like coming in the door after church and smelling the roast, or meatloaf, or lasagna, or chicken in their final minutes of cooking.  It's like a congratulatory nose high-five for making it through three hours of church and its attendant responsibilities -- keeping a toddler contained, a baby quiet, a lesson taught, a talk given, a withdrawn teenager involved, a song sung, or usually a combination of them all.  The oven says, "Well done church-goer, welcome home."

Joe, Zeph, Ray, Calvin, Henry, and Abe waiting for the final touches of
Sunday dinner while watching the final minute of a bb game.

On Sunday, Calvin and I made a quick  trip to Seattle to see Joe, Ande, and Zeph who were there for a friend's wedding.  As the family sat around Ray and Cali's dining room table I thought of what a familiar sight and routine Sunday dinners are . . . and how I never grow tired of them.

We started the meal off with "cheers."  Ray and Abe always include a toast at family gatherings. Yesterday's topic was "something we look forward to in Spring."  It's always fun to hear what is on others' minds -- new life, baby calves, chicks, and pigs, being outside, strawberries that taste like strawberries, working in the garden, the sun, birthdays, Easter, Hope -- and clinking goblets around the table.  My favorite part yesterday was watching Levin with his plastic cup and over-sized bib. It's hard to ration sparkling lemonade to nine individual sips when you're two years old, but by the last couple of toasts he knew to excitedly raise his cup because it meant one more sip.  When the last toast was made he cried for "more cheers," interpreted as more lemonade.  Seeing his enthusiasm I expect he'll carry on the tradition of his father and uncle.

I was in charge of the dinner yesterday and it wasn't fancy, in fact it wasn't even very good, but it didn't matter.  It was the fact that we were together and investing in family and each other.  After dinner Abe, Grace, and Henry had to get back home.  Calvin, Zeph, and Levin went to the bedrooms to take naps, Joe and Ray fell asleep on the family room rug and couch, and Cali, Ande, Atlas, and I visited at their feet. When everyone woke up we ate a wonderful blackberry bread pudding that Cali and Ande had made for dessert (perhaps the most important course in Sunday dinner).

The day was satisfying on many levels.

Today in class my high-school students all told of one of their favorite family activities.  There were some pretty fun things shared -- trips to Yellowstone, Hawaii, Disneyland, a cruise to the Bahamas, camping.  As the kids told their memories, I remembered several great experiences our family has had.  But when it was my turn to share a favorite family activity I said, "Sitting around the table each night to eat supper and eating Sunday dinner together."  When it boiled down to it, I found that simple tradition, repeated over and over, actually trumped the other memories.

One young man said he didn't like being with his family (it is a pretty contentious lot) and he does everything he can to avoid being with them when they're together.  His experience provided a stark contrast for those who do have good family memories.

Here's to Sunday dinner.  And supper together.  And families that like each other.  Clink.


*If you'd have been eating with us, what would your toast to Spring have been?