In a flurry of pink sweater shrugs and little dresses with flowers painted along the bottom hem and white ruffled socks and little white shoes from DI that basically look very new but were only two dollars, I couldn't forget the plastic, unrealistically colored grass and openable eggs with no yolks and random stocking stuffers for the spring (one of the compromises with marrying a foreigner is that he didn't have easter baskets and hasn't learned how to do them so I bought my own kit kat and big red and small gummy lifesavers and pronounced myself the easter bunny). All the goods laid out, of course, what I might wear to feign that I actually had something new for the occasion swirled in my head until I finally fell asleep...only to be awakened, not at the normal hour of 9 or after or even having to wake my children up because they were still asleep when it came time to go to church...no...Dellah was standing in her bed at 7:15 in the morning (she NEVER wakes up that early) and informed me that she was not going to lay back down. 5 minutes later she was out in the living room playing kitchen and I knew it was all over somehow. I got dressed. Meagerly but springy. I got Dellah dressed. Gloriously and fluffy and springy. Ruby got awakened at the time to get to church on time and she got dressed. In the basically same outfit as Dellah which I never do but Easter is Easter and pink and stuff.
So I get all the snacks together and the coloring stuff and the juice and heated water for the powdered milk and passies and diapers and wipes and random unplayed with toys that will prove novel in the chapel...They're both in the stroller. The door is opened. Ruby starts to cry but I can handle it. Dellah starts to cry, but I can handle it. I promise treats. I give out passies. The crying persists. I wheel them out the door, unwilling to concede. The crying increases. Maybe I can still handle it. The faces redden, the sweating starts, the shaking begins (them, not me), soon the crying turns to shrieking and I realize that I can no longer handle it (even with my anti-depressants) so I come back in the door where the crying continues, two beautiful little pink confections melting to ugly, splotchy, sweaty, desperate creatures only formerly human, now, quite assuredly something else.
Happy Easter. I called Gabriel in tears and informed him we would be absent from Easter Sunday. At least I had a roast in the crock pot so that the smell of my frying brain was undetectable.
I found a second to reflect that the Savior died so we could overcome. Maybe I can. Just not right then.
The whole day went something like that morning.
Then Wednesday I was touching my little Ruby's hair that is all golden and soft and I notice a little bump under her hair...then I notice a little bump by her mouth...then I change her diaper and notice 3 little bumps on her cooch.
THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS!!!!
IT'S THE FRIGGING CHICKEN POX!!!! Do you have any idea when you get immunized for those? I do! It's on your one year check up....yeah...you know when Ruby will be one?...do you?....yeah...THAT'S RIGHT!...NEXT THURSDAY!! of course. So every time my child wakes up from a nap, she LITERALLY has 10 if not 15 MORE blistery pustules and I'm heart-broken for her, she's so sweet. The worst is that she's also teething her first little teeth and she has a fever of 102.5 with the chicken pox and she's just a wreck.
now we'll just wait till Dellah gets it.
yes!
I hope all of you wanting to marry someone and have sex and have all your problem disappear into the great, breezy oblivion of bouncy pink babies and picket fences will actually understand that life is life and it ABSOLUTELY does not get any better than it is right now for you. If you don't believe me I suppose you can keep pining away and know I'm right later.
Take it from an ex-piner....just go to the movies and take a nap and when you wake up, just be nice to folks and someone will marry you and that will be that.
I suppose that's not all the way true. It is nice to be married but it is hard and it brings up all your issues and you have to work it out because you don't want to be a statistic and then children are just these little strangers you have to harness and who knows how to do that?
Anyway, when I was little I had about 3 bumps when Jenny got the pox and I swear to you that right now I am itching and have random bumps and I live in fear of 'the POX!'
I agree with Marsha about blogs. It should way be more about writing that a popularity contest. This post was super long and it was mostly just for me. I fully expect that anyone who even comes here, stopped reading about 5 run-on paragraphs ago.
I went to J.Jill last night and I really super want this one skirt with a little ruffle along the bottom and about only 10 0r 11 things in Banana Republic. Please, Santa. Also I really need a hair product that isn't lotion for your body because that really doesn't work too well and I'm all out of the legit.
On a happy note, I really love body flex. I have lost about an inch or two and you don't even have to MOVE! it's a miracle, I tell you....a MIRACLE!!
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Erin, I went to FHE on Monday night and saw this girl, her name is Holly, and she's not really a girl, she's a woman, she's like over 30, and she was wearing this white shirt that she had been wearing all day and there were no visible gut creases in it at all. I did the 3rd world thing and walked over to her and asked her how long she had been wearing that shirt and she said all day. I touched it to see what it felt like and she said that it was the most amazing shirt. She got it at Land's End. I was completely sold.
I'm sorry your kids have the chicken pox. That must be miserable for all of you!
Erin, I love you. and I really have to say something about this post because Emily and I have been talking about this very thing lately.
the thing we have been talking about is how condesending it is for people who are married and have kids to say things like, well, pretty much like,
"stop pining, take a nap and someone will marry you."
first of all, I feel your pain, I know that it must be really hard sometimes (especially when your kids are sick)
of course there are hard times, but there are also good times that some people never get to have. and to say that someone shouldn't pine for marriage because they don't know how hard it can be is even worse because it implies, a.) that anyone single is pining over it and b.) that we're stupid somehow...
we all know that marriage is going to be hard, but seriously, what are we without it?
we're either the oldest freaks in the singles ward, just trying to ride it out as long as we can, or we're bravely taking on callings and being set-up on blind dates with FAGGOTS while watching some 23 year old creep make out with his 18 year old wife during sacrament.
also, I'm sure that you were just saying what you were thinking about being single. sometimes it really is great, there are consolations for not being married. I can go to Europe whenever I have the money, or go trotting off to Vegas for shopping and bowling. I get to sleep all night. I'm not responsible for a soul beyond my own. a LOT of times I'm really glad for all of that, I really am, I have a good time most of the time, but don't be condesending to me or to people like me. I'm 33 years old and I basically have no one. I don't have family. and when my friends move away or get married they have a different life, a life that doesn't necessarily include me. to forget about how painful that can be is not only condesending, but also disrespectful of the blessing that it is to find someone who does love you and to be able to have children in this world. that's an unbelievable blessing no matter how it manifests itself.
I don't mean this to be harsh, if it comes off that way, I'm sorry, I just know that a lot of married people think that being single is so easy, that single people don't know how good they have it, and maybe I will think that same thing someday. in that case, hopefully I will keep it to myself, because life is painful enough without people who have what you want telling you why you shouldn't want it so much.
yeah, marsha and i were talking about this the other night. my sister and i had been talking and i was, as usual, sad about being single. she was trying to be positive and make me feel better (she certainly didn't intend, and neither do you erin, to do anything other than make me feel good) and was saying that my life isn't any less meaningful than hers is. what i wanted to say to her, but didn't, was this: think about all the wonderful feelings and moments you've had with your husband and kids; think about babies' feet and eyes and smell; think about eating breakfast with your husband in your pajamas, or whatever floats your boat; now erase all those things. those are the important things, the things that really matter, and i've never had them and with each year i have a decreasing likelihood of ever having them. i know you would never choose that, even if it meant getting to sleep and go to movies.
being married and a mom is hard, and being single is a different kind of hard. it's a long, slow, empty hard. it's being picked last for the dodgeball team--FOR 15 YEARS. what's hard for moms is being indispensible; what's hard for single people is being disposable. and i think we try to tell ourselves that it's fun to take trips and be well-rested, but what are we taking trips FOR? what are we resting up FOR? what does life MEAN if you don't have a family and aren't sure you ever will have one?
but i love what you wrote erin, and i do try to be grateful for the time i've had to myself. hopefully it will turn out to have been an asset and not a total waste of time, which is what it feels like.
anyway, i think it's good for us to talk about these things and try to understand what everyone is going through. because we're all going through real stuff, hard stuff, and we need each other. we need to talk about how we feel and know that we're understood. hmm, maybe blogs aren't so bad after all.
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