Primary Program Today

my favorite quote, from a nine year old girl reading the Proclamation on the Family:

"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome erectional activities." [sic]

So, um, I guess we should move to LA?

Sam: "Mommy, I am almost six and I haven't been on TV yet."

Me: "Actually, honey, you have. You just don't remember."

Sam: "I don't just want to be on On-Demand. I want to be on the *good* shows."

Me: "Like?"

Sam: "Ugh. You know. The kind of shows I like."

Me: "Okay."

Sam: "So, what are you going to do about it?"

Me: "Honey, you don't want to be on TV. People on TV go crazy."

Sam: "But they're on TV."

Me: "Well, we don't live in LA anyway. And even if we did, you'd need an agent."

Sam: "So, what's stopping us? I know I'd like to move to Hollywood."

Lily: [interrupting] "Ooo. And I'll be a ROCKSTAR. Do you like my shirt? It's a rockstar shirt."

Sam: "I've wanted to be famous my WHOLE LIFE."

Me: "Well, you didn't tell me until you were three, so that's only like two years."

Sam: [ignores me] "You can't just give up on something you've wanted to do your WHOLE LIFE."

5yo Brand Awareness: Mass Media Style

Sam: "Hey, Mommy, I'm watching this great show."

me: "Which one?"

Sam: "Something with dinosaurs."

me: "Oh. Is it good?"

Sam: "It is definitely not evil."

me: [laugh]

Sam: "You can tell because it's on PBS Kids."

me: "So PBS isn't evil?"

Sam: "PBS *Kids* isn't evil."

Steve: [perks up][he's a marketer. for TV stuff.][not coincidentally, he used to work for PBS.] "So what about the other networks? What about Nickelodeon?"

Sam: "Evil."

Steve: "Disney?"

Sam: "Sometimes evil. Sometimes not. Disney movies are definitely evil."

Steve: "Cartoon Network?

Sam: "Can be evil."

Steve: "But PBS is never evil?"

Sam: "PBS *Kids.*"

Steve: "PBS Kids is never evil?"

Sam: "Well," [points to a promo that has just begun] "these things are sometimes evil. But PBS Kids is usually good."

Dear old man in the wheelchair:

I know you're old.

probably blind.

and, yanno, in a wheelchair.

It's still not OK ask random women if they're having a boy or girl.

As you pat their belly.

Just so you know.

Conversation in the Car

Sam: "Hey, Lily, look at my amazing muscles." [flexes]

Lily: "Oh, wow. That is so hot."

Steve: [snorts] "Did she just say, 'that is so hot?'"

me: "Yes. We can call her Paris from now on."

Sam: "So, Lily, if you think my muscles are so awesome, why don't you marry them?"

Lily: "Because... Ew."

Sam: [flexes]

me: "You guys are adorable, BTW."

Sam: "Oh, good. That means we're off your list."

My nephew Charlie has super powers

Writing Quote of the Day

“Many people believe that authors of children’s books eventually ‘graduate’ and go on to write books for adults. That’s like saying your pediatrician may get good enough to, one day, be a doctor for grown-ups.”

from Joy Feldman, author of The Gollywhopper Games

U_iqt= Γ_(i,s{iqt} ) X_(i,q,t-1)+Φ_(i,s{iqt} ) U_(iq,t-1)+ε_(iqt,s{iqt} ),〖 ε〗_(iqt,s{iqt} ) ∿ MVN (0,∑_(s{iqt})▒〖),〗

just because that is an actual formula that I just had to cite and explain in my dissertation.

And then, when I show Steve the picture of Sam he says

"Oh, he is really cute."

And Sam hears and pipes up from his floor/bed: "Yes, I really am cute. I'm so cute that it almost makes my heart sad."

Sometimes when you go to the bathroom, you get more than you bargained for

Like, maybe when you open the door, you find a meditating Buddha. And you say, "Omigoodness! It's Buddha!"

And the Buddha says, "What seek you?"

And you decide to go with it and you say, "I seek wisdom and the secret to Zen."

And Buddha says, "Hmmm... The secret is... You laugh hard and you leave the door open."

Which, really, is much deeper than you expected anything in the bathroom to be.

Evening Conversation

Sam: "Mommy. Why did you marry .that. man?!"

me: "You mean Daddy? What's wrong with Daddy?"

Sam: "Where do I START?!"

me: "He told you to go to bed, didn't he."

Sam: "He doesn't understand about my body. See, in the morning, my body has sleep. But at night? No sleep."

me: "Sounds like me."

Sam: "Oh, geez. You can take care of this, you know."

me: "How? I already take Ambien."

Sam: [shakes head] "You're still a pretty girl. You can find someone ELSE."

me: "Other than Daddy? But I like him."

Sam: "There's got to be someone else you can like. Maybe a friend? Maybe someone from work?"

me: "I think they'd make you go to bed, too."

Sam: "UGH. You people are IMPOSSIBLE."

Morning Compliment

Lily: "Morning Mommy."

Me: "Morning, Baby."

Lily: "Huh."

Me: "I said 'morning, baby.'"

Lily: "No. I mean your boobs."

Me: "They're under my nightgown."

Lily: "They're UP."

Me: "Hallelujah."

Lily: "Up is better than down."

Me: "Okay."

Evening Conversation: Sam tells me about his new favorite book

Sam: [Lying on my bedroom floor last night] "Mommy, I really love this book."

Me: "Which book are you reading?"

Sam: [His book (On the Go with Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe) pops up into my view; Sam stays on the ground hidden. He's like a voice rising from the dust of my carpet.]

Me: "Oh, yeah. That book is funny, isn't it?"

Sam: "It is VERY funny. I actually can't read all the words because they're big, but I can tell that it is EXTREMELY FUNNY."

Me: "Did you know that my friend wrote that book?"

Sam: "WHAT?! You know people that write books?!"

Me: "Yeah. She signed it for me. Look on the title page."

Sam: "OMIGOSH. She DID sign it. This is the BEST BOOK EVER."

Me: "I'll tell her you like it."

I think my favorite part about this picture is the way the kid looks like he's thinking, "OMG, this guy is NUTS"

Michael Fritzgerald, 9, left, of Sandy Elementary, chats Tuesday with Comcast mentor Steve Spencer during a school event called "Beyond School Walls." The program matches fourth-graders with Comcast employees for one-to-one mentoring. Michael said he wants to be a scientist, the type that will save the world.

Morning Conversation: Channeling Trinny and Suzanna

Lily: "Mommy, I need to talk to you."

Me: "What do you need to talk to me about?"

Lily: "Your boobs."

Me: "My boobs?"

Lily: "They're falling."

Me: "Um..."

Lily: "Why are they falling?"

Me: "Um... because I had babies?"

Lily: "When I grow up, will my boobs fall, too?"

Me: "Probably."

Lily: [Despair-laden-sigh][Then reaches over and grabs one of my boobs] "We just need to figure out how to make.them.stay.UP!!"

Me: "Maybe a better bra?"

Lily: "SOMEthing."

A new super cool windmill!

http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx

Why I haven't been blogging

I just finished the first totally complete draft of my dissertation.
all 500 pages of it.

WOOT.

My nephew Ben says, "The U? Really? You're a Ute fan?"

Evening Conversation

Me: "Oo. Look at that moon! It's so pretty!"

Sam: "And it's full! Very nice. But you know what?"

Me: "What?"

Sam: "I think the moon must like me."

Me: "Why?"

Sam: "Because it follows me everywhere. The sun does it, too. Everywhere I go, it follows me."

Me: "You are pretty likeable."

Sam: "Yes. But maybe it's not that. It could be that I have superpowers."

Me: "True."

Sam: "So where do babies come from?"

Dear Students:

Let's say you're walking to school. And then let's say that while you're walking to school, you change your mind about walking forward in one cross walk and at the last second you turn and head into the other crosswalk. And then let's say that there is a car there, already turning.

And it runs over your foot.

Then let's say that the driver of the car realizes she's run over something and then she backs the car up.

And runs over your foot again.

In the event that this happens to you, you should not go to school that day. You should go directly to the hospital. But you SHOULD NOT WALK (or hop) to the hospital.

And then when you're done at the hospital, you should not, under any circumstance, go to class. Especially not my class. Because maybe a physics professor would tell you to go to class, but I'll tell you that you should go home and take a pain pill.

Just in case that ever happens.

someone signed me into google chat and wrote in my status section "lifetime but no real time."

1) I don't chat. Chat freaks me out *almost* as much as the phone
2) then who the *&^% was it that signed me in that way?
3) cuz usually when I ambitype (type under the influence of ambien) I at least stay true to my personal phobias and at least sort of sound like myself
4) and "lifetime but no real time" doesn't sound like me so much
5) except it's sort of starting to in a really vague and fuzzy way
6) geez

okay, someone needs to explain this poster to me

because technically, I'm teaching a class right now and i don't have time to go to the website and figure it out. www.theIHS.org/cure.


FYI, the first line below the subtitle is, "Millions of people every year suffer from the debilitating effect of government corecion."

I can't figure out if they're serious or joking and which one of those options is funnier...

New crop of students!

poor things. I'm not sure they know what they're getting themselves into...

I know, you thought I'd forgotten

But I finally got the rest of the prizes out!

for my web-survey hero, Nicole:

for my mom:

and for the 17-book incredible Katrina, who came in first!


thanks, everyone!

Miss Provo has commandeered my house

so y'all are invited over, too.

celebrate the end of the summer by taking over the world and stuff.

RISK party night.
bring food, any fancy RISK games you have (we have one, I think, but if you have one with Yoda on it or something, Steve might squeal like a girl), and come party.

sunday, august 30, 5:00PM

ps: if you need directions, email me kerryspencer at byu dot edu.

Only if you have a bad back like me, honey.

Lily: "Mommy?"

Me: "Yeah?"

Lily: "You're a grown up."

Me: "Yeah."

Lily: "Mommy?"

Me: "Yeah?"

Lily: "If I groan and I groan and I keep on groaning, will I be a grown up too?"

Do you want a MWF mind warp? Are you at BYU?

take my class!

Honors 150: section 026

register today because the class is getting canceled tomorrow if enrollment doesn't top 13 students.

ps: tell your friends

Makes you kinda wonder about priorities, right?

at Miss Provo's pool, there are several signs.






Only one of them is about not pooping in the water.

(I wonder if they know that modest swimwear doesn't protect you from the Crypto?)

Lily's Brutal But Effective Method of Defeating the Chinese Finger Trap

Fitting. (As my Uncle Fred--another engineer!--says, "If Brute Force doesn't work, you're just not using enough.")

In honor of Lily's future career

First, a disclaimer: I took an ambien an hour ago, which means I am not allowed to be posting anything

But Steve just made me laugh really hard and I knew that if I didn't write it down, I wouldn't remember it tomorrow because, yanno, Ambien makes me forget stuff that happens after I take my evening pill. (It also impairs my judgment and lowers my inhibitions, which will have to be considered caveat #2. Ergo, I cannot accept full responsibility for the appropriateness/inappropriateness regarding any of the following and readers should be duly warned thus.)

So, Steve has always had this habit of literally falling asleep in the middle of our conversations. Only… He keeps talking. And sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out the precise point where his consciousness has been compromised. See if you can spot the PPCC (precise point of compromised consciousness) below!


Me [fluffing up my pillows and such, getting ready for bed]: “So, Doogie says I have to have a bone scan done.”

Steve: “And it'll take all day?”

Me: “Yeah. I’ll be at the U hospital. They wanted me to get a CAT scan the same morning, and I heard them on the phone wrangling to get both procedures done in the same hospital so I wouldn’t have to trek up to Huntsman Cancer and I almost yelled out the hallway, ‘Naw! I LIKE Huntsman better! PLEASE send me there!”

Steve: “20 year old hospitals *are* pretty creepy.”

Me: “It’s not just that the U is creepy. They’re *nicer* to you at Huntsman. There are all these soothing fountains and aromatherapy and all of the posters on the wall say things like, ‘You aren’t going to get addicted to pain killers! Please take MORE! And if you still hurt, we can give you STRONGER STUFF!’ Or my personal favorite: ‘Ten ways to sneak extra calories into your diet.’ I liked the one about just randomly adding heavy cream to everything. So tasty.”

Steve: “So, what does the bone scan show?”

Me: “They usually only use it to monitor cancer progressions, etc., but it also has some uses particularly suited to identifying degenerative facets in the vertebrae, which can happen when you’ve slouched your whole life (because you were 5’10 in fifth grade) and then went and got into a car accident six weeks after you had a baby.”

Steve: “What does the messed up facet look like?”

Me: “Well, the scans show bright spots and dark spots. Dark spots are cancer spots. Bright spots are spots where the bone has been doing an abnormal amount of bone re-generation--like if it’s been really stressed from the slouching and the baby birthing and the getting-whacked-in-the-side-by-a-drunk-driver thing. So, dark spots = bad, bright spots = not so bad. Unless they’re tumors, I guess. Those can be bright too.”

Steve: “So, best case?”

Me: “They find a few messed up facets. They inject a few things into my spine. I feel no pain for two years at which point they inject some more things and life is good. Worst case would be that they find nothing and my back still friggin hurts. No, strike that. I guess worst case would be they find a multiple myeloma. That word has been randomly appearing in my nightmares, remember? So I looked it up. It’s incurable. Median survival rate 50 months. Totally hypochondriachiacally creeptastic, right?”

Steve: “But do people your age even get that cancer? You’re young.”

Me: “Youngish. Young people don’t tend to get colon cancer, either. But that’s what my grandma died of. When she was *thirty six.*”

Steve: “Well, I guess we’re going to have to add that to the list.”

Me: “What list? A list of cancers that are completely unlikely anywhere except in my family?”

Steve: “No, The Cookie list.”

Me: “Cancer cookies?”

Steve: “Yeah, Cancer cookies. We’ll have to make some. Put them in Tupperware.”

Me: "Okay, but only if we can randomly poor cream on them." [laughing because I know Steve is totally asleep now and if I wanted to, I could keep the conversation going for awhile just because it'd be hilarious. I'll have to do that some night when I'm not on Ambien.]

when it comes to the stomach flu

it turns out that some things don't change so much.

blech.

And also, Lily has gone feral

One of many recent self-portraits

Last chance to own your own Ewok!

We're going to have to take her to the pound within the next week or two, and we don't want to, so if you need a lap friend, send me a holler right away!

Sometimes three year olds do really disturbing things

like saying, "Look, Mommy!" and then dropping down into the splits. ouch.

When Steve said we had good seats, I confess, I didn't believe him.

till we got there. Nicely done, kid.

Sam's Pioneer Day Prayer

transcribed as per Auntie Barb's suggestion.

Grandpa Mark: "Sam, would you mind helping me say the prayer?"

Sam: Sure. [completely ignoring the "helping" part, he just dives in.] "Heavenly Father, we are so happy to be here with each other surrounded by all of this great food. Bless all of the great food because it's good for us to eat it. And thanks we could all be here today on... [turns to Grandpa] "What day is it again?"

Almost everyone whispers: "Pioneer Day."

Sam: [Voice takes on a more authoritative tone: think the Princess Bride "Marriage" speech.] "Oh, yes. Pioneer Day. Pioneer Day is a very important day. It's a day when we... remember Pioneers... and eat lots of food. It's a day we should all remember because it's so important. We should remember it all week. And especially while we eat all of this food. AMEN."

(am I missing anything, Barb?)

In which the spirit of hip-hop mysteriously morphs into full on Gangsta Rap

scene: the children's museum. Sam has found the sound booth, where you can experiment with sound mixing. He instantly hones in on a beat-box type rap background track. As the beat pulses, he shakes his hips, nods his head, grabs the microphone, frowns, then looks at me and chants (in perfect rap rhythm)

"All I want to do is PkEEW!! PkEWW!!" [uses thumbs and forefingers to approximate the firing of a weapon.] "And take your MONEY!"

I stare at him.

He tells me it's Miss Provo's fault. I'm not sure I want to know what he means by that.

Lily has informed me

that when she grows up she is going to

1. Drive a purple motorcycle. ("Don't worry, Mommy," she says, "I'll wear a hat." She means helmet, but I do appreciate the sentiment.)
2. Be an engineer for Toyota. (Every time we pass a Toyota she screams in glee: "It's a TOYOTA, Mommy! A TOYOTA!!!")

One would think that I would not take such statements from a 3yo seriously. I mean, I used to tell people that I was going to design tennis shoes for Reebok, and we all see how *that's* worked out for me.

However.

When Lily's Grandpa was in fourth grade, he was assigned to do a report on his future career. This was the cover of what he turned in:

It's also what he does now: 45+ years later, he's an engineer at a petroleum refinery.

So here's to Lily's future at Toyota. And her purple motor cycle.

Overheard from the pool

Lily: "It's cold! The water is COLD!"

Sam: "It's OK, Lily. I figured out a way to make the water warmer..."

Just because they're adorable

Lily: Master of the Third Option, or, Not-a-Victim-of-the-False-Dilemma-Fallacy (in spite of our best efforts)

me: "Lily, do you want to wear the pink shirt, or the yellow shirt?"

Lily: "The red one."

me: "Okay, the red one, then. Oh, look, it has Elmo on it. Is Elmo your favorite Sesame Street Character? Or is it Zoe?"

Lily: "It's Cookie Monster. Yumyumyumyum."

me: "Yeah, I like Cookie Monster. Come here so we can put this shirt on."

Lily: [ignores me.]

me: "I said come here. We need to put your shirt on."

Lily: [still ignores me.]

me: "Lily, you can either come here, or you can go on time out."

Lily: [looks at me briefly, then runs away.]

me: "or that."

Oh, geez.

looks like I posted stuff while I was on Ambien. (Even found my way to Poll Daddy! Impressive!)