Naptime

Left: Amya, eighteen months old

My neighbor went on a week vacation and asked me to watch her daycare kids. She usually cares for 30 kids, but this week she narrowed the number to 7 for my sake. I have 23 kids less than her, and it's killing me.

I wake up at 6 am and get the house and myself prepped for the kids. The first kid arrives at 7 and the rest trickle in by 9. I spend seven hours entertaining, tormenting, feeding, separating, cajoling, and controlling these guys.

By 9 am I collapsed on the couch--ignoring the cheerful screams from the other room--and thought, "This is what mothers do, except no one comes to take the kids away at the end of the day. A mother's job never ends. It is ForEver." It was a horrifying realization.

The fact that women volunteer themselves to this is baffling. My mom says it is different when they are your kids; I'm telling you it better be or I'm not choosing this for my career. Give me an office and boss any day! Really, motherhood should be considered a career; it is a career that takes 24 hours of the day, if not more.

I rallied myself for lunch time and hope gleamed fresh in my eye. I knew that once lunch was over i was hitting the best part of the day.

The clock chimed one o'clock and I walked in the play room grinning.
"Naptime!" I shouted joyfully. I skipped the youngsters to their beds, slapped the light off, threw a movie in for the older kids and--Hallelujah! The house is mine. Best time of the day, peeps, right here. Soak it in.

Rupert

Mom, Amy, and I found a baby sparrow on our driveway today. It fell from its nest and sat passively on the cement. I ran to get the black rubber garden gloves and gently placed him in my hand.

We named him Rupert. He is a tiny bloke and is the size of a silver half-dollar that is stretched into an oval. His feathers are a dull mustard yellow and black wing tips. He has stubby yellow eyelashes and long white, straggly eyebrows.

We went to Zamzow's to see if they had bird food, luckily someone donated baby bird feed to the next customer that needed to take care of a wild bird since they didn't need it anymore. We plan to redonate it back to Zamzow's after we are done with Rupert.

Rupert is astonishingly unafraid of us. He sits on my finger comfortably without any qualms. I can set him down right beside me and he will stay. As soon as I leave he will roam the yard, but if I sat with him he would stay in one place all day. Rupert is becoming an expert aerial navigator. This morning he wasn't able to fly, and now this evening he is able to glide 5 feet.

We lost Rupert in the afternoon. He started wandering the yard and we figured we'd seen the last of him, but then I found him hours later clinging to the honeysuckle on our deck. He let me pick him up and I fed him again. I'm hoping that he will be able to fend for himself and survive now; I will continue to check the yard and feed him if I find him. I put Rupert back on the honeysuckle. I hope to see the little bugger again--he was cute.

Caricatures of Classmates

Every Wednesday evening I have a Physical Science class that lasts for 3 hours. The class is difficult, confusing and monotonous, which means that it is a perfect time for self-reflection. Occasionally the hours of inward wanderings are punctured by the sight of a fascinating creature: the classmate. Each week I am repeatedly drawn to the same three classmates.

The first two classmates are actually a pair. I don't know their names, so I will be bold and give them names that I deem suitable. The first is Travis. Travis is brown haired, average-build, hooded eyes, and white skin that suggests hours of basement videogame playing. He wears t-shirts that tell grim and shadowy stories and a skull-shaped ring on his hand. Travis, in and of himself, is not a fascinating creature. It is the combination of Travis and his companion that creates the entertainment.

Travis is always joined by a small female. I name her Stephanie. When I first saw Stephanie I assumed she was a brilliant girl that graduated from high school early and is now attending college at the tender age of twelve. I conclude that this isn't the case; she is just an unusually small girl with a haircut that enables her young looks. Stephanie is 5' 1" tall, her blonde hair falls to her shoulders like spaghetti, and she has perfectly round glasses. Stephanie even dresses like a young teenager, which only adds to the confusion. All these factors add up--you think she is twelve years old.

At the beginning of the semester Travis and Stephanie were always separated by a single seat and a muttered comment to each other was rare. There was little contact between them. However, I saw potential for these two; I felt that by the end of the semester a romance might be forged. I was right.

Tonight is the last day of class and the romance is fully bloomed. I believe that Love realized the end of class is looming and She forced the paralyzing boredom aside and pressured these two to hook up. Tonight, for the first time, Travis and Stephanie sit side by side with joined fingers and tender eyes. Without the impending shadow of semester's end who knows if Love would have pressured itself to the surface.

The dull passion between these two have created a pleasant distraction from my boredom. The absence of this distraction would have forced me to pay attention to something that matters, like the lecture. Thank heavens I didn't have to pay attention to the lecture; I'd hate to be caught doing something useful. The idea makes me sick.

The third, and last, classmate sits in the far left column of seating.

On the left and a few rows in front of me sits an 80 year old man. He is majoring in family history (I'm impressed he'd come to college...that has to be intimidating). I like to think his name is John Flam. Before class starts John Flam hunches over his text book and scrutinizes the text using a massive magnifying glass that dangles around his neck. Class starts and he glares his bushy eyebrows at the teacher. Halfway through the lesson he begins picking his nose. Picks his nose then rubs his head. That's the process. Pick rub, pick rub, pick rub. Every once in a while he pulls out a tissue and gives his nose a few slow wipes. It creates a fascinating rhythm: pick rub, pick rub, pick rub, pick rub wipe, wipe, wipe, pick rub, pick rub, pick rub wipe, wipe, wipe, wipe. In this dull, monotonous class this man and his rhythm create action and, I like to think, passion. Thank you, John Flam. Thank you.

The Era of Letters

I never write missionaries. I don't have the patience, the desire, nor the obligation. I confess, even with all the Young Women's activities I've been to, I've never written a missionary. I became the Master at avoiding these obnoxious YW activities. I loathed the idea of painfully drafting a letter to an unknown recipient who wouldn't bother to write me, or any of the other girls, back. I wanted no part in this one-way communication.

Those days were full of skepticism, yet there was hope; I planned to change my anti-letter ways. I dedicated myself to a career of faithful missionary-writing. Many friends of mine left on their missions and I felt it was my duty to write them. I promised myself that when they left I wouldn't let them bob under my radar. I failed, gracefully. Months have flown by and I haven't started a single draft. I repeatedly say to myself, "Self, you should be ashamed not writing your friends." But it doesn't matter; I just won't listen.

There is an art to these one-paged wonders,according to the picture. There is a whole book on the necessary steps to a successful letter. I am inexperienced in this affair, perhaps I should leave it to the professionals. Such as Lisa.

Lisa Christensen, my roommate, writes nine missionaries a week. Nine. I wish to clarify... Lisa writes nine missionaries a week. She is a natural; if she pulled some smashing footwork she could market that skill. Nine letters. At this point I haven't written one letter in eighteen years. That is changing soon. I make it a goal to write one missionary at least annually. I understand that a letter per year is a lofty goal, but I won't be subdued. The lucky missionary will receive two precious letters from me his entire mission.

And so a New Era arises. The Era of the Letters. The sound of angel choruses serenade me to victory. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
And I will begin that Era promptly next week. Or next month....
I will begin...eventually.