What mother, after watching Mary Poppins, wouldn’t long for such a nanny to care for her children?

Wanted: A nanny for three adorable children

If you want this choice position

Have a cheery disposition

Rosy cheeks, no warts!

Play games, all sort

You must be kind, you must be witty

Very sweet and fairly pretty

Take us on outings, give us treats

Sing songs, bring sweets

Never be cross or cruel

Never give us castor oil or gruel

Love us as a son and daughter

And never smell of barley water

If you won’t scold and dominate us

We will never give you cause to hate us

We won’t hide your spectacles

So you can’t see

Put toads in your bed

Or pepper in your tea

Hurry, Nanny!

Many thanks

Sincerely,

Ariana, Vivi & Tad Tolbert

Oh, dear Claire, our very own Mary Poppins.  You weren’t a magical answer to a clever newspaper advertisement.  You were an answer to prayer.

The children miss you, but most of all, I miss you.  You made our month-long vacation to Utah truly that–a vacation!  (Except for the week that you were at BYU Volleyball Camp.)

You bathed my children, changed poopy diapers, wiped poops and peeps (Vivi go’ed!), played with them (the kids, not the poops & peeps), fed them, put them down for naps, tended them while your mom and I went on frozen yogurt and quilt shop excursions, and most of all, you loved them.

My sweet, beautiful niece, thank you for helping to restore my sanity.  You are, like, practically perfect in, like, every way!  TRUE FACT! 🙂

My kids love knock-knock jokes, but a few weeks ago, Tad played the biggest knock-knock joke thus far.  Here’s how it went:

“Knock, knock” at the front door.

“Who’s there?” I wondered aloud as Bryan went to answer it.

“Tad!?!” he replied as he entered the kitchen with an alarmed look on his face and diaper-clad baby Tad in his arms.

Somehow, Tad had escaped from the house and was found wandering half-naked on the sidewalk outside the front of our home by two strangers (angels?).  Tad could have easily stepped into the street and been hit by one of the many speeding cars that zoom along the busy road bordering our house.

Freaked out, I checked every door and tried every lock.  The only clue to his means of escape was an interior door from the house to the garage that was slightly ajar, likely from my several trips back and forth to the deep freeze as I prepared dinner.  Oddly enough, upon further investigation, I also discovered that the main garage door was wide open.  “Yikes!” I thought.  I was certain that it had been closed earlier.

As I pressed the button to close the garage door, Tad toddled toward me and excitedly babbled, “Button! Button!”  He then squeezed past me, scrambled atop an unsightly mound of shoes just inside the door to the garage, scaled a shoe box that was leaning vertically against the wall, pushed the button, and reopened the garage door.

Mystery solved.

Shoes and box removed.

Mental note made: “Tad cannot be trusted.”

Prayer uttered: “Thank you for keeping my baby safe!”

And that was the end of the joke, or so I presumed, until a letter addressed to me arrived in the mail two days later.

Tearing open the envelope bearing the official seal of the “Texas Department of Child Protective Services,” my clammy hands trembled, my forehead glistening with beads of nervous sweat, and throat instantly filled with a putrid pool of vomit.

“If this is one of Bryan’s jokes, I’ll dismember him!” I seethed.

But then I reconsidered, knowing that a cruel prank would be infinitely better than an official investigation of my (many) parental deficiencies.

Frantically scanning the letter, Relief washed over me as I realized that it was simply an ironically-timed request for a statement of reference on behalf of friends seeking to become foster parents.

Bad joke, Tad.  Very bad joke.

Most nights as we drift off to sleep, Bryan whispers the same sweet sentiment: “I love you.”

I groggily croak: “I love you more.”

But being the competitive sort, he trumps me: “I love you most.”

And so it has been for the last five years, until a few nights ago.

Vivi had charmed her way between us that evening, claiming her spot smack dab in the middle of our queen-sized bed.  You see, like the Veela from Ariana’s favorite Harry Potter books, Vivi has magical powers of persuasion over her daddy.  With a simple smile and the bat of her baby blues, she can pretty much get whatever she wants.  And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m more than a little jealous.  And thus is was that evening.

Bryan whispers in Vivi’s right ear: “Tell mom: I love her.”

Vivi whispers to Mom: “Dad loves you.”

Mom whispers in Vivi’s left ear: “Tell Dad: I love him more.”

Vivi whispers to Dad: “Mom loves you more.”

Bryan whispers to Vivi: “Tell mom: I love her most.”

Vivi pauses and a shy smile creeps across her face as she catches on to our little game.

Vivi triumphantly whispers to me: “Dad loves me MOST!”

Yeah.  That’s what I thought! 😉

It started innocently enough.  I simply wanted to crochet some pumpkin hats for my kids, but, before I knew it, I was HOOKED!

While I have not given up the hope of returning to quilting someday, at this point, it’s just too dangerous to have Baby Tad in the craft room with me while I’m sewing.  The iron, rotary cutters, scissors, etc., etc. pose too much of a temptation for my busy boy.  Fortunately, crocheting is portable and can be done on the couch while he plays with safer toys.  It’s also a wonderful way to pass the time while waiting for Ariana at piano lessons.

After much experimentation and searching, I’ve found my absolute FAVORITE pattern for the most perfect little baby booties.  I even came up with my own little flower embellishment for this sweet pair that, coupled with a little flower headband, are going to a baby shower tonight.

As fourth grade winds down, I think that Ariana would have mixed reviews of her year.  Her teacher, Mrs. Sanderson, has been nothing short of fabulous.  But each day when the recess bell rings, a feeling of emptiness fills the heart of my sweet 4th grader.  Girls who she once thought her friends now, at best, purposefully exclude her from their play and, at worst, say hurtful, hateful things.

Her needs are simple and her request, just one.  She just wants a friend.  A real, honest to goodness, BFF.

I longed for the days when I could make the hurt go away with a Hello Kitty band-aid or a simple kiss.  I prayed for guidance to know how I could help Ariana not feel so lonely … how I could help her find a friend.

The answer to this prayer came unexpectedly …

A few weeks ago, Ariana came home from school, shoulders drooping from the weight of her backpack and the events of the day.  Oblivious, I started in on my usual boot camp drill sergeant routine.  But, with tears streaming down her face, Ariana waited for a pause and quietly said, “Mom, I have such hard days at school, I have no friends, and then I come home and you immediately start in on me, too.”

Suddenly, she wasn’t the only one with tears streaming down her face.

I had, at that moment, some sense for what Joseph Smith must have felt when he read in the Bible from James 1:5. “Never did any [declaration] come with more power to the heart of [a mother] than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again.” (JS History 1:12)

Be the BFF.  That was my answer.

In the words of President Monson:  “It is in the home that hope is fostered or destroyed.  Our homes are to be more than sanctuaries; they should also be places … where the storm stops at the door, where love reigns and peace dwells.”  (October 1999 GC)

The storm stops at the door.  I love that.  And I want my children to feel that … to know that, no matter what kind of day they’ve had, no matter how friendless they feel, I am their BFF and that when they are home, they are safe.

Sadly, the reality is that my kids still do far too much time on the naughty spot for petty crime … for things that I should be much more patient about.  Vivi was sent there this morning because I took offense at how she asked for a peanut butter sandwich.  But, in the few moments that I’ve spent writing this, I’ve had several occasions when I could have lost my cool with my kids and didn’t.  Progress?  I choose to think so.

After loading The Littles into the car last week, I had to run back in the house to look up an address. When I re-entered the garage, I heard Baby Tad wailing. He sometimes whines but rarely wails … unless he’s been hurt, and he’s a tough kid, so it takes a lot to hurt him.

A mother’s kiss quieted the poor little guy’s sobs, so I hopped in the front seat and began chauffeuring to our destination. As I drove, I questioned Vivi about why Tad was crying.

She coolly explained, “His arm got hurt.”

Two things struck me about her answer.

First, he was strapped securely in his car seat. Were there back-seat hidden dangers lurking within arms reach that I had heretofore neglected to mitigate?

Second, she answered in the “passive voice.”

I’m a bit of a grammar nerd. That’s not to say that I have perfect punctuation or grammar… far from it. In fact, my trademark use (and some might accurately say “over-use”) of the ellipse (…) is, at best, unorthodox, and, at worst, flat out wrong. If my Business Writing professor from BYU (Professor Bell) were to read my blog, it would bleed red ink. In fact, I credit (blame) him for my heightened sensitivity to the “passive voice.” In the days before word processors and auto-grammar checking (yes, I’m THAT old), I got dinged on my papers time and time again for mis-using the passive voice. I also got marked down for being verbose. Hard to believe, I know.

Anyway, a passive construction occurs when you make the object of an action into the subject of a sentence. That is, whoever or whatever is performing the action is not the grammatical subject of the sentence.

Example: His arm got hurt.

The primary reason why grammarians (and mothers) frown on the passive voice is that we are left guessing at the true meaning of the sentence.

Who hurt Tad’s arm?

How did his arm get hurt?

At times, use of the passive voice is accidental (as in case of my poorly written college papers), but it can also be employed as a sneaky tactic to hide blame or obscure responsibility.

When we arrived at our destination and I unbuckled Tad from his car seat, my suspicions were confirmed.

Needless to say, Vivi passed the afternoon in the quiet solitude of her room to avoid more aggressive consequences.

My sister, Heidi Ho, recently reminded me that “finished is better than perfect.” She’s the queen of finishing things. I’m the queen of trying to create a perfect plan … but then something invariably gets caddywhompus during the execution of said plan, and I get overwhelmed and subsequently give up.

Inspired by her recent visit (more on that later) and buoyed up by her example of fearless finishing, I started AND finished a quilt for a baby shower I was helping to host … in one day. The Littles and I headed out to JoAnn’s at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, got fabric (after overcoming a bit of analysis paralysis), made a couple more stops, returned home, ate lunch, and then I started in on the quilt shortly before 2:00 in the afternoon. I stopped long enough to deliver Ariana and a friend to All-City Choir practice at 4:00, was back at it by 4:30 and finished an hour later.

The quilt is no work of art. It is a simple blanket made of two fabrics–floral flannel and off-white chenille; I used the “wrong” side of the chenille on some of the blocks to give it more personality. The squares are 7 1/2″ finished; it has no batting; three pieces of rick rack sewn on diagonally across the quilt are the only “quilting” that holds the layers together; and I cheated on the “binding” by cutting the back 1″ bigger than the front on all sides and then folding it over twice to the front form a “faux” binding.

But for all its imperfections, finishing it was not only better than perfection … it was a MIRACLE!