For My Daughter

By Sarah McMane
“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.” – Clementine Paddleford

Never play the princess when you can
be the queen:
rule the kingdom, swing a scepter,
wear a crown of gold.
Don’t dance in glass slippers,
crystal carving up your toes --
be a barefoot Amazon instead,
for those shoes will surely shatter on your feet.

Never wear only pink
when you can strut in crimson red,
sweat in heather grey, and
shimmer in sky blue,
claim the golden sun upon your hair.
Colors are for everyone,
boys and girls, men and women --
be a verdant garden, the landscape of Versailles,
not a pale primrose blindly pushed aside.

Chase green dragons and one-eyed zombies,
fierce and fiery toothy monsters,
not merely lazy butterflies,
sweet and slow on summer days.
For you can tame the most brutish beasts
with your wily wits and charm,
and lizard scales feel just as smooth
as gossamer insect wings.

Tramp muddy through the house in
a purple tutu and cowboy boots.
Have a tea party in your overalls.
Build a fort of birch branches,
a zoo of Legos, a rocketship of
Queen Anne chairs and coverlets,
first stop on the moon.

Dream of dinosaurs and baby dolls,
bold brontosaurus and bookish Belle,
not Barbie on the runway or
Disney damsels in distress --
you are much too strong to play
the simpering waif.

Don a baseball cap, dance with Daddy,
paint your toenails, climb a cottonwood.
Learn to speak with both your mind and heart.
For the ground beneath will hold you, dear --
know that you are free.
And never grow a wishbone, daughter,
where your backbone ought to be.

[Thanks to A Mighty Girl for sharing this with me.]

The [Pie Crust] Recipe the World Has Been Waiting For

This is my pie crust recipe. It is easy and not persnickety at all. Unlike most "never fail" recipes this requires no ice water, vinegar, delicate fork tossing, or pixie dust. You can re-roll it. You can touch it a lot. You can stir it too much. It still turns out well. The only note I have is don't get creative with the mixing method as that's where the magic lies.

 Never Fail Pie Crust

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
4 pinches baking powder (not soda)
1/2 cup water
1 cup shortening

Mix flour, salt and baking powder. Remove 1/2 cup of flour mixture and mix with water [makes a paste]. Set aside. Cut in shortening to flour mixture.* Pour on paste. Stir until blended. Roll out on floured board. Bake single shells in 400 degree oven 11 minutes.

Yield: 2 good sized pie crusts.

Original source: Janet Chance in The Pedalin' Gormet, a ward cookbook

* Personally I use a pastry blender I bought ages ago to cut in the shortening. I recommend buying one if you make pie crust or biscuits very often, but here's how to cut shortening in with two knives.

Exhibit A, a pastry blender:

What We Take With Us

My mother used to say that every time she saw chickens she thought of me. As an afterthought, she would add how much she hated chickens. This didn't happen once. It happened repeatedly. "Every time I see chickens, it just makes me think of you. Ug, I hate chickens!" It made me laugh every single time. One time I repeated it to her verbatim. A horrified look crossed her face as the she heard those two ideas side-by-side for the first time. "I suck. I am so sorry!" I laughed and explained that I understood. I loved my chickens. She saw chickens and thought of my love for chickens, then the thought of how much she hated chickens. A perfectly logical thought progression.

Recently, I've been thinking of my mom every time I see oleander. I loathe oleander. It's pokey and huge and poisonous. Terrible to try to eradicate. But my mom loved it because her mom loved it. It thrives in drought, a bright spot the drab brown of our Northern Californian summers. But man, I hate that stuff.

At the beginning of August, my yvil sister and I buried my mother's ashes. Y had collected a batch of little trinkets to bury with her, the dogs' name tags, little charms with all of our birthstones, a rainbow girls thing-a-ma-bobber, and a Starbucks latte, prepared just the way my mom liked. I brought nothing.

She placed the plastic box of ashes in the hole and scattered her meaningful trinkets over and around the box, and wedged the latte in there. I went to the edge of the cemetery, picked some oleander blossoms, and placed them on top of the other things. They were lovely: poisonous, pokey and lovely.

They reminded me of my mom, of my relationship with my mom. Are there two different ways of looking at something? We'd take opposite stances. Sometimes that could get a little impassioned, hating something the other person loved. But always we loved each other, even when we were so angry (or hurt) we could hardly speak to each other.

When we had only days left, did we talk oleander or chickens? No. At the beginning of the end, when her capacity for speech was really winding down, she had one thing to tell me—I love you. When she was signing Christmas cards, she could hardly write her name, but she wrote IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou all joined together. She loved me. She hated chickens, homeschooling, attachment parenting, home birth, and the Mormon church, but she loved me. In the end, that love was all that mattered.

What We Bring With Us

Yesterday, Jacob's math teacher called home. I was rather surprised that anything Jacob did would warrant a call home. He's kind of perfect at school. In fact, that is what the call was about. A kind teacher called to tell me that my son was acing his AP Calculus assignments, that he was well-behaved, and insightful, an asset to the class. Needless to say, I love hearing that. I should probably write her a thank you note. 

There is nothing in Jacob's genetic make-up that would give him a natural edge in math. Certainly, his elementary teacher was only middling in math and not enamored of it. (In fact, my limitations as a math teacher are why Jacob chose to attend public school as a sophomore. "Math books and CDs only explain it one way, Mom.") Neither nurture nor nature should have produced my math boy, but Jacob has excelled from the very beginning. He has both love and aptitude for the subject. This talent as much as anything else convinces me that children developed as individuals with their Father in Heaven prior to their birth.

It's interesting to see how the attributes that my children showed so early on are developing. Elaine was an observant baby. She watched people, listened to them, absorbed. Now she is one of the most insightful people I know. She notices nuances in people's words and body language. She finds people fascinating. I always ask her to tone-check sensitive emails (things that might easily blow up) before I send them off. Invariably, she catches subtext. Not surprisingly, psychology is the field that fascinates her. Gifts. 

My husband is a talented musician. From the time he was a wee child he knew he wanted to play the trumpet. Nothing in his family would have taken him that direction. It just was part of him. His family thought he was just being a kid and it would pass. When he was five, they gave him a toy trumpet which was greeted with joy, quickly followed by disgust as he realized that it was a fake. Seven years later his parents got him the real thing and a teacher, a great teacher. Music still feeds his soul.

I myself was a born reader. My mom tells the story of finding me teaching the neighborhood kids to read when I was four. No one taught me to read. I had "Sesame Street," "The Electric Company," and a gift from God. My Natalie similarly began to read early with very little instruction. Just a gift and a passion.

I love this stanza from Wordsworth's Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.

 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
          The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
              Hath had elsewhere its setting,
                And cometh from afar:
              Not in entire forgetfulness,
              And not in utter nakedness,
          But trailing clouds of glory do we come
              From God, who is our home:

At one point, I believed I would shape my children to be what they ought to be. Now, I know better. Yes, I do influence them, but they are vehemently their very own selves, formed before they gained physical bodies. I'm blessed to be able to watch them blossom into those selves.

In Which I Attempt to Convince Myself of a Truth

Yesterday, I was feeling yucky. I looked up at my daughter and said, "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just feel so bad."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, what happened? Oh . . . right."

Then I remembered what I'd been distracting myself from all week. Something yucky had happened, something that blew me out of the water, something I didn't want to deal with. And I buried it. Under distractions: being busy, being mom, watching SciFi, reading everything I could get my hands on. It worked, I forgot the problem. I was sort of dazed this week, unable to concentrate, and whenever I got a minute and my mind began to focus on the issue, I shoved myself head-first into something that would make my thoughts SHUT UP.

Distraction worked and it didn't work. The pain was still there. My subconscious was picking at the scab. I had symbolic nasty nightmares all week. I still felt like crap; I just wasn't as sure why.

I know I need to write. Some people need to run. Or to paint. Or to dismantle a car engine and put it back together. I need to write. Writing is the way my brain processes yuck, takes my issues, those chaotic feelings, and forms them into sense. Then my psyche lets the problem go. When my thoughts threaten to drown me, if I write them out then I clarify those thoughts, work through them. I have a journal entry or a bad poem or blog post instead of free-floating anxiety. Seems like a fine idea.

But I've been avoiding writing. Because the clarity hurts. Writing hurts. But after I write, the things stop killing me. My subconscious lets them go. When I wrote about my mom's death I sobbed through the process. I sobbed as I read the post twenty times, then I moved on. The nightmares stopped. I could think about what happened in passing without being thrown back into the situation. There's hundreds of instances on my blog, in my journals, in my correspondence of times when this process has happened.

With distraction, I feel better in the short run. With writing, I feel better in the long run.  Like exercise and good nutrition, like getting enough rest, like the golden rule, like reading the scriptures daily, the easy way is the wrong way. And not easier. Truly. 

Wonder What Brought That To Mind

Elaine and I were walking tonight, chatting away, when she mentioned that she didn't like the creepy aspects of Dr. Who. Perfectly normal things suddenly were creeping her out. Things like statues. And shadows. We both glanced back at the driveway we had just passed. And saw. . .

No sign of the Doctor though.

Twenty Years Ago

January 17, 1992

Jami and Sam were married in the Oakland temple.

It's been a very eventful twenty years. If I'd been married in a standard wedding ceremony, I would have vowed to have and to hold my sweetheart "for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part." We've had better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness and health. We do love and cherish each other, but I am glad that all that work we've put in through the worst, the poverty and the sickness is going to pay off a little longer than until death. (Let's face it the better, richer, healthier times are their own reward.) Our vows are for eternity and distinctly include a third party, our Father in Heaven. Without him, we doubtless would have quit. With him, we have a relationship worth having for eternity.

I don't remember much of the ad lib part of my wedding ceremony, where the man sealing our marriage for time and all eternity gives his thoughts and advice on marriage, but I remember one thing vividly: his testimony of the importance of the atonement of Jesus Christ, of repentance, and of the need to forgive each other as God forgives us. I remember how intensely I felt the Holy Spirit confirm the truth of those words. As I've thought about what to say about a marriage that has weathered the stormy seas, I just want to say to those on those seas that there is joy and sun ahead through the atonement. Truly, God heals. "Whatever Jesus lays his hands upon lives. If Jesus lays his hands upon a marriage, it lives. If he is allowed to lay his hands on the family, it lives."

Don't get me wrong. I love my husband. I enjoy having and holding him. His quirky sense of humor makes me smile. His humility inspires me. His voice melts me. Tonight we are going to ditch our six kids and go do something fun. Even so, our anniversary is a day, just one out of 7,304 so far. I look forward to many more and to an eternity beyond our years.

The Truth Ain't Always Comforting

My mom died early in the morning on December 21st. Everybody wants to die peacefully in their sleep. Everyone wants to hear that someone they love died easily. I've been lying pretty steadily to my mother's friends and relatives. If you want that, stop reading now. Read my lie and stop: Yes, it was easy and peaceful. I miss her very much.



The truth is: My mother's death was the most horrific thing I have ever witnessed.  I have never seen suffering that intense (and I've been a part of 11 drug-free births). Listening to her take her last couple of breaths may well have been the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. I miss her immensely, but no one in their right mind would wish even one more second of life upon my mother.

Her pain control had never been great. On average, I'd say the last two weeks of her life were spent at an 8 on that infernal pain scale. (See here and here for irreverent explanations of the pain scale. Language warning on the second link.) The hospice team took us slowly through a gamut of meds. We started with Norco (a codeine and acetaminophen mix), moved to long-acting morphine pills, then to liquid morphine, Fentanyl patches and finally a Dilaudid IV pump. Each time Vlas, the hospice nurse, visited he would call the doctor and increase the meds. (He advocated for my mom compassionately and aggressively. God bless him.) And none of it worked until we got to the Dilaudid pump. It, combined with six Fentanyl patches, knocked her out and allowed her to rest peacefully. We had the pump for two days.

They give you a booklet that explains the signs of death. Several books actually. And the yvil sister and I read them and read them. A week prior to her death my mother was doing everything that indicated that she could die any minute. (Except the mottling of hands and feet—that woman died with pretty pink hands and feet.) The waiting was excruciating. (I am not a good wait-er under the best of circumstances.) The hardest was the death rattle that went on for days. She would stop breathing for 15-20 seconds several times an hour. I found myself holding my breath with her, hoping there would be no more. Hoping she'd die peacefully in her sleep.

At about 2 am, the death rattle changed. I could tell death was near. I prayed my sister would be able to sleep through it. Not likely. Mom began moaning, and that moan turned into a noise that was as loud as a scream, but not as shrill. After about forty minutes, Y came in.

The Dilaudid pump allowed four extra doses an hour at the press of a button. I have never been so precise before in my life. Fifteen minutes, press. Fifteen minutes, press. I slapped our last Fentanyl patch on her (for a grand total of  seven 100 µg per hour patches).

My mom had bought a book, years ago, about how to kill yourself in a dignified manner in the event of an incurable disease. She'd had me read it and asked if I would be very angry if she chose that route. She never got to that point while she was lucid. (Very disturbing, that book.) I pulled that out now. Not to kill her. (I'd already had to reassure Y that Mom would never have wanted her to go to jail for any reason, ever. Even though she'd said "kill me" days before.) I pulled the book out to figure out how much liquid morphine is lethal, so that I could give her as much as I could without actually hastening her death. I quickly determined that liquid morphine was hard to get to a lethal dosage once you've been taking it for a while and that the lethal dosage was quite high, well beyond any amount we could get into her. I began giving the dose that had been prescribed for breakthrough pain, slowly because she couldn't swallow and it had to be absorbed under her tongue. All the while: fifteen minutes, press; fifteen minutes, press; fifteen minutes, press.

Three and a half hours later, the moaning/screaming/death rattling subsided into mere moaning/death rattling. A half an hour after that it stopped altogether.

When she came to confirm death, the hospice nurse asked why we hadn't called for help. They could have increase the dosage of Dilaudid the pump was giving her. In hindsight, we'd had time, but at the time we didn't know.We thought we were minutes away. Additionally, the night hospice team sucked. And the night dispatch nurse sucked even more. (Had a couple of prior attempts at nighttime advice to confirm that one.) It would be an hour before they could get there. And the pump took more than an hour to set up originally. Additionally, we were too busy giving her the pain meds we had and holding her hand.

I felt betrayed by the hospice literature. By all the people who had had sweet peaceful deaths. By everyone who had ever touched my mother medically. I'd never heard of anything like this. I felt like my sister and I were dumped into the middle of a complicated surgery, handed a bunch of scalpels and sutures and told to figure it out. I still am in shock. It's been two weeks and I am still in shock. My mother-in-law hadn't died like that. My aunt hadn't. My uncle hadn't. They all died of similar diseases. If I had some sort of way to forget, I'd take it. But I don't. I get to be sucked back into the memory at random moments. To dream about it.

Finally, I just decided to write it. To get it the heck out of my head.  To save innocent bystanders who are politely wondering how I am doing. (The answer to that is just fine, most of the time.) To provide a cautionary tale to others. (Ponder long and hard about dying away from medical personnel. Weigh the risks of heinous medical interventions against the risks of dying with a sudden increase in the need for pain meds with all help at least an hour away.)

Don't worry about me. I have an amazing group of friends who have been there for me this whole journey. I will heal. I don't know how many times I will have to tell this story before it loses it's power, but I know that it will. Eventually it will become a memory, instead of a reality. Thank you to those of you who made it this far—thank you for holding my virtual hand while I've told my story.

The Latest CaringBridge Post

I'm not entirely sure how this next while is going to go, but I think the end is very near. I'm just re-posting the post I wrote for my mom's friends at CaringBridge. Not sure if I'm going to feel like posting like crazy or if my words will be trapped in my head. At least you'll know why.

Hospice 

Last month, Mom decided to discontinue chemotherapy and has opted to receive hospice care. Our first meeting took place two weeks ago. Since then we've had a wonderful nurse, Vlas, who has been visiting mom at home and taking care of all of her comfort needs.  

We're not sure how much longer we'll have with mom. For the last couple of days, she's not been eating or drinking much, which is a difficult transition for all of us. Vlas--and a bunch of other sources--have assured us that the curbing of her thirst and appetite are perfectly normal end of life developments. She's sleeping a lot too, which is also to be expected. 

Pain control has been an issue. They've adjusted the medications several times and seem to be coming to a reasonable level of control. As you pray for us, please pray that she can be comfortable for her remaining time, whether that time is measured in weeks or months. We have felt the power of your prayers many times in this journey, and I know the Lord will answer our earnest prayers. 

Thank you so much for all of your love, support and prayers. 

Jami

Apropos of Nothing

Many of you know that I am a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and you may have wondered how the daughter of a Southern-Baptist-turned-nudist-hippy mother learn about a belief system that is so hated by both of the worldviews from whence she came. Saturday morning cartoons, of course.

One morning, little 5-year-old me was watching a teeny tiny black and white TV. A tiny cartoon Donny Osmond sang "Puppy Love," and I fell. Hard. In love with a cartoon boy. Not too long after that I saw the commercial for Donny Osmond's greatest hits and began the beg-a-thon. A successful beg-a-thon. I had the album in my possession at the next gift-giving occasion.

He sang songs about little girls with blue eyes who are much too young to know about love. I wanted to marry him. But he was SO OLD! Would he wait for me to grow up?

For five years, I hoped. Then one day my mom burst my bubble.

"He's Mormon. Mormons only marry Mormons."

"What?"

 "Mormons. It's a religion. Like Catholics or Jews. They only marry people who are in their religion."

 "How do I become Mormon? What do they believe?"

"You have to be born a Mormon. I know they aren't allowed to go sleeveless. All their shirts have to have some kind of sleeves."

I cried. A ten year old kid crying because Donny not only was ten years older than she was, but also would never marry her because she was (by this point) Presbyterian. Honestly, my little heart hurt SO much. I can still feel the memory ache today.

Three years later, I'd mostly overcome my puppy love, and one of my mother's facts on Mormons turned out to be false. You don't have to be born a Mormon. My step-mother joined the Mormon church and when I came to visit that summer, asked me if I wanted to meet with the sister missionaries. (Nuns? Mormons have nuns?) Sure. I guess.

Any guesses what my first question was? Yep. Why do Mormons have to wear sleeves? My second was related: What about Marie? She went sleeveless all the time! So my very first piece of legitimate information about the church was about temple garments as explained by two LDS sister missionaries to a bra-less 13-year-old in a tank top. (I'd gotten to the hippy part of my existence.)

Eventually, I joined the church, but the journey was quite rough, worthy of its own blog post (or two).

This story came up the other day, and I turned to You Tube to illustrate.

"Is that Justin Bieber?!" asked V, my besotted 9-year-old.

"No, but now that you mention it. . ."

                                           

When Delusions Collide

Saturday, my mom started hospice, the in-home kind. So yeah, we're getting there. The chemotherapy is not helping and is, in fact, sapping all joy and comfort out of her remaining days, so she stopped. The doctor said that of course we don't know precisely how much longer she's got, but given her symptoms (weight loss, appetite loss, difficulty breathing, blood clots, recurrent infections, routine dehydration, weakness) and the x-ray confirmation that tumors are getting more profuse and bigger, not smaller, we are looking at a couple months.

The first hospice meeting was an enrollment meeting with some kind of administrator/nurse, Linda, a nice lady. She explained the program to us. Explained the stringent requirements. (Did you know you can get kicked out of hospice if you plateau too long? [I wish!] Must be journeying toward death to qualify.) She answered our diverse questions, and exhibited incredible patience.

My mom asked a few reasonable questions and did a whole lot of listening. My aunt sat in one corner, saying things like "She's getting better, not worse; she doesn't need this." My sister sat in another corner, shaking and weeping softly. My mom's friend gave a spirited account of her volunteer service in Hurricane Katrina. My 18-year-old, Elaine, who's the one actually living with her, said nothing. We all recoiled in horror when we realized they wouldn't give her IV fluids at home (which she does twice a week), that at some point she'd be too weak to go and they still wouldn't do it.

Honestly, it's all a bit of a surreal blur. Elaine says I behaved well. (Good to know as there was a great deal of "OH, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, PULL IT TOGETHER, YOU WEIRDOS!" going on in my head.) Honestly, I can't remember much except my family's bizarre behavior and going through all mom's meds with Linda, the RN.

Some real perks to hospice: We no longer pay for OTC or co-pays on prescriptions. One call gets us medical advice day or night. One nurse contacts all of the doctors for my mom. Some of this uncontrolled pain will be eased. Someone else is going to change her sheets twice a week. (My shoulder sort of hates me.) A social worker will help our family work through some of the issues surrounding mom's illness and death.

And boy, are there some issues. One of the drawbacks of moving to hospice care is that it's really bringing out our different points of view. Very uncomfortable.

My aunt believes that the doctors don't know what they are talking about and my mom is not going to die from this and if we would all just send our positive thoughts into the universe she would be recovering from all these nasty complications from the meds much faster.

My sister believes that she will not survive my mother's death and there will never be happiness again. Ever. About anything.

I believe that as the chemo works it's way out of my mom's system, she will feel better for a while. Then the cancer will attempt a take-over and my mom will ultimately die. (At which point, the cancer loses forever. This thought is grimly satisfying. Cancer never wins. Never.) Then my mom's spirit will join her family and friends who have gone before her in the spirit world and she will await the resurrection. Then she gets a perfect pain-free body, as does everyone else she loves. I like my worldview best.

Still the suffering right now is hard. I spend a lot of time pondering the purpose of all this. Started reading The Book Thief, which by all accounts is fabulous, and had to set it aside. Anything narrated by Death is going to have to wait. For a long while, I'm guessing.

I've decided that it's OK that my husband under-reacts to emotional trauma. (see http://www.supermisc.blogspot.com/2010/11/his-and-hers.html) He's calm. He and God are kinda holding the world together for me.

Ode to Clothes

Yeah, I know—it's a poem (not mine--do I look mean?). Give it a shot. It's easy and you might like it.

Ode to Clothes

Every morning you wait,
clothes, over a chair,
to fill yourself with
my vanity, my love,
my hope, my body.
Barely
risen from sleep,
I relinquish the water,
enter your sleeves,
my legs look for
the hollows of your legs,
and so embraced
by your indefatigable faithfulness
I rise, to tread the grass,
enter poetry,
consider through the windows,
the things,
the men, the women,
the deeds and the fights
go on forming me,
go on making me face things
working my hands,
opening my eyes,
using my mouth,
and so,
clothes,
I too go forming you,
extending your elbows,
snapping your threads,
and so your life expands
in the image of my life.
In the wind
you billow and snap
as if you were my soul,
at bad times
you cling
to my bones,
vacant, for the night,
darkness, sleep
populate with their phantoms
your wings and mine.
I wonder
if one day
a bullet
from the enemy
will leave you stained with my blood
and then
you will die with me
or one day
not quite
so dramatic
but simple,
you will fall ill,
clothes,
with me,
grow old
with me, with my body
and joined
we will enter
the earth.
Because of this
each day
I greet you
with reverence and then
you embrace me and I forget you,
because we are one
and we will go on
facing the wind, in the night,
the streets or the fight,
a single body,
one day, one day, some day, still.


- Pablo Neruda

Just Whining

Speaking to me is a bit risky these days. I burst into tears without warning. Not without reason, just without warning. Wanna talk about my mom's cancer? Leakage. Wanna talk older children's testimonies? Shaky voice. Tears. Snot. How's about the homeschooling of my special daughter? Bewildered look. Quivering lip. A muttered mention of an upcoming appointment with the pediatric neurologist which might (or might not) yield helpful information.

New charter school for three of the kids? Good for two. Pretty unpleasant for one. It's likely I can get through that subject with a totally calm face. But don't ask how I'm feeling. Don't ask how my husband's business is going. Or how the finances are coming along. Definitely don't ask how all these stressors affect my poor husband.

How's the rheumatoid arthritis? Better, thanks. Yay, I can hold a convo on that one. The weather? It's been strange lately, don't you think? As long as I stay away from anything that I need to talk about I can talk. Ironic, no?

I've taken to ditching Sunday School for the family history library. (Dead folks ask no questions. If they're rejecting the gospel, they are keeping it to themselves. There's not a thoughtless comment among them.) At home (in between dealing with all of that weepy stuff) I've planted my butt in front of the twenty-some odd seasons of Star Trek in all it's mind-numbing diversity.

The bishop wants to meet with Sam and I to talk. I can't think of anything I'd rather do less than cry for the bishop, but I can't even manage to say that without crying. Maybe I can pull off the first lady adoring gaze at my husband while pondering peaceful fields of wildflowers. I don't have a good hat, but I still think I can do it. Sam can field the questions.

But then again the bishop might just be asking us to work in the nursery. He's a nice guy; I'm sure it'll be fine. Tearful, but fine.

The Snack Time Minefield

Nine years ago when Nat was a Kindergartner, we had some issues with class snack. We were montessori-ing it at that point, and snack time and civility was a big deal—bring your own placemat. So the plan was that every twenty days we'd bring snack for twenty kids. Simple enough, no? No.

First came vegan mom's horror, Oreos. ("What kind of person would feed their five-year-old Oreos?!? At 10 in the morning!?!" [I plead the fifth.])

Then came nut allergy mom. ("Actually, if any of the kids eat peanut butter before they come to school, would you mind bathing them thoroughly before they leave for school? In fact, could you just stop eating peanut butter in your homes? Thanks!")

Then the dairy allergy raised it's ugly head. ("Not everything. Just milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, sour cream, those sorts of things. Bread is OK.")

"Please no wheat allergy. Please no "dried fruit causes cavities" dentist's kids, please!" became my prayer. I distinctly remember the day I went to make ants on a log and bought cream cheese to use instead of pb, but then realized that cream cheese was dairy. OK, ants next to a log.

Such a stress. It took months before the teacher came to the conclusion that everyone should bring their own snack for civility time. In the meantime, I just brought in boxes of back-up snacks and tried to stay out of the line of fire.

It's hard to find something that works for twenty different mom/kid combos. One person's yum is another person's yuck. Hummus, a favorite of vegan mom, gagged my daughter. People's definition of healthy varied widely. Although most of us recognized Oreos as a nutrition fail, fruit snacks, yogurt, and muffins also raised a ruckus among some parents.

Fast forward to Caroline's class which started last week, it took precisely two days and a glance over everyone's health forms to reveal that some of our cuties have nut allergies (almonds, walnuts, pecans—no peanuts, amazingly enough) and dairy sensitivities. By that night an email went out explaining the issue and explaining the new snack procedure. It was pretty complicated: bring something your child can and will eat in a container marked with her name. Works for me.

But here's where my brain stalls out. You can run into kids with conflicting needs. My best friend's son had food issues. He ate nothing but Jif smooth peanut butter and honey bear honey on Home Pride butter-top white bread (PBH). What happens when that PBH boy is in the same school as death by peanut fumes girl?

When Nat was in fourth grade she couldn't bring PB in her lunch, because there was a girl in her class that had a preschool sibling at home who had a deadly allergy. There's an entire school in our district that is peanut-free. And I get it. You can't just say, "Suck it up and carry an epi-pen! Gotta enter the real world sometime, kid." But can you say, "OK, we'll go to tube feeding for you, PBH kid"?

I'm guessing most people would vote for PBH boy to just be hungry until he gets home and say that if you just feed a picky child a variety of healthy foods and don't give them their food of choice when they fail to eat the options before them, they'll get hungry enough to eat something other than PBH. Eventually. I bear my testimony that there are children in the world who will not eat rather than eat undesired food. I've met them. I've seen heroic efforts put forth by admirable parents. I've seen the kids begin to waste away. Not pretty in a land of plenty.

So what to do when picky runs into food allergy? No clue. And I'm glad I don't have to decide it. Just glad our Kindergarten teacher decisively took care of snack so quickly.

Stand Strong, Little Domino

I know you're thinking "what's with the domino?" If you're not, you should be, because the sweetness of this gift is all about the domino. It's a gift from a kind and busy woman. This week, one of the speakers in sacrament meeting had been talking about adversity, and afterwards my friendly acquaintance and I were talking about life's challenges and I shared my domino image.

When things get tough and it seems like things are hitting from all sides, I have a mental image that holds me together—dominoes. I see lines of dominoes all converging at a single domino. And then from that single domino come another set of domino lines, from which spring even more domino lines. The first set all fall one after another, and then stop at the single domino. That domino stands strong and doesn't knock over the remaining lines.

I'm not saying I'm Super Domino. I'm not. And something may happen down the line that topples the setup, but it won't be me. It won't be because I quit. I don't want to do hard things. I'd much rather life was fluffy and more picturesque, but it's not. And I have dominoes depending on me. Most of the dominoes that strike me are things or situations, but all of the dominoes that stand in front of me are people. People worth standing strong for, regardless of the pressures from behind.

So that's the deal with the domino (and the flowers are pretty too).