Return of the Hippie Summer

Summer in Salt Lake City is blissful.  Fall is exciting, Winter is snuggly, Spring is just flat out awful, but Summer is rad.

Salt Lake provides an interesting cross section of middle class people who love the outdoors.  San Francisco generates rich foodies turned green/vegan/fad diet afficinados who love snobby Napa wine.  Portland is exactly like Portlandia -- obnoxious self righteous hippies.  Seattle is subject to it's horrible weather, but Salt Lake is the perfect blend.  

People really do spend weekend mornings going hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing and all those other relaxed free sports.  This contributes to the laid back slow pace you find in Utah.  The afternoons are nap heavy and evenings mean outside barbecues and frisbang (Jude calls frisbee frisbang and I will not allow him to be corrected.)  The common thread with the weekend activities is free.  

On Sunday afternoon in Liberty park the hippies gather with their hippie toys: slack lines, frisbangs, hula hoops and our family favorite: the drum circle.  The atmosphere is what I imagine Golden Gate park was in the 60's: come one, come all, share all the toys, chat with whomever.  It's friendly and kid friendly, if you ignore the casual marijuana use that lingers in the background.

I can't think of any place in the Bay Area that operates at this lazy low cost pace and I think the mountain environment begets the friendly malaise.  The only comparable place I've experienced is either Ashland, Oregon or the Athenian School.  Who knew that being the only Mormon kid at the afternoon Grateful Dead dance parties at Athenian would find it's natural development into drum circles with my children in Salt Lake City?  Who could have predicted that the rock climbing class I loved in high school and the underground rock concerts I would go to in SF would translate to marrying a climber who spends all his down time playing the guitar?  

It's a pretty good life out here.  And I'm sure there are plenty of musical barbecues in my near future.

The Only Recipe I Need This Summer

Hush's Recipe for Perfect Coke

1. Buy coke in the bottle.

2. Drink some of it.

3. Put it in the freezer while you clean your kitchen.

4. Drink perfectly icy coke.

You're welcome.

(Step 5. Forget about it in the freezer and be sad when it's totally frozen.)

No Nap Day

Started the day with a water wall project for the boys. It was a success, though difficult to construct because I had to nail the bottles to the fence with a hammer.  Once we got it flowing they played with it for at least 20 minutes. Fun project, though!

Then we went to see Mimi perform at her school.  The show was patriotically themed and the first graders sang about 15 songs.  I was impressed by the pacing and the kid's knowledge of all the lyrics, even the third verse of the Halls of Montezuma song AND all Fifty Nifty United States.  She's going to know all the 4th of July songs forever!  Very happy with the school's mandatory performance programs.  The arts are not dead in schools.

Mimi practice "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" about a million times at home, each time at the root root root for part, "The GIANTS" and she would get so angry.  In the middle of the performance I couldn't resist and shouted "GIANTS" because stupid Utah doesn't have a home team anyway and they need to remember which team rules.

5 months pregnant, dreadlocks.

Next we hit Home Depot and bought plastic laminate and duct tape with the intentions of making the water blob thing you see all over Pinterest. 

It would have been a smashing success, but that the weight of the water taught me that we live on a slight incline.  The damn thing rolled half way down the hill.

And then it popped.  It was fun while it lasted, but do yourself a favor and don't bother trying that one at home.

Apparently one can get a lot done when one doesn't take a two hour nap.  I shall not repeat that error. Less is more.

Plan Enacted

Previous post removed (temporarily) because I can’t stand having those kind of random and unfounded lies written by an ignoramus floating out there.  I really appreciate the comments and support, verifying that I am right in drawing the line with that stupid (and not even cute!) just-ignorant-enough-to-be-dangerous 21 yr old who doesn’t know the difference between “your” and “you’re”.    Oh, and to the commenter who suggested that that type of behavior indicates a history of abuse – I looked through the rest of the blog and she does have that in her past.  Poor thing.  No wonder she has such low self esteem.  No undamaged person would behave in such a way.  At least that person has the good sense to ensure me over and over he would never marry her – you don’t marry people you cheat on.  That’s gotta hurt. 

She’ll eventually wake up and see what a dead end situation she’s in and how much trouble she’s caused and how nuts she acted.  Time gives us perspective. 

Anyway, I’ve developed an action plan. 

Love you readers.  You always give me good perspective.

The Symptoms

Once upon a time I had easy breezy pregnancies.  Three kids in three years was no sweat.  I don't know if it's my advanced maternal age (ha.), the altitude, the different father, or some other mysterious reason but my body is talking back during this pregnancy.  It has opinions and they are scornful.
Let me start out by saying I have a high tolerance for physical irritation.  Like most mothers, when I feel sick I medicate and march on.  It takes a lot to lay me out.  But each trimester (so far) has come with a new set of unfamiliar problems.
Having a pregnant body is like the city of Chernobyl.  Everything was going along fine until nature took over and made me its subject.

First Trimester Aggravations
1.  The barfs.  Barf central 24/7.
2.  The starves.  Couldn't decide if I was hungry or needed to barf, but usually it was both.
3.  The smells.  I finally went out and bought face masks like they wear in Asia.  And a slew of candles.
4.  The sleeps.  Cannot keep my eyes open.  Have frequently taken more than one nap a day.
5.  Migraines from hell.  My migraines are super rad.  They last at least three days and are essentially debilitating requiring me to hide in a dark quiet room while it feels like a gnome is mining for gold on one side of my head.  The migraine medicine exacerbates my barfing and isn't good for pregnancy.  The barfing migraines give me digestive problems.  Every issue I have builds on other issues until the best I can do is lay around and moan.  Any one or two of these issues would be bearable, but all five at once made me nonfunctional.  And when you have the barfs and the smells you end up with the messy house and the overwhelms.

Second Trimester Frustrations
Once the barfs tapered off (though not completely, I still barf a few times a week) my body was like, "Hey let's try some new pain!"
1. Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction.  I didn't even know this existed until I caught it.  And by caught it I mean hit the second trimester with my fourth baby. The symphysis pubis is a stiff joint that connects the two halves of your pelvis and in 1/35 the ligaments can overreact and cause serious pain.  I'm only about 21 weeks and not that great with child but my body Chernobyl'd and now I can't move my legs independently to a. Put on pants. b. Climb into or turn over in bed or c. do anything that involves moving one leg away from the other without a ferocious pain in my pelvis.  It feels like David Beckham kicked me in the crotch hard enough to bruise me and then kicked the bruise a few times for good measure.  Tylenol provides no relief.  If you see me out of my bed at all know that I am dealing with level 7 pain.  Anybody got any tips?  I'm only five months in, if this gets worse I'm going to be in a wheelchair by the end.

2.  Sciatic nerve pain.  Yippee.  This one is when a nerve on your back is slightly pinched and pain shoots up and down your body until you limp.  For this I try sleeping on a tennis ball and by morning it's usually ok.  During the day it builds until I find myself practically (ok, sometimes literally) crawling.

I seriously do not understand why my body is rebelling in this way but I simply will not capitulate to it's tyranny.  I remind it every day that it's gotta pull itself together because this is NOT going to be my last pregnancy.  I will function, pain or no pain, and it's all worth it because

IT'S A GIRL.

and more than that, it's my sweet Hush's girl.