The 30-year old Sunbeam

Last Sunday was the first time I went to primary. Ever.

Our oldest have turned 3, and with the new year brings Primary. We've been talking up Sunbeams for a couple of months, to no avail. Sunday brought crying, kicking, whining, and clingyness. So, I went to Primary with them, deluded, thinking I could be of help.

I had a blast. I so want a Primary calling. Those Sunbeams are a crack up:

Sharing Time lady: "Every one of us is a child of God. Where did we live before we came here?"

Sunbeam, raising hand: "We lived in California!"

Too funny. That kid's family had, indeed, just moved from California, so he answered the question correctly.

My two Sunbeams, unfortunately, weren't as engrossed in the lesson. At one point I dragged both of them out, and looked for a place where I could talk to them and calm everyone down. I found the "Member Cleaning Supplies" room. Good as any. We talked. They calmed down. We went back to the Primary room.

Only they had dismissed to classes. I told them we'd now be going to their class. This brought another round of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Back to the cleaning closet.

One of my sons wanted to go to class, the other didn't. So I decided to take the willing son to class, and come back and deal with the other one separately. This didn't go over too well.

Now, try to picture this, if you just happened to be walking down the hall and saw the following:

I found myself in the hallway, with one kid clung to my leg, crying, and another son standing in the door to the cleaning supply room, crying.

Me, frustrated, talking to son standing in the supply room: "Fine, just stay there and I'll deal with you in a minute!"

Then I turn around, and run right into... the stake president. Who just happened to be walking down the hallway at that moment. Of course. What timing. "Well," I think, "maybe he doesn't remember who I am."

"Hey Ed," he says (so much for not remembering me). "Looks like you have your hands full."

Yes, hands full, just leaving my poor children in a room full of deadly cleaning supplies and the mother-of-all-vacuum-cleaners. That's all.

We finally made it to class. Everyone was happy. I slipped out the door. And that was my first time in Primary.

The Eventful Holiday Eves

In an earlier post, I mentioned that my holidays were relatively uneventful. I suppose that is true, for the holidays themselves.

The "Eves," however, are another story.

CHRISTMAS EVE

We went over to my sister's house for dinner, as did my parents and my sister's in-laws (in-laws of my sister? you get the idea). We also brought a friend from our ward along (her husband had to work that night).

As we were leaving my sister's house, Anne's fancy-pants car started beeping. Okay, it's really not that fancy of a car, but it's fancier than what I drive, so I call it fancy. And it's a minivan, not a car. Our friend asked what the beeping meant. I explained that it beeps to warn you that you're about to hit something when going in reverse.

So, I demonstrated. "See, and as you get closer, the beeping gets faster."

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEPBEPBEPBEPBEP BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP ~*crunch* ~

Oops! What happened? In all the explaining, I actually forgot to push the brake pedal! And the target of my braking inability? The car belonging to my sister's mother-in-law (or, my sister's mother-in-law's car). Uh, Merry Christmas?

Moral of the story? When the car beeps, stop. That is, after all, why it beeps.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

We went to Fuddrucker's for dinner. I got a burger and a water. They have tall water glasses there. I even found some lemon, and had the water "seasoned" just the way I like it (something I rarely make the effort of doing, unless lemon is actually delivered hanging on the edge of my glass). We were sitting, waiting for our little coaster-pager thingy to start flashing, when for some reason I neglected to pay close attention to my 20 month old son. He reached out, grabbed my towering glass of perfectly-lemoned ice water, and knocked it over.

Into my lap. Caught reasonably off guard and surprised, I let out an expletive.

The man at the next table over was quick on his feet, and delivered a few paper napkins which essentially dissolved.

Then there was the issue of my pants, which were soaked from the crotch down. As the man from the next table said, laughing, "I'm witness! It wasn't that kind of an accident."

The food came. My burger was half cooked. Not in the sense that it was cooked half as long as I would have liked, but rather that half of it was cooked, and half of it wasn't. I think someone needs to check the griddle burners?

Anne, sweetheart that she is, took it back so I wouldn't have to walk past 75 people with wet crotch pants. When it finally came back, I was no longer hungry.

Moral of the story? Wear khaki, it dries quick (pants were dry by the time we got home).

Grrrrrrrr... aduate School

One person in my life that I have always and will always admire is my sister. She's smart. She's bright. She's beautiful.

She's got three college degrees, and is working on her fourth. Undergrad at UCLA. MBA from Pepperdine. Masters in Psychology from someplace else. Currently enrolled in another masters program of some sort. I can't keep track. She's got more degrees than a thermostat.

I weaseled my undergrad from the U of U. Upon returning from my mission, I went into my academic advisor's office with my transcripts and said, "This is what I've got. What's the fastest route outta here?"

Practical? Yes. The best decision? Not necessarily. Where did it get me? Into the same job I had all through college, only full-time and more pay.

So for the last couple of years my boss has been pestering me to go back to school. I love school, I enjoy school. But when I was in school, I didn't have a full-time job, a commute, kids, or a time-consuming calling.

I just found out that my GMAT scores are still valid--barely (I tried, unsuccessfully, at applying for a graduate program at that other school in Utah a few years back). So I sent them to a school in my area. Now I'm filling out the application.

Am I really doing this? Do I have a death wish? Have I gone insane?