The Music Lady Retires

After four years of service as the church primary chorister, I was released last Sunday.  I love music, teaching and art (primary choristers makes lots of visual aids) so this has been a good experience for me and I will miss it. 

For those of you not of my faith, allow me to explain all that jargon. In my church (I'm LDS), the primary chorister spends every Sunday teaching songs to children ages 3-11. Many of these songs are sung just for fun or to help teach some gospel principle, but some are performed for the congregation on various holidays or during a torturous annual event called the "Primary Program." (Think of a recital, but more religious.)

The church is operated by volunteers, in the sense that we do not get paid. However, in most circumstances, we do not volunteer. We get "called." In my case, shortly after getting a house in the neighborhood, I was invited to speak to the congregation. (This is another task that we are frequently called to do, since we do not have professional clergy.) My talk caught the attention of the primary president, who was looking for a new primary chorister.  She told me that she talked to her counselors and said that she thought the new girl who spoke that day would make an excellent new primary chorister, if she happened to sing.  Well, I do happen to sing, and tend to sing congregational hymns loudly, so her counselors had heard me.  They affirmed that I sing and I was called.

Many people of my faith believe that "callings" always come from God.  I believe that callings occasionally come from God.  I also believe that sometimes, God requires leaders to use their own brains and figure out who to call on their own.

I have only been involved in calling people once, when I was a teenager.  I was called to be president of my youth group and I had to choose my own counselors.  I prayed about my selection and received a clear answer:  God didn't care who my counselors were.  Any of my classmates would do just fine.  I could choose whomever I wanted to.

I do not know if my calling to primary chorister was inspired or just expedient, but it did give me opportunities to improve my talents and grow closer to my children and other children in my neighborhood, so I am grateful for it.

I admit that I have had other callings I did not appreciate as much.  For example, when I was in graduate school, I was called as a "ward missionary."  At the time, my local bishop was trying to get as many people involved in callings as possible, and there is no limit to the number of ward missionaries, so he called several.  Then the stake president (the leader over bishops) challenged all bishops to improve missionary efforts by doubling their number of ward missionaries.  The other bishops only had two to four missionaries already, so doubling bumped them up to four to eight.  My bishop had eight already and went up to sixteen.  There was not enough work for sixteen people, so I spent most of the time feeling guilty for not doing anything in my calling and wishing I could be released.

"Released" is LDS jargon for when your calling ends.  Like being called, being released usually comes as a surprise.

Four years is an unusually long gig for a primary chorister, but I do have a history of long callings; once I was a Relief Society (women's organization) teacher and I outlasted four different Relief Society presidents before finally being released.  That was another calling I liked, so I was fine with the long term of service.  I wouldn't have minded continuing as primary chorister, either, but after four years, I was wondering if those poor children weren't sick of me and ready for a change.

The current primary president pulled me aside a few weeks ago and asked me if I would like to be released, observing that my "hands were full" during primary time.  My husband was recovering from surgery so I was on my own to deal with my toddler, who is still a few months too young to play in the church nursery, and my three year-old, who just started primary and refuses to remain in his seat.

A friend of mine expressed her frustration with her three year-old who also doesn't sit still for primary.  In confidentiality, I told her that I would probably be released soon so I could focus my attention on my own naughty three year-old.   We were both surprised when that same friend was called as my replacement, in spite of her naughty kid.

Family-Friendly Fun in Vegas

Fremont Street
Someone offered to take our photo.
This is the only evidence I was there,
because I took all the other photos.

Lied Children's Museum
My baby loved the crawl zone.

We enjoyed a fabulous week in Las Vegas for our family vacation. We visited in March, when we could enjoy off-season hotel rates and mild weather. We stayed at Circus Circus. It had a great room and all-day buffet special going on. The kids loved the circus acts. (So did I.) Usually, I only spend a day or two in Vegas and don't have time to get off the strip. Since we were there for almost a whole week, we had time to visit some attractions I had never seen before.  Some of our favorites were the Lied Children's Museum and the Ethel M Chocolate Factory/Cactus Garden.  On the strip, the kids especially loved the lion habitat at MGM.  My 3 year-old had not wanted to go.  "I'm scared of lions," he told me, but as soon as we arrived he was enthralled.  He did not feel the same way about the volcano at the Mirage.  He assures me that he is still very much afraid of volcanoes.

Circus Buffet...yum.
No cooking or dishes all week=Happiness

A Walk in the Park
For me.
We didn't find out about my husband's
leg surgery until after we booked the trip.
I worked off all my buffet calories by
pushing my husband in a wheelchair,
with my 3-year old on his lap,
while wearing my baby in a backpack.

Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden

Adventuredome at Circus Circus

Midway games

Las Vegas Mormon Fort

Scipio, UT
My kids loved stopping here en route to enjoy the petting zoo.

My Future Bilingual Kid

My daughter got into the Spanish immersion program!

They started immersion programs last year in our district, and my niece, a current 1st grader, is one of the children in the first cohort. My niece is learning Chinese. My niece has taught me some cool phrases in Chinese, all of which I have already forgotten.

The program goes from 1st to 6th grade. They do half of their schoolday in English and the other half in the foreign language.

We will have to send our daughter to a different elementary school than the one she attended for kindergarten, one mile farther away from our home, but I think it is worth it for the opportunity for her to be bilingual by the time she is 12.

I speak Spanish as a second language. I learned while spending a year and a half as a missionary in the Dominican Republic. I tried to teach my daughter Spanish myself when she was a toddler. Back then she had a fairly impressive Spanish vocabulary, mostly consisting of the Spanish words for different kinds of toys and animals.  But she quickly learned that her English words were more useful and stopped using the Spanish ones.

I recently talked to a co-worker whose husband is a native Spanish speaker, and they didn't manage to teach their kids Spanish, either, so I don't feel so bad that I couldn't do it. She wishes an immersion program had been available when her children were in elementary school.

I told my daughter that the two of us could share secrets in Spanish after she learns it, because Daddy doesn't speak it, but she nobly offered to teach him Spanish as well.

The Failed Foot Rub Compatibility Test

"Please, please, rub my feet."

"Yuck!"

"Don't you love me?"

"I don't love your disgusting feet!"

"You think all feet are disgusting."

"They are."

"I'm in pain.  I need you.  Why won't you do this little thing for me?"

"Fine.  You owe me."

"Sure.  I'll rub yours after you rub mine."

"Don't you dare touch my feet."

"You are the only person on the planet that doesn't love foot rubs."

"That's impossible.  There are millions of people on this planet.  Surely, at least some of them would agree that feet are gross.  I'll get on the computer and start a poll."

"No.  Stay here and rub my feet!"

"What is wrong with these feet anyway?"

"You know what is wrong.  I just had surgery."

"I'm not talking about that.  Why are they so dry and chapped and flaky?"

"These are boy feet."

"If I gave you a pumice stone, would you use it?"

"If I used a pumice stone, would you be willing to give me foot rubs?"

"No."

"Then, no, I won't use a pumice stone. And you're doing this wrong.  You need to rub harder.  And  twist the toes....No, twist harder."

"I am twisting hard!"

"Harder!  Unscrew them like lids!"

"I'm not going to hurt you."

"You can't hurt me. You're too much of a wimp.  Just twist them."

"Will you not be satisfied until I've broken all of your toes off?"

"Give me your foot.  I'll show you how it is done."

"Don't touch my foot!"

"See, this way.  It feels good."

"Ouch! Stop!  Give me my foot back!"

Trouble with Tumors

My husband had some suspicious tumors removed from his leg this past week at Hunstman Cancer Center.  He has since been released from the hospital.  He checked into the hospital looking normal, came out of surgery looking like he had been mugged (and suspiciously resembling a cancer patient), and he is now still bedridden but improving daily.

I am on family medical leave from work to take care of him and the household while he recovers.

We have not received the biopsy results back yet to find out if the tumors were malignant, but during the operation the oncologist said that based on what he saw during surgery, he can tell that even if it is cancer, it is not aggressive/high-grade, so that is good news.

He was born with neurofibromatosis (NF), which causes painful but usually benign tumors to grow all over his body.  We are fortunate to live in a location where we can get excellent quality care for him.  He goes to one of the only NF clinics in the country for care, which happens to be at the U of U.  This clinic is affiliated with an oncologist (cancer doctor) at Huntsman Cancer Center who specializes in NF patients. 

(By the way, here is a note to all you people who hate healthcare reform and want to return to the status quo.   Even though we live near all of these specialists, the only reason we can access them is because I am a state employee with a public employee health insurance plan.  My husband is a small business owner, and until health reform goes into full effect,  he is ineligible to buy insurance for himself because of his preexisting conditions. If I ever lose my state job, it could kill my husband, who is less healthy than some of you tea-party-jerks through no fault of his own.)

Okay, moving away from politics, for those of you who missed the Facebook play-by-play during surgery, here it is:

2/23/11

7:33 am
I'm at Huntsman Cancer today, where my husband is getting surgery on a suspicious tumor. Not fun, but it is comforting to have such experts helping him and to be in such a beautiful facility. I love this building.

7:51 am
Now we're in the hospital room. That gorgeous lobby was a ruse. This room is tiny and painted dingy off-white floor to ceiling. Who likes this color?

8:14 am
They are so flexible and spontaneous here. Maybe they'll do a biopsy, maybe they'll do a complete resection. Maybe they'll send him home after surgery, maybe they'll keep him here. They will decide after they cut into him. Unless they change their minds.

8:18 am
He is wondering if he can ask to keep his nasty little tumor after they chop it out of him, after all, he grew it all by himself. Should he ask? Would they say yes? If they did say yes, how would we incorporate it into our decorating scheme?

8:41 am
The doctor has just presented his plan. He is going to cut out pieces of the tumor at a time and biopsy them. If he finds aggressive cancer, he will stop proceeding today. If not, he will keep going. So cross your fingers that I am here for a long time.

9:43 am
My sisters just joined me in the lobby of the cancer center. They brought tunes to combat the melancholy. (There is lots of crying in a cancer center lobby.) Cool discovery: the chairs here are in his and her sizes.

10:45 am
The nurse called to update me. They don't have any biopsy results yet, but he is doing well in surgery.

1:04 pm
He is out of surgery. The doc says they have not completely finished labs, but things look good. They did not see anything too scary.

1:57 pm
We're not going to keep the tumor after all. Another doctor just called and begged us to let her have it for science. It is just as well. I haven't seen it, but I doubt it would have matched the living room furniture.

3:20 pm
Out of surgery. Hard to see, but he has two black eyes. He looked much better this morning.

5:45 pm
Upright! Not dancing yet...

Iceskating

Christmas Skates

We gave our kids ice skates for Christmas.  My daughter shrieked with glee when she opened the box, but I was anxious that her enthusiasm would disappear when she tried to balance on them.  She had a pair of double-blade skates when she was younger (no balancing required) and I worried that it would be a rude awakening when she tried a single blade skate.  (According to the Internet research I had done, kids who skate on double blades learn nothing about real skating.) Apparently, I had no reason to fear.  My daughter stepped onto the ice in her new skates like she had been skating for years.  No balance problems at all.

Skating

My 3 year old son had never skated at all, so I had no idea how he would take to it.  I got him double-blade skates.  I wanted him to enjoy himself and have fun without constantly falling over.  I don't care if the double blade is poor preparation for future Olympic skating.  My son held my hand for about 2 minutes his first time on the ice.  Then he saw a teenager doing a spin and let go of my hand so he could try spinning himself.  By the end of our first day on the rink, he was trying other tricks as well--skating on one foot, jumping into the air, and jumping off of the outer wall onto the rink.  (I did not encourage that last trick.)

Skating Tricks with Grandpa

How to Walk the Baby in the Winter

There is an outdoor, free public rink near our home, so we have been skating regularly during the past month.  We only skate when the skate rental shop is closed, so the rink is often empty when we're there. Both kids occasionally fall over, but they just laugh and get up again.  I push the baby in a stroller while I skate.  He likes that, but he loves it when I just leave the stroller in one place on the ice and skate towards him.  He thinks that is hilarious.

Fascinating Stuff (if you are a nerd like me)

I am doing a fascinating research project at work. It's a randomized telephone survey-a very unique, challenging survey to collect public health data about a population that we have little knowledge about nationwide.

If you haven't closed this browser window yet, its probably because you fell asleep shortly after you read the word, "survey". I considered blogging in detail about this exciting project, before I remembered that only nerds are interested in such projects.

Anyway, at work, where there are lots of nerds like me, this project is generating all kinds of buzz. Its really cool there.  Believe me.