How to Speak Utahrn

Although I've lived in Utah for almost half of my life, I still think of myself as an Oregonian in certain ways. Such as: I still speak like one. I grew up never thinking of Oregon as having an accent of any kind, but Jeremy likes to point out a few northwest peculiarities [not peculiar to me, I must clarify]. According to him, Oregonians put a twangy a in words of the ants family. I guess it comes out a little like "aynts." So a sentence like, "The ants from France wore pants to the dance," ends up sounding [to him] like, "The aynts from Fraynce wore paynts to the daynce."

I've also held on to some words and phrases. We have an ongoing debate over the use of high waters vs. floods to describe pants [or paynts] of the awkwardly short variety. Out of habit, I call them high waters. My argument, which I feel legitimate, is that someone from Oregon should be able to differentiate between high water and a flood.

Now it's not like Jeremy has much room to critique how us Oregonians speak. Utah has its fair share of verbal humdingers. I am raising 4 Utahns, which came abruptly to my attention one day while I worked on spelling with Aiden. I read his spelling list while he wrote the words. We came to the word sure and I watched him write shore. Feeling a little puzzled, I tried again. "No, the word is shoor." He said, "That's what I wrote." So I tried another approach. "It's shur [almost neglecting the vowel sound completely]." And he wrote it correctly. Oh, the dismay!

From time to time I do slip into some characteristically Utahn pronunciations. For example, I have caught myself saying fur instead of for and feel rather horrified. [Just as long as I don't fill horrified.] Maybe it's inevitable. After all, in another couple years I'll have lived in Utah longer than I lived in Oregon. But at least so far, supposebly I still haven't warshed my hands in the crick or put my house up for sell!

Decades

Ten years ago I became mother to a daughter. I swear Marissa was beautiful from the second she was born. Now I look at her and marvel that she is a decade old. I think she's still beautiful. But we've also discovered that she is funny and kind and athletic and creative and gentle and smart and a little kooky.

Somehow we unwittingly established a tradition for the decade milestone that the birthday kid receives a Nintendo DS. That basically caps off the birthday gifts, but Marissa was so excited she didn't really care. We decided to upgrade to a DSi because of the camera feature, which is well tailored to Marissa's creative personality. Ten is also an off year for friend parties, so we had a family celebration which included her choice of dinner [crepes] and cake [teddy bear] and ice cream. We kept everything fairly low key, but there were smiles all around.

I remember thinking it was kind of cool to say I was a decade. [I'm also kind of a nerd, but you already knew that.] Unfortunately, I can now say I'm 3 1/2 decades old. My family made my birthday a happy day. I got just what I wanted -- a new potato peeler! That might not sound very exciting, but have you ever tried peeling potatoes or carrots or cucumbers or etc., with a defunct kitchen tool? It's unpleasant. My other request was to take a family trip to the zoo. So we headed up, along with the entire population of Utah [may I suggest avoiding the zoo on a major holiday weekend?]. We had fun despite the crowds.

In honor of both of our birthdays, and to document Marissa's kookiness, here is a sampling of her birthday card to me. She'll probably hate me for this someday, but I choose to exercise my motherly prerogative.

Dear Motha, We bring to you a happy day that is not a girl. A ha ha ha a berba dito mano fergivity gerb. Dear mom, I hope you have a great birthday and a bob. I am going to clean something. It is ...... something. Love, Marissa

It's a puzzle, I know. But I firmly believe I should add "fergivity gerb" to my permanent vocabulary. Try feeling grumpy when you say it. I dare you. And for the record, she did clean something. It was ....... the bathrooms. What a gem. Looks like the last decade was good for something.

An Observation

Nerds candies, when dropped to the kitchen floor from counter height, scatter with magnificent efficiency.

And then a conversation.

Morgan: "I'm sorry, Mom. I just made a mistake. I'm sorry."

Me: "I know. Everybody makes mistakes."

Morgan: "Just don't say you already mopped."

Mother's Day Math

I'm pretty sure I've discovered the formula for a great mother's day. It goes something like this:

1 really, truly amazing husband
+
[loving kid]^4
+
2 perfectly cooked slabs of baby back ribs
+
1 peaceful afternoon nap
+
[1 video chat] x [the whole Bogardus family, including Elder Spencer who had dinner at Bethany's house . . . when does that ever happen?]
=

Ideal!

For the record, Jeremy will never again be allowed to plead incapability when it comes to cooking. His ribs proved otherwise. Thanks to Brendan and Chris for sharing the recipe.

One more mother's day math problem for you to puzzle over. Aiden told me he thinks Zeke will live to be 15 and 14 quarters. The funny thing about that is he thinks of quarters in terms of money. I'm not quite sure how you translate that into time, so I'm curious to know how that will work.

The Marvelous She

Dear Mom,

The longer I am a mom, the more I sit in wonder at the things you did and the kind of mother you are. If I were to catalog a few of the ways you amaze me, it would look a little something like this:

I marvel . . .

. . . that your fingernails were always shaped and cuticles tended.
. . . that your eyebrows were always plucked.
. . . that I don't remember you ever leaving the house with your wet hair in a sloppy bun.
. . . that you ground flour and made whole wheat bread weekly for years.
. . . that you canned peaches and pears and cherries and pear butter ALL BY YOURSELF.
. . . that Dad always had his dress shirts ironed.
. . . that you clipped coupons.
. . . that your photo albums were consistently updated and labeled.
. . . that the house looked clean.
. . . that the car looked clean.
. . . that the clothes looked clean.
. . . that you agreed to have cats, a bunny, a dog, and even a rat.
. . . that you always had a supply of birthday wrapping paper.
. . . that, speaking of birthdays, you decorated the house and made a special cake every year.
. . . that you read books to us.
. . . that you made sure we had vegetables with both our lunch and dinner.
. . . that you helped with school projects before the Internet was invented.
. . . that you recognized our talents and encouraged us to develop them.
. . . that you taxied for and sat through soccer, basketball, softball, baseball, dance, swimming, piano, plays, band, and whatever other extracurricular activities were going on.
. . . that we never ran out of toothpaste or shampoo or deodorant or contact lens solution or band-aids.
. . . that you sewed wearable clothes.
. . . that you found ways to spend time with each of your kids individually.
. . . that you let me stay up and watch Magnum P.I.
. . . that you tied ribbons on birthday and Christmas presents.
. . . that our sheets were washed weekly, without fail.
. . . that you had wise suggestions on how to deal with childhood conundrums.
. . . that you kept up on traditions and made holidays fun.
. . . that you stayed on top of the budget, filed everything, and payed bills and taxes.
. . . that you got us to church on time and were often even early to take care of your callings.
. . . that you managed to feed us with fast food and cold cereal being a rare treat.
. . . that you managed to feed us without a microwave for most of my childhood.
. . . that you parented without a TV for many years, and never with the benefit of Disney channel.
. . . that you sent out birthday cards to everyone and made sure they arrived on time.
. . . that you listened to us without looking like your mind was somewhere else.
. . . that you allowed us to have sleepovers.
. . . that you shopped and provided for us without the perks of Costco or Walmart.
. . . that you succeeded in producing four functional, happy, productive adults.

I'm convinced the older my kids get the more things I'll add to this list. It just never ceases to amaze me all the things you did, and do, so well. I aspire to achieve even a few of the things here. That would be the best way I could say thank you and show you how much I love you. Happy Mother's Day!

Love, Me

It's Closer than I Thought

You know the saying, "Home can be a heaven on earth"? Well, apparently I've discovered the key to achieving this feat, at least according to one member of the family. I finally signed up for the food co-op called Bountiful Baskets. Each week, or less often according to your family's wants and needs, you can make a contribution for a fruit and veggie basket. I have thought about joining for a long time but never committed until last Saturday. After navigating the crowd of produce enthusiasts, I brought home a hefty box full of watermelon, strawberries, bananas, apples, grapefruit, spinach, cucumbers, onions, zucchini, mushrooms, herbs, broccoli, cauliflower, and even an eggplant. Marissa immediately started sifting through the bounty and said, "This is HEAVEN!" Me: brushing my hands off, and done.

[If you're interested in more information about the co-op, check out their website at www.bountifulbaskets.org.]