Conference Traditions

When I worked for a Utah County newspaper a few years ago, we would do a special section every time general conference rolled around. We did feature articles on stuff happening in the church, like new temples, disaster relief and other humanitarian work, new leaders, etc. We included conference games, recipes, family night ideas and all that fun stuff. Anyway, I was obviously on the lower rungs at the time, having just graduated from college, so I was invariably assigned to collect the "man on the street" stories for the section, which no one else wanted to do. But I kind of liked it. Along with another woman from the newsroom, we went out and polled people on the street with the question du jour, took their picture, and then put it in the paper. One time we hung out on Center Street in Provo, hoping to run into some Mormons, but most of the other times we hit up our tried-and-true hot spot in Orem, where the distribution center sits next door to Deseret Book. Most often, we asked these people about their favorite conference traditions.

Some people said their mothers always made cinnamon rolls Sunday morning. **sending idea to my mom** Others, like my own family, have a girls night while the boys are gone Saturday night. We still do this, which I think is awesome. We get some take out, we watch a movie, and then my brothers and dad show up to have a guys night of their own and we get a recap of what happened during the priesthood session. Whatever the traditions were, it was fun to hear how other families do it.

Besides listening to the prophet and apostles speak and watching in comfy clothes, there are so many things I love about conference. And now that I've started Anna on some quality Conference Bingo and the like, we're starting some of our own traditions. So I want to hear about yours. They can be for kids or not or whatever. What do you do for conference?

On Parenthood

You go through so many emotions as a parent, every single day. As though parenting itself (the actual actions required) isn't hard enough — and along with managing/dealing with/ignoring/coping with the bevy of emotions your child(ren) goes through — the emotional roller coaster it puts you on can be a doozy. In the course of one day, you can feel extreme love and devotion because your kid is astonishingly witty and smart and the prettiest thing you've ever seen, or you can feel like your head will literally explode if you hear her speak in that wretched baby voice one more time. And probably a hundred other emotions in between.

And it changes on you fast. One minute, you're on your way to find out why it's taking your child 20 minutes to brush her teeth, ready to really throw down, only to find that she has been busy writing "I love you Mom" on a post-it note and sticking it to the mirror. I just had to swallow that lecture and give her a hug instead. The lows are rough, but the highs are magical.

For the past few days, Anna has been in a sort of clingy/shadow phase. Most of the time, she is very capable of entertaining herself for a while. But the last few days, if she's not incessantly asking, "What can I do, Mom, what can I do?" while I'm trying to get something done, she's yapping and hanging on my clothes pretending to be a frisky puppy or blowing a kazoo in my face. I have had to practice much patience.

Those times are taxing, but they're not the only emotions you go through. The other day at the park, I felt like I was on the Colossus of emotions (for you Lagoon fans out there). I felt such sheer joy in her suggestion that we roll down a steep hill together, glad that she was instigating this adventure. I felt like a success for teaching her to enjoy the total freedom and abandonment and fun that comes from rolling down hills. I was proud when she wanted to take charge and take us on a walk and choose every path we went down. I laughed with her when she confidently pointed her walking stick and said, "Onway! Thisward! I mean, onward!" I marveled that I could laugh with her, that she is old enough to laugh at things like this. I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on that, though, because pretty soon she was running toward me with a pouty lower lip after going down the slide. She held out her hand and showed me a scrape and told me how an older boy was trying to climb up the slide when she was sliding down and he accidentally stepped on her hand. I went from feeling a sense of calm so that she would learn to brush things off, distress that she really could have gotten hurt, impatience with the older boy for stepping on someone, to flat-out panic that she might get gout or something when she promptly licked her scrape "to get the white away." Blech.

Later she saved me a green skittle because she knows green is my favorite color. Maybe it's silly to get all mushy about a green skittle, but my heart sings when she does stuff like this, when I see that she's old enough to pay attention to other people and she willingly, knowingly does thoughtful things. It's times like these that make me think, "What have I done to deserve this?" But I think you know you're a parent when you ask this question both in times of frustration and times of joy — and probably 50 times a day either way.

Kite Day: A Story

illustrations by What I Found On My Phone

Once upon a time, I was sad that winter was nearly over. It hadn't snowed nearly enough for my liking (we had only gone sledding once, for heaven's sake), and the temperature was already starting to warm up. But when I saw a couple 60-degree days in the forecast, I wasn't too sad anymore. Because, even though I would miss the snow, who doesn't like spring? The forecast for one warm day even said it would be windy, and I knew what that meant. Anna and I best be headin' to town to buy us a kite. This was the beauty we picked out.

photo and looming finger by Anna

It turned out to be a great flyer. It was easy to put together, there was no tangled string putting it away, and it came with a little storage case. Big fan. Thank you, Target.

After a few nose dives straight into the house, we had to borrow our neighbor's field so the butterfly had some room to spread its wings. (Writer fail.) The wind was perfect, launching that thing straight into the air at the first throw. At times it was almost too windy and it flew straight into a tree once, giving the butterfly a run for its money, but it stayed in one piece.

If you don't look too closely, it looks like I'm holding onto nothing. Just miming. Playing a casual game of invisible tug of war.

photo by Anna

Once we had some room, the kite flying was perfect. The 60 degrees felt delicious, as did the wind in our hair. (I also love the wind. Big fan of that too.)

So even though the sky was pretty much totally gray . . .

photo by Anna

. . . we still managed to have an amazing day. And we all lived happily ever after.

The End

The Weirdersons

Awkward Family Photos is one of the greatest inventions.

When you moved out and went to college or when you got married and came face to face with someone else's family habits and traditions, were you ever surprised to find that what was totally normal your whole life was weird to someone else? And the other way around? There are a lot of weirdnesses the other way around, let me tell you.

I've been thinking about a few lately. For one thing, I had some friends who thought my family's taste for the chocolate banana combination was totally weird. (Come on! A chocolate banana shake = heaven.) I thought others were weird for putting peanut butter on their pancakes or eating ketchup sandwiches (bread and ketchup = vomit). One of my friends always eats cooked green beans with her hands. Apparently that's just how they did it in her family. When my family gets a variety of donuts, we cut them into halves or fourths or whatever size we want so we can taste all of them, instead of being relegated to one solitary flavor. But some balk at this. We also mercilessly teased my sister in-law for peeling the whole banana before she ate it. It just seemed so wrong, since the peel was the perfect way to keep the banana slime contained while you enjoyed the fruit. (I do have to admit, though, that I sometimes find myself doing the same thing these days. Sometimes I just want to peel the thing and get it over with so I don't have to peel then eat then peel then eat, and so on. Don't judge. I'm going to in this post, but still don't.)

Another area to consider is sleeping. I know one family where all the kids fall asleep wherever they are late at night, in whatever they're wearing, and they're usually piled all around each other until morning. Not only does this sound incredibly bizarre to me, it also makes me feel claustrophobic. I'll hug you all you want in the daytime, but I need my space when I sleep. And I don't need anyone's knees in my back. I should school them in Ross Gellar's Hug & Roll technique.

And cleaning. I think lots of people have different cleaning practices. I know someone whose mother religiously washed everyone's sheets once a week. Now you might rightfully call me Dust Mite Ashley after I tell you this, but I'm pretty sure we called it good if the sheets got washed once a month-ish. (Or maybe that's just when I started to do my own laundry . . . wouldn't want to make my mom look bad.)

Anyway, what about you? What eye-opening experiences have you had about how other people live? Or was there ever a time where you realized you were the weird one?