I won a contest, and I want to say hooray.

“Hooray!”

I entered the Murray Literary Competition, personal narrative category, with the essay below and won first place. There weren’t a whole lot of entries to beat out, so it’s not that exciting. But then again, it is exciting. At least a little bit.

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you may recognize this story. I wrote about this experience when it happened, but the essay you see here is all growed up and better.

I get to read it to a group of people when the award is presented to me March 9. I’ve never read my work louder than a soft mumble as I check for grammatical errors. Since I’m quite adept at messing up words when I speak, I have a lot of practice to do in the next week.

Here you go.

The days are long, but the years are short — Or so they say

My 5-year-old is sassy and my 1-year-old is clingy.  Every time I want to scream in frustration (Let’s be honest: Every time I do scream in frustration), I hear the echoes of every well-meaning been-there-done-that parent telling me to “Enjoy them while they’re young; they grow up so fast.”  I recognize the truth of this cliché, but putting that truth into practice gets a little… messy.

When my second child was a newborn, I had taken on one too many things in my schedule. Our three-hour block of church was already enough to juggle with breast feeding, but I also accepted the responsibility to be the choir pianist, which meant that our little family spent four very long hours at church. By the time we got home each Sunday, my 4-year-old was restless, the baby was starving, my husband was frazzled, and I was famished.

One such Sunday, we made our frenzied rush home after choir practice and I zipped straight to the couch to nurse the baby while my husband scurried to prepare lunch for the rest of the family.  As the baby was eating, I noticed her face start to contort.  As any mother can tell you, the face your child makes before doing her business is a distinctly unique face, and one not to be ignored.

Seconds later, I felt wet warmth on my lap and knew her diapers had failed to do their job – yet again.  It only took me a millisecond to assess the damage, after which I immediately — and very eloquently – called out for reinforcements:   “AHHHHHH!!!!”

The mess was everywhere, and this was definitely not a one-person job.

My husband left the eldest child (who was being amazingly agreeable after such a long day) and the mixer which was currently spinning dough for five loaves of bread to take the baby off my hands while I delicately tip-toed to the bedroom to change my dress, both of us shouting with great amounts of aggravation to each other about our difficulties of removing soiled clothing without spreading the mess.

Happily, I succeeded.  Unhappily, he did not.

It was time for a bath for the little newborn.

While he wiped down the changing table, I gingerly deposited the baby in her tub, only to notice the mess had spread all the way up to her ears.  That is not an exaggeration.  Because the mess was so far-reaching, it had also oozed onto the baby tub, which was supposed to be the place where she would get clean.

I needed reinforcements again.   “AHHHHHH!”

My husband came in to clean the now-contaminated tub, while I held the naked, squirming baby under running water, then placed her back into the newly-clean tub.

Once all visible traces of the offending mess were gone, I soaked the baby in the tub and vigorously scrubbed her soft little body, while my husband took the stained clothes downstairs to be laundered.

When we were all together as a family again, my partner-in-mess informed me that while he was spraying the stained baby clothes, he had noticed the cat had thrown up all over the laundry room floor.

“I didn’t clean it up,” he confessed.

“I don’t blame you,” I responded, nodding in understanding.

He then took the sweet-smelling, freshly-cleaned little babe from my hands and held her up to his shoulder…

…where she promptly threw up all the contents of her stomach.

Nearly-5-year-olds say an awful lot of funny things in one day. In my house each day, I am favored with an awful lot of funny things times three… or sometimes four. It’s not that I have multiple nearly-5-year-olds running around my house. It’s just that my one-and-only nearly-5-year-old finds it necessary to repeat her funny sayings and mannerisms over and over and over… and over again.

“I was like…” is the most oft-repeated phrase tumbling out of her mouth each day. Most of the things she says are funny the first time around. And then, the teenage “I was like…” makes me chuckle. But that’s where the funny stops. Only she doesn’t understand that.

Her “I was like…” phrases aren’t the only signs that she’s rapidly growing up. Yesterday, I walked by her bedroom and saw a sign taped to her door with stickers that spelled out, “I don’t want you.” Only, she ran out of “As” and “Ns,” so she compensated by spelling, “I don’t wqt you.”

“What does that mean, Lydia?” I asked her.

“Oh, I ran out of stickers, so what it’s supposed to say is, ‘I don’t want you to put me to bed,’” she matter-of-factly explained.

“Huh,” I said, thinking how we wouldn’t miss the beginning of our favorite shows due to prolonged bedtime routines anymore.

But still, I couldn’t be sure that she was ready to give it all up.

“So Daddy won’t sing a song with you anymore?” I asked.

“Nope, I can sing the song to my stuffed animals,” she explained. (Except she pronounced animals as AMinals.)

“Daddy won’t say prayer with you anymore?”

“No, I can say it myself,” she proudly said.

“I won’t come and snuggle with you anymore?” I persisted.

“No, I can snuggle with my AMinals!” she excitedly decided.

When bedtime came, she was true to her word. Ryan walked her into her room, snuck in a song, gave her a hug, and walked out the door. When he turned around to say goodnight, she was already kneeling by her bed, saying her prayer on her own.

He came downstairs and sadly said, “Did you see what the sign on her door says?”

“Yep, we’ll see how long this lasts,” I answered, having already made peace with, and even welcomed, her grown-up decision.

My sensitive husband, who had just spent the night holding her hand while pretending to be scared of fake witches and ghosts as we made our way through a corn maze, wasn’t ready to make peace with our nearly-5-year-old acting more like a 15-year-old. Very reluctantly, and with much sadness, he allowed her to have her independence last night.

But this morning, at 7 a.m. sharp, he was rubbing her back to gently wake her up. When she stirred, he scooped his little girl up and carried her downstairs to breakfast, savoring each moment that her sleepy head stayed snuggled on his shoulder.

And after breakfast, acting every bit of her nearly five years instead of the 15 years she wishes she had, she asked him to snuggle with her. He made absolutely no hesitation.

My husband has an enormous aversion to feet.  When I met him, this is one of the first things I learned about him.

“Hi, I’m Ryan, and feet gross me out.”  That’s pretty much how it went.

During our flirty/pre-dating stage, he touched my foot on a boating trip.  It wasn’t an accident.  He squinched up his face, delicately extended a finger, and ever-so-quickly jabbed the top of my foot.  I knew then that we were going to get serious.  Don’t you wish your falling-in-love story commenced with such demonstrative overtures of affection?

The good man that he is, he has since come to tolerate the feet of our children as well as my own.  But he still has… umm…  issues.

He is emotionally, morally, physically, and mentally unable to walk around the house barefoot.  Even when sweat is pouring down his face, he won’t remove his socks and allow his body to cool off because being barefoot just makes him feel “gross.” He is also currently spinning a theory that flip flops were invented as torture devices.

But every now and then, he caves and throws on flip flops instead of sneakers, all the while giving me a mischievous grin because he knows I love a man in flip flops.  (Correction: I love my man in flip flops.)

I have always known his issues with feet were unique, but I didn’t realize how much of an issue they were until last night at the fireworks.

The man who never plans ahead brought along a pair of socks to cover his feet while the fireworks show was in session.  This is a man who starts a project by demolishing a wall, only to realize halfway through the project that he is currently in possession of exactly one half of the necessary items to complete the project.  This is a man who regularly goes without lunch because he forgets to pack one or to take the one I have packed.

But this is the man who is so concerned about the comfort of his feet that he is somehow able to remember to bring a pair of socks to cover those bare feet during a fireworks show, only to remove the socks 20 minutes later to don the sexy flip flops with a wink, then hold my hand and walk home.

Priorities.

When my husband and I started dating seriously, he told me that he didn’t notice other women.  He told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world, the ONLY beautiful woman in the world in his eyes.

It sounds like a line, but I believed him.  And 6 years later, I still do.  Why?  Because of his speech, behavior and actions.

He doesn’t ogle famous, beautiful women (or women he knows, for that matter).  I have never known him to say he thinks a famous woman is even attractive.  I know many couples think it’s harmless and even fun to talk about hot celebrities (or even neighbors) in front of each other.  But we disagree.   It’s damaging.  I had boyfriends who talked about how hot “So and So” was and all it did to me was make me feel like I could never measure up.

My husband makes a concerted effort to avoid seeing scantily clad women.  This doesn’t mean he simply avoids strip clubs and porn.  While he certainly DOES avoid those things, he also makes sure he is ignoring and fighting nudity in other sometimes seemingly harmless areas of our life.  When a Victoria’s Secret commercial comes on TV, he changes the channel.  When we walk by a giant poster of a nearly naked woman, he turns his body away from the poster and looks directly at me.  When we were in Las Vegas and a man tried to hand him some porn, he didn’t just say, “No thanks.”  He physically slapped the offending material out of the man’s outstretched hand.

I trust him.  I know I am the only woman for him because he proves it again and again.  I know I am lucky.  I know my husband is a rarity in this oversexed, pornography everywhere world.  I know it.  And that makes me sad.

I have not always been so lucky.  I had boyfriends with posters and calendars of 90% naked women gracing the walls of their bedrooms.  I had boyfriends who had no problem telling me what they thought of my own friends’ bodies.  Boyfriends who loved to tell me how hot their old girlfriends were.  I don’t know why I put up with those boyfriends.  Love and like can do strange things to people.

I DO know that when I found my husband and experienced the OTHER side of things, there was no way I was EVER going to accept anything less than what my husband offers.  The difference is HUGE, something I foolishly couldn’t fully appreciate until I experienced my husband.

I came across this article by Single Dad Laughing and agreed with most of it.  The author, a man, has come to the conclusion that the reason women are so hard on themselves is because MEN are always looking somewhere else- at someone hotter, at someone with a cleaner house, at someone who is nicer.  The author calls on MEN to take a stand and STOP LOOKING at other women.  Just STOP IT!  And I love that.

I don’t particularly like the entire tone of his article.  He places pretty much all the blame for women’s self degrading behavior on men and I just don’t think that’s true.  Men certainly play an enormous part in it and most definitely need to be called to change, but women also need to demand more from their men.  Women need to stop accepting wandering eyes and hurtful comments.  I know some women who will agree wholeheartedly with me and others who will think there is nothing wrong with a man looking at other women.  But I know the difference.  And I know that absolute fidelity includes body AND mind.

Still, I like the general message Single Dad Laughing gives.  I’m interested to know what you think of his article.  Here are some of my favorite quotes from his article:

We’ve replaced that beauty with a standard that is, and always will be, impossible for them to hit. We’ve decided what the perfect legs are. We’ve decided what the perfect body is. We’ve decided what the perfect breasts are to be shaped like. We’ve decided what the perfect face, skin, butt, and neck should be. And we’ve made no hesitations to boldly let it be known.

We declare it, and we do so with little care for the tender women standing beside us.

Now, you may be naively sitting there thinking, I don’t declare that. I tell women they are amazing. That they are beautiful. That there is nothing wrong with them.

Do you not understand? It doesn’t take opening your mouth to propound these things. It doesn’t take flapping your lips to make a statement. It doesn’t take verbal anything to spread this vicious ideology.

All it takes is you and me, stopping and looking.

Please. Let’s stop ogling the very things that are causing this tragic mind game. Let’s stop walking by the never-ending porn that surrounds us with our jaws dangling so carelessly. Let’s stop salivating every time Pavlov rings his freaking bell.

I just finished a very satisfying piano practice session while my husband gave our daughter a bath and got her ready for bed.  This is a routine we try to stick to and we are successful 20% of the time.  We’re busy, ya know?

I love him for it.  He gives me no guilt for pursuing a completely solo activity while he does the dirty work.  In fact, he INSISTS I go sit at the piano.  (It may be because I tend to get a bit cranky without my musical unwinding.  Or maybe he really is just as charming as I make him sound.  Either way, he’s a gem.)

And while I play, either frustratingly (some nights, my fingers just don’t obey) or tranquilly, I always always feel a surge of gratitude in my heart for that man.

Do you want to know how I got the piano?  I’ll tell you.  Ryan and I used to both work at the same place which gave out AMAZING Christmas bonuses.  The year we bought our house, we both got fabulous Christmas checks.  Since we now had a house, it made perfect sense to me that we would furnish it with a piano.  And those fabulous checks would be the means of purchasing the piano.

I didn’t realize how selfish my assumption was until later.  And I didn’t realize how utterly selfless it was of my husband to agree and willingly give up his large check to pay for a piano he will rarely touch, except to dust (cuz he’s great at doing chores).

Now I realize it.  And on those successful 20% nights when I get to actually practice the piano, I fall in love all over again with my sweet husband for giving me a gift that truly keeps on giving.  20% of the time.

Through blogs and facebook, I’ve recently reconnected with a girl I knew in my childhood.  (Don’t you love the Internet?)  She is a newlywed and so stinkin’ cute about it.  On her blog, she shared how she celebrated her 100 day anniversary with her husband, complete with a banner and special meal.  It was so cute and got me thinking, how many days have we been married?

Well, my friends, we have been married 1900 days today!  In celebration, I’ll share 1900 things we have done in our 1900 days.  Just kidding, I’ll cut off two zeros and share 19 things.

It’s not terribly exciting, but I’m pretty happy with my 19 milestones/fun things in 1900 days.

In our 1900 days of marriage…

1. we got married

2. I graduated from Brigham Young University

3. we went to paris

4. we went to London

5. we got a cat

6. we spent an anniversary in the gorgeous, amazing, out of this world Bryce Canyon

7. we went to (almost as gorgeous, but not quite) Moab 2 times- one time on a whim when we had nothing else to do and another planned trip

8. we went to the beautiful Grand Tetons in Wyoming (mostly because I had never been to Wyoming and wanted to add the state to my short list of states visited)

9. Ryan got a job where he has to wear a tie

10. we bought a house.  No pictures of this one.

11. I got pregnant and had a baby

12. I became a piano teacher

13. I became a journalist

www.mysugarhousejournal.com

14. Ryan learned how to decorate awesome cakes

15. We went to California more times than we can count and made unsuccessful plans to move back there almost as many times

16. reality hit us as we became shocked at how fast our little girl is growing up when she started going to nursery, a class for 18 month – 3 year olds in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, last year.

17. we visited the zoo 3 times

18. Ryan had surgery

19. we went to a gazillion festivals, gardens, museums, fairs and outdoor concerts.

See?  Not all that interesting, but I wouldn’t have wanted to do those 19 things in 1900 days with any other person.

I must say, I find the lyrics to B.O.B.’s Nothin’ On You quite comical.  Haven’t heard the song?  Here are the lyrics to the chorus.

beautiful girls all over the world
i could be chasing but my time would be wasted
they got nothin' on you baby
nothin' on you baby
they might say hi and i might say hey
but you shouldn't worry about what they say
cause they got nothin' on you baby
nothin' on you baby

And another part of the song

i've been to london, i've been to paris
even way out there in tokyo
back home down in georgia to new orleans
but you always steal the show 

I know it’s supposed to be sweet, but it just sounds all wrong to me.  I put it in my own words and tried it out on my husband:

“Hey honey, did you know there are hot guys all over the place?  Doesn’t that help your self esteem?
And, really, I find it incredibly important to tell you that I could go after any one of them if I wanted.
But I won’t.  Cuz you’re pretty fantastic.  But don’t forget: the other guys out there are pretty amazing too.

And you know what else?  They might flirt with me. 
And I’m pretty positive I’ll flirt back.
But don’t you worry, cuz you’re better.  Can’t you tell I think you’re better with all my talk of looking at other guys?

Oh yeah, and you know how I’ve been to lots of places?
Yeah, in all those places I was looking at other guys.
But don’t worry, you’re better than all of them.

But I do want you to know that I WAS looking.  Oh boy, was I looking.
But it turns out…you’re the best there is!  Isn’t that sweet?” 

He wasn’t impressed.

Are you too busy for your own good, like me?  For example, are you supposed to be a stay at home mom who ended up working over 8 hours from home yesterday?  Or is that just me?  Do you not get enough time with your husband?  Sorry, I can’t hear your response over your roaring, “DUHHHHHH.”

Here is my foolproof way to feel connected to your spouse.  When we are good about this, we feel like a couple.  When we neglect this rule, we start to feel like roommates.  And that, my friends, is an awful feeling.  I know, because we’ve been ignoring the foolproof rule for the past couple of days.  And waking up today, feeling like I haven’t seen my handsome husband in a year, is propelling me to instigate the rule into our house once again.  The rule, you ask?

TURN OFF ALL SCREENS BY 9:00 PM AND GET YOURSELVES TO BED! 

TOGETHER!

Who cares what you do in bed?  Just do it together!  Talk, read to each other, plan the week, do something else…

Really, try it.  Try it for a week.  You’ll thank me later. 

See our smiles?  That’s because we were following the rule.

I read this article yesterday about keeping your relationship alive.  Sometimes I think these articles are so silly, but I really felt like most of the advice in this one rang true.

I will summarize my favorite points, but click on the link above to read the whole article.

1. Don’t forget date night. We seem to never fight when we are on a date.  It’s a magical time.  And when we have date night every week, we seem to be so much happier with each other.

2. Give a proper greeting.Before I taught piano, I would literally RUN to the door when Ryan came home from work.  Lydia and I would smother him in kisses, and we would all feel so lovey dovey.  Now I’m teaching when he walks in the door, so the smothering in kisses doesn’t happen.  But when it did, our evenings were always so happy.  There’s a lot of power in showing your excitement at seeing your spouse.  And there’s a lot of power in being on the receiving end of the excitement.  This is a tradition that I miss, and I’m going to figure out how to incorporate it back into our days, even with piano teaching.

3. Keep on kissing. The article says to do it even in the morning, even with bad breath.  That’s great advice; it really is.  Remember how much you kissed when you were dating? 

4. Leave a surprise note. I used to write love notes to Ryan and leave them in my pockets.  When he gave me hugs, he would go searching for a note.  I even “proposed” to him this way.  (He proposed first, but a few weeks later, I “proposed” and gave him his ring because he wanted to wear it before we got married).  One night, I put a note in one jacket pocket that said, “Will you marry me?”  In the other pocket, I had the ring.  So silly, so cheesy, but cheesy is happy!  We have been so busy lately that I haven’t written him any notes in a while.  This is another tradition that needs to be resurrected.

The article has 3 more suggestions that are also very noteworthy, but these were my favorites and the suggestions I want to start implementing immediately.  What are your favorite tips for keeping the romance alive?

My desire for my husband and me to become amazing cake decorators has completely fizzled away.  But for my husband, the urge to master cake decorating is still going strong.  He planned my birthday cake for weeks.  I was quite impressed with the efforts and results.  I hope he doesn’t expect the same from me, however!  Tedious icing squeezing is not my forte.

The cake blueprints:

The cake master:

The cake: