7 Quick Takes about Supergluing My Kids Back Together, Watching Movies, and Figuring Out Who's Who on My Phone

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

General conference weekend came and went. I'm still catching up on some of the Saturday talks, since my kids still had 9 billion sports and activities that day and I'm the designated driver (and I don't have an unlimited data plan to listen to them in the car.) 

So far, though, my favorite talk has been the one given by Kristin M. Yee. What I got most out of her talk is to be patient with myself and trust in the Atonement of Jesus Christ to help me change for the better, even if it doesn't happen overnight.

We of course did our beloved Conference Snacks™ tradition, where we bought a bunch of snacks, attached pictures of the prophet and apostles, and passed out the snack when that person spoke. 

My 12-year-old was particularly excited about it because now that our two oldest are at college, our family can buy 6-packs of treats and that perfectly fits the number of people left in our household. We're almost able to pass as a normal family now and fool everyone.

—2—

Between Saturday sessions, the 12-year-old came in and said, "Mom, don't freak out, but..."

Which is weird because she should know that I never freak out in the moment. My brain takes so long to process feelings I can have a whole conversation with someone before realizing that they said something mean to me, and go 1-3 business days before I understand why it upset me and what to do about it.

Anyway, she'd cut her finger and it was bleeding quite a bit, but after we cleaned her up and got a good look at it I don't think it was too bad. I wondered if we should take her to urgent care, but the last few times I've done that they've just held it together with glue instead of putting in stitches.  and since we have Superglue at home and know how to use it, that's what we did, too.

—3—

At drop-off for one of my younger kids' activities, I was making small talk with another parent in the lobby. They were telling me about their child's other sports and honestly, bragging about what place the kid had gotten in this tournament and that one. 

When there was a pause, I attempted to change the subject: "So how's the school year going so far?" The parent said, "Good. [Kid's name] is the smartest in his class!" 

I actually thought I might have heard wrong, but then the parent turned to their child and said "Who's the smartest in your class?" The kid grinned and said "Me!" like this was a drill they'd rehearsed before.

Me, trying to control my face at this point in the conversation.

Why would you say that to your kid? It doesn't even make sense, anyway. There are so many kinds of intelligence: how do you rank who's the smartest in the class? Especially when you're 7 years old and you're still being graded on whether you've mastered the correct way to hold a pencil. I did not understand a single thing about that conversation.

—4—

I'm still trying to recover, sleepwise, from a horrible night of being sick earlier this week. My stomach was completely twisted up in knots, and most of the night was writhing in agony until I collapsed from exhaustion, then the pain would wake me up 30 minutes later and I'd go throw up. But when I threw up, I didn't feel better afterward. It was like hitting the 'back' button and starting all over again.

Anyway, the next day I felt better but I was tired and totally useless, I laid on the couch and watched two episodes of Nailed It! Mexico and two movies. On the plus side, I discovered a new favorite movie called The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. It was clever, heartwarming, and legitimately made me cry and laugh out loud several times. I would highly recommend for teenagers and above.

By the third day I was mostly functional, but my stomach still felt a little wibbly wobbly. I mentioned that to my 12-year-old and she suggested earnestly, "Maybe you're just getting old. Older people always have something that hurts." 

—5—

By the door at CVS there's a rack of calendars, and as I was leaving I happened to notice one that said "GLAMOUR CHICKS" on the cover... with a picture of a hen.

Each month was a new fancy chicken, with a sassy quote to accompany it.

—6—

My 16-year-old isn't a basketball player, but he decided to sign up as a partner for a Special Olympics unified basketball team he saw a flyer for. (Technically, I was the one who saw the flyer. But also technically, he saw it when I showed it to him and told him it sounded like a nice thing to do.) The idea behind a unified sports team is that kids with and without intellectual disabilities are on the same team, practicing together.

I went to watch their first game was yesterday, and I really enjoyed seeing my 16-year-old work to strategically position himself in front of the basket to catch the rebounds and throw the ball back to the player for another shot, and giving them genuine congratulations when they do their best, whatever that is. It reminded me of how he is as an older brother (during his good moments, of course), and it was just a lot of fun to watch.

—7—

The next thing on my to-do list is to figure out how to fix my phone contacts. Somehow, my kids' contacts got mixed up with mine, and my phone uses their names for the contacts by default. 

Meaning that my husband shows up as "Dad," my dad shows up as "Grandpa Jim," and all of my church friends are listed as "Brother/Sister So-and-So" because that's how kids respectfully address adults at our church instead of saying "Mr." and "Mrs." 

Has anyone else ever heard of a thing like this happening? Technology is so dumb sometimes.

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