The latest randomness

I have lots of little things I'd like to blog, so I think I'll combine them all.

1. THE BIG NEWS

So over the last two months I have gone into the doctor's office for pregnancy tests and other bloodwork. The first month the pregnancy test came back negative. I went back exactly a month later and took another test, and this test was............................................................................negative. I get asked so often if I am pregnant again, and that is a valid question for me. But no, I am not pregnant. And that is GREAT NEWS! Why? Because I have finally decided, at age 27, that I am done having acne. My older sister Aimee never got rid of her acne, and I seem to be following in her footsteps. Actually for both of us it was extra mild in high school and got worse with age. My brother-in-law is a dermatologist and he told me that the only treatment for acne that lasts after you stop taking it is the drug "Accutane." It has an 80% chance of curing acne for life. The only problem with Accutane is that is extremely toxic to developing babies, so there is a government regulated program where you must pledge to use two forms of birth control and have pregnancy tests monthly. So if you were wondering, I will not be pregnant again for quite awhile. But I will have the radiant, beautiful skin that I ought to have at age 27. And I will be loving every second of it when I do!

Okay, that was a gross topic, I just wanted to put that first and see if I could fake you out into thinking I'm pregnant. Did it work?

2. POLITICS

Today in the car I was listening to talk radio as I drove and Rush Limbaugh was singing the "Mmm, mmm, mmm." Obama song. If you are into politics at all, you know which song I speak of. Before long, my little Henry was in the back singing, "Mmm, mmm, mmm." Maybe Henry's a democrat? But could you really be a democrat growing up in a car with your mom listening to Rush? Doubtful.

3. BABY NAMES

Isaac told me yesterday, "When Heavenly Father sends us a baby girl, lets name her Peaches." Okay Isaac, we'll put it on the long list anyway. And I would replace the word "when" with "if."

4. PRESCHOOL

I am absolutely thrilled with Dawson's preschool. I feel like he is learning great things, and the tumbling and swimming lessons are incredible. When I took him swimming with my mom he could float on his back so well. I mentioned that to the swimming teacher today when I picked him up, and she said, "Oh yeah, Dawson could float on his back all day. He's really good at that." I told her they were amazing teachers. Man, I'm really getting my money's worth out of this preschool, especially since I'm not paying very much. The sad thing is, that up until this week, he would cry every time he went. This week he did a lot better, and he seems to be having fun and feeling more comfortable. It's definitely stretching him, I'm very pleased about that, but it has been stressful for me to watch him be so stressed out. It's such an awesome preschool though, I'm glad he has the chance to go.

5. POWER OUTAGES

Last night the power went out. For. a. long. time. Seriously, it started to go out shortly before 8:00 at night. Luckily, I had my kids in bed at 7:45, so they had no idea it happened. It was weird, it went dim for about 20 minutes before it went out, which I have never seen happen. I realized how boring it must have been before electricity. Wow, candles just don't cut it for me. Not to mention the fact that I was in the middle of canning pears and not only did I not get to process the rest of them that night, but my sink was full of pear guts and I couldn't use the garbage disposal. The nerve! I am so completely reliant on electricity, it is amazing. I feel more grateful now. And at 12:15, when Dawson got up to go to the bathroom, he flipped on the light and I woke up and realized the power was back. So the kids really never knew about it.

6. GOVERNOR'S MANSION

On Sunday we went with our friend Nate Herbert to General Conference. He is the governor's son, so we had awesome tickets. Our seats were row "B"!! But unfortunately, we were late, so we sat in row "U" which was still pretty close. Afterwards, we went to the Governor's Mansion for a personal tour and lunch. It was awesome. He showed us the governor's quarters which he said even most of the employees that work there have never seen. It was really neat. Yeah, I think mansion living with servants is definitely the life for me. I keep racking my brain trying to figure out how I can get myself a mansion and servants. If you have any advice for me, please let me know. (And special thanks to my family who tended my kids while we went)

7. LUNCH WITH FAMILY

On Saturday, in between conference sessions, we got together with Dave's siblings while our brother-in-law Mark was in town from Switzerland. We had a fantastic lunch and enjoyed seeing all of them.

8. PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCES

Last week was parent/teacher conferences. It was my first experience, and not quite what I had in mind. In my mind, a teacher should focus on the positive so that a child feels good about their school experience, and then quickly brush on the things that should be improved so the parent can catch on to what they need to work on, but the child still feels good about things. Isaac's teacher is fantastic, and I really like her, but the conference wasn't like I pictured it. She very quickly mentioned that his Dibels testing score was 35 when the benchmark was 21 and the goal was 10-20 in language arts, and his math score was 17 when the benchmark was 10 or something like that. Personally, I would like to dwell on how brilliant that makes my child is. I mean, not ALL my children will be that smart, I might as well enjoy it with this one. I also asked her about reading and how most Kindergartners started out the school year reading-wise. She said there were 3 kids in one of her classes and 10 kids in another that scored above 100 (out of 117) points on the pre-assessment. She didn't mention his score. When we got out to the car, I quickly added up his points, and he got 111! So he's doing very well academically. Even if his teacher doesn't want to focus on that. And since we didn't get emphatically praised at his P/T conference, you will deal with me bragging about it on my blog a little bit. Sorry. I can't help it. We did talk at the conference an awful lot about how he has a hard time listening when she talks and staying focused. So we are bribing him to try to improve his behavior. We'll see how he does.