Happy Holidays!

Holidays rock not just because of eggnog, but because you get to proclaim to all the world that your year was worth something.  We Trionfo’s have hit six states and the Yucatan peninsula.  Can you top it?  Can you, can you, can you? 

Okay, now that the mandatory bragging sections of this "letter" is over, we can focus on my kids and their strange, wonderful, fevered behavior.  Do not blame me that half of this is about Carter and his destruction.  Half of my life is about Carter and his destruction.

One fine summer day, the girls and I were painting fingernails in our friend Amy’s driveway, but Carter kept getting into the polish.  “Stop!  You’ll break the bottles,” I said.  Wrong thing to say. Break?  Carter took a bottle of polish and threw it as hard as he could onto the concrete, screaming when it shattered in a pink explosion.  Then he saw me coming and ran barefoot through glass and straight into the street where a car had to stop for him.  I locked him in his room for a time-out and he said, “Why am I in a time-out?  I’m being good now.  I’m not crying.”  He was totally serious.

Carter (half asleep and feverish on the couch):  Oh!  Look at the lights on the wall!

Me: There are no lights on the wall.

Carter (rubs his eyes, very confused)  Um . . . yes!  There they are!  The lights!  Right there!  Get your camera!  Take a picture of it!

I did.  There were no lights on the wall.  He went back to sleep.  Later he told me he didn’t have a cold, he had a “hot,” because his head was warm.  He talks in his sleep, too, about pink shoes.

Carter (in a time-out): Can I come out now?

Graham (giggling): Come out now?

Carter:  Mo-om!  I’ll be nice.

Graham: Mom, I be nice.  (More giggling.  Graham now not only repeats everything someone says, he knows it’s silly)

Carter turned four in July and after I took down the birthday party decorations, his shoulders slumped.  “Oh. I’m three again.” “No, silly!”  No matter what I said, though, every day when he woke up, he’d ask if he was still four.  Around the same time, he got a pair of Mia’s hand-me-down, skinny, low-rise, pre-faded jeans.  He looks like a male model every time he wears them, but they stay on. (A miracle.)  He probably wore them on Mia’s first day of school, when Carter packed his own lunch and put on his shoes and walked to school with her (and me), soooo sad he couldn’t stay.

We were going over our names one day:

Lina: I’m Lina Trionfo.

Carter: Carter Trionfo.

Graham: Graham cracker!

Little Graham cracker is potty training!  Last month, he got treats for poops and treats if he didn’t wake me up at night.  Yes, he knows some of his letters but still doesn’t sleep the night.  Sigh.  He also has trouble with his colors, so we joke he’s color-blind (like his dad).  He’s our only lefty and his hair is insane.  I glue section A to section B with gel every day to keep some bit of order up there.  Well, down there.  He’s tiny.  He sticks his tongue in his cheek when he concentrates.  He has a growl-serious voice to impersonate authority figures like Carter and a munchkin voice all the rest of the time.  If you ask him who’s cute, he says, “I am.”  See?  He’s smart, too. 

When we went to Pennsylvania in July, Carter fell in love with his fifteen-year-old cousin Nate.

Carter: Nate’s my boyfriend.

Everyone: No, he’s not!

Carter: Mom said!  He’s my husband!

Talia:  Not husband. Cousin.

Carter: Oh.

Later Carter asked if, instead of being Graham’s brother, he could be Nate’s cousin. I said he could be both.

On that trip, we lost Carter at the Crayola Museum, the Martin Guitar factory, Rehoboth beach in Delaware (long enough to corral dozens of volunteers), the Lehigh Valley zoo, the Hershey Factory, the Empire State building (their personnel do not like children to come equipped with arms and legs, btw, too much maintenance), a state park in Maryland, and a re-factored steel-mill-music-venue in  Pennsylvania.  But he never got lost while I paid the kids a dollar to dance with me and play follow-the-leader to a local band on Main Street in front of his grandparents’ house.  The next day, he and all of the cousins raided Mumsy’s closet for hats, glasses, wigs, scarves, and high heels for MAGIC!, a movie we shot in the front room, wherein magic accessories compel the wearer to dance in the style of the accessory.  It was totally rad.

Meanwhile, back at home, Carter’s behavior was so bad at grocery stores that I started taking him on practice runs to buy bananas or milk only.  One time he failed while still in the parking lot and we went home.  Another time, he made it all ten minutes until we got to the check-out stand, but then bit a candy bar through the wrapper. I had to keep hold of Graham, but was able to catch Carter by a forearm, which he fought me royally on because—besides the candy—it turned out he was also eating a booger.   Carter was yelling, “I like my booger!  I wanna eat it!  I want to!”  And I was like, “Stop!  Stop!”  And  Graham was screaming because no one was trying to make him not eat his boogers and why can’t he do everything Carter does?  It’s not fair!  And the entire time this store clerk stood there saying, “Put the candy bar down!  Put it down!”  So then I had to switch my mental yelling to, “Why don’t you do something useful like go get a freaking tissue?” 

 Note: I have never been kicked out of a store. 

Carter is calming down, actually.  It’s not unusual for me to be grinning and asking, “Did you play with knives?  Did you open band-aids and put them all over your body?  Did you write on Graham’s face?” “In the morning I did, but then I was so good!” Carter answers.  I tell him I knew he could do it, and give him a cotton ball to put in a jar on the counter.  He gets a toy from the store about once a week when it’s full.  

Enough about Carter.  Most of you know Mia’s birthday is close to the school’s cut-off date for kindergarten, and Mike and I decided to have her tested to see if she should move up.  The teachers decided to go ahead and place her in first grade.  Her first day produced tears because beloved Mrs. Clarke included a note that Mia needed to rewrite the spelling words from a class assignment, this time with better handwriting. I felt terrible for pushing Mia too hard, vowing to put her back in kindergarten, even if she did refer to her classmates as “those cute little kids.”  Then we got to the math page, which included a challenge question to make 10-6=4 into a story problem.  I explained for five seconds what a story problem was until she interrupted.  “You mean like, if I have ten boyfriends and six are busy, how many dates will I have?”  “Yup.  How about we say friends instead, though?”  “Sure!”  There have been no more tears and I think first grade is a good fit for her.  Can you imagine her explaining dating to the kids cutting and pasting in kindergarten?  Mia is so hilarious.  And obviously has older sisters!

Cora’s primary teacher got her candy and a whoopee cushion when she got baptized.  How awesome is that?  Cora was beautiful in her white baptism dress and also had a birthday party full of girls and face paint which they put on themselves.  Some were painted toe to knee and scalp to finger.  Cora is into self-fulfillment lately.  She uses YouTube to find instruction on painting and Spanish. She’s taking piano and tumbling. Also, this fall all the kids except Graham took soccer.  Holy scheduling!  Cora’s our most fiery player, scoring goals, out-running the boys, and turning cartwheels with the girls.  If you notice a bed that’s made in a kid’s room around here, it belongs to her.  Or to one of her siblings, if she’s been feeling generous.  :)

 

Lina continues to play violin for her school’s orchestra, enjoys biking to Peterson’s to buy candy, and was in the Math Olympiad last year.  Her dance competition took us to St. George in March, with a side trip to Zion National Park.  Her group eventually placed seventh out of dozens.  Lina did a “stall,” a headstand where her body is almost horizontal, balanced on an elbow. It’s sweet. Also this year, she and all our kids have discovered singing. We know the words to every High School Musical song.  After a quick tryout, Lina was cast as Jasmine in a playground play put on by her group of friends (I love these friends).  Lina and her best friend Halle sing Adele and Christina Perri from sheet music I play on the piano.  Our Christmas carols are in harmony now, just like my family’s growing up.  And don’t worry, we still dance Gangnam style.  I love it!

The big news for me is probably well known to all of you because I never shut up about it—I signed with literary agent Josh Getzler in April and got to meet him in July!  (Lots of gushing skipped here.) Josh and I are still going back and for on edits for SHATTER, which isn’t terribly uncommon in the writing world. So keep waiting another year and I might have more news.  Haha.  Meanwhile, I’m working on another story and chasing Carter every day.  Plus, Mike took me dancing until three a.m. in Cancun, so, yeah—this year rocked.

Mike is enjoying his time with the startup he is working on. Check it out at payvio.com.  He has turned into a CrossFit snob and goes most days.  He loves it, and we love it too because he is much stronger and healthier than before! He also has acquired 6 chickens for the family and built a coop for them in the shed.  

Final note of holiday cheer:  Did you know you can put a Gogurt in your ice machine and get bits of plastic in your drinks for three months?  You can! We’ve tried it!

(After I wrote this yesterday, Carter shoved Graham so I took him into his room for doing bad things.  He threw himself on the bed and wouldn't look at me.  "I do bad things so now Jesus will make you a new Carter."  "No," I said.  "I don't want a new Carter.  I want you."  He smiled and gave me a huge hug.)

Happy Fourth of July

Hello, all!  Sadly and happily, it’s time to separate my media into personal and professional sites.  This is the new "spot" for all my family posts.
I never write enough about Lina, so I’ll start with her.
Lina’s hip-hop and jazz teams almost got a trophy at both of their competitions, missing it by only 0.25 points.  The second one was in St. George, so we took a family vacation, stopping to visit Zion National Park (absolutely beautiful).  She did a “stall” for the hip-hop dance, which is a sideways headstand.  She held it for 5 seconds.  It’s pretty much better than anything your kid can do.  For her tenth birthday, she had a manicure/spa party complete with mud facials and cucumbers-over-the-eyes.  Carter spiced things up by hopping into the manicure water and then dropping his wet underwear to his ankles, causing all fourteen girls to scream and Carter to get really confused.  “It’s my penis,” he explained.  Lina later decided she liked party-planning so much that she threw a surprise birthday party for her friend, Lilly.
Cora does all of her homework the second she gets home.  She took soccer this year and loved it, especially because it introduced her to two teammates, Eva and Miley.  They enjoy make-up parties and dressing up.  One time they used eye shadow to give themselves a fake black eye.  Eva gave our family a hand-me-down Scooby Doo costume which somehow all five children have managed to wear, shaking their little toushies and racing on all fours.  Cora, my little girl who was so terrified of the water, is the first of my children to jump in the deep water and swim all the way across the pool without touching the bottom.  You go, girl!  She did a science project about cookies (very sly) where she changed the recipe several times and then measured the height, weight, and width of the cookies from each recipe.  And ate lots of cookies.
Mia stayed home with me this year—her last ever.  (So bittersweet.)  She got to do some political campaigning when we dropped off fliers to country delegates on behalf of our neighbor Kevin running for assessor.  (I actually had the stamina to get the kids out of the car for each visit, because everyone knows the power of a baby when it comes to votes.  And Graham’s pretty cute.  I think he’s the reason Kevin won.)  Mia’s favorite “field trip” during home preschool was a Trax-trip to Fashion Place Mall for a lunch.  Since January, she’s learned to swim, ride a two-wheeler, and read Dr. Suess books.  She’s getting so confident!
In May, my brother Nate up and decided to move in with us for a week while he relocated from Pennsylvania to California for med school.  We hung out just a tiny bit because he studied between 10 and 14 hours a day for his Step 1 Exam.  At least after he took the test, he went to Puerto Rico for a week.  Good luck with your score, Nate!!
We drove with Nate to California for a family reunion centered on Grandma’s 80^th birthday and my parent’s retirement celebration.  Our family’s a little obsessed with food and parties.  In three days, we had three parties for which I personally did things like stuff water chestnuts into dates which we wrapped in bacon.  Mmm.  And who cares that we only ate a quarter of what we made?  Can I get an amen for leftovers?
Mike and I put my parents’ retirement to good use when we left all five children with them for a week and flew to Cancun.  That’s right.  35 years of work wasn’t enough.  Grandma and Grandpa took the kids to sleepovers with cousins, shopped at Kohls (“Until eleven o’clock, Mom!”), ran in the sprinklers to beat the heat, and fed everyone the—wait for it—party leftovers!  (See, I told you leftovers were awesome.)

Meanwhile Mike and I snorkeled, practiced our Spanish, ate fish tacos, haggled with shop owners about the price of an opal bracelet we bought for Grandma, ran through driving rain on the beach after dark, swam in freshwater caves, and toured three Mayan ruins (Ek Balám, Cobá, and Chichen Itza).  Also, I did yogo on the shoreline while Mike laughed at everyone laughing at me.  But yoga on the beach is worth it, dude.


Once home, we took a weekend in Cedar City to see Comedy of Errors and hike at Cedar Breaks National Monument with our friends Christine and John.
These days Mike’s sister Giovanna is living with us as her family relocates from Pennsylvania to Utah.  She got a job here and her family is still home, waiting for the house to sell.  We celebrated the Fourth of July with her and three of Mike’s other siblings with a camp-out in our back yard.  Soooo awesome.  Oh, and . . .

Three letters.  P. I. E.  They say so much, you know?  Got the peach custard pie from Karen’s blog.  Thanks, sis!
We have more grass to camp on now, because we hired out some landscaping.  To prep for it, the kids and I were trying to clear trash out of the yard and decided to light a huge stump on fire.  That was pretty funny.  I was so afraid of it getting out of control that we had hoses all around and neighborhood kids “manning” their stations, and the fire never got more than a smolder because it was so windy.
That’s about it.  Graham is cute and Carter is crazy (see below).
It’s time for Kid Quotes.
Sometimes Carter does and says the most adorable things.
Carter: (in another room) Mom, Mom!
He runs to me and rocks stiffly back and forth with his little underwear-clad body.
Me: What are you doing?
Carter: (still rocking stiffly) You go like this and the light doesn’t turn on!
Me: Are you pretending to be the light switch?

Carter: (waving to Cora): Bye Cora!  (waving to our neighbor) Bye—and what is she names?

Carter (sad that’s he’s unable to lift a chair): My strong broke.

Me (wrestling with Carter): Am I too heavy?
Carter: (grunting) No, you’re just too squishing me.

Carter: (studious, trying to figure out the world) Do monsters like babies?
Mia (eyes and hair wild): Monsters eat babies.
Carter (gasps)

Sometimes Carter misbehaves.
Me: Why don’t we have the candy after dinner?
Carter: (wailing) But that’s not my truth.  That’s your truth.

Landscaper: (pointing at Carter) Is that your son?  He peed in your front yard.
Mike: (turning to Carter)  Did you pee in the front yard?
Carter:  No.
Mike: (pointing at the landscaper) He says you did.
Carter: (screaming) Mom says I can pee in the grass.

Carter (talking to himself later):  Yeah, Mommy likes it when I pee on the grass, but Daddy, “Grr!”

Carter hates going to bed.  When he sees me watching him try to sneak out of his room, he freezes and shuts his eyes.
Me: I can still see you.
Carter maintains his frozen position, but fists his hands and squeezes his face all up for good measure.

Sometimes Mike tries to reason with Carter.
Mike: Did you just drink out of my cup?
Carter: Because, can I just have some more?

Mike: What happens if you aren’t reverent at church today?
Carter: Be nice.

Mike (angry): I’m going to kick you out of my office.
Carter (pathetically sad): Don’t kick me, Dad.

Mike: (upset) Why do you keep going in the shed?
Carter: (furious) Because you don’t let me do the things I want.
Mike: Oh, yeah?  Like what?
Carter: (shouting) Use the trimmer.  Go to the shed.  And . . . and go to Mom’s writing group!   (What?  Why would any kid want to go to a writing group?)  It’s all your fault!

While putting Carter to bed, I walked into his room after leaving to get him a drink.
Me: (looking around) Carter?  Carter?
Man’s Voice from Outside the Bedroom Window: He’s out here.
Me: (thinking) Who could kidnap Carter in silence?
I run to the yard and two teens from our church had “cornered” Carter near our fence after watching him sneak out the front door.  They’d asked him what he was doing in the dark and he’d made a run for it.  A few heroic leaps later, Carter was safe and furious inside.  Those teens were laughing, I tell you.

Graham has one cute little story, too:
Lina: Can you say D?
Graham: D.
Lina: E?
Graham: E.
Lina: F?
Graham shakes his head slyly.  He hates the letter F.  He always refuses to say it, no matter what you do to trick him.