Guest post: Gorilla Greetings, part II

In the words of my father-in-law...

Last night, towards the late, late hour of 9:30, my family and I were peacefully relaxing from the stresses and strains of the day. The grandchildren were both asleep—finally. My son and daughter-in-law, Nancy, were working in their office upstairs. They were most grateful for the children who were sleeping.

Then came a knock at the door.

Typically, at night, it should be the husband’s task to answer the door. But, you need to know how my son’s brain works. He was so focused on his homework that I doubt he even heard the knock, nor did he notice when Nancy left the office to see who was coming to see us so late in the night. Now you may ask why I didn’t get the door. Well, my wife and I have been banished to the basement to accommodate my son’s young family, so it is rare that we can even hear a muffled knock on the door.

So abandoned by her husband and us, Nancy went to the door to see who had come a calling.

Being semi-responsible home owners, we have a peep hole in our door to give us the ability to determine whether the person knocking is worthy of us allowing them to breach our security. Nancy made sure to avail herself of the peep hole, but when she looked through, all she saw was blackness. Not like looking into the night sky blackness, but an odd, fuzzy type of blackness.

As she strained to attempt to make sense of this strange image, she heard some grunting. Clearly, there was someone on the other side of the door but the view through the peep hole did not enable her to get a clear idea of who it could be. So, being the brave person she is, she slowly opened the door to better determine this person’s identity.

To her shock and bewilderment, on the other side of the door stood an ape.

An ape!

Gorilla Greetings

The doorbell rang so I went to answer it.

Being the cautious person that I am, I looked through the peephole first but I couldn't really tell who it was, even though the porch light was on. It seemed to be someone wearing a mask, holding something. I needed a better look.

Being the cautious person that I am, I decided it was safe to open the door since the visitor hadn't opened the screen door (which is notoriously impossible to open).

I opened the door and came face to face with a gorilla.

"Ummm...hi," I said nervously.

The gorilla grunted.

"Ummmmm....?" I grunted back.

I looked at the stack of papers he held in his hands. The top page was a rainbow-coloured sign with "You are awesome!" written on it.

"Ummmmmmmm...are you...?" I asked, cracking the screen door open, "I'll go get the bishop."

The gorilla grunted and nodded his head enthusiastically.

I left the gorilla (and, unbeknownst to me, a whole horde of people hiding out of view of the doorway) with the door ajar and got Reid and Karen, who were in the basement. Reid is the bishop of a singles ward (a congregation made up entirely of single students attending BYU and UVU) and sometimes the kids in his ward like to come and...visit...him.

And sometimes they dress up in gorilla suits.

This morning...

• I reversed a $60 charge on my credit card, quite easily (when I signed up for the marathon through a third-party company I was automatically signed up for a "trial membership" and since they had my credit card information, when the "trial membership" expired I was automatically charged for the real membership—super lame, but I guess they reverse charges all the time because the lady I talked to didn't ask any questions).
• My children slept in until 8:45 this morning.
• My children worked together to unload the dishwasher without being asked.
• My children are currently playing. Together. Nicely!

Is this for real? Or am I still sleeping?

BYU Traditions Ball 2011

Last night we went to the ball. It took a little bit of effort on my part to convince Andrew that he could neglect statistics for three hours in order to focus on me. Not that I'm high-maintenance but, seriously, how many hours has he neglected me in favour of statistics? A whole lotta hours, that's how many. I realize that he is slugging through school so that he can (one day) be a good provider for our family but, let's be honest, grad school is a real drag. 

He really is hard-working and high-achieving, though, and I really appreciate that. Rachel said to me one day, "My daddy sure is a long-worker because he works for so long! But that's okay because if he works lotsa time then we will get lotsa money."

And then I told her that we were paying lots of money to have him work lots of time. She was like, "What? That doesn't make sense!" But that's grad school for you. 

Anyway, we went to the ball and had a great time.

Rachel said I looked like Cinderella, and although I don't really agree with that (Cinderella dressed in black?) I will admit that I felt a lot more glamorous than I have in a long time, thanks to the help of Sarah and Jody and everyone else who was so excited for us to go. 

I ended up borrowing one of Sarah's formal dresses from a high school dance. 

Out like a lion

Dear March,

Remember when it was officially spring—like four days ago? 

Let's go back to that. Because today I didn't want to do any of this:

Learning to read

Last night after the girls had been put to bed we could hear them arguing about something in spite of their hushed tones.

"Give it to me!"

"Nooooo!"

"Give it to me; it's mine!"

"Nooooo!"

"Baby, I said to give it to me. Do it now!"

"Nooooo!"

Daddy intervened.

"Hey, what's going on in here?"

Planning

My own personal March Madness seems to be the number of posts I've written in March. I've written a whole lot this month. Unfortunately, Andrew doesn't think I'm being completely fair to the narrative. He says that I do silly things all the time and I never blog about that; I only blog about the silly things that everyone else does.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of being the narrator.

It's called self-preservation.

Andrew says that anyone reading this blog will think that I'm always serious and he's always silly and that our children fluctuate between being monsters and angels. And all of that is true, except that I'm not always serious.

And thus, you get another story, as per Andrew's request. He thinks it's hilarious. I think it is mediocre at best, which is why it probably didn't make it onto the blog yesterday. Well, anyway, here goes nothing:

Yesterday afternoon while Miriam was sleeping, Rachel and I had started a little game of scare-and-seek, which is almost like hide-and-seek, except that instead of merely cowering in a corner, waiting for someone to find you, you hide out with the intention of springing on the seeker when they least expect it. It's terribly entertaining.

TP

This is a subject I have to dance around lightly but Andrew insists this story be recorded for posterity. While I seem to have no problem discussing babies and children going potty I do take issue with discussing adults' bathroom habits. Nevertheless, today's bathroom story is about me. Kind of.

I was in the bathroom, and already on the toilet, when I noticed that the toilet paper roll was empty. Not only that, but there was no other toilet paper within reach.

"Rachel!" I called out.

Within seconds she was at the door, ready to do my bidding.

"I need you to go into your bathroom and get me a new roll of toilet paper."

She walked into my bathroom and made a grab for the toilet paper.

"But Mommy! You don't have any toilet paper."

"I know. That's why I need you to go into your bathroom and get me a new roll of toilet paper."

She ran off to her bathroom and returned a few seconds later with a single square of toilet paper.

Better days

These past few days have been better. Rachel finally earned her prize and has been diligently working on earning another one—she came home from school today and started unloading the dishwasher without being asked. Of course, it was Miriam's idea.

Miriam loves to help with the silverware but it bothers Rachel to no end that Miriam just tosses it in the drawer helter-skelter, so whenever Miriam is working Rachel has to be right there working along with her, making sure she does it correctly. It's hard enough for Miriam to get the silverware into the drawer at all, let alone correctly.

Never wear mauve at a ball...or pink...

I am no fashionista and since there is a ball on Saturday—a ball that I've been looking forward to attending since I found out we'd be moving back to Utah—I need some fashion advice. Sometimes if I'm really in a pinch and I need fashion advice I think to myself, "WWLD?" or, "What would Layla do?"

She has a fashion icon.

I just learned how to remove mascara, if that tells you anything.

I was probably the only twenty-five-year-old in the world who googled "how to remove mascara." Make-up remover exists, folks. Who knew? Also, Vaseline will work in a pinch (or, in my case, not in a pinch simply because it's way cheaper than make-up remover).

Don't gawk at me! I've had plenty of people offer to help me put on make-up but no one has ever shown me how to get the darn stuff off! I was far too busy actually applying myself academically in high school and college to bother learning how to properly apply (or de-apply) make-up. 

And where did that get me? I'm a 4.0-achieving nerd googling "how to remove mascara."

Talk about life skills. Sheesh.

Layla, you are my fashion icon because you have a fashion icon. 

I have three almost-options for the ball, if we can indeed still find tickets and a babysitter.