On the market

For the past several weeks (OK, for the past four years), we've been getting our house ready to sell: painting, improving, planting, maintaining. And now, it's done. Whalah! No more projects, just like that! Here's a shot of Michael and me after finishing the last of the major spring gardening. See how pleased we are?

Now the task is to keep the home, at least for a few weeks anyway, looking as if we live in immaculate bliss. So we don't keep any dishes in the sink or clutter on the countertops, and we regularly restock our fruit bowl with fresh bananas and a pineapple;

after playing we promptly tuck the toys away and vacuum straight lines on the carpet;

and we adorn the bathrooms with fresh hyacinths and bleached white linens. And wait a minute...what's this? No laundry? It's done? It doesn't even smell like dirty rags in here. It smells like...what is that? It smells like Bounce dryer sheets!Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about cleanliness. But I feel like I'm getting a little OCD here. Do people really live like this all the time? Really? If I had to go on keeping the house looking this...what's the word?...romantic? unrealistic? impractical? Yes, if I had to keep on making the house look this impractical, I think that I would have to hire someone to do all the things that I used to do before we put our house on the market and I acquired OCD.

At least there are the showings. Ah, the showings! After two hours of "last-minute" cleaning, we leave to have Forced Family Fun, which has actually been Relieving And Delightful Family Fun (or RAD, for those of you still cool enough to use the term). Here are some favorites:

Zachary enjoyed digging for fossils at the Natural History Museum.

When we visited the farm, the boys were most interested in flying kites and then going on "an adventure" by the creek. We saw the spring baby animals, too.

And of course the best place to experience springtime is on Temple Square, where the gardens are almost as beautiful as the principal structure.

We were even calm enough to go inside the visitors' centers and tabernacle,

and then we let a little loose.

Which is exactly what I'm going to do when the house is sold. Heck, I might even let a LOT loose and throw dirty clothes on the laundry room floor. Track dirt on the hardwood floors! Leave a stack of books on my nightstand! It all sounds so decadent.

Six under six

Last night we handed off our three nephews (ages 11 months, three, and four), who we'd been tending for the past eight days. The house has been non-stop fun, and we loved entertaining our six little 'uns!

We made a tent for the big boys to sleep in on "Crazy Night."

The boys all wore coordinating Easter bow ties, and they looked picture-perfect sitting on the pew at church (for the first few minutes, anyway :).

One day we put the big boys to work weeding the garden bed. I think that they actually enjoyed this more than any of the field trips we took during the week!

We spent one evening in the mountains, picnicking, toasting marshmallows, and hiking.

The nephews came out to support Jacob at his game on Saturday. By the end of the overcast week, we were ready for some sun!

It gets even better: while we were in the middle of our nephews' visit, we decided that our home was ready to go on the market. So it needed to be within thirty minutes of being immaculate at all times, just in case we had a showing. Oh, boy. I honestly think that I mopped the kitchen, dining, and living rooms eight times in the past eight days, and I went through almost half a bottle of Windex. It was insane, but I'm sure the boys will always treasure the fun cousins week that we shared. Oh, and in the rare case that Eric and I ever actually have six boys under six in a permanent sort of arrangement, I'm requesting two dishwashers, a trampoline, and a weekly professional massage.

Rationalization at its best

Reasons why you should not go skiing when you're 20 weeks pregnant:

1. You have an increased risk of dying.

2. You have an increased risk of feeling like you are going to die. Here's a nice shot of me resting, which I was wont to do about fifty times during each run.

Reasons why you might go anyway:

1. Your husband scored $30 day passes at Park City.

2. You feel like celebrating the end of medical school. Yay!

3. You like to watch your hot husband ski as he tears up the slopes in a manner that makes even the ski patrol jealous. While I'm content on the family-friendly slopes, he goes for things like this:

Fun times! When we got home, we had to stay up until 3 a.m. getting the house ready because the realtor was coming the next morning to appraise it. But some things are worth it, right? (Just don't ask me tomorrow when I can't bend over.)

Think pink?

Think again! About five seconds after the ultrasound wand touched by body, I could see a familiar image on the screen. It's a boy, with a sonogram-certified due date of August 24th! We're just thrilled. Four brings all sorts of possibilities: a pair of tennis doubles teams, a barbershop quartet, double bunkbeds! To celebrate, we picked up Eric and went to B&D Burgers, where I gave our new baby boy a generous dose of cholesterol. Afterwards the kids and I went to the zoo and then made some green popcorn balls at home. I don't know what these celebrations had to do with babies or boys, but they made for a pleasant spring day. Who wouldn't want another of these darlings?

(Jacob at his most recent soccer game)

(Zachary's "fierce T-rex" imitation)

(Michael asleep with "baby")

(The boys and "a project")

P.S. Eric's first response when I told him the news: "So now can we get a urinal?" It seems justifiable to me, maybe when we're a little more settled.

Stress relief

Lately I've been waking up in the middle of the night to stress myself out. Did I pack the sleeping bags in the Wisconsin pile or the Baltimore pile? How am I going to repair the broken blinds on my bedroom window? Where did I put the semi-gloss Ultra Pure White paint? Do the kids have any clean pants for today? How many calories were in the junk food that I ate yesterday to combat my stressors? Most of the time I just get up and start working, and the pattern has made for some unusually long days. So last night I decided that we needed to do something non-stressful, wintry, and exhilarating. Sledding!

Seeing these boys jump up after their crashes did good things for my heart. And don't worry; we got smart on successive runs and moved away from any obstacles.

P.S. Documentation of Michael at the event:

Dads and lads

After returning home from errands one afternoon:

Amy: Well, I need a snack, and Michael needs a nap. Jacob and Zach, what do you need?

Jacob: We just need to wrestle.

What? Haven't we been wrestling all day? Do you remember when I gave you all haircuts this morning? Wrestling with shears! Or when I wrestled you all into that limousine of a shopping cart at the grocery store? How about when I wrestled Zachary away from attempting a head-first dive into the bathtub? (I'm not making this up.) I wrestled Michael away from drinking out of the toilet bowl at least three times. We could institute a preschool WWF around here!

But mommy-wrestling was not the type of wrestling that Jacob was talking about. He was talking about daddy-wrestling: rolling on the floor, laughing wrestling. The kind of wrestling where you might actually get a real scrape. The kind of wrestling that you do when mom's in the other room. The type of wrestling that only a dad can do.

Several years ago a feminist colleague asked me how people dare suppose that there are some things a man can teach a child that a woman can't. "Name one thing!" she screeched, rolling her eyes. I didn't know what to say then, but now I know. As a mother of boys, I can teach them to be kind, smart, loyal, and righteous. I can teach them to read, to ride bikes, to count by fives, to swim, to plant a garden. If I summoned up the energy, I could even teach them how to really wrestle. But only a man can teach a child how to be a man. Popular societal ideologies cheapen manhood and a father's role as presider, protector, and provider. God bless the good men who lead families in roles that they are specially designed to fulfill, all the while teaching their children about real manhood. And God bless the ones who even take time for some wrestling.

P.S. Two incredible resources on manhood, and particularly about positive male role models:

Dr. James Dobson's book Bringing Up Boys (along with the wrestling conversation, the impetus for this post)

Elder Richard Edgley's masterful talk "Behold the Man" from the October 1999 General Conference, The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS (I practically have this memorized because I've listened to it so much; it's a gem for every parent of boys)

Crab cakes and...crime rates?

This morning we attended what could be the most ceremonious of all job-offerings: Match Day. After the deans cut a red ribbon, Eric and his classmates rushed forward to receive the envelopes that would reveal their residency matches. We already knew that Eric would be going to Wisconsin in 2010, but we were anxious to learn where he would match for intern year, July 2009–July 2010. And the letter said...

Harbor Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland!

Harbor Hospital is only about an hour from my parents' home, and the kids are already looking forward to more time with "Grandma, Grandpa, and the uncles." Unfortunately, it seems like the inner city has its numbers all upside-down: low school performance and high crime rates. But I'm sure we'll be able to find a golden community in the area. Right, guys? I mean, I'm not giving up my cute little red brick home, my vegetable garden, tulips, and fruit trees, plus my dear Salt Lake friends and neighbors for nothing! No, this will be good. I haven't lived near my parents since I was 17, and I've always yearned for the East Coast. Baltimore will be good.

So we'll have to be settled in by mid-June, and in the meantime please tell your friends that the coziest cul-de-sac home in America is going on the market next month. If interested buyers act quickly, they can even recommend which varieties of tomato I should plant.