“I’m OK, it’s just pain!” -Leo, age 10

It is 7:30 in the morning and the kids are up sitting at the kitchen bar eating breakfast.  They are sleepy, but slowly waking up and resigned to their fate of another day of public education.  Badger, like so many seven year olds, uses his first moments of wakefulness as a time for self reflection.

“I don’t cry nearly as much as I used to.” he states, with an air of accomplishment.

“I think you are right…you don’t cry as much.”  I reply.

He looks at Sunny, who has been semi-silently moaning and weeping since crawling out of bed five minutes before.  A bad nights sleep and some unfinished homework making it impossible for her to hold her shit together today, so all her 11 year old woes come tumbling out of her like glass shattering on top of a wounded animal who is being forced to listen to finger nails on a chalk board.

“But Sunny, she cries a lot more now.”  he observes.

Being the sympathetic mother that I am I offer up an explanation.

“Well, Sunny is about to go through a really emotional time in her life.”

“Yeah, it’s called her period.”  Leo says.

We had a nice weekend, with just Badger home, even though he followed me around talking about video games at a gozillion miles an hour. And we missed Sunny and Leo tons. The days were so strangely…(I want to say quiet here but quiet isn’t right because it wasn’t quiet with all the Badger talking, it was noisier, so much noisier but with less fighting and friends over eating all my snacks)….empty (that’s the right word) without them.

It was great spending time with just Badger though, and I think that is important for him because being the youngest I think he feels ignored many times. So besides spending a lot of time bonding over video games with Chris this weekend, Badger also did this:

Went to Target to spend some allowance money and purchased the pin toy thingy.

Rode his bike around the back patio.

Stalked an enemy target.

Got a basket from the Easter Bunny, after which he exclaimed: “So Halloween and Easter are both about candy!” Yes Badger, the heathen Easter is exclusively about candy. Yay!

Sunday afternoon we drove down to Utah County to pick up Sunny and Leo. We were so happy to see them. So happy to have them back. I especially felt so happy that these amazing little people are a part of my family. And happy that, even though it is sometimes hard to live, life is its own reward.

There is a subject that I have been wanting to write about for a long time, but I’ve been afraid of my limited capacity to do it justice. I just get so angry and upset when I think about it that my mind goes blank. I can’t make sense of it. I can’t wrap my mind around it. I can not understand it, let alone write about it. But today I’m going to give it a shot.

For over a year now my parents have been sending me hate mail. This hate mail comes in the form of alerts from a website that my parents subscribe to called the American Family Association. It should really be called the Straight Christian Family Association of Bigots, because that would be much more accurate. On their website they say they are an organization that is dedicated to, among other things, holding companies accountable for supporting programs that attack traditional family values. Or you could say they are hate peddling douche bags with their heads up their asses. Apparently my parents have chosen to take up hate as a hobby in their retirement, reading and following the teachings of that website with a similar devotion that they give to their other hobbies of arguing and reading scriptures, which is to say they are VERY devoted.

The first e-mail alert they forwarded me was calling for a boycott of Target stores, because they were making a corporate contribution to a gay and lesbian charity. I was blown away. Could they be serious? Were they really afraid that any support of gay people would somehow be an affront to their family and their belief in Jesus? Were people really that close minded? Sadly the answer to all those questions was YES. Not just yes, but YES. Because I was still in the midst of my disbelief when I casually mentioned something to my mother about shopping at Target. She informed me that she didn’t shop there anymore because “homosexuality is morally wrong.” To which I lamely responded that gay people were people too! , because naturally I can’t ever think of the right thing to say at the right time. And I was somewhat stunned to think that it was my job to point out the obvious truth to my mother, that we were all human beings that deserved the same rights and privileges as everyone else. That supporting and giving rights to gay people in no way diminishes straight people. It makes us all stronger, more loving people. Plus I was worried I might take it too far and offend her by saying that her morals were an antiquated shield of bigotry and hate. She might have gotten mad at me.

The emails kept coming, and I was getting more angry all the time. Boycott Ford, write your congressman letting them know where you stand on gay marriage, and sign a petition to bring religious(i.e. christian, because what other religion is there that even matters?) celebrations back into schools! Every time I got one of these I wrote an angry email response about how ugly hate in the name of God can be, and really I almost hit the send button every time. But only almost, because I was convinced of the ineffectually of my response.

This Thanksgiving my family came to my house for dinner. The hot new AFA action alert was Wal-mart and their donation of money to a gay and lesbian center, resulting in a boycott of their stores the weekend after Thanksgiving. This topic came up in conversation many times, to which I continually interjected my liberal, amoral ideals. I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer, although I probably could have chosen a more eloquent and adult way to address the subject. So when they would say how dumb Wal-mart was for taking a stand on this issue, I would yell out, “Yeah, and gay people should have their own bathrooms and drinking fountains too!” with unmistakable sarcasm people, unmistakable. All my comments were ignored. I was not in the room. I was not speaking. Every time I said something their eyes glazed over and I could almost hear them singing “How Great Thou Art” or another favorite hymn inside their heads to wash their minds of the words coming from my vile forked tongue. It would have been really funny if it wasn’t so sad.

I am continually amazed at people who claim to be followers of Jesus, and then feel justified in spreading hate and intolerance in his name. It’s been a while since I’ve been to church but I thought Jesus taught two basic rules: 1) love the lord, and 2) love thy neighbor as thyself. It’s in the Bible all you Christian people, so what’s with all the hate?

This is a demonstration of what can be done with a ledge, a stairwell, a giant bean bag, two blanket-capes, and a mother who MUST BE OUT OF HER MIND.

Sometime last week Leo and Badger were bored and looking for a way to be destructive. They each took two plastic cereal bowls out of the kitchen and taped them together with scotch tape, creating what you might call a poor mans ball. They then decided to color on them, drawing faces and hair transforming these globes into human heads. Leo briefly filled his with water to simulate blood and brains, but that plan was quickly vetoed by the clean up police…aka, me. But he made it clear to me that if his own beautiful blond bigger-than-average size head ever got removed in a tragic “head-offing accident”, that he wanted it replaced with the plastic bowl head he had just created. The kid seriously watches too much TV.

Badger named his bowl head Anakin (thanks Star Wars) and has been carrying it around with him everywhere. In the car, the store, to the park, and to bed. Anakin is his new best friend. Badger has always had a good crew of imaginary friends. Sometime during his second year of life Shawn, Jake, T-Bone, and Emily started coming to play every day. These guys don’t usually take form, the way Anakin has with his plastic and tape body, which makes them easy to step on and offend yet equally as easy to ignore. Frankly I really enjoy when Badgers friends are over playing because they are quiet and don’t eat all my snacks the way the friends with heartbeats do. Even though occasionally they persuade Badger to cause trouble, especially that Jake, he’s always telling Badger to dump out all his toys or eat candy for breakfast. But Anakin, being a polite plastic bowl head, is a welcome addition to the imaginary crew.

Last night I was sitting at the kitchen table helping Sunny finish up her three hour homework session, and the boys were running around playing swords and enjoying being out of the watchful eye of the clean up police. Suddenly Leo came running into the kitchen, holding a large plastic sword with plastic Anakin rolling at his feet, and Badger trailing closely behind. Leo raised his arm up back behind his head, and in one swift chopping motion he sliced little Anakin, causing the tape to detach and two separate little bowls to go rolling in opposite directions across the tile.

Badger then screamed a scream so loud that every small animal in a five mile radius instantly suffered brain damage. He then yelled “Leo, how could you? YOU JUST KILLED MY FRIEND!”

And Leo, who was very clearly sorry yet confused at the same time, tried to make things right by pointing out the obvious truth, ” It’s just an inanimate object, don’t you know?”

He didn’t know.

I may have mentioned before, once or twice, that I was born and raised in the Mormon church. I spent the first 18 years if my life being indoctrinated daily, and another 10 years after that being inactive but still believing it was probably true. When I finally did the research a few years ago and realized that the Mormon church was an extremely elaborate fabrication, I have to say I was relieved. Relieved and scared at the same time. I felt like my entire life I had been standing on a mountain that was all my beliefs in the way the world worked. And when I found out the church wasn’t true it was like the entire mountain fell away, except for the ground I was standing on, and I was out there all alone on this little sliver of earth. It was frightening and liberating at the same time. I was all on my own. I was all on my own! I had thought for so long that this church was probably true, yet I knew it wasn’t right for me, and oh the guilt and fear that caused in my life. By learning it wasn’t true I was able to take my first steps in life down a path without guilt and fear of eternally disappointing the people I loved. Plus all the worry free alcohol consumption. And masturbation. Don’t forget the masturbation.

So what I can’t figure out is, now that I’m all on my own in life without the prayers and the scripture study and the Family Home Evening, why I can’t shake the feeling that when something goes wrong in my life it’s a direct result of my pissing off Jesus and Joseph Smith by leaving the church. It’s like that 28 years of indoctrination and belief actually worked! Who’d a thunk it? So when my life follows its natural up and down course, more down than up lately, I have a hard time accepting it for what I logically know it is….Life. My car was in the shop for 2 weeks getting a new transmission, my kids are sick, and the company that both Elliott and Chris work for very nearly went belly up. Individually these things all suck. When they happen all at once its Godawful. I just wish I didn’t have to keep telling myself that the reason my family hasn’t seen a paycheck in a month isn’t because we left the church and haven’t paid our tithing.

I think that most people who were raised in a religious home have this same problem, and it is probably a large part of what keeps people involved in religion…fear of the unknown. I’m pretty hopeful though that one day all these silly superstitious fears will wear off of me. They had better, because I just can’t imagine spending the rest of my life thinking every time I stub my toe or lose my keys that it could have happened maybe possibly because I had coffee with my breakfast.

Last week we went to the Oregon coast to spend an entire week in a beach house with my side of the family. Naturally we had an “AWESOME” time, as Badger would say. It had all the magic and hilarity of a large family gathering: my brother-in-law constantly breaking wind and refusing any and all desperate pleas for him to go outside, kids playing, kids bickering, my parents bickering, a cutthroat game of Phase 10, the constant running of the washing machine and dishwasher, and so much more that I could go on for two more paragraphs but I think you’ve got the idea by now.

One evening we had an impromptu talent show in which many of my nieces and nephews sang, danced, recited poems, and displayed their ability to touch their noses with their tongue. Elliott even played a song on his guitar. The show ended with Sunny laying on my bed and crying because she wanted so badly to get up and sing a song, but was too nervous to do so. This probably says as much about the intolerant,critical, and perfectionist nature of my sisters kids as it does about Sunny herself. It was sad for me to watch because, alas I have been in that same situation many many times myself and as a parent you always hope that your children will have it better than you.

I had been to Oregon a couple of times before this trip, but I’d say this was the first time I took notice of some things other than all the TREES and the fact that you can’t pump your own gas. One of the funniest things I noticed about the great state of Oregon is all the signage. I mean the state government either must think that the general population is made up of total idiots or they are just really really nice and helpful and honestly wish the best for all their residents and visitors. Along every street there are signs for churches this way, and parks that way. Also many of their signs were simplified. For example a speed limit sign simply said SPEED, or where in other states you would have a sign that said ‘Falling Rocks’ their sign just said ROCKS. At first I found this quite funny, and I was forced to wonder if they felt they had to dumb down the signs for an ignorant population. But in the end I decided the were simply streamlining, making things easier for people, because it takes less time to read ROCKS or SPEED than ‘Watch out for Falling Rocks Please’ therefore drivers will be less distracted.

One of our favorite signs said ‘Play Safe. Stay off Logs.’ because is it really necessary to warn people to stay off logs? Are there a lot of dangerous log incidents? Then I saw piled up on the beach about twenty large logs that had drifted up out of the ocean, and I could just picture my kids running and playing on them while they shifted and rolled causing children to fly off in every direction and ending in the emergency room. And who wants to spend their vacation in the emergency room? Nobody.

Because of my kids year round school schedule, and the fact that the school changed their track assignment, Sunny and Leo missed their first week of school while we were gone to Oregon. We had planned the trip long before we knew of the track change, and since they are in First and Third grades we didn’t feel it would be a big deal for them to start a little late. Yesterday was their first official day, and it was rough for them both. Leo’s teacher talked to me after class to discuss what a difficult time he had. He talked real loud, and ran in the hall, and wouldn’t heed warnings to stop. I said ‘What? Leo? I don’t believe it! He always listens to everything I say, and never says loud obnoxious things!’ Then out loud I told her she should try spanking him and locking him in the closet, or threatening to take away his gameboy, because we’ve found that both work pretty well as behavior modifiers, and that if she doesn’t have a sense of humor about the whole thing HE WILL QUICKLY DETECT HER WEAKNESS AND KILL HER. Sunny cried all night about her teacher who yelled at some of the kids in the class, therefore Sunny is now scared shitless of her. The only positive thing she had to say about the day was they did a really fun art project. And her lunch was good.

So as I was laying in bed last night at 3 am worrying about Sunny and Leo and how they were going to handle the rest of their lives, I began to wish that life for them could be more like the state of Oregon. Wouldn’t it be nice if all along the roadways of their lives there were signs that said ‘Happiness Next Left’ or ‘Be Well, and Love Each Other’ or ‘You Will Be Okay Ahead’. Simple, informative signs that would guide them to a happy life without fear, disappointment, and bad days at school. If life for them was like Oregon, it would certainly make my job a lot easier because the fact is that I am, in many ways, their sign posts. And it’s a hard truth that I will never be able to keep them from the bad things no matter how big my flashing orange ‘Danger!’ sign might be. And it feels like such an overwhelming job to hold up signs for them, when at times I wish I had some signs for me.