The House That Fell as Manna From Heaven

Just thought I'd update the blog with the latest on the move...

Last week we took a road trip up North to see if we could secure a place to hang our hats when we rolled back into Santa Rosa in August. Initially, it seemed our timing was a bit off. Every place we went, we were either too early (they couldn't hold a place for us long enough), or too late (they had already found renters.) So, we resigned ourselves to coming up again for another shot in a couple of weeks, which was going to be difficult to arrange.

So when Sunday rolled around, we were hoping we would have an idea of where we were going to end up so we could check out our new church community. But alas, nothing had been decided. So we picked the ward that encompassed the area where the schools were most desirable for the kids and just kept our fingers crossed.

This ward happened to be the same one I grew up in. So, entering that building, there were a lot of familiar faces...many of which were eager to help us find something. When Relief Society began, the R.S. president stood up and announced, "We'd like to welcome Shana Van Cleave, who is visiting today. She used to be Shana Berger and had pig tails when I knew her. She wants to move into the ward with her family. Please let her know if you hear of anything." Within the hour, we had several great leads.

Bottom line, we found a place to live and it's above and beyond what we were hoping for. We'll be living in a great little neighborhood across the street from my old elementary school and a few blocks away from a park. There are FIVE bedrooms, an easily maintainable yard, huge kitchen, family room, living room, and two car garage. And the best part? We will no longer be subjected to the drunken revelers that wander beneath my bedroom window every night as they try to find their cars after a night at Busby's Sports Bar! Can I hear a WOOT WOOT?!?

A Little Bragging

Well, it's that time of year again. The kids win some major awards. Mom graduates again. You know the drill in this house. We're all just a bunch of overachievers.

Hayden

Hayden has become quite an impressive vocalist. We had no idea he had developed this talent until he came to us in the third grade and said, "I'm gonna be in the talent show!" "Oh, really? What's your talent?" "I'm going to sing." "Really? That'll be interesting." And then he belted out this country song (of all things... Let's just say that was totally his own doing) and sounded like a total pro! Since then, he has put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears in to honing his craft. We even had a lady in our ward who sings professionally for movies and T.V. approach us to see if we were interested in getting him active in Hollywood for voice-overs, etc.

But the biggest accomplishment to date was his participation in a scholarship program through the Kiwanis Club. Out of all the middle schoolers in all the choirs in all the schools, he placed fifth in the district. It was one of those moments that had me so engrossed, I completely forgot to press record on the camera. The payoff was that I was so enraptured, I was brought to tears by his surprisingly mature voice, but I didn't get to show the world this amazing performance. So during the Spring concert, I made sure I got his solo performance from the "Newsies" medley. He's the little guy with the microphone that disappears as soon as everybody else stands up.

Nathan

Nathan has been in one of the best high school music programs on the planet, in my humble opinion. At his Spring pops concert, the various orchestras played the scores from movies like Harry Potter, Spiderman, Avatar, and Star Wars. We even got visited by Darth Vader and his Imperial Storm Trooper guards. It was awesome! Every one of the upper level orchestras could play professionally. We are sad that Nathan will not have a chance to build on that experience in public school any more. If we could commute him to SAMOHI just for the music program after we move, it would almost be worth it. I don't think there are any orchestra programs at the schools in Santa Rosa. We'll have to look privately if he is to continue fostering this growing talent.

At the last performance, the teachers honored two or three members from each of the orchestra groups. As they announced the winner for the Strings Orchestra (the beginning level group that Nathan is in), the teacher said, "This violinist is such a hard worker. He's the first to open his violin case when he gets to class. He practices at school, at home, everywhere!" And Wayne and I both silently thought to ourselves, "Well, it can't be Nathan." "...And the recipient for outstanding musician is Nathaniel Van Cleave." *applause, applause* ...and then Wayne, in his astonishment shouts an audible, "WHAT?!?" Yeah. We're such good parents. We totally believe in our kids' abilities.

Shana

And as for me, I had a fake graduation last week. It was all the pomp and circumstance of a real graduation, but the kicker here was that I had to go back to work the next day. When I opened my "diploma," it was blank inside. They're holding it ransom for another month and a half of work to ensure that the patients don't suffer while we go through the transition to the incoming class. But it was lots of fun to see all the family and enjoy their amazing support. My mom was crying like she did at my wedding, she was so proud. Chad was cheering so loud, I was considered the most popular graduate by my peers. (People thought I had brought an entire entourage, and 14 spectators was kind of a lot... But really, it was just that Chad is VERY loud! It was hilarious and absolutely made my day.)

Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory to be gluttons. And that was where I got teared up as I looked around the table at my dearest supporters: Wayne, who essentially gave up his career for the advancement of mine, Nathan, who has shared his birthday weekend with me every two or three years as I hog the glory for yet another commencement, and Hayden, who has no memory of his Mom outside of her studies. I recalled going in to a counselor at Palomar College as I approached the time to transfer to a four year university. As she looked at my GPA, she said, "So where do you want to go? Harvard? Stanford? You could pretty much have your pick." When I told her I had a family to consider and was hoping to go on to pediatric dentistry, she changed her tune. "Well, with a family, you can't do that! That's, like, another 10 years of school." But I knew with my cheering section, I could. AND I did it in, like, another 8 years of school. So take that, Mrs. Naysayer Palomar College Counselor Woman. *insert raspberry noise here* So, thanks to these folks (picture below) and a host of other wonderful supporters, I am nearing the end of a decade of higher education.

Woo Hoo!!!

Wayne

While he doesn't get his own graduation or awards ceremony, his biggest achievement is surviving his overachieving family and making all of this possible. I joke and say he is the wind beneath my wings (because he absolutely despises that song), but it's true. I couldn't have done any of this without you. Well, maybe I could have, but my kids would be juvenile delinquents by now. Thank you for keeping them out of jail, kicking their butts when they needed it, and kissing their boo-boos (in a very manly way, of course) when I couldn't. You have spent most of this past decade doing my favorite job, and you've done wonderfully. Our boys are very lucky that they got the chance to be brought up by a very devoted Dad during their formative years. I love you so much, Baby!

Wooing Wayne

I surprised Wayne with a picnic to the Santa Monica pier a couple of days ago. He seemed a bit shocked when I told him my plan was to woo him. As we headed out to begin our beautiful day in the sun, he asked, "What inspired you?" The answer took him by surprise...

I had just been on a website listing some of the most novel approaches to popping the question. One dude tattooed "Will you marry me?" on his bicep. She responded, "Of course" in ink, just below his original query. (Good thing the answer was yes. Imagine the embarrassment if she had dissed him!) Another guy had a choreographed dance routine, with hundreds of participants, arranged in a busy New York park, while he proposed to the lovely bride-to-be from the center of the plaza/dance floor.

But my favorite was a candlelight proposal on the beach.

You see, Romeo had prepared an elegant picnic for his future fiance, to be enjoyed under the light of the moon. He had also set about a arrangement of votive candles, artfully displayed in the sand in the shape of an enormous heart.

Awwwww. So sweet.

What he didn't know was: that night the dunes would come alive with thousands of hatching, endangered, baby sea turtles. The little critters popped out of their leathery little shells, the wonder of new life in their newborn eyes... squinting to make out the reflection of the big full moon off the nearby lapping waves. The lunar marker would lead them directly towards the sea--their ultimate destination to begin the wondrous circle of life that was key to their species' survival.

So they instinctively followed the brightest glare on the horizon. Surely their inbred sensibilities could never lead them astray. But alas, thousands of baby sea turtles had never been equipped to handle the Darwinian dastardly deeds of Romeo and his candle display. Emerging from their protective eggs, they stumbled steadily, innocently, towards the blazing inferno of love, away from the safety of the ocean's welcome waves.

And lurking in the shadows of the fiery flames, an onslaught of voracious crabs lay in wait for the unsuspecting newborns: carnivorous, claw-wielding, and hungry. One by one, the baby sea turtles and their hopeful futures were snatched and devoured by the feasting crustaceans... effectively obliterating an entire generation of this protected, endangered species. Only one survived the sea turtle holocaust, only to perish days later.

So I figured, if Romeo can unwittingly obliterate an entire generation of reptiles in the name of love, why can't I pack up a nice picnic for my sweetheart?

The End.

I had a sucky day...

This helped.

My Mom May or May Not Have Been Married to Heath Ledger

Here's Michelle Williams, widow of Heath Ledger...

Here's my mom...

Maybe I'm Heath Ledger's love child...

Okay.
I was 5 years older than Heath...
But if time and space had warped in some sort of bizarre science fiction freak-fest, it could have happened!
I'm just saying!

Shamy: A History

As is the curse of motherhood, my mom had this terrible habit of calling my sister and I by the wrong name. My sister suffered the brunt of this, as my mom was very used to yelling at me. So naturally, she would start with the most likely suspect: "Shhhh-(and then she'd catch her mistake)-Amy!" Very rarely was her instinct to call out Amy's name first. Rarely did we hear, "A-Shana." So we started becoming a single entity: Shamy. Here is the history of Shamy.

It all began one Easter in 1977. Mom had a scheduled C-section later that week, but Amy didn't want to wait. So she became the best Easter present I ever got, though I didn't really think of it that way for years.

This is my first glimpse of what became my favorite punching bag. Those are my little pigtails in the foreground and Amy in the bassinet.

I was intrigued by this little being. What makes her tick? ...and more importantly, what makes her cry?

Very soon, I started realizing this little creature was honing in on my territory. Oh, sure. We look quite picture perfect in our Christmas finery, but don't be fooled. There was trouble brewing beneath it all. Can you see it in our faces? I was ready to leap into action at any moment, and Amy's wary face shows how alert she was for my attacks.

Sure, there WERE moments of kindness. See? There's actually photographic evidence that I shared every once in a while.

Most of the time, though, I was just bossing her around and trying to find ways of tricking her into doing something stupid or dangerous. See that malevolent sneer on my face and Amy's guileless look of innocence? That was pretty typical. I probably just told her the Easter eggs we were looking for in this picture would hatch and turn into flesh eating dinosaurs.

But you had to admit, she was SOOOOO cute! What big sister wouldn't be jealous of those piercing blue eyes and white blonde hair? And she was just so sweet, dang it! How could I compete?

It had to be through brute force. I must beat her into submission. This was at our Grandma and Grandpa Reed's house, probably just before I shoved her down this seemingly fun hill of dirt.

There's that plotting scowl again, and Amy's justifiably paranoid observation of me.

But we did have fun together. There was always somebody to dress up with, as seen here from the lens of our family friend, Patty Benker. We would play at Castle Rock at our cabin in Strawberry and come up with all sorts of crazy make believe scenarios. They usually involved me being a princess and Amy as some sort of servant girl. I think in this picture I'm a lovely southern belle and Amy is my slave. See? I even made her cast her glance downward when in my presence.

Rarely did we vacation anywhere other than Strawberry, but here is our trip to Disneyland while Dad attended the CDA convention in Anaheim, circa 1982.

We were forced to dress alike a lot. So poor Amy had to wear the same outfit for years on end: once in the little sister size and then again when she got my hand-me-downs. Between the beatings, I started taking pity on her.
Then there was this lapse of time, where there were very few pictures of the two of us together. That was about the time our parents were going through divorce. And soon after they both remarried, Amy moved in with my Dad while I stayed with my Mom.

And then this really weird thing started happening: We began to like each other. It was no longer my primary goal to find things about my little sister to hate. She was actually kind of cool. Not as cool as me with my supercool white shades as we snorkled in Puerto Vallerta, but she was working her way up the coolness ladder in my book by the time this picture was taken.

And when we would get together, we would crack up! It became my new goal in life to make her laugh. We would stay up late having gigglefests when we got together. Here we are in Florida, making fun of Hippies. This is the closest I ever came to getting stoned... toking on plain pieces of paper with the tips colored black, and my Mom taking this damning photographic evidence of our debauchery.

Thankfully, I stopped torturing her long enough to find in Amy one of my best friends. She is someone I no longer look upon with jealousy but with admiration. She is a tenacious, courageous, loving, compassionate, multi-talented, wise, and amazing woman. I love you dearly, Amy.

Happy Birthday!

I am NOT raising Satan's spawn... I am NOT raising the next Ted Bundy... I am just raising an underachiever

I think my kids are turning out pretty good. They are fairly respectful to adults, they show compassion to people less fortunate than they, they haven't killed any little furry animals for fun... But every once in a while, I feel entirely inadequate and that my children are doomed because I have irreparably screwed them up. If I dole out the wrong punishment are they going to turn into serial killers right before my eyes? How did Mama John Wayne Gacy and Mama Ted Bundy feel when their kids brought home sucky report cards? Did they look into their little boys' eyes and know that F in math was going to spiral into future butchery?

I'm being WAAAAAAAY melodramatic, but this week has seemed so ruinous (parenting-wise) and a conversation with Hayden today has me scratching my head and fearing for my son's soul. How do I parent this child? I do NOT understand what makes him tick. His motivators are the antithesis of mine.

It all began with his progress report that he tried not to show us this week. Despite last semester's grades of mostly A's and B's, he has now decided his favorite letter is "F." As in, "What the F, Hayden?" And apparently this is a new thing... Looking at his daily grades, he seems to have excelled until the month of March, which I guess was the month that he decided his career as an academic was at an end.

When Wayne met with his math teacher, I think the teacher was surprised with how much structure was implemented in our home: Hayden has to show us his assignments as soon as he walks in the door, he sits at a specific place at the kitchen table until he is finished, he has to show us his work when he is finished, there is no X-box during the work week, and we don't even have T.V. so his distractions are minimal. I think all of the teacher's assumptions about Hayden's parents were shattered by this conversation. I think he envisioned a single mom, curlers in her hair, using her welfare check to buy tall-forties and cigarettes at the local liquor store. "Hayden! Quit scribbling over there while Momma's tryin' to nurse this hangover!" "But mother, I must do my homework or I will get an F in math." "Math, Schmath! All you's need to know is how much sales tax the government's gonna tack on to my carton of Marlboros!"

And then it became all too clear to us and the teacher that it wasn't the environment that was the problem, it was this child's will that was impeding him. When Hayden has the will to work hard, he does so with all his might. When he does not wish to work, there are no carrots to dangle that are nearly enticing enough, and no punishments that can be handed down that will be nearly threatening enough. He just wants what he wants when he wants it. He is Instant-Gratification-Boy.

So the hammer came down. All the weekend privileges of video games were suspended. Visits with friends were severely limited. And then this conversation today came up...

"Mommy and Daddy, I don't think these punishments are going to work."

"But Hayden, we have given you incentives, too... and they don't work either. When you don't do the things you are supposed to do, you end up with consequences. The major consequence of this is that you will have to work extra hard to bring your grades up. And if you choose not to do so, the consequence may be repeating a class or a grade and then you will have to do this same work that you are trying so hard to avoid... all over again."

"I know, but rewards won't work, and neither will punishments."

"Then what will work?"

"I don't know. Somebody just needs to make me do it."

*Insert screeching vinyl record noise here*

What was that, Hayden? Somebody needs to make you do it? Somebody needs to compel you to choose the right? That sounds a little like Satan to me. Do you choose to give up your agency and your ability to make choices for yourself... just to make it easier on you because self-discipline is hard?

Ummmm. No. That is not an option. Hayden, governing yourself is difficult. It is one of our lifelong pursuits as human beings. But nobody is going to do it for you. I mean, if you continue down a path to pursue this extremely rigid way of life, I'm sure the military or prison could offer you such a life, but it is my hope as a mother that you will have more options than that. I wish for you to understand that the natural consequences for underachieving are simple: You lose options. You lose the ability to choose, because some of your original choices will be closed off to you.

How does one convey this to an 11 year old with the attention span of a flea and the self-discipline of a monkey? I don't know!!! Somehow as a child, I had this inherent fear of feeling bad for not meeting my responsibilities and this inherent reward for completing them. It felt great when I achieved something and terrible when I failed. That was it! There was no magic formula to get me to do my school work... It was very simple! How do I instill this into a child who doesn't give a rat's ass if he's failed, and thinks Legos are more exciting than the intrinsic value of accomplishment?

I know Hayden is far from the next Ted Bundy. I KNOW this! But sometimes I am completely at a loss to know why Heavenly Father has entrusted me with this strong-willed young man and baffled as to how He thinks I am going to pull this one off. How can I properly instruct this foreign personality? I just don't know yet. I only hope something clicks between us within the next 7 or 8 years I have Hayden in my home.