Pfamily January 2010

Ta-da!

My little boy is so big. He will be six in less than six weeks. I’m not ready. He is so excited to get older, to grow up, but I miss the sweet, obedient little boy he was before. I know that there is a lot to look forward to in an older child–Amelia has taught me that–but I also know that there is a younger child who will soon mostly be present only in pictures. (Note to self: Take more pictures!) I will miss him.

Duncan and I had a rollercoaster day today. We had a wonderful morning enjoying one of our favorite shared tasks: searching through piles of cookbooks in hopes of finding the perfect recipe. (Duncan is the only person I know who likes to look at cookbooks as much as I do). Duncan’s criterion was chocolate, mine was chewy. Finally, we found the January 2009 Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Chewy Chocolate cookies. We made them together and they surpassed our hopes: They were indeed chocolatey and truly chewy! A recipe breakthrough.

The afternoon brought an ugly metamorphosis. Duncan was so badly behaved–screaming, crying, carrying-on. It was frustrating after our nice morning. This wasn’t a day that warranted me turning inward and saying I must pay him more attention. He was badly behaved for no reason at all.

Fortunately, by evening, he was a happy little fellow again, entertaining himself and playing with Kate, glorying in the role of wonderful big brother. He does it so well! Then he exulted in the loss of his first tooth, giddy at the milestone met. Growing up can’t come fast enough for him. I just wanted to hug him tight and say, “Don’t leave me! I’ll miss you.” I did say something about not letting him get any older, and he just laughed and laughed. Silly mama.

But I did something good this week.  Our city has hosted a wonderful weekly art camp program the past two summers.  Duncan thrives on it.  I’m not sure that it’s because he has artistic talent; I think it might be more because he thrives on the excellent teacher student ratio.  However, even if he may be a little short on some types of artistic talent, there is no gainsaying the fact that he is extremely creative.  When I saw the Walter Wick exhibit at the BYU Museum of Art, I finally understood what shape his sort of talent might take.

Anyway, Art Camp ended last week, and we were left with a big pile of artwork.  We can’t possibly keep all the artwork Duncan generates, but it seemed heartless and wrong just to throw it in the trash.  So we transformed his bedroom into a museum and had the first ever Duncan Pfamily: The Art Camp Collection exhibition.  Family and friends visited.  In fact, after learning that it was for sale, some of the neighborhood children carried away about 1/4 of the artwork on display.  Now possessing 10 or so quarters, Duncan believes himself to be a very successful artist indeed.  I think so too.

Be sure to take a look at Amelia in this picture, not just Duncan!

This is a picture of Amelia that I took shortly after she learned that she had been passed to the next level of swimming. I think it may have been her eighth try. For more background on her epic achievement see my previous post.

Amelia and I have a favorite poem–which although overly dramatic and undoubtedly cheesy–lifts our spirits in times of struggle.

Never Give Up
Never give up if it’s worth doing
Never give up if the end be right,
If it’s a purpose that’s worth pursuing,
Go for it, morning and noon and night.

Never give up though your best friends drop you,
Saying that only a fool keeps on.
If it be worthy, let nothing stop you
Stick to your cause till your strength is gone.

Never give up how so oft you blunder,
Failure is part of a man’s career.
Sink if you must, but don’t stay under,
Keep a stout heart and persevere.

Out of their failures and sharp distresses,
Out of the swamps of despair and doubt,
Brave men have come to their best successes,
Never give up while your strength holds out.

Google helped me to discover that this poem has been attributed to Margaret (”Maggie”) S. Jackson MacKinnon.

a) I think my blog is finally working properly for the first time in a week!  Hooray!

b) Did you notice that the header, button, navbar and title fonts all match for the first time in the existence of this blog?  Hallelujah! The previous close-yet not matching-ness was very disturbing.  Many, many, many thanks to Pdad without whom this feat would not have been possible.  He fixed what my paid helpers did not.  Perhaps I should put credits for him at the bottom of the page!

I was astonished. If I want to review conference, I usually read the talks online or listen on the internet, but if I had been reading the Conference issue of the Ensign, I think I would have flipped right past that picture without even noticing it. So, anyway, for those of you who have the November issue, see page 101. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t appear in the online version as far as I can tell, so I can’t post it here.

Read about our General Conference experience.