The Universal Picture

From the "How to Parent Asher to Adulthood So You Don't Kill Him" handbook given to me at his birth, found in paragraph 27, section 12, article 4, division 33, clause 2 , snippet 9 -

"For the purpose of capturing photographic memories, it shall hear by be mandated that one such photo must be comprised entirely of the subject's meal upon their head. In such a case that this is a possible event to depict, it is encouraged that the meal be one of a stain producing variety. The subject's meal should look to be in disarray, while the subject them self should look to be well satiated and contented with their current condition."

My Contradictory Weekend

Saturday from 11a-5p - landed in Denver and was picked up by my SIL Monica. I spent time with her kids, ate milk and cookies, passed on the opportunity to go to a water park that night since I already had plans, watched ninja warrior and old BYU football highlights (mayhaps a man had the remote?), satisfied my nephew by listening to his endless "Hey Jaylee, guess what?"s, and sat and relaxed around the house in my black flip flops.

Saturday from 5p-11p - Was dropped off by Monica at a swanky bar in downtown Denver. I spent the time with 15 other women, ate sushi and edamame, passed on the pomegranate martinis being offered to me, watched the bride-to-be open gifts of lingerie, and sat around the celebration while witnessing a party guest use the man's portion of the matching gift set of sequined g-strings as a surgical mask around her head, all the while in my black high heels.

I had a really great time indulging both sides of my dual life. Being a convert to the church, I will always have experiences in my life that maybe the average born into the church member doesn't. It was a plus that my SIL and the bride-to-be both happen live in Colorado, and so I was able to spend time with each of them and their families.

The plane ride home was not without incident. My plane landed in Las Vegas at 7p. I had a 2 1/2 hour layover (the things we'll endure to save a few dollars), so I figured I would just find my gate and stick my nose in a book. When I was leaving Denver, I was given both boarding passes for my first and second flight, so there was no need to check in when I landed in Vegas. The Vegas airport is ginormous, so I spent a good half hour going back through security and finding my gate. My cell phone battery was dead, and I wasn't wearing a watch, so I decided to sit at my gate for the remainder of the time until it boarded so I wouldn't continuously be looking up at the time. I may have tripped a few times on the way to my gate, and a few dollars may have flown out of my wallet and landed in the bill slot of a very twinkly machine, but don't worry, I caught myself from falling by grabbing onto this arm-like thing that was protruding from it's side (even the airport isn't free of slot machines). Alas, I finally found my gate, which was empty, and the flight information displayed was from the last flight that had boarded at that gate. I bought a pretzel and proceeded to sit down and read for the next two hours. As the time passed on, more people began to show up. I noticed that most of the flight was going to be comprised of a rowing team all wearing the same blue uniformed polo. They were a rowdy bunch, so I moved a few times to escape their loud conversations. What a rowing team from Phoenix was doing in Las Vegas seemed to be a double contradiction, but whatever. The time ticked on and I saw the boarding agents begin to assemble. They announced that the first class passengers could board, and I moved and sat down right next to the door so that I could be one of the first passengers on the plane. I knew my row was one of the last on the plane, and I didn't want to wait for all the passengers who brought their over sized carry-ons try to shove their bags into the overhead compartments. I was lucky and boarded 2nd. As I boarded, I noticed that the plane was very nice, with large leather seats, each with a pillow and blanket laid on it. I found my seat, sat down, and put my nose back in my book. The plane began to fill up, and a few minutes later, a lady came up to me and asked in a very annoyed voice, "What's your seat number?"
I looked at her and said, "It's 26A."
"Well, my friends and I have 26A, 26B, and 26C, so that can't be right."
I fished around in my purse, found my boarding stub, and handed it to her. She located and told an attendant that US Airways had given out the same seat number to two different people. I had my nose back in my book because I knew they would figure it out themselves, and if I had to move, who cares. At this point, everyone is pretty much in their seats, and there's some commotion towards the front of the plane that I can't hear or see. The plane quiets down and everyone watches an attendant come up to me and ask, "Honey, where are you flying to tonight?"
"Phoenix?" I answer in a small voice as if I'm questioning where I'm going.
"Well, honey, this plane is flying to Seattle."

I felt a hundred pairs of eyes turn to look at me.

"You let me get on a plane to Seattle?!" I shouted. I grabbed my bags and rushed off the plane as the hundred pairs of eyes bore a hole into my back. When I got out to the boarding agent, I showed her my boarding ticket which said gate A23, which was where I was. She told me the there was a gate change and that I better hurry because my correct plane was done boarding and the gate was on the other side of the airport. So, I ran as fast as my non-fast running legs would take me and as I approached the correct gate, the boarding agent spotted me and spoke into her walkie talkie, "She's here." I'm guessing there was a phone call made saying there was a stupid girl who got on the wrong plane, and please-o-please, could you delay the plane from taking off so that she can get on it tonight since its was the last flight out of Vegas? I sheepishly walked to the last row on the plane as a hundred pairs of eyes looked at me, questioning the circumstances as to how this lady was able to delay their plane from taking off on time. I sat down between a women flying with her 2 week old baby, who for some reason did not want to take his bottle, even though he clearly was hungry, and the guy who delayed the plane even further because he was in the bathroom throwing up his airport lounge margarita and wasn't able to take his seat during the taxi to the runway.

Maybe I should have been tipped off by the fact that a rowing team was flying to Phoenix, or that luxurious seats were available for a 50 minute flight. Yes, I should have looked at the display board, or paid more attention to the announcement that they "will now begin boarding the plane bound to Seattle." I wonder, if the flight to Seattle hadn't been full, and there was no one assigned to seat 26A, would I be typing this post from Puget Sound, eating my smoked salmon, drinking my Starbucks, while listening to Pearl Jam?

Today Emma had her first dental appointment. Understand that it's been a nagging thought for the past 117 weeks that she needs to visit the dentist. I'm not sure what kept me from making the appointment, especially since we've been paying for her to have dental insurance. Had someone actually knocked on my door on the 1st and 15th of every month and demanded cash from my wallet, I would have felt more of an urge to take advantage of the service, but my dental insurance provider has a nifty way of taking their payment straight from my paycheck. Out of site, out of mind.

Her appointment was for 2:15, which was swell because Clint's off work at 1:30. And when I say he's off at 1:30, I mean he's never off at 1:30, and it drives me crazy. Since he works in the construction industry, he follows the hours of the sun and the heat, so at the hottest time of the summer, he's at work at 5am, with a quitting time of 1:30pm. It's a fantastic schedule because, in theory, after I roll out of bed at 8am, ship Emma off to school, and get home, he's already completed half his day, and I only have 5 more hours to go until I can pawn Asher off on Clint while I curl my eyelashes and practice my moonwalk. Unfortunately, the aforementioned scenario is not my reality. Since Clint is salaried and important, he stays later. His start time may change, but he doesn't seem to take advantage of leaving earlier, which means during the summer, he ends up working longer days than in the winter. So, my moonwalk is on the back burner, and my eyelashes remain droopy. But, if Clint's assigned a commitment by me, he'll take off on time, which he had to today because I was not about to bring Asher with me. Asher would have grabbed the drill to use as a weapon against me while he stuck the suction hose up his nostrils. No, Asher was to stay at home with me while Clint took her. I had reminded Clint about this appointment last night, so when 1:50 rolled around, I expected Clint to tell me he would be turning down our street any minute. Who wants to take a guess where he still was? If you guessed work, you are correct, which right now is located on Higley and the I60. Clint had forgotten. In fairness, I had also forgotten about the appointment, but was lucky enough to have looked at the calendar while I was making plans for the weekend. Panic set in because my dentist office (and I'm sure all are like this) is sooooooo stringent with start times and they charge you $30 if you are a no show to your appointment. I called them and the lady gave me a hard time about being late. I jokingly said that the appointment shouldn't last as long as a typical adult appointment because her teeth were so little. The admin lady wasn't impressed with my reasoning, and continued to give me a hard time about being late, not having enough time for paperwork, etc. So, I told her to go ahead and e-mail me the paperwork and I would fill it out at home, and would hand it to Clint to bring with him. She chuckled and told me e-mail was a no go (when will doctors enter the digital age?) but she could fax it to me. I HATE using our fax machine. It's temperamental and grouchy, and it's an outdated method of communication. I begrudgingly told her to fax it, while I ran from this room to that room to rewire our entire phone system, dig a trench for a new phone line, climb up our telephone pole to solder some pieces together, load the fax on the dolly, and transport it to a functioning outlet (we're under construction in our house, so it's a bit unorganized). The phone rings, I press the button, and nothing comes. My panic rises a decibel, and I call again and ask for her to please, oh, please fax it again. The phone rings, I press the button, and nothing comes out again. AHHHH!!! I'm getting down to the wire, Clint's almost home, and I can't get the stupid paperwork to print. I call AGAIN and ask her to re-fax it, and while it's ringing for the 3rd time, I notice that the phone wire isn't plugged into the fax machine. With one ring to spare, I quickly snap it into place and I hear the beautiful sound of beeps and printing noises. I grab the first sheet and start filling it out as quick as possible, but I notice the printing doesn't seem to be stopping. I turn around and I see that 10 pages are in que to print. Why does her dentist need 10 pages of information? I rush lickety split to fill out the paperwork, all the while yelling at Emma in the bathroom to keep brushing her teeth (why do we brush our teeth right before we see the dentist? Like it's really going to make a difference. They still stick their torture devices into your gums and yell at you for not flossing enough). Clint comes home, Emma's on her way, and I relax while Asher's sleeping. Not more than 40 minutes goes by and Clint's pulling back up to our house. Emma comes into the house and I ask how it went. She plopped herself down onto the couch and very nonchalantly told me that she didn't want to do it today and that maybe tomorrow she'll want to do it. WHAT!! Clint tells me that she refused to put the x-ray thingamabobs in her mouth and the hygienist threw her arms up in the air after the first sign of refusal. Obviously this lady doesn't have kids. Clint had no chance at convincing Emma to give it a try after hearing that it was okay to stop. I'm considering putting Emma on dessert probation until her next successful appointment. I'm definitely changing dentists. Any recommendations?

Asher's Debut

Now that I've figured out how this video thing works, I may go a little crazy with it.

This was filmed during an afternoon nap at which time Asher should have been sleeping. Instead he decided to do this the entire time. It seriously was like the John Jacob Jingle Hymer Schmidt song where it just repeats itself over and over without some type of chorus or refrain to break up the song to get to a stopping point. He somehow figured out a way to continue singing the song until I felt sorry for the kid and ended his nap time.

Untitled from Jaylee Draney on Vimeo.

Emma's Dance Recital

This is Emma's 3rd recital she's danced in during her short little lifetime. I have the other two on tape somewhere that I'll try to share some other time. If you can believe it, the tickets were $18 each, and if you wanted to stay to watch the entirety of the recital after your child dances, you had to also purchase them a ticket. It's amazing what we'll pay to experience these things. Needless to say, Clint and I left after Emma danced.

This is a contraband video. The only personal filming a parent could do was during the dress rehearsal, and stupid me didn't get the camera set up before she came on, so instead of enjoying watching Emma practice her dance, I was fuming the whole time that I would have to pay $30 for the DVD, which I would pay in a heartbeat to capture the short two minutes of Emma's stardom on record. I eventually decided to tape it myself during the actual recital, which is forbidden because, obviously, they want you to purchase their professional DVD. Had Emma been in more dances, I may have done that, but as it was I had already spent $550 on dance lessons, $50 on her costume, and $36 on recital tickets, which works out in the end to $318 a minute, or $5.30 a second during her 2 minute long performance. I did my best to stick it to the man.

I am thrilled with how well she did, and so proud she is able to dance in front of hundreds of people without peeing her leotard. Every year without fail, I'm a bundle of nerves leading up to her performance, and every year after her performance, I tell myself that was the last season of dance lessons. Three years later she's still going strong.

Untitled from Jaylee Draney on Vimeo.

Don't you hate it when you have to call the dentist for your daughter to make an appointment, which you should have done weeks ago but kept forgetting, and you kick yourself every night before you go to bed that you accomplished quite a bit during the day, except you can't take care of this one simple task, and you vow that "tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I will call the dentist" and then you forget again because life gets in the way and you have to drive to Target AGAIN to return yet another impulse item, and finally on the way home from running errands you repeat in your mind "call the dentist, call the dentist", and when you get home at 12:45, before you do anything else, you run into the house, look up the number, grab the phone and dial? And don't you hate it that between the hours of 12:30 and 1:30 Monday through Thursday they're out to lunch? And you know that it will be another 2 weeks before you get around to calling again and by that time every last one of your kid's teeth will have fallen out.

I Should Own Stock in Behr

My outlet for expression has deviated recently into creating perfect paint lines.





I hate painting. I hate it because it's so obvious when it's not perfect. I imagine someone sitting in my bathroom relieving themselves, looking at the wall in front of them, and when it's a particularly long visit, they may find themselves trailing their line of vision along the top of the baseboards, up the door frame, around the ceiling, etc., silently taking inventory of all the paint blobs that seeped over their designated space. I hate it because I have no other handy talent I can contribute towards the continuing black hole of home improvement our house requires. I don't trust myself to do anything else, so with clenched teeth and paintbrush in hand, I tape and paint and re-tape and repaint, and my day's mood begins to depend on whether a perfect line emerges after I so gently peel off the tape at a perfect 90 degree angle.




If you find me laying on the bathroom floor with my eyes gouged out by a paintbrush, make sure you get a good look at my smokin paint edges before you call for the coroner.