Dear Aunt Ruth, er, Family,
This letter will probably be all about Jared. He’s pretty much all we talk about. Just wanted to warn ya. ;)
K, 1st amazing Jared thing (but 1st a prequel note, Jared is in 1st grade now): Jared read in GERMAN last week!! Just out of the blue and surprised Ryan and I. He read it perfectly. I’d opened our scriptures (you know the picture/cartoon scriptures) to the chapter we’re on and quick as lightning Jared says, “Der Mann, der nicht gehen konnte!” (The Man Who Couldn’t Walk) I haven’t even started teaching him to read in German yet. I’m still trying to decide what the best way to do it would be. But despite that Jared should be able to read a lot of German because it’s a phonetic language just like English. It’s not like French where the word looks nothing like it sounds! (Suzannah, I do not know how you managed to learn that language!) The main difference is in the letters like W and V that sound different in German and of course the umlauts. Jared thinks the umlauted u (ü) is a smiley face and not a letter. Jared’s taken such an interest in scripture reading. Every time before we read I remind him that all of the stories about Jesus in the scriptures really did happen. So we read about him healing people and then one night we about Jesus feeding the 5,000 and then move on to where he walks on the water and Peters wants to do it too. Jared said, “so…….Jesus can do anything?” I said, “yep, anything.” “Heavenly Father too?” “Yes, that’s why we want you to say your own prayers at night. Because there isn’t anything the HF and Jesus can’t help you with.” “Well, Heavenly Father can do MORE than Jesus because He’s God, right?” Ummmmmmmm, sure.
Ryan just returned from a Java 1 conference in San Francisco. He left early Sunday morning and came back late Thursday night. This was an especially expensive conference. OC Tanner wanted to send at least 3 developers and they chose Ryan as one. While he was gone Jared and I had planned to go to Capitol Reef National Park (near Arches and Canyonlands). Leslie’s sister got married and she’d invited our whole family. It was quite the affair. They even had their dog be the ring bearer. Anyway Leslie and I thought it would be funny to introduce ourselves simply as “Jared’s moms” and let people infer what they will. ;) But I got sick and we stayed home.
Jared was really worried about Ryan going to this conference. He’s grown up with me running off on trips by myself all the time, but Ryan’s the “stable” one. So this really threw him for a loop. Jared was worried Ryan wouldn’t come back. Whenever I’d mention dad’s trip, his response was always the same question. “Mom, do you think dad will ever come back from his trip?” Ryan talked to him before he left and convinced Jared that dad really is coming back.
We took Ryan to the airport and Jared did not like saying good-bye to dad. Jared said bye, hugged dad, and then got back in the car as fast as he could. When I got in the car Jared was crying and I asked if he wanted to say bye to dad again. He said, “nein, danke,” but b/c he was crying I thought he said ja, danke. He did NOT want Ryan to see him crying! Once his window started going down he got really mad, turned his body away from Ryan, and yelled at me, “I SAID NEIN DANKE!!!!” Oops! I apologized and told him I thought he’d said yes.
Ryan said there were 40,000 people at this conference, which culminated in a concert by Sting and Tom Petty (somebody knew their target audience). He also said “There are so many languages I can hear being spoken. Urdu, Hindi, French, Spanish, Russian, even a bit of German every now and again. It's cool just to see all the people I can't understand (and a few I can).”
Sunday night Jared used bedtime and dad’s absence to challenge me. When I announced,“Ok, Badenzeit!” (bath time) he entrenched himself deeper into the couch and said “what are you going to do if I don’t come?” I said, “huh?” He said, “I mean what will you take away if I don’t come?” I didn’t say anything while I thought. Then I looked him right in the eye and calmly told him I don’t need to threaten him to get him to take his bath b/c I know he’s a good kid who will be obedient and do as his mother asks. He studied me for a moment, turning that over in his head, and then said (a little defeated) “all right,” got up off the couch, and went upstairs.
While Ryan was gone I did take Jared to see Lion King in 3D. Jared’s seen Lion King, but only ever in German. When we got to the near empty theater, Jared told the cashier “This is the 1st time I’m going to see the Lion King……….in ENGLISH!!” Jared has also recently decided to tell me that I “don’t know hardly any English words. Dad knows TONS more English words than you do, mom.”
Going to the airport to pick up daddy was quite a big deal. Ryan’s plane was a little late. We had to wait 40 minutes which unsettled Jared quite a bit. He squeezed my hand and later pulled my arms in front of him as we waited at the bottom of the stairs looking for dad. At one point he almost started to cry and told me, “mom, I’m scared. What if everyone else got off the plane but dad and he’s the only one on the plane and he’s all alone?” I told him not to worry, the flight attendants would kick daddy offer the plane b/c they can’t get off until all the passengers are off.
Then I explained that even though we’d seen lots of big groups come, it doesn’t mean they were all from the same airplane. I told him there are lots of airplanes landing and lots of people getting off them. He felt better after that. While we waited there was another lady waiting for the flight from Oakland. Her husband just won Utah’s best poet award and 2 of their children were coming for the big ceremony. She and I were talking about how long we’d waited for the plane and wondering where it was. She said she’d been waiting a certain amount of time and Jared turned to her and said, “well I’ve been waiting 4 days!” Then finally I saw Ryan at the top of the escalator. He was waving and waving, but Jared didn’t see him. So I bent down to his ear and, pointing, asked, “now who do you suppose that guy is who’s doing all the waving?”
Jared literally jumped for joy! It was kind of a skip/jump. Jared looked at me questioningly and I told him yes, he could definitely run out to dad now. It made me teary eyed. I love Jared’s relationship with Ryan. Do any of you watch Modern Family? I tell Ryan that sometimes Phil and Luke remind me of him and Jared. Jared was so excited, wanted dad to sit by him on the way home (Ryan did), and told Ryan, “dad, I missed you SO much!!!!”
But I’m still ultimate authority in the family. Last night I called Ryan from Smith’s to see if we still had 2 loaves of bread in the freezer. Meanwhile, just before I called, Ryan and Jared had finished watching a little Return of the Jedi and Ryan said it was bedtime. But Jared looked him mischievously in the eye and said, “no it’s not, it’s Tobenzeit!!!” (time to wrestle) and attacked Ryan. I called just after they started. Ryan said hang on, it’s mom to which Jared pointed at Ryan and said “Uh-oh, you’re in TROUBLE!” I can’t tell if I’m “grown up” enough. I don’t feel the way I imagined I’d be when I was “grown up” with a husband and kids. I still like a lot of the things from high school and college. Jared’s relatively young (at 36 I pictured myself with a complete family, as in married with 3 or 4 kids). I just went to his 1st parent teacher conference. A lot of my friends were there and had to visit more than one teacher and they’re all younger than me.
My husband, and nearly every other husband I know, loves to play video games. Most moms don’t dress like “moms” (and some dress a little too much like their teenage daughters). The one way I can tell I’m getting older is that I don’t like all the new music on the radio anymore. If I am “grown up”, then I have to say I rather like being the mother of a 1st grader. This is how I spend my days: get up at 6:30, wake Jared, get him ready before the bus comes at 7:30, go back to sleep, wake up, go for my run, clean the house, read books, and hang out with my girlfriends (last week we went to Café Rio). I volunteer at Jared’s school whenever I want and generally pick out only the things I know I’ll like.
When Jared gets home (2:45) we do snacks, talk about his day (this part is my favorite!), homework and then he wants to play with friends. Make dinner, eat at 6, Jared takes his bath at 7, and we read some more from 7:30 – 8:00, which is his bedtime. Sometimes Jared complains that he isn’t getting all his screen time (tv, playing the Wii, games on the computer, anything with a screen). He still hasn’t accepted that he has a lot less free time than he had over the summer. After 8 Ryan and I get our time together. Ryan definitely seems “grown up” to me. All he ever wants to talk about is Dave Ramsey and talk radio! He loves Dave Ramsey.
Jared and Ryan have started putting up the Halloween decorations and I’ve received several invitations to leave the computer and join them. So I think that I shall join them.
Love,
Sherry, Ryan, and Jared
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