noodge /vt. / to keep urging, asking in an annoying way. nag. to annoy persistently, pester. agitate. beleaguer. disturb. harass. plague. bother. henpeck. bedevil.

noodge /vt./ 1. My to-do's noodged me all week, dogging me night and day with thoughts of "Oh, I need to remember...", until I finally relented and actually wrote them down. This proved to be a fantastic idea (making me significantly more efficient) until Friday afternoon when I misplaced my list. An unfortunate turn of events, and yet, I muddled through with only a few moments of complete stupor.

noodge /vt./ 2. Ethan complained all week that his ears hurt when he swallowed. After days of noodging me to "go see Dr. James" I called the pediatrician and we showed up just before lunch on Thursday morning. We waited to see him for about an hour and when we finally did, Ethan got a clean bill of health. No ear infection. No strep throat. Somehow this didn't make me happy. Dr. James suggested that Ethan stop swallowing (since that's the only time his ears hurt) to which Ethan replied, "When I don't swallow my tummy hurts." Ethan, of course, giggled through the entire exam and Dr. James noted that he must be feeling "really bad" to be this cheerful, and I grudgingly played the part of the insane mother. By the by, Ethan's ears are still noodging him when he swallows. Grrr.

noodge /vt./ 3. This week was the Pine Wood Derby. My personal idea of the 7th circle of hell. I noodged David all week to help Caleb with his car. The weigh-in was Thursday night anytime from 7 til 9, (you had to have your car ready and weighed in by then to compete on Saturday). My boys showed up with their car at ten minutes to 9. Sounds about right. Caleb won 4 out of 6 of his races, a decent showing for a boy whose dad does not own a saw of any kind.

(Here is one of his wins...his car is in the far lane...)

noodge /vt./ 4. Friday night David and Olivia had date night. Olivia's Achievement Days class had a daddy-daughter bowling and pizza night and, as you can imagine, she was in 7th heaven. The event started at 5:30, but Olivia was so worried they would miss even one single moment of fun, she started her campaign early, calling David every five minutes starting at 4:30 and noodging him home.

noodge /vt./ 5. David's colorectal screening event went about like you'd expect. Apparently it takes more noodging than a postcard (he sent 1200 out to the community) to get people to come in and get their colons screened. David said, "It's a free service. You'd think people would want a free test." Um. No. People don't want their colons screened even for free. Surprising. Seriously though, despite a few technical problems, he was happy to say that the were able to give out 150 tests and maybe most importantly, David decided it was time to get his own examined. I was happy to hear that my last 6 months of not-so-gentle noodging is finally going to pay off.

noodge /vt./ 6. My list was long this week and so this spilled over a bit into David's life as well. The yard was especially atrocious by Friday afternoon and we had about 40 people coming for dinner on Saturday afternoon, with no time or way to do anything about it. I felt like I had noodged David all week about so many other things that I calmly accepted the state of my yard "as is" and prepared to just serve such good food that no one would care about the state of my weeds. And then. A friend in my ward quietly and secretly mowed my lawn and pulled my weeds while David and I were sleeping early Saturday morning. When I discovered her, she simply shrugged and explained that no matter how much she noodged, I would never let her help me, so she just decided to do something without asking. An angel with a lawn mower.

noodge /vt./ 7. No matter how I try to resist it, the milestones in my darlings' lives noodge me to realize that time is passing and my babies are not actually babies anymore. Savannah had her baptism preview tonight. When they handed me the invitation I thought, "I don't have an eight-year-old." And had to turn it over to see Savannah's name on it before I connected the dots. This is a "noodging" I would prefer to avoid all-together. Another accountable child. It's a bit hard to swallow past the lump in my throat.

My tender feelings about Savannah reminded me of a poem I love. Says it perfectly...

Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?

by Robert Hershon

Don't fill up on bread
I say absent-mindedly
The servings here are huge

My son, whose hair may be
receding a bit, says
Did you really just
say that to me?

What he doesn't know
is that when we're walking
together, when we get
to the curb
I sometimes start to reach
for his hand