gainsay /vt. / to deny, dispute, or contradict. to speak or act against, oppose. to refuse to admit the truth, reality, value, or worth of. controvert. disaffirm. negate. oppugn.
gainsay /vt./ 1. Summer has arrived in our part of the world. Just like that. Our winter has been long and glorious. In fact we still haven't hit 100 and we're in the latter part of May. Unbelievable. But then today it's supposed to shoot up to 110. I made Caleb go change into shorts when I saw him this morning. No one can gainsay the fact that summer is really here with these kind of temperatures.
gainsay /vt./ 2. For years and years, David has gainsayed my contention that he works a lot of hours. But this last week was particularly bad, and promises to be so again this week. The hospital is rolling out a new "paperless clinical documentation" (he made me say that) and this has meant even working overnight. In addition to this it was also "Hospital Week" (Woohoo! I hope you all celebrated) and this meant visiting all the shifts to serve dinner and treats. He even dressed up Hawaiian-style (wish I had the pictures) to spread house-wide hospital cheer. Not even he can gainsay the fact that he spent very few hours simultaneously at home and awake last week.
gainsay /vt./ 3. My Aunt Margaret sent my girls a surprise package this week: new outfits for their American Girl dolls that she had designed and made herself. Their shrieks of glee were followed by awe at Margaret's sewing skill. They would heartily gainsay anyone as being as talented and clever as their great-aunt, who was quickly promoted to grandma status ("one of our Grandma's") and their dolls have worn nothing but the darling clothes she sent since the package arrived.
gainsay /vt./ 4. Savannah's eye tooth started getting loose this week. She has been begging me to take it out since Thursday. I told her it wasn't ready yet, but she would not be gainsayed. Yesterday she worked at loosening it and at bedtime implored me again to try and take it out. It came out and she was thrilled. She giddily exclaimed that she has now lost 10 teeth, the most in her 1st grade class. Aha! The ulterior motive revealed. School ends in four days and she has been "tied" with another boy in class for "most teeth lost." She just pulled into the lead.
gainsay /vt./ 5. Olivia has been coughing for weeks now, but towards the end of this last week she was getting particularly bad. I had gainsayed the need to go to the doctor because it was "just a cough" (surely viral) and assured her that eventually "it will clear up on its own." As I was doing her hair on Friday morning she kept getting paler and paler until she looked positively faint and told me she was going to be sick. She slept for an hour or so and then begged to go to school. The same thing happened this morning, so after a weekend of serious coughing and another "vagal episode" this morning, we went to the pediatrician. He jokingly told me that maybe I should stop doing her hair, and then told me that she had two really bad ear infections and pneumonia. What? Oh, good heavens. That mother-of-the-year award is mine for sure.
gainsay /vt./ 6. This week we had our Laurel Transition Dinner for my five young women who are graduating and moving on to Relief Society. There is no gainsaying how very much I love these girls, what a powerful force for good they are, and what a blessing it has been to serve them. In the past I have been really bad at documenting my quilts...first of all they are really hard to take a picture of without a proper studio and usually I'm in such a rush to finish that I don't have time to snap a picture. But I did manage to take a couple this year, so for the my record:
gainsay /vt./ 7. For me, the pleasures of motherhood are really very simple. Ethan and I took advantage of a rare empty "to-do" list on Thursday and met my sister and her kids at my parents' pool for lunch and a swim. After Ethan's swim, I wrapped him in a towel and pulled him onto my lap. I cannot gainsay the absolute joy of holding his trembling, shivery body, towelled and damp against mine. Our days alone are numbered. My days of being able to hold him like this at all are dwindling rapidly. And this thought makes my heart beat hard and fast, because it's swamped and drowning and gulping for air.
