After this week...we might need therapy

Before I left to go running this evening I turned to Andrew and said, "Are you sure you can handle it?"

I barely survived the day and a solid run was just what I needed to pound my frustration out.

"Of course I can handle it," he scoffed, "I'm the dad, not a babysitter. Besides...they're sleeping."

"That's true," I told him, "But I'm the mom and I hardly handled today well."

"Oh, I can handle it!" said the ever-confident Andrew. Famous. Last. Words.

When I returned from my run Andrew was sitting at the kitchen table looking like he was about ready to tear his hair out.

"So, how'd it go?" I smiled.

Spontaneity

Last night I was roused from my bed at 1:30 AM.

"I'm cold and wet, Mommy!" Rachel called. 

And indeed she was. So I helped her get out of her wet pyjamas and into dry ones. We put a towel down on her wet spot. We took a trip to the bathroom. It was kind of a big to-do and we woke Miriam up. The surprised look on her face read, "Oh, you're here?! Awesome. Pick me up," and when I didn't she started to cry so then I did and we ended up nursing and rocking until nearly 3:00 AM.

So instead of doing the things I had planned to get done today I spent the day washing sheets. I figured I may as well do all the bed linens since it had been a while, anyway. While we were out and about i mentioned to Andrew, "Well, at least she didn't wet the bed the day after I washed the sheets. It seems to me that the last few times she's wet the bed it's been the day after I've washed the sheets."

It's not like she even wets the bed that often...it just happens to be soon after the sheets get washed.

This morning I was roused from my bed at 2:00 AM. I heard Rachel coughing--she's got this silly little cold--and heaving--because that's what she does when she coughs too much. Or at all.

At first I wasn't going to get up because I didn't hear anything after that--just coughing, heaving, silence. Perhaps, I thought, it had really only been dry heaves. But then I heard her stirring around so I got out of bed to investigate. The poor little dear was trying to mop up her throw-up with a tissue. It was an impossible task--she had drenched everything. Her pillow was dripping vomit and she had vomit in her hair. But that is not all, oh, no, that is not all. She somehow got it all over the comforter, the flat sheet, the spot she should have been laying on, her favourite blanket, her shirt, and her pants.

Miriam woke up during my cursory assessment of the situation with that same wide-eyed look of surprised delight, "Oh! You're here again? That's two nights in a row. Score!"

I woke up Daddy. We stripped the bed, stripped the Rachel, and scrounged around for sheets, pillows, blankets, and pyjamas. Then we tried putting the girls back to bed, which meant singing and nursing and the whole bedtime go-round.

Just as I was about to drift off to sleep, Rachel started retching again.

"Is everything alright?" I called out.

"Mommy, I missed!" Rachel sobbed.

And indeed she had--missed getting all her throw up into the bowl I had given to her "just in case."

I found her a fresh pillow--this incident was, fortunately, more contained--and then hushed up Meme again. And, um, now I'm nursing her in my rocking chair in front of the computer while the pile of tomorrow's laundry is, I'm sure, multiplying in the dark. *sigh* And the day after I washed the sheets, too. *shrug* Figures.

The tragedy is that I'll be spending all day doing laundry tomorrow, again, which means I'll put off cleaning the bathrooms, again. This is why, I told Andrew, FlyLady never works for me. I've tried to keep up with the program twice now but always fail miserably at silly rules like "getting up a half hour before your family." I mean, how exactly do I plan on doing that when my children sometimes get up at 4:00 in the morning ((for good) like they did last Thursday)? And how am I supposed to maintain a "laundry routine" when I have dirty sheets coming out my ears? And why in the world would I bother putting on make-up and getting dressed "to my shoes" when I my head is buzzing from lack of sleep and my husband doesn't come home until bedtime, anyway? And how am I supposed to get anything accomplished at all when my inbox is constantly bouncing around on my dashboard saying, "Look, another fifty emails from FlyLady reminding you to wash your light switch plates and shine your sink!" No, thank you. I will stick to my to-do lists.

By now I am pretty well accepting myself as a horrible housekeeper. (And I still love me.) My life is too spontaneous for anything otherwise.

No, the real tragedy about all of this is that Rachel totally hogged the tomatoes at dinner--the fresh, ripe, warm, juicy, succulent, garden tomatoes that are now covering her sheets. I almost feel like I'm wasting those precious fruits but at the same time am not tempted in the least to try to salvage them.

Anyway, all I hear now is the sweet sound of silence. My bed awaits.

Tomorrow I'm thinking no preschool.

And lots of temper tantrums.

It should be a good day.

North by backside

Pint does not rhyme with mint. Or splint or flint or hint or anything else that looks like it should. In fact its only near-rhyme is rhynt, according to wikipedia, which is about the approximation of yelling, "Here, sooey, sooey, sooey!" to a pig. Only to cows. And to get them to leave instead of come.

I don't think I'll ever get that straight because I messed up again last night when Andrew and I were (still) discussing it. Truthfully, though, I think that's okay because no one uses pints, anyway. Andrew says it is important that I know how to say it correctly. He thinks he so smart because he has a master's degree, and while I agree that he is pretty smart, there are some things that he just doesn't know.

Last night he eruditely mentioned, "In some translations of Arabic, backside means bottom. Did you know that?"

"Did you know that in English backside means bottom?" I asked Andrew.

"It does?" he asked.

"Yes. As in, 'I'm going to paddle your backside.'"

"Oh. That makes a lot of sense."

"What did you think a backside was?"

"Well, here," he said, pointing to his sides.

"Really?" I asked, "Like a northwest kind of a thing--not quite north, not quite west? Not quite back, but just to the side?"

"Exactly. That makes a lot more sense for corporal punishment. For the longest time I couldn't figure out how people managed to hit each other there. I just figured it was some weird cultural thing..."

"Wow, no. That's definitely an English phrase that means bottom."

One thing I love about Andrew: he's incredibly smart and incredibly naive at the same time. It's a rather comical combination.

Growing Up

Dear Miriam,

You're eleven months old today.

To celebrate I am exchanging your newborn-size diapers for regular-size diapers. It's about time, too, since we can't really, at least not in good conscience, call you a newborn anymore. Also, you soak through your diapers so fast it's getting to be a trite ridiculous. Something tells me your bladder has been growing as fast as the rest of you.

So although it pains me to fold up those itty, bitty diapers for future use (Hello, Scott!), and even though the regular-size diapers seem huge on you, it will be really nice to have a diaper that can actually absorb the amount of fluid you...eliminate.

Happy eleventh mensiversary!

Love,

Mom

PS. I've always loved you but I will love you even more now that you won't be leaking through your diaper every time you pee.

Buttermilk Economics

This morning was my soon-to-be aunt-in-law's bridal shower. Her name is Marie and she is from France, which is funny because I already have an Aunt Marie from France. Anyway, showers aren't common in Europe--showers as in baby showers or bridal showers--parties, I mean, not showers as in a place where one bathes beneath falling water. They have plenty of those in Europe and Marie is quite comfortable with those, I am sure, though she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of a bridal shower. She was a good sport though, and opened her presents in front of everybody even though she was a little appalled by the idea.

"I will do this," she said, "But you must let me thank you in the French way, with a kiss!"

Sarah, Emily, and I all pooled with Karen to get a gift card for Rod and Marie. After opening our gift she went around to give us all kisses. Sarah got a little flustered when it was her turn and turned her face the same way that Marie was turning and nearly ended up planting her on the lips. It was a near miss and Sarah was thoroughly embarrassed; everyone else thought it was hilarious.

Heber Valley Camping

So, we went camping this weekend.  I think I’ve mentioned that already. Several times. Grandma and Grandpa’s BYU ward was having a ward campout at the Heber Valley Girl’s Camp and we kind of tagged along.

I was unsure of what to pack because the campground is up in the mountains at an elevation of around 8000 feet. We went camping a there few years ago (at Camp Esther) and it snowed—big time—so I packed much more than we actually ended up needing. It was relatively warm this year—I don’t think we even got a frost.

We stayed at Camp Bertha Stone Reeder and had a nice, heated cabin—at least for all the kids and married couples. All the students were in unheated cabins, which is still pretty luxurious for camping. We didn’t feel like we were roughing it at all!

Undecidedly ambidextrous

During story time this evening we also read Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings, a touchy-feely book. To be honest we read that book twice because the girls were having issues taking turns feeling the pages. But I'm not here to talk about grumpy children anymore. I already did that. Instead I'm going to talk about undecidedly ambidextrous ones because Miriam is just too cute with this book.

For the longest time I was positive she was going to be left-handed. She mastered the pincher grasp soon after we moved back to the States, but only with her left hand. Whenever she picked up anything with her right hand it was an awkward full-fisted effort. Her left hand, however, was beautifully coordinated and she could pick up any small bits of food between her thumb and forefinger and make it to her mouth with ease.

Now, though, she can do the pincher grasp with either hand and even seems to be favouring the right hand a little.

I'm not sure if this is because she's simply going to be right-handed or if I've somehow influenced her.

She really enjoys Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings (and Fuzzy, Fuzzy, Fuzzy, another touchy-feely book), see, so we read it a lot. When we first started reading it I would help her to know to feel the pictures by taking her hand and placing it on the different things to feel. Since I'm right handed I naturally grabbed her right hand every time but noticed that she was always fighting me. Then, when she got the hang of how the books worked, her left hand would fly out voluntarily and she'd stroke the page on her own accord.

Tonight when we were reading and I invited her to feel the page she stuck both her hands in front of her with her index fingers pointing out and looked at them for a minute. Then she reached out her left finger and stroked the page. We turned the page and I invited her, again, to feel the picture. She did the same thing--held her hands, pointer fingers poised, in front of her, while she decided. This time she felt the page with her right hand. She randomly alternated between hands for the rest of the story.

My poor, little confused child.

Eventually she'll decide which is her dominant side, I suppose, but until then I'll continue to relish the cute pensive look her face gets every time she needs to use only one hand to do something.

Good night and good riddance!

I'm so glad today is almost over. We just had one of those quintessential family home evening lessons involving tears and a general, overwhelming feeling of miserableness. I don't know how we could have made it any better. I'm exhausted--I had an extra child today, and while it wasn't all that terrible having three children ages three and under I'm certainly glad it's not an everyday reality for me because I'm simply more exhausted now than I would have be if I only had had two children all day, I think. I don't know. I might still be this tired because last night Rachel ended up in bed with us, which means that she slept fine and we hardly slept at all. And Miriam got up in the night, too. It was just one of those nights.

Rachel stormed out of the living room twice during the lesson screaming, "Well, I don't care!"

The lesson itself was quite innocuous--being kind to animals--and the delivery was smooth. The acceptance, however, was not.

"Wow. This is a fun lesson," Andrew said sarcastically.

"No, it's not!" Rachel fumed, "It's not because I'm whining!"

Touché. Knowing is only half the battle though. I guess my expectations for her shouldn't be too high since I can't always control myself when I know I'm the problem. The minute we declared FHE over Rachel stomped and grumbled out of the living room and crashed her way down the hallway.

"You can turn off that attitude, Rachel," Andrew told her, "You're not making anybody happy."

"Well, I am making me happy because I choose to be sad!" she retorted.

We told her that was a stupid choice but that she was free to make that choice in the confines of her room with nobody around to hear her angry tirades. That lasted for about ten minutes. Then she came out of her room and said, "I choose not to go on a walk with you, Mommy. I just want a bath. I don't want a walk."

"Fine," I told her, "But after the bath you are going straight to bed."

She played in a lot longer than she usually does--recently she wants to get out of the tub the minute we turn off the faucet but tonight she played for about fifteen minutes after we shut the water off--but was still out of the tub before 7:00. We immediately got her ready for bed but I was too nervous to actually put her to bed that early (there's still tomorrow and I'm not anxious for tomorrow to start, truthfully, and if we put her to bed too early it's likely tomorrow will start too early, too) so I read three chapters of Charlotte's Web instead of one. That brought us to just about bedtime so Andrew came in and we got Meme ready for bed, read scriptures, said family prayer, sang lullabies and put that grumpy girl to bed!

I don't think I've ever been so happy to kiss her sweet baby cheek goodnight (and good riddance)!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Today was Andrew’s birthday. I think he had a good day. I got up with the girls for a change and he got to sleep in—even though I was up with the baby in the night. Rachel helped Grandma decorate the kitchen so that they could surprise Daddy when he got up. According to Rachel “he was so a-pized!” when he came into the kitchen. We also made a cake.

That was my main project this morning. It was my first attempt at fondant and now I’m wondering why I waited this long to try it out. Getting the cake to look smooth was a cinch—I just plopped the fondant on and it was good to go. If only I had used fondant for the wedding cake I made because icing that beast was treacherous.

I made marshmallow fondant because we had so many marshmallows left over from camping this weekend. On one of the recipes I looked at online it said that it tastes like “very sweet marshmallows” instead of vile (like regular fondant).

At first I was like, “Very sweet marshmallows as opposed to…not very sweet marshmallows?”

Words in sentences

Last night Andrew and I were talking and I said, "So, in a sentence I read today..."

His laughter interrupted me.

"Who talks like that?" he scoffed. Then, "Oh. You were talking about work, weren't you?"

I read sentences for a living.

Quick, before they learn something!

This morning we slept in which meant that our whole morning fell behind schedule and we all felt rushed. I put on Andrew's socks while he tied his tie--that's how desperately hurried we were. We had nearly gotten caught up with the day when it was time for Rachel to leave for school. Just past time, actually. I told her we had to hurry or we would be late.

The minute she was out the door she zipped down the driveway and started running down the sidewalk. I closed the door and jogged until I had caught up with her.

"Quick, quick!" she urged me, "Before they learn something!"

She was quite distressed about the idea of not being there while something was being taught.

Caps for Good

I was reading my amazing friend Tamsin’s blog this afternoon when I was instantly motivated to crochet a hat. She participates in a service project—sometimes spearheading one of her own and sometimes jumping on the bandwagon of an existing one—each month. This month she chose to participate in Caps for Good and invited her readers to join in, too. So I made a hat this afternoon, between playing the part of school teacher, lunch monitor, Fa Zhou, the Emperor of China, disciplinarian, and mother.

Teach me something!

Even though the leaves are steadily changing colour and dropping from the trees we’ve been having a beautiful stretch of weather. It’s so warm during the day that we’ve even stopped putting on sweaters. At night it gets so cold, though, that the girls wear footed jammies. I love fall, but, oh, how I’m dreading the winter.

MPA Luau

On Friday evening we went to the MPA opening social, a luau this year, hosted by the Polynesians in the program. It’s kind of weird being thrown into the Mormon mix again. In Andrew’s program at AUC only two students were married: Andrew and another guy. The only person in the program with children was Andrew. Everyone thought we were weird.

At this BYU party, though, there were dozens of children running around. While there are several single people in the program, there are probably just as many married people and of those married people most have a child (or two or three) or were well on their way to having a child. One girl, Kaja, in Andrew’s program is due with her first baby on October 25 (that’s Miriam’s birthday so we thought it was cool).

Hair

Sometimes it takes a whole lot of distraction to keep Miriam on the potty in the morning. Usually she’ll hop right on and go but sometimes she takes forever but I know she has to go because everybody has to go when they get up in the morning.

Miriam likes to play head, shoulders, knees and toes; read stories; play with toys; and sometimes she even likes to brush hair to keep her mind off crawling away from the potty. She doesn’t crawl away from the potty because she doesn’t like using it—she crawls away because she’s squirmy and easily bores of any activity. To put in a plug for elimination communication: in my last load of approximately 30 diapers, only 1 diaper was poopy; in the load I’m washing now 3 of them are. That’s pretty good for a 10-month old. It also means I’m not changing poopy diapers.

Anyway, Miriam knows exactly what to do with the hairbrush and sometimes when Rachel’s in a willing mood, she’ll let Miriam brush her hair, too.

Stale bread and hand-me-downs

This morning we went to a clothing exchange at BYU. I was hoping to score some winter gear for the girls but had no such luck. It was a huge event—when we arrived at the church parking lot it was packed and there was a line of people waiting to get inside. It was seriously like Black Friday or something.* To reward the girls for being so good while we dragged them around the cultural hall and dug through pile after pile of clothes we took them to the botany pond.

We brought some old bread with us and the ducks were very excited about this. Every time we’d throw a piece of bread out there would be a mad rush for the crumb—some ducks would jump up and snatch it right out of the air, others would peck at each other and quack loudly. Oddly enough it reminded me of the clothing exchange we had just attended—adults, mostly women, crowding around tables heaped with clothes, wildly digging through, searching for a pair of badly-needed pyjamas and exclaiming triumphantly when they were found.

Rachel, Rachel, quite contrary…

The other day I told Rachel something completely ordinary, mundane, trite, and unexciting as could be. I don’t remember what I said to her, it was that boring. She made me laugh, though, when she responded, “That is the happiest thing I have ever heard in my whole life, Mom!”

BYU Banquet Blunder

Andrew and I went to a dinner honouring this year’s graduate students at BYU. We got there and spent a few minutes looking around, trying to find someone, anyone, that we knew. If I had thought about it beforehand I could have arranged to meet some friends there…not that it would have been horrible to sit anywhere randomly and strike up a conversation but neither Andrew or I are all that outgoing so it would have certainly been painful.

Finally Andrew saw someone he knew—a girl from his “team” in the MPA program. They waved at each other and we walked over to where she was standing.

“Hey!” she said, “Is this your wife?”

“It is,” Andrew said, “Nancy, this is Rachel. Rachel, this is Nancy.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

Then we got an impromptu introduction to another couple at the banquet that happened to be standing by Rachel.

“Hello, I’m Sharon Samuelson,” said Sharon Samuelson.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand.

Then I took a closer look at the man accompanying her. He looked oddly familiar but I simply couldn’t place him anywhere.

Moments

A few weeks ago Rachel went out shopping with Grandpa. On the way home Grandpa popped in a Disney CD—Rachel was in heaven…until they pulled into the garage and Grandpa suggested mid-song that she come into the house. She wasn’t too pleased about this because she was having her very first driveway moment—you know, where you can’t get out of the car yet because whatever is on the radio is so captivating that you must finish listening to it first.

Rachel must just be like her Daddy. He has driveway moments several times a week. It was more awkward in Egypt when we didn’t have a driveway so instead of risking interruption by coming in the house he’d just stand in the hallway with his ear buds in, listening. Sitting in your car in the driveway is much less obvious.

Anyway, we had to put the CD on for her inside the house so that she could finish listening. She was that upset about it. She can be so particular at times.

First day of preschool

If you were to ask me a week ago whether or not I was planning on having Rachel attend preschool I would have told you no because, truthfully, we weren’t planning on it. But sometimes things just fall into place—one little phone call did this for us and now Rachel’s enrolled in a preschool.

She’s going part-time, two days a week. Today was her first day and she was so excited that she accidentally woke up at 6:30. I had her go back to bed in our bed and when I tried to wake her up at 7:45 she moaned and begged, “Please let me sleep! I just need a little more sleep.”

Labour Day hike to Stewart Falls

“Wake up, wake up! We’re going hiking today!” Rachel shrieked and excitedly bounded onto our bed wearing pyjamas…and shoes.

“We’re not going hiking yet! No one’s ready to go—everyone’s in bed still. What time is it?”

“But you said we would go hiking today!” said Rachel, her voice rising shrilly with every word.

“Shhhhh! We will, we will. Be quiet, or you’ll wake the…never mind.”

Miriam had already heard the ruckus her sister was causing and started chirping from her crib to let us know she was ready to get up, too,“Dadadadada!” So much for sleeping in on this long weekend.

It was a long morning but we all lived through it and were very ready to go hiking when the early afternoon rolled around (especially Rachel).

Labour Day hike to Stewart Falls

“Wake up, wake up! We’re going hiking today!” Rachel shrieked and excitedly bounded onto our bed wearing pyjamas…and shoes.

“We’re not going hiking yet! No one’s ready to go—everyone’s in bed still. What time is it?”

“But you said we would go hiking today!” said Rachel, her voice rising shrilly with every word.

“Shhhhh! We will, we will. Be quiet, or you’ll wake the…never mind.”

Miriam had already heard the ruckus her sister was causing and started chirping from her crib to let us know she was ready to get up, too,“Dadadadada!” So much for sleeping in on this long weekend.

It was a long morning but we all lived through it and were very ready to go hiking when the early afternoon rolled around (especially Rachel).

Love your (hypothetical) brother?

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Rachel’s brother, Scott, before. In a nutshell, he doesn’t exist. That doesn’t stop Rachel from talking to him/about him, though. She kind of gave him up a while ago after I told her that I really don’t appreciate it when she tells people that her mommy has a baby brother in her tummy. That’s how rumours get started. So she stopped telling us what Scott’s having for breakfast or what colour he was wearing on a given day.

In fact, Scott had all but disappeared until this morning.

“Mommy, will you have another baby some day?”

Flashback Sunday: Stupid Moms and Preschool

While enjoying a nice Sunday dinner, courtesy of Karen who gets home from church a few hours before we do, we were chatting about the upcoming week. Tomorrow’s a holiday—Labour Day—so we have some fun things planned and then on Tuesday Rachel is going to try out a preschool at a neighbour’s house, just around the corner from our house. Exciting times.

“Who will be my teacher?” she asked.

“Her name is Mrs. O,” Grandma told her, “And she’s very smart!”

“Oh, my mom’s not,” Rachel felt the need to point out before carrying on with the rest of the conversation like she hadn’t said anything the least bit offensive…or hilarious.

Layton Reunion

We went up to my Uncle Bob’s house yesterday for a family reunion. My Aunt Tami was in town for the BYU vs. Washington game (among other things) and it was decided that it would be a good time to get all of my dad’s siblings together with my grandparents. Naturally this included grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.

Rachel was so excited to play with her cousins. Kelli brought matching shirts for all her kids so they could take family pictures and Rachel wanted so badly to be in the pictures with them, which is odd because recently she hasn’t ever wanted me to take pictures of her. There was plenty of picture-taking and cousin-playing going on.

Running-Libraries-Public Transportation

On Thursday I ran to the library with the girls in the jogging stroller. The distance I covered roundtrip was roughly 10.5 km and I averaged a 12-minute mile, which sounds pretty slow unless you know I was pushing a 28 lbs stroller holding 50 lbs of children and hauling 10 lbs of library books and 10+ lbs of other sundry items (diaper bag, lunch, water, and a snowsuit we picked up at Savers on our way home). In total I was pushing close to 100 lbs, which closely approximates my avoirdupois, in front of me.

Not about busses this time…

I may as well admit it—we are using government-funded insurance. Not for us, but for the girls. Andrew doesn’t qualify for state-funded insurance because he has a student health plan available to use so is required to do that, which is fine because that’s only about $97 per month. To add the girls and me onto the plan would bring our premium to $315.50 per month.

Without being too frank about our finances, I can tell you that the maximum gross income a family our size can have while maintaining eligibility for government-funded health insurance is $3,675. We don’t make anywhere near that amount per month, even when Andrew was working full-time (without benefits, of course) this summer we were shy of that amount by at least a grand. Now that the semester has begun Andrew has had to drastically cut back his working hours. He went to the MPA orientation two weeks ago and this past week was the first week of real classes. He’s gone before the girls and I get up in the morning and comes home in time for dinner before sequestering himself in the office to do homework. Rachel has already asked why Daddy lives at school instead of at home so if that’s any indication of how the semester is going to be…well, yeah. It will be tough.

I’m working, too, though not very much. Before we had children I worked approximately 40 hours per week—not all at the same job, of course, because no one ever seems to be hiring for full-time positions—but now that we have children I’m lucky if I work 40 hours in a month. Being a work-from-home/stay-at-home mom is a tough job but we figure it is worth my staying home to avoid child care costs, which can be quite astronomical. Also, so that I can raise our children. That’s good, too.

Miriam at 10 months

I have no statistics for this girl since we haven’t taken her to the doctor since the nebulizer incident. I’m fairly confident she’s healthy and growing but, good news, we finally have insurance for the girls so I can take them to the doctor again. Now I just have to get around to making appointments.

$2 Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point

Throughout the month of August Thanksgiving Point was doing a promotion allowing patrons to enter any attraction for only $2 instead of the ghastly exorbitant amount it usually costs. Since the offer is only good through August and since today is the last day of August, Grandma invited the girls and me out on a date.

It was fun to have a day out, even though we weren’t the only ones to have the idea. Somehow we figured that since school had already started it wouldn’t be too crowded, but it was a complete zoo of strollers, mothers, and preschoolers. That was fine. We had fun despite the crowd.