Stories to finish off January

This morning Benjamin was snuggling with me in bed (while Andrew was showering with Zoë) and he sighed sweetly, nestled his head into my neck, and said, "I wish Baby Zo would die."

"What?! Why?!" I asked.

"Because I want to sleep in the middle of you two again," he said.

"That's not a good reason to wish your sister would die!"

"It is if you're a bad guy," he said.

"But you're not a bad guy. You're my sweet little Benjamin."

"Well, I'm going to be Darth Vader when I grow up..." he said.

*****

I was saying our couple prayer last night. We've taken to doing our pillow talk in the bathroom while we brush our teeth (so I suppose now it's toothbrush talk) because Zoë sleeps in our room and is easily disturbed. So we talk about what we learned over the course of the day and in our scripture study, we discuss our calendar and concerns, and we pray together before sneaking into bed. 

So, I was praying—reverently: with my eyes closed—and Andrew—also with his eyes closed—decided that he would test to see if my eyes were really closed by pulling funny faces at me. 

I did not react (because my eyes were closed) so he pulled a different funny face. Still I didn't react, so he pulled a different funny face. With still no response from me, Andrew tried another face, and then he burst out laughing and then couldn't stop.

I began to reflect on what I had been saying (it was late at night and sometimes sentences come out wonky when I'm tired) but couldn't think of anything silly that I'd accidentally said. I quickly finished the prayer and then said, "What was that? You totally ruined the whole spirit of my prayer!"

Through many tears and much laughter, Andrew confessed his sin of irreverence. He said at some point he realized how ridiculous he was being and started laughing at himself. In an effort to catch me in irreverence he wound up catching himself (which is kind of the lesson I got out of priesthood/Relief Society this afternoon (we had a joint lesson on Sabbath day observance)).

*****

It's no secret that we enjoy a little Doctor Who at our house. Unfortunately, BBC isn't renewing their contract with Netflix so we don't know how we'll be able to continue to watch. We have talked about this multiple times in recent history but the subject came up once again over dinner this evening and Miriam's memory was a blank slate. 

"Can I watch Doctor Who next weekend?" she asked. 

"Probably not," I said. 

"Why not?" she wanted to know. "I have enough points!"

We have a point system for earning screen time now. We've been on it for about a month and it's been fairly effective. The girls have been practicing piano and ukulele, helping out around the house, reading to Benjamin, and so forth, in an effort to earn enough points to watch an episode of their favourite TV show on the weekend. 

"I'm not even going to answer that question," I said.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because I have already answered it several times and I'd like you to think back to see if you can remember the answer on your own."

Miriam thought for a minute before growing exasperated.

"I just don't know!" she said.

"Because BBC forgot to make a treaty with Netflix!" Rachel blurted out.

*****

I had Benjamin help me take out the "whole house garbage" earlier this week (we take out the kitchen garbage regularly but the other bins only get emptied once a week so he was helping me empty all the trash bins in the house). When we had them all collected he chose the lightest bag to carry, saying that it would "be so easy" for him to do. But then he saw a bag bulging with soiled diapers (Zoë wears disposables to bed because she is the heaviest wetter on the planet and soaks through a cloth diaper in just a couple of hours and there's no way I'm changing her diaper every couple of hours all night long). He picked it up and said, "No! I'm going to take this bag! It's my I-think-I-can bag. It's very heavy but I think I can carry it."

Obviously we recently read The Little Engine That Could. I was happy to see him seeking out a challenge (and should probably do that more often myself).

*****

I'm sure there are other stories that I could tell, but it's late and I should be getting to bed. I'm happy to bid January adieu. It's not my favourite month. When I said as much this evening Andrew said, "Ugh, but now we have to have February. February's the worst!"

Well, with that attitude...

Ride a little pony

Old Man Weather has done a complete 180° and plopped us down in the middle of a lovely spring-like day. We had a bit of a kerfuffle before church because Miriam wanted to find a specific sweater to wear but couldn't find it. We told her that she didn't need a sweater today because it was so lovely out (70°F, folks!) but she insisted that she did and eventually settled on wearing her winter coat. Then we had a bit of a kerfuffle in the parking lot while we tried to convince her to leave her coat in the car and she tried to convince us that she needed to wear it inside.

Anyway, we made it through church and came home for lunch before heading up to our neighbour's house.

Earlier this week our neighbour had dropped by to invite us to ride horses at the top of the cul-de-sac. Benjamin immediately started looking forward to this, though we managed to keep it secret from the girls. I quibbled with it a bit, wondering if it really fell in line with keeping the sabbath day holy, which has been a point of focus in our services lately.

However, when church was cancelled last week, this was the email we got from the stake presidency:

Due to treacherous road conditions, that are unlikely to improve until later tomorrow, church services on Sunday across the stake are cancelled. 

We would encourage you to be thoughtful about ways to keep the Sabbath day holy tomorrow. This may include scripture study, prayer, and wholesome family activities. 

Stay warm and be safe.

That "wholesome family activities" bit practically encouraged families to go sledding (and many families did (we saw evidence)).  I figured that this fell into the same "wholesome family activity" category, since when we were invited our neighbours said, "We have all of our grandchildren coming over on Sunday afternoon to ride horses in the cul-de-sac and would love for your family to join us if you can." Turns out it was our neighbour's birthday and what she wanted to do was watch children ride horses. Can't really say no to that!

Around three o'clock we saw the horse trailer head up the street (the horses belong to a friend of our neighbour).

Benjamin was so brave. He marched right up the street and without hesitation started trying to mount the littlest horse—Little Bit. He ended up needing some help and had a long ride, which he enjoyed immensely.

Sleepless in...our house.

Zoë is about at the end of a sleep strike (I think, I hope) which is good. The nice (I guess) thing about sleep strikes is that they can only last so long before they can't continue, at least from my experience. I recently (like two minutes ago) read a blog post by a friend who said that sleepless nights is a phase that simply doesn't last long, but I'd beg to differ with that because sometimes those sleepless nights last for years, not months.

That said, our older kids are pretty good sleepers. Our babies? Not so much. Zoë is no exception to the norm (Miriam, however, blessedly was).

I can't even remember when she slept and when she didn't.

Last night we went to bed around midnight, which was miraculous.

The night before we curled up together around 2 AM.

On Tuesday night we didn't sleep a wink until 6:45 AM. No matter what I did that baby would not settle down. I nursed her (several times), I rocked her, I lay down with her, I let her try to fall asleep on her own, I paced the halls. We watched a show. She pooped at some point and I changed her diaper. I took her for a walk at five o'clock in the dark, cold morning. Nothing would put this child to sleep.

So then you'd think she'd nap during the day, right? Wrong.

Snow Day #3

We went for a walk this afternoon in order to make a better prediction about whether we'd have school tomorrow. I'm guessing we'll be on a delayed schedule, which is funny because Wednesday was supposed to be an early out day (but they took that away from us for obvious reasons (or perhaps not so obvious reasons since going a full day on Wednesday doesn't make up for one of the three snow days we've taken (except that if it was another early-release day and they made us go into school late then going to school would be pointless)). Let's not even talk about how there's snow in the forecast for Thursday.

Anyway, Miriam promptly got the stroller "stuck" in the snow and had to do some maneuvering to get Zoë moving again. Because treacherous.

The things they say

I don't remember if I ever wrote this down, but one day Rachel was playing with Zoë when she noticed her soft spot pulsating. "Ew!" she said with disgust. "You can actually see her brain thinking!"

And also because it's cute (and I don't feel like I've been writing much (or well) lately—but with Andrew being sick and then Zoë, Benjamin, and I coming down with a cold, I seem to have run out of time for much of anything lately)...

Andrew was divvying up jobs the other day and he told Miriam to go and clean her room, which wasn't fair because she shares that room with Benjamin.

"Well, is Benjamin going to help me?" she wanted to know.

"No, that's your mess," Andrew explained. "He didn't play with the pet shops."

"Well he wanted to," Miriam sassed.

"Yes, but you wouldn't let him," Andrew pointed out.

Miriam threw her hands up in the air all dramatically and pouted, "So?!"

Why we even try to reason with these people some days is beyond me. She ended up grudgingly cleaning her room while Benjamin tidied the living room. All was equitable and no one was happy about it. That's parenting done right.

Snow Day #2

Technically we've only missed two days of school—Friday and today—but church was also cancelled, so we've basically been "snowed in" all winter and now they've gone and cancelled school tomorrow as well. I don't really mind snow days; I just don't want to have to make them up later.

We only had three inclement weather days written into our calendar this year, anyway, which means we've spent them all on this one storm. I want to know whose brilliant idea that was, considering last year they called nine snow days.

Also, considering tomorrow's high is forecast to be 56°F (14°C, so basically a Canadian summer (okay, maybe not summer but definitely spring)). Actually, I really don't mean to whine about the weather too much because over all it's quite lovely. After all, who can complain about an average low of 0°C in January when one grew up in a place where January saw an average high of -1°C?

I love winter in the south.

source

Benjamin Barber

I cut Benjamin's hair on Thursday, which made Andrew jealous, so on Saturday he let Benjamin play barber (and then had me even things out). Benjamin had a blast! With any luck we may have even cured his fear of the clippers. He started crying (wailing) while I was cutting his hair on Thursday so I told him that if he didn't stop he'd get in trouble. Instead he laughed the whole time I was cutting his hair, very over-the-top. It was a "Hahahahahaha! Aaahhh! Hahahaha!" but it was better than the screaming he was doing earlier.

Snow play

So, um, BINGO!

They've cancelled church tomorrow and that's the last one I needed to get a BINGO. That game was much shorter lived than I imagined it would be. We've been having a lot of fun in the snow and it chances are we'll be getting another storm or two (or more) so perhaps I'll go for a whiteout (I'd call it a blackout but it's winter...so...). I don't really want to use up all our snow days though.

The kids spent the entire day out in the snow today. They went out in the morning and came in for lunch around 1:00, informing us that they were just coming in to eat before heading back outside (which was fine with us). Rachel said the prayer for lunch and said, "and please help us remember to go back outside after lunch." As if they'd forget.

(What we forgot was the playdate at Sadie's house...oops).

We went for a walk to the park this afternoon. Andrew and Rachel rode their bikes. And I will not write very much more because I have a screaming baby on my lap...

Eye, yai, yai!

Rachel came inside crying because she had something stuck in her eye. I helped her strip out of her winter gear and then examined her eye.

"Look up, look down, look left, look right," I said, but I saw nothing.

Fortunately, thanks to a rather traumatic eye experience from my youth, I thought to look under her upper eyelid and there I found a lovely fleck of something. She'd already been crying, but the speck hadn't budged so I helped her flush her eyes out at the kitchen sink—literally running the water on her eye—but the fleck stood its ground. It was lodged in there pretty well.

So I prepared to repeat what the doctor had done to me (after reviewing how online since it's been nearly fifteen years since my incident).

I got a paint chip stuck in my eye at work while I was stacking chairs. Because I worked at a pool and was around dangerous chemicals, I had to do a chemical eye wash in addition to flushing my eyes with water before I went to the ER where the doctor flipped my eyelid over and fished it out with a Q-tip. It took like two seconds. And half a million dollars.*

My eye, he said, "look[ed] like an ice rink," with little lacerations all over it from the paint chip skating up and down my eyeball every time I blinked. It was super painful. I had an antibiotic to prevent infection and couldn't wear contacts for, like, a month (which really wouldn't be traumatic now because I haven't worn contacts in years but in high school it was kind of a bummer) and my eye was puffy for quite a while. It was not fun.

Rachel's speck was much smaller than my paint chip and, though I don't know how we didn't ever think to look under my eyelid (too bad YouTube wasn't a thing back then), I luckily knew to check under her eyelid early. We tried flushing it out with water again, now that we knew where it was, but to no avail, so our next course of action was the Q-tip method.

She's old enough now that she understands that staying still is important, but she had a hard time relaxing enough to let me flip her eyelid inside out. Once it was flipped over, though, I had Andrew stick wet Q-tip in there to pick up the speck. It took us like two seconds (once we figured out what we were doing). And now she's feeling much better.

It's amazing how much pain a tiny foreign object can cause!

Here's the method we used, in case you ever need to flip an eyelid inside out one day.

*A slight exaggeration. And work paid. But still.

Whoopsie

Zoë was a little too rough with the toy box. She was reaching for a toy (and holding onto the toy box, obviously) when she lost her balance (and didn't let go of the toy box) and pulled the whole box on top of herself. Poor thing!

Winter in the South—BINGO!

To keep from going insane this winter (nine snow days last year was a little bit much) I made up a "Winter in the South" bingo game. I think I'm going to print out one card for everyone in our family and we'll see who gets to bingo first. I don't know what the prize will be.

Something awesome like...sleeping in...or something.

That's all the kids could talk about before they went to bed last night, "Yay! It's a snow day! I can turn off my alarm and sleep as long as I want to!" But then they—all three of them—were up before their alarms even usually go off, probably woken up by the tinkle, tinkle of snow pellets dancing on the roof.

So much for sleeping in!

Zoë went to book club with me last night so, thankfully, slept through her siblings' early morning jubilee.

Anyway, here's a link to the cards so you can print out one for yourself!

Sunday best(-ish)

Not last Sunday but the Sunday before I broke out the hair gel (that hadn't been touched since the girls did their last ballet performance...in 2013) and helped Benjamin comb his hair. He's never had the kind of hair that lies flat naturally. It's bent on defying gravity.

I don't think we'll add doing Benjamin's hair to our regular morning routine, but doesn't he look handsome?

This past Sunday, Benjamin chose a shirt and a nice pair of corduroy pants to go with them, then Andrew told him to pick out a pair of socks, so he did. He found a lovely pair of bright orange halloween socks, with purple polka-dots and black jack-lantern faces, which was fine because he was wearing long pants and shoes, right?

Andrew finished tying up Benjamin's shoes and then Benjamin reached down and started tucking his pants into his socks.

"What are you doing?" we asked.

"I'm tucking my pants into my socks," he said.

"I can see that," I said. "Why?"

"Because if I don't then no one will see them!" he explained.

Full disclosure: Andrew wore the Star Wars socks he got for Christmas to church. And he only combs and parts his hair probably once every four years. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Potty training (and don't even talk about sleep training)

Shortly before Christmas I took the kids on a walk to look at Christmas lights. I looked at the calendar to figure out when it might have been, but nothing telling is listed. It was an evening that Andrew was coming home later than usual for some reason or another. Maybe it was the night he took the girls out to watch Star Wars...so maybe it was only me and the two little ones on the walk. I frankly can't remember (perhaps because it's 4:30 AM and I haven't been to bed yet because Zoë is a monster and my brain is completely malfunctioning).

Anyway, we walked down the street and around the corner and were nearly to the park when Benjamin pooped his pants. We'd just stopped to admire some of those weird light-up deer (you know the ones) when he just suddenly squatted in the middle of the road and started pushing.

"Do you need to go potty?" I asked.

"No!" he said.

"Are you pooping right now?" I asked.

"No!" he said.

"You are!" I gasped. "You're pooping! Why?! Why are you pooping right now?! Why would you do that?! Stop it right now! Stand up!"

I was rather angry about it because, as I recall, he'd pooped his pants a couple of days before while we were at the museum with my friend Emily (so, this second incident must have been Star Wars night) and I wasn't ready for another mess. We immediately turned around to go home.

"I'm not poopy, Mom," he said, waddling along beside me.

"I think you are," I said, observing the waddle.

Zoë's crawling

I should probably write about Zoë learning how to crawl before I forget when she did. At seven-and-a-half months, she's certainly not my earliest crawler, but she's not exactly the latest crawler either. Here's a video I took of her on January 15th, when she was really just figuring out how to propel herself forward (she's been stuck going backward for so long):



She's really not interested in crawling at all and would much prefer to walk. Since mastering the forward-crawl (and that was only three days ago, remember?) she's started pulling up on furniture like crazy, cruising her way around the room, and often letting go to balance on her own. She's fallen so many times today it's not even funny. When Andrew came home and I told him all the things she's been trying I said, "I swear she's fallen over like fifty times today."

Susan B. Anthony and Klingon

We'd just loaded into the van after ukulele practice when the girls started bickering in the backseat.

They both really wanted to read because they both wanted to watch an episode of television before bed and Andrew told them that they could...if they finished the books they were working on. Actually, I think only Miriam had to finish. She was nearly finished Harry Potter 3 (it has a proper title but at our house we call them by number).

Rachel's working on some epically long book. It's over 1000 pages. I don't remember what it's called. She checked it out of the library through her Kindle, so she was set to read on the ride home (and wasn't under an obligation to finish, merely make progress). Miriam, however, had forgotten to bring a flashlight and it was upset that she wouldn't be able to read on the way home.

"You can share the light of my Kindle," Rachel offered. "I can hold it out here and you can have enough light to see your page."

"It's not enough light!" Miriam fussed. "I need more!"

"Well, it's all the light I've got," Rachel snapped back.

"But I need more!" Miriam cried again.

"Why? It's light enough to see the words!"

"I can't read in dim light because then my eyes will grow weak just like Susan B. Anthony's did!" Miriam wailed. "They were ruined for the rest of her life, Rachel!"

Vroom is for dump truck (that's good enough for me)

Benjamin's been doing "homeschool preschool" this year but, to be honest, we haven't done very much of anything remotely formalized. We've done nearly eight months of "big brother training camp" but not a whole lot of academic training. That's probably okay because...he's three.

When his sisters went back to school, though, he importantly boasted that we'd be doing "homeschool preschool," too, so he'd better get to bed so he could get up in the morning, too. He hadn't forgotten about his claim in the morning, so I indulged him and went over a few pages in a workbook with him and found out: the boy is clueless.

Chances are high he knows more than he's letting on and simply enjoys infuriating me more than getting answers correct. I had another child like that once (*cough* Rachel *cough*).

"Let's sing the alphabet," I said.

"Can't," he shrugged.

"Sure, you can," I said.

"Don't know how," he shrugged.

"Sure, you do. What letter does the alphabet start with?"

"Start."

"No. What's the first letter of the alphabet?"

"Uhhhh...doi-dah."

"Come on, that's not a letter. You know how the alphabet goes! Won't you sing it with me?"

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18...6!"

"Those are numbers."

"Mom, those are letters."

"No, they're not. They're numbers."

"Letters."

"Stop."

Last day on Beech Mountain (January 9)

Our last day was mostly spent packing up and driving home. Here's Benjamin posing in the bedroom closet:

Beech Mountain, day 2 (January 8)

We woke up in the morning to someone else cooking breakfast, which is always a sign it's going to be a good day. The Harts made a French toast casserole. I totally don't mean to be obsessing about food, but we seriously ate so many good things (because I wasn't the one in charge of cooking; I can only put so much effort into only so many meals per day and/or week so sometimes (at least once a week day our family suffers through not-so-well-planned meals)).

After breakfast we hung out around the cabin waiting for the rain to stop and then had lunch (French dip sandwiches (apparently French food was a trend for the day), which Andrew and I made (mostly Andrew; I cut vegetables though so...)) and got ready to go sledding again. It's one of the cheaper (read: free) things to do on Beech Mountain (read: tourist trap ski resort) so we did it every day.

It was a little colder than Thursday and a thick cloud had settled on the ski hill; it was so thick we could hardly see the top of the hill from the bottom. We (parents standing at the bottom of the hill) seriously could not see the children standing at the top of the hill. We'd be like, "Where's so-and-so?" And then someone would say, "Gee, I dunno. Maybe they went back up the hill." And then we'd wait to see who would come popping out through the cloud. We're lucky we didn't lose anybody (it's a small ski hill).

Here's a picture of someone (Rhett?) crashing on a sled and Callin (for sure) reaching out to...save them? I don't know what he's doing, really.

Beech Mountain, day 1 (January 7)

Andrew and I started talking about this trip in secret weeks ago. My friend Marian emailed to see if we wanted to head up to the mountains the last week of intercession and we were on the fence about whether or not we'd be able to, but ultimately—obviously—we decided to join in on the fun and I'm so glad we did! We didn't tell the kids though; we packed everything into the van on Wednesday night after the kids were asleep. We woke them up on Thursday morning and told them to eat breakfast, get dressed, grab a book, and hop in the van.

It was a great surprise!

We spent three days and two nights on Beech Mountain—"the highest incorporated town east of the Rockies" at 5506 ft—in a beautiful cabin filled to the brim with seven adults (Annie's husband had to work) and fifteen children (eight and under):

Two eight-year-olds.
One seven-year-old.
Three six-year-olds.
One five-year-old.
One four-year-old.
Three three-year-olds.
One two-year-old.
One eleven-month-old.
One nine-month-old.
One seven-month-old.

Bedtime was one serious game of whack-a-mole! But everyone always had someone to play with and they all got along so well!

We headed straight to the visitor's center to hit up their free sledding hill. It was around 50°F (10°C) and they haven't gotten much snow this winter (yet—I hear they usually get around 90 inches, though in 2014 they only got 55 inches (for Utah-reference, Park City got 263 inches in 2014 (which rivals Lake Louise or Sunshine Village in Banff for Albertans reading this))) but they have a snow gun nearby and they happily produce their own snow so that everyone will come visit and spend money on their mountain.

I must say, I'm a fan of fake snow. All the fun without all the cold.

We had a great day that first day on the slopes. The hill is only for children under 12, but if you ride with a little kid adults can go, too, so the grown ups all had their fair share of fun (there were plenty of children in our group to ride with).

Against my better judgement ("if you don't take her down, I will" he said; "just do it" he said; "it'll be fine" he said) I took Zoë down the gentlest little slope, hit a bump, flipped around in the air, and landed hard on my side to break Zoë's fall. I'm a lovely shade of purple, but the baby is fine.

We stuck to teeny weeny slopes after that and spent a lot of time simply exploring the snow. That was more Benjamin's speed, though he did go down the big hill a couple of times with either Andrew or me.

Ready for way too many pictures of us sledding? Here we go!

Zoë: My Baldest Baby

Okay, Crystal, this post is for you! I took pictures of Zoë while she was eating because that was the only way I could get her to stop craning her head around so she could bat at the camera.

We seriously go back and forth about what colour this girl's hair is everyday. Sometimes it looks light and other times it looks dark. She's still super bald on top—so perfectly bald, right up to about the middle of her head. And then her hair is so sparse that it looks lighter than it actually is (at least, that's what I keep telling myself because I'm on Team Brown (though we'll love her with whatever colour of hair she develops)).

Happy New Year

The older girls stayed up until midnight reading, watching shows, and playing games.

Quick Trip to Raleigh

We went on a quick field trip to Raleigh on Saturday, first picnicking in front of the State Capitol Building and reminiscing about our first trip to the capitol when Benjamin was just ten months old. We had to take a picture of him sitting by the cannon, just to show how much he's grown.

It's still weird to me that we're still here. We're able to say, "Look at my little boy sitting by this cannon in 2013. Now look at my little boy sitting by this cannon in 2016." All of that and not a single move in the middle. We've lived here almost twice as long as we've lived anywhere in our whole married lives. I suppose it won't technically be twice as long until August. But still. This is a long time for us.

Teething

Zoë and I spent an impressive twelve hours sleeping last night. That twelve hours was punctuated by a nursing session every couple of hours, but we spent the bulk of that twelve hours sleeping. Zoë didn't wake up screaming...and stay up screaming for hours on end. It was lovely.

We've spent several consecutive days screaming until all hours of the night. Two o'clock. Three o'clock. Four o'clock.

We've done teething gel.

We've sucked on ice cubes.

We chewed everything in sight.

Nothing really seems to help for long.

She's got four teeth trying to come through simultaneously. On the one hand, at least we'll get four out of the way at once. On the other hand, that's four times the pain, four times the screaming, all at once.

Sitting up

Zoë's getting so close to crawling that I'm sure she'll be speeding around the house in the next couple of days. For now she remains frustrated that she can't get where she wants to go. However, she seems to have mastered a different trick this evening—sitting up.

For the record, I left her on her back after a diaper change. I returned after taking care of her diaper to find this:

All her siblings are sleeping (let's not talk about Zoë's sleeping "schedule," okay?) and Andrew said he didn't help her so she somehow managed to sit up by herself.

I almost doubted whether I left her on her back or not until she tipped over onto her stomach...but then ended up back in a sitting position a few minutes later. I've been watching her to see how she does it but so far she's just been spinning circles around the living room and backing herself into corners and then crying about it because she so badly wants to control her whereabouts. Sitting up on her own is a pretty cool trick, though, I guess.